Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/405

 CARMEL

353

CARMEL

Elias chose for the assembly of the people, such as- semblies being usually held at some holy place (III K.. xviii, 19 sq.). Again, in IV K., iv, 23, there is a manifest allusion to the custom of resorting to Carmel for the celebration of the new moon and of the sab- bath. From various passages of Holy Writ it has been inferred that this sacred mountain was the actual place of residence of both Elias and Eliseus (Cf. IV K.. ii. •_'■">; iv, 25, 27, etc.); and. as a matter of fact, Elias' grotto and the cavern known as the School of the Prophets are still pointed out. There is likewise some reason to believe that the incident, told of Elias in IV K., i, 9-15, took place on the mountain of Carmel. In this passage our English translation speaks indeed of the prophet as sitting down on "a hill ", when he caused fire to come down from heaven on the two "fifties" and their respective captains who had been sent by King Ochosias to put him under arrest. But the rendering of the Hebrew original word "im by "a hill", which would naturally suggest a place different from the mountain range of Carmel, is very probably a defective one. The Hebrew c xpression rather means "the mountain" with an implicit refer- ence to Mt Carmel, since that expression, in connex- ion with Elias, is used for that range only, with the exception of Sinai, which, of course, is not intended in IV K., i, 19-15.

However this may be, there is another incident in Elias' life which Holy Writ distinctly places on the ridge of Carmel, and on account of which that moun- tain has been, and will ever be, particularly renowned. The event is narrated in detail in III K., xviii. It was that of a public contest between Elias, the great champion of Yahweh worship, and the prophets of Baal, the Phoenician deity whose cult had lately been fully organized by the wicked Achab in the new capi- tal of the Northern Kingdom. For two years a severe drought, foretold by Elias. had prevailed in Israel. Vet it hail not sufficed to convince the people that Yahweh, not Baal, was indeed the true God. In the third year, when the drought was about to be broken. Elias, according to the Lord's command, met King Achab. and obtained from him that all the peo- ple 1„- gathered together with the prophets of Baal unto Mt. Carmel. There, in the presence of all, he, the only surviving prophet of the Lord, proposed that the God who would consume by fire a bullock laid upon wood ami with no fire under it be alone recog- nized as God. The challenge was accepted. In vain did the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal call upon their sun-god till noon, nay even till the time of the evening sacrifice. It was now i he turn of Elias. Hi. itilt repaired an ancient altar of Yahweh by means of twelve stones, the prophet disposed the wood, laid a bullock upon it, and got filled with water the trench which he had dug around the whole. His

prayer to Yahweh was heard. The fire from heaven consumed all. to the very water in the trench, and all 'In people seeing this worshipped, saying: "Yahweh is God. Yahweh is God". Then followed in rapid succession, the slaving of all the prophets of Baal who had been brought, down to the brook Cison; Klias'

Crayer on the top of Carmel for rain and his repeated idding to bis servant: "Go up and look toward the sea"; the arising of a cloud, the forerunner of a vio- lent storm: the king's prompt departure for Jezrahel, lest he should be stopped by the rain; and. lastly, Elias' swift running before Achab to the entrance of Jezrahel. The scene marked out alike by tradition and by natural features as the place of this glorious victory of Yahweh and Elias over Baal and his proph- ets is the south eastern • xtremity of Mt. Carmel. the part of the mountain nearest to. and most accessible from Jezrahel. The place now known as Kl Marahka. "the burning" or "the sacrifice", is very probably the spot on which stood the altar of Yahweh which Elias repaired. It is marked by shapeless ruins III.— 23

whither Druses of neighbouring villages come to per- form a yearly sacrifice. Its position, at the south- eastern point of the ridge, easily allowed the altars thereon erected to be seen by Achab and the priests of Baal and the multitude who stood on a wide upland sweep close beneath it. Not far from it there is a well always supplied with water even in the driest seasons, and from which Elias could draw the water with which he could fill the trench around his altar. I >n the lower declivities of the mountains is a mound called Tell El Kassis, which means "the hill of the priest", or ''of the priests", which may mark the place where the prophets of Baal were put to death. The brook Cison which runs at the foot of Carmel was no doubt absolutely dry after the two years' drought, so that the multitude could easily go across its bed to witness Yahweh's victory on Mt. Carmel, and King Achab hasten across it to Jezrahel before the threatening storm should fill it with water and render it impassable. The corpses of the slain prophets of Baal were hurled down into the Cison, and when the brook was changed by the storm into an impetuous torrent, they were carried swiftly to the Mediterranean Sea. From the slaughter by the side of the river, the prophet of the Lord "went up" again to I'd Marahka, and there prayed fervently for the breaking of the drought. There, too. he naturally bade his servant to "go up and look toward the sea", for while from the place where he prayed the view of the Mediter- ranean is intercepted by an adjacent height, the height itself may be ascended in a few minutes and a full view of the sea be obtained from the top. Fi- nally, both Achab and Klias having rushed down to the plain, safely crossed the Cison before the rain could interfere with them, because at this point the river is very close to Mt. Carmel.

Thus it can readily be seen that the traditional site of the public contest between Klias and the prophets of Baal fulfils all the conditions required by the sacred narrative. The last Scriptural reference to the Car- mel range is found in the opening chapter of the deutero-canonical book of Judith. There we find stated that the inhabitants of Carmel were numbered among the peoples of the Western districts whom Xabuehodonosor threatened with destruction, should they venture to deny him help in his present conflict with powerful enemies (Judith, i. s, in \ ulgate and in Septuagint). There also we are told that despite his menaces, they all. "with one mind", refused to obey his orders, whereupon the Assyrian king swore to a vetige himself of them (Judith, i. 11. 12). In ancient times the sacredness of Carmel seems to have been known to other nations besides Israel. Thus in the list of places conquered by the Egyptian King Thot li- mes III, there is a probable reference at No. 48 to the "holy headland" of Carmel (see also Nos. 49, 96, in " Records of the Fast ", new series. V, 17. 50). In the fourth century B. c. tin aeo Platonic philosopher [amblicus, in his life of Pythagoras, speaks oi Mt. Carmel as "sacred above all mountains and forbidden of access to the vulgar". The great Roman historian, Tacitus, mentions an altar a- erected there without temple or image; "tantum ara et reverent ia "; and

Suetonius, in his "Lives of tl narrates that

before making war against the Jews Vespasian went to Carmel and consulted the oracle of its god. After the destruction of Jerusalem by TitUfi i 7u a. d.), tin- Jews did not lose sight of the mountain of Carmel and of its connexion with Klias. In the twelfth cen- tury of our era Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela writes as follows in the narrative of his journey to Palestine: "Under the mountain of Carmel are many Jewish sepulchres, and near the summit is the cavern of Elias upon whom be peace. . . . On the summit of the hill, you may still trace the site of the altar which was rebuilt by Klias of blessed memory, in the time of King Achab, and the circumference of which is