ntction with the mountains of Samaria. Composed almost entirely of oolitic formations, it is furrowed externally with numerous ravines and other irregularities, while within it is eaten out into countless caves. Its greatest height is about 1750 feet. By the Biblical authors it is celebrated for its fertility ; and its very name, which signifies the vineyard of the Lord," bears witness to its repute. At present there are only a few unimportant patches subjected to cultivation ; and most of the mountain is covered with a thick brushwood of evergreens which rises at some parts into forest. The tree which more than any other gives its character to the scenery is the Quercus Ilex, or prickly oak ; but the lentisk and myrtle are also abundant, and the profusion of lesser shrubs and aromatic herbs and flowers is altogether remarkable. The vine is almost extinct except in the neighbourhood of the village of Esfia; but wine presses hewn out of the rock show that its cultivation must at one time have been common. In the poetical books of the Scriptures allusions to Carmel are frequent ; and it is especially celebrated in Biblical story as the scene of the sacrifice by Elijah which decided the claims of Jehovah and Baal. The exact site of the prophet s altar is fixed by tradition at El Muhrakah at the eastern extremity of the ridge, where a rough structure of hewn stones is still visited as a place of sacrifice by the Druses. Various other places in the neighbourhood are connected with his name in one way or other, and the mountain itself, as well as the convent dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is familiarly known in the East as Mar Elyas. The origin of certain fruit-like fossils which occur in some of the rocks is explained by the legend that the keeper of a garden, having scornfully refused to let Elijah share in its produce, was punished by his melons and plums being instantly cursed into stone. At a slightly later period the mountain afforded an asylum to the prophet Elisha ; and, according to Jamblichus, Pythagoras sought the inspiration of its solitudes. In the time of Vespasian it was the seat of an oracle ; and Pliny speaks of its inhabitants as gens sola et toto in orbe prceter cceteras mini. The sanctity and seclusion of the place attracted a number of Christian hermits as early as the 4th century ; and here in the 12th century originated the order of the Carmelites. In 1209 the convent of St Brocardus was founded at the fountain of Elijah; but the monks were massacred in 1238 and the building fell into decay. Another convent w r as erected in 1631 ; but it was destroyed in 1821 by Abd-ullah of St Jean d Acre, who employed the ruins to build the walls of his city. A few years later the building was restored by command of the Porte, the expense being defrayed partly by Abd-ullah and partly by the contributions pro cured by the monk John Baptist who wandered through ti part of Europe, Asia, and Africa in pursuit of his mission. The building is large and commodious, and hospitable entertainment is freely rendered by the fraternity to travel lers of any nation or religion whatever. The mountain was at one time dotted with hamlets ; but these have been almost all depopulated by the warlike Druses. An attempt to establish American colonists in some of the villages resulted in failure ; but in quite recent years considerable success has attended the efforts of a body of German Pro testant dissenters, who call themselves Templars. Their principal settlement, founded in 1869, is at Haifa or Caipha, a town of from 2000 to 3000 inhabitants, at the northern end of the promontory, which is usually identified with the Roman Sycamina. (See the works of Irby and Mangles, Van de Velde, Thomson, Robinson, Tristram, and Stanley ; and for legendary details, Mislin, Les Saints Lieux,
1851-57.)CARMELITES, one of the four orders of Mendicant Friars. It is perhaps difficult to say whether upon the whole the Franciscans or the Carmelites have invented and propagated the more monstrous fictions respecting their own commencements and subsequent story. But as regards the very tender point of their first foundation, the latter must be admitted to have distanced their competitors. For the history of the Franciscans at least commences with a basis of solid and indubitable historical fact, where as in the case of the Carmelites we plunge at once into the region of fable, and fable of the most monstrous kind. Mount Carmel is celebrated in Scripture as the abode of Elijah and Elisha, the former of whom the Carmelites claim as their founder. Elijah, or Elias, say the writers of the order, became a monk under the ministry of angels ; and his first disciples were Jonah, Micah, and Obadiah. They declare further that the wife of the latter, having bound herself by a vow of chastity, received the veil from the hands of Elias himself, and became the first abbess of the Carmelite female order. They tell us also that Pythagoras was a member of this order, and that he had on Mount Carmel several conversations with the Prophet Daniel on the subject of the Trinity. They further assert that the Virgin Mary and Christ himself assumed the habit and profession of Carmelites.[1] We first, however, reach the solid ground of something like history in the account left by Phocas, a Greek monk of the Isle of Patmos, who visited the Holy Land in 1185, and who concludes the narrative of his journeying by relating that the cave of Elias was then visible on Mount Carmel, and that there had existed there a large monastery, as might still be seen from the remains of the buildings ; that some years previously a monk in priest s orders, with white hair, had arrived there, coming from Calabria, and had established himself there in obedience to orders given him by Elias in a vision. He made, continues Phocas, a small enclosure among the ruins of the monastery, and built a bell tower and a little church. He then collected about ten com panions, with whom, concludes Phocas, he still continues to live there. To these recluses, Albert, bishop of Vercelli, who had become patriarch of Constantinople, gave a " rule " about the year 1209. And this must be considered to constitute the foundation of the Carmelite order.
This rule consists of only sixteen articles ; and it appears from it that the monks on Mount Carmel were at that time eremitical, dwelling in separate little houses. The lodging of the prior was placed at the entrance into the enclosure, and the church was in the middle of the enclosed space. The rule contains the ordinary injunctions and prohibitions as regards masses and other services to be heard or said, and kinds of food to be avoided, with some unimportant specialities of dates and seasons. Albert further enjoined on them to labour constantly with their hands, and to practise much silence. This rule was approved by Pope Honorius III. in 1226.
It is related that two English crusaders, John de Vesci and Richard de Grey, carried some of the recluses on Mount Carmel with them to England, and founded the first Carmelite monastery in England at Alnwick. Much about the same time nearly the middle of the 13th century Louis IX. of France, on his return from the Crasades, took with him to Paris some of the Mount Carmel monks, and established them under the name of Carmelites in a monastery there. Others passed from Mount Carmel into Italy and Spain under the special protection of the popes. The number of their establishments was very rapidly and very largely increased; and they held their first European general chapter at Aylesford in England in 1245.
- ↑ For a full account of all these absurdities, see a very curious work, printed at Paris in 1751, but with the date of Berlin, entitled Ordres Monastiques, Histoire extraite de tons les Auteurs qui ont conserve a la poster ite ce qu il y a de vlus curieux dans ckaquc Ordre.
