Russian hospice. The traditional tomb of Machpelah has been venerated
alike by Jew, Christian, and Mohammedan. The church built over it in
Byzantine days and restored by the Crusaders to Christian worship has
been transformed into a mosque, but its sanctity has remained unchanged.
It stands in the middle of a court, enclosed by a solid wall of massive
stones, the lower courses of which were cut and laid in their places in
the age of Herod. The fanatical Moslem is unwilling that any but himself
should enter the sacred precincts, but by climbing the cliff behind the
town it is possible to look down upon the mosque and its sacred
enclosure, and see the whole building spread out like a map below the
feet.

More than one English traveller has been permitted to enter the mosque,
and we are now well acquainted with the details of its architecture. But
the rock-cut tomb in which the bodies of the patriarchs are supposed to
have lain has never been examined by the explorer. It is probable,
however, that were he to penetrate into it he would find nothing to
reward his pains. During the long period that Hebron was in Christian
hands the cave was more than once visited by the pilgrim. But we look in
vain in the records which have come down to us for an account of the
relics it has been supposed to contain. Had the mummified corpses of the
patriarchs been preserved in it, the fact would have been known to the
travellers of the Crusading age. (See the _Zeitschrift des deutschen
Palästina-Vereins_, 1895.)

Like the other tombs in its neighbourhood, the cave of Machpelah has
doubtless been opened and despoiled at an early epoch. We know that
tombs were violated in Egypt long before the days of Abraham, in spite
of the penalties with which such acts of sacrilege were visited, and the
cupidity of the Canaanite was no less great than that of the Egyptian.