The Sanctuaries visited by the Pilgrims on the East Bank of the Jordan

Michele Piccirillo
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Jerusalem - Mount Nebo

Introduction: The Pilgrimage road in Arabia

The land beyond the Jordan River has been, for both the Christians of the region as well as those who came from far away lands, the ideal place in which to relive through prayer and remembrances, the Biblical episodes concerning the Patriarchs Abraham and Lot, Isaac, Jacob and the Prophets starting from Moses. The pilgrims, considering themselves as their heirs in faith, identified themselves with the people of God roaming in the desert.

The most vivid account of a Christian pilgrimage in Arabia has been handed down to us by Egeria who had left from the distant west, in the second half of the fourth century, to visit the Holy Places. Having stayed for three years in the near east, visiting the Gospel sanctuaries in Palestine and the holy places of Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, the pious and resourceful roman matrona felt the desire of completing her pilgrimage in the biblical lands with a voyage to Moses' tomb on Mount Nebo in Arabia.

Descending to Jericho, in the Dead Sea depression, the pilgrim relates the crossing of the River Jordan and her heading to Livias. Following the road which linked Livias to Esbus, guided by a local priest, she undertook the climb to the plateau, which would have lead her to Mount Nebo. At the sixth mile, the priest proposed that they abandon the road and take a deviation that would have afforded them a visit to the Springs of Moses, situated in the valley to the North of Mount Nebo.

Eusebius of Caesarea knew the road. He uses it in the Onomasticon as a reference point to identify biblical toponyms upon the mountain, citing in particular the sixth and seventh mile. Peter the Iberian had followed the road in the fifth century as did the pilgrims in the following centuries.

The Christian pilgrims started the visit on the riverbank where, both the Baptism of Christ and the last lap of the biblical exodus, in which the Israelite tribes crossed the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land, were remembered. A column surmounted by a cross, set in the middle of the river, indicated the exact spot in which Jesus was baptised. A church, erected by the Emperor Anastasius in the second half of the fifth century, commemorated the event. Steps allowed the pilgrims to reach the river. Effectively many bathed in the river as a sign of devotion. Also they filled vessels with the waters of the river to take back with them as a souvenir and blessing.

Close to the church of Saint John there opened in an easterly direction a valley, which continued for two to three kilometers among the marly low hills. In the vicinity of the spring that gave life to the water flowing in the valley, there rose the Laura of Saphsaphas. Here the pilgrims visited St. John the Baptist's cave and remembered Bethany, beyond the Jordan, where Jesus came to meet the Baptist.

Back on the road, the pilgrims reached Livias, Episcopal seat of the province of Palestina. Here they read the episodes retold in the book of Deuteronomy set in the Moab steppes at the foot of mount Nebo, opposite across from Jericho.

Here started the most difficult part of the road that clambered upward to reach the Sixth Milestone, which was an obligatory point from which one could take a deviation towards the south. This deviation had a two-fold purpose, shortening the journey as well as offering the possibility of visiting the Springs of Moses in the valley to the north of the sanctuary. Egeria writes: "Now we had to hurry to carry out our intention of reaching Mount Nebo. As we traveled along, a local presbyter from Livias, whom we had asked to accompany us because he knew those places so well, told us: "If you want to see the water that flows from the rock, which Moses gave to the children of Israel when they were thirsty, you can on condition that you impose upon yourselves the burden of leaving the road at about the sixth milestone." At this we were eager to go. We turned off the road at once, the presbyter led the way, and we followed him."

As a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, the road that led the pilgrims into Arabia, had been interrupted at the river Jordan, which had become a fortified boundary line. The new spirit of reconciliation that is being lived in the Near East and the forthcoming celebration of the Christian millennium, have set in motion a process that we hope will lead to its re-unification. Thus the peaceful flow of pilgrimages between both banks of the river might recommence.

For the time being, work is in hand for the re-opening of the sanctuaries on the east bank of the river. These had practically been forgotten due to the long abandonment and events of war. The Government of Jordan has, in fact, chosen the Jordan River with its sanctuaries as a symbol of the Jordanian participation in the jubilee celebrations: Jordan, The Land and River of the Baptism, as can be read in the logo chosen for the celebration.

A decree emanated by King Hussein, on the 10th September 1997, has set up a "Royal Commission for the development of the park of the Baptism of the Lord the Messiah (peace be upon Him) in the Jordan Valley". The commission, presided by the Crown Prince Hassan Ben Talal, is made up of 10 members. Forming the commission, together with Prince Ghazi Ben Mohammed, King Hussein's nephew, who heads the court office for the preservation of the religious heritage of the kingdom, there are several ministers; the Minister for Religious Cult, for Tourism and Antiquities, for Water and Irrigation, who is responsible of the Jordan Valley. The Head of the Armed Forces, a representative of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and a representative of the Franciscan Friars from the Custody of the Holy Land, originators of the project, sit on the commission as well.

The Commission met, for the first time on the 11th November 1997, in a very suggestive atmosphere. The meeting was held, in a tent purposely put up for the occasion on the east bank of the River Jordan, to determine how to proceed in the realization of the project in the shortest possible time, in the spirit of reconciliation and development of the three religions, which have common memories of their faith attached to the River Jordan.

Biblical events at the origin of the pilgrimage to the Jordan river

The Christian pilgrimage is intimately tied to the Bible. The pilgrims faced the journey to go over again in their memory the events of faith, which they had read of in the books of the Old and New Testament. The great scholar Origen (Third Century), in a page dedicated to the sanctuaries along the Jordan River, writes, with a disarming sincerity that puts him on a par with the pilgrims of every epoch, that he "had gone to the places in search of the traces of Jesus, his disciples and the prophets”. We read of the same concern, although devoid of learned intentions, in the writings of the Pilgrim Egeria. With the Bible in hand, she traveled the entire middle-eastern region on the traces of the People of God and the evangelical account.

The evangelical account of Christ's public mission opens with the preaching of penitence by John the Baptist in the Jordan River region: "Then Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sin" - the evangelists write unanimously (Mt. 3, 1-6; Mk 1, 4-5; Lk 3, 2-3). Among them also Jesus "came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John." (Mk 1, 9-12). John the evangelist, more particularly, mentions two locations along the river in which both Jesus and John preached and baptised: "Bethany, beyond the Jordan" (Jn 1, 28) and Aenon near Salem, located to the west of the river in the Beisan territory (Jn 3, 22-23; Onomasticon 40, 1). While John was in Bethany, beyond the Jordan, there had been sent to him from Jerusalem a delegation from the leaders of the nation to ask whether he was the Messiah, Elijah, the promised Prophet. It was there that John presented Jesus as the Lamb of God, to the crowd and to his disciples, two of whom became disciples of Jesus. One of them was Andrew, as specifically indicated by the evangelist, who presents his brother Simon to Jesus who in turn receives Simon giving him the nickname Cephas, Rock (Jn 1).

The presence of Jesus at Bethany, beyond the Jordan is again recalled in a discussion between the disciples of John, who was baptising at Aenon, and some Jews. "So they went to John and said, 'Rabbi, the man who was with you beyond the Jordan, the man to whom you bore witness, is baptising now, and everyone is going to him." (Jn 3, 26). Furthermore, the evangelist relates that in order to avoid the imminent danger of being arrested during his visit to Jerusalem, Jesus "Went back again beyond the Jordan to the place where John had previously been baptising and stayed there. …and many of them in that place believed in him" (Jn 10, 40-42).

We have scanty but reliable data, from the first Christian centuries, which allow us to affirm that the geographic and topographic interest shown by the evangelists while relating the episodes of the life of Jesus was shared by the first Christian communities in the Holy Land. They treasured the memories and showed them to the brethren in faith who came from afar. In this context, the witness of Meliton, bishop of Sardis (Second Century), is very precious. In a letter preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea he writes: "Having therefore gone to the east, I have seen the places where the Scripture was proclaimed and fulfilled." (Historia Ecclesiastica IV, 26, 14). Eusebius also relates, with respect to Alexander bishop in Cappadocia and afterwards bishop of Jerusalem (second century) that: "He undertook the journey from Cappadocia to Jerusalem to visit and pray at the holy places." (Historia Ecclesiastica VI, 11, 2). In the third century we have the interest of the great scholar Origen who came to the Holy Land, where he stayed, leading the school of Cesaraea with the intention, as he himself writes, "of following in the footsteps of Jesus, his disciples and the Prophets." (Commentarium in Joannem 1, 28).

Above all, the work of Eusebius of Caesarea must be viewed as a witness to the continuing research for geographical accuracy and topographical reliability. In the Onomasticon of the Biblical Places, written before Constantine's victory, both scientific interest and the memories handed down to us are in agreement about the will of the Palestinian community to preserve authentic memoirs so as to show these to the faithful coming from afar. In this sense the vocabulary used by the author is significant "deivknutai /ostenditur" "is indicated/ is shown". The term is used indicating the sites of Gergesa on the Lake of Galilee, Aenon in Samaria, the ford at Bethabara on the river Jordan, Jacob's well at Sichem; in Jerusalem, for the pool at Bethesda, Golgotha, Gethsemane and the Hakeldama, Bethany and Lazzarus' tomb. In the Life of Constantine, remembering the zeal that Helen the emperor's mother had for the Holy Land, Eusebius presents the August Lady as a pilgrim: "Having rendered the due adoration at the places upon which the Saviour had left his footprints (in accordance with the words of the prophets, "let us prostrate ourselves over the places where he put his feet"), she immediately wanted to leave the fruit of her religiosity also for posterity" (causing both the church of the Nativity and of the Ascension to be built, Vita CostantiniIII, 41-43).

Subsequent additions, as a result of the devotion and other interests which helped the memories of the primitive Christian community to grow, should not distract our attention from a possible and justified scruple about the historic accuracy of the sites tied to the nucleus of the Gospel events.

Certainly it is difficult to follow the pilgrims when they indicate this place or other as the sites on the banks of the Jordan where episodes of the Old Testament took place. In such a case, more than the geographic exactness, disputable in the light of the fact that the biblical text is normally pretty vague as regards the location of the narrated episodes, one clearly grasps, in those memories, the faith which sees in the unification of the two Testament a single message of salvation. For the Christian pilgrim, to commemorate the Baptism of Jesus and, at the same site, all the events which somehow are linked with the river Jordan is a reliving of different episodes from the same story of salvation which took place in this holy land.

For the crossing of the Jordan by the biblical tribes, coming from the desert and after having set up tent at the plains of Moab in front of Jericho at the foot of Mount Nebo (Num 22,1), the biblical text does not indicate exactly the site. It only states that: "When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river." (Josh 3, 8), which at the time was in flood ("Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest" Josh 3, 15). Once they crossed, the texts speak of the "plains of Jericho" (Josh 4, 13; 5, 10) and of "Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho" where the people set camp. (Josh 4, 19).

Similarly vague, topographically speaking, is the reference to the episode which took place on the bank of the river Jordan in front of Jericho and which had as its main actors Elijah and Elisha: "The two had stopped at the Jordan. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground (2Kgs 2, 7-8ff). On the other bank - as the narration continues - "As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind...(Elisha) picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.", which he crosses in the same way as his master (2Kgs 2, 11ff). According to the memoirs of the pilgrims the event of the Ascension of Elijah was either commemorated on the river banks or at the spring deep within the valley where the Laura of Saphsaphas stood.

The pilgrims, starting from Egeria, were also shown the site of the altar built on the river bank by the tribes of Transjordan, Gad, Reuben and one half of Manasseh, narrated in Josh 22,10.

With the due reservations, mentioned above, with respect to the localisation of the Old Testament sites, these seem to be simple commemorative memoirs of biblical events occasioned by the visit to the river within the scope of the Christian pilgrimage that is both historical-geographical and devotional.

The memories on the bank of the river Jordan

The memoirs of the pilgrims are the most accredited guides to lead us in the research of the mentioned sanctuaries of the Jordan Valley in relation to the Gospel narrative. Had we to stop at the memoirs of Egeria (end of the fourth century), we will be obliged to affirm that in the first witnesses of the Christian pilgrimage to the river Jordan, the memoirs of the Old Testament had precedence on the Baptism of Jesus. In fact, on arriving at the river, the pilgrim recalls: "We arrived at the site on the river Jordan where the sons of Israel made their crossing... where the sons of Reuben, Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh built the altar". From the river, without any reference to Bethany, she went directly to Livias, remembered also for another episode of the biblical Exodus: "having crossed the river we arrived at the city of Livias which lies in the plains where the sons of Israel had put up tent".

In fact Egeria's silence about the site is very strange because we have other precious witnesses regarding the commemoration of the Baptism of Jesus on the banks of the Jordan both preceding and contemporary to her voyage.

The first is that of Origen (towards mid-Third Century) who places at the same site the crossing of the people of God (Bethabara) and the Baptism of Jesus. The scholar in fact prefers to substitute the term Bethany (which was unknown to him and his followers) with Bethabara: "We cannot ignore the fact that in almost all the instances (of the Gospel) we find: 'these things took place at Bethany' and this seems to have been the case too in the past: so much so that even Heraclion reads Bethany. Having been to the places in search of the footsteps of Jesus, his disciples, and the Prophets, we are convinced that we cannot read Bethany but Bethabara. For Bethany, the village of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, as the Gospel affirms, lies 15 stadia from Jerusalem, the Jordan on the other hand lies 180 stadia away; now at the Jordan there is no site which carries the name of Bethany. It is said that on the heights of the Jordan there is Bethabara where, it is affirmed, John baptised".

The second witness is that of Eusebius of Cesarea who, in the Onomasticon, at the entry under Bethabara ("beyond the Jordan where John baptised for penance"), takes up Origen's text but adds that the place is known to "many believing brothers who, wishing to be reborn, are baptised there in the living current". A wish which, in the words of the same Eusebius, was also that of Emperor Constantine as he himself confided to the bishops gathered at Nicomedia: "Finally time is ripe (to receive) the salvific seal (baptism) which I once thought I could receive in the waters of the Jordan, where, we are reminded, the Saviour was baptised as an example for us" (Vita Costantini IV, 62, 1-2).

The third witness is that of the anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux who identifies the site of the Baptism of the Lord by John at five miles from the Dead Sea, adding to it the memory of the Ascension of Elijah "(From the Dead Sea) to the Jordan, where the Lord was baptised by John - there are five miles. There is a place by the river, a little hill upon the further bank, from which Elijah was taken up into heaven”.

The last witness of the IV century comes from Jerome, contemporary of Egeria, from whom we learn that the visit to the river was a regular stop of the Christian pilgrimage in the Holy Land. He writes this when recounting the pilgrimage of his friend Paola whom he had accompanied: "she stood on the river bank at dawn... she remembered the sun of justice (Jesus)..."

Concluding we must say that as far back as the third century, at the time of Origen, the Old-Testament memory of the crossing over of the river at the end of the exodus and the evangelical memory of the Baptism of Jesus were commemorated on the river bank. At the end of the same century or the beginning of the fourth, Eusebius gives witness to the already common practice among the Christians to be baptised in the river or to bathe in it as an "imitatio Christi" (imitation of Christ), who was baptised there.

In the fifth century, in conformity with the generalised practice to glorify the site and the biblical memory with a church, on the example of the first three Christian buildings built by Constantine on Calvary and the tomb of Jesus, on the Mount of Olives and, in Bethlehem, on the Nativity grotto, Emperor Anastasius ordered the building of a basilica on the river bank. The first pilgrim to mention it is Theodosius (ca 530).

The witness of the anonymous Pilgrim of Piacenza and John Moschus (Sixth Century) are also precious to us. Thanks to them we have a precise localisation of the sites where the Gospel events were commemorated. The most important conclusion which can be derived from their writings is the distinction between the episodes commemorated on the river banks and those which were commemorated next to the spring of 'Ayn Kharrar, the source which gives the name to the wadi, to the east in the territory of the city of Livias (al-Ramah).

The site of the Baptism on the Jordan

Both the Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333) and Theodosius (530) are explicit and in agreement in localising at a determined spot along the river the site of the Baptism of Jesus. Both indicate the site as being five miles from the Dead Sea shore, "from the site where the Lord was baptised, to the site where the river Jordan pours into the Dead Sea there are five miles" - writes Theodosius. The Pilgrim of Piacenza (570) is the first to note that the site of the Baptism was in front of the monastery of St. John: "not very far from the Jordan where the Lord was Baptised there is the monastery of St. John, very big; in it there are two hostels for the pilgrims. (Itinerarium 12, 4)

The topographic annotation is found also in the "Life of St. Mary from Egypt". The penitent, in her intent to follow the voice she had heard inviting her to cross over the Jordan in order to find peace, left Jerusalem through the eastern gate and went towards the river. “And saying these things - recounts the saint - I heard the voice of someone who shouted from afar: ‘if you cross over the holy Jordan you will find peace’....

"When the sun was nearing its setting, - recounts the saint to the priest Zosimus - I saw the church of John the Baptist which was in the vicinity of the Jordan; and entering that sanctuary to pray I went down immediately to the river and with that holy water I washed my hands and face. I took then the life-giving and most pure sacraments of Christ the Lord in the same basilica of John the Baptist, the Forerunner. Then I ate half a loaf, drank from the water of the Jordan and lied down on the ground for the night. As soon as the light of dawn arrived, the following morning, I passed to the other side...."

The pilgrims agree in remembering a votive column which was crowned by a metallic cross infixed in the water at the centre of the river. The most explicit is Theodosius (530): “At the place where the Lord was baptised there is a marble column, and on top of it there has been set an iron cross. ”

On the other hand the pilgrim of Piacenza (ca 570) writes that he had seen a marble obelisk surrounded by chancels or a balustrade and a wooden cross infixed in the water with a flight of steps on either side of the marble monument which led to and from the water: "There is an obelisk surrounded by chancels and at the spot where the water flows back to its course there is a wooden cross on a surrounding marble pedestal infixed in the water”.

The pilgrim came to the river the day of the feast of the Epiphany. He witnessed the blessing of the waters by a priest and the bathing in the river of the multitude of those present: "All immerse themselves in the river for the blessing, dressed in the shroud and having many other objects which they preserve for their burial".

According to the witness of Theodosius, there was a church built by order of Emperor Anastasius located in "trans Jordanem" (beyond the Jordan). The pilgrim describes it as built high up on big arches (cameras maiores) to avoid flooding by the water of the river during the spring floods. The sanctuary was served by monks who received money (gold coins) from the imperial treasure for their sustenance.

In concordance with this witness, the Georgian Calendar of the church of Jerusalem, recorded three liturgical meetings by the river bank on the occasion of the feast of the Epiphany: the 4th of January, on the eve of the feast of the Baptism, the assembly meets on the other side of the Jordan; the 5th of January, the vigil of Epiphany, on the banks of the river; on the 6th of January a solemn assembly, at the Jordan, to commemorate the Baptism in the Church of St. John the Baptist, built inside the monastery.

The monastery of St. John is known by the Greek monks as the Prodromos and by the Arabs as Dayr Mar Yuhanna or Qasr al-Yahud. From the sixth century onwards the monastery, still standing or in ruins, became the topographical point of reference for the localisation of the Sanctuary of the Baptism on the corresponding bank of the river. From the middle ages the monastery is remembered by all the pilgrims who managed to reach the river Jordan. When in 1933, the Franciscans built a small chapel on the west bank of the river to the north of the crossing at Hajlah, the point to which the memory had moved for the convenience of the pilgrims who wanted to bathe in the river, the friars kept in mind the monastery restored by the Greek monks in 1882 for the localisation of the traditional site. Having collapsed during the 1927 earthquake, the monastery underwent new restoration works in 1955. It had to be abandoned in 1967 as it came to be between the river and the fence of the Bar Lev line.

The small stone quadrangular chapel surmounted by a dome which today rises on the river and is the venue of the yearly pilgrimage by the Franciscans, was built by the Custody of the Holy Land in 1958 on a plan by Fr. Virgilio Corbo.

Conclusion

Wanting to summarise the topographical data handed to us from the pilgrimage literature of the Byzantine period, we can say that we do have some certain information as a result of the sources at our disposal. From the third century onwards the pilgrims commemorated the Baptism of Jesus at a spot which they believed coincided with the site of the passage over the Jordan by the people of God as recounted in the book of Joshua. The monastery of St. John Prodromos was built at the time of Emperor Anastasius on the marly hills which overlooked the western bank of the river. The locality corresponds to the crossing which joined the western and eastern banks of the river in front of Wadi Kharrar. The Baptism of Jesus was commemorated in the waters of the river where the pilgrims went down to bathe or to be baptised. In fact they went down by a stairway which was next to an obelisk at the end of a bridge which entered the river. In the river then there was a column crowned by a cross.

The building of a church on the eastern bank by emperor Anastasius remains controversial, After the mention made by the Archdeacon Theodosius, who dwells upon the description of the church built on arches, no other pilgrim mentions it again, unless this is identified, as has been the case with modern explorers, with the church (or square chapel) described by the pilgrim Arculfus "at the end of the valley where" the river flows. It is difficult to doubt the existence of this church due to the precise and detailed description given by Theodosius, which certainly does not refer to the church built within the monastery of St. John (which was at about a mile from the river), as well as the notation found in the Georgian Liturgical Calendar which indicates, as the site of the liturgical assembly on the eve of Epiphany, the church beyond the Jordan.

Modern archaeological exploration carried out by various scholars favour the presence of a church on the eastern bank of the river. The first one to arrive at the site was Fr. Féderlin towards the end of last century. In 1899, at the estuary of Wadi Kharrar, the priest of the White Fathers of Jerusalem noted and photographed the foundations of a chapel built on arches which he placed in relation to the church mentioned by Arculfus: “Having been twice to the Jordan for the feast of the Epiphany, I endeavoured to take advantage of the boat pertaining to the St. John the Baptist Convent; the boatman agreed, after being tipped, to take me across the Jordan and allow me to reach the ruins of a church remembered by Arculfus and built on an small old branch of the river Jordan... (During the 1899 Easter holidays ... going beyond, to the west, the ruins of Saphsaphas) ... after about 150 m we arrived at a sort of canal or small branch of the river ... There we found the ruins of the chapel described by Arculfus ... All of the lower part of the chapel still stands”.

The ruins were visited in 1913 by M. Dalman: “A hill overhangs this valley on the south side, upon which there are ruins of a building, which undoubtedly had been a church”.

D. Buzy came here on the 5th October 1930 and connects the ruins with the church built by emperor Anastasius: “At a distance of fifty paces from the shore one can see the remains of a square shrine, with four metre sides, built on arches. This could be the chapel built by the Emperor Anastasius (491-518), the ‘parva quadrata ecclesia’ seen by Adamnanus. We hope that in the not too distant future, it will be possible for us to excavate and study this venerable ruin, as it well merits”.

In 1932 the delta of Wadi Kharrar was visited by Fr. F.M. Abel who still saw the arches: “One comes across the peak of paired arches, the remains of an under-structure, upon a branch of the Jordan which is blocked today but which is re-created in a certain manner during the flood season”.

To justify the identification of the ruins with the church built by Anastasius or with the quadrangular one described by Arculfus, the explorers invite us to keep in mind the level of the water of the river, which is different according to the different seasons as well as the capricious path of the river that could change after every flood. This could cause a church built on the waters (like the one described by Arculfus) to find itself isolated on dry land (at the moment of the visit of Willibaldus), or vanish completely in the soft river bed eroded by the water. In 1485 Brother Francesco Suriano writes: “A small chapel had been built Where Christ was baptised. Today the river has changed into an island and lies at the centre of the river. And in that place I believe that Christ was baptised. At present the river has changed its bed by a mile".

The practice of Baptism/bathing in the river

The Onomasticon of Eusebius contains the first witness of the Christian practice of being baptised and bathing in the river of the Baptism of Jesus: “Many believing brothers who, wishing to be reborn, are baptised there in the living current”. The practice is also mentioned by Egeria placing it at the spring of Aenon in Samaria: "Numerous brothers, holy monks from various regions come here to bathe". During the sixth century the sacramental practice became a devotional practice as a re-enactment of baptism on the part of the Christians who participated at the solemn liturgy of the blessing of the water on the day of the Epiphany, as is witnessed by the Pilgrim of Piacenza.

John Moschus mentions this practice in his Pratum when he speaks about the hermit George who arrived in the Holy Land from the mountains in the North of Seleucia with his disciple Taleleus, an ex-sailor: "Having venerated the Holy Places, they went down to the Jordan and there washed themselves. Three days later, Taleleus died in the Lord and the hermit buried him in the Laura of Copratha. Some time later even George the hermit died and the monks of the Laura of Copratha buried him in their church".

In the Middle Ages, that is after the battle of the Yarmuk in 636, when the region passed under the Arab-Moslem administration, it became the most diffused practice among the pilgrims who went to the river.

Arculfus came here towards 670, the first century of the Hegira. He bathed in the river and crossed it swimming. Thus he could reach the church on the other side of the river which he describes with his usual details. He recounts to abbot Adamnanus, who wrote Arculfus’ memoirs, how he had seen a church in the middle of the water 'in that sacred and honourable spot where Jesus was baptised by John': "at the extremity of the river there is a small square church built, according to tradition, at the site where the clothes of the Lord were guarded while he received the baptism. This (church) rests on four stone supports: being in the water it is uninhabitable because water flows underneath. It has a tiled roof and, as already stated, it rests on supports and arches. This church is found in the valley where the river Jordan flows, while a big monastery of monks occupies the high ground which dominates the church we have just described". In the vicinity there was a wooden cross infixed in the water. Normally the water at this point reached the neck of a very tall person. This was reduced to the height of the breast during the dry season. The cross vanished under water during the annual flooding. The church and the cross were connected to the bank of the river by a bridge built on arches. The other bank was at a distance of a stone thrown with a sling by a strong man.

Bishop Willibaldus (723-26) remembers that in the river, where the Lord was baptised, there was a church built on columns not in the water but on the river bank (est nunc arida terra). A wooden cross was infixed in the river where baptism was performed. A tight rope, spanning from one bank to another, served as a support for those who wished to bathe in the river, especially the sick. Following the devotional example, even the bishop immersed himself in the water.

The Russian abbot Daniel (1106) found the convent of St. John in ruins and, on a small mound, a small chapel with an altar in remembrance of the baptism. This was a small stone's throw away from the river. At the crossing of the river he was shown the site where the Christians bathed and drank from the water: "At the Jordan there is a place for the immersion, where the Christians who arrive there bathe. There is also a wading spot to cross the Jordan towards Arabia... the water is very dark and sweet to drink and he who drinks from this holy water is not quenched; it does not provoke any sickness and does not harm man's intestines".

The pilgrim Teodoricus (1172) is witness of a spectacular mass devotion: "wishing to purify ourselves together with the others in the waters of the Jordan, we came down after sunset at dusk and looking down from that height (from Jebel Qarantal), we saw that in that plain, according to our estimate, there were more than sixty thousand persons almost all carrying candles in their hands, which the pagans living in Transjordan certainly could see from the mountains of Arabia".

A practice which has been kept alive even after the end of the crusades to these days on the day of the Epiphany. The bathing in the river was preceded by a ceremony which the witnesses call "baptism of the cross". The ceremony consisted in the immersion of the holy cross in the water of the river. Odoricus from Udine (Forum Iulii) recounts (1320): “Pilgrims and locals have the custom to wash their bodies and clothes in the waters of the Jordan with great devotion, because Christ, who was baptised in it had sanctified it". Ludolfus of Sudheim (1335): “At the same place, on the day of the Epiphany, all the Christians as well as the inhabitants and natives of the region meet. The cross is baptised by the archbishop, and all the Christians are baptised, to be cured from their infirmities”. Brother Francesco Suriano (1485): “At the time of The Epiphany, we (friars) together with all the Christians of the country went to baptise the cross in the Jordan. We set up tents and sang masses. After submerging the cross in the river and after reciting the office, all the people, male and female, are baptised in the water".

Vast modern graphic and photographic documentation witnesses to the large number of Christians who bathe in the river before they return to their homeland.

The Franciscans in fact, adapting themselves to the traditions of the local Christians, went to the river on the eight day after Epiphany to celebrate Holy Mass on the banks of the river. A practice which was stopped by the 1967 war. In 1985 the occupying Israeli authorities exceptionally granted permission to visit the site processionally once a year, the last Thursday of October for the Catholics and on the Epiphany for the Orthodox community.

The Russian abbot Daniel manages to grasp all the profound sacramental significance in the gesture of immersion in the water of the river: “God granted me the opportunity to be three times by the holy Jordan and I was there even on the feast of the Epiphany, I saw the grace of God, which descended on the waters of the Jordan and a countless multitude of people arriving at the water; all night long there was singing and there was a great number of lit lamps. At midnight there was the baptism in the water; so the Holy Spirit arrives on the waters of the Jordan and the good men who are worthy see him (the Holy Spirit) while the multitude of the people does not see anything, but there is only joy and happiness in the hearts of each Christian when they say: "in the Jordan you were baptised Lord", at which all the people (jump) into the water and are baptised at midnight in the river Jordan as Christ was baptised at midnight".

The Sanctuary at Bethany in the Wadi Kharrar

The pilgrims who did not stop at the river and continued in their journey inside the small valley towards the east, which the Arabs call Wadi Kharrar, could stop at the spring which was located two miles away. Here a church on the nearby high ground, surrounded by the monastery cells of the monastic Laura commemorated the locality of Bethany beyond the Jordan where John baptised and where Jesus went to meet him as is recounted in the Gospel (Jn 1, 28).

We find the first witness in the itinerary of the Pilgrim of Piacenza (570): "on that side of the river Jordan there is a spring, where Saint John baptised, two miles from the Jordan.... around that valley a multitude of hermits... and nearby there is the city called Livias...".

The Laura is mentioned and represented in the Madaba mosaic Map (second half of the sixth century) with the names of Aenon and Saphsaphas (bulrush or poplar).

The origin of the Laura of Saphsaphas is narrated in the first passage of The Spiritual Meadow by John Moschus (beginning of the seventh century) . In a vision, it is the same John the Baptist who indicates to the monk John from the monastery of Abba Eustorgius in the environs of Jerusalem, who was on his way to Mount Sinai, the sanctity of the grotto in which he had found refuge due to a violent fever: "I am telling you not to leave because this small grotto is greater than Mount Sinai. Frequently our Lord Jesus Christ entered there to visit me". "He was healed immediately and remained there all his life. He transformed the grotto into a church and gathered around him a group of monks. It is the place called Saphsaphas." - concludes the account. The episode took place at the time of Patriarch Elijah (493-513) contemporary of emperor Anastasius (49?-518).

The memories regarding the assumption into heaven of the Prophet Elijah were soon added to those of the Gospel. They were localised on the hill (Jebel Mar Liyas) upon which rose the church of the Laura. From the river banks the memory of the Prophet had moved to the spring.

The sanctuary is mentioned by Epiphanius Monacus (IX-XI cent) who added much details: "In Transjordan, at about three miles, there is a grotto in which the Forerunner lived. There was the bed on which he rested, a natural bench, hewn out of the same rock of the cave and a small vault. There also is a water spring outside the grotto; and under the vault pours forth the spring in which John the Baptist baptised.”.

This site was also visited by Abbot Daniel who is proud to note that "I, with the grace of God, have seen all this with my eyes although I am an unworthy sinner". After describing with great care the forest of bulrushes and tamarisks which one had to cross to go from the banks of the river to the sanctuary, he states: "Nearby there is the place, to the east, being about two bow shots from the river, where the prophet Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire. There is also the grotto of St. John and a stream full of water which flows splendidly across the rock towards the Jordan. That water is very cold and very sweet, and was drunk by John, the Forerunner of Christ, when he lived in that holy grotto. There is also another marvelous grotto where Prophet Elijah lived with Elisha his disciple”.

We read a similar description in John Phocas’ account (1177): "On the other bank of the river Jordan, in front of the church of St. John, there are various bushes, amongst which, at a distance of a stadium, one sees the grotto of St. John. It is very small and a tall person cannot stand up in it: in front of it, deep into the desert, there is another grotto, from where the prophet Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire, at the end of his life”.

Conclusion

The two main Gospel memories commemorated by the spring of Wadi Kharrar are indicated to the pilgrims in a grotto and in a small mound on which there was a church and a monastic Laura. The grotto of the Baptist commemorated the locality of Bethany beyond the Jordan where John baptised and consequently the presence of Jesus at the site as underlined by the Gospel. In the middle ages the assumption of Elijah into heaven was also commemorated at the site and localised in a second grotto.

The buildings mentioned by the pilgrims in the locality are: the church of the Laura of Saphsaphas and the "monasteries" which surrounded it, meaning the cells of the numerous hermit monks who lived along the Wadi Kharrar.

The modern rediscovery of the sanctuary at Wadi Kharrar

The grotto of St. John, the site of Bethany, the Laura of Saphsaphas and the mound of the ascension of Elijah were only a vague memory by the end of the last century when in 1899 Fr. Féderlin succeeded in reaching Wadi Kharrar from the east and to identify the sanctuary at the beginning of the valley.

The rediscovery was brought about by the systematic study of the ancient monastic settlements in the Jordan Valley mentioned in the contemporary sources, following the paths opened up by Father Vailhé’s Repertoire and by the discovery in 1897 of the Madaba Mosaic Map. The Map brings out strongly the toponym Ainon-Saphsaphas to the North of the Dead Sea locating it near a spring not far away from the eastern bank of the river.

The first chapter of the Pratum takes us on the eastern bank of the river Jordan and gives enough hints for the localisation of the Laura of Saphsaphas where we find that the monk John, after crossing the river to go to Mount Sinai, walked "the space of a roman mile" before he was compelled by fever to seek refuge in a grotto which gave birth to the monastic complex represented in the Map, on the left bank of the torrent Kerith where Elijah was sent at the time of the famine.

Having arrived at the beginning of the depression, it was not difficult for the explorer to notice that which he describes as: “A sort of red coloured promontory having the form of a large breast ... which advanced to the north in the deep Kharrar valley”. “On the surface of the promontory we find squared-up stones, half worn out by the corrosive action of the salt, some sherds and mosaic tesserae. It is impossible to find the exact lines of construction as these have been confused; notwithstanding, a few paces away from the promontory, we identify traces of the rooms of a square ruin, having sides of about 15 m. Here the tesserae were plentiful. On the south side of the fore land, where it joins the plain, we find separately the two parts which formed the door step of the monastery. The threshold is 2.10 m wide ... It is made of very hard white stone and is well preserved. We think that the buildings here covered an area between 800 and 1000 square metres; excavations would be necessary to be able to reconstruct the plan ... The grotto has naturally disappeared beneath the ruins of the church that had been built there”.

Once the Laura was identified near the spring, there remained the problem of locating the site of Ainon/Bethany. The same Fr. Féderlin looked for it in the vicinity basing himself on the homonymy of the crossing of al-Ghoraniyah (in Arabic an adjective derived from al-Ghor) with Bethany from the Hebrew root beten or baten. He thought he could identify the evangelical locality with tell el-Medesh to the north of the crossing and of today's Allemby (Hussein) Bridge.
The site in the Wadi Kharrar was revisited by M. Dalman in 1913 and by D. Buzy in 1930, after waiting for almost twenty years: “At its extremities, the wadi forks drawing the two branches of a very wide V shape. The peak around which all of the Byzantine traditions coverage, rises on the south branch”. Buzy’s witness is valuable for us to know how the site, which had been partly tampered with, evolved. “From the west, nearly at the base, a robust but very ruined wall, built with large pebbles from the torrent, follows the curvature of the hill for about 15 to 20 metres. The squared-up stones, seen by Father Federlin on the promontory or in the nearby ruins are no longer in their place. They have been used by the Greek Orthodox Monks in three ugly constructions left incomplete by them. Above all they have been transported a kilometer from the river, again on the south bank of the Kharrar, and placed on the last terrace that dominates the river’s plain. The monks had intended to build a large monastery here: the foundations had been traced, they had amassed lime and sand together with two to three hundred beautifully squared-up stones which had been stripped from the holy ruins of the Wadi Kharrar. Etiam periere ruinae (Even the ruins perished!). Thanks to this sorrowful utilitarian example, today we do not find, on the surface, a single stone of what perhaps was the church and monastery of St. John the Baptist in the Sixth Century. There remain only the traces of a long wall buried in the ground, to the south of the fore land on the widening”. (p. 459)

On the terrace to the south of Jebel Mar Liyas, Buzy collected some Byzantine sherds: “Upon closer observation one soon discerns, here and there, some traces of construction. One only has to remove the light coat of sand and traces of house walls appear nearly everywhere. To the south of the peak, a wall about 20 m long, could be the remains of a convent related to the church ... From this point onwards, in a westerly direction along the wadi, there are small clogged up houses, nearly all adjacent to each other set in no apparent manner. We count ten, twenty, thirty, fifty of these. It would not be an exaggeration if the number were set to one hundred. A complete village which no explorer had as yet identified, of which only Dalman had hypothesised the existence. There followed the narrow and prolonged shore of the wadi, a length of about 500 m... The remains of these houses forcibly bring to mind the text by Antoninus from Piacenza: “All around this valley there were a multitude of hermits”. It seems though that these remains are not those of small hermit cells, neither the ruins of a Laura. Strictly speaking they are the remains of a village”. (p. 461s)

Fr. Abel returned to the valley in 1932. Even though he insisted on the “reiterated exploitation of this ruin in favour of the Greek houses, the carcasses of which rise over the deep valley”, he softens D. Buzy’s conclusion (in footnote at p. 239), placing the responsibility “... on the upsets caused during the war (First World War)”.

Fr. A. Augustinovich visited the valley on 29th December 1947. The plantations of the Kattan family had long been abandoned. The only novelty was a Bedouin cemetery in the area where the Greek monks had amassed the building stones. The Franciscan friar noted with much more accuracy than his predecessors: a cistern on the north slope of Jebel Mar Liyas built with stones having rounded edges, a wall to the north on a lower level without its outer stone cover giving the idea that it might have been a fence wall; a doorstep already noted by Fr. Féderlin but which was reused in a small house on the south slope; a fragment of a pilaster from a balustrade with the channel for inserting the screen; mosaic tesserae still in situ besides the numerous ones, of different size and colour, scattered all over the place. He noted also: some sherds belonging to the Byzantine typologies; glass fragments, especially of lamps with or without handles; fragments of small copper hanging chains; seven small coins of the IV-V century but unreadable because worn out.

The site rediscovered in 1995

The interest which lead to the setting up of a Royal Commission for the development of the sanctuaries of Wadi Kharrar is due to the enthusiasm of Prince Ghazi ben Mohammed. It was he who on 11th August 1995 wanted to take the writer and Fr. Eugenio Alliata from the Archaeological Mission on Mount Nebo to visit the site which the military situation had rendered inaccessible. The visit, which had been long desired and many a time postponed by the military authorities, was occasioned by the preparation of the volume dedicated to the sanctuaries of Jordan promoted and edited by Prince Ghazi. We arrived there escorted by the military who are on guard at the border along the river. Taking a country road which runs parallel to the river, we crossed Wadi Gharabah (the soldiers prefer to call it Gharub) and arrived at Wadi Kharrar. Understandably mistaken, the soldiers took us on the river bank, to Maghtas, to show us the chapel built in memory of the baptism by the Custody of the Holy Land on the western bank. It was the commanding officer of the area, who came to greet the prince, who realised the true aim of our expedition. He accompanied us to the spring at the beginning of Wadi Kharrar and showed us Jebel Mar Liyas on its south flank.

On the tell we did not see anything new apart from what had been seen and noted by Fr. Augustinovich, the last of the modern explorers to visit the site. At about fifty meters from the bank of the Wadi, we were able to collect sherds pertaining to the Byzantine period and others belonging to different first century pottery typologies together with some fragments of stone vases typical to the Jewish environment. These are well known typologies and are in fact the first archaeological witness to establish an area of habitation by the spring during the First Century. They help us affirm that the later writings of the Byzantine period witnessing to the existence of the village of Bethany beyond the Jordan can be seriously considered. This notwithstanding the historical weight of the witness given by Origen, who probably precipitously gave heed to his informers and had concluded that the village did not exist on the eastern bank of the river. He also proposed emending the Gospel text substituting Bethany with the toponym Bethabara. Two topographic realities which do not exclude each other, Bethabara at the river Jordan and Bethany at the spring of Wadi Kharrar, as we read in the Madaba Mosaic Map.

Michele Piccirillo
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Jerusalem - Mount Nebo