THE BYZANTINES
The Romans policed the western world for the benefit of Italy alone.
We have made them our model, but the progress of higher thought in
the past was due to the Hebrew, the Greek, the Norman, and the Frank,
rather than to the Roman, whose only culture was Greek, or to his Saxon
disciples. Before Marcus Aurelius died, in 180 A. D., the empire had
become cosmopolitan. Signs of decay then appeared under Commodus, and
the heart of Italy withered. Constantine substituted the hereditary
principle for the elective method dear to the old free republic, but
he only delayed the doom to which Roman supremacy and centralisation
now hastened. An ignorant plutocracy, corrupted by luxury, destroyed
the ancient yeomanry by absorbing the small holdings of the “coloni,”
and ruined agriculture by laying the land under grass. They sapped
the sources of their own power, and substituted foreign slaves for
native freedmen. The plebeian settled as a legionary in distant lands,
forming colonies, military and civil, of crossbred descendants, and the
colonial emperors had little regard to the selfish prejudices of Rome.
The Church was also changing, like the empire. Under the philosophic
Aurelius, Christians were becoming numerous, and before the end of
the second century Tertullian wrote as follows[410]: “The cry is
that the State is full of Christians; that they are in the field, in
the citadels, in the islands; men lament, as if for some calamity,
that both sexes, every age and condition, even high rank, are passing
over to the profession of the Christian faith; and yet, for all this,
their minds are not awakened to the thought of some good that they
have failed to notice in it.” “We are but of yesterday, but we have
filled every place among you--cities, islands, fortresses, towns,
market-places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate,
forum: we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.” Yet
Truth cannot keep her robe spotless when she walks the market with
the crowd. The Church was becoming Romanised, the “sacerdos” began
to be distinguished in his “ordo” from the laity or “people.” Men
of high rank, like Cyprian (or like the later Ambrose), were being
elected as bishops in the third century, and their influence was very
different from that of the humble “overseers” of earlier days. After
the Decian persecution the federated Churches were strong enough to
demand toleration, and received it from the dying Galerius after 300
A. D. Sacerdotal organisation was more welcome to Roman rulers than the
teaching of the Master, but it also rendered the leaders of the Church
more willing to regard worldly expedience.
[Sidenote: CONSTANTINE]
The adoption of Christianity as the imperial cultus by Constantine
revolutionised Church and Empire. Eusebius is enthusiastic in praising
(or flattering) the newly converted master of the West, but his hero’s
memory is stained by cruel deeds of tyranny; and, though his heart may
have been touched by the Gospel, it is more probable that his policy
was due to considerations of worldly state-craft. Flavius Valerius
Aurelius Constantinus was the son of Constantius Chlorus, the emperor
who died at York. Constantine was born in Mœsia, served in Persia,
and became sole emperor in 323 A. D. at about fifty years of age. He
was a shrewd statesman, with experiences gained in many lands, and
perceived the trend of his time, which permitted him to convert the
Italian republic into a European monarchy. The change of capital, which
Italy had dreaded even in the days of Julius Cæsar, recognised the
Asiatic conquests as being the richest and most valuable provinces of
the empire, and broke down the Roman supremacy. Constantine also cast
his eyes on the Christian Churches, and perceived in them a power which
might become a mighty engine in his hands--a cultus better organised
and more popular than any other, and a society which he might sway by
securing the nomination of its bishops.
But to the Christian faith this recognition was a misfortune lamented
by all the great men of the fourth century--by Jerome and Chrysostom,
Gregory and Basil, if not so by the courtly Eusebius. The Council of
Nicæa, called in 325 A. D., produced the great Arian schism; but the
cultus of the “divine emperor” was eagerly adopted by the masses,
and the Catholic Church was suddenly swamped by the conversion of
innumerable ignorant and superstitious pagans, while, as State
officials, the bishops lost their freedom, and were selected rather
on account of their loyalty to the emperor than because of the purity
of their faith. Palestine became a holy land, and was filled with
wonder-loving pilgrims. Cyril of Jerusalem was obliged to exhort his
neophytes against “things done to honour lifeless idols, the lighting
of lamps, or burning incense by fountains or rivers, watching of birds,
divination, omens, amulets, charms on leaves, and sorceries.”[411]
[Sidenote: THE HOLY SEPULCHRE]
It was under such circumstances that Constantine took steps to show
his zeal for the Catholic party, and--as usual with former emperors--to
found a shrine at the most appropriate place in honour of his own
peculiar cultus. According to Eusebius, after the Council, the new
“bishop of bishops,” who had then presided, “desired to perform a
glorious work in Palestine by adorning and consecrating the place of
our Lord’s resurrection, not without God, but moved by the spirit
of the Saviour Himself.”[412] Crowds of pilgrims were then visiting
Olivet,[413] and among them was the emperor’s mother, Helena. It
would seem from the letter which Constantine wrote to Macarius,[414]
who became bishop of Jerusalem in the year of the edict of Milan
(313 A. D.), that the establishment of the Church had at once been
signalised (perhaps with imperial permission) by the destruction of
the Aphrodite temple in the Holy City, which was hateful to Jews and
Christians alike. It was entirely removed, and even the earth was
carried away and the rock laid bare. During these operations an ancient
sepulchre--which (as before suggested) was probably that of the family
of David--was found, and was no doubt recognised at once as being
Jewish. Moreover, a rock grave was discovered 15 yards farther west,
and it was this that Macarius declared to be the true tomb of Christ.
We are not told why he made this announcement. Eusebius does not speak
of any tradition, nor does it seem possible that the tomb of Joseph
of Arimathæa should have been known to the Christians who returned to
Jerusalem seventy or a hundred years after the fall of the city, buried
as it was under the foundations of a heathen temple. We learn nothing
except that Constantine was inspired to seek the site, and that the
bishop of Jerusalem informed him of its discovery.
The announcement was received[415] with enthusiasm by Constantine, who
wrote of the discovery as being miraculous, according to the copy of
his letter given by Eusebius: “Truly that the evidence [_gnórisma_]
of His most holy Passion, hidden of old under the earth for so many
periods of years, should be anew manifested to the faithful ... is a
prodigy defying all admiration.” For, as Eusebius says, “the awful
and most holy witness [_marturion_] of the Saviour’s resurrection
was discovered beyond all hope.” The letter goes on to declare the
confirmation of the emperor’s belief by “all those supernatural events
which daily occur to demonstrate the truth of the faith,” and it
says that his “first wish now, and after having by God’s leave freed
from the heavy load of impious idols the place holy from the first
by God’s will, holier yet since it has thrown a vivid light on the
Passion of the Saviour, my wish I say is to adorn this holy place by
the construction of splendid buildings.” The rest of the letter gives
directions for this purpose. It does not, however, enlighten us as to
the reasons for selecting the site. The emperor, like his people at
large, seems to have been quite satisfied to rest on the authority of
Macarius.
[Sidenote: THE SEPULCHRE]
We are now more critical than men were in the fourth century; and
besides all the difficulties (already noticed) in accepting this
site as appropriate, there is another--namely, that the rock grave
found by the bishop cannot apparently have been like that described
in the Gospels. Our only contemporary witness is Eusebius, and the
turgid language of his eulogy on Constantine gives us little accurate
information. He died in 340 A. D., and Cyril wrote twenty years after
the supposed discovery occurred.[416] He says that the stone still
lay in his time beside the Holy Sepulchre, and that “the hollow place
which was then at the door of the salutary tomb, and was hewn out of
the rock itself as is customary here in the front of sepulchres, now
appears not, the outer cave having been hewn away for the sake of the
present adornment; for before the sepulchre was decorated by royal zeal
there was a cave in the face of the rock; but where is the rock that
has in it this hollow place?” We may echo these words to-day, and may
well ask, Was there ever any such cave?
Quaresmius (writing in 1616 A. D.) preserves a letter from Father
Boniface of Raguza, who was present in 1555 when the building over
the Holy Sepulchre was repaired. We must accept his statement that,
when the covering (of marble) was taken off, “the sepulchre of our
Lord appeared in its original state hewn in the rock.” But he does not
speak of there being any rock cave over it. On the contrary, there
were walls decorated by two ancient frescoes of angels, together with
a parchment bearing the name “Helena Magna” in Latin capitals, which
was probably much later than her time. When the great basilica was
first built, the rock was levelled sufficiently to form a flat floor
for the great apse; but a little to the south-east the cliff supposed
to be Calvary was allowed to stand up 15 feet above this floor, with
the cavern of Golgotha beneath its flat summit. The rock face in which
the door of the Jewish tomb, west of the Sepulchre, was cut stood up
6 feet above the floor, and it appears that the rock surface sloped
gently eastwards, so that the existence of a cave at least 7 feet high,
with rock above it, seems to have been impossible at the spot where the
Holy Sepulchre itself was found. That grave must have been simply a
rock-sunk tomb, covered probably by a large and heavy stone, and when
the floor was levelled it stood up as a trough, with rock walls, about
2 feet above the pavement of the apse.
Such graves are not uncommon in Palestine, being sometimes single,
sometimes three or more in a row, each covered by a hewn stone like the
lid of a sarcophagus. I have described one group which I found in 1872
at Sepphoris, north of Nazareth; and in another case at Mithilia--a
ruin not far off--a rock sarcophagus stands up alone on a rock which
has been scarped on each side below it. At Umm el Buruk, in Gilead,
there are other examples which I described in 1881, and this site
is the ruin of a Roman town, with a Greek inscription stating that
“Antonius Rufus” made something (apparently a tomb) “for himself at
his own cost.”[417] There can be little doubt that graves of this
kind belong to the Roman period, and they are neither Hebrew nor even
Greco-Jewish. The “new tomb” in the garden was of the last-named class,
with a _loculus_ so placed in the cave that the two angels could be
seen from the door sitting at the head and foot of the grave itself.
Macarius cannot apparently have found such a tomb, but he discovered a
rock-sunk grave which, as it was single and also near a Hebrew tomb, he
rashly assumed to be the sepulchre which he hoped to find. He was not
an archæologist, nor was he well acquainted with the topography of the
ancient city which Hadrian had transformed into a modern town. We need
not doubt that he was as honestly convinced about the matter as General
Gordon was convinced about the “Garden Tomb.” But they both appear to
have been misled by enthusiasm without knowledge, and they both created
sacred sites which were eagerly adopted by those who accepted their
authority.
[Sidenote: CONSTANTINE’S CHURCH]
The result of fixing the site, which has now become traditional, was
that a Christian church was built where a heathen temple had stood.
This was the case also at Ba’albek, at Gerasa, possibly at Bethlehem,
and in many other cases, such as the basilica of St. Clement at Rome.
There is no doubt that Constantine’s sites were the same as now shown.
Not only are they described as lying “north of Sion”--that is, of
the upper city, which is so called by all the pilgrims--and also as
being to the “left hand” of those who went north to the Nâblus Gate,
while the east gates of the basilica opened on the market,[418] but we
have now the mosaic map already described, which shows the position
of Constantine’s great Church of the Resurrection, and enables us to
understand the rather vague description by Eusebius.[419]
The sepulchre was first adorned by the chamber built over it. This
stood in a great apse which had in its wall three smaller apses, one
on the west, the others on the north and south. They still exist,
though the apse has been converted into the rotunda. De Vogüé remarked
that the north and south apses have their east sides tangential to
the diameter of the great apse, which clearly shows that it was not
originally built as a rotunda. His restoration of the whole cathedral
has been proved to be the best of several suggestions by the discovery
of the mosaic map. The apse had no roof, and the paved, pillared
court round the sepulchre was open to the sky. East of this was a
roofed basilica, like that still existing at Bethlehem, which was also
founded by Constantine. The site of Calvary was in the south-west part
of this basilica, which had a nave and aisles--probably four, as at
Bethlehem--with a clerestory above, and a gilt ceiling. East of the
basilica was an atrium, or entrance hall, and beyond this the pillared
porch, with gates opening on the central pillared street of the city.
To the south of the basilica was the great tank used as a baptistery,
and still traceable. It was fed from reservoirs, of which the most
important--now called “Helena’s Cistern”--is 66 feet deep, and measures
60 feet by 30 feet, being immediately east of Calvary. The total length
of these buildings was 350 feet east and west, and the breadth 120 feet
north and south.
One of the most remarkable ceremonies of the year was connected
with the baptistery; and Cyril[420] describes how the christenings
were carried out at Eastertide. In the evening before the Day of
Resurrection the neophytes assembled in the dark porch--apparently
by torch-light--and, turning to the west, renounced Satan and all
the practices of pagan superstition. The women were separately
assembled by deaconesses. Every neophyte was naked, and was anointed
with oil from head to foot. They were led to the “holy pool,” and
thrice descended its steps into the water, confessing their belief
in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They were then clothed in white, and
the bishop confirmed them by the chrism, marking with the sign of the
cross, in holy oil, the forehead, ears, nostrils, and breast of each
new member of the Church, after which they partook of the Eucharist
at the Easter Communion. The bishop preached to them, and St. Silvia
says, “So loud are the voices of those applauding that they are heard
outside the church.” This applause by congregations is also mentioned
by Chrysostom. The other ceremonies--both daily and annual--including
processions to Olivet and to Sion, which are described in some detail
by St. Silvia, with the exhortations to pilgrims delivered in Greek,
Syriac, and Latin, need not now detain us.
The oldest church in Jerusalem seems to have been that of “Holy Sion,”
which the Crusaders rebuilt, and which is now the Nebi Dâûd Mosque,
outside the south wall of the city. A small chapel may have been built
here towards the close of the third century, and by the fifth it had
come to be regarded as having been built by the apostles.[421] The
Temple enclosure remained in ruins till the time of Justinian, but a
basilica was also built by Constantine on the summit of Olivet, and
the Pool of Siloam was surrounded by a cloister. The other traditional
sites, including the Prætorium, the House of Caiaphas, and Bethesda,
have been already sufficiently noticed.[422]
[Sidenote: JULIAN]
The accession of Julian, after the death of his uncle Constantine
in 337 A. D., and of his cousin Constantius in 353 A. D., checked
the progress of Christian church building for ten years, and obliged
Catholics and Arians for the moment to lay aside their differences
in defence of their common faith. The Jews had rebelled against
Constantius in the second year of his reign, when Sepphoris was
razed to the ground. In the last six months before his death, on the
borders of Persia, the philosophic Julian is said to have endeavoured
to win their loyalty by rebuilding their Temple. According to a
contemporary statement, the work was abandoned soon after it was
begun, the labourers “fearing globes of flames” which burst out of the
foundations--miraculously, according to Gregory of Nazianzen.[423]
The Jews were now allowed to return to Jerusalem, and are said to
have contributed largely to the funds raised by Alypius, governor of
Palestine.
It is very doubtful whether any remains of this work are to be
recognised, though some writers have thought that the “Golden Gate,” on
the east wall of the Ḥaram, was built by Julian. It seems to have taken
its name (_Porta Aurea_) from a misunderstanding of the Greek _hôraia_,
and to have been thus identified by later writers with the “Beautiful
Gate” of the Temple. It certainly existed in the sixth century,[424]
but according to architectural authority the style of the arched
cornices is not as early as the time of Julian, while the gate-house
within is supported on great columns which seem clearly to be as
late as the sixth century, when the Temple walls appear to have been
still in ruins. It is more probable, therefore, that the Golden Gate,
which is unnoticed by pilgrims before the time of Justinian, is to be
attributed to the period of his restoration of the Temple enclosure.
[Sidenote: EUDOCIA’S WALL]
The city remained at peace under the emperors of the East for three
centuries after the Christian religion had been tolerated at Milan in
313 A. D. The next great building period was in the time of Eudocia,
widow of Theodosius II. She lived sixteen years in the Holy City, and
died there, at the age of sixty-seven, about 460 A. D. She built (as
already noticed) the Church of St. Stephen outside the north gate, and
here she was buried; she also built a wall on the south side of the
upper city to include the Church of St. Sion, and carried it over the
Tyropœon Valley (enclosing for the first time the Pool of Siloam),
running it north, on the ancient line on Ophel, to the south-east
angle of the Temple enclosure. The ruins of this wall have now been
excavated.[425]
The reasons for supposing that the wall excavated by Mr. Bliss is not
older than the time of Eudocia are purely antiquarian, and require
notice because it has been assumed, by recent writers, that it
represents the “old wall” described by Josephus, though its course is
not that which he mentions, since--in 70 A. D.--the rampart crossed the
Tyropœon “above Siloam,” and left the pool outside. The wall was partly
rebuilt for a short distance on the slope of Sion, at some later period
(before 680 A. D.), but it is substantially all of one character, and
fragments of Roman and Byzantine work have been built into its masonry.
A new gate was made near its south-west angle, the threshold stones
of which were more than once renewed. A pilaster with Roman letters
and numerals was here used up, and the drain under the lowest pavement
of the street was covered with flat stones. “One of these,” says Mr.
Bliss, “has a large plain Greek cross carved on its under side,” which
clearly indicates that even the oldest part of the wall is later than
the fourth century.
The style of fortification, with buttresses at intervals, is also
distinctively Byzantine, and the masonry is “roughly set in coarse
lime,” and (near Siloam) is “covered with plaster.” The masonry does
not resemble that of even Herod’s time, but (as seen by myself and as
shown in the drawings supplied by Mr. Bliss) it may confidently be
ascribed to the fifth century. Similar masonry is common in the walls
of chapels and monasteries throughout Palestine and Syria belonging to
that age, and it is certain that this was hewn at the time, and was not
merely re-used material. It was a rude imitation of the older Greek and
Roman style, but the work is very inferior in execution. The stones
are generally less than 2 feet square, the joints are wide, and mortar
is used, while in some cases small fragments of stone are packed in
on the face of the joint. The courses are irregular, and some stones
are rudely drafted, while others are not. This masonry is constantly
associated with barrel vaults having graduated voussoirs--the keystone
narrow, and the haunch-stones broad--which is also distinctive
of Byzantine architecture. No one who has examined the Palestine
monasteries of the Byzantine age could doubt that the wall in question
must be of the same period, and it appears that it was the work of
Eudocia, though it was repaired and strengthened, in the same style,
rather later--probably by Justinian. Soon after his time Antoninus
Martyr says, “The fountain of Siloam is at the present day within the
walls of the city, because the Empress Eudocia herself added these
walls to the city, and built the basilica and tomb of St. Stephen.”[426]
[Illustration: SPECIMENS OF MASONRY, SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE SIZE AND
FINISH.
1. Palace of Hyrcanus.
2. Herod’s Temple, Jerusalem.
3. Byzantine wall on Sion, at Jerusalem.
4. Norman wall on Sion, at Jerusalem.
5. From the Templars’ Castle of Tortosa.
6. From the Castle of Krak des Chevaliers.
]
The chapel which has been found on the north side of the Pool of Siloam
appears to be somewhat later than this wall. It is not mentioned by any
writer before 570 A. D., and it may have been built under Justinian.
The pool--as described by Antoninus Martyr--was then converted into
a baptistery, and the chapel was no doubt used in connection with
the rites. The reservoir was divided into two parts by rails. In one
part men were washed, in the other women, “for a blessing,” and the
intermittent flow from the tunnel was awaited. The waters were said
to cure leprosy--no doubt with reference to the Gospel story.[427]
As late as the eleventh century[428] a Moslem writer informs us,
in speaking of Siloam, “there are at this spring many buildings for
charitable purposes, richly endowed”; but these were apparently not
kept up, and the chapel is not noticed in the accounts of the Middle
Ages. The institution is mentioned by Nâṣr-i-Khosrau in connection
with the hospice in the city itself (afterwards that of St. John),
which dated from about 800 A. D. It is, however, possible that both
these charitable institutions originated with Justinian, who certainly
erected others on the Temple hill.
[Sidenote: THE MOSAIC MAP]
The mosaic map of Jerusalem, perhaps about 450 A. D., has already
been noticed.[429] It shows very clearly Constantine’s Church of the
Anastasis, with the great roofless apse on the west, the basilica to
its east having a pitched roof, while the atrium seems also to be
roofless, and the porch gates stand above steps leading down to the
pillared street close by to the east. The representation of the city is
a rude perspective, and the main buildings are quite out of scale. The
pillared street ascends to Zion by steps at right angles to its course,
which is north and south through the middle of the city. The walls are
strengthened by towers such as have been actually unearthed on the
south. Three city gates are shown on west, north, and east. The only
building on the Temple site is at the south-east corner--apparently the
“Chapel of St. Simeon” in the old Herodian vault, where the “Cradle
of Christ” was early shown. The second pillared street, west of the
Temple, descends towards Siloam by steps, and Antoninus Martyr,[430] in
the sixth century, speaks of descending this street under the “arch”
of the causeway, which then led to the central gate of the west Temple
wall, and “by many steps” down to Siloam. The Church of St. Anne is
shown in the north-east part of the city, and a large church inside
the wall on the south-west is probably St. Sion.[431] The House of
Annas appears to its north, with three other buildings--two east of the
central street.
At the time when Eudocia retired to Jerusalem the terror of the Huns
had fallen on Europe and on Asia. Before his death, her husband,
Theodosius II., was forced to make peace with Attila. Last of the
Spanish emperors of Byzantium, he was succeeded in 457 A. D. by Leo of
Thrace. The Roman Empire was broken up by the Goths, who were driven
from their homes by the Huns, and who invaded the Balkan peninsula
and Asia Minor. Theodoric the Ostrogoth nearly won Byzantium from
Zeno the Isaurian, and then conquered Italy and sacked Rome. The rude
civilisation of the Goths was fatal to the ancient culture of Greeks
and Latins, and the Arians triumphed over the Catholics. Asia was Arian
at heart, and the Eastern Churches refused the new definitions and the
Mariolatry of the imperial orthodoxy. After the Council of Chalcedon
(in 451 A. D.), when Jerusalem became the seat of a patriarch, Syrians,
Copts, Armenians, and Chaldeans alike were separated from the Greeks
and Romans. The superstitions which Chrysostom denounced at Antioch
even in the fourth century degraded Christianity, and learning hid
itself in remote monasteries, while education was ruined by Gothic
barbarism. From this welter of confusion rose the new empire of
Justinian--himself of Gothic descent--which restored the glories of
Constantine’s monarchy for forty years after 527 A. D. But the ancient
world was entirely changed, and Byzantine power lingered only half a
century after Justinian’s death.
[Sidenote: JUSTINIAN]
Justinian was a great builder, and did much for Jerusalem. If the
architectural style of his work on the Temple hill is sometimes more
classical than that of his great Cathedral of St. Sophia in his
capital, this may be attributed--in an age of novelty--to the later
selection of Theodorus as his architect.[432] The fine, square,
undrafted masonry which stands on the Herodian work in the outer Temple
walls is certainly later than Hadrian’s time, since his inscription has
been built into it upside-down at the Double Gate. It is attributed
by de Vogüé to Justinian, who was the first to restore the ramparts
destroyed by Titus. Similar masonry is also found in connection with
the wall of Eudocia, but this is less well hewn than Justinian’s work.
His great building was the Church of St. Mary on the south side of
the Temple enclosure, and besides this he appears to have founded the
Church of the Virgin’s Tomb, as well as one to St. Sophia, and two
hospitals.
We owe our knowledge of Justinian’s works to Procopius, but his
description of the St. Mary Church is so vague as to lead some writers
to state that its position cannot be identified. Procopius[433] says
that the “temple to the Virgin, ... called by natives the New Church,”
was ordered to be built “on the most prominent of the hills.” It was
begun by the Patriarch Elias, and completed by Justinian about 532
A. D. It was found that there was not enough flat ground to allow of
the emperor’s design being carried out, without raising the foundations
on vaults under about a quarter of the area towards the south-east,
so that it was evidently on the narrower part of the Temple ridge.
Antoninus Martyr tells us that a footprint of Christ was shown in this
church, which later writers identify with the present Aḳṣa Mosque,[434]
where the “footprint of Jesus” is still shown. In the twelfth century
the Templars’ Church occupied the south part of this mosque, and had
an apse on the east, the wall of which is still visible. It consisted
of a nave and two aisles, and the mosque dome is still supported on
fine columns which appear to be of the time of Justinian. The building
stands partly on the rock and partly on the vaulted passage from the
Double Gate, which passage is also of masonry attributable to the age
of Justinian, its barrel vault being Byzantine.
On the south-east the rock is 40 feet lower than the floor of the
mosque, and the surface is banked up above it, and is partly supported
by the west wall and the vaulted roof of the Triple Gateway. The site
thus answers to that described by Procopius, and the Templars’ apse
very probably marks the site of that which belonged to Justinian’s
church, and which is described as being on the east. The building
had two side apses--as was usual in this age--and on the west was a
_narthex_, or narrow porch, with a square atrium or outer court, and
beyond this again the western gates. The great apse was flanked by two
tall pillars, and the church appears to have had a clerestory. The
atrium, as well as the aisles, was adorned with large pillars, and it
is supposed that some of the massive columns now used in the north part
of the mosque have been cut down in height, and originally belonged
to the church. They have Corinthian capitals, but are evidently not
standing _in situ_,[435] and in style they are not as early as the
pillars of Constantine’s basilica at Bethlehem.[436]
We may suppose, therefore, that the new Church of the Virgin occupied
what is called the “transept” of the Aḳṣa, thus including the
“footprint of Christ” in its south-west part. It was thus about 160
feet long and 100 feet wide, with an atrium 100 feet square on the
west. It resembled in plan the Holy Sepulchre basilica, except that it
had three apses on the east instead of one large apse on the west. This
building became the first mosque in Jerusalem a century after it was
built.
[Sidenote: ST. SOPHIA]
Besides building this church and repairing the outer walls of the
Temple, Justinian very probably enclosed the five acres on the
north-east, which (as already said[437]) formed no part of Herod’s
enclosure. He adorned the Double Gate with an arched cornice outside,
and probably built the Golden Gate in the same style, as well as the
fine gate-house within. The Ṣakhrah rock--as the site of the Jewish
Temple--was purposely left desolate, as it was in Constantine’s time;
but a Church of St. Sophia was built, and is described by Theodorus
(who was perhaps the same person who built the church for Justinian) as
being in the Prætorium. It is thus to be identified with the “Chapel
of the Mocking,” which still exists inside the Turkish barracks on the
Antonia scarp. Antoninus Martyr also describes it at the same site, and
calls it a basilica.[438]
It is not clear from the account by Procopius where the two hospitals
built by Justinian stood, nor are any remains of them known to
exist. They flanked some entry, and may have been near the west
central gate of the enclosure (now the “Gate of the Chain”), where
the ancient causeway was repaired, and ran on Byzantine arches over
the street leading from the Gate of St. Stephen to Siloam. Cyril of
Scythopolis[439] mentions Justinian’s hospital for sick pilgrims as
having one hundred beds, to which another hundred were added later.
Procopius speaks of one hospice as being a lodging for visitors coming
from a distance, and of the other as being a resting-place for the sick
poor. Antoninus Martyr, forty years later, says: “From Sion we came to
the Basilica of the Blessed Mary, where is a large company of monks,
and where also are hospices for men and women. There I was received as
a pilgrim: there were countless tables, and more than three thousand
beds for sick persons.” The hospices may have been enlarged by his
time, but Antoninus is not a very reliable writer, and is given to
exaggeration, besides being extremely credulous.
To Justinian we may also, perhaps, ascribe the building of the
underground chapel at Gethsemane, which was supposed to be the site
of the Virgin’s Tomb. It is first mentioned by Theodorus, and though
St. John of Damascus speaks of the Empress Pulcheria (after 450 A. D.)
as desiring relics from this tomb, he only wrote three centuries
later. Yet a third church in honour of the Virgin first appears in
the accounts of Theodorus and Antoninus. This was close to the “Sheep
Pool,” and its site is perhaps marked by the present Latin chapel of
the “Flagellation.”
[Illustration: JERUSALEM IN 530 A. D.]
[Sidenote: KHOSRAU II.]
After the death of Justinian, whose power held at bay the Vandals
and the Goths, the Persians, and the Turks of the Volga, and after
the peaceful times of his nephew, Justin II., and of Tiberius II.,
who married the widow of Justin, Maurice the Cappadocian--of Roman
origin--was emperor for twenty years, till he was murdered in 602
A. D. by the centurion Phocas, elected emperor by the discontented
army, and attacked by Khosrau II., the Sassanian ruler of Persia. The
Byzantine empire had fallen on evil days, and Heraclius, the exarch
of Africa, refused tribute to Phocas. Khosrau I. had conceived the
ambitious idea of conquering Western Asia; but he was held in check by
Justinian, who was allied to the Turks on his north and to the Sabean
kings on the south. The grandson (Khosrau II.) took advantage of the
weakness of Phocas, and attacked Aleppo and Antioch in 610 A. D., while
Heraclius, son of the exarch, was besieging the upstart centurion in
Byzantium. For ten years Khosrau II. held Chalcedon, and the Persian
forces faced the new Greek emperor at Constantinople. The victorious
Sassanian entered Alexandria, and in 614 A. D. the Persians besieged
Jerusalem. Muhammad at Mekkah watched the war, and predicted that
in spite of the defeat of the Greeks they would triumph a few years
later.[440] Meanwhile, the Holy City fell to the Persians in June[441];
and, according to a contemporary account in the Paschal Chronicle, a
terrible massacre of monks and nuns followed. The churches were laid in
ruins; the Holy Sepulchre basilica, built by Constantine, was burned
down; the Patriarch Zacharias and the True Cross were taken away to
Persia as hostages. Mediæval writers state that the corpses of the
martyrs were buried at the “Charnel House [or, Cave] of the Lion,”
beside the Mâmilla Pool outside Jerusalem, on the west,[442] where a
subterranean chapel still exists.
The prediction of Muḥammad was speedily fulfilled. Heraclius drove the
Persians out of Asia Minor in 622 A. D.--the year of the Hejirah--and
struck boldly at the heart of their empire. He advanced nearly to
Ispahan, and in five years he so ruined Sassanian power as to leave
Persia a prey to the Moslems ten years later. His advance forced
Khosrau II. to retreat from Palestine, and early in 628 the latter was
murdered by his son Siroes, who made an ignominious peace with the
Byzantines. Thus, in the following year, Heraclius made a triumphal
entry by the Golden Gate into Jerusalem, at the Feast of the Exaltation
of the Cross on September 14, and bore the sacred relic on his
shoulder, while the patriarch, having died in captivity, was succeeded
by Modestus, his vicar.
[Sidenote: MODESTUS]
Even before this last triumph of the Byzantine emperor, steps had been
taken to rebuild the ruined churches, as soon as the Persians had
retired. John Eleemon, Patriarch of Alexandria, raised funds and sent a
thousand workmen from Egypt.[443] The monk Modestus, appointed vicar to
the captive Patriarch Zacharias, superintended the building work.
The churches destroyed by Khosrau II. included (according to Eutychius,
who, however, wrote three centuries later) the church of Gethsemane
(or of the Virgin’s Tomb), and those of Constantine and Helena, with
Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre. About sixty years after these were
rebuilt, the Gaulish bishop Arculphus described the new churches to
Adamnan, bishop of Iona, to which island he had been driven by a
storm. Rough sketch-plans were also made by Adamnan from his accounts,
representing the sites near the Holy Sepulchre, the square church of
Holy Sion, and the round church on the summit of Olivet. Before these
were in turn destroyed (in 1010 A. D.), they were also visited by St.
Willibald in the eighth century, and by Bernard, “the wise monk,” in
the ninth century. From these accounts,[444] and from existing remains,
we may conclude that the new buildings were very inferior to those of
Constantine’s time, but that they were on the same sites.
The chapel or chamber over the Holy Sepulchre was now apparently a
round _tugurium_ or “cabin,” without any ante-chamber. The great
apse in which it stood was converted into a rotunda, and a circular
wall, or fence, was built outside it. The central drum, supported on
pillars, was roofless just as it was later. Three altars stood in the
three small apses of the rotunda. The “cabin” was covered with marble
slabs, and had a gold cross on its roof. The Calvary rock was enclosed
in a second (square) chapel, which was separated by a porch from the
small “Church of Constantine,” which in part replaced the old basilica
proper. Under this was a rock-cut crypt reached by steps--as it still
is--and shown as the place where the three crosses were found hidden
by St. Helena. Besides these three churches there was a fourth to the
south of the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre. It was dedicated to St.
Mary, and is said to have been large and square. Its exact position is
not very clear, and no remains survived the second destruction in 1010
A. D., unless it was on the site of the chapel afterwards built, and
also dedicated to the Virgin, rather farther west than the position on
the map of Adamnan. The open court, or “Paradise,” east of the rotunda
was paved with marble, and the walls shone with gold. It was supposed
to represent the garden in which the “new tomb” had been hewn in the
rock.[445] In or near its centre was a pillar said to mark the “middle
of the world,” which was proved by its casting no shadow at the summer
solstice; but this, of course, was impossible. Four chains hung from
this pillar, connecting the four churches to it (according to Bernard
in 867 A. D.); on the north-east side of the Paradise was a wooden
table on which alms were received; and south of this (between Calvary
and the basilica) was a chamber where the silver cup of the Last Supper
was shown.
[Sidenote: CHURCHES OF MODESTUS]
The only remains attributable to these buildings are those which have
recently been found west of the old pillared street,[446] and east of
the cave “Chapel of Helena,” together with the columns supporting the
roof of the latter, and perhaps one capital which has been built into
the wall of the Chapel of the Virgin south of the rotunda, and which
the visitor passes (on his left) when going from Christian Street to
the south entrance of the present cathedral. The capitals in the Chapel
of Helena, with their heavy outline and basket-work ornament, are
evidently Byzantine work of about the seventh century, and the capital
of the built-in pillar is in the same style. The wall and gate recently
described by Mr. Dickie may have belonged to the renovated basilica
built by Modestus, and ancient masonry here appears to have been
re-used, perhaps more than once. As this wall is not at right angles to
the axis of the original basilica, it probably belonged to the detached
building erected by Modestus, or to that which superseded it in 1028
A. D. The “Prison of Christ,” east of the rotunda, is not noticed in
any account of the period when the buildings of Modestus were standing
(622–1010 A. D.), and this with its arcade seems to have belonged to
the third period of building to be described later.
Other churches which may have been rebuilt by Modestus include the
“double church” of the Virgin’s Tomb (a subterranean chapel with a
round roofless building over it), and the remarkable round church on
the summit of Olivet. These, like the four churches above described,
were rebuilt by the Franks in the twelfth century. The Armenian
account (already noticed[447]) speaks of the Virgin’s Tomb as reached
by two hundred and fifty steps, having above it a cupola on four
marble columns covered with copper crosses. It also mentions St. Sion
apparently as having a crypt, and a wooden cupola on which the Last
Supper was painted. The Church of the Ascension was also roofless,
and had apparently a central drum, supported on pillars and pierced
by eight windows on the west side: these were glazed, and lamps were
hung in them which could be seen shining by night from the city. A
circular double cloister surrounded the drum, and in the centre was a
bronze cylinder,[448] with a glazed door through which could be seen
the rock marked by the two footprints of Christ. The pilgrims used
to be admitted within, and carried away with them the dust lying on
the rock. A strange superstition was also connected, in the eighth
century, with two pillars which apparently stood in the east gate
of the outer cloister; for St. Willibald says that “the man who can
squeeze between the pillars and the wall becomes free from his sins.”
The same superstition still clung to two pillars in the Aḳṣa Mosque
as late as 1881 A. D.; for it was said by Moslems that any one who
squeezed between them would go to heaven. In consequence, perhaps, of
my having passed through them, an iron bar was placed across by order
of the pasha to prevent this old custom being followed any more. It is
a survival of the widespread peasant belief in the virtue of “passing
through” holed stones, creeping under dolmens, or altars, or arches,
which we find all over the world, from Ireland to China and Japan.
The works of Modestus had only been completed about a dozen years
before the Moslem Conquest, and were the last carried out under
Christian domination until the time of the first Crusade, though other
churches were built in 1028 A. D., as will appear later. The gradual
growth of Christian buildings in Jerusalem, down to the era of the
downfall of Christian power in Palestine, has been described in the
historical sequence of their construction to the time immediately
preceding the triumph of Islâm.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER X
[410] “Apologeticus,” i. 37.
[411] “Catech. Lect.,” xix. 8, delivered in the new Church of the
Anastasis in 348 A. D. Cyril was a semi-Arian.
[412] “Life of Constant.” (in Greek), iii. 25.
[413] “Demonstr. Evang.,” vi. 18.
[414] “Life of Constant.,” iii. 30.
[415] “Life of Constant.,” iii. 28.
[416] “Catech. Lect.,” xiii. 9.
[417] “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” vol. , pp. 316, 330; “Mem. East Pal.
Survey,” p. 244. In the latter instance there are several groups of
rock-sunk graves.
[418] Onomasticon, s.v. _Golgotha_; Bordeaux Pilgrim; St. Silvia (385
A. D.).
[419] Eusebius, “Life of Constant.,” iii. 34–9; Willis, “Ch. of Holy
Sep.,” 1849; de Vogüé, “Églises de la Terre Sainte,” 1860; Prof. Hayter
Lewis, “Holy Places of Jer.,” 1888.
[420] “Catech. Lect.,” xix. 1-xxi. 4. See Tertullian, “In Prax.,” 26,
“De Corona,” 3.
[421] “Primitiva et ecclesiarum mater sancta Sion,” “Will. Tyre.,” xv.
4; Eucherius (_c._ 427–40 A. D.), “Ut fertur ab apostolis fundata”;
Theodorus (_c._ 530 A. D.), “Mater omnium ecclesiarum.”
[422] See back, pp. 14–17.
[423] Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 1; Julian, “Epist.,” xxix., xxx.;
Greg. Nazianzen, “Orat.,” iv.
[424] Antoninus Martyr (_c._ 570 A. D.), “The [east] gate of the
city which adjoins what was once the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,
the thresholds and posts of which still stand.” See Prof. Hayter
Lewis, “Holy Places of Jerusalem,” 1888, p. 94. This statement may be
explained by the conclusion reached by de Vogüé (“Temple de Jérusalem,”
chap. v.) that remains of an earlier gate are traceable at the Golden
Gate.
[425] See back, p. 91; Bliss, “Excav. at Jer.,” 1898, pp. 9–128.
[426] Ant. Mart., xxv. Theodorus (530 A. D.) places the site outside
the “Galilee Gate.” He also says that Siloam “is within the wall.”
[427] John ix. 11.
[428] Nâṣr-i-Khosrau, 1047 A. D.
[429] See back, p. 200.
[430] Ant. Mart., xxiv.
[431] The great corner tower on south-west seems to be that at the
present Protestant Cemetery. The other chapels may be the House of
Caiaphas, the Church of St. Giles (near the Causeway), and that of the
Spasm in the Via Dolorosa.
[432] The arched cornices at the Double and Golden Gates are attributed
by de Vogüé to about the sixth century. The different style of the
interior gate-house at the latter gate, and of the Byzantine pillars
in the Aḳṣa, may be explained by the work having been begun by the
Patriarch Elias, and finished by Justinian in a style more like that in
use at Byzantium.
[433] “De Ædificiis Justiniani,” v. 6; Antoninus Mart., xxiii.
[434] Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” i. pp. 296, 384.
[435] Prof. Hayter Lewis, “Holy Places of Jer.,” 1888, pp. 74–9.
[436] The suggestion that the Bethlehem basilica is later than
Constantine’s age seems to be only true in part. Much of the building
is undoubtedly later. The mosaics date only from the twelfth century,
and the roof of the transept from 1482. But the pillars of the basilica
appear to be of Constantine’s age, and to be still _in situ_ (see “Mem.
West Pal. Survey,” 1883, vol. iii. p. 85).
[437] See back, p. 119.
[438] Theodorus (_c._ 530 A. D.), “Pretorium Pilati ... ibi est
ecclesia Sanctæ Sophiæ”; Antoninus Mart., xxiii.
[439] Cyril of Scythopolis, “Vita Sabæ.”
[440] Ḳorân, xxx. 1.
[441] See Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” i. p. 387.
[442] Eutychius, “Annales,” ii.; John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160 A. D.);
“Citez de Jhérusalem”; “Ord. Survey Notes,” p. 68. The pool is perhaps
the Beth Mamil of the Talmud (Tal. Bab., _Erubin_, 51 _b_; _Sanhed._,
24 _a_; Bereshith, _Rabḅa_, ch. li.) though some pilgrims connect it
with St. Babylas. The legend of the pious lion who buried these martyrs
may have arisen from a corruption of the name Mamilla (“filled”) as
_M’aun-el-lawi_ (“den of the lion”). The cemetery near the pool is
now Moslem, but the _Ḳubbet el ’Abd_, or “slave’s dome,” is an old
Crusader’s tomb in its midst.
[443] Leontius, “Life of John Eleemon.”
[444] There is also a short Armenian account, probably of the seventh
century. N. Bain in _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_, Oct. 1896; “Archives
de l’Orient Latin,” ii. p. 394. The rotunda is here stated to have had
an upper arcade of twelve pillars.
[445] St. Willibald (_c._ 754 A. D.).
[446] _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_, Oct. 1907, p. 297, Oct. 1908, pp.
298–310, report by Mr. A. C. Dickie.
[447] See back, p. 229.
[448] So Arculphus in 680 A. D.; but in 754 A. D. Willibald describes
it as being square.