THE TEMPLE AND CALVARY.
The subject of Jerusalem topography is too large to be minutely treated
in the present volume; and I hope to be able to write a separate work on
it at some future time. The following chapter is devoted to the two
questions of primary interest--the Temple and Calvary.
The sources of our information as to the Temple are two--the first
Josephus, the second the Talmud. The first is simply a general and
pictorial account; the second is a laborious and minute description by
men in whose eyes the subject was all-important; and the tract of the
Mishna, called Middoth, or “measurements,” gives the details of
arrangement, in some parts, with an exactitude which is rare among Jews,
and which allows of plans being made. We have also this great
advantage--that all the scattered accounts in the Talmud have been
summarised and arranged by the famous Maimonides, “the second Moses,” a
man of great ability and thoroughly trustworthy, and that every
statement he makes in his systematic account of the Holy House can be
traced back to the original passages hidden away in the Talmud.
While, therefore, it is from Josephus that we get a general idea of the
appearance and arrangements of the Temple, it is from the Talmud, and
from Maimonides, that we obtain that exact information which enables us
to make a plan of the Holy House and of its courts.
A considerable initial difficulty arises, for Josephus makes the area of
the Temple to have been a square furlong, or 625 feet side, and the
Talmud gives it as 500 cubits, which, as will be seen, is probably 666
feet; but the Haram has a mean measurement of 982 feet by 1565 feet--a
trapezoid, containing an area of thirty-five acres, or three and a half
times the area given by the Talmud. Thus the question arises, has the
present boundary any connection with that of the Temple? And if it has,
where are we to place the smaller area within the larger?
There are many indications leading to the conclusion that the present
outer wall of the Haram is the old boundary of the Temple Hill. In the
south-west corner we have the remains of the great bridge which Josephus
so often mentions. The south wall is trisected by the line of the two
underground portals, answering to the two Huldah or “Mole-gates” of the
Temple. Captain Warren’s excavations have also shown us that the south
wall is probably all of one date and in one piece, with a “Master
Course” six feet high, except near the west, where, for over 200 feet,
this feature is wanting, and where the stones below the original surface
existing at the time of the great bridge are less finished, being
probably never visible. In the south-east corner, where the stones are
smoothly finished down to the rock, are the Phœnician mason’s marks,
denoting the courses; and from this corner to the Golden Gate the
masonry is apparently of the same character. The junction of the Ophel
wall at the south-east corner serves to identify this angle of the
Haram, with the corresponding angle of Herod’s Temple enclosure. The
west wall has been examined for nearly half its length, and proves to be
of the same style as that on the south-east. Finally, in 1873, I found
the same masonry, in the north corner of the west wall, reaching up to a
higher level than that at which it was previously known in any other
part of the Haram, and founded on rock. The natural conclusion is that
all this beautiful and gigantic masonry is of one period, and formed one
area. The question is, to what period does it belong?
I may, perhaps, insist upon an indication of date connected with the
dressing of the stones, which I have never seen brought to bear on the
question. Drafted masonry, imitating that on these walls, was used by
Byzantine builders and by Crusading masons; but they never dressed their
stones in the manner in which those of the Temple are dressed. This is
distinctive and unique. It consists of a careful cross-chiselling, on
the draft, and for a depth of three inches round the margin of the
raised part of the stone--a regular “criss-cross” pattern, never found
in the later masonry. This dressing also occurs _on the stones of the
voussoirs of the great Tyropæon bridge_, an indication which I have
never seen noticed before. The bridge and the wall then are, to all
appearance, of one period; the lower courses of the wall are proved, by
excavation, to be _in situ_, and thus the existing line must, I
conclude, be referred to the time of the bridge. No one has disputed as
to when this bridge was built. Captain Warren has shown that an older
arch fell, and a pavement was made over it, before the present ruined
bridge was built; thus the present arch is generally thought to be not
earlier than Herod’s time; and hence the Haram wall is attributable,
according to the indications obtained from its masonry (as was long ago
pointed out by the Comte de Vogüé, arguing from different premises), to
the time when Herod rebuilt the work of Solomon, doubling the area
enclosed (Wars. i. 21, 1), and in part, if not altogether, “took away
the old foundations” (Ant. xv. 11, 3).
On the north other important indications exist which require careful
consideration. Josephus tells us that a tower called Baris (probably
meaning “the castle”) was built by Hyrcanus and repaired by Herod. It
was on a hill which originally joined that of Bezetha, but was severed
by an artificial trench. The fortress was re-named Antonia; it stood on
a rock fifty cubits high (B. J. v. 5, 8), and at the north-west corner
of the Temple, which it commanded, being on the “top of the hill” (B.
J. vi. 1, 5). Now there is just such a rock-fortress in the north-west
part of the Haram. It is a great scarp, with vertical faces on the south
and north, standing up forty feet above the interior court, and
separated from the north-eastern hill of Jerusalem by a ditch fifty
yards broad, in which are now the “Twin Pools”--the Bethesda of St.
Jerome. This block of rock is “the top of the hill,” and occupies a
length of 350 feet along the course of the north wall of the Haram. No
other such scarp exists in or near the enclosure of the High Sanctuary.
Can we, then, hesitate to place Antonia here?
The foregoing observations knit together the various parts of the Haram
enclosure, as constituting a single building of one period. The east
wall, from the Golden Gate southwards, is in one piece with the south
wall; the south-west corner has the remains of Herod’s bridge
contemporary with the wall; the west wall is all of one style with the
rest; at the south-east angle the Ophel wall is found joining the east
wall of the enclosure as described by Josephus, and the north-west
corner is occupied by Antonia.
But we have still the north-east corner of the Haram to consider, and
here we have, I think, indications that it was not originally part of
the Temple enclosure. There is no rock north-east of the present
platform for a great depth: a valley runs across this part of the area,
and even the present surface is very low. It is also ascertained that
the east wall has, near the north-east corner, a character distinct from
the remainder, and much rougher, and that it runs beyond the present
north-east corner of the Haram without a break.
Nor can it, I think, well be doubted, that the north wall of the Haram,
east of the rock scarp, is less ancient than the other walls. In the
first place, the vaults in this part, which Captain Warren explored, and
which I also visited, are Crusading or Saracenic work; they are of
masonry, with groined roofs and pointed arches, not of rock, like the
great passages under the Platform. In the second place, the north wall
consists of at least two thicknesses of rough small masonry, which was
once covered with the plaster of the great pool called Birket Israîl.
This masonry is certainly more modern than the time of Herod, and the
pool is not clearly mentioned, in any account of Jerusalem before the
twelfth century, about which period, perhaps, it was first constructed.
Had a fine wall existed on the north side of the Haram, surely the
cement would have been spread directly over it, and not over a facing of
inferior stonework far more liable to leak. A boring through the wall
would here be most valuable as an exploration, but, even without it,
there is I think ample evidence that the north-east corner of the Haram,
east of Antonia, north of the Golden Gate, is not a part of Herod’s
enclosure, as its walls and subterranean vaults are distinct in
character.
Assuming the outer boundary of the Temple Hill, to have been thus
defined, as coinciding with the Haram walls except on the north-east, we
have next to explain the statements of the Talmud, which make the
“Mountain of the House” 500 cubits by 500.
The explanation is not difficult. Maimonides tells us, in a passage of
which Dr. Chaplin kindly sent me a translation, in 1873: “The men who
built the second Temple, when they built it in the days of Ezra, they
built it like Solomon’s, and in some things according to the explanation
in Ezekiel.”
The learned Professor Constantine l’Empereur, speaking of the same
question in 1630 A.D., quotes the Talmud Commentary as follows:
“The Mountain of the House was to the north of Jerusalem, and the
mountain was indeed much greater than five hundred cubits on each side
would contain, but to the outer part of it the sanctity did not extend.”
In this particular, then, the men of the second Temple followed the
injunction in the Book of Ezekiel. “Five hundred long and five hundred
broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place”
(Ezekiel xlii. 20); or, in the words of the Revelation (xi. 2): “The
court which is without ... measure it not, for it is given unto the
Gentiles.”
Thus the 500 cubits refers apparently to that part of the Temple, within
the Soreg or Druphax, which could not be entered by any Gentile.
The measurements of Josephus are only approximate. They cannot, as we
have seen in the case of Cæsarea, be relied on for accuracy, and in one
particular (the measurement of the altar) they are impossible. But it is
otherwise with his general descriptions. Dimensions estimated in a
distant country may be incorrect, and figures are liable to alteration
in copying; but general position and arrangement we must accept, unless
we condemn the author as thoroughly untrustworthy. As to the position of
the Holy House, Josephus and the Talmudic writers are in accord. The
Temple stood on the top of the hill, which, at first, was scarcely large
enough for the Holy House and the Altar (B. J. v. 5, 1). This statement
is the proper starting-point for any reconstructive plan of the Temple
and its courts.
The top of the Temple Hill is, without dispute, the Sakhrah Rock; from
it the mountain slopes down on all sides, and we now know accurately the
general lie of the rock. At the Sakhrah, consequently, Josephus places
the Holy House.
Three traditions consent in pointing to the same spot. In other cases,
such as Joseph’s Tomb, Jacob’s Well, and the Tomb of Eleazar, we also
find such a consent of tradition, and the latter sites are generally
accepted as real. When, as in the case of David’s Tomb, traditions are
not in accord, we get but little help from them; but, in the few
instances where both Moslem and Christian traditions agree with that
accepted by the Jews, we may fairly argue that from the Jews they were
originally derived. This is the case in the present instance. A rock
called “Stone of Foundation” (Eben Shatiyeh) existed, according to the
Jews, in the Holy of Holies; round it the world was first gathered
together, in it the Ark was hidden, and over it the Mercy-Seat
originally stood. The same tradition seems to be repeated in the
Crusading chronicles, and the Christians of the twelfth century placed
the Holy of Holies above the Sakhrah rock. Moslem tradition also
connects the Sakhrah with the Stone of Foundation, for it is, in their
eyes, the foundation of the world, as in the tradition of the Jews was
the Eben Shatiyeh under the Holy of Holies.
After taking this position for the Holy of Holies as a starting-point, a
serious question at once confronts us, namely, the length of the cubit.
Here again we must trust to the Jews. The measure they used was not an
Egyptian cubit, not a Babylonian cubit, not a Greek or Roman cubit; it
was a measure of their own, the Hebrew Amah. Maimonides tells us that
the Temple cubit was of forty-eight barley-corns, and any one who will
take the trouble to measure barley-corns, will find that three go to the
inch. This gives us sixteen inches for the cubit, or the average measure
from the elbow to the first joint of the finger, which the Amah is said
to have been. I am the more inclined to accept this length, because I
find that the Galilean synagogues, measured by it, give round numbers.
Thus in the synagogue of Umm el ’Amed, which I measured in 1875, I found
the pillars to be ten cubits high, their bases one cubit, their capitals
half a cubit, and the synagogue itself thirty cubits by forty, taking
the cubit used to have been sixteen inches. The dimensions of the Haram
masonry are also commensurate with a sixteen-inch unit; and the piers at
the north-west angle have an interval of ten cubits of sixteen inches.
The result obtained from these data is extremely striking. The weak
point of all restorations of the Temple which I have as yet seen is
this, that no attention has been paid to the character of the ground, or
to the elevation of the building. If we apply the well-known measures of
the Temple courts, given in the Middoth, to the ground, on the
assumption that the Sakhrah is the Holy of Holies, the result is
satisfactory, and in fact exact, as regards level. The various levels of
the courts we know from the writings of Maimonides; they agree to a foot
with those of the rock round the Sakhrah, as a glance at the plan will
show: but only in this position is it possible to make them agree; in
any other we are obliged to suppose gigantic masonry foundations which
are not mentioned by the writer who says the Temple was built on “the
higher part of the hill” (B. J. v. 5, 2), and of which not a trace has
been found inside the Haram.
The plan shows this agreement better than words can explain it; there is
only space here to point out some of the special tests which can be
applied.
Placing the floor of the Holy House on the level of the top of the
Sakhrah, 2440 feet above the Mediterranean, the Altar-Court should be at
a level six cubits lower (2432). The rock is actually known to have the
level 2432, immediately west of the supposed position of the Altar on
the present plan.
The Court of the Women should have a level 2418·6. The rock in this part
is known to be lower than 2419 over a considerable area. The gates north
and south of the Temple led down to a level about 2425. The rock in
their immediate neighbourhood has been fixed at the levels 2425 and
2426. The outer part, near the Soreg or Wall of Partition, had, on the
east, a level 2410. The rock is here known at the level 2409 and 2406.
Nor are these the only indications of exactness in detail. North of the
Court of the Priests was the great Gate-house Moked, “the house of the
fireplace,” from which a gallery, apparently that noticed by Josephus
(Ant. xv. 11, 7), ran under the Sanctuary to the subterranean gate Tadi
or Teri, and from this gate the Bath-house was reached. The great
subterranean passage called No. 1 on the Ordnance Survey, starts from
the north wall of the Court of the Priests, as placed on the present
plan, and it leads just as far as the boundary of the 500 cubits. On
this same line is the north end of the great excavation No. 3, which
Captain Warren has proposed as representing the Bath-house; somewhere on
the line of No. 1 gallery, then, I would place Tadi, just outside the
Sanctuary, close to the entrance of the Bath-house vault. I may remark
that a visit in 1874 showed me that these great galleries are closed on
the north by rude modern walls, and the vaults may very possibly run on
to meet near the north wall of the Platform.
On the south we have another indication. The Water-Gate of the Holy
House was on this side, and was connected with a cistern outside the
Court of the Priests. A glance at the plan shows that the shaft leading
down to the long rock-cut reservoir No. 5, is on the present theory just
outside the position of the Water-Gate as defined by the Mishna.
There is not space to go farther into detail, though the investigation
has been pursued farther; but the above facts are, perhaps, sufficient
to speak for themselves. We see the Holy House in its natural and
traditional position, on the top of the mountain; we see the Courts
descending on either side according to the present slopes of the hill;
we find the great rock-galleries dropping naturally into their right
places; and finally we see the Temple, by the immutability of Oriental
custom, still a Temple, and the site of the great Altar still
consecrated by the beautiful little Chapel of the Chain. Push the Temple
a little to the north or south, and the levels cease to agree; lengthen
the cubit to the Egyptian standard of twenty-one inches, and the
exactitude of the adaptation is at once destroyed.
And now we must turn from this interesting question to one not less
important--that of the position of Calvary. I have no wish to review the
long controversies which have arisen on this subject. But I may give in
detail some new indications which appear to me of importance.
It is a recognised fact that Calvary was outside the city-wall that
existed in the time of Our Lord. This fact was also understood by the
early fathers, and Eusebius gives a long description of the growth of
New Jerusalem, to account for the position of Constantine’s site almost
in the heart of the town. Sæwulf also, in 1108, says: “We know that Our
Lord suffered without the gate, but the Emperor Hadrian, who was called
Ælius, rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord, and added to the
city as far as the Tower of David, which was previously a considerable
distance from the city.” St. Willibald (723 A.D.) echoes the same
feeling, speaking of “the place of Calvary which was formerly outside of
Jerusalem,” and Sir John Maundeville (1322) says the same. Thus, even as
early as the eighth century, attention had been drawn to the fact that
the accepted site was apparently too near the middle of the city, but
the modesty and faith of pilgrims rendered them willing to accept,
without question, the answers which they received from the monks
regarding their difficulty as to the site.
The main arguments in favour of the present site are two. The first,
insisted on by the Comte de Vogüé and others, is the existence of an
undoubted Jewish tomb, just outside the rotunda of the Church of the
Sepulchre, and now called the Tomb of Nicodemus. This has been cited as
evidence that the place was outside the old city-wall, but we know from
the Rabbis that the Tombs of the Kings of Judah were left within
Jerusalem, and there seems good reason to suppose that they actually
refer to the ancient tomb now called the Sepulchre of Nicodemus. The
second argument, brought forward by Chateaubriand, is that tradition had
handed down the site, and that its exact position was known in the
fourth century, because Hadrian had built a Temple to Venus on the spot.
Of the latter fact we have no intimation in any known author of the time
of Hadrian, though several buildings of his in Jerusalem are noticed by
contemporary writers. Coins of Antoninus Pius representing a Temple to
Venus in Jerusalem have been found, but no ancient author pretends that
any tradition was handed down to the fourth century respecting the site
of the Holy Sepulchre. Moreover, as regards continuity of tradition, we
have a break during the time when the Christians, flying to Pella, were
absent from the city; finally we have no sound reason for supposing that
the early Christians paid any attention to the site of the Sepulchre. As
Jews, their horror of dead bodies would naturally have prevented their
visiting a place which would pollute them; and had it been considered
important to hand down the exact position of the Tomb, we should surely
have had sufficient indications in the Gospel narrative to fix its
locality, whereas nothing can be gathered from the New Testament,
further than the statement of the Epistle that “Christ suffered without
the gate” (Heb. xiii. 12), with the incidental remarks of St. John, that
the Sepulchre was “nigh at hand” to Calvary (John xix. 42), and that
Calvary was “nigh unto the city” (20).
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands near the centre of the lower
part of modern Jerusalem, but this is unimportant, if it can be shown to
have been outside Jerusalem in the time of Christ.
On this question the new rock levels have a most important bearing, and
the indications obtained from them will now be summed up as concisely as
the subject will allow.
The account which Josephus gives of the site on which Jerusalem was
built is explicit and easily understood. It was placed on two hills (B.
J. v. 4) opposite each other, with a valley between. The hill of the
Upper City was the highest and largest; the second, that of Acra, was
lower; a third hill, lower still, was to the east, separated by another
valley, which was filled up by the Hasmoneans. The first valley--the
Tyropœon, which divided the Upper and Lower City--ran down to Siloam.
Other deep valleys with precipices existed beyond the city on all sides,
except on the north where three successive lines of fortification
protected the town.
Turning to the plan of the rock beneath modern Jerusalem, which is given
in illustration, we see just such a site before us. On the south is a
large and high hill, the top 2540 feet above the sea, with a deep valley
to the south and west, and a second valley, almost equal in size, to the
north and east. Down the last-mentioned valley David Street now runs,
but the accumulation of rubbish is in parts fifty feet deep. By the
observations taken in making excavations in the old Hospital of the
Knights of St. John, and in a vault farther east, as well as at the
foundations of the Bishops’ Palace and of the hotel near David’s Tower,
we ascertain the following details: that the valley, breaking down
suddenly eastward, has its head at a narrow saddle at a level about 2500
feet above the sea, and that this saddle separates the head of the
eastern valley from that of Wâdy Rabâbeh, which runs to the west of the
Jaffa Gate: the eastern valley proves to have a depth of more than 100
feet below the summit of the southern hill. Other observations, farther
east, show that the precipice, visible just opposite the great bridge
from the south-west corner of the Haram, runs north and turns westward,
where either a vertical scarp, or a very steep slope, forms the
north-east angle of the southern hill above the corner where the great
valley sweeps round southwards descending towards Siloam.
The plan further shows that the ground rises again north of the valley,
and forms a small knoll in the neighbourhood of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, with a second valley head to the east. This knoll is actually
fifty feet lower than the top of the southern hill, and, from the lie of
the ground, it appears to be still lower than it really is. The second
valley on the east of the knoll separates off a third hill now occupied
by the Mohammedan quarter of Jerusalem, and this is divided from the
Temple Hill, of which it is really a part, by the rock-cut trench forty
feet deep, hewn on the north side of the scarp, which I have endeavoured
to show was the Castle of Antonia. The third hill is lower again by
fifty feet than the knoll last mentioned.
I do not see how we can hesitate in applying to this “rock site” the
names given by Josephus. The southern, higher, and larger hill must be
the Upper City, the “Mountain Fort” of Zion; the knoll north of it is
Acra (which is identified by the Septuagint Version with Millo), the
site of the Lower City; the broad valley between is the Tyropœon; the
second valley is the Hasmonean; the third hill is Bezetha, north of the
Temple.
The existence of the narrow saddle at the head of the valley, as will
shortly appear, is an important indication. The fact is proved by no
less than ten distinct observations, made in sinking the foundations of
three large buildings, and the rock is here found to be slightly higher
than the top of the Acra knoll.
The conformation of ground in Jerusalem is not radically different, even
now, from that existing before the rubbish accumulated. David Street is
indeed forty feet above the bed of the Tyropœon, but it still is
reached from the southern hill by a steeply sloping street with steps.
The ground falls away east of the Acra knoll to the Hasmonean Valley on
somewhat the same line which the rock beneath it follows, and it again
rises into the third hill on the north-east. Thus any observer from the
roofs will see in modern Jerusalem a very fair reproduction of the
ancient city beneath; the main features are the same, but the
differences of level, in the hills and valleys, are less marked.
Such being the rock site, Josephus’s description of the walls is easily
followed. The first wall embraced only the Upper City, and in its
north-west corner were the Royal Towers, which formed the fortress of
that part of the town. The north line of the wall is that most important
to define, and it can scarcely be doubted that a line from David’s Tower
(where Hippicus and its two companions are placed in almost every plan)
towards the Haram will represent the First Wall. Remains of towers have
been found along this line, and, as above noticed, it is the line of the
northern crest of the hill of the Upper City. As to this there is but
little dispute between various authorities, nor is there any radical
difference of opinion as to the line on the south and west sides of the
Upper City. The valuable excavations made in 1874 by Mr. Maudslay have
thoroughly opened up the great scarp which formed the south-west corner
of ancient Jerusalem. Captain Warren’s adventurous shafts have shown
where the great wall joined the Temple. The line between these points
might be traced without much difficulty, by simply following out the
work already done.
From the first wall the second had its start, and here the difficulty
arises, and here also the real value of the rock-levels is most
noticeable. Can the wall be drawn to exclude the traditional Calvary, or
must it of necessity include that spot? The answer, I think, may be
given without hesitation, and the present site of the Holy Sepulchre
will probably be discarded by any unprejudiced inquirer, if the
following facts are taken into consideration.
The description of Josephus is tantalising from its brevity; but one
word seems wanting--a word which must be supplied by the rocks
themselves.
“The second wall took its beginning from the Gate Gennath, which
belonged to the first wall. It encircled the north quarter of the city,
and reached as far as the Tower Antonia” (B. J. v. 4, 2).
The word rendered “encircled” cannot well be construed with any other
meaning. The wall had no angles, as had the first and third, it
therefore required no lengthy description. The second wall started from
the first wall, and running in a curve enclosed the Lower City, and
terminated at the north-east corner of the Temple.
The one statement wanted is that which should fix the Gennath Gate,
which, as is generally admitted, was somewhere in the north face of the
wall of the Upper City.
Now, as we have seen above, a great valley separates the Upper City from
Acra, and a second valley runs southwards on the west side of the upper
hill. No military man will suppose for a moment that the wall of a
fortress could have been constructed in a deep valley and commanded from
without by high ground immediately near. The wall must have stood _on
the high ground_, and must have included one valley and excluded the
other. Thus we are confined to a very narrow limit--to that saddle of
rock at the head of the Tyropœon, which connects the great peninsula
of the Upper City with the Acra knoll, for this little saddle is the
only place where the rampart could protect the lower ground east of it,
and command the valley to the west.
Here, therefore, hidden by the palace of the Protestant Bishop, still
perhaps exists the foundation or the rock scarp, in which was the
Gennath Gate; and from this isthmus of high land the second wall circled
round to Antonia. The sudden deepening and the great breadth of the
Tyropœon appear to me to render it impossible to draw the line
farther east.
If we accept this new indication, the wall can hardly be drawn otherwise
than to include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; for the knoll on which
that building stands is, as contended above, the knoll of Acra--the
Lower City included by the wall; and if this knoll be excluded, the same
military objection will again arise--the “encircling” wall would be
commanded by a hill immediately outside it.
The line of argument thus followed is, I believe, a new one, though the
result is old. The observation of the rock-levels is a matter of primary
importance, and the special observations on which the argument has been
based have never before been published. The military consideration seems
to me to set the matter at rest; and, to state the idea in a
nutshell--“fortresses stand on hills, not in deep ravines.”
The course of the third wall is a matter which has little bearing on the
question of the site of Calvary; but it may be noted that the line laid
down on the plan is controlled by three considerations. First, the
necessity of placing the great corner tower, Psephinus, on very high
ground, the position indicated being the very top of the watershed;
second, the distance from the Women’s Towers to the Tomb of Helena,
which was three furlongs according to Josephus; third, the line passing
through the “Caverns of the Kings,” as described by the same author, and
extending to the Tower of the Corner.
The third wall was built by Agrippa about ten years after the
Crucifixion, to enclose the suburbs north of the city. There seems every
probability therefore that the greater part of this suburb already
existed in the time of Christ--an additional argument, were one needed,
against the claims of the traditional sites of Calvary and of the Holy
Sepulchre.
Will any reader who holds in veneration so sacred a spot feel
disappointed at such a result? In the last chapter I endeavoured to give
a faithful account of the yearly Pandemonium which disgraces the ancient
walls, and of scenes which lower the Christian faith in the eyes of the
Moslem. Surely none who read those pages could still wish to believe
that the place thus annually desecrated is the Tomb of Christ.
The question which naturally next demands attention is that of the real
site of Calvary; but the Gospel gives us no indication sufficient to
settle the matter, though the words in the Epistle are enough to condemn
the miraculously-discovered fourth-century site.
There is a fact bearing on this question which has never been published.
It was mentioned to me by Dr. Chaplin, and by his consent I now make use
of it.
The place called Calvary was, according to our general idea, the public
place of execution. Some have supposed its name--Golgotha, or “place of
the skull”--to be derived from this fact; though others, including many
of the early fathers, suppose it to refer to the shape of the ground--a
rounded hill, in form like a skull. We look naturally for some spot just
outside the city, and beside one of the great roads.
We have yet another indication--namely, that Calvary should be near the
cemetery in which was the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in the garden
beyond the city. Now the great cemetery of Jewish times lies north of
Jerusalem, on either side of the main north road; here we have the
sepulchre of Simon the Just, preserved by Jewish tradition; here is the
magnificent monument of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, fitted with a
rolling-stone, such as closed the mouth of the Holy Sepulchre. The first
of these tombs dates from three centuries before Christ; the second was
cut in the first century of His era. Thus the northern cemetery was
probably that which was in use in His time.
The Holy Sepulchre cannot have been one of the _kokim_ tombs originally
used by the Jews, in which each body lay in a long pigeon-hole, with its
feet towards the central chamber; for in that case angels could not have
been seated “one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of
Jesus had lain.” It must have been one of the later kind of tombs, in
which the body lay in a rock sarcophagus under a rock arch parallel with
the side of the chamber. This is the kind of tomb which throughout
Palestine we find closed by a rolling-stone; it is the kind in use in
the late Jewish times, and the kind, moreover, which is found north of
Jerusalem. Here, then, among the olive-gardens and vineyards of Wâdy el
Jôz, one would naturally look for the site of the new tomb in the
garden, far beyond the Acra hill, and in the cemetery which was used by
the Jews at the time of Christ.
These considerations would lead us to fix Calvary--the place of
execution--north of Jerusalem, near the main road to Shechem, and near
the northern cemetery. Now, close to this road, on the east, is a
rounded knoll, with a precipice on the south side, containing a cave
known to Christians as Jeremiah’s Grotto. The knoll is called by the
natives El Heidhemîyeh. The Arabic word is, however, known to be a
corruption of El Heiremîyeh, “the place of Jeremiah.”
A venerable tradition has fixed on this neighbourhood as the scene of
the martyrdom of St. Stephen. A church dedicated to him stood, in the
fifth century, near the knoll. There can be little doubt that the
stoning of Stephen occurred at the place of public execution, and if we
are right in supposing that place to be Calvary, then we have
traditional reason for identifying the latter with the neighbourhood of
the Heidhemîyeh knoll.
But a stronger confirmation remains to be noticed. I have before shown
how valuable is tradition, when, by common consent, Jew and Christian
point to the same spot. In this case also the Jewish tradition agrees
with that above mentioned. Dr. Chaplin tells me that the Jews still
point out the knoll by the name Beth has Sekilah, “the Place of Stoning”
(Domus lapidationis), and state it to be the ancient place of public
execution which is mentioned in the Mishnah, and which was apparently
well known at the time at which the tract Sanhedrim was written. Thus to
“a green hill far away, beside a city wall,” we turn from the artificial
rocks and marble slabs of the monkish Chapel of Calvary.
I wish I could bring before the reader’s mind as vividly as it now rises
in my memory, the appearance of this most interesting spot. The stony
road comes out from the beautiful Damascus Gate, and runs beside the
yellow cliff, in which are excavated caverns, perhaps once part of the
great Cotton Grotto. Above the cliff, which is some thirty feet high, is
the rounded knoll without any building on it, bare of trees, and in
spring covered in part with scanty grass, while a great portion is
occupied by a Moslem cemetery. To the north are olive-groves, to the
west, beneath the knoll, is a garden, in which the remains of the
Crusading Asnerie, or Hospice of the Templars, were found in 1875. From
the knoll a view of the city, backed by the Moab hills, is obtained, and
of the long white chalky ridge of Olivet dotted with olives. The place
is bare and dusty, surrounded by stony ground and by heaps of rubbish,
and exposed to the full glare of the summer sun. Such is the barren
hillock which, by consent of Jewish and Christian tradition, is
identified with the Place of Stoning, or of execution according to
Jewish law.
I have but a word in conclusion to add in support of these views.
Immutability is the most striking law of Eastern life. The Bible becomes
a living record to those who have heard in men’s mouths the very
phrases of the Bible characters. The name of every village almost is
Hebrew, each stands on the great dust-heap into which the ancient
buildings beneath its present cabins have crumbled, and the old
necropolis is cut in rock, near the modern site. For thousands of years
the people have gone on living in the same way and in the same place,
venerating (perhaps in ignorance) the same shrines, building their
fortresses on the same vantage-ground.
This is also the case in Jerusalem. The great barracks of Antonia are
still barracks. The fortress of the Upper City is still a fortress. On
the rock-scarp of the “Tower of the Corner,” a corner tower now stands.
On the high ground, where the stronghold of Psephinus once stood, the
Russians have erected buildings which are regarded by many as a menace
to the city. The Upper Market is a market, the Lower Market (mentioned
with the former in the Talmud) is the main bazaar of Jerusalem. The old
Iron Gate retains its name in the present Bâb el Hadîd. The Temple Area
is still a sanctuary; finally, the Rock of Foundation is still covered
by a sacred building, and the “Place of the Skull” is now a cemetery,
while close to it is the slaughter-house of the city.
Knowing the immutability of sites in Palestine, we cannot, I would urge,
consider these facts to be mere coincidences; they are rather strong
confirmations of the accuracy of the more generally accepted views
regarding the topography and monuments of ancient Jerusalem.
[Illustration: GILGAL.]