survived to the year A.D. 1350.' Still we will take him in order as we find him, especially as he is detailing what took place in a much earlier age. And here we will not congratulate the believers in the Holy House on the general character of the first historian thus adduced who mentions in explicit terms the existence of the fond object of their devotion: we would rather condole with them on the monstrous error in the context, which is more than sufficient to discredit the veracity of the writer in the rest of his statement. Nicephorus says that S. Helen

'Having come down eastwards from thence, i. e. from Mount Tabor, arrived at Nazareth: and when she had found the house where the angelic salutation took place, built a beautiful church in honour of the Mother of God.' 2

Had the monk of S. Sophia ever visited the Holy Land, he would have known that Nazareth lies to the north-west and not the south-east of Mount Tabor. By his egregious ignorance of topography therefore, he has undermined his own credibility for his next assertion, and saved us the trouble of inquiring how many centuries he lived after S. Helene, where he got his authority for a fact unrecorded by Eusebius and the earlier ecclesiastical historians from whom he draws; or how far he is to be accepted as a witness to the prior existence of the house in Nazareth, when he does not make the slightest allusion to its removal, which, if the legend be true, must have occurred in the age preceding his own, i. e. A.D. 1291.

Yet

William of Tyre (liv. ix. etc.) would have been trustworthy evidence, though of course comparatively late evidence, for a fact of this nature hitherto unnoticed by earlier writers. we have searched his history of the Holy War without success for any explicit statement respecting the Holy House, and more particularly the ninth book to which we are referred. Here, indeed, (c. 13 Edit. Herold) we meet with the remarkable facts, that Tancred was invested with the sovereignty of Galilee and the adjacent maritime parts, and that he

Founded (i. e. rebuilt) two churches of the same diocese with exceeding great care, enriching them with ample patrimonies: to wit, that of Nazareth and that of Tiberias-of Seir, of Mount Tabor-besides contributing to their ecclesiastical decorations. . . .'

And then he adds most significantly,

'Not a small portion of these has been lost to these venerable spots, through the fraud and calumnies of subsequent princes.'

Again, in the fourteenth chapter we meet with a glowing mention of the cave of Bethlehem, and of the devotion with which the holy places about Jerusalem were visited, but nothing more about Nazareth. So that we could not have supposed that these could have been the passages intended, had not the pre

vious quotations been even still more incompatible with good faith.

Now, however, we are coming to writers far more definite and explicit, if they do not prove too much; and of these John Phocas, a contemporary of William of Tyre, and whose journey to the Holy Land can be fixed with accuracy to the year A.D. 1185, is rightly placed first. His description of Nazareth, besides being that of a positive eye-witness, is so minute and circumstantial that it shall be transcribed at length; and our readers will be pleased to compare it with the description of the Holy House which will be given apropos to its first

translation.

'In the midst of the various hills and at the bottom of a valley formed by them, stands the town of Nazareth, in which the great mystery of glad tidings was made known to the Virgin Mother of God by the archangel Gabriel. ... Immediately on entering the first gate of this village-town there is the church of the archangel Gabriel, and on the left side of the altar in it is seen a small cave in which there is a bubbling fountain that sends up pure streams. Here the most immaculate Mother of God, after she had been entrusted by the priests to holy Joseph and placed under his protection, used to come to draw water daily; and here it was that, six months after the conception of the messenger, coming as usual for that purpose, she was first saluted by Gabriel; and when in her consternation she had gone off trembling to the house of Joseph, she heard there from the angel those words, "Hail, thou art highly favoured;" and immediately upon her answering, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word:" she received the Word of God in her spotless womb. This said house of Joseph was afterwards transformed into a most beautiful church; on whose left side near about the altar there is a cave, not patent to any great depth, but only visible as far as the surface. Its mouth is adorned with white marble slabs, and upon it the skill of the artist has depicted a winged angel in the act of descending to her that had never known man, but was about to become a mother; and finding her engaged in spinning he salutes her with the glad tidings and with becoming reverence. And he is represented as in the act of speaking to her. But she, alarmed at the unexpected sight, turns away in confusion and amaze, so that her work is on the point of falling from her hands. And quitting the chamber in her terror she meets her beloved kinswoman, whom she salutes with many embraces.

'Proceeding from the mouth within the cave you come down a few steps, and thus gain a view of that which was anciently the house of Joseph, in which after her return home from the fountain, as I said before, the Archangel thus saluted the Virgin. Now on the spot where the salutation took place there is a cross of black stone graven in relief upon white marble, and above it an altar, and on the right side of the said altar a small cot1 in which the ever-Virgin Mother of God had her chamber. But on the left side of (the place of) the salutation is seen another small cot without inlet for the light, in which our Lord Christ is said to have dwelt after his return from Egypt till the beheading of the Baptist. . . .3

And so Phocas ends his very interesting description, on which we shall take occasion to comment more largely hereafter.

1 Μικρὸς οἰκίσκος.

2 Οἰκίσκος ἀφώτιστος.

3 Compend. Descript. c. 10, ap. Leon. Allat. Zvμμikтá, v. Corp. Byzant. Hist. vol. xxv., ad fin.

James of Vitry flourished about A.D. 1220. He was born near Paris, and died cardinal bishop of Frascati. But he had once been bishop of Ptolemais, and seems to have spent some time there. He has left moreover a somewhat minute description of the Holy Places in a work of his called Historia Hierosolimitana, so that it will be as well perhaps to hear all that he says of Nazareth. These are his words:

'Nazareth is a small town in the entrance of Galilee to the west, situated amongst the mountains. It is here that according to some the Blessed Virgin was born. It is beyond doubt at all events that she dwelt here sub. sequently to her betrothal to Josep that holy maid, I say, to whom the Angel was sent to tell the first tidings of our salvation. This holy town, so acceptable to God (in which the Word was made Flesh, and was conceived in the womb of the Virgin a flower odorous above all scents; whence it is with good reason interpreted to mean a flower) rejoices above all other towns in this special privilege, namely, that in it our Lord laid the foundations of our salvation; and likewise condescended to be brought up there, and submit Himself (Whom all things in heaven and earth obey) to His parents. . . .'1

Curious indeed that a cardinal-bishop, a companion of the Crusaders, and of that date, should know so little, or at least say so little, of the actual remains of that favoured locality. But how much more ominous than even this is the absence of any specific mention of the charmed-house in the visit of that pilgrim of pilgrims to Nazareth, S. Louis-so faithfully recorded notwithstanding, as it is by his companion and Confessor Godfrey de Beaulieu.

'I cannot,' he says, 'pass over in silence the humility and truly Catholic spirit with which the devoted king demeaned himself in the pilgrimage which he made from Acre to that holy and devoted Nazareth. On the eve of the Annunciation he proceeded clothed in sack-cloth next his skin from Sepphoris, where he had lain all that night, to Cana of Galilee. Thence he passed on to Mount Tabor, and thence, the same eve, to Nazareth. But no sooner had he come within sight of that sacred place afar off than he dismounted from his horse, and on his knees made a most profound reverence, and so he proceeded on foot till he humbly entered the holy town and pious spot of the Annunciation. That day he fasted devoutly on bread and water, notwithstanding his previous great fatigue. And how devoutly he conducted himself there, and how solemnly and worthily he caused to be celebrated both vespers, matins, and mass, and all other offices appropriate to so high a feast: those persons who were present can well attest; of whom some can testify, or rather assert, with truth, that since the Son of God assumed flesh of the glorious Virgin in the same spot, there never was any solemnity so holily and devoutly celebrated there.

Moreover, mass being performed on the altar of Annunciation, the pious monarch received the holy Communion. Further my Lord Odo, of Frascati, legate of the Apostolic See, celebrated a solemn mass at the larger altar of the church, and preached a touching discourse. Such was the Catholic disposition of the king, that he would have the ornaments of the church of the most costly and hallowed kind-and according to the 1 Ap. Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1078.

various solemnities, so he had the ornaments or furniture of divers colours; and to this he himself paid special regard. Besides which, he was zealous in procuring indulgences from the Pope, his Holiness, and from the other prelates; and when obtained he would frequent them with all devoutness and humility. . . .'1

This pilgrimage, be it observed, was made about A.D. 1253, and is probably the last upon record before the final expulsion of the Christians from Palestine. We now enter upon a perfectly new epoch.

Torsellus Sanutus, the next authority cited, could not possibly have attested the existence of the holy house at Nazareth, for according to the legend it was removed from Nazareth by angels, A.D. 1291, whereas he composed the account of the five tours which he had made into the Holy Land A.D. 1306. The question is, how comes he not to have a single word about its removal from Nazareth? Five different pilgrimages he had made into those hallowed regions: and he evidently intended to recount a good deal that travellers in general had not the means of getting access to and making public: for his work is entitled The Book of the secret things of the faithful servants of the Cross." Let us hear all the mystery connected with Nazareth that he is able to divulge:

'At Nazareth is shown the place where the angel Gabriel, messenger of God, announced the approaching fulfilment of the ancient scheme for the redemption of the world; of which I have spoken before. Part vii. c. 2. (He there dwells on the fertility of the spot, and on the tradition which speaks of the child Jesus drawing water from the fountain of Sephoris: but nothing more relevant to the point in question). In the chapel there built were three altars: and the chapel was hewn in stone out of the rock, like to the spot of Nativity, and of the Resurrection; indeed, great part of the town was of old hewn out of the rock, as is still evident..

A little lower he speaks of Sephoris as the town from which S. Anne drew her origin as well as her husband Joachim. And still lower, speaking of the remains in Cana of Galilee, he has a remark which may not be out of place as a general observation :

These places, as indeed others in which Christ did (operatus est) anything, are under ground: and persons descend to them by many steps into a crypt: as is the case with the spot both of the Annunciation and the Nativity and many others: of which the reason seems to be that, in consequence of the frequent destructions of churches, their ruins have stood out above the surface of the ground; and so when these have been levelled for the purpose of erecting other buildings, the faithful, in order to be able to build over the former spots, have made steps by which they go down to them, as so many crypts... *3

1 C. 22, p. 41., Vit. S. Ludov., ed. Minerv.

2 Liber secretorum fidelium Crucis. Lib. iii. p. 14, c. 7, ap. Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 253.

3 Comp. too Brocardi Descript. Terræ S. ap. Canisii Thesaur. vol. iv. 'De Cana Galilea, p. 13. Ed. Basnage, where almost the same words occur-he by the

And then he proceeds to speak of a great many more ruined edifices, tenanted by wild beasts and the like.

2

This work, we remark, it is upon record,' was presented to John XXII. one of the Popes of Avignon, in the year A. D. 1321: nor do we hear that the author was reproached for his want of accuracy, or for his silence upon a point of so much local interest and increasing celebrity. To be sure John XXII. was not upon the best of terms with the inhabitants of Recanati: their chiefs had espoused the cause of his enemies; and themselves had lent too much countenance to the errors of the Fratricelli to be favourably regarded by him. He is not therefore enumerated among the Popes who added to the privileges of the Holy House: and if, indeed, as has been said, he was of a sceptical turn of mind, what wonder should it appear that he was not even acquainted with its history? The silence of other contemporary Popes is infinitely more perplexing, as we shall observe presently meanwhile, we take the liberty of obtruding the evidence of some four or five pilgrims of our own finding, who followed Sanutus to the Holy Land successively for two centuries and upwards, and strikingly confirm his positive statements as to what was then standing in the said locality: while they are no less ominously silent as to what is asserted to have been so mysteriously removed and verified.

William de Baldensel-his proper name was Otto de Rienhuzz-returned from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land about the end of the year A.D. 1235, and in compliance with the request of Cardinal Taleyrand, published a full account of his travels, from which it appears that Nazareth was regarded by him with no small interest. His description of it is as follows: '

3

'Turning from the plain country of Galilee, I came to the most holy town of Nazareth, now a rustic village, without fortifications, the houses and dwellings not being collected, but dispersed and distant one from the other.... To be brief, in this place is celebrated the Conception of Christ, more wonderful than all the works of God, in the virginal womb made fruitful by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, a most noble production, exceeding the order and bounds of nature. In this spot there was a beautiful church-and large withal-but alas! it has been, as it were, destroyed! A small place, however, in it has been covered over, and is very diligently guarded by the Saracens, where, near a certain marble column, they assert that the venerable mysteries of the Conception were consummated.

way (v. Basnage) travelled about the same time that Jacob of Vitry wrote-with this interesting variation: Owing to frequent destructions the ruins above the surface have been levelled, and still Christians are ever endeavouring, as far as lies in their power, to discover the true spots in which this or that hap pened.....

And it was the interest which John took in the Holy Land that occasioned its presentation. See Rohrbacker E, H. vol. xx. pp. 85-88.

2 Caillau, p. 52.

3 Ap. Canis. Thesaur. Eccl. Mon. Ed. Basnage, tom. iv. p. 354.