Читать книгу Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin онлайн

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However all this may be, Jerusalem presents in history three totally distinct and utterly unlike appearances. It has one under Herod; one under Justinian; and one under Saladin. Under the first it possesses one building splendid enough to excite the admiration of the whole world; under the second it has its clustered churches as splendid as the art of the time would admit; under the third it has its two great buildings, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Sepulchre, standing over against each other, two enemies bound by mutual expediency to peace.

Only one of these buildings is ancient; but somewhere in the ruins and rubbish in which the whole city is buried lie the foundations of those which have been destroyed.

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Πάψετε τὸ Χερουβικό, κἰ ἂς χαμηλώσουν τ’ Ἅγια!

Παπάδες πάρτε τὰ ἱερα, καὶ σεῖς κεριὰ σβυστῆτε,

Γιατὶ εἶναι θέλημα Θεοῦ ἡ Πόλι νὰ τουρκέψη.

To the Arab wanderer on the barren and sun-stricken plains of the Hejjáz the well-watered, fertile land of Syria had always been an object of admiration and envy. As Mohammed the camel-driver sat on the hill which overlooks Damascus, and gazed upon the rich verdure of that garden of the East, his religious phrenzy, his visionary schemes for the unity and regeneration of his race had well-nigh yielded to the voluptuous fascination of the scene. But enthusiasm and ambition triumphed: his eyes filled with tears, and exclaiming, “Man can enter Paradise but once,” he turned sorrowfully back, and in that moment changed the fortunes of the world.