Haifa, July 20.—It is a melancholy reflection, and one by no means
creditable to the Christianity which prevailed in the fourth century
after Christ, that the Jerusalem of the present day, the Holy City of
the world par excellence, should contain within its walls more sacred
shams and impostures than any other city in the world. The
responsibility for the gross superstition which prevails in regard to
sites and localities mainly rests with the fourth century, and chiefly
with the Empress Helena, who was principally instrumental in inventing
them, and the Christian churches, especially the Greek and Latin, find
it in their interest to foster these transparent frauds, for the
enormous pecuniary advantages which accrue from them.
The extraordinary amount of research and investigation of which
Jerusalem has been the subject during the last twenty years, the extent
of the excavations which have been made, involving an expenditure of
about $100,000, and the conscientious impartiality and profound
acquirements of the explorers, have demolished the whole superstructure
which early and mediæval Christianity had reared upon the credulity of
its votaries; and which the churches of the present day, despite all the
evidences to the contrary, find it in their interest to perpetuate. Thus
it has now been proved to demonstration that, wherever the tomb in which
Christ was laid after his crucifixion may have been, it could not have
been in the cave over which the gorgeous edifice called the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre now stands; for we now know by recent examination the
position of the walls which enclosed the city in the time of Christ,
though some still deny the correctness of the latest conclusions which
have been arrived at. We also know that Calvary, or Golgotha, where he
was crucified, was “nigh at hand” to the sepulchre; that Golgotha was
“nigh to the city,” and not in it, and that Jesus “suffered without the
gate,” and that all tombs, saving those of David and Huldah and eight
Jewish kings, were without the walls, while the cave over which the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built is within them. As, however, even
the churches do not go so far as to maintain that any tradition had been
preserved among Christians during the first three centuries after the
death of Christ of his place of burial, they have had to resort to
inspiration as the means of its discovery. Some of the early writers
maintain that it was the Emperor Constantine himself who was divinely
inspired to find it; others that it was his mother, the Empress Helena.
This is a trifling discrepancy. Whichever it was, the fact of the
inspiration remains, and scientific investigation has, ever since the
days of Galileo, been bound to give way before ecclesiastical
inspiration and infallibility. So, no matter whatever evidences exist to
the contrary, crowds of pilgrims will continue to crawl over those
sanctified stones, wearing them hollow with their kisses, as long as the
sacerdotal organization of which it is the representative remains to
impose upon them its authority.
With considerate ingenuity, and possibly with a view to lightening the
labors of the pilgrims as much as possible, the early Church crowded as
many sacred stones together under the roof of the holy edifice it could
with decency. Thus we have the Stone of Unction, on which Christ's body
was laid for anointing, but it was getting so worn that the real stone
lies below the marble slab, which, however, answers the purpose for the
pilgrims. Close by is the Circular Stone, where the Virgin stood while
the body was being anointed; also the stone on which Jesus stood when he
appeared to Mary Magdalene, and the stone on which she stood, and the
column to which he was bound when scourged; and your devout guide will
show you, if you have the patience to attend to him, the exact place
where Jesus was stripped by the soldiers, the place where the purple
robe was put on him, the place where the soldiers cast lots for his
raiment, the rent in the rock made by the earthquake, the place where
his body was wrapped in linen cloths, the place where he indicated with
his own hand the centre of the world, and so on, _ad nauseam_.
Sometimes another Church commits a burglary and steals some of these
stones. The Armenians have been especially guilty in this respect. They
have stolen from the holy sepulchre the stone on which the angel sat,
that had been rolled away from the door of the sepulchre, which they now
display in the chapel of the Palace of Caiaphas; also a piece of the
true cross, which was originally discovered under inspiration by Helena,
as well as that of the penitent thief, who is now canonized under the
name of Dimas. I don't know what authority they have for calling him
Dimas, whose reputed birthplace is, for political reasons, going to be
converted into another holy place. There is something rather appropriate
in the idea of the power that is waiting for a chance to despoil the
Turkish empire of Syria erecting a shrine in worship of the penitent
thief.
The most remarkable sites are those which illustrate the parables. Thus,
pilgrims are shown the window which was the post of observation of
Dives, and the stone, now worn by the kisses of the faithful, where
Lazarus sat when the dog licked his sores. I asked my guide where the
dog was, but he said he was dead, and added, with a smile, “I don't
believe any of these things.”