Bethlehem is a long town of solidly-built stone houses, crowning the summit of two knolls, connected by a lower saddle, on a white chalk ridge, with steep declivities to the north and south. The monastery and basilica are at the east end of the town, overlooking the northern valley. The population of 5000 souls is almost entirely Christian, and the inhabitants are remarkable for their enterprise and energy in trade. The contrast between Bethlehem and Hebron is very striking; it is the contrast between Christianity and Islam, between the vitality of the religion of progress and civilisation and the hopeless stagnation of a fatalistic creed. Hebron is a city of the past, wrapped in contemplation of its sacred tombs. Bethlehem is a thriving modern town--the birthplace of a faith that looks forward rather than back.
The Church of the Virgin now stands inside a fortress monastery, in which Latin, Greek, and Armenian monks find a common retreat. The basilica was erected, according to cotemporary evidence, by order of Constantine, and is thus the oldest church in Palestine, and perhaps in the world. It has escaped destruction on every occasion when other churches in Palestine were overthrown, and the greater part of the work is stated, by competent authority, to be of the original design. In the eleventh century, when the mad Caliph Hakim destroyed the Holy Sepulchre churches, the Bethlehem basilica was spared; in 1099 the Crusaders sent a detachment of troops to protect it and it thus again escaped, nor was it destroyed in the thirteenth century, although threatened by the Moslems. In this basilica, therefore, we have the only undisputed erection of the time of Constantine in Palestine, and its value cannot be overrated.
Architectural authorities are of opinion that our information as to the progress of Byzantine art in the East is still very imperfect. M. de Vogüé has done much to elucidate the subject, in his work on the great buildings of northern Syria, many of which are dated with exactitude. In Palestine we have two valuable examples, one of fourth century, and one of sixth century architecture--the basilica at Bethlehem, and Justinian's fortress on Gerizim, with which we may compare ruins of unknown date; and in the first we find M. de Vogüé's opinion confirmed, with respect to the slowness with which Byzantine art developed in style in the East, in comparison with the more rapid progress of the western Romanesque.