Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text / Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and Sections

by Ermete Pierotti

CHAPTER VI.

EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE CITY ON THE EAST, SOUTH, AND SOUTH-WEST—THE VALLEY OF KIDRON, CALLED ALSO THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT, WITH ITS MONUMENTS AND REMARKABLE PLACES—THE MOUNT OF OLIVES—BETHPHAGE—BETHANY—THE VALLEY OF HINNOM—THE MOUNT OF EVIL COUNSEL—SOUTH-WESTERN PART OF THE VALLEY OF GIHON—MOUNT SION—CHRISTIAN CEMETERIES—TOMB OF DAVID, AND SUBTERRANEAN VAULTS—THE CŒNACULUM—THE HOUSE OF CAIAPHAS—THE GROTTO OF S. PETER—THE LEPERS.

As we go out of the eastern gate, called S. Mary's and also S. Stephen's Gate, we see on the left-hand a pool, by name Birket-Hammam Sitti-Mariam (the Pool of the Bath of our Lady Mary). The origin of this name is that it receives the waters of the ditch outside the eastern wall, and then by a conduit supplies a bath inside the city, near the Church of S. Ann. This bath is a favourite with the women of Jerusalem, who attribute to it miraculous virtues; but unfortunately they can only profit by them for a few days in the year, as the neighbouring cisterns and the pool, instead of retaining the water, allow it to escape; since the reservoir and conduits are in a ruinous condition, and the proprietor of the bath is too blind to his own interest to repair them.

On the right of the gate, as we go out, we see a Saracenic monument, which is daily falling to ruin[532]. Some of the Arabs believe that it was built over a sepulchre; others, that it is a monument to mark the spot where the Khalif Omar pitched his tent after traversing the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Whichever be the true account, it ought to be preserved. But the Mohammedan makes no effort to arrest the ravages of time.

Hence a large portion of the Kidron valley is seen at a glance, especially that part which is called the Valley of Jehoshaphat[533], a name derived from the tomb attributed to that king, which is covered with earth on the east of that of Absalom. Adamnanus, the historian of Arculf's travels, is the first to mention the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and his description agrees with that given by Willibald, another author of the eighth century[534]. The celebrity of this valley is due to a belief, widely spread among both Christians and Mohammedans, that it will be the scene of the Last Judgement. This has arisen from the words of the prophet Joel, "I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land"[535]; and again, "Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about[536]." In this same valley many of the ancient Jews, both high and low, have been interred, and the custom still continues; for they possess a cemetery extending along the eastern bank of the valley, while the two on the western belong to the Mohammedans. It appears that the Christians have also used the place for the same purpose, since, in November 1856, when the Greeks were cultivating a plot of ground on the western bank of the valley, a short distance from the tomb of Mary, they found a well-executed slab of Palestine breccia, on which a cross and the following words were carved: "The monument which contains Stephen and Juliana." On its removal the two skeletons were found. As the work went on, fragments of stone, stone crosses, and human bones were found, unquestionable proofs that it was the site of an ancient Christian cemetery. It is then certain that this valley has long been used for the cemetery of the city, as it is at the present day. In the reign of Josiah mention is made of the "graves of the children of the people[537]." Urijah, who was slain by Jehoiakim, was "cast into the graves of the common people[538]." Adrichomius[539] says that "it received the corpses of the common people and of the great." I believe that the ancients had a reason in selecting this place rather than any other for their graves, which was that the winds do not usually blow strongly from this quarter in Palestine, and therefore the effluvia from the cemetery would not be borne into the city, but would be confined to the lower parts of the valley.

It is then to this, also called the Kidron Valley, from the Arab name Wady Kedron, that I conduct the reader, in order that we may examine it thoroughly. After descending by the road nearly to the bottom of the slope, we come to a bare patch of yellow limestone-rock, said to be the spot were S. Stephen was stoned. The tradition however does not rest upon a probable foundation, and is more recent than the time of the Crusades; and as no mention is made in the Bible[540] of either the gate or the direction of the place where the Proto-martyr suffered, I must be allowed to doubt its truth. It however is so firmly implanted in the minds of the pilgrims of the different sects who visit the place, that their eyes are able to discover the Saint's effigy on the rock itself; and they forget that even if it had been sculptured there, it would have long ago disappeared under the hammers of the devout believers, who have for some centuries made a practice of breaking off fragments as relics. Several writers have demonstrated the worthlessness of the tradition, by shewing that from the fifth century to the close of the Latin kingdom at Jerusalem, the place of the Saint's martyrdom was believed to be outside the present Damascus Gate, which then bore S. Stephen's name[541]. It is not known for what reason this name was in the fourteenth century transferred to the east gate, which, during the Crusades, had always been called the Gate of Jehoshaphat.

Near this pretended site of the Saint's martyrdom is the opening of a cave, which some consider to have been the entrance into the vaults of a church, erected by the Empress Eudoxia. I endeavoured to clear it out, but was prevented by the quantity of stones and earth it contained; however, I was able to ascertain that it had been an ancient cistern, and did not present any indications of the presence of tombs. I think that the letters at the opening, now scarcely visible, are the work of pilgrims. Eudoxia's church was a little distance from the Damascus Gate (as I will presently explain); and the steepness of the rocks and the unevenness of the surface here precludes us from believing that this can have ever been the site of a church, and there are no traces of ancient walls, nor hewn stones lying about, to shew that any building has been erected here.

Following the road eastward from this point, we arrive at the dry bed of the Kidron torrent, crossed by a small stone bridge, the lower part of which is evidently very ancient. Above this is some masonry of the time of the Crusades, and the rest, including the arch, is old Arab work. In the present day the Kidron is only full of water after a heavy fall of rain, and quickly becomes dry again as soon as this ceases. Kidron is a Hebrew word, meaning 'darkness;' derived either from the former depth of the valley down which it flowed, or from the circumstance that its ancient bed was narrow and choked with projecting rocks, or from the cedar-groves, which some believe to have once flourished upon the slopes of the valley[542]. This torrent is famous in both the Old and New Testament. David crossed it in his flight from his rebellious son Absalom[543]; Asa burnt and destroyed an idol here[544]; Hezekiah and Josiah, in restoring the worship of God, cast down here the uncleanness from the Temple and the broken idol altars[545]. Our Saviour frequently crossed it on his way from the Mount of Olives and Bethany; especially it is mentioned on that night when he went to the garden of Gethsemane[546]. At the present day the Kidron is a means of discovering antiquities, in the following way. In the spring of 1855, after a heavy rain-fall, I noticed that some peasants of Siloam were examining the mud which had been brought down by the torrent. I approached them, and learnt that they were searching for old coins. I at once determined to imitate them, and every year at the time of the heavy rains went to the Kidron with a couple of men, and constructed small dykes to retain the mud; and when the water had fallen, I riddled the soil thus deposited, and always found coins; sometimes of considerable value, such as shekels, medals of Alexander and Antiochus, and of others[547]. The reason that these things are found in the Kidron is that the rubbish from the city, and especially from Mount Moriah, was from the earliest periods thrown down the western bank of the valley; consequently all the ground on that side is artificial and not well consolidated; so that the heavy rains wash down the earth into the torrent, together with the objects hidden in it. There is no difficulty in the process, and the supply is by no means exhausted; so that any collector of Jewish coins may profit by the above description.

After crossing the bridge just mentioned, we see, immediately on our left hand, a cubical building, three of whose sides are buried in the ground, while the façade[548] (on the south) is uncovered. Before this is a little open platform reached by some steps[549]. It is said to cover the tomb of the Virgin Mary, but we have no evidence which enables us to fix the date of its erection. An examination of the tomb itself would lead us to suppose that the buildings around it were contemporaneous with S. Helena: for it is a small chamber hewn in the rock, which I have seen on the inside and outside of the eastern wall, in the lower parts (close to the ground), and underneath the marble slabs covering the Greek altar, which has been constructed upon a shelf along the chamber-wall, originally made to support a corpse, exactly like that in the Sepulchre of Christ. It is, then, beyond all question, an ancient Jewish tomb; and at the erection of the church the rock was hewn away all round, in order to detach it from the main mass (which is seen close by), and isolate it in the middle of the building; just as was done at the Holy Sepulchre. We may therefore infer that this work was contemporaneous with that at the Church of the Resurrection, and that it was executed by order of S. Helena[550], as is stated by Nicephorus Callistus, an author of the fourteenth century. I hold that S. Helena began the work, but did not complete it, because at this time not only was the traditionary site of the tomb a matter of dispute, but also the question of the Assumption of the Virgin was as yet undecided by the learned; a point which was not settled till after A.D. 431, when it was declared by the third General Council, held at Ephesus, that the tombs of the Virgin and S. John were in that city. Besides, if S. Helena had erected a building over the tomb, I cannot account for the silence of Eusebius, the historian of that Empress and her son Constantine, upon that point. I am confirmed in my opinion, that S. Helena did not do more than commence this work, by the fact that neither S. Jerome nor S. Epiphanius, who visited and described Jerusalem, make any mention of this as a sanctuary. Had it then existed, they would not have omitted to name it; especially since, in the fourth century, the belief was widely spread that the Virgin had not died, but had been borne away by the Angels into heaven in her bodily form; and therefore these authors would not have neglected so important a matter as her tomb. Consequently I do not assign the building to the time of Helena.