Wendoğê Pesewe
El Khidr in the Popular Religion of
Turkey
"In Turkey, Khidr...has been identified with various figures of
the Old Testament, notably with Elias of whom he is considered a
reincarnation, and with the Orthodox St. George, whose day, together
with the associations of Lydda, he has taken over; the
characteristics he has borrowed from St. George include the
reputation of a dragon-slayer, which St. George himself may have
borrowed from a pagan predecessor."
Khizr and Ilyas at the Fountain of Life. Amir Khusrau, Khamsah
Ilyas and Khizr sit down by a fountain to eat their repast,
consisting of dried fish; the fish falling into the waters, comes to
life, and thus the seekers are made aware that they have found the
Fountain of Life, from which both drink.
F.W. Hasluck Christianity and Islam under the Sultans 2 vols. Oxford
University Press, 1929 pp. 319-336 Chapter 2: Koranic Saints
The Moslem saint El Khidr, El Khizr (‘the Verdant’), though not
mentioned by name in the Koran, is generally identified by
commentators with the companion of Moses’ travels,[1] who secured to
himself immortality by the discovery of the Fountain of Life.[2] In
this latter quest tradition associates him with Alexander the Great.[3]
Among orthodox Sunni Mohammedans Khidr has a certain vague
popularity: his day, called the ‘feast of Lydda’ (23 Nishan = 23
April, Old Style),[4] is observed all over Turkey as the beginning
of spring. Among the heretical Nosairi sect, whose religion is a
perversion of the Shia Mohammedan, he is a particularly important
figure,[5] as he is apparently among the Yezidi,[6] and the
Druses.[7] The same seems to be the case among the Shia (Kizilbash)
tribes of Asia Minor,[8] whose points of contact with the Nosairi
and Yezidi are at present inexactly known.
In Turkey, generally, Khidr seems to be a vague personality
conceived of mainly as a helper in sudden need, especially of
travellers. He has been identified with various figures of the Old
Testament, notably with Elias[9] of whom he is considered a
reincarnation, and with the Orthodox St. George, whose day, together
with the associations of Lydda,[10] he has taken over;[11] the
characteristics he has borrowed from St. George include the
reputation of a dragon-slayer,[12] which St. George himself may have
borrowed from a pagan predecessor.
The identification of Khidr with Elias is found as early as
Cantacuzenus, who died A.D. 1380. St. George, he says, is worshipped
by the Christians and worshipped by the Christians and παρ’ αύτών
τών Μουσουλμανών τιμα δέ παρ’ αύτών χετηρ ήλιάς.[13] George of
Hungary, our best early authority on Turkish popular saints, spent a
long captivity in Asia Minor during the early fifteenth century[14]
and makes clear the extraordinary vogue enjoyed by Khidr in his day.
‘Chidrelles’, he writes, ‘is before all a helper of travellers in
need. Such is his repute in all Turkey that there is scarce any man
to be found that hath not himself experienced his help or heard of
others that have so done. He manifesteth himself in the shape of a
traveller riding on a gray horse,[15] and anon relieveth the
distressed wayfarer, whether he hath called on him, or whether,
knowing not his name, he hath but commended himself to God, as I
have heard on several hands.’[16]
Khizr and Ilyas at the Fountain of Life.
The conception of Khidr as the protector of travellers is derived
for Moslems primarily from Khidr’s own travels as related in the
Koran, the Koranic ‘type’ of traveller naturally becoming the patron
of travellers in general. Travel being considered abnormal and
dangerous, travellers have special need of a protector in sudden
necessity; this is a phase also of the Orthodox St. George.[17] In
this respect it seems abundantly proved, from oriental literary
sources, that the personalities of Khidr and Elias are distinguished
by the learned, the former being the patron of seafarers and the
latter of travellers by land.[18] But it may be doubted whether the
position of the two personalities is clearly defined in popular
religion. In inland Kurdistan the roles of Khidr and Elias as given
above are said to be reversed,[19] which looks as if Khidr, the
predominant figure, was apt to usurp the element locally of most
importance. His connection with sea-travel[20] is emphasized by the
fact that his day is regarded by seamen as the opening of their
season.[21]
Khidr has also a physical aspect. Whereas in relation to man he
is regarded as a patron of travel and a bringer of sudden help, in
relation to the world of nature he is regarded as a patron of
spring, being called the ‘Verdant’, partly in allusion to the
greenness of that season, while his feast is the beginning of spring
and, in Syria, the beginning of sowing.[22] His discovery of the
Water of Life [23] may also have a reference to his connection with
spring, while the physical conception of his functions has probably
aided his confusion with Elias, the rain-bringer of the
Christians.[24] It is probable that this rain-making aspect of Khidr
is responsible for the number of hills bearing his name, which are
to be found in the neighbourhood of towns and villages. Every
Turkish town has its recognized place for the rain prayer. These are
always outside the town and in the open air, generally high
lying,[25] and frequently marked by a turbe or dome, sometimes by a
pulpit. At Constantinople, for example, a pulpit for the rain prayer
was built by Murad IV on the Archery Ground (Ok Meidan) high above
the Golden Horn.[26] At Cairo Pococke remarked the pulpit on a spur
of the Mokattam hills above the citadel.[27] When, as frequently
occurs, the site is marked by a turbe or dome, this building tends
to be associated with the name of a saint, who is regarded as the
intercessor for rain, though in fact it is probably more often a
cenotaph or commemorative monument. Thus, at Angora the hill
opposite the citadel called Khidrlik is crowned by a cupola on open
arches. This dome may have originally commemorated an appearance of
Khidr or may merely have been erected in his honour. It is now
regarded as the tomb of a saint,[28] named, as I was informed, Bula
Khatun.[29] This development is characteristic of a simple theology
which prefers its own saint unshared to a divinity of wider powers
who is shared by many.
As to local cults of Khidr, we can point to two areas, the Syrian
and the Turkish. In Turkey the connection between St. George and
Khidr seems to be less close than in Syria, where the two seem
almost synonymous. Moslems who have made vows to Khidr frequently
pay them to his Christian counterpart.[30] One of the most
frequented centres of the cult is a Christian monastery near
Bethlehem, which is famous for its cures of madness.[31] According
to Conder, sanctuaries (makams) of Khidr in Palestine are often
found on Crusaders’ sites, thus suggesting an inheritance from St.
George.[32] On the strength of his identification withElias, Khidr
has occupied a chapel of the latter at Zarephath.[33] Various sites,
at Nablus[34] (a spring), Jerusalem,[35] Damascus,[36] Baghdad,[37]
and Mosul,[38] are associated with his name. The last three seem to
be regarded as tombs, the rest, and probably all originally, as
places where he has appeared to mortals[39] or merely as memorials.
As regards Turkish lands, Khidr, who is recognizable by the fact
that one of his thumbs is boneless, is said to have appeared at
Constantinople several times, at St. Sophia[40] and at the Valideh
Atik mosque in Skutari.[41] There is a ‘station’ of Khidr in the
mosque of Aatik All Pasha in Stambul.[42] Bars of iron engraved by
the boneless thumb of the saint are shown in the mosque of Mohammed
II,[43] while he is said to be present daily at one of the five
prayers in the mosque of Sultan Ahmed.[44] Near Adrianople, Covel in
1677 notices a ‘place of Khidr’ with an imperial kiosk said to
occupy the site of a church of St. George.[45] At Gallipoli a mosque
called Khizr u Ilyas Maqami, ‘the station of Khidr and Elias,’ is
supposed to commemorate an appearance of the saint to the poet
Mehemed Yazijioglu.[46] In Albania, near Elbassan, a hot spring
bears the saint’s name.[47]
In Asia Minor, Khidr has replaced at Elwan Chelebi the
dragon-slaying St. Theodore.[48] This is the only proved instance of
his intrusion in Turkey on a Christian cult. But in many places the
name Khidrlik (‘place of Khidr’) is given to hills or ‘high places’
of which the Christian traditions, if any ever existed, have
disappeared. Such hills exist nearAngora,[49] near Sinope[50] above
Geredeh (Krateia Bithyniae),[51] near Changri (Gangra),[52] near
Ladik (Pontus),[53] near Tarakli (Dablae),[54] and at Afiun Kara
Hisar.[55] There is a mountain Khidirli Dagh near Kebsud,[56] while
places named Kheder Elles are recorded near Kula in Lydia[57] and
above Tripoli on the Black Sea,[58] Pere de Jerphanion, in his new
map of Pontus[59] marks a village Khedarnale (‘Horseshoe of Khidr’)
near Sivas, which probably claims, like Elwan Chelebi, to possess a
hoof-print of the saint’s horse. Professor White of Marsovan seems
to find Khidrlik almost a generic name for a holy place in his
district,[60] which has a large Shia population.[61]
On the grounds of Orthodox Greek practice we should, perhaps,
expect that St. Elias was the saint displaced on hill-top sites.[62]
But the functions and conceptions of Khidr are at once so varied and
so vague as to adapt him to replace almost any saint, or indeed to
occupy any site independently. His sudden appearances make it
specially easy to associate him with any spot already hallowed by
previous tradition or notable for recent supernatural
occurrences,[63] while his functions as a patron of spring
vegetation and as a rain-maker recommend his cult to primitive
pastoral or agricultural populations.
Khidr sanctuary at Samandag, Turkey, with car performing ritual
threefold circumambulation
Holy rock in Khidr sanctuary at Samandag where Khidr and Moses are
said to have met
Without claiming to solve the various fusions of cult and legend
which have produced the mysterious and many-sided figure of
Khidr,[64] we may perhaps make the following tentative
suggestions[65] as to the origin of his functions and vogue in
popular religion:
In the Koran the unnamed Servant of God, generally interpreted as
Khidr, travels with Moses and commits three seemingly unjust
deeds.[66] A probable original[67] of this story is the Talmudic
tale of Rabbi Jochanan’s travels with Elijah,[68] so that its being
told of Khidr would indicate another case of identifying Elias with
Khidr. Such an identification, however, raises the difficulty that
the association of Moses with Elias involves a serious anachronism.
But it may be doubted whether that matters much in popular theology,
while there is some reason to suspect that the confusion dates from
a period considerably anterior to the composition of the Koran, from
the sixth century in fact. Antoninus of Piacenza, who travelled in
the Holy Land about A.D. 570, visited Suez and came ‘ad ripam, ubi
transierunt filii Israel et exierunt de mare [sic]. Ibi est
oratorium Moysis.’[69] Variant readings are: ‘Et in loco, ubi [or
quo] exierunt de mari, est oratorium Heliae. Et transcendentes
[transeuntes] venimus in locum ubi intraverunt mare. Ibique [or ubi]
est oratorium Moysis.’ Tobler has little doubt that the second
better represents the original reading, the copyist having
inadvertently omitted part: this would also explain the mare for
mari in the text.[70] Granted, then, that two ‘oratories’, of Moses
and Elias respectively, existed, as Tobler supposes, on the Red Sea,
the popular mind would readily associate them with each other,
however distinct they may have been in the beginning, and would thus
pave the way for the anachronism in the Koran to pass undetected.
There Moses is said to have found Khidr where the sea of the Greeks
joins that of the Persians, that is, at Suez.[71] In this sphere of
activity Khidr may therefore with some probability be said to derive
from the Hebrew Elijah.
In his discovery of the Water of Life Khidr is brought into
connection with Alexander, whose vizir he is said to have been. This
story seems mostly to depend ultimately on the
Pseudo-Callisthenes[72] but gathers up a number of legends which
connect Elias with Enoch and Khidr.[73] From the Jewish composite
figure of Elias + Enoch + Phinehas[74] come several of Khidr’s
aspects, e.g.
Plaque in Turkish and Arabic in Khidr sanctuary at Samandag, Turkey
His association with learning.[75] Various traditions associate
Elias with books. He is said to delight in the studies of Jewish
rabbis,[76] to have written certain apocrypha,[77] and to have
personally instructed Maimonides.[78] The Turks, besides confusing
Elias with Enoch,[79] hold that Enoch was a great sage.
From the same composite figure comes Khidr’s association with the
high priesthood.[80] Elias is believed to perform daily sacrifice in
the Temple underground.[81] His contact with Phinehas is early and
has been used by Moslem theologians as a proof that Khidr and Elias
are separate persons.[82]
Khidr’s association with travel comes explicably enough in view of
the above from Ellas’ wandering life, he being the type of the
eternal wanderer. In commemoration of this, Jews lay a place for him
at their Passover,[83] the idea arising especially from the text,
‘And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the
spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not.’[84]
Immortality is the connecting link between the components of the
Enoch + Phinehas + Elias figure and leads to:
Khidr’s identification with St. George, whom the tyrant king
tried in vain to kill.[85] This entails the fusion, it will be
noted, of the aged ascetic Elias with the young soldier George.[86]
Khidr (verdant)[87] would, on this showing, be merely an epithet
derived from the immortality of the Elias prototype.[88]
The results of our analysis thus tend to show that in Khidr there
is no independent Moslem or pre-Moslem clement. The Elias part can
all be paralleled in Jewish tradition, while the George part is all
Christian: only his adventure with Moses is of somewhat uncertain
origin, but even that, in view of the early date of the Talmudic
story,[89] is probably descended from a Jewish ancestor.
Khidr festival in Trabzon, Turkey
In conclusion, it may be remarked that the protean figure of Khidr
has a peculiar interest for the study of popular religion in Asia
Minor and the Near East generally. Accepted as a saint by orthodox
Sunni Mohammedans, he seems to have been deliberately exploited by
the heterodox Shia sects of Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and
Albania—that is, by the Nosairi, the Yezidi, the Kizilbash, and the
Bektashi—for the purposes of their propaganda amongst non-Mohammedan
populations. For Syrian, Greek, and Albanian Christians Khidr is
identical with Elias and St. George. For the benefit of the
Armenians he has been equated in Kurdistan with their favourite St.
Sergius, and, just as Syrian Moslems make pilgrimages to churches of
St. George, so do the Kizilbash Kurds of the Dersim to Armenian
churches of St. Sergius.[90]
As regards Christianity, Khidr is only one of many points of
contact in the Shia heterodoxies. The Kizilbash Kurds, for example,
hold that Christ was reincarnated in Ali, that the Twelve Apostles
and the Twelve Imams are identical, and that St. Peter and Paul are
the same persons as Hasan and Husain.[91] The Albanian Bektashi
equate their own saint Sari Saltik to Saint Nicolas and other
Christian saints.[92] Such points of contact may be regarded either
as inheritances from Christianity or introduced with the deliberate
purpose of conciliating Christians to a form of Islam. It is obvious
that at all times conversion from Christianity to Islam has been
aided by the considerable material advantages to be gained from it.
The Shia sects to which we have referred are not forbidden outwardly
to observe Sunni forms, and frequently do so; at the same time their
real religion, with its many natural or artificial points of contact
with Christianity, offers a compromise which spares the
susceptibilities of the convert and may well have been the refuge of
many harassed Christian tribes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End Notes
[1] Sale’s Koran, p. 222 (ch. xviii): for the literary side of the
Khidr legends see Vollers, in Archiv f. Religionsw. 1909, pp.
234-84; Friedländcr, Die Chadhirlegende und der Alexanderraman.
[2] Le Strange, E. Caliphate, p. 175; Hanauer, Folk-Lore of the
Holy Land, pp. 51 ff.; Migne, Dict. des Apacryphes, ii, 627.
[3] See Friedländer, op. cit.; Paul Meyer, Alexandre le Grand, ii
175 ff.; Spiegel, Die Alexander sage, p. 29.
[4] Le Strange, Palestine, p. 21.
[5] R. Dussaud, Nosairis, pp. 128-35.
[6] A. Grant (Nestarians, p. 319) gives the 24th Nishan (probably
by mistake for the 23rd) as the date of the Yezidi spring festival.
[7] Petermann, Reisen im Orient, i, 147.
[8] See above, pp. 145,148
[9] e.g. there is an Armenian church of ‘Choddre Elias’ at Urfa
(Nie-buhr. Voyage en Arabie, ii, 330). For the Sinai Arabs’
veneration of Khidr-Elias see Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, p. 57;
for the combination at Samaria see Conder in P.E.F., Q.S. for 1877,
p. 96. For the traditions of Mount Cannel see d’Arvieux, Memoires,
ii, 294, 306, 314, 417; de Breves, Voyages, p. 68; Carmoly,
Itineraires, pp. 144, 448-9; Bordeaux Pilgrim, in Chateaubriand,
Itiner, iii, 240; Goujon, Terre Sainte, pp. 63-5.
[10] For the church of St. George at Lydda, which was partly left
to the Greeks and partly transformed into a mosque, see Robinson,
Palestine, iii, 52; Fabri, Evagat., i, 219; Goujon, Terre Sainte, p.
107; Ludolf, De Itinere, p. 50; d’Arvieux, Memoires, ii, 32-3; de
Breves, Voyages, p. 100; V. Guerin, Descr. de la Pales. I, i, 324;
Stern, Die moderne Türkei, p. 170. Two sixth-century travellers
mention the tomb and martyrdom of St. George at Lydda; see Antoninus
of Piacenza, De Lads Sanctis, ed. Tobler, p. 28, xxv (cf. Lucius,
Anfänge des Heiligenk., p. 240), and Theodore in Tobler, Palaest.
Descr., p. 40.
[11] e.g. at Beyrut (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, ii, 382; V.
Guerin, Descr. de la Pales. I, iii, 311-13); at Banias (Kitchener in
P.E.F; Q.S. for 1877, p. 172; Burckhardt, Syria, p. 38; cf. Stanley,
Sinai, pp. 398-9); near Jerusalem (see below, p. 326, n. 6); in
Albania (Durham, Burden of the Balkans, p. 208). See especially
Rycaut, Ottoman Empire, p. 68.
[12] It is curious that, while in the West legend relates the
rescue by St. George of a princess from a dragon, this is by no
means the case generally in the East. Thus, in the Byzantine
Painters’ Guide, translated by Didron, Iconographie Chretienne, pp.
369-71, no dragon-killing type is given for the saint. Early western
travellers to the East mention his martyrdom and his burial at Lydda
(Diospolis), but say nothing of his dragon fight (see, e.g.
Antoninus of Piacenza, ed. Tobler, p. 28, xxv, and the similarly
sixth-century Theodore, in Tobler’s Palaest. Descr., p. 40). Their
silence is especially notable as Lydda is so near Joppa with its
traditions of Perseus and the dragon he slew. The bones of the
dragon were shown there in the Christian era: cf. Jerome, Epist., p.
108, and Josephus, Bell. Jud. iii, 7. According to Amelineau (Contes
de l’Egypte Chretienne, Introd., p. liii) the saint is represented
in Coptic iconography as a horseman with a lance but no dragon, the
slaying of the dragon being foreign to the Coptic legend. On the
other hand, St. Michael slaying the dragon is pictured on horseback
(Amelineau attributes the ultimate confusion to Syrian painters
working in Egypt, and holds that Michael, not George, replaces the
Egyptian Horus). The Martyre de Saint Georges current among the
Copts (Amelineau, op. cit. ii, 167 ff.) resembles the early Acta of
the saint as given by Baring Gould in his Curious Myths, 2nd Series,
pp. 9 ff. The Acta place St. George’s birth and martyrdom under
Dacian, emperor of the Persians, and at Melitene: among other
tortures, a pillar is laid on him. The Copts hold that St. George,
whom they associate with Lydda (Amelineau, ii, 208-9), was martyred
by King ‘Tatien’ (Amelineau, ii, 167), who is several times called a
‘dragon’ (Amelineau, ii, 171, 198, &c.: cf. Hasluck, Letters, p.
193); one torture is to roll a column over his body (Amelineau, ii,
174). A reminiscence of this torture is found in his church at
Beyrut, where a column is rolled on patients whose backs ache
(Pococke, Voyages, iii, 275). The Copts celebrate St. George of
‘Melitr’ on 18 April (Amelineau, ii, 153). As in the Coptic legends,
there is no mention in the Acta of the dragon fight. In fact,
according to Baring Gould (op. cit., p. 31), the first mention of
the princess and the dragon is in de Voragine’s Golden Legend, that
is, not earlier than the end of the thirteenth century. Thereafter
it is normally mentioned by travellers to Beyrut (e.g. Ludolf (c.
1350), De Itinere, p. 38; d’Anglure, Saint Voyage (1395), p. 10;
Poloner (1422), in Tobler, Palaest. Descr., p. 259), and to Rama
(e.g. della Valle, Voyages, ii, 19; Pococke, Voyages, iii, 15). It
then appears to have gained general currency in the East as in the
West (cf. Carnoy and Nicolaides, Trad. de I’Asie Mineure, p. 80,
where a prince replaces St. George; cf. also modern Greek
iconography). As, therefore, its appearance in the East seems not
anterior to the Crusades, while it is most prominent at Beyrut,
where the Crusaders were strong, and is not found at Lydda in spite
of Lydda’s proximity to Joppa, the conjecture may be hazarded that
the Crusaders imported this part of the legend, on which point see
further below, p. 660, n. 3. Of this an echo may be preserved in the
belief held by Moslems that St. George was the patron saint of the
Crusaders (Conder, in P.E.F., Q.S. for 1877, p. 98; cf. Hutton,
English Saints, p. 88, for his traditional appearance to the
Crusaders before Antioch). In virtue of his prowess against dragons
St. George is, like S. Michael, a famous healer of diseased minds;
see below, p. 326, n. 2.
[13] P. 48
[14] On him see below, p. 494, n. 1.
[15] This is evidently a trait borrowed from the Christian St.
George, whose horse is invariably depicted as white or grey, while
that ofS. De-metrius is red. For an apparition of a knight on a grey
horse (evidently Khidr) in a modern Anatolian folk-story see Carnoy
and Nicolaides, Trad. de l’Asie Minewe, p. 5. Jenghiz Khan was
visited in a dream by a knight armed all in white and sitting on a
white horse; the knight foretold his future greatness (Mandeville,
ed. Wright, p. 238). St. Claude, a military saint and martyr of
Antioch, who is apparently connected in Egypt with Assiut, appears
on a white horse to chastise a sacrilegious emir (Amelineau, Contes
de I’Egypte Chretienne, ii, 50).
[16] George of Hungary, De Moribus Turcoriim (first printed c.
1480), cliap. xv (see further below, p. 498). Brcuning probably
copies from George of Hungary (Orient. K.eyss (1579), p. 106:
‘Chiridilles ruffen auch müde unnd matte Wandersleute unnd Pilger
an’). It is perhaps worth while to cite in this connection Petis de
la Croix’s 1001 Jours, p. 267, where a young man suddenly appears to
a princess in a jinn’s castle and is greeted by her with the words,
“Je ne saurais croire que vous soyez un homme. Vous êtes sans doute
le prophete Elie?”
[17] Cf.,in the Travels of the Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, the
author’s Invocation of St. George as ‘the rider upon sea and land’
(tr. Belfour, i, 12) and the incident, often depicted in his ikons,
of his rescue of a Christian slave from a Moslem master in a distant
land (cf. Polites, Παραδόσεις, p. 798, quoting Spratt, Crete, i,
345-6). Hottinger (Hist. Orient., p. 480), quoting Busbecq, says
Turks made fun of this slave as figured in ikons. Didron,
Iconographie Chretienne, p. 372, notes the presence of the slave,
but could hear of no explanation of his presence.
[18] Vollers, loc. cit., p. 262; Friedländer, Chadhirlegende, p.
119. See, also Hammer’s extracts from Mejir-ed-Din in Mines de
l’Orient, ii, 96; Goldziher, in Rev. Hist. Relig. ii (1880), p. 324;
Lane, Mod. Egyptians, i, 293, n.
[19] Jaba, Recueil de Recits Kourdes, p. 93.
[20] For the marine side of Khidr see Clermont-Ganneau in Rev.
Arch. xxxii (1876), pp. 196-204, 372-99: his special marine
associations at Suadyeh (Dussaud, Nosairis, p. 133) are doubtless
due to the position of the sanctuary (at the mouth of the Orontes).
[21] Sestini, Lettres, iii, 234; cf. Le Bruyn, Voyage (Delft,
1700), p. 177. Cf. also d’Arvieux, Memoires, ii, 315.
[22] Mukaddasi, ap. Clermont-Ganneau, Inc. cit., p. 388.
[23] See e.g. Spiegel, Die Alexandersage, p. 29.
[24] I Kings, xviii, 41-5; M. Hamilton, in B.S.A. xiii, 354, and
Greek Saints, p. 20.
[25] An exception is to be found in Turkish Athens, where the
rain prayer was made at ‘the columns’ [of the Olympieum] (Hobhouse,
Albania, i, 323; J. Gait, Letters, p. 167; Michaud and Poujoulat,
Corresp. d’Orient, i, 161). The open-air pulpit at ‘the columns’ ii
shown in L. Dupre’s plate and mentioned by Randolph (Marea, p. 23).
[26] Evliya, Travels, I, ii, 89.
[27] Pococke, Descr. of the East, i, 36.
[28] M. Walker, Old Tracks, p. 69; cf. Evliya, Travels, ii, 234,
who seems to regard the place as the grave of a human saint named
Khidr.
[29] Bula Khatun, whose name betrays her sex, may well have been
the lady who built the cupola, perhaps as a prayer place for women.
For this practice cf. Burton, Arabian Nights, i, 74 (and note): ‘She
builded for herself a cenotaph wherein to mourn, and set on its
centre a dome under which showed a tomb like a Santon’s sepulchre’.
Tliese cenotaphs might be ‘dedicated’ as memorials. At Baghdad in
recent times a pasha’s wife built a cupola in honour of the daughter
of Noah (Nie-buhr. Voyage en Arabie, ii, 215). Among ignorant
populations such cenotaphs easily come to be accepted as actual
tombs (cf. Niebuhr, op. cit; ii, 237, where a cenotapli at Helle,
built in honour of the Prophet Elias, is thought his tomb). [At
Kastoria in West Macedonia two ruined open turbes in the Moslem
cemetery are said to be either the tombs of Janissaries or shelters
for mourners.—M, M. H.]
[30] For the general position of Khidr in the religious folk-lore
of Syria see Einsler, in Z.D.P.V. xvii (1894), pp. 42 ff.; Hanauer,
Folk-Lore of the Holy Land, pp. 51 ff.
[31] Robinson, Palestine, ii, 321, 325; Einsler, loc. cit., p.
69; Balden-sperger in P.E.F., Q.S. for 1893, p. 208, cf. p. 36;
Hanauer, op. cit., p. 52; d’Arvieux, Memoires, ii, 231; Tobler,
Topogr. van Jerusalem, ii, 501 ff., who quotes the Anon. Allot, as
already (c. 1400) mentioning the chain, beating with which formed
part of the cure; Thevenot, Voyages, ii, 639; Le Bruyn, Voyage
(Delft, 1700), p. 277; Fabri, Evagat. ii, 187; Guerin, Descr. de la
Pales. I, iii, 312. The Copts’ convent of St. George in Jerusalem
also possesses a chain of the saint which cures lunacy; see Tobler,
op. cit. i, 370-1, and Tischendorf, Terre-Sainte, p. 204.
[32] Survey of West Palestine, v, 257, and P.E.F., Q.S. for 1877,
p. 98.
[33] Robinson, Palestine, iii, 412 f.; cf. Goujon, Terre Sainte,
p. 56, and La Roque, Voyage de Syrie, i, 16. The fourth-century S.
Paula mentions the tower of S. Elias at ‘Sarepta’ (Tobler, Palaest.
Descr., p. 13), as does the sixth-century Theodore (Tobler, Palaest.
Oescr., p. 42); cf. Antoninus of Piacenza, ed. Tobler, p. 4, ii.
[34] Le Strange, Palestine, p. 512.
[35] Ibid., p. 164; cf. Tobler, Topogr. van Jerusalem, i, 505,
529; Mejir-ed-Din, tr. v. Hammer in Mines de l’Orient, ii, 90;
Hanauer, Folk-Lore of the Holy Land, p. 61.
[36] Le Strange, Palestine, pp. 253, 264. Monconys (Voyages, i,
340) and Pococke (Descr. of the East, ii, 119) mention a ‘tomb of
St. George’ at Damascus, but this is rather St. George the porter,
for whom see also Porter, Damascus, p. 16, and Thevenot, Voyages,
iii, 49. Khidr is said to attend prayers in the Great Mosque (Kitab
of Menasik-el-Haj, tr. Rianchi, p. 36, in Rec. de Voyages, ii, 116).
[37] Tavernier, Voyages (London, 1678), p. 86, mentions a chapel
of Khidr frequented by Christians. A ‘tomb’ is cited by Massignon in
Rev. Hist. Relig. lviii (1908), p. 336.
[38] Hammer-Hellen, Hist. Emp. Olt. iv, 442; cf. Sherif-ed-Din,
Hist. de Timour, ir. Petis de la Croix, ii, 262. For the tomb of
‘Nebbe Gurgis’ at Mosul see Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabic, ii, 291, and
for his martyrdom there Masudi (quoted by J. Friedrich in Sitzb.
Sayr. Akad., Ph.-Ph. Cl., II, ii, l8l) and Baring Gould, Curious
Myths, 2nd Series, p. 11.
[39] Stanley (Sinai, 268) makes some interesting remarks on the
alleged tomb of Khidr at Surafend. ‘Close to the sea-shore’, he
says, ‘stands one of these sepulchral chapels dedicated to
“El-Khudr”, the Mohamedan representative of Elijah. There is no tomb
inside, only hangings before a recess. This variation from the usual
type of Mussulman sepulchres is “because El-Khudr is not yet dead;
he flies round and round the world, and those chapels are built
wherever he has appeared”.’ A miraculous light was seen, added the
peasants who gave Stanley the above information, every Thursday
evening and Friday morning at the chapel. This miraculous light at
tombs frequently figures in legend: see above, p. 254. For his
association with Surafend see also d’Arvieux, Memoires, ii, 4.
[40] For Khidr’s connection with the building of St. Sophia see
above, pp. 10-11. For his appearance there in the reign of Selim II
see Evliya, ii, 61.
[41] Cuinet, Turquie d’Asie, iv, 640; Jardin des Mosquees in
Hammer-Hellen, Hist. Emp. Ott. xviii, 90 (749). For this mosque see
above, p.273.
[42] Jardin des Mosquees, p. 30 (312). Aatik All Pasha was a
vizir and died in 1511. It is a curious coincidence, if no more,
that in the Valideh Atik mosque and in Aatik All’s mosque there
should be a station of Khidr, the only Moslem saint who goes on
horseback. It would be interesting to know whether an alleged
footprint of his horse were shown in these mosques.
[43] Cuinet, loc. cit.
[44] Carnoy and Nicolaides, Folklore de Constantinople, pp. 98
ff.
[45] Diaries, p. 248; cf. Jacob, Beitrage, p. 15, and Rycaut,
Ottoman Empire, p. 69.
[46] Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, i, 393.
[47] Von Hahn, Alban. Studien, iii, 59.
[48] Above, p. 48.
[49] Evliya, Travels, ii, 230; Ainsworth, Travels, i, 133; see
also below, p. 449.
[50] Ibn Batuta, tr. Sanguinetti, ii, 349.
[51] Von Diest, Tilsit nach Angora, pl. iii.
[52] R. Kiepert’s Kleinasien.
[53] Evliya, Travels, ii, 211.
[54] R. Kiepert’s Kleinasien.
[55] Von Hammer, Osman. Dichtkunst, i, 63.
[56] R. Philippson’s Karte des W. Kleinasiens.
[57] R. Kiepert’s Kleinasien.
[58] Ibid.
[59] Carte du Bassin du Yechil Irmak. R. Kiepert gives the name
as Hidirnal.
[60] Cf. the use of χιξύρης (= holy man) by the Greeks of Silleh
near Konia (Dawkins, Mod. Greek, p. 288).
[61] Trans. Vict. Inst. xxxix (1907), p. 156; cf. de Jerphanion
in Byz.. Zeit. xx, 493, where the cult of Elias at the site (Ebimi)
of a temple of Zeus Stratios (Cumont, Stud. Pont. ii, 172) is
identified as a Khidrlik.
[62] Elias, on the perfectly good ground of his biblical history,
is the saint of rain (cf. Shishmanova, Legendes Relig. Bulg; pp. 134
ff.), and is the most popular hill-saint in Greek lands, not because
he replaces Helios, the ancient sun-god, but because of his original
connection with Carmel, where his memory is still alive (cf.
Pierotti, Legendes Racontees, p. 43; Goujon, Terre Sainte, pp. 63-5;
d’Arvieux, Memoires, ii, 294, 306, 417; de Breves, Voyages, p. 68).
In the same way the other common (but far less common) hill
dedications in Greece are connected with Tabor as Athos and the
Great Monastery of the Meteora, or with Olivet as Olympus. The idea
that Elias chapels were survivals of Helios worship (for which see,
e.g., Petit de Julleville, Recherches en Grece, in Arch. des Miss.,
2nd ser., v (1869), p. 519; Deschamps, La Grece d’Aujourd’hui, p.
322; Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore, p. 44; M. Hamilton (Greek
Saints, p. 19) was opposed already by Lenormant (Voie Éleusin., pp.
451-2) in 1867, and seems not to be known to Buchon in 1843, though
in general he is very ready to find ancient survivals in modern
Greece. The theory is based partly on nomenclature and partly on the
art-types of Helios and Elias. It is true that Helios looks rather
like Elias and that ‘Hλίου sounds very like ’Ελίουv. But the usual
genitive of ’Ελίας is ’Ελία. It is also true that there is a certain
similarity in their art-types, Helios being the charioteer of the
sun, and Elias being received up into heaven in a chariot of fire.
But art types are not of great importance in rustic sanctuaries, and
both Helios and Ellas are more frequently represented in other ways,
while, if the chariot be thought away, there remain the opposite
types of an ephebe and a bearded ascete. Solar survivals more
probably belong to St. John, whose feast is the summer solstice, his
birthday being six months before that of Christ (Luke, i, 26), which
is the winter solstice. Thus, when Monte Cassino was founded, in
529, St. Benedict is said to have found there a much-frequented
temple of Apollo, which he replaced by a church of St. Martin, the
destroyer of idols, replacing Apollo’s altar by a church of St.
John, the solstice saint (Beugnot, Destr. du Paganisme, ii, 285,
quoting the nearly contemporary Leo of Ostia). That is, St. Benedict
‘disinfected’ the locality by building the church of St. Martin and
‘transferred’ the solstice festival to St. John. St. Ellas comes
rather late for a solstice saint, being celebrated on 19 July; it
is, however, true that midsummer fires are lit on St. Ellas’ day in
the chapel of St. Elias on the summit of Taygetos (M. Hamilton,
Greek Saints, p. 20), but this is an isolated case not justifying a
general rule. It is also to be noted that Helios was never a popular
god in Greece at all under that name, except at Rhodes, where he is
thought identical with Zeus Atabyrios; in modern Rhodes Mt. Ataira
retains the name and Mt. St. Elias is a separate peak. Nor was
Apollo in classical (as distinct from Homeric) Greece addicted to
mountain-tops. Survivalists attempt to turn this difficulty by
referring to the late Roman solar cult Introduced by Aurelian, the
conqueror of Palmyra, from Syria. Rut this was a Syrian city cult,
favoured by a Roman emperor in Rome, and not associated with hills
or country. Survivalists also quote the equally late solar cult of
Mithras, which was derived from Persia, had a great vogue in Rome,
and is associated with the frequent Roman coin-legend SOLI INVICTO
COMITI. But the Mithras cult does not seem to have had much vogue in
Greece, and it was essentially a popular cult particularly affected
by soldiers and developed, not in rustic places, but in towns and
camps. The typical Mithraeurn, moreover, was a cave or underground
chapel made to resemble a cave. The hill-cult of Elias is unknown in
the West, where these solar cults were prominent, and it seems to be
found only once in South Italy (near Cotrone, Baedeker, St. Italy,
p. 256), which remained long Greek (Mt. St. Elias in Alaska is due
to Russian influence deriving from Greek practice), Elias is still a
hill-saint in Syria (e.g. on Carmel, as above; on Sinai, see
Tischendorf, Terre-Sainte, p. 76; Stanley, Sinai, p. 75; Palmer,
Desert of the Exodus, p. 57; elsewhere, see Tobler, Pataest. Descr.,
p. 8, and Topogr. van Jerusalem, ii, 712; Stanley, Sinai, p. 251;
Pococke, Voyages, iii, 263, 394), where the influence of Greek
language and custom can scarcely have been important. That is, in
Syria, a country where Greek was never the language and ‘Hλιος meant
nothing, Elias is associated with three mountains which were well
within the range of Christian pilgrims. Further, the chief and
characteristic hill-god of antiquity was Zeus the cloud-gatherer
(found on Athos, Olympus, Dicte, Anchesmos; cf. Lykaios, Atabyrios),
the corresponding hill-goddess being Cybele-Rhea (found on Ida,
Dindymon, &c.). Zeus the cloud-gatherer would be a not unnatural
predecessor of Elias, in which connection it is curious to find in
Trede, Heidentum (1880-91), i, 316, that ‘der Heilige Elias hatte
kurzlich sein Fest [at Naples] und sah man seine Statue mit einem
Rad, in der Hand den Blitz des Zeus’. And finally, as Elias chapels
are generally connected with villages, though on their outskirts,
and many villages are recent or not on ancient sites, most Elias
chapels are probably recent and no survival of any sort.
[63] Cf. the Kurdish tale of the ‘Wishing Rock’ (in Jaba’s
Recueil de Recits Kourdes, xxxvi), where a naked man praying is
taken for Khidr. The ‘places of Khidr’ seem generally regarded as
praying places of the saint (cf. Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, i, 393).
[64] On this subject see d’Herbelot, Bibl. Orientate, s.vv.
Khedher, Elia; von Hammer in Theol. Studien wid Kritiken, 1831, pp.
829-32; Clermont-Ganneau, Horus et St. Georges, in Rev. Arch. xxxii
(1876), pp. 196-204, 372-99; Friedländer, Chadhirlegende, passim.
[See also Hastings’ Encycl. of Relig, s.v. Khidr, for an article by
Friedländer, and s.v. Saints and Martyrs, p. 81, no. 6, for an
article by Masterman; my husband did not live to see either.—M. M.
H.]
[65] [It is to be noted here that my husband did not regard this
chapter as sufficiently advanced for publication, and that it is
published on my responsibility for the sake of its material.—M. M.
H.]
[66] Sale’s edition, pp. 222 ff.
[67] See below, p. 699.
[68] Polano, Selections from the Talmud, pp. 313 ff.
[69] De Locis Sanctis, ed. Tobler, p. 44, xli.
[70] This opinion I share: it seems preferable to that of
Friedrich Tucli (Antoninus Martyr, p. 39), who thinks only one
‘oratorium’ existed, the attribution being changed, for no good
reason, from Moses to Elias.
[71] Migne, Diet. des Apocrypha, ii, 627, drawing on Weil, Bibl.
Leg.
[72] See Paul Meyer, Alexandre le Grand, ii, 176; Spiegel, Die
Alexandersage, p. 29.
[73] Enoch was held by some Jewish thought to have been an early
incarnation of Elias, neither having died. The Talmud records
Enoch’s ascent to Heaven in a chariot of fire (Polano’s Selections
from the Talmud, p. 21). Elias and Enoch are both in the terrestrial
Paradise (Villotte, Voyages, p. 56). In medieval French tradition
‘un nomme Enoc’ finds the Fountain of Life, bathes in it against
Alexander’s orders, and is punished (Meyer, up. cit. ii, 175).
Masudi identified Elias with Enoch (Goldziher in Rev. Hist. Relig.
ii, 324).
[74] On him see Hottinger, Hist. Orient., pp. 87-9, with reff.;
Eders-lieim, Life of Jesus, ii, 703; Goldziher, loc. cit.
[75] ‘El Khudr’ converts the heathen blacks (Lane, Thousand and
One Nights, p. 312).
[76] Edersheim, ii, 705.
[77] Migne, Diet. des Apocryphes, ii, 219 ff.
[78] Wiener, Sippurim; Sammlung Jüdischer Volkssagen, pp. 6 ff.
[79] e.g. Masudi, quoted by Goldziher, loc. cit.
[80] On Khidr as the Kutb see Goldziher, loc. cit., and Lane,
Mod. Egyptians, i, 293; the latter adds that many Moslems say Elijah
was the kutb of his time.
[81] Cf. Pierotti, Legendes Racontees, p. 22.
[82] Goldziher, loc. cit
[83] Hastings’ Encycl. of Relig. s. v. Elijah.
[84] I Kings, xviii, 12. On this see Lane, Mod. Egyptians, i,
293.
[85] For Masudi’s account of this see J. Friedrich in Sitzb.
Bayr. Akad., Ph.-Ph. Cl., II, ii, 181. Masudi places the martyrdom
at Mosul, where Niebuhr notes (Voyage en Arabic, ii, 291) the
existence of his tomb. The Copts also have a tradition of St.
George’s resuscitations (Ameli-neau, Contes de l’Egypte Chretienne,
ii, 213).
[86] It is not likely that such a fusion could have been made
except in a religion which forbade the making of images: Greeks, for
example, could scarcely have done so, cf. above, p. 49, n. 2.
[87] So Beidawi, quoted by Hottinger, Hist. Orient., p. 87.
[88] Cf. d’Arvieux, Memoires, ii, 314: ‘ils ne nomment jamais ce
St. Prophete Elle, qu’ils n’y ajoutent 1’epithete de Khdr, qui veut
dire verd, verdoyant, qui est le symbole de la vie, parce qu’ils
sont persuadez que ce Prophete est encore vivant’. Cf. also the
Memoires, ii, 315.
[89] See below, pp. 699-700.
[90] Molyneux-Seel, in Geog. Journ. xliv (1914), p. 66; for the
equation of Khidr to St. Sergius among the Anatolian Kizilbash see
Grenard in Journ. Asiat. iii (1004), p. 518, and for Armenian
confusion between St. Sergius and George see, among others, P. della
Valle, Viaggio, ii, 258. It seems to me possible that there was a
young military frontier saint George known before the Acta of the (Arian)
George of Alexandria became current. Melitene, where one version of
the Life places his birth (Baring Gould, Curious Myths, 2nd series,
p. 9; cf. St. George of Melite in Amelineau, Conies de l’Egypte
Chretienne, ii, 153) is a typical frontier place. Again, at Mosul,
another frontier town, Niebuhr remarks his tomb (Voyage en Arabic,
ii, 291), a Moslem tradition ascribing his death to the king of
Mosul (Masudi, quoted by J. Friedrich in Sitz.b. Bayr. Akad., Ph.-Ph.
Cl., 1899, II, ii, 181). St. Sergius, for whom see Lucius, Anfänge
des Heiligenk., pp. 234 ff., is clearly a border saint, so that this
may be the point of contact between him and the soldier George.
[91] Molyneux-Seel, loc. cit., pp. 65 f.; above, p. 145.
