St. Paul of Thebes—St. Anthony—His Visit to Alexandria, and death—Numerous Cave Hermits in the East—St. Benedict in the Cave of Subiaco—St. Cuthbert—St. Beatus—Rock Temples of Kanara—The Wonders of Ellora—Ipsamboul—Rock Churches of Lalibala in Abyssinia—The Cave of Trophonios—The Grotto of St. Rosolia near Palermo—The Chapel of Agios Niketas in Greece—The Chapel of Oberstein on the Nahe—The repentant fratricide.

The dim twilight of a forest, its leafy vaults, its majestic silence, or its foliage moaning in the wind, are all apt to strike the mind with a religious awe. But the solitude and stillness of caverns is equally well adapted to awaken feelings of devotion, and thus we find that contemplative minds in every age, and of every creed, have found in them congenial retreats. The Indian fakir and the Mahometan dervish love the seclusion of the silent grotto, and here also the Hebrew prophets not seldom enjoyed their ecstatic visions.

There can be no doubt that, during the first ages of Christianity many an unknown anchorite retired to some solitary cave, as to a harbour of refuge from the rude contact of the world; but the first hermit mentioned in ecclesiastical history is St. Paul of Thebes, in Egypt, who, during the persecution of Decius, in the middle of the third century, retreated to the desert, where, dwelling in a cave, and living on the fruits of trees, he reached his hundredth year. His friend and disciple, St. Anthony, who first roused among his contemporaries a wide-spread inclination for hermit seclusion, plays a far more conspicuous part in the annals of the Church. Born of wealthy Coptic peasants, this remarkable man, at the age of twenty, divided his whole property among the poor, and thenceforth devoted himself to a life of the strictest ascetism. He retired first to a rock-cave in the neighbourhood of his native village, and then to the more distant ruins of a deserted castle, where he spent twenty years as a hermit. Meanwhile his reputation for sanctity had spread throughout all Egypt, and numerous candidates for a hermit life besought him to take them under his spiritual care. He yielded to their entreaties, and soon the neighbouring desert was crowded with the huts of zealous anchorites, who revered him as their model. But he was surrounded not only by these pious disciples; the worldly-minded also came flocking to his cave for advice or assistance; for the belief was general that, like the first Apostles, he was gifted with the power of casting out devils and foretelling future events. Anthony, thus disturbed in his solitary meditations, resolved to bury himself still deeper in the desert, and fled to a cave in the furthest parts of Egypt, near a source shaded by a few date-palms. Here he hoped to be able to live entirely for prayer and contemplation, but his hopes proved vain, for, after a long search, his disciples discovered his retreat, and again anchorites and worldlings broke in upon his solitude. In his hundredth year he was prevailed upon by St. Athanasius to visit Alexandria, where, whenever he appeared, crowds gathered round him to kiss the hem of his garment and to implore his blessing. Even the Emperor Constantine the Great wrote to him; yet so indifferent had he become to all worldly distinctions that he could with difficulty be prevailed upon to have the letter read to him. Thus, honoured by high and low, and yet avoiding all honour, Anthony reached the patriarchal age of 105. At the approach of death he begged two of his most beloved disciples to conduct him to the wildest part of the desert. Here he died in their arms, after having first made them promise to keep the place of his burial secret, as he feared that an undue reverence might be paid to his bones.

Anthony’s example was followed far and wide over the eastern world. Whole colonies of hermits settled in the desert of Thebes, near Lake Moeris, in Southern Palestine, in Armenia, and Pontus. Their numbers amounted to thousands, many living in rude huts, which they erected with their own hands, while others found a congenial retreat in the grottoes and rock-tombs which abound in many of the countries where they dwelt.

From the East the spirit of monastic seclusion soon spread to Western Europe. St. Benedict, the founder of the order which has rendered such signal service to learning during the Middle Ages, spent three years in an inaccessible cave near Subiaco, five leagues from Tivoli. Romanus, a monk in a neighbouring convent, alone knew of his retreat, and daily let down by a rope, from the top of the rock in which the cave was situated, the small quantity of bread which he needed for his subsistence. Here he was at length discovered by some shepherds, who at first sight took him for a wild beast, as he was clothed in skins, but soon discovered that he was a saint by the wise lessons he gave them.

A similar longing for a life of pious seclusion induced St. Cuthbert to quit the Convent of Lindisfarne, of which he had been prior, and to seek a retreat in a grotto excavated by his own hands, on one of the Farne Islands, on the coast of Northumberland. An ox-hide, which he hung before its entrance and turned towards the side whence the wind blew, afforded a scanty shelter against the rigours of a northern winter. But the fame of his sanctity spread over all England, and numerous pilgrims resorted to his cave, to profit by his advice, or to seek consolation in their troubles. One day, when he had spent eight years in seclusion, the king of Northumbria, attended by his principal nobles, landed on Cuthbert’s island-rock to beg him to accept the episcopal dignity of Durham, to which he had been elected. The holy anchorite yielded, with many tears, and after an obstinate resistance, for he was loth to accept duties which tore him from his solitude. After two years he resigned his bishopric, and returned to his beloved cave, where he shortly after died. According to a popular legend the Entrochi, or calcareous joints of the petrified Lily-Encrinites, which are found among the rocks of the Farne Islands, are forged by his spirit, and pass there by the name of ‘St. Cuthbert’s beads.’ While at this task, he is supposed to sit during the night upon a certain rock, and to use another as his anvil.

The Beatenberg, situated on the northern side of the lake of Thun, is named after a celebrated cave in which St. Beatus, originally a British noble, who had come to preach the Gospel to the wild men of the district, dwelt for many years, and died at the advanced age of ninety. His relics remaining there, his fÊte-day attracted such crowds of pilgrims that reforming Berne sent two deputies in 1528 to carry off the saint’s skull and bury it between the lakes of Thun and Brienz; but still the pilgrimages continued, and at length, in 1566, the Protestant zeal of Berne went to the expense of a wall, and thus effectually shut out the pilgrims, who, in more modern times, have been profitably replaced by crowds of tourists.

Both in the heathen and the Christian world, grottoes, particularly such as had been hallowed by the lives of sainted anchorites, have frequently been consecrated to divine service; and to render them still more worthy of their destination, the rude excavations of nature have not seldom been enlarged and beautified with all the resources of art.

Among these subterranean places of worship, those of India are deservedly renowned for their colossal size, and for the vast labour bestowed upon the sculptures with which they are adorned. A description of the famous rock-temples of Kanara, in the island of Salsette, near Bombay, will give the reader some idea of their magnificence.

The way leads over a narrow mountain-path, through a jungle so dense that the traveller is obliged to quit his palanquin, and to ascend on foot the steep acclivity, from which, at some distance from the summit, the large temple overlooks the country. This colossal work is hewn out of the solid rock, ninety feet long and thirty-eight feet broad, with a corresponding height, and forms an oblong square with a vaulted roof. Two colossal rows of columns divide the hall into three naves or avenues, and give it the form of an ancient basilica.

As the Temple of Kanara served the Portuguese for some time as a church, during their occupation of the small archipelago of Bombay, the heathen sculptures which decorated the interior have naturally been mostly destroyed. This is the more to be regretted as the well-preserved and masterly-executed capitals of the mighty columns justify the belief that their artistic merit must have been worthy of the grand dimensions of the hall. The beautiful portico, however, is still richly decorated. On each side a recess contains a colossal, well-executed statue, and long inscriptions in unknown characters are carved on the square pillars of the entrance. The charms of a mysterious past thus add to the interest of this beautiful monument, the work of an astonishing patience and perseverance. The outer face of the portico, as well as the vestibule extending before it, twenty-eight feet deep, have been considerably injured by the ravages of time: many stones have started from their joints, and a multitude of creeping plants cling to the mouldering statues. Thus the efforts of man to rear eternal monuments are vain; they must necessarily yield to the living powers of nature.

Steps are hewn in the rock to the summit of the mountain, and various intricate paths lead to smaller excavations, consisting mostly of two cells and a portico. Near each of them is a well or basin, likewise hewn out of the rock, in which the rain-water collects, affording a grateful beverage to the tired wanderer. Many of these caves are larger and more perfect than the others, and some in their general effect resemble the great temple, although far inferior in size and decoration.

The whole aspect of this perforated mountain shows that a complete cave-town, capable of containing several thousand inhabitants, has been hollowed out in its flanks. The largest excavation was, beyond a doubt, the chief temple. The smaller caves, arranged according to the same plan, likewise served for devotional purposes; and the rest were dwellings more or less commodious and large according to the rank or means of their possessors, or, what is still more likely, the abode of pious Brahmans and their scholars at the time when India was the cradle of arts and sciences, while the nations of Europe were still plunged in barbarism.

From the summit of this wonderful mountain the spectator enjoys a beautiful prospect. The island of Salsette lies before him as if spread out on a map, affording a most agreeable variety of rice-fields and cocoa-nut groves, of villages and meadows, of woody hills and fruitful vales. The surrounding mountains form a foreground of grey rocks, dotted with trees, or excavated into dark grottoes, once the abode of fakirs, but now the retreats of tigers, snakes, huge bats, and enormous swarms of bees, while towards the south the horizon is bounded by the island of Bombay, with its forest of masts, towards the east by the mainland, towards the north by Bassein and the neighbouring mountains, and towards the south by the ocean. The enjoyment of the picturesque scene is marred only by the many tigers which infest the mountains, and frequently descend into the plain, where they not only carry away sheep and oxen, but also tear many a poor Hindoo to pieces.

The rock-temples of Kanara are rivalled by those of Elephanta, Karli, and Ajunta, and far surpassed in magnificence and extent by the excavations of Ellora, near the town and fort of Dowlatabad, where a whole mountain of hard red granite has been hollowed out into an immense range of highly ornamented grottoes and temples, fit for the residence of a whole pantheon of deities, and for the reception of a whole nation of pilgrims.

About three miles to the north of Madras, where the rock touches the sea, navigators had long remarked some pillars of stone rising from the water and covered with rude sculptures. From these the spot received the name of the Seven Pagodas. Most of them have since been destroyed by the tides, and one only is still standing, though tottering to its fall. These, however, were but the advanced posts of the colossal excavations in the rocky wall behind; for here also are seen large grottoes, porticoes, and temples, as at Ellora, though of somewhat smaller proportions, and of less beautiful execution. They are dedicated to the worship of Vishnu and Siva, and covered with inscriptions. A whole rock-town, or at least a vast sanctuary, thus lies concealed on this solitary coast.

Similar cave-temples are met with in Cochin China, Birmah, Malwah, and Ceylon, where the spacious rock-temple of Dambool is deservedly celebrated for its antiquity, and for its numerous statues of Buddha, in the varied attitudes of exhortation and repose.

On the banks of the mysterious Nile we find rock-temples rivalling those of India in colossal grandeur, and among these Ipsamboul is pre-eminent in splendour.

‘After sailing for some hours,’ says Warburton,^[25] ‘through a country quite level on the eastern bank, we come upon a precipitous rocky mountain, starting up so suddenly from the river’s edge, that its very summits are reflected in the water. We moored under a sand-bank, and, accompanied by half-a-dozen of the crew with torches, approached this isolated and stupendous rock. Yet even here the daring genius of Ethiopian architecture ventured to enter into rivalry with Nature’s greatness, and found her material in the very mountains that seemed to bid defiance to her efforts.

‘On the face of the vertical cliff a recess is excavated to the extent of about a hundred feet in width. From this four gigantic figures stand out in very bold relief. Between the two central stony giants, a lofty doorway opens into a vast hall, supported by square pillars, each the size of a tower, and covered with hieroglyphics. Just enough painting still glimmers faintly on these columns to show that they were formerly covered with it; and the walls are carved into historic figures in slight relief; these, as our torches threw an uncertain glare over them, seemed to move and become instinct with life.

‘This temple was dedicated to Athor, the lady of Aboccis (the ancient name of Ipsamboul), who is represented within under the form of the sacred bow. This was, however, a mere “chapel of ease” to the great temple, excavated from a loftier rock, about fifty yards distant. Between these two a deep gorge once ran to the river, but this is now choked up with sand, in whose burning waves we waded knee-deep to the Temple of Osiris.

‘Here a space of about 100 feet in height is hewn from the mountain; smooth, except for the reliefs. Along the summit runs a frieze of little monkeys in long array, as if the architect felt the absurdity of the whole business, or as Byron sometimes finishes off a sublime sentence with a scoff. Then succeeds a line of hieroglyphics and some faintly-carved figures, also in relief, and then four colossal giants that seem to guard the portal. They are seated on thrones (which form, with themselves, part of the living rock), and are about sixty feet high. One is quite perfect, admirably cut, and the proportions admirably preserved; the second is defaced as far as the knee; the third is buried in sand to the waist; and the fourth has only the face and neck visible above the desert’s sandy avalanche.

‘The doorway stands between the two central statues, and is surmounted by the statue of Isis wearing the moon as a turban.

‘On entering, the traveller finds himself in a temple, which a few days’ work might restore to the state in which it was left, just finished, three thousand years ago. The dry climate and its extreme solitude have preserved its most delicate details from injury; besides which it was hermetically sealed by the desert for thousands of years, until Burckhardt discovered it, and Mr. Hay cleared away its protecting sands.

‘A vast and gloomy hall, such as Eblis might have given Vathek audience in, receives you in passing from the flaming sunshine into that shadowy portal. It is some time before the eye can ascertain its dimensions through the imposing gloom, but gradually there reveals itself, around and above you, a vast aisle, with pillars formed of eight colossal giants, upon whom the light of heaven has never shone. These images of Osiris are backed by enormous pillars, behind which run two great galleries; and in these torchlight alone enabled us to peruse a series of sculptures in relief representing the triumphs of Rameses the Second, or Sesostris. The painting, which once enhanced the effect of these spirited representations, is not dimmed, but crumbled away; where it exists the colours are as vivid as ever.

‘This unequalled hall is one hundred feet in length, and from it eight lesser chambers, all sculptured, open to the right and left. Straight on is a low doorway opening into a second hall of similar height, supported by four square pillars, and within all is the adytum, wherein stands a simple altar of the living rock in front of four large figures seated on rocky thrones. This inner shrine is hewn at least one hundred yards into the rock, and here, in the silent depth of that great mountain, these awful idols, with their mysterious altar of human sacrifice, looked very preadamitic and imposing. They seemed to sit there waiting for some great summons which should awaken and reanimate these “kings of the earth, who lie in glory, every one in his own house.”

‘We wandered through many chambers, in which the air is so calm and undisturbed that the very smell of the torches of the last explorers of these caverns was perceptible.’

In Abyssinia the rock-churches of Lalibala likewise give proof of an ancient state of civilisation, strongly contrasting with the barbarism of the present times.

Like the temples of Ellora, some of these curious structures have been hollowed out of single blocks of stone left standing in the centre of open courts excavated in the bosom of the rock, while others are completely subterranean. Though far inferior in magnificence and extent to those wonderful edifices, they are yet very remarkable. The courts, in which the three principal monolithic churches are respectively dedicated to our Saviour, to the Holy Virgin, and to St. Emmanuel, communicate with each other by narrow passages, the whole thus forming a continued series of excavations. The Church of St. Emmanuel is forty-eight feet long, thirty-two feet broad, and forty feet high, but it is surpassed in size by the Church of the Holy Virgin, where the rock-walls of the court are moreover perforated with sepulchral vaults and with cells for the habitation of monks. The town of Lalibala is situated in a beautiful country, 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, on the slope of the mighty Ascheten mountain, and commands a prospect of Alpine magnificence. Though it is now reduced to about 2,000 inhabitants, its eight rock-churches (five monolithic and subaËrial, three subterranean), prove that it must once have been a place of considerable importance. Divine service is still performed in all these churches, which are the resort of numerous pilgrims, and to whose service above 500 priests, monks, and nuns are attached.

Though ancient Greece has no such huge rock-temples to boast of as India or Egypt, yet caverns played an important part in her ancient religious history. ‘Before the old tribes of Hellas erected temples to the divinities,’ says Porphyry, in his treatise De Antro Nympharum, ‘they consecrated caves and grottoes to their service; in the island of Crete to Zeus, in Arcadia to Artemis and to Pan; in the isle of Naxos to Dionysos.’

Caves were the site of some of the most celebrated Grecian oracles. The tripod of the Delphian pythoness stood over a subterranean hollow, from which the divine inspiration was supposed to ascend; and pilgrims from all parts of Hellas resorted to a cave in the neighbourhood of Lebadeia, a city of Boeotia, and named after Trophonios, a mythical personage who was supposed to have lived there for many years, and was subsequently deified as an oracular god. Those who repaired to this cave for information were required, after passing some preparatory days in a chapel dedicated to Fortune and to the ‘good genius,’ to anoint themselves with oil, to bathe in a certain river, and to drink of the water of two neighbouring springs called LÊthÊ and MnÊmosynÊ, the first of which made them forgetful of the past, while the second fixed in their memory all they heard and saw in the cavern. They were then clothed in a linen robe, took a honeyed cake in their hands, and, after praying before an ancient statue of Trophonios, descended into the subterranean chamber by a narrow passage. Here it was that the future was unfolded to them, either by visions or extraordinary sounds. The return from the cave was by the same passage, but the persons consulting were obliged to walk backwards. They generally came out astonished, melancholy, and dejected. The priests on their return placed them on an elevated seat, called the seat of MnÊmosynÊ or remembrance, and the broken sentences they uttered in their confused state of mind were considered as the answer of the oracle. They were then conducted to the chapel of the ‘good genius,’ where by degrees they recovered their usual composure and cheerfulness. There can be no doubt that the priests introduced themselves into the cave by secret passages, and worked upon the excited imagination of their dupes by terrible sounds and apparitions. During the palmy days of the oracle, the neighbourhood of the Cave of Trophonios was decorated with temples and statues; at present its very site is uncertain.

Like ancient paganism, Christianity not seldom celebrates her rites in caves hallowed by the memory of saints and anchorites. A stately church rises over the Grotto of the Nativity, at Bethlehem, and a magnificent pile has been constructed at Jerusalem over the rock-tomb in which our Saviour was buried. The grotto on Mount Carmel, to which the prophet Elijah retreated from the world, is now dedicated to divine worship, in the convent which bears his name; and the cave in which John the Evangelist is said to have written the Apocalypse during his exile in the island of Patmos has also been converted into a chapel.

One of the most celebrated rock-churches is the grotto of St. Rosolia, the patroness of Palermo. This illustrious lady was niece to King William the Good, and, as the legends inform us, no less remarkable for her beauty than for her virtues, which made her the admiration of all Sicily. Never was a princess more fitted to adorn society; but the world had so few attractions for a spirit that could only breathe in the pure regions of piety, that, at the age of fifteen, she retired to the solitary mountains, and, from the date of her disappearance, in 1159, was never more heard of for about five hundred years. The people thought she had been taken up to heaven, as the fitting abode for her more than human perfections; but in the year 1624, during the time of a dreadful plague, a holy man had a vision that the saint’s bones were lying in a cave near to the top of the Monte Pellegrino, and that if these were taken up with due reverence and carried in procession thrice round the walls of the city, they should immediately be delivered from the scourge. The bones were accordingly sought and found, thrice carried round the town, as the vision had described, and the plague suddenly ceased. From that time St. Rosolia was revered as the patron saint of Palermo, and the remote cave where she probably spent many years of her solitary life, became one of the most renowned sanctuaries of the Catholic Church, and the resort of innumerable pilgrims. The mountain is extremely high, and so steep that before the discovery of St. Rosolia it was looked upon as almost inaccessible; but a fine road, very properly termed La Scala, or the stair, has been cut out in the rock, and leads from terrace to terrace, over almost perpendicular precipices, to the entrance of the holy grotto, which is situated near the very top of the mountain, and commands a magnificent prospect. Within two miles of the foot of the mountain, the eye discerns the city of Palermo, with its beautiful villas and luxuriant gardens, and then, taking a wider range, glances to the north, over the dark blue sea bounded by the Lipari Islands and the ever-fuming cone of Stromboli; while to the east a large portion of Etna, although at the distance of almost the whole length of Sicily, towers like a giant above the minor mountain chains. A church and other buildings, forming a kind of court yard, where some priests reside, appointed to watch over the treasures of the place, and to receive the offerings of pilgrims that visit them, have been erected round the grotto.

As may easily be imagined, the history of rock-chapels has frequently been embellished with legendary tales. The chapel of Agios Niketas (St. Nicholas) in Crete, is at present merely a smoky-looking cave beneath a large detached mass of rock, lying on the slope of an abrupt mountain; but there are still the remains of a building which once extended far beyond the present limits. The roof of the cavern, although very uneven, is also elaborately ornamented with paintings, representing the remarkable events in the life of the Saviour and of St. Nicholas, and showing that considerable cost and artistic care have been bestowed upon it. Though it is now abandoned, an event that is said to have happened about four or five centuries ago gives this cave a special interest with the natives. The church was crowded with Christians from the adjacent villages on the eve of the festival of their patron saint Agios Niketas, so as to be ready (as is usual with the Greeks) for the matin service at daybreak. But the fires which the assembled party had lighted near it had been observed at sea by a Barbary corsair then cruising off the island, and guided him to the spot, where, under the darkness of the night, he landed his crew in a neighbouring cove. Thus unobserved, they stole up to the church, and, finding it full of the natives, closed the door and windows upon them, and waited for day, the better to secure their captives for embarkation. In this dreadful plight the unfortunate Cretans raised their voices in a general prayer to Saint Niketas. Their supplications were heard, for the priest soon after informed them that the saint had shown him a way of escape—through the back part of the cavern, by opening a small aperture communicating with another cavern that led finally out upon the mountain slope over the rock. Through this aperture they all silently crept unseen and unheard by the corsairs.

Another interesting legend is attached to a small rock-chapel situated beneath the ruins of the ancient Castle of Oberstein, on the Nahe. The Baron of Oberstein, having, in a fit of jealousy, hurled his younger brother from the balcony of the castle, fled from the scene of his crime. For years he wandered, a wretched outcast, from land to land; but wherever he went the curse of Cain was upon him, and left him no rest by night or day. At length he came to Rome, to confess his fratricide at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff, who comforted him with the assurance that he would recover his lost peace by returning to Oberstein and excavating with his own hands a rock-chapel for the interment of his brother on the spot where he fell.

Soon after the self-banished lord made his appearance at Oberstein in a hermit’s garb, and set to work upon the hard rock with indefatigable zeal. Never was labour performed with better will, and such, consequently, was the progress of the excavation that it seemed as if he were assisted by the angels in his penitential task. At the expiration of four years, the rock-chapel was completed, and the bones of the murdered man were conveyed with great ceremony to the tomb which had been prepared for their reception at the foot of the altar. As soon as they were lowered into the grave, the murderer bent over them; a smile of ineffable happiness was seen to illumine his emaciated features, and he dropped down dead upon the remains of his brother.