FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IX

[368] Jer. xxvi. 18; Tal. Bab., Makkoth, 24 b.

[369] The list of bishops from Eusebius (“Hist. Eccl.,” iv. 5) is given by Canon Williams (“Holy City,” 1849, i. p. 487).

[370] “Excav. at Jer.,” p. 265. Another text by Sabinus, an officer of the 10th (Fretensis) legion, was supposed by M. Clermont-Ganneau (Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, 1871, p. 103) to be as late as the time of Caracalla, which now seems doubtful, as the 3rd legion had replaced the 10th in 117 A. D.

[371] See Tal. Bab., Ketuboth, 111 a; Joel iii. 2, 12.

[372] See back, [pp. 128], [164]. Clermont-Ganneau, in Revue Archéologique, May-June, 1883; “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., p. 404; Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, Jan. 1900, p. 75, report by Mr. C. A. Hornstein; Oct. 1908, p. 342, report by Mr. R. A. Stewart Macalister.

[373] Clermont-Ganneau, in Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, 1871, p. 102; de Vogüé, “Temple de Jérusalem,” pl. xxxviii. fig. 2.

[374] Canon Dalton, in Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, April 1896, p. 133; Bliss, “Excav. at Jer.,” pp. 249–53.

[375] Tacitus, “Hist.,” iv. 83; see Gibbon, ch. xxviii.

[376] Akkadian sar, “king,” and ap, “sea”; Turkish ab. Api is also “water” in ancient Persian—Sanskrit ap, modern Persian ab.

[377] “Epist. ad Dardanum.”

[378] Dion Cassius, lxix. 12; see Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” i. p. 367.

[379] “L’Église Chrétienne,” 1879, p. 541; Euseb., “Hist. Eccl.,” iv. 6; Tertullian, “Contra Jud.,” 13; Chrysostom, “In Judæos Hom.,” v. 11.

[380] “Survey West Pal.,” iii. pp. 20, 21, 128; Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, 1900, p. 168. Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.,” iv. 2, places Bêther near Jerusalem.

[381] On Ezek. v. 1. This passage was perhaps misunderstood by later writers.

[382] See Derenbourg, “Pal.,” p. 117; Renan, “Église Chrétienne,” 1879, p. 205; Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” i. p. 368; Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.,” iv 6; Mishnah, Ḥalah, iv. 10, Taanith, iv. 7, Sotah, viii. 14; Jerome on Zech. viii. 191, “In Ruf.” ii. 8, Tal. Jer., Taanith, iv.

[383] Renan, “Église Chrétienne,” 1879, p. 193, quotes “Corpus Inscript. Lat.,” iii. 2, to show that Tineius Rufus was not Legate of Judæa after the war, and gives the various spellings. See Dion Cassius, lxix. 13.

[384] Justin Martyr, “Apol.,” i. 47; Eusebius, “Demonstr. Evang.,” vi. 18; “Hist. Eccl.,” iv. 6; Jerome on Zeph. i., Jer. xviii., xx., xxx.; Sulpic. Severus, “Hist. Sac.,” ii. 45; Renan, “Église Chrétienne,” 1879, p. 222; Eutychius “Annales,” i. 416.

[385] Midrash, Eka, ii. 2; Tal. Jer., Taanith, iv. 7.

[386] Munter (“Jüdischen Krieg,” p. 57) quoted by Munk (“Pal.,” 1863, p. 605). Munk and Renan regard this theory as unsound. It was advocated by de Saulcy (“Numismatique Judaique,” 1854, pp. 157–70) and by Madden (“Jewish Coinage,” 1864, pp. 154–210).

[387] “De Rebus Syriac.,” 50. He wrote in Rome—though an Alexandrian—in 130–47 A. D.

[388] The Aramaic texts are given by Madden, pp. 329–33.

[389] Tosiphta, Ma’aser Sheni, i. 5.

[390] Tal. Jer., Ma’aser Sheni, i. 2.

[391] Tal. Bab., Baba Kama, 97 b.

[392] Ibid., Bekoroth, 50 a, Aboda Zara, 52 b.

[393] “Hist. Eccl.,” iv. 6; “Demonstr. Evang.,” vi. 18; Jerome on Joel i. 4, on Dan. ix. 27, and on Ezek. xxiv. 14.

[394] “Die Mosaikkarte von Madeba,” 1906, by Prof. Dr. Guthe, and the architect P. Palmer. Count G. T. Rivoira, “Architettura Lombarda,” 1908, p. 328, suggests the time of Justinian for this map.

[395] Bordeaux Pilgrim, 333 A. D. “Item exeunti Hierusalem ut ascendas Sion in parte sinistra et deorsum in valle, juxta murum, est piscina quæ dicitur Siloa”; “intus autem, intra murum Sion, paret locus ubi palatium habuit David.”

[396] Bordeaux Pilgrim. “Inde ut eas foris murum de Sion euntibus ad portam Napolitanam ad partem dextram deorsum in valle sunt parites [sic] ubi domus fuit, sive Prætorium Ponti Pilati.” Napolis (Nea-polis) was the later Greco-Roman name for Shechem, north of Jerusalem.

[397] On Isa. ii. 8 and Matt. xxi. 15.

[398] See my drawing in “Mem. Survey West Pal.,” Jerusalem vol., p. 406.

[399] The Latin is given in “Mem. Survey West Pal.,” Jerusalem vol., p. 427.

[400] Dion Cassius, lxix. 12.

[401] They are reproduced by Madden, from de Saulcy, “Numismatique Judaīque,” plates xv.-xviii.

[402] Jerome, “Epist.,” 49, ad Paulin.; Eusebius, “Life of Constantine,” iii. 25.

[403] Eusebius, “Demonstr. Evang.,” viii. 3; Cyril, “Catech. Lect.,” xvi. 18; Mic. iii. 12.

[404] The ancient wall south of the Holy Sepulchre Cathedral may be of this age. It is of large stones, some of which are drafted. It runs east and west, but is not founded on rock, though the base is 18 feet below the present surface. Probably the rock is 20 or 30 feet lower still on this line, and the wall is described as standing on debris. Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, April 1894, p. 146. It is not of necessity a wall of the city.

[405] Bliss, “Excav. at Jer.,” 1898, pp. 228, 249.

[406] “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., p. 424; Waddington, “Inscript.,” Nos. 1829, 1854, 1897, 2032. Another occurs in the Tombs of the Prophets, “Courage, Eutherius, no one is immortal.” Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, Jan. 1901, p. 22.

[407] See back, [p. 63].

[408] See back, [p. 161], and Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly, Oct. 1904, p. 296, Jan. 1905, p. 74.

[409] Cypr., “Epist.,” 75; Euseb., “Hist. Eccl.,” vi. 11.

CHAPTER X
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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

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.

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]

Specimens of Masonry, showing the Comparative Size and Finish.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

JERUSALEM IN 530 A. D.

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.

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.

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.