Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

It is a grim and wicked old building that we now approach. Perhaps no other edifice has been directly the cause of more human misery, or defiled with more blood. There are those who would willingly look upon it as the real place of the Saviour’s Tomb, but I confess that, for myself, having twice witnessed the annual orgy which disgraces its walls, the annual imposture which is countenanced by its priests, and the fierce emotions of sectarian hate and blind fanaticism which are called forth by the supposed miracle, and remembering the tale of blood connected with the history of the Church, I should be loth to think that the Sacred Tomb had been a witness for so many years of so much human ignorance, folly, and crime.

The place is nevertheless venerable from its many memories, for whether or no it encloses the Sepulchre of Christ, it may at least claim to be the site which Christians, from the fourth century downwards, have venerated as such. Of this we cannot well have any doubt when we review the descriptions of the place which have been written in consecutive centuries, including several recently published.

Jerome places Golgotha north of Sion, and the early Christians included under the title Sion only the Upper City of Josephus. Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, writing in 440 A.D., repeats this description of its position, and speaks of Siloam as below the city wall, and beneath the precipitous eastern rock of Sion—a description of relative position which can only apply to the hill now known as Mount Sion. Jerome himself speaks of Sion as the citadel of the town, which is still true of the modern site.

Theodorus, in 530 A.D., is quite as explicit with regard to the position of the church. “In the middle of the city,” he says, “is a basilica; from the west side you may enter to the Holy Resurrection, where is the Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is the Mount of Calvary, to which Mount the way is by steps, and it is under one roof.”

We know by contemporary evidence (the Pascal Chronicle) that this Basilica of Constantine was destroyed, in 614 A.D., by Chosroes the Persian. Several small chapels were soon after erected instead, by the monk Modestus, and they are described in 630 A.D. In 700 A.D. Arculphus gives a detailed account of these new buildings, including the round Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the square Church of the Virgin, the Chapel of Golgotha, and, on the east, the Basilica of Constantine separated by an open space from the round church and from Golgotha. The relative positions of Calvary and of the Sepulchre in this account, are the same described by the previous writers, and by Eusebius in his history of the building of the original Basilica in 333 A.D. Arculphus’ description of the Sepulchre as a place “large enough to allow nine men to pray standing,” might have been written of the Holy Tomb in the present church. In 722 A.D. it is again described, and the door of the tomb is then said to be, as it still is, on the east.

We are thus able to identify the site chosen by Constantine in the fourth century, with that recognised in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. The chapels of Modestus were destroyed, according to contemporary writers, in 1009 A.D. by the mad Khalif Hakem, but were restored in 1048. From the year 1033 down to 1099 A.D. innumerable pilgrimages took place, but accounts of the buildings are not known. The Crusaders, however, replaced the third system of churches by a magnificent cathedral, and united once more the Sepulchre and Calvary under one roof. Their erection dated from 1103 A.D., and remained intact till 1808, when it was partly destroyed by fire; the southern façade is however still attributable to the twelfth century. Of the position of the Crusading site there is also no doubt, and it is shown on charts of the fourteenth century. Sæwulf, in 1102 A.D., places the site of Calvary “on the declivity of Mount Sion,” thus agreeing with Eucherius, who had described it in the fifth century as “placed outside Mount Sion, where a knoll of scanty size exists to the north.” Both these expressions fit well, as the plan will show, with the actual site of the present building.

We approach the church from the south, where is an open court in which, according to the legend, the Wandering Jew stays for a moment once in every century to beg admission, and hears a voice which bids him resume his endless journey. In front of us rise the beautiful Gothic doorways, the pillars scrawled over with the names of pilgrims, and with dates from the fourteenth century downwards; beneath our feet lies old Philip D’Aubigny, close by the threshold, and over his head each year thousands of pilgrims press through the narrow portal.

Passing through the doorway we enter the vestibule, in which is the Stone of Unction, a slab of marble with lanterns of ground-glass hung above it. On the left is the diwân of the Turkish custodians, to the right the stairs of the Chapel of Calvary, beneath which is the place where the “rent in the rock” is shown, and where were once the tombs of Godfrey and Baldwin. Immense wax candles, reaching half-way to the lofty roof, flank the Stone of Unction, which is devoutly kissed by the pilgrims. Passing round it to the left, the rotunda of the church is reached; to the right a narrow passage, with small chapels, runs behind the apses of the Greek Church, and here a flight of steps leads down to the subterranean Chapel of Helena, with its picturesque lighting and heavy eighth-century basket-work capitals; beneath this again is the dark cave so suggestively named “Chapel of the Invention of the Cross.”

The rotunda is well lighted, with a dome, light blue in colour and covered with golden lilies in memory of its repair by the French; the drum is of good white stone. In the centre rises the old Chapel of the Sepulchre, dark and gloomy, of marble discoloured by age, surmounted by a queer cupola, of Italian taste, and ornamented all along the top with gilt nosegays and modern framed pictures. Its entrance is flanked by very handsome marble candlesticks, and in front of the vestibule are hung beautiful gold and silver lamps, suspended by chains, and glowing with a subdued light through glass cups, red, yellow, and green; they number forty-three in all, thirteen for Franciscans, Greeks, and Armenians respectively, and four for the poor Copts.

Stooping to enter, we pass into the vestibule or Chapel of the Angel, walled with marble slabs, and thence into the inner Chapel of the Sepulchre itself, where the darkness is only relieved by the glowing lamps over the altar on the Tomb.