THE
CITY OF JERUSALEM
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
TENT WORK IN PALESTINE 1878
HANDBOOK TO THE BIBLE 1879
JUDAS MACCABÆUS 1879
HETH AND MOAB 1883
PRIMER OF BIBLE GEOGRAPHY 1883
SYRIAN STONE LORE 1887
ALTAIC HIEROGLYPHS 1887
PALESTINE 1891
TELL AMARNA TABLETS 1893
THE BIBLE AND THE EAST 1896
THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 1897
THE HITTITES AND THEIR LANGUAGE 1898
THE HEBREW TRAGEDY 1900
THE FIRST BIBLE 1902
CRITICS AND THE LAW 1907
THE RISE OF MAN 1908
[Illustration: HEROD’S TEMPLE.
From the model by Miss M. A. Duthoit.
_Frontispiece_]
]
THE
CITY OF JERUSALEM
BY COL. C. R. CONDER
LL.D., M.R.A.S., R.E.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1909
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
PREFACE
The object of this volume is to present in a convenient form the
results of research and exploration concerning the history and
buildings of the city of Jerusalem--results which have accumulated
during the last half-century, but which are scattered in many expensive
works not easily accessible for the general reader. The story of forty
centuries is carried down to the present year, and reliance is chiefly
placed on monumental information.
CHELTENHAM,
_January 5th, 1909_.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. BEFORE DAVID 25
III. THE HEBREW KINGS 48
IV. EZRA AND NEHEMIAH 74
V. THE GREEK AGE 86
VI. HEROD THE GREAT 108
VII. THE GOSPEL SITES 139
VIII. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 159
IX. THE ROMAN CITY 188
X. THE BYZANTINES 208
XI. THE ARABS 233
XII. THE TURKS 256
XIII. THE LATIN KINGDOM 275
XIV. FRANKS AND MOSLEMS 308
LIST OF AUTHORITIES, ETC. 327
INDEX 329
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
HEROD’S TEMPLE (MISS DUTHOIT’S MODEL) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE SILOAM INSCRIPTION 66
JERUSALEM IN 600 B. C. 78
HEBREW INSCRIPTION (TOMB OF THE BENI ḤEZIR) 104
HERODIAN GRAFFITI 118
DOME AT THE DOUBLE GATE 120
GREEK TEXT OF HEROD’S TEMPLE 122
BLOCK PLAN OF HEROD’S TEMPLE 128
THE SUPPOSED SITE OF CALVARY 152
TOMB WEST OF CALVARY 156
JERUSALEM IN 70 A. D. 176
THE MEDEBA MOSAIC MAP 200
SPECIMENS OF MASONRY 220
JERUSALEM IN 530 A. D. 226
JERUSALEM IN 1187 A. D. 284
EARLY MAP OF JERUSALEM (ABOUT 1308 A. D.) 322
MODERN JERUSALEM 328
THE
CITY OF JERUSALEM
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
I first set eyes on Jerusalem one summer morning in 1872. The view--a
mile away--of the long grey wall, the cypress trees of the Armenian
garden, and the single minaret at the west gate, was not then
obstructed by the row of Jewish cottages since built. The population
was only about a third of what it now is. The railway station was not
thought of, and only a few villas outside the gate existed, while the
suburbs to north and south had not grown up, and Olivet was not covered
with modern buildings. I passed two winters (1873–5) in the city,
the second in a house in the Jews’ quarter, and later on (1881–2) a
third winter at the hotel; and during these visits my time was mainly
occupied in wandering among the less-known corners of the town. It was
a period very favourable for exploration. The survey by Sir Charles
Wilson, the researches of de Vogüé, and the wonderful excavations of
Sir Charles Warren, were then recent. The German Emperor, William I.,
had just ordered the clearing out of the eastern half of the great
square of St. John’s Hospital, having been given by the Sultan the site
of Charlemagne’s hospice beside the Church of St. Mary Latin. In 1874
Mr. Henry Maudeslay was exploring the ancient scarps at the south-west
corner of the Hebrew city; and, by the Sultan’s order, the Dome of
the Rock--deconsecrated for a time--was being repaired, while other
excavations were in progress outside the city on the north.
[Sidenote: DISCOVERIES]
I was thus able to walk in my socks all over the surface of the sacred
Ṣakhrah “rock,” and to ascend the scaffolding to the dome above, in
order to examine the ancient mosaics of our seventh century, as well
as those on the outside, where the old arcaded battlement of the
ninth century was just laid bare. I penetrated, by the old rock-cut
aqueduct at the north-west corner of the Ḥaram, to the Herodian wall,
and discovered the buttresses of the Temple rampart still standing,
and just like those at Hebron. In the Jews’ quarter I found the old
hospice of the Teutonic Order, and the chapel of the Holy Ghost. In
1881 I crawled through the Siloam tunnel with two comrades, in danger
of our lives, to find the point where the two parties of Hezekiah’s
workmen heard each other calling, and joined their work by a cross
cut east and west. These were but a few additions to the work of my
predecessors, and since 1882 many other valuable discoveries have been
made by Mr. Bliss, Mr. Stewart Macalister, and other explorers, which
will be described in due course. We no longer depend on the writings
of Josephus and Tacitus, or on the confused accounts of mediæval
pilgrims. Our ideas are founded on existing remains. We have Hezekiah’s
own inscription at Siloam; the text (found by M. Clermont-Ganneau)
which forbade Gentiles to enter the court of Herod’s Temple; the red
paint instructions which his master-masons scrawled on the foundations
of the mighty ramparts; the votive text to Serapis set up later by
Roman soldiers; the Greek inscriptions of Byzantine monks in tombs on
the south side of the Hinnom Valley, and, yet earlier, those on the
ossuaries, which pious Jews and Jewish Christians used in gathering the
bones of their fathers for burial in the old tombs east and north of
the Holy City. We have Armenian and Georgian mosaic texts, and Gothic
tombstones of Crusaders. Finally, we have the great Kufic, Karmathian,
and Arabic texts of the Khalîfahs and Sulṭâns of Islâm, who founded or
repaired the beautiful buildings in the Ḥaram.
But all this information is still scattered in expensive memoirs, or
separate reports of exploring societies; and it is remarkable that, in
spite of the great accumulation of true information during the last
half-century, no general account of the history of Jerusalem--as a
city--exists, though large volumes of controversial literature continue
to appear. It is hoped that the present volume will give a clear idea
of what is now actually known, and of the natural deductions from the
facts.
Recent visitors have felt themselves perplexed by conflicting
statements as to the Bible sites--“Two Zions, two Temple areas, two
Bethanys, two Gethsemanes, two or more Calvarys, three Holy Sepulchres,
several Bethesdas.”[1] The statement is perhaps an exaggeration, and
the discrepancies as a whole are by no means recent, being due to
ancient misunderstandings or conjectures. Tradition is overlaid by
tradition in the long period of at least 3,400 years since Jerusalem
first became a royal city of the Amorite. Jewish traditions were
followed by those of Christians and Moslems, who were alike ill
informed as to ancient history. The Crusaders brought in new ideas, and
often rejected those of the Eastern Churches. The Franciscans, after
1300 A. D., were deprived of some churches, and the Pope sanctioned
the transference of old sites to other places. It is true that some
literary critics have recently tried to prove that the “city of David”
was not a royal city on the mountain top, but a mere hamlet on the tail
of the Temple ridge. They have unfortunately--as unconscious heirs of
the prejudices of Voltaire--been misled (as in so many other cases)
by fixing on a single allusion, while ignoring other accounts, and
dismissing the statements of Josephus as merely “traditional”; but
they have not given due consideration to the results of exploration,
and they have shown but slight acquaintance with the scientific study
of ancient architecture.[2] As a rule, however, it is not the modern
theorist but the ancient pilgrim who is responsible for the confusion;
and the agreement reached already, on the more important questions of
topography, has been the outcome of actual research and of monumental
studies. No one seems now to doubt that the Temple stood on the top of
the eastern ridge. The positions of Olivet and Siloam have never been
questioned. Herod’s palace is placed by all in the north-west corner
of the upper city, near the so-called “Tower of David,” and Antonia
on the rock of the present barracks at the north-west corner of the
Temple courts. There was a time when the differences of opinion were
much greater. One theorist even went so far as to assert that Hebron
was the true site of ancient Jerusalem. But the topography has hardly
been changed since Nehemiah’s age. The two great citadels are still
held as Turkish strongholds, the Temple is still a sacred enclosure,
the upper and lower markets are still where they always were, and even
the dung-hills outside the wall are close to the “Dung Gate” of Hebrew
times. We may sweep aside the misconceptions due to vague literary
statements, and found ourselves not on paper, but on rock and stone, on
contemporary inscriptions and architectural remains.
[Sidenote: EXCAVATIONS]
Ancient cities, as we now know--whether at Troy, Lachish, and Gezer,
or at Rome and in London--were constantly rebuilt on the ruins of
towns previously laid waste or burned. They present successive strata,
with buildings that are themselves not all of one date, and which were
sometimes carried down to rock, sometimes merely founded on the old
walls and roofs. The street pavements and the lintels of city gates
were renewed even within the period of one city, and more frequently
than the walls and other buildings. The earth was disturbed, so that
old objects were brought up to the surface, and recent objects fell
into the foundation trenches, presenting many puzzles for the explorer;
but, broadly speaking, the strata are as a rule clearly traceable,
giving an historic sequence for the successive cities. In parts of
Jerusalem the valleys within the walls have gradually been filled
with earth and ruined masonry to a depth of 40 or 50 feet, and it is
only where the bare rock is on the surface that we can feel we are
standing on the very ground trodden by the feet of our Lord. There
are at least six successive cities to be studied at Jerusalem, lying
one above another where the depth of the debris is greatest. Within
quite recent times the level of some streets has been raised when they
were repaved. In the twelfth century “Christian Street,” as it is now
called, rose gradually northward, being about 15 feet higher up hill
at the point where it passed the west door of the Cathedral of the
Holy Sepulchre than at the corner where it joined David Street, and
where was the Chapel of St. John Baptist belonging to the Knights of
St. John. But to-day Christian Street runs level, and the floor of
the chapel is 25 feet below the street, being on the same level as
that of the floor of the cathedral. Yet even this chapel floor is 10
feet above the original level of the rock, as it descends into the
great Tyropœon Valley. When I first visited Jerusalem, the buildings of
the Hospital were covered with earth for some depth above the vaulted
roofs of the twelfth-century buildings. Soon after, this earth was
removed on donkeys, which passed in a long procession daily out at the
west gate, where they made a mound on which Jewish shops now stand.
Thus the central valley was filled in, to a depth of 20 feet, before
the Crusaders began to build, and has been again filled in another 20
feet or more since the thirteenth century; while on the outside of the
Temple, as we stand on the pavement at the Jews’ Wailing-place and gaze
on the mighty rampart towering above, we must remember that we only see
less than half its present height, and that it goes down beneath us
nearly 40 feet, to the older pavement of Herod’s age, which was itself
20 feet above the foundation rocks. The causeway to the north of this
is 90 feet above the rock, but in the sixth century the street was at
least 40 feet lower, and in the time of Herod some 30 feet lower still,
yet already 20 feet here also above rock. Such measurements, accurately
ascertained by Sir Charles Warren, whose mine on the north-east side of
the Temple was sunk through the shingle to a depth of 125 feet, will
serve to show the gradual growth of the rubbish and the effacement of
the ancient natural outline in the valleys which ran within the city.
[Sidenote: TWO SCENES]
Many scenes in modern Jerusalem rise before me in recalling the times
when I lived within the walls, and passed so many days in the Temple
enclosure, or in that grim church, defiled with blood, which some
among us are glad to think of as not marking the new sepulchre without
the city where the Prince of Peace was laid. But two scenes especially
come back to mind. The first is that of the sleeping town before the
gates were opened to admit the peasant women and their donkey-loads of
cakes and vegetables. In the purple gloom the domes are beginning to
shine, wet with the heavy dew, as the light spreads behind Olivet “as
far as Hebron”--to quote the Mishnah. The silence is broken suddenly
by the musical cry of the Muedhdhin on the minaret of a mosque--a
long, rolling, and tremulous note, echoing all over Jerusalem, as he
“testifies there is no God but God,” and calls to the faithful that
“prayer is better than sleep.” The simple dignity of Islâm contrasts
with the superstition, the hurried services, the tawdry magnificence
of degraded Eastern churches, and we understand how it was that the
reformed faith of Muḥammad conquered Asia. The second scene is that
of the summer noon, which presents to us an epitome of the long
history of the Holy City. The great Herodian tower of the upper city
glares with tawny stone against the blue sky. The rough cobbles of
the slippery market-place are crowded with chattering peasants. A few
pious Moslems, unconscious of the world, are praying with their faces
towards Mekkah on the steps of the Protestant bishop’s palace, where
the town dogs also lie in summer, but go down to the covered bazaar
when the winter rains and snow begin. The Armenian patriarch is being
escorted, from St. James on Sion to the Holy Sepulchre, by a modest
procession. A Moslem bier passes by, and men crowd round it to lend
their shoulders for a few steps as a pious act. The little Pharisee,
with his lovelocks and dirty gaberdine--or resplendent in his fur cap
on the sabbath, just as Rembrandt drew his fathers--is jostled in the
narrow street of David, yet holds his fingers on the pulses of the city
life. Above the cries of the water-seller and the chinking of the brass
sherbet-cups, the screams of women and the jangling of the metal plates
that serve for bells in churches, rises one recurrent note from the
blind beggar who wanders through the streets, forever calling aloud to
the “everlasting God.” We might almost expect to see a Templar ride by,
with his white gown and blood-red cross over the mail coat, or the page
of some Frankish noble in stripes of yellow and crimson. But instead
we witness the long procession of half-naked Dervish fanatics, with
banners, on their way to the Ḥaram, and then to the “tomb of Moses”
west of Jericho. They bear spears and swords, and are preceded by
jesters with fox-tails or by a convict who has been tarred and covered
with cotton wool--ancient survivals of pagan Saturnalia. The Jew, the
Greek, the Copt, the Georgian, the Armenian, the Arab, and the Turk
mingle with the modern European and with the Franciscan monk from Italy
in the narrow lane; and black-veiled ladies with white cloaks, seated
on crimson saddles high up on the white Damascene asses, are led to
the shops, or to the lower fruit-market which glows with colour, its
green and gold contrasting with the violet or rich brown robes of the
merchants. The whole history of Jerusalem is represented by its crowd
to-day.
[Sidenote: RELICS]
In endeavouring to follow that history we must no doubt give due
attention to tradition, for tradition records the sincere beliefs of
mankind. In cases where the Jew, the Christian, and the Moslem all
honour the same site, it generally appears that we have the actual spot
described, or casually noticed, in the Bible. But there are not many
such sites in Palestine, except the tombs of the Hebrew patriarchs
at Hebron, the grave of Rachel near Bethlehem, Jacob’s Well east of
Shechem, and--in Jerusalem itself--the sites of Siloam and Olivet,
of the Temple itself, and of Herod’s palace and tower. As to others,
there is not a single existing site in the Holy City that is mentioned
in connection with Christian history before the year 326 A. D., when
Constantine’s mother adored the two footprints of Christ on Olivet. We
may not charge the priests of the Catholic Church with “pious fraud,”
for they were no doubt as sincere as those who of late have created
a new site for the Sepulchre by enthusiasm without knowledge. There
is something very pathetic in the story of men who came on foot from
Gaul and Britain in early times, to fortify their faith by seeing for
themselves the very places seen by their Lord, to be buried near Him,
or to kiss the footprints and finger prints which they were shown on
the rocks of Olivet, or in the Aksa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, where
they are now preserved and visited by Moslems only. The adoration
of relics is not peculiar to Christianity. It is an outcome of that
intense longing for certainty and finality which is natural to all
mankind. The Moslem and the Buddhist had from the first their relics
as well as the Christian--nay, we go back to the days of Herodotus,
when the footprints of Herakles was shown in Scythia, or of Pausanias
who saw “Leda’s egg” in a temple. But however sincere the beliefs of
the past may have been, we cannot but confess, when studying in detail
the traditional topography of Jerusalem, that it has grown and changed
just as the city itself has done, because of the succession of various
ruling races, and because to Jew, Christian, and Moslem alike there has
always been a Holy City here which they coveted, and for which they
shed their blood.
Some few of the principal sites have remained always the same; others
have been often shifted; and the number of sites has been increased
continually from century to century. Most of the pilgrims, whether
Christian or Moslem, were illiterate; and those who were better
educated, and whose accounts were copied and re-copied more or less
accurately, were often strangely ignorant of the Bible and of the
history of Palestine. To the ordinary pilgrim the relics and the
pictures were “books of the ignorant,” and strange superstitions--such
as that of the crypt where “Solomon tortured demons”[3]--are mingled
with the statements of the Gospels. The first record of a pilgrim visit
is that of a traveller from Bordeaux in 333 A. D. He makes the curious
mistakes of supposing the Transfiguration to have occurred on Olivet
and David’s victory over Goliath near Jezreel. St. Silvia of Aquitaine,
half a century later, accepts as genuine the forged correspondence
between Christ and King Abgarus; and after the fifth century the
legends of the Apocryphal Gospels--especially those concerning the
Virgin Mary--form the foundation of traditional topography in many
cases. In the Middle Ages the pilgrims are also influenced by the
comments on the Gospels of Tertullian, Origen, and other Christian
fathers, though the works of those fathers who wrote before 325 A. D.
show no acquaintance with any Jerusalem sites. For these reasons it
is evident that the traditions must be received with caution; and,
as the pilgrim texts are only valuable in showing contemporary facts
and beliefs, their accounts may be here summed up as far as regards
traditional sites.
[Sidenote: THE TRADITIONS]
When Helena, the mother of Constantine, visited Palestine in 326
A. D., she was shown nothing at Jerusalem except the two footprints
of Christ on Olivet.[4] The story of her discovery of the true Cross
is not noticed till about a century later,[5] though as early as 348
A. D. St. Cyril of Jerusalem[6] speaks of fragments of the Cross as
being distributed “piecemeal throughout the world.” The site of the
Ascension is thus the first of all to be mentioned. A church was built
by Constantine before 333 A. D. on the summit of Olivet, and the two
footprints of the Saviour impressed in the rock continued to be shown
down to the Middle Ages, though in 1342 A. D. only one was pointed
out, just as at present.[7] Two other footprints of Christ were shown
after the fifth century: one in the Church of St. Mary (now in the Aḳṣa
Mosque), which is still shown by Moslems[8]; the other on the Ṣakhrah
rock, which is now called “the noble footstep” of Muḥammad[9]; while
the marks now called finger-prints of the Angel Gabriel, on this rock,
were supposed to have been those of our Lord, as were others in the
Cave of the Agony.[10] Yet later, in the sixteenth century, footmarks
of Christ were also shown on the south-east side of the little bridge
over the Kidron Valley.[11]
A fragment of the true Cross was adored by St. Paula and by St. Silvia,
near Calvary, sixty years after the time of Helena’s visit; and St.
Silvia was also shown the “title” once affixed to the same. About 530
A. D. the discovery of three crosses is mentioned as due to Helena.
The fragment was taken by Chosroes II. to Persia, but recovered in 628
A. D., and removed to Constantinople with other relics in 634 A. D. As
seen in St. Sophia by Arculphus, half a century later, there appear
to have been three pieces, each less than 3 feet in length. In 1192
A. D. another fragment was believed to be in the keeping of the Syrian
bishop of Lydda, besides that one which Saladin captured in 1187.[12]
St. Silvia gives an extraordinary account of the precautions taken when
pilgrims were allowed to kiss the original relic, due to the fact that
a wretch had once bitten off a piece, which he tried to carry away in
his mouth, probably meaning to sell it in Europe.[13]
“Solomon’s seal” and the “horn of David” were apparently the only other
relics shown in the fourth century at the Anastasis Church,[14] but in
the sixth we find described the onyx cup of the Last Supper, the lance
and sponge used at the Crucifixion, and the crown of thorns. These
also were removed by Heraclius to Constantinople with the Cross, and
the crown of thorns was afterwards sent to St. Louis of France, who
built for it the Sainte Chapelle. Yet in 867 A. D. Bernard the Wise
was shown a crown of thorns hanging up in the Church of St. Sion,[15]
while a silver chalice takes the place of the onyx cup in 680 A. D.,
and appears to have been also regarded as the original relic. The stone
which the angel rolled away from the sepulchre is noticed even by Cyril
and St. Paula, and is spoken of about 680 A. D. as broken in two. In
the eighth century it had disappeared, and a square pointed stone was
shown instead; yet a hundred years later the substitute was accepted as
being the original.[16]
[Sidenote: THE HOLY FIRE]
Many marvels were reported to occur in the Church of the Resurrection.
Theodorus (or Theodosius, as he is also called), in 530 A. D., was
told that the holy lance, which had been made into a cross, “shone at
night like the sun by day.” St. Silvia says that at the early morning
service no lights were brought into the church, but that they were
supplied from an ever-burning lamp within the Cave of the Sepulchre.
This seems to be the germ of the later “holy fire,” which appeared
at Easter, as first clearly described by Bernard the Wise,[17] who
tells us that, on the eve of Easter Day, the “Kyrie eleison” was sung
until the angel came to light the lamps. In the twelfth century the
fire appeared sometimes in the Hospital of St. John or in the Temple
enclosure, sometimes in the cathedral, and was said to pass by an
underground passage between the two latter. In 1192 Saladin is said to
have attended the ceremony, but the Saracens “asserted that it was a
fraudulent contrivance.”[18]
The position of the traditional sites of Calvary and the Holy
Sepulchre, in the middle of the north quarter of Jerusalem, seems to
have given rise to suspicions very early. Eusebius[19] speaks of the
“new Jerusalem rising opposite the old,” and appears to think that the
latter included little more than the traditional Sion and the Temple
hill. Later writers[20] are careful to urge that Hadrian was the first
to enclose the sacred sites within the city wall, though there is
no foundation in contemporary accounts for this assertion. Even the
pilgrims were not always satisfied to accept all the traditions. John
of Würzburg, about 1160 A. D., knew that the Ṣakhrah rock could not be
that of Jacob at Bethel, though Theodorich a dozen years later seems to
have accepted what was then a recent tradition, confounding the “House
of God”--or Temple--with the city Bethel. Some of the early writers
were aware that different statements in the New Testament were “hard
to reconcile,” and sites which were called “Galilee”--on Olivet and on
Sion--arose from apologetic explanations of the different accounts in
the Gospels as to what happened after the Resurrection.[21]
[Sidenote: PILLARS OF SCOURGING]
Next to the relics in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the sites
on Mount Sion were venerated from an early age. A church (now the
Mosque of Nebi Dâûd) already existed in the fourth century, and was
said to mark the sites of the Last Supper and of the descent of the
Holy Ghost at Pentecost. By 440 A. D. it had come to be regarded as
the oldest church in the world, founded by Christ or by the Apostles.
It was regarded by Jews and Christians in the twelfth century as
being close to David’s tomb. The Franciscans held it from 1313 till
the time of Pope Sixtus IV.[22] (1471–84 A. D.), who sanctioned the
transference of the traditions therewith connected to the so-called
“House of Caiaphas”--now the small Armenian convent outside the south
wall--when the Moslems seized the old church as being the sepulchre of
“the prophet David.” About 1547 the Franciscans seem to have recovered
this Church of the Cœnaculum, or Last Supper, but had again lost it by
1561. We do not know the reasons given for approving the translation
of sites, but such transferences were common even in the end of the
thirteenth century, as the Moslems gradually extended their boundaries
in Palestine, acquiring many of the older traditional sites which
pilgrims were then unable to visit. The “House of Caiaphas” was shown
as early as the fourth century as being the place where Peter denied
his Lord. It once belonged to the Georgians, whom the Franciscans
succeeded, and it afterwards became the burial-place of the Armenian
patriarchs. Many traditions clustered round it in the Middle Ages, and
the scene of the Virgin’s death in the house of St. John was shown
close by on the south. In the church porch was a pillar, noticed by the
Bordeaux Pilgrim as that to which Christ was bound for scourging; but
in the Middle Ages the site where this pillar stood is often changed,
and no less than three positions are now indicated. The original Sion
pillar was said, in the sixth century, to have been bidden by Christ
to transfer itself from the House of Caiaphas to the Church of St.
Sion,[23] and the impress of the Saviour’s face was then to be seen
upon it. In the sixteenth century it was supposed to be the pillar
on which the cock stood and crowed when Peter denied Christ. Another
flagellation pillar was taken to Rome; a third was in the Latin chapel
north of the Holy Sepulchre in 1586, and is still shown by Latins; a
fourth, close to Calvary, has been shown by the Greeks since 1341; and
the Franciscans, since the sixteenth century, have shown the hole where
the pillar of scourging once stood in the chapel just north of the
Ḥaram.
There were also two prisons in which Christ was placed, according to
later accounts; one of them was at the “House of Annas,” near the south
wall and within the city. This is now the Syrian convent of the “Olive
Tree,” to which tree our Lord was bound. Here also, in the twelfth
century, was the prison in which St. Peter was confined by Herod; and
the city gate to the south was then supposed to be the “Iron Gate”
which opened of itself.[24] The other prison was a chapel, north-east
of the Holy Sepulchre, which is not noticed earlier than 1102 A. D.,
but must be included in the number of chapels found existing by the
Crusaders.[25] Finally, another site connected with St. Peter was
shown in the twelfth century on the east slope of Sion--namely,
the cave where he wept, covered by the chapel of “Gallicantus,” or
“Cock-crowing,” which some confused with “Galilee.”
[Sidenote: BETHESDA]
The sites in and round the Temple enclosure, and that of St. Stephen’s
death, with some on Olivet, were equally liable to change in course
of time. Thus the Pool of Bethesda has been traditionally pointed out
in three separate places. From 333 A. D. down to 440 A. D. the “Sheep
Pool,” or Bethesda, is placed at the “Twin Pools,” which still exist
in the Antonia fosse,[26] and which may have been cut out of the rock
in the time of Herod or later. They are vaulted over with masonry,
probably of the sixth century A. D., and gradually disappeared from
sight as the level of the street was raised above them; thus already in
the sixth century the “Sheep Pool” is placed at some distance from the
“House of Pilate,” which immediately adjoined the “Twin Pools.”[27]
In the twelfth century Bethesda is always described as being at the
“Piscina Interior,” or “inner pool,” a large rock tank west of the
Church of St. Anne, which was rediscovered in 1888; but even in the
thirteenth century the Templars were showing another site, namely,
that which appears on the old map of Jerusalem (about 1308 A. D.),
and which is the same now pointed out--the Birket Isrâîl, or “Pool
of Israel.”[28] There was considerable difference of opinion also as
to where the Prætorium, or “House of Pilate,” should be placed. In
the sixth century it was at the Antonia site, where Justinian built
a chapel of St. Sophia--now the “Chapel of the Mocking”--inside the
Turkish barracks. In the seventh and early in the twelfth centuries it
was supposed to be on Mount Sion, but in the thirteenth it was replaced
at the north-west corner of the Ḥaram.[29]
The adoration of the Virgin began to be increasingly important after
the great schism of 431 A. D., when Nestorius was condemned at Ephesus
for refusing to her the title “Mother of God.” In the middle of the
sixth century Justinian built his great Basilica of St. Mary on the
south side of the Temple enclosure, and the Tomb of the Virgin is
not mentioned by pilgrims before this time, nor are any of the other
churches of St. Mary which existed within the city. The legend of the
“Virgin’s Well,” where she washed the clothes of the infant Jesus, is
much later. The underground church supposed in 530 A. D. to be the site
of Mary’s tomb was beneath a basilica which Queen Melisinda replaced
by the present church in 1161 A. D. She was buried soon after half-way
down the steps to the crypt, yet in 1385 her tomb is described as that
of “Queen Mary,” while to-day it is known as that of St. Joseph.[30]
On Olivet the little cave-chapel of St. Lazarus in Bethany was built
over in the fourth century,[31] but the sites of the Pater Noster and
Credo chapels, and the Cave of Pelagia, are not noticed before the
sixth century. The old “Cave of the Agony” may have been shown as
“Gethsemane” in the time of Jerome,[32] but the Latin site on the south
side of the road to Bethany was not enclosed by the Franciscans till
1847 A. D. Another site which is often changed is that of the place
where Judas hanged himself, which is usually connected with an arch or
bridge--no doubt on account of an apocryphal legend which I have been
unable to trace.[33] In the sixth century Antony of Piacenza was shown
the fig tree of Judas apparently north of the East Gate of Jerusalem;
but if Adamnan rightly understood the account of Arculphus, his Gaulish
guest in Iona, the bridge was to the south-west of the city, and Judas
hanged himself on the west side of the middle arch, where a great fig
tree then grew. This bridge is not otherwise mentioned, and in the
fourteenth century an elder tree was shown, near Absalom’s tomb, and
the little bridge over the Kidron on the east side of which Judas
hung, according to Zuallardo.[34]
From the fourth to the sixth century the ancient temple wall at the
south-east angle of the enclosure stood up like a “pinnacle” above
the ruins, and this was pointed out as the pinnacle on which Christ
was placed by the Devil. Close by was the small vaulted chamber where
Solomon “wrote Wisdom,” and where (in the “House of Simeon”) was the
cradle of Christ. In the middle of the twelfth century a wooden cradle
was shown, whereas this is now replaced by a Roman vaulted niche laid
flat, which was once intended to hold a statue.[35]
In a Church of St. John on Olivet[36] our Lord was believed, in the
ninth century, to have met the woman charged with adultery, and the
“writing on the ground” was here shown. Early in the twelfth century
this site was transferred to the cave under the Ṣakhrah, where it was
still believed to exist in the fourteenth, though the “writing” of
Christ was then shown on a stone in the Pater Noster Chapel.
[Sidenote: SAINT STEPHEN]
Among the earlier sites, that of the stoning of Stephen has also been
variously placed at different times. The worship of saints developed
in the fifth century, and the tomb of St. Stephen was supposed to have
been found, in 415 A. D., at Caphar Gamala, a village which retains
its old name still, about 20 Roman miles south-west of Jerusalem. The
empress Eudocia, returning after her first visit to the Holy City,
brought back to Constantinople the chains of St. Peter, and the right
arm of St. Stephen, with the portrait of the Virgin said to have been
painted by St. Luke. She retired later to Jerusalem, where she lived
sixteen years and died about 460 A. D. She is said to have built a
church of St. Stephen at the site of his martyrdom by stoning, outside
the North or “Galilee” Gate; but in 530 A. D. a stone was shown on Sion
with which he was said to have been slain, and by the twelfth century
he was believed to have been there buried. The Crusaders found the
church of Eudocia (where she was buried) in ruins, and the North Gate
was still called St. Stephen’s down to about 1200 A. D., though about
1160 A. D. the site of the martyrdom is shifted to the west side of
the town. It first appears in its present position, outside the East
Gate, in the old map of about 1308 A. D. A Greek text has recently been
found at this site, bearing the words “This is the gate of the Lord,
the righteous shall (enter in). Holy Stephen pray for (us).” But this
slab may have been transferred from the ancient site outside the North
Gate.[37]
[Sidenote: LATIN SITES]
Many new Latin sites were created by the Crusaders in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries. The chapels then built have been carefully
planned and described by Dr. Tobler, Comte M. de Vogüé, and Herr
Schick, architect to the German Emperor and the Sultan, who for so
many years was an untiring student of Jerusalem. In a few cases the
churches mentioned--such of those as St. Agnes and St. Giles--are not
yet identified. On Sion, St. Mark, St. Thomas, St. George, and St.
James the Less, with the Chapel of the Three Maries, still exist. In
the centre of the town, St. Mary Latin, St. Mary Magna, and--north of
the Holy Sepulchre--St. Chariton, are now known. On the north-east were
St. Anne, St. Mary Magdalene, and--at the Ecce Homo Arch--the church
of the “Rest” of Mary. The “Stables of Solomon” are never noticed
before the twelfth century, when the “Oak of Rogel” was pointed out
where a sacred tree still stands at Siloam, being supposed to be the
place where Isaiah was sawn asunder. The “Gate Dolorous” was then the
name of that leading from Antonia, and the “School of the Virgin” was
the title given to the “Dome of the Roll,” at the south-west corner of
the platform of the Dome of the Rock. The “House of Uriah” was then
supposed to have been near David’s palace and tower, and the old tank
near the Jaffa Gate still bears the name of “Bathsheba’s Bath”; but in
the sixteenth century this house was shown at the south-west corner of
the Hebrew city, and the bath was transferred to the Birket es Sulṭân.
The altar of the Temple is said to have been converted into a sundial
by the Saracens,[38] and a block of masonry, south of the Dome of the
Rock, was still pointed out in 1874 as the place where a sundial had
stood. Finally, the fig tree cursed by Christ was shown at the bend of
the road near Bethany; and the place where He “descended from the ass”
near Bethphage--a site said even by Bernard the Wise to be marked by
a marble slab in 867 A. D.--was to be found in a small chapel, where
a block of stone has been recovered, with mediæval Latin texts, and
frescoes representing the raising of Lazarus, the fetching of the ass,
and a third subject.[39]
After the massacre of the Christians in 1244 A. D., the Franciscans
were allowed by the Sulṭân of Egypt to return to Jerusalem, and they
alone--for about five centuries--represented Latin Christianity
in Palestine. The Latin churches were in ruins, and were either
appropriated by Greeks and Armenians, or in other cases were turned
into mosques. The Franciscan monastery of St. Saviour was in the
north-west corner of the city, where the Latin Patriarchate now is.
The friars were the guides of pilgrims after the fall of Acre in 1291
A. D., but they were only able to show sites outside the city, or in
the streets, with exception of those in the Holy Sepulchre Cathedral,
which, by treaty, was reserved to Christians. This seems to have been
the reason why the sites in the Via Dolorosa--which are unnoticed
before 1300 A. D.--came to be established. The capital of a pillar
has been found, on which the legend of St. Veronica and the “holy
handkerchief” is represented,[40] which may be as old as the twelfth
century. The Chapel of the “Spasm” of the Virgin, with its mosaic
floor, has also been recovered at the point where the Via Dolorosa
turns south,[41] and this station is mentioned in the fourteenth
century[42]; but only eight stations are noticed in the sixteenth
century out of fourteen now shown by the Latins.[43] The “Stone of
Unction,” west of Calvary, is first noticed by Ludolph of Suchem, about
1330 A. D., as a Latin site, and “Herod’s House”--still extant, near
the “red minaret” in the north-east of the town--is mentioned by Sir
John Maundeville in 1342 A. D. Two footprints of Christ continued to
be here shown down to the present century, and this place was still
known in 1846, but has now ceased to be reckoned among the sacred
sites.[44] The place where Christ wept for Jerusalem on Olivet, and the
ancient tomb in the Hinnom Valley (probably that of Ananus), which was
converted into a chapel with a frescoed roof and called the “Retreat of
the Apostles,”[45] seem to be first noticed by Zuallardo in 1586 A. D.,
as are also the “House of Dives” and the “House of the Pharisee,” in
the Via Dolorosa.
[Sidenote: LATER SITES]
Detailed study of the traditional sites, fixed by the Oriental and
Roman Churches, thus serves to show that none of them go back to the
earlier years of the fourth century saving those of the Ascension, St.
Sion, Calvary, and the Holy Sepulchre. The statements of the pilgrims
prove to us that the remainder, as a whole, were vague and shifting
identifications, on which no reliance can be placed. We learn from the
Gospel (Luke xxiv. 50) that our Lord led His disciples out “as far as
to Bethany,” and He is not said to have ascended from the summit of
Olivet. The site of Calvary was considered to require defence even in
the fourth century, because it was within the city. There is a gap
of three hundred years, which is not bridged by any ancient allusion
even, separating the first notice of these older sites from the time of
the Crucifixion. Pious opinions, sanctioned by Popes and Patriarchs,
became fixed traditions as time went on, and the number of the sites
constantly increased, while Greeks and Latins showed rival “vestigia”
in rival shrines. Relics were perhaps often meant only to be regarded
as representations of objects connected with the Passion; but, in the
dark age of Gothic ignorance, the belief in miracles wrought by bones
of the saints infected Christianity with all the superstitions which
the illiterate converts brought in from paganism. The first Christians
were intent on the future rather than on the past, and the Gospels
themselves say nothing definite as to the position of Calvary or of the
new tomb in the garden. The pilgrims devoutly believed that they had
kissed the true Cross and the actual footprints of Christ, and knew
little of the earlier history of the sites where they gave alms and
received indulgences. But it is necessary, in endeavouring to ascertain
the truth, to distinguish between their beliefs and their accounts
of existing buildings, and we must found our study of the history
of Jerusalem on existing monuments and inscriptions, and as far as
possible on contemporary statements--on science, not on legend--even if
such examination of facts leads us to discard as improbable sites which
have so long been sacred to Christians; while we must also admit that
certainty and finality are still impossible, in cases where the actual
evidence is meagre. The account here given of the traditions will serve
to show that they have not been disregarded as an element in the study
of various questions of historical importance.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER I
[1] H. Rix, “Tent and Testament,” 1907, p. v.
[2] The views of Thrupp were revived in 1880 by Dr. Robertson Smith,
who has been followed by Dr. Sayce and Dr. G. A. Smith. The untenable
character of this theory has, once more, been ably shown by the Rev.
Selah Merrill quite recently.
[3] Bordeaux Pilgrim, 333 A. D., “Crypta ubi Salomon dæmones torquebat.”
[4] Eusebius, “Life of Constantine,” iii. 42.
[5] Rufinus (died 410 A. D.), i. 7; Theodoret (_c._ 440 A. D.), i. 17;
Sozomen (_c._ 450 A. D.), ii. 1, quoted by Robinson, “Bib. Res.” i. p.
374.
[6] Cyril, “Catech. Lect.” iv. 10, x. 19, xiii. 4, 9. These lectures
were given in the Basilica of the Anastasis to the neophytes preparing
for baptism at Easter, 347–8 A. D.
[7] Maundeville, 1342 A. D., “And yet there appears the imprint of His
left foot in the stone.”
[8] Antony of Piacenza (_c._ 570 A. D.); now _Ḳadam’Aisa_, or
“footprint of Jesus.”
[9] _Ḳadam esh Sherif._ John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160 A. D.), “Pede
domini calcatus et insignatus.”
[10] John of Würzburg.
[11] Zuallardo, “Dev. Viag.” (1586), p. 152.
[12] “Paula et Eustochium”; Silvia, “Perigrinatio”; Theodorus;
Adamnanus (_c._ 680 A. D.); Geoffrey de Vinsauf, v. 53, _cf._ i. 5.
[13] St. Silvia, “Dicitur quidam fixisse morsum ut furasset sancto
ligno.”
[14] St. Silvia (385 A. D.), Theodorus (_c._ 530 A. D.).
[15] Theodorus (_c._ 530 A. D.), Antoninus (_c._ 570 A. D.), Arculphus
(_c._ 680 A. D.), Bernard (_c._ 867 A. D.).
[16] Pilgrimage of St. Paula (384 A. D.); St. Willibald (_c._ 750
A. D.), “In similitudine prioris lapidis”; Bernard (867 A. D.),
“Lapidem ... quem angelus revolvit.”
[17] Bernard (867 A. D.), “Veniente angelo in lampadibus accenditur.”
[18] Theodoricus (_c._ 1172 A. D.); Geof. de Vinsauf, v. 16.
[19] Eusebius, “Life of Constantine,” iii. 33.
[20] Sæwulf (_c._ 1102 A. D.), John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160 A. D.), and
others.
[21] Matt. xxviii. 16; Luke xxiv. 52; John xxi. 1; Acts i. 11, 12.
[22] Eucherius (_c._ 440 A. D.), Theodorus (530 A. D.), Theodoricus
(_c._ 1172 A. D.), Pierre Belon (1553 A. D.), Zuallardo (1586 A. D.).
The last named mentions this remarkable transference of sites (p. 129).
[23] Pilgr. of Paula; Bordeaux Pilgrim; St. Silvia; Zuallardo, “Dev.
Viag.”; Theodorus (_c._ 530 A. D.), “Columna quæ fuit in domo Caiaphæ,
ad quam Dominus Christus flagellatus est, modo in sanctam Sion jussu
Domini ipsa columna secuta est.”
[24] Acts xii. 3, 10.
[25] Sæwulf (_c._ 1102 A. D.); John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160), “Carcer
Domini ... in sinistra apsida ecclesiæ.”
[26] Bordeaux Pilgrim, “Piscinæ gemellares ... quæ appelluntur
Bethsaida”; Eucherius, “Bethesda gemino ... lacu.”
[27] Theodorus, 530 A. D.
[28] The Templar rival site is noticed in an anonymous
thirteenth-century tract. The map of 1308 shows the Piscina (interior)
west of St. Anne, but the Piscina Probatica south of that church. The
pilgrims usually call the pool Bethsaida, as in the Vat. MS. (Sinaitic
Bethzatha), and note its “five cloisters” (John v. 2). Bethesda
probably means “house of the stream,” but _Beth-ṣiddei_ would be “the
house of sides,” or “cloisters.”
[29] Theodorus, Armenian account, Antoninus Martyr, Abbot Daniel (_c._
1106 A. D.), John of Würzburg.
[30] R. Röhricht, “Die Jerusalemfahrt des Peter Sparnau,” 1385.
[31] Onomasticon, s.v. _Bethania_.
[32] _Ibid._, s.v. _Gethsemane_; St. Silvia (385 A. D.).
[33] Acts i. 20. It may be suspected that the idea of the bridge
originated in a confusion between the Greek _epaulis_, “abode,” and
_ep-aulou_, “over a pipe” (or “aqueduct”--_aulōn_), the bridge of
Adamnanus being that of the low-level aqueduct south-west of the city,
as Robinson supposed.
[34] Ant. Martyr (_c._ 570 A. D.); Adamnanus (_c._ 680 A. D.), “Pons
lapideus occurrit eminus per vallem ad austrum recto tramite directus
arcubus sussaltus”; Sir John Maundeville (1342 A. D.); Zuallardo (1586
A. D.), “Dev. Viag.,” p. 152. The “Arch of Judas” was inside the city
about 1187 A. D.
[35] Bordeaux Pilgrim, Eucherius (_c._ 440 A. D.), Theodorus (_c._ 530
A. D.), Sæwulf (_c._ 1102 A. D.), John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160 A. D.).
[36] John viii. 3, 6. Bernardus (867 A. D.), Sæwulf, John of Würzburg,
Maundeville.
[37] “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” iii. p. 24; Reland, _Pal._ p. 688;
Theodorus (530 A. D.); Sæwulf (1102 A. D.); Abbot Daniel (_c._
1106 A. D.); John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160 A. D.); Phocas (_c._ 1185
A. D.); “Citez de Jhérusalem” (after 1187 A. D.); Marino Sanudo (_c._
1320 A. D.); Regesta Reg. Hierosol. No. 329 (1157 A. D.). C. K.
Spyridonidis, in _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_ (April 1907, p. 137),
gives the inscription.
[38] John of Würzburg, “Quod a Sarracenis postea mutatum est in
horologium.” He follows Fetellus (_c._ 1151–7 A. D.).
[39] “Mem. Survey West Pal.,” Jerusalem vol., 1883, pp. 331–40.
[40] Canon Dalton and M. Clermont-Ganneau, _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_,
1900, pp. 166 _seq._
[41] _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_, 1902, p. 122.
[42] Marino Sanudo (_c._ 1320 A. D.).
[43] Zuallardo, “Dev. Viag.” (1586 A. D.), gives a drawing of the whole
course of the Via Dolorosa.
[44] Schick, _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_, April 1896, p. 122, July
1896; T. Tobler, “Topogr.,” i. p. 445.
[45] “Mem. Survey West Pal.,” Jerusalem vol., 1883, p. 419; Josephus,
“Wars,” V. xii. 2.