VIA DOLOROSA AND THE ARCH OF THE ECCE HOMO.Throughout Good Friday groups of pious pilgrims were threading the Via Dolorosa and offering their prayers at its legendary shrines. That night the Latin monks dramatized the crucifixion of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At an early hour the venerable Church ofSt.Helena was thronged with natives and strangers, consisting of Greeks, Latins, Copts, Armenians, Turks, and Franks. To prevent a disturbance, the military governor of the city had ordered a detachment of Turkish soldiers to be present. Among the dignitaries in attendance to witness the fictitious tragedy were foreign consuls attended by liveried cawasses, a hundred French officers, with their orderlies, who had that day arrived from Beîrut, and prominent among the distinguished persons was Lessep, the famous canal-digger, who had ascended from Egypt in an improvised chariot drawn by a pair of the noblest camels, and was the first who had crossed that ancient road since the day of Roman chariots.It was past eight o’clock when the solemn drama was opened with the recitation of prayers in the sacristy of the Latin chapel. The light of a hundred gold and silver lamps, fed by olive-oil, scarcely dispelled the darkness of the hour. At 9 P.M. the pageant was fully commenced, and the long procession began its march, each person bearing a wax taper that shone dimly on the air of night. First came Augustine friars, attired in brown cowls and cassocks; then followed a stalwart monk, bearing an immense cross of light-colored wood, curiously figured. On the cross was nailed the carved figure of a man, covered with thorns, from whose side the life-blood was flowing, and around whose loins was drawn a white linencloth. Behind the crucifix came two choirs of monks and catechumens robed in white, chanting a funeral dirge, with responsive chorus; following the singers was Rome’s eminent prelate, the patriarchal Bishop of Jerusalem, crowned with a gold mitre, wearing a black velvet cloak richly trimmed with gold lace, and bearing in his right hand a gold crucifix adorned with jewels; following in his train were priests of lesser rank in dark robes, and barefooted friars with shaven heads, to imitate the crown of thorns, and nuns in blue and black garments and white linen bonnets; and next came the French consul, the military officers, the common soldiers, poor pilgrims, and strangers from all nations, whose devotion or curiosity prompted them to join the imposing procession.Within the church are lateral chapels, regarded as shrines by the pious, such as the prison of Christ, the chapel where he was bound, where he was mocked, and where his vestments were divided by the Roman soldiers. At the chapels the procession halted to listen to sermons preached in the Italian, French, German, Arabic, and English languages. It was near midnight when the procession reached the foot of Calvary. Slowly ascending the rude steps cut in the solid rock, the heavy cross was set in its original resting-place on the summit. In imitation of the supernatural darkness, every light was extinguished. At that moment a tumult occurred. The rough voice of derision rose above the universal clamor, and echoed through the aisles and arches of that ancient building, as the Turkish soldiers charged upon the people. Enraged at the insult offered to his religion, the French consul drew his sword, threatening death to Turk or Christian who should crowd upon him. In a moment quiet was restored and the scene went on. Accident gave the charm of reality to the occasion. There stood the captain of the guard, with the smile of scorn upon his attractive though stern features; around him were his troops, and near them were fanatical Moslems reviling the spectacle; standing afar off were Christian women, robed in white sheets, concealing their person except their soft dark eyes, which peered out above their veils; and surging to and fro, like mighty waves, was a motley throng eager to behold the drama. Amid the solemnities human nature was revealed. A magnificent French priest, who had been appointed to preach at the cross of the unrepentant thief, so far forgothis duty as to pronounce a glowing eulogium upon France, and the part she had taken in supporting the Catholic faith in the East. His commanding eloquence touched alike the pride and vanity of the French, and the otherwise decorous officers, forgetting the time and place, applauded the time-serving priest.The three sermons at the several crosses ended, the lights burn dimly again. And now began the descent from the cross, after the style of Rubens’s great picture. Three venerable monks, impersonating Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, andSt.John the Evangelist, approached the cross to take the body down. One, climbing up behind the cross, and throwing a sheet around the body and under the arms of the image, held it fast, while another tenderly drew out the nails, kissing each one in turn as he laid them upon a silver plate; then receiving the body into his arms, with the head resting on his shoulder, wrapped it in fine linen, placed it upon a bier, and to the chant of another dirge the procession descended to the pavement of the church, where the image was placed upon the stone of unction for anointing, and hence borne to the tomb of Joseph, to await the joyous notes of Easter Sunday.Such is a brief description of a scene which annually occurs in Jerusalem; and though producing a transient impression on the common mind, darkened by error and deluded by superstition, the sublime farce is as irreverent as it is offensive to the enlightened Christian. Debased must be the intellect and vitiated the moral sensibilities of a people who delight in such mournful tragedies, and corrupt must be the church which sanctions ceremonies so degrading to earth and repugnant to heaven. With equal propriety, the murder scene of a beloved friend might be yearly re-enacted, harrowing the soul with the bloody memories of the past, and imitating in fiction the ghastly deeds of veritable murderers. Who could be induced to witness a sight so mournful? The last request of the Redeemer to his people was to remember his death, and not to re-enact it; to cherish his memory, and not perpetuate the triumph of his foes. Devotion attains its greatest purity, and piety its highest form of spirituality, as pompous ceremonials are displaced by the simple aspirations of the heart for God, and by the practical embodiment of faith, hope, and charity.For fifteen hundred years the Church of the Holy Sepulchrehas been the shrine of devout worshipers from all lands, and the antiquity of its traditions, together with the profound reverence in which it is held by the Christian world, render it an object worthy of consideration. Whether considered as a work of art, or as a historic site around which cluster the most sacred legends of the Eastern churches, it awakens a thrilling interest in the thoughtful and intelligent mind. Such are the number and complications of the added apartments, a delineation of the structure is as tedious as it is difficult. Though, as a whole, the architecture is of the Romanesque order, yet in its different parts it combines a greater variety of styles than any other edifice of equal notoriety extant. Standing on the eastern slope of Mount Akra, in the most populous part of the Holy City, its approaches are from the east and west through low, narrow doorways leading into a spacious court ninety feet long and seventy wide, formed laterally by the two projecting wings of the church, by the façade of the basilica on the north, and by a stone wall on the south, inclosing the green plateau once adorned by the palace of the Knights ofSt.John. A more novel sight is not to be seen on earth than is daily presented in this stone court-yard during Passion Week. Lining three of its sides, with now and then one in the centre, sit the hucksters of pious wares, recalling the money-changers in the court of Solomon’s Temple. It is the great religious mart for holy trinkets in Jerusalem, and the most auspicious place for the ethnologist to study human varieties, for the costumer to examine diversities of dress, for the traveler to witness the manners of many nations, and for the artist to sketch the most picturesque of living scenes. There are Turks, with lofty turbans and flowing robes; wild Bedouins of the Desert, clad in capotes of camel’s hair, and girt about the loins with leathern girdles, or attired in their gay, fantastic riding costume, brandishing the polished spear; Franciscan friars in coarse brown cowls, and ivory crucifix dangling at their side; Greek monks in long black flowing garments, high square hats, with magnificent beards, and hair long as a woman’s, twirling a rosary of mother-of-pearl or of beautiful agate; French and Italian nuns in black, with white linen bonnets, and rosary and crucifix falling from their waist; beggars in rags, the lame with crutches, the blind protected by a dog, invoking the charities of the rich; and pilgrims from everynation—Syrians, Turks, Arabs, Nubians, Egyptians, Algerines, Armenians, Copts, Greeks, Jews, Italians, French, Russians, Germans, English, and the ubiquitous American. Passing through this motley throng, beggars implore your charities and the venders of pious wares solicit your patronage. Here are for sale sandal-wood beads from Mecca, bowls of bitumen from the shores of the Dead Sea, glass rings and bracelets from Hebron, olive-wood rosaries from Olivet, crosses of mother-of-pearl from Bethlehem, and shells on which are rudely carved representations of the birth and resurrection of Jesus, small tin cans in which water from the Jordan is carried to the ends of the earth, wax tapers to be lit at the sacred tomb, and shrouds of cotton cloth or fine linen to be laid in consecration on the Holy Sepulchre, and then borne to the uttermost parts of the earth by the faithful, to be wrapped in in death as a pledge of their resurrection.CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE—FRONT VIEW.Around the court are the ruins of antique and nobler edifices. Along the southern side are the broken bases of a colonnade once supporting a cloister or arcade. Running along the western side is an immense stone structure, from the northern end of which rises the grand unfinished tower of the Basilica ofSt.Helen; and on the opposite end stands a solitary column, crowned with a beautiful Corinthian capital, supporting the foot of a broken arch. Within this projecting structure are two Greek chapels, older than the days of the Crusaders; one dedicated toSt.James, the other to the blessed Trinity. On the opposite side of the court is a plain stone building, the Greek Monastery of Abraham, through which entrance is had to the Armenian Church ofSt.John, to the Coptic Convent, and to the Chapel ofSt.Michael. Along the base of the building is a stone bench, where monks and priests spend their idle hours playing with their rosaries.The best view of the face of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is to be had from this court. It is the chief entrance to the interior, and consists of the southern end of the transept, presenting to the eye a grand old façade of Romanesque composition, now dingy with the dust of ages and the wear of time. It is divided into two stories. In the upper one are two corresponding windows, arched and slightly pointed, massive in mouldings and rich in sculpture. In the lower story is a double portal, surmounted by noble arches, supported byclustered columns, formed of layers of stone resting on heavy bases, and over the doorway are richly-sculptured architraves, representing our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Only the western section of the portal is now open, the other having been walled up since the reign of the Crusaders. On the right of the façade are the remains of that grand tower, once consisting of five stories, only three of which remain. In each of the three sides of the second story is a massive pointed window, and in the third, rising proudly above the domes of the church, are plain and arched windows. Though conjointly owned by the Greeks and Latins, the Armenians and Copts, the church is now subject to the control of the Turkish governor of the city, who holds the keys, and levies a heavy tax upon the rival sects worshiping at its sacred shrines. On the left in entering this ancient edifice, the traveler’s attention is attracted by the lordly Turkish guard and his friends, lounging on softly-cushioned divans, where the hours are idly spent drinking Mocha coffee and whiffing the best Stamboul from chibouks of elegant construction.ExceptSt.Peter’s in Rome, there is no religious edifice now standing more imposing than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Owing to the addition of chapels and the numerous partitions within for the accommodation of the several sects, it is not easy to give the dimensions and form of the interior. It may be said, however, to consist of a nave 300 feet in length east and west, and of a transept extending north and south 180 feet. The ceiling is eighty feet high. Excepting the rotunda, the nave contains the magnificent chapel of the Greeks, measuring ninety-eight feet in length and forty in width, which is a church within a church. The walls are of wood, carved and gilded, reaching to the lofty ceiling above. The entrance is in the western end, beneath a pointed arch, now filled with a heavy screen, serving as a massive door. From four large piers within, fifty-two feet high, spring noble arches, supporting the central dome. In the eastern end is the gorgeous high altar, the throne of the Greek patriarchs, and on either side are stalls for the choral singers. Behind the throne, formed by a wooden screen, is the robing-room for the priests, those ecclesiastical actors of a corrupted Christianity. Nothing can excel the gorgeous decorations of the interior, which is adorned according to the barbaric taste of the Greeks. The sides oftheir chapel are elaborately carved and gilded; from column and ceiling depend lamps and chandeliers of gold, and ostrich eggs curiously ornamented; while on pier and screen are rude pictures of the Byzantine style. Rising from the marble floor, in the very centre of the chapel, is a marble column, inclosed with an iron railing, marking the centre of the earth, and the identical spot from which was taken the red clay for the formation of Adam’s body.At the western end of this chapel is the great rotunda of the church, measuring ninety-nine feet in diameter, encircled by eighteen colossal piers, supporting a clere-story pierced with windows, above which is the majestic dome, a hundred feet from the pavement below, with a circular opening in the top for light and ventilation, similar to the aperture in the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. In the very centre of this rotunda, and directly beneath the dome, is the reputed sepulchre of our Lord. In form it is not unlike a miniature temple, ten feet in breadth, twenty in length, and of equal height. The exterior is ornamented with semi-columns and pilasters, with rich cornices and mouldings; with a dome resembling an imperial crown, and with a thousand lamps of gold and silver, interspersed with wax tapers and vases of flowers. The entrance is on the east, through a small inclosed area, along which are rows of candles perpetually burning. Over the portal floats the banner of the Cross, and beneath its silken folds is a magnificent picture of Christ’s resurrection. It is the most spirited representation of that grandest of all events ever thrown upon the canvas. The Redeemer’s form is drawn with all the harmony of parts and the grace of action of an Apollo Belvidere. With one foot resting on the tomb, he is leaving the sepulchre with an air of triumph as majestic as it is natural.VIEW OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.The interior is divided into two small chapels; the first is where the angel was seen, and contains the throne on which he sat, and in the second is the Holy Sepulchre. The vault is seven feet long and six wide, surmounted with a small dome. The tomb occupies the whole length of the north side of the chamber, incased with marble, and is three feet above the floor; the upper slab is cracked through the centre, and its edges are worn smooth by the kisses of pilgrim lips. Forty-two gold lamps burn continually before the tomb, and from agolden censer clouds of incense ascend as a memorial offering. Whether accepting or rejecting its traditional identity with the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, no one can approach this revered shrine without profound emotions. For fifteen centuries Christians have guarded it with a solicitude no less tender than constant. To rescue it from the hands of infidel Moslems, Peter the Hermit and the Pontiff Urban roused all Europe to war against the Turk; to restore it to the Church, kings and princes, bishops and nobles, gave their treasure, and the millions of Christendom flew to arms to perish in the daring crusade; to it longing eyes in all lands turn, and he whose lips have pressed its cold marble in devotion is esteemed a saint with a charmed life. Such is the religious reverence with which it is held, that none are allowed to approach it till hat and shoes have been removed, while the more devout drag themselves along the marble floor and fondly kiss the unconscious stone. Impelled by a superstitious faith and a tender affection for their offspring, mothers come from afar to lay their children on the tomb, and many an invalid is only too happy if he may be laid beside his Master’s sepulchre.On leaving the tomb I fortunately met a young Irish monk whose acquaintance I had previously formed, and who on this occasion kindly offered to be my guide in the more thorough exploration of this renowned church. With singular infatuation for holy places, the shrine-makers both of the Greek and Latin Churches have identified within this venerable building the sites of nearly all those solemn events attending the death and resurrection of our Lord. In the northern end of the transept is the Latin chapel, which has been in the possession of the Franciscans since 1257 A.D.; though unpretending both in its proportions and ornaments, it traditionally marks the spot where Christ appeared to Mary, and bears the name of the Chapel of the Apparition. Passing down the dark northern aisle, we lingered for a moment in the legendary prison of Jesus, at the altar of Longinus, the repentant soldier who had pierced the Savior’s side, and in the Chapel of the Division of the Vestments. A few feet beyond, we descended a flight of twenty-nine steps leading into the crypt or Chapel ofSt.Helena, containing the marble chair she occupied while superintending the search for the Holy Cross. A descent of twelve steps more leads to the cavern where the mother of Constantinefound the three crosses, with the title Pilate wrote detached. From the sides of the rock drops of water were dripping down which had percolated the surface above, but which the young monk assured me were holy tears, the rocks still weeping for the dead. Ascending to the floor of the church, and threading the southern aisle, we came to the foot of the traditional Calvary—a natural rock thirty feet long, fifteen high, and as many wide, reached by eighteen steps cut in the living rock. The summit is reached by two flights of steps, one used exclusively by the Greeks and the other by the Latins, for, like the Jews and Samaritans, the former have no dealings with the latter. On the summit is the Chapel of the Elevation of the Cross, measuring forty-five feet in length, the floor of which is paved with marble, the walls draped with silken velvet, and from the ceiling gold lamps depend, dimly burning. At the eastern end is a raised platform ten feet long, two high, and six wide, supporting an altar; and directly before it is a hole in the rock, two feet deep by one and a half square, in which once rested the foot of the Redeemer’s cross. On either side is a similar hole for the crosses of the two thieves, and near them is the rent in the rock caused by the earthquake at the moment the Lord expired. Reverently regarding it as real, the Christians of the East approach this shrine upon their knees, fondly kissing what they believe to be the summit of Golgotha. Covered as it is with a marble floor, it is impossible to determine whether the elevation is masonry or living rock; if the latter, it is remarkable that such a rocky eminence should be left in this portion of the city; and if a natural rock, its sides and top should be exposed to view. Descending the Greek staircase and turning to the right, we came to a gloomy vault called the Tomb of Adam, near where once stood the tombs of the chivalrous Godfrey and the heroic Baldwin. Returning to the transept, we passed a yellow marble slab, inclosed with a low railing which pilgrims fondly kiss, and over which lamps burn continually. It is the legendary Stone of Unction, on which the body of Jesus was anointed for his burial. Passing through the rotunda, we descended into the tombs of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, together with two others, excavated in the living rock, and which, if ancient, are the most remarkable antiquities within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Returning again to the rotunda, mygood Franciscan gave me his benediction, and, parting from me, left me to the reflections of the hour.Whether this church covers the Golgotha of the crucifixion and the place of our Lord’s sepulture remains an open question. No subject within the range of sacred archæology presents greater difficulties, and none has been contested with a more brilliant display of acute argumentation and varied learning. Pre-eminently it is a question of two sides, and the contest is sometimes so evenly balanced that an assumed victory by the advocates of either theory is one of doubtful certainty. To argue against the supposition, one is forced to reason against his inclination to stand on the site of the Redeemer’s death and sit within the shadow of his tomb; to reject it is to leave the world without a substitute, and consign the remembrance of those grand events which it commemorates to the memory of man, without a knowledge of the scene of their occurrence; to deny the identity of the spot is to call in question the traditions of fifteen centuries, to which the Christians of Europe and of the East have fondly clung, and for which the brave have died; to accept it is to argue against the unbroken silence of three hundred years—against equivocal history—against topography—against analogy—against eminent scholarship—against the Bible. The argument for it is tradition and history; the proof against it is the Bible and topography.Traditionally considered, the argument in its favor runs thus: Such was the popularity of Jesus, and such the publicity of his death, burial, and resurrection, as to stamp the place of their occurrence with imperishable memory; that the descent of the Holy Ghost, the conversion of three thousand, the early founding of his Church in the city of his rejection, and the maintenance of its unity for thirty-seven years, combined to cherish in the public mind the recollection of the place; that though, just previous to the siege of the Holy City by Titus, his followers fled to Pella, beyond the Jordan, it was but a temporary departure, and that, after the storm of war had spent its fury, they returned to the city of their choice; that the desolation of seventy years which followed the conquest of the Romans was partial, and that, while the more wealthy of the population were sold into captivity, many of the common people retained their humbler homes; that, from the year 130 A.D.to the present time, Jerusalem has been an inhabited city, and that the Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city, and, to dishonor alike the Jew and Christian, he reared a fane in honor of Jupiter on the site of Solomon’s Temple, and covered the tomb of Jesus with a temple to Venus; and that this temple to Venus remained standing for two hundred years after its erection, and was seen by Eusebius in the year 326 A.D.GROUND PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.Such is the evidence for the identity of the Holy Sepulchre as the tomb of Jesus, from his resurrection down to the commencement of authentic history. It is unwritten tradition, and, at best, presumptive proof. Extending through a period of three hundred years of wars, revolutions, and desolations, it is the most unreliable period of all the centuries subsequent to the Christian era. Whatever may have been the temporary interest attached to Golgotha and to the tomb of Joseph to the idle and curious, to the friend and foe of Jesus, it is evident, from their inspired narrative, that the sacred writers neither shared the excitement, nor considered it incumbent on them to describe with minuteness the scene of their Master’s death and burial. They were too much absorbed in recording the stupendous facts of our Lord’s expiatory sufferings, and the glory of his resurrection, to entertain their readers with an accurate account of the rock on which he expired, and of the sepulchre from which he arose triumphant. The place is forgotten in the significance of the event; the actor, and not the stage, is the burden of their history. Their simple story is,They led him away to crucify him;229When they came to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him;230The place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city;231Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.232This is the sum of their record. They must have been familiar both with the place of execution and of interment, but, from Matthew to Revelation, the apostles are silent to indifference as to the one and the other. Had they deemed it important, they might have intimated out of which gate the mournful procession passed, and on which side of the city the Son of God was slain; but, regarding such information as unworthy their sublime narrative, or fearing our idolatry, they leave us to the uncertainty of conjecture. The invitation of the angels to the devotedMarys, Come, see the place where the Lord lay, was not to enshrine the tomb, but to unshrine it, by convincing them by their own sight that he is not here, for he is risen, as he said; and, dear as the spot might be, they were not to linger,but to go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead.233We never read of their return to that tomb. Convinced of his resurrection, they sought him among the living and not among the dead. From the summit of Olivet they watched his ascending form, till a cloud received him out of their sight, and then returned with great joy, not to the tomb,but to an “upper room,†waiting the “promise of the Father.â€234In his wondrous sermon on the day of Pentecost,St.Peter declared the resurrection of Christ, but made no allusion to his tomb,while he reminded his hearers that David’s sepulchre is with us unto this day.235In all the subsequent apostolic letters, neither the zealous Peter, nor the beloved John, norSt.Paul, that devoted worshiper of our Lord, ever alluded to those memorable places.History is comparatively silent as to the return of the Christians from Pella. Many of the first followers of Christ were strangers in Jerusalem, who had come to the Holy City from distant countries to celebrate the annual festivals of their nation. Such must have been most of the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost, who,returning to their far-off homes, spread the glad tidings of a risen Savior as they went.236And although all who “believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every man had need, and continued daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house,â€237yet in a brief time thereafterSt.Stephen was martyred,“and at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.â€238The number who fled to Pella, which was but a small town on the eastern bank of the Jordan, must have been exceedingly small. Those who found refuge there remained for seventy years, during which time Jerusalem was a desolation; and, excepting the military towers on Mount Zion, “the rest of the wall was so entirely thrown down evenwith the ground by those who digged it up to the very foundation,that there was left nothing to make those who came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.â€239By some this account is regarded as exaggerated, and at most it can only refer to the walls of the city. Granting the correctness of such a supposition, and that some of the poorer inhabitants clung to the ruins of the capital, yet historians agree that the Christians did not return to Jerusalem till about the year 130 A.D., which was after the town had been rebuilt by the Emperor Adrian, and by him calledÆlia Capitolina. And, at best, only the descendants of those who had fled returned, as during the lapse of seventy years most of the fugitives had ascended to their reward. It is also difficult to conceive how those who had never visited Jerusalem before, and especially after it had been rebuilt by the Romans, could have identified an obscure tomb which had remained unmarked by any enduring monument.The historic accounts which have come down to us that Adrian desecrated the tomb of Jesus by erecting over it an idol monument, are as contradictory as they are inconsistent. As the emperor was the enemy of the Jew rather than of the Christian, it is impossible to conceive what motive impelled him to dishonor an humble shrine held sacred by a handful of harmless religionists. The erection of a proud fane on the site of Solomon’s Temple is in keeping with the character of the man and his hatred for the Jews, but the desecration of Golgotha and of the Holy Sepulchre is inconsistent with his reign in the East, and with the admission of the Christians to his new colony and city. But the early Church historians are not agreed as to the name and character of this idol monument. Writing after the death of Constantine, Eusebius speaks of a temple to Venus covering the Holy Sepulchre, ascribing its erection to impious men; writing sixty years later than Eusebius, Jerome ascribes it to the Emperor Adrian. Eusebius declares it was a temple, Jerome affirms it was a statue; Eusebius asserts it was in honor of Venus, Jerome informs us it was dedicated to Jupiter.There are similar discrepancies in the writings of these fathers as to the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and as to the founder of the first Christian church reared in honor of our Lord’s resurrection. According to Eusebius, “impious men, orrather the whole race of demons through the agency of impious men, had labored to deliver over that illustrious monument of immortality to darkness and oblivion. They had covered the cave (or tomb) with earth brought from other quarters, and then erected over it a sanctuary to Venus, in which to celebrate the impure rites and worship of that goddess. Moved by a divine intimation made by the Spirit of the Savior himself, the Emperor Constantine ordered the obstructions removed, the holy tomb purified, and a magnificent church to be erected in commemoration of the event.†In this miraculous interposition to discover the veritable tomb of Christ, Eusebius concedes that there was no existing tradition identifying its locality. Either the place of our Lord’s burial was known to Eusebius, or it was not. If it was certainly known to him by a pagan temple standing on the spot, no miracle was necessary for its recognition; if it was not known to him, then there was no unbroken tradition extending through a period of three centuries, and the question turns upon the credibility of the pretended miracle. The “Father of History†can only be saved from palpable contradiction by supposing that after the tomb had been supernaturally discovered he found over it a pagan temple. But what proof have we that such a miracle was wrought? What good to mankind has resulted from such an interposition? In all Bible miracles, the great moral purposes to be attained justified the departure from the established course of nature. The history of this church, from Constantine to our own times, has been a series of religious rivalries, of bitter contentions between opposing sects, of wars between Christians and Turks, of weary and inefficacious pilgrimages from the snows of Russia and the sands of Africa, of useless expenditures of treasure, of relic worship, and of the utter absence of moral influence on Moslem and Jew.Such a miraculous intimation given to the apostles would have been more appropriate than to a warrior whose piety is as questionable as the results of his conversion have proved disastrous to mankind. To an enlightened Christian mind it would afford a melancholy pleasure to stand on Calvary and sit in the Savior’s tomb, but the temptation to idolatry would be too strong for the common mind to brook. Duped by a mercenary priesthood for fifteen centuries, millions of Greek and Latin pilgrims have bowed in idolatrous veneration beforethe reputed tomb of Jesus; and for a boon so humble, immense donations have been demanded for the support of ecclesiastical establishments. The genuineness of this divine intimation is affected by the character of the age of Constantine. It was the age of pious frauds. Monkery had existed for two centuries; heresies had taken deep root; saints were worshiped, martyrs canonized, relics adored; and, sanctioned by imperial example, the people were ripe for any deception. Either the theory of an unbroken tradition coming down from the apostolic age to the time of Eusebius, and the existence of a pagan temple upon the well-known tomb must be abandoned, or the pretended miracle for its recognition must be relinquished, as the one supersedes the necessity of the other. Both can not co-exist; one or the other is without foundation in truth.Jerome and his contemporaries, together with his successors, give a different version of the identification of the Holy Sepulchre and of the founder of the first church over the consecrated spot; and, what must appear as a little remarkable to every intelligent mind, these later historians, who wrote in succeeding centuries, are far more full and minute in their details than Eusebius, who was an eyewitness of what he wrote. According to them, the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, moved by a pious desire to worship at those shrines sacred to the memory of our Lord, visited Palestine in the year 326 A.D., at the advanced age of eighty. Having identified the sites of the principal events connected with our Lord’s history, she determined to rescue them from oblivion by the erection of enduring monuments, no less expressive of her own gratitude than for the guidance of those devout pilgrims whose devotions might lead them in future years to the Holy Land. Discovering to her satisfaction the stable and manger of the nativity at Bethlehem, and the exact spot of the ascension on Olivet, she ordered the erection of monumental structures on the site of such extraordinary events, at once worthy the Redeemer’s glory and the magnificent reign of her imperial son. Naturally desiring to supply the intermediate link, and perpetuate the memory of the Savior’s death and resurrection, she earnestly sought for Calvary and the reputed tomb of Joseph. Whether the recollection of these most sacred places had been lost, or whether to confirm her faith in the traditional sites,she diligently inquired of the oldest Jewish and Christian inhabitants of the city as to their location, who pointed her to the area at present inclosed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But the accumulation of rubbish during the lapse of so many years rendered the search difficult and uncertain. Intent, however, on the consummation of an object so laudable, and guided by a divine intimation, she at length came to the sepulchre of Jesus, and near it discovered the three crosses, with Pilate’s tablet, still bearing his superscription. The joy experienced by the unexpected discovery of the crosses was lessened by the tablet being detached from its original cross, precluding the possibility of determining to which of the three it had belonged. Ever fruitful in expedients, Macarius, then Bishop of Jerusalem, suggested the happy thought that the three crosses should be presented in succession to the person of a noble lady at that moment afflicted with an incurable disease, and the one which should impart healing virtue should be regarded as the cross on which the Lord of life and glory suffered. Singly each cross was presented, the first and second, however, without effect, but on the touch of the third she immediately recovered. Content with the accomplishment of a work so grand, and sincerely grateful for the honor Heaven had conferred upon her, she ordered the erection of a magnificent basilica over the Redeemer’s tomb, and, full of holy joy, the venerable Helena returned to Constantinople, where she expired in her eighty-second year. Nine years subsequent to her visit, and seven years after her demise, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was completed, and with unrivaled pomp dedicated to Jesus in the year 335 A.D. With these additional facts and palpable discrepancies, it is impossible to determine to which belongs the honor of the work—to the Emperor of the West or to his imperial mother. In both accounts there is the incompatible mingling of tradition and miracle, mutually destroying the force of each other. An intelligent Christian, visiting Jerusalem for the first time, and remembering his Lord expired and was interred “nigh unto the city,†would not be a little surprised to find Golgotha and the tomb of Joseph in the heart of the modern town. At the time of those great events the city was encompassed on the north with two walls. The first, beginning at the Tower of Hippicus on Mount Zion, ran along its northern brow, and, crossingthe Tyropean Valley, terminated at the western wall of the Temple inclosure, a distance of 630 yards. As the third wall was not built till after the Crucifixion, a description of it is not material to the argument; but on the direction of the second wall hangs the decision of this long-contested question. According to Josephus, the second wall commenced at the Gennath Gate, which signifies “garden,†and was used as a means of ingress either to a royal garden on Mount Zion, or of egress to the gardens in the Valley of Hinnom. In either case the gate would have been located near the western wall of the city, at which point the second wall commenced, and, running northward over the level portion of Mount Akra to the Damascus Gate, and thence coming down over Mount Bezetha, terminated at the northwest corner of the Tower of Antonia, including in its course the traditional Golgotha. To the most unpracticed eye such a line of wall would be in harmony with good sense, with correct civil engineering, and with the approved principles of military defensive works. To locate the Gennath Gate at the north base of Mount Zion, and run the second wall along Bazar Street up to the Damascus Gate and thence back to the Tower of Antonia, would certainly exclude the present site of the Holy Sepulchre, but would also exclude the large Pool of Hezekiah, give but a narrow space to the “Lower City†of ancient Jerusalem, and leave the whole of Mount Akra uninclosed. Such a line of wall would have left a large part, and the weakest portion, of the northern wall of Zion unprotected, and skirting, as it must have done, the steep sides of Akra, been entirely unavailing as a defensive structure. No sane engineer would have constructed a wall so as to expose to the use of an attacking enemy the large fountain of Hezekiah; and, if the second wall did not run north and south, it is impossible to understand Josephus, who informs us that, in his assault upon this part of the city, Titus stationed troops in towers along the southern part, and dispatched others to throw down the northern portion.The remains at the Damascus Gate of an ancient gateway with towers, the masonry of which is of equal antiquity with that in the northeast corner of the Temple area, are no doubt the ruins of the northern gate of the second wall; and the traces of an ancient wall between the old gateway and the Latin convent clearly indicate that the second wall inclosedMount Akra on the west, and therefore included the Calvary and Holy Sepulchre of the monks.Though the legendary claims of this renowned church are rejected, and its pretended rights to the affections of mankind denied, yet the antiquity of its origin and the romance of its history can not fail to awaken a momentary veneration in the most indifferent spectator. Dedicated to Jesus in the year 335 A.D., it remained standing in all its primal grandeur for two hundred and seventy-nine years, when, in 614 A.D., it was ruthlessly destroyed by the Persian, ChosroesII., who, after the capture of the city, massacred thousands of the citizens, including many monks and nuns, and, as the crowning act of his vengeance, carried the Patriarch of Jerusalem, together with the “true cross,†into captivity. Sixteen years later the church was rebuilt, under the superintendence of Modestus, superior of the convent of Theodosius, and the exiled patriarch returned, entering the city in triumph with the “cross†on his shoulder. Destined to the most remarkable vicissitudes, it was again destroyed in 969 A.D. by the Fatimites, who, in the madness of their retaliation, committed the aged patriarch to the flames of the burning building. Remaining a heap of ruins for more than forty years, the revengeful Khalif el-Hâkim, the spiritual and fanatical Prince of the Druses, caused it to be entirely demolished, plowing up its very foundations, and attempting the utter destruction of the tomb itself. With an energy as untiring as their gifts were munificent, the Christians rebuilt their favorite sanctuary within thirty-eight years after their cruel persecution by El-Hâkim, and it remained standing till 1099 A.D., when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem; the church was enlarged and beautified by them; and during the lapse of more than seven centuries it continued unimpaired till the year 1808 A.D., when, on the night of the 12th of October, a fire, originating in the Armenian chapel, consumed the noble pile. So intense was the heat that the massive walls suffered immensely; the cupola was rent in two; the roof of the nave and of the triforium gallery, together with all the altars, images, and pictures, were consumed; the marble piers in the rotunda were calcined, and the lofty dome above fell in with a tremendous crash upon the Holy Sepulchre. Inheriting the zeal and benevolence of an earlier age, the Christians of our own century determined to reconstructtheir holiest of shrines, and selecting Commones, a Greek of the island of Mitylene, for the architect, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt in the year 1810 A.D.,and remains standing to this day, the pride of the East and the most imposing of Christian monuments.240
VIA DOLOROSA AND THE ARCH OF THE ECCE HOMO.
VIA DOLOROSA AND THE ARCH OF THE ECCE HOMO.
Throughout Good Friday groups of pious pilgrims were threading the Via Dolorosa and offering their prayers at its legendary shrines. That night the Latin monks dramatized the crucifixion of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At an early hour the venerable Church ofSt.Helena was thronged with natives and strangers, consisting of Greeks, Latins, Copts, Armenians, Turks, and Franks. To prevent a disturbance, the military governor of the city had ordered a detachment of Turkish soldiers to be present. Among the dignitaries in attendance to witness the fictitious tragedy were foreign consuls attended by liveried cawasses, a hundred French officers, with their orderlies, who had that day arrived from Beîrut, and prominent among the distinguished persons was Lessep, the famous canal-digger, who had ascended from Egypt in an improvised chariot drawn by a pair of the noblest camels, and was the first who had crossed that ancient road since the day of Roman chariots.
It was past eight o’clock when the solemn drama was opened with the recitation of prayers in the sacristy of the Latin chapel. The light of a hundred gold and silver lamps, fed by olive-oil, scarcely dispelled the darkness of the hour. At 9 P.M. the pageant was fully commenced, and the long procession began its march, each person bearing a wax taper that shone dimly on the air of night. First came Augustine friars, attired in brown cowls and cassocks; then followed a stalwart monk, bearing an immense cross of light-colored wood, curiously figured. On the cross was nailed the carved figure of a man, covered with thorns, from whose side the life-blood was flowing, and around whose loins was drawn a white linencloth. Behind the crucifix came two choirs of monks and catechumens robed in white, chanting a funeral dirge, with responsive chorus; following the singers was Rome’s eminent prelate, the patriarchal Bishop of Jerusalem, crowned with a gold mitre, wearing a black velvet cloak richly trimmed with gold lace, and bearing in his right hand a gold crucifix adorned with jewels; following in his train were priests of lesser rank in dark robes, and barefooted friars with shaven heads, to imitate the crown of thorns, and nuns in blue and black garments and white linen bonnets; and next came the French consul, the military officers, the common soldiers, poor pilgrims, and strangers from all nations, whose devotion or curiosity prompted them to join the imposing procession.
Within the church are lateral chapels, regarded as shrines by the pious, such as the prison of Christ, the chapel where he was bound, where he was mocked, and where his vestments were divided by the Roman soldiers. At the chapels the procession halted to listen to sermons preached in the Italian, French, German, Arabic, and English languages. It was near midnight when the procession reached the foot of Calvary. Slowly ascending the rude steps cut in the solid rock, the heavy cross was set in its original resting-place on the summit. In imitation of the supernatural darkness, every light was extinguished. At that moment a tumult occurred. The rough voice of derision rose above the universal clamor, and echoed through the aisles and arches of that ancient building, as the Turkish soldiers charged upon the people. Enraged at the insult offered to his religion, the French consul drew his sword, threatening death to Turk or Christian who should crowd upon him. In a moment quiet was restored and the scene went on. Accident gave the charm of reality to the occasion. There stood the captain of the guard, with the smile of scorn upon his attractive though stern features; around him were his troops, and near them were fanatical Moslems reviling the spectacle; standing afar off were Christian women, robed in white sheets, concealing their person except their soft dark eyes, which peered out above their veils; and surging to and fro, like mighty waves, was a motley throng eager to behold the drama. Amid the solemnities human nature was revealed. A magnificent French priest, who had been appointed to preach at the cross of the unrepentant thief, so far forgothis duty as to pronounce a glowing eulogium upon France, and the part she had taken in supporting the Catholic faith in the East. His commanding eloquence touched alike the pride and vanity of the French, and the otherwise decorous officers, forgetting the time and place, applauded the time-serving priest.
The three sermons at the several crosses ended, the lights burn dimly again. And now began the descent from the cross, after the style of Rubens’s great picture. Three venerable monks, impersonating Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, andSt.John the Evangelist, approached the cross to take the body down. One, climbing up behind the cross, and throwing a sheet around the body and under the arms of the image, held it fast, while another tenderly drew out the nails, kissing each one in turn as he laid them upon a silver plate; then receiving the body into his arms, with the head resting on his shoulder, wrapped it in fine linen, placed it upon a bier, and to the chant of another dirge the procession descended to the pavement of the church, where the image was placed upon the stone of unction for anointing, and hence borne to the tomb of Joseph, to await the joyous notes of Easter Sunday.
Such is a brief description of a scene which annually occurs in Jerusalem; and though producing a transient impression on the common mind, darkened by error and deluded by superstition, the sublime farce is as irreverent as it is offensive to the enlightened Christian. Debased must be the intellect and vitiated the moral sensibilities of a people who delight in such mournful tragedies, and corrupt must be the church which sanctions ceremonies so degrading to earth and repugnant to heaven. With equal propriety, the murder scene of a beloved friend might be yearly re-enacted, harrowing the soul with the bloody memories of the past, and imitating in fiction the ghastly deeds of veritable murderers. Who could be induced to witness a sight so mournful? The last request of the Redeemer to his people was to remember his death, and not to re-enact it; to cherish his memory, and not perpetuate the triumph of his foes. Devotion attains its greatest purity, and piety its highest form of spirituality, as pompous ceremonials are displaced by the simple aspirations of the heart for God, and by the practical embodiment of faith, hope, and charity.
For fifteen hundred years the Church of the Holy Sepulchrehas been the shrine of devout worshipers from all lands, and the antiquity of its traditions, together with the profound reverence in which it is held by the Christian world, render it an object worthy of consideration. Whether considered as a work of art, or as a historic site around which cluster the most sacred legends of the Eastern churches, it awakens a thrilling interest in the thoughtful and intelligent mind. Such are the number and complications of the added apartments, a delineation of the structure is as tedious as it is difficult. Though, as a whole, the architecture is of the Romanesque order, yet in its different parts it combines a greater variety of styles than any other edifice of equal notoriety extant. Standing on the eastern slope of Mount Akra, in the most populous part of the Holy City, its approaches are from the east and west through low, narrow doorways leading into a spacious court ninety feet long and seventy wide, formed laterally by the two projecting wings of the church, by the façade of the basilica on the north, and by a stone wall on the south, inclosing the green plateau once adorned by the palace of the Knights ofSt.John. A more novel sight is not to be seen on earth than is daily presented in this stone court-yard during Passion Week. Lining three of its sides, with now and then one in the centre, sit the hucksters of pious wares, recalling the money-changers in the court of Solomon’s Temple. It is the great religious mart for holy trinkets in Jerusalem, and the most auspicious place for the ethnologist to study human varieties, for the costumer to examine diversities of dress, for the traveler to witness the manners of many nations, and for the artist to sketch the most picturesque of living scenes. There are Turks, with lofty turbans and flowing robes; wild Bedouins of the Desert, clad in capotes of camel’s hair, and girt about the loins with leathern girdles, or attired in their gay, fantastic riding costume, brandishing the polished spear; Franciscan friars in coarse brown cowls, and ivory crucifix dangling at their side; Greek monks in long black flowing garments, high square hats, with magnificent beards, and hair long as a woman’s, twirling a rosary of mother-of-pearl or of beautiful agate; French and Italian nuns in black, with white linen bonnets, and rosary and crucifix falling from their waist; beggars in rags, the lame with crutches, the blind protected by a dog, invoking the charities of the rich; and pilgrims from everynation—Syrians, Turks, Arabs, Nubians, Egyptians, Algerines, Armenians, Copts, Greeks, Jews, Italians, French, Russians, Germans, English, and the ubiquitous American. Passing through this motley throng, beggars implore your charities and the venders of pious wares solicit your patronage. Here are for sale sandal-wood beads from Mecca, bowls of bitumen from the shores of the Dead Sea, glass rings and bracelets from Hebron, olive-wood rosaries from Olivet, crosses of mother-of-pearl from Bethlehem, and shells on which are rudely carved representations of the birth and resurrection of Jesus, small tin cans in which water from the Jordan is carried to the ends of the earth, wax tapers to be lit at the sacred tomb, and shrouds of cotton cloth or fine linen to be laid in consecration on the Holy Sepulchre, and then borne to the uttermost parts of the earth by the faithful, to be wrapped in in death as a pledge of their resurrection.
CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE—FRONT VIEW.
CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE—FRONT VIEW.
Around the court are the ruins of antique and nobler edifices. Along the southern side are the broken bases of a colonnade once supporting a cloister or arcade. Running along the western side is an immense stone structure, from the northern end of which rises the grand unfinished tower of the Basilica ofSt.Helen; and on the opposite end stands a solitary column, crowned with a beautiful Corinthian capital, supporting the foot of a broken arch. Within this projecting structure are two Greek chapels, older than the days of the Crusaders; one dedicated toSt.James, the other to the blessed Trinity. On the opposite side of the court is a plain stone building, the Greek Monastery of Abraham, through which entrance is had to the Armenian Church ofSt.John, to the Coptic Convent, and to the Chapel ofSt.Michael. Along the base of the building is a stone bench, where monks and priests spend their idle hours playing with their rosaries.
The best view of the face of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is to be had from this court. It is the chief entrance to the interior, and consists of the southern end of the transept, presenting to the eye a grand old façade of Romanesque composition, now dingy with the dust of ages and the wear of time. It is divided into two stories. In the upper one are two corresponding windows, arched and slightly pointed, massive in mouldings and rich in sculpture. In the lower story is a double portal, surmounted by noble arches, supported byclustered columns, formed of layers of stone resting on heavy bases, and over the doorway are richly-sculptured architraves, representing our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Only the western section of the portal is now open, the other having been walled up since the reign of the Crusaders. On the right of the façade are the remains of that grand tower, once consisting of five stories, only three of which remain. In each of the three sides of the second story is a massive pointed window, and in the third, rising proudly above the domes of the church, are plain and arched windows. Though conjointly owned by the Greeks and Latins, the Armenians and Copts, the church is now subject to the control of the Turkish governor of the city, who holds the keys, and levies a heavy tax upon the rival sects worshiping at its sacred shrines. On the left in entering this ancient edifice, the traveler’s attention is attracted by the lordly Turkish guard and his friends, lounging on softly-cushioned divans, where the hours are idly spent drinking Mocha coffee and whiffing the best Stamboul from chibouks of elegant construction.
ExceptSt.Peter’s in Rome, there is no religious edifice now standing more imposing than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Owing to the addition of chapels and the numerous partitions within for the accommodation of the several sects, it is not easy to give the dimensions and form of the interior. It may be said, however, to consist of a nave 300 feet in length east and west, and of a transept extending north and south 180 feet. The ceiling is eighty feet high. Excepting the rotunda, the nave contains the magnificent chapel of the Greeks, measuring ninety-eight feet in length and forty in width, which is a church within a church. The walls are of wood, carved and gilded, reaching to the lofty ceiling above. The entrance is in the western end, beneath a pointed arch, now filled with a heavy screen, serving as a massive door. From four large piers within, fifty-two feet high, spring noble arches, supporting the central dome. In the eastern end is the gorgeous high altar, the throne of the Greek patriarchs, and on either side are stalls for the choral singers. Behind the throne, formed by a wooden screen, is the robing-room for the priests, those ecclesiastical actors of a corrupted Christianity. Nothing can excel the gorgeous decorations of the interior, which is adorned according to the barbaric taste of the Greeks. The sides oftheir chapel are elaborately carved and gilded; from column and ceiling depend lamps and chandeliers of gold, and ostrich eggs curiously ornamented; while on pier and screen are rude pictures of the Byzantine style. Rising from the marble floor, in the very centre of the chapel, is a marble column, inclosed with an iron railing, marking the centre of the earth, and the identical spot from which was taken the red clay for the formation of Adam’s body.
At the western end of this chapel is the great rotunda of the church, measuring ninety-nine feet in diameter, encircled by eighteen colossal piers, supporting a clere-story pierced with windows, above which is the majestic dome, a hundred feet from the pavement below, with a circular opening in the top for light and ventilation, similar to the aperture in the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. In the very centre of this rotunda, and directly beneath the dome, is the reputed sepulchre of our Lord. In form it is not unlike a miniature temple, ten feet in breadth, twenty in length, and of equal height. The exterior is ornamented with semi-columns and pilasters, with rich cornices and mouldings; with a dome resembling an imperial crown, and with a thousand lamps of gold and silver, interspersed with wax tapers and vases of flowers. The entrance is on the east, through a small inclosed area, along which are rows of candles perpetually burning. Over the portal floats the banner of the Cross, and beneath its silken folds is a magnificent picture of Christ’s resurrection. It is the most spirited representation of that grandest of all events ever thrown upon the canvas. The Redeemer’s form is drawn with all the harmony of parts and the grace of action of an Apollo Belvidere. With one foot resting on the tomb, he is leaving the sepulchre with an air of triumph as majestic as it is natural.
VIEW OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.
VIEW OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.
The interior is divided into two small chapels; the first is where the angel was seen, and contains the throne on which he sat, and in the second is the Holy Sepulchre. The vault is seven feet long and six wide, surmounted with a small dome. The tomb occupies the whole length of the north side of the chamber, incased with marble, and is three feet above the floor; the upper slab is cracked through the centre, and its edges are worn smooth by the kisses of pilgrim lips. Forty-two gold lamps burn continually before the tomb, and from agolden censer clouds of incense ascend as a memorial offering. Whether accepting or rejecting its traditional identity with the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, no one can approach this revered shrine without profound emotions. For fifteen centuries Christians have guarded it with a solicitude no less tender than constant. To rescue it from the hands of infidel Moslems, Peter the Hermit and the Pontiff Urban roused all Europe to war against the Turk; to restore it to the Church, kings and princes, bishops and nobles, gave their treasure, and the millions of Christendom flew to arms to perish in the daring crusade; to it longing eyes in all lands turn, and he whose lips have pressed its cold marble in devotion is esteemed a saint with a charmed life. Such is the religious reverence with which it is held, that none are allowed to approach it till hat and shoes have been removed, while the more devout drag themselves along the marble floor and fondly kiss the unconscious stone. Impelled by a superstitious faith and a tender affection for their offspring, mothers come from afar to lay their children on the tomb, and many an invalid is only too happy if he may be laid beside his Master’s sepulchre.
On leaving the tomb I fortunately met a young Irish monk whose acquaintance I had previously formed, and who on this occasion kindly offered to be my guide in the more thorough exploration of this renowned church. With singular infatuation for holy places, the shrine-makers both of the Greek and Latin Churches have identified within this venerable building the sites of nearly all those solemn events attending the death and resurrection of our Lord. In the northern end of the transept is the Latin chapel, which has been in the possession of the Franciscans since 1257 A.D.; though unpretending both in its proportions and ornaments, it traditionally marks the spot where Christ appeared to Mary, and bears the name of the Chapel of the Apparition. Passing down the dark northern aisle, we lingered for a moment in the legendary prison of Jesus, at the altar of Longinus, the repentant soldier who had pierced the Savior’s side, and in the Chapel of the Division of the Vestments. A few feet beyond, we descended a flight of twenty-nine steps leading into the crypt or Chapel ofSt.Helena, containing the marble chair she occupied while superintending the search for the Holy Cross. A descent of twelve steps more leads to the cavern where the mother of Constantinefound the three crosses, with the title Pilate wrote detached. From the sides of the rock drops of water were dripping down which had percolated the surface above, but which the young monk assured me were holy tears, the rocks still weeping for the dead. Ascending to the floor of the church, and threading the southern aisle, we came to the foot of the traditional Calvary—a natural rock thirty feet long, fifteen high, and as many wide, reached by eighteen steps cut in the living rock. The summit is reached by two flights of steps, one used exclusively by the Greeks and the other by the Latins, for, like the Jews and Samaritans, the former have no dealings with the latter. On the summit is the Chapel of the Elevation of the Cross, measuring forty-five feet in length, the floor of which is paved with marble, the walls draped with silken velvet, and from the ceiling gold lamps depend, dimly burning. At the eastern end is a raised platform ten feet long, two high, and six wide, supporting an altar; and directly before it is a hole in the rock, two feet deep by one and a half square, in which once rested the foot of the Redeemer’s cross. On either side is a similar hole for the crosses of the two thieves, and near them is the rent in the rock caused by the earthquake at the moment the Lord expired. Reverently regarding it as real, the Christians of the East approach this shrine upon their knees, fondly kissing what they believe to be the summit of Golgotha. Covered as it is with a marble floor, it is impossible to determine whether the elevation is masonry or living rock; if the latter, it is remarkable that such a rocky eminence should be left in this portion of the city; and if a natural rock, its sides and top should be exposed to view. Descending the Greek staircase and turning to the right, we came to a gloomy vault called the Tomb of Adam, near where once stood the tombs of the chivalrous Godfrey and the heroic Baldwin. Returning to the transept, we passed a yellow marble slab, inclosed with a low railing which pilgrims fondly kiss, and over which lamps burn continually. It is the legendary Stone of Unction, on which the body of Jesus was anointed for his burial. Passing through the rotunda, we descended into the tombs of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, together with two others, excavated in the living rock, and which, if ancient, are the most remarkable antiquities within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Returning again to the rotunda, mygood Franciscan gave me his benediction, and, parting from me, left me to the reflections of the hour.
Whether this church covers the Golgotha of the crucifixion and the place of our Lord’s sepulture remains an open question. No subject within the range of sacred archæology presents greater difficulties, and none has been contested with a more brilliant display of acute argumentation and varied learning. Pre-eminently it is a question of two sides, and the contest is sometimes so evenly balanced that an assumed victory by the advocates of either theory is one of doubtful certainty. To argue against the supposition, one is forced to reason against his inclination to stand on the site of the Redeemer’s death and sit within the shadow of his tomb; to reject it is to leave the world without a substitute, and consign the remembrance of those grand events which it commemorates to the memory of man, without a knowledge of the scene of their occurrence; to deny the identity of the spot is to call in question the traditions of fifteen centuries, to which the Christians of Europe and of the East have fondly clung, and for which the brave have died; to accept it is to argue against the unbroken silence of three hundred years—against equivocal history—against topography—against analogy—against eminent scholarship—against the Bible. The argument for it is tradition and history; the proof against it is the Bible and topography.
Traditionally considered, the argument in its favor runs thus: Such was the popularity of Jesus, and such the publicity of his death, burial, and resurrection, as to stamp the place of their occurrence with imperishable memory; that the descent of the Holy Ghost, the conversion of three thousand, the early founding of his Church in the city of his rejection, and the maintenance of its unity for thirty-seven years, combined to cherish in the public mind the recollection of the place; that though, just previous to the siege of the Holy City by Titus, his followers fled to Pella, beyond the Jordan, it was but a temporary departure, and that, after the storm of war had spent its fury, they returned to the city of their choice; that the desolation of seventy years which followed the conquest of the Romans was partial, and that, while the more wealthy of the population were sold into captivity, many of the common people retained their humbler homes; that, from the year 130 A.D.to the present time, Jerusalem has been an inhabited city, and that the Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city, and, to dishonor alike the Jew and Christian, he reared a fane in honor of Jupiter on the site of Solomon’s Temple, and covered the tomb of Jesus with a temple to Venus; and that this temple to Venus remained standing for two hundred years after its erection, and was seen by Eusebius in the year 326 A.D.
GROUND PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLYÂ SEPULCHRE.
GROUND PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLYÂ SEPULCHRE.
Such is the evidence for the identity of the Holy Sepulchre as the tomb of Jesus, from his resurrection down to the commencement of authentic history. It is unwritten tradition, and, at best, presumptive proof. Extending through a period of three hundred years of wars, revolutions, and desolations, it is the most unreliable period of all the centuries subsequent to the Christian era. Whatever may have been the temporary interest attached to Golgotha and to the tomb of Joseph to the idle and curious, to the friend and foe of Jesus, it is evident, from their inspired narrative, that the sacred writers neither shared the excitement, nor considered it incumbent on them to describe with minuteness the scene of their Master’s death and burial. They were too much absorbed in recording the stupendous facts of our Lord’s expiatory sufferings, and the glory of his resurrection, to entertain their readers with an accurate account of the rock on which he expired, and of the sepulchre from which he arose triumphant. The place is forgotten in the significance of the event; the actor, and not the stage, is the burden of their history. Their simple story is,They led him away to crucify him;229When they came to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him;230The place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city;231Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.232This is the sum of their record. They must have been familiar both with the place of execution and of interment, but, from Matthew to Revelation, the apostles are silent to indifference as to the one and the other. Had they deemed it important, they might have intimated out of which gate the mournful procession passed, and on which side of the city the Son of God was slain; but, regarding such information as unworthy their sublime narrative, or fearing our idolatry, they leave us to the uncertainty of conjecture. The invitation of the angels to the devotedMarys, Come, see the place where the Lord lay, was not to enshrine the tomb, but to unshrine it, by convincing them by their own sight that he is not here, for he is risen, as he said; and, dear as the spot might be, they were not to linger,but to go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead.233We never read of their return to that tomb. Convinced of his resurrection, they sought him among the living and not among the dead. From the summit of Olivet they watched his ascending form, till a cloud received him out of their sight, and then returned with great joy, not to the tomb,but to an “upper room,†waiting the “promise of the Father.â€234In his wondrous sermon on the day of Pentecost,St.Peter declared the resurrection of Christ, but made no allusion to his tomb,while he reminded his hearers that David’s sepulchre is with us unto this day.235In all the subsequent apostolic letters, neither the zealous Peter, nor the beloved John, norSt.Paul, that devoted worshiper of our Lord, ever alluded to those memorable places.
History is comparatively silent as to the return of the Christians from Pella. Many of the first followers of Christ were strangers in Jerusalem, who had come to the Holy City from distant countries to celebrate the annual festivals of their nation. Such must have been most of the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost, who,returning to their far-off homes, spread the glad tidings of a risen Savior as they went.236And although all who “believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every man had need, and continued daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house,â€237yet in a brief time thereafterSt.Stephen was martyred,“and at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.â€238The number who fled to Pella, which was but a small town on the eastern bank of the Jordan, must have been exceedingly small. Those who found refuge there remained for seventy years, during which time Jerusalem was a desolation; and, excepting the military towers on Mount Zion, “the rest of the wall was so entirely thrown down evenwith the ground by those who digged it up to the very foundation,that there was left nothing to make those who came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.â€239By some this account is regarded as exaggerated, and at most it can only refer to the walls of the city. Granting the correctness of such a supposition, and that some of the poorer inhabitants clung to the ruins of the capital, yet historians agree that the Christians did not return to Jerusalem till about the year 130 A.D., which was after the town had been rebuilt by the Emperor Adrian, and by him calledÆlia Capitolina. And, at best, only the descendants of those who had fled returned, as during the lapse of seventy years most of the fugitives had ascended to their reward. It is also difficult to conceive how those who had never visited Jerusalem before, and especially after it had been rebuilt by the Romans, could have identified an obscure tomb which had remained unmarked by any enduring monument.
The historic accounts which have come down to us that Adrian desecrated the tomb of Jesus by erecting over it an idol monument, are as contradictory as they are inconsistent. As the emperor was the enemy of the Jew rather than of the Christian, it is impossible to conceive what motive impelled him to dishonor an humble shrine held sacred by a handful of harmless religionists. The erection of a proud fane on the site of Solomon’s Temple is in keeping with the character of the man and his hatred for the Jews, but the desecration of Golgotha and of the Holy Sepulchre is inconsistent with his reign in the East, and with the admission of the Christians to his new colony and city. But the early Church historians are not agreed as to the name and character of this idol monument. Writing after the death of Constantine, Eusebius speaks of a temple to Venus covering the Holy Sepulchre, ascribing its erection to impious men; writing sixty years later than Eusebius, Jerome ascribes it to the Emperor Adrian. Eusebius declares it was a temple, Jerome affirms it was a statue; Eusebius asserts it was in honor of Venus, Jerome informs us it was dedicated to Jupiter.
There are similar discrepancies in the writings of these fathers as to the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and as to the founder of the first Christian church reared in honor of our Lord’s resurrection. According to Eusebius, “impious men, orrather the whole race of demons through the agency of impious men, had labored to deliver over that illustrious monument of immortality to darkness and oblivion. They had covered the cave (or tomb) with earth brought from other quarters, and then erected over it a sanctuary to Venus, in which to celebrate the impure rites and worship of that goddess. Moved by a divine intimation made by the Spirit of the Savior himself, the Emperor Constantine ordered the obstructions removed, the holy tomb purified, and a magnificent church to be erected in commemoration of the event.†In this miraculous interposition to discover the veritable tomb of Christ, Eusebius concedes that there was no existing tradition identifying its locality. Either the place of our Lord’s burial was known to Eusebius, or it was not. If it was certainly known to him by a pagan temple standing on the spot, no miracle was necessary for its recognition; if it was not known to him, then there was no unbroken tradition extending through a period of three centuries, and the question turns upon the credibility of the pretended miracle. The “Father of History†can only be saved from palpable contradiction by supposing that after the tomb had been supernaturally discovered he found over it a pagan temple. But what proof have we that such a miracle was wrought? What good to mankind has resulted from such an interposition? In all Bible miracles, the great moral purposes to be attained justified the departure from the established course of nature. The history of this church, from Constantine to our own times, has been a series of religious rivalries, of bitter contentions between opposing sects, of wars between Christians and Turks, of weary and inefficacious pilgrimages from the snows of Russia and the sands of Africa, of useless expenditures of treasure, of relic worship, and of the utter absence of moral influence on Moslem and Jew.
Such a miraculous intimation given to the apostles would have been more appropriate than to a warrior whose piety is as questionable as the results of his conversion have proved disastrous to mankind. To an enlightened Christian mind it would afford a melancholy pleasure to stand on Calvary and sit in the Savior’s tomb, but the temptation to idolatry would be too strong for the common mind to brook. Duped by a mercenary priesthood for fifteen centuries, millions of Greek and Latin pilgrims have bowed in idolatrous veneration beforethe reputed tomb of Jesus; and for a boon so humble, immense donations have been demanded for the support of ecclesiastical establishments. The genuineness of this divine intimation is affected by the character of the age of Constantine. It was the age of pious frauds. Monkery had existed for two centuries; heresies had taken deep root; saints were worshiped, martyrs canonized, relics adored; and, sanctioned by imperial example, the people were ripe for any deception. Either the theory of an unbroken tradition coming down from the apostolic age to the time of Eusebius, and the existence of a pagan temple upon the well-known tomb must be abandoned, or the pretended miracle for its recognition must be relinquished, as the one supersedes the necessity of the other. Both can not co-exist; one or the other is without foundation in truth.
Jerome and his contemporaries, together with his successors, give a different version of the identification of the Holy Sepulchre and of the founder of the first church over the consecrated spot; and, what must appear as a little remarkable to every intelligent mind, these later historians, who wrote in succeeding centuries, are far more full and minute in their details than Eusebius, who was an eyewitness of what he wrote. According to them, the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, moved by a pious desire to worship at those shrines sacred to the memory of our Lord, visited Palestine in the year 326 A.D., at the advanced age of eighty. Having identified the sites of the principal events connected with our Lord’s history, she determined to rescue them from oblivion by the erection of enduring monuments, no less expressive of her own gratitude than for the guidance of those devout pilgrims whose devotions might lead them in future years to the Holy Land. Discovering to her satisfaction the stable and manger of the nativity at Bethlehem, and the exact spot of the ascension on Olivet, she ordered the erection of monumental structures on the site of such extraordinary events, at once worthy the Redeemer’s glory and the magnificent reign of her imperial son. Naturally desiring to supply the intermediate link, and perpetuate the memory of the Savior’s death and resurrection, she earnestly sought for Calvary and the reputed tomb of Joseph. Whether the recollection of these most sacred places had been lost, or whether to confirm her faith in the traditional sites,she diligently inquired of the oldest Jewish and Christian inhabitants of the city as to their location, who pointed her to the area at present inclosed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But the accumulation of rubbish during the lapse of so many years rendered the search difficult and uncertain. Intent, however, on the consummation of an object so laudable, and guided by a divine intimation, she at length came to the sepulchre of Jesus, and near it discovered the three crosses, with Pilate’s tablet, still bearing his superscription. The joy experienced by the unexpected discovery of the crosses was lessened by the tablet being detached from its original cross, precluding the possibility of determining to which of the three it had belonged. Ever fruitful in expedients, Macarius, then Bishop of Jerusalem, suggested the happy thought that the three crosses should be presented in succession to the person of a noble lady at that moment afflicted with an incurable disease, and the one which should impart healing virtue should be regarded as the cross on which the Lord of life and glory suffered. Singly each cross was presented, the first and second, however, without effect, but on the touch of the third she immediately recovered. Content with the accomplishment of a work so grand, and sincerely grateful for the honor Heaven had conferred upon her, she ordered the erection of a magnificent basilica over the Redeemer’s tomb, and, full of holy joy, the venerable Helena returned to Constantinople, where she expired in her eighty-second year. Nine years subsequent to her visit, and seven years after her demise, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was completed, and with unrivaled pomp dedicated to Jesus in the year 335 A.D. With these additional facts and palpable discrepancies, it is impossible to determine to which belongs the honor of the work—to the Emperor of the West or to his imperial mother. In both accounts there is the incompatible mingling of tradition and miracle, mutually destroying the force of each other. An intelligent Christian, visiting Jerusalem for the first time, and remembering his Lord expired and was interred “nigh unto the city,†would not be a little surprised to find Golgotha and the tomb of Joseph in the heart of the modern town. At the time of those great events the city was encompassed on the north with two walls. The first, beginning at the Tower of Hippicus on Mount Zion, ran along its northern brow, and, crossingthe Tyropean Valley, terminated at the western wall of the Temple inclosure, a distance of 630 yards. As the third wall was not built till after the Crucifixion, a description of it is not material to the argument; but on the direction of the second wall hangs the decision of this long-contested question. According to Josephus, the second wall commenced at the Gennath Gate, which signifies “garden,†and was used as a means of ingress either to a royal garden on Mount Zion, or of egress to the gardens in the Valley of Hinnom. In either case the gate would have been located near the western wall of the city, at which point the second wall commenced, and, running northward over the level portion of Mount Akra to the Damascus Gate, and thence coming down over Mount Bezetha, terminated at the northwest corner of the Tower of Antonia, including in its course the traditional Golgotha. To the most unpracticed eye such a line of wall would be in harmony with good sense, with correct civil engineering, and with the approved principles of military defensive works. To locate the Gennath Gate at the north base of Mount Zion, and run the second wall along Bazar Street up to the Damascus Gate and thence back to the Tower of Antonia, would certainly exclude the present site of the Holy Sepulchre, but would also exclude the large Pool of Hezekiah, give but a narrow space to the “Lower City†of ancient Jerusalem, and leave the whole of Mount Akra uninclosed. Such a line of wall would have left a large part, and the weakest portion, of the northern wall of Zion unprotected, and skirting, as it must have done, the steep sides of Akra, been entirely unavailing as a defensive structure. No sane engineer would have constructed a wall so as to expose to the use of an attacking enemy the large fountain of Hezekiah; and, if the second wall did not run north and south, it is impossible to understand Josephus, who informs us that, in his assault upon this part of the city, Titus stationed troops in towers along the southern part, and dispatched others to throw down the northern portion.
The remains at the Damascus Gate of an ancient gateway with towers, the masonry of which is of equal antiquity with that in the northeast corner of the Temple area, are no doubt the ruins of the northern gate of the second wall; and the traces of an ancient wall between the old gateway and the Latin convent clearly indicate that the second wall inclosedMount Akra on the west, and therefore included the Calvary and Holy Sepulchre of the monks.
Though the legendary claims of this renowned church are rejected, and its pretended rights to the affections of mankind denied, yet the antiquity of its origin and the romance of its history can not fail to awaken a momentary veneration in the most indifferent spectator. Dedicated to Jesus in the year 335 A.D., it remained standing in all its primal grandeur for two hundred and seventy-nine years, when, in 614 A.D., it was ruthlessly destroyed by the Persian, ChosroesII., who, after the capture of the city, massacred thousands of the citizens, including many monks and nuns, and, as the crowning act of his vengeance, carried the Patriarch of Jerusalem, together with the “true cross,†into captivity. Sixteen years later the church was rebuilt, under the superintendence of Modestus, superior of the convent of Theodosius, and the exiled patriarch returned, entering the city in triumph with the “cross†on his shoulder. Destined to the most remarkable vicissitudes, it was again destroyed in 969 A.D. by the Fatimites, who, in the madness of their retaliation, committed the aged patriarch to the flames of the burning building. Remaining a heap of ruins for more than forty years, the revengeful Khalif el-Hâkim, the spiritual and fanatical Prince of the Druses, caused it to be entirely demolished, plowing up its very foundations, and attempting the utter destruction of the tomb itself. With an energy as untiring as their gifts were munificent, the Christians rebuilt their favorite sanctuary within thirty-eight years after their cruel persecution by El-Hâkim, and it remained standing till 1099 A.D., when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem; the church was enlarged and beautified by them; and during the lapse of more than seven centuries it continued unimpaired till the year 1808 A.D., when, on the night of the 12th of October, a fire, originating in the Armenian chapel, consumed the noble pile. So intense was the heat that the massive walls suffered immensely; the cupola was rent in two; the roof of the nave and of the triforium gallery, together with all the altars, images, and pictures, were consumed; the marble piers in the rotunda were calcined, and the lofty dome above fell in with a tremendous crash upon the Holy Sepulchre. Inheriting the zeal and benevolence of an earlier age, the Christians of our own century determined to reconstructtheir holiest of shrines, and selecting Commones, a Greek of the island of Mitylene, for the architect, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt in the year 1810 A.D.,and remains standing to this day, the pride of the East and the most imposing of Christian monuments.240