Travellers have all spoken about the prints of our Saviour's feet (especially Abbé Mariti and Monsignor Mislin); with regard to these, as they are unsupported by the Bible and the decrees of the Church, I venture to declare that they are only representations of footsteps carved by some sculptor. The truth of miracles in the abstract I do not impugn, but for this there is no evidence. The Mohammedans preserve in the mosque el-Aksa one of the impressions, which also came from Olivet. I defy the keenest observer to say which is the mark of the right foot and which of the left. I do not believe in the instantaneous fusion of the rock; it is only an Oriental invention; and we find frequent instances of a similar kind among the different religious bodies in the East; such as the other foot-prints of the Saviour, those of the Virgin at Bethlehem, those of the Angel Gabriel, the impression of the body of the Prophet Elias, the turban of Mohammed and his foot-print, and a thousand similar stories. Therefore I say, with Mariti, 'Let him believe that wishes to believe;' and am sure that I offend not against God and religion in rejecting such old wives' tales.
Let us now glance at some other points of interest. At the south-west corner of the buildings surrounding the Church of the Ascension is the Grotto or Tomb of S. Pelagia; over which a church used to stand. She was a native of Alexandria, who went to Antioch in search of pleasure; and as she was graceful, fair, and frail, was soon noted among the gallants of that place, who called her 'the Pearl.' However, one day she listened to a sermon preached by Nonnus, Patriarch of Antioch, which so affected her, that, abandoning her former life, she went to inhabit the grotto on Mount Olivet, which still bears her name; and so completely disguised herself, that she was known to the hermits who lived in the other caves in the neighbourhood by the name of the monk Pelagius. Her sex was not discovered till she was laid out, before being buried beneath the spot where she had lived. The Jews call this place the Tomb of the Prophetess Huldah; for what reason they do not themselves know. The Plan[690] exhibits the interior, half of which is vaulted with masonry, the rest excavated in the rock. Tradition asserts that our Lord frequently retired to this grotto to instruct His disciples; accordingly a church, built by S. Helena in honour of this event, occupied this spot before that dedicated to S. Pelagia. So we are informed by Eusebius[691]. "And she also built a church lower down at that very cave, where (as the true and holy utterances of God testify) the Disciples and Apostles were initiated in all sacred mysteries." The Pilgrim of Bordeaux writes, A.D. 333, "Thence you ascend Mount Olivet, where the Lord taught His Apostles before His Passion. There a basilica has been built by order of Constantine[692]." Why does the Pilgrim pass unnoticed the Church of the Ascension, so plainly indicated by Eusebius? Possibly the church of the grotto, a kind of dependency of the place of the Ascension, may have been the only part of the works completed at the time.
Leaving the Grotto of S. Pelagia, and going towards the south-west, we find a cistern near to an olive-tree, which is shewn as the place where our Saviour taught the Apostles the Lord's Prayer. Formerly there was a church here, as the following passage tells us: "In which place (i.e. Olivet) the Lord was wont to instruct His disciples and all who flocked to Him out of the city. And there He is said to have taught His disciples the Lord's Prayer[693]." Not a trace of the church is now left; and I cannot accept the tradition, as it is contrary to S. Matthew's Gospel[694], which places the scene of this event in Galilee; S. Luke[695], indeed, says our Lord repeated the prayer 'in a certain place,' this may have been in Galilee or at Bethany, but not, I think, at Jerusalem.
A short distance from the above, to the east, is a cavern, wherein the Apostles are believed to have composed the Creed. Here formerly stood a church, dedicated to the twelve Apostles; as is shewn by the ruins still remaining, and those which are dug up there from time to time. The Rev. G. Williams[696], in 1842, saw twelve niches in the walls, six on each side: these I never found; for the barbarous peasants of Olivet have completely destroyed them, in order to use the stones in building their cottages, after first breaking them in pieces so as to remove them more easily. The tradition about the Creed is of no value. Adrichomius[697], indeed, says, "the most probable opinion is, that the Apostles met together in the Cœnaculum in Sion to compose the Creed."
On the summit, not far from the place where the Lord's Prayer is said to have been pronounced, the spot is pointed out where our Lord stood when He predicted the Last Judgment[698]. This tradition is, like the others, worthless.
Descending towards the south in the direction of the Mount of Offence, we arrive, a few yards from a path leading to Bethany, at a field, in which is the so-called Tomb of the Prophets[699]. We enter this cave by a small aperture approached down a broken flight of steps. The Plan and Sections render it unnecessary for me to describe its internal arrangements. I will only mention that in certain parts, especially in the piers, we find masonry, which has been added in order to strengthen the piers of rock which had crumbled away, and so become incapable of supporting the vaulted roof. The place is called by the Arabs Kubur el-Umbia. Hither the Hebrew pilgrims come to lament and pray, believing, according to a tradition commonly received by them, that they are the burying-places of the Prophets. We will therefore see whether the Bible confirms this belief.
Though they are called the Tombs of the Prophets, the names of those who have been buried there are not known; for the greater number and more distinguished Prophets were not interred near Jerusalem. The difficulties attending on this tradition are well put by M. Nau[700]. "They point out the place where, as they say, the Prophets are buried. But what Prophets? Isaiah is buried elsewhere, under Mount Sion; Jeremiah at Alexandria, whither his remains were removed by Alexander the Great from Tahpanhes in Egypt; Baruch, his secretary, went to Babylon to console his countrymen in their captivity, and lies there. Ezekiel, after being cruelly martyred by being dashed against rocks over which he was dragged by the Jews, or (as others say) by horses, to which he had been fastened, was buried in the sepulchre of Shem and Arphaxad. Daniel ended his days at Babylon, either by a natural death (according to the common opinion), or (according to an ancient manuscript of the Emperor Basil, preserved in the Vatican) by decapitation, together with his three holy companions, at the hand of a certain Attalus. His remains were removed from Babylon to Alexandria, and thence to Venice. Hosea was buried at Behemot in the tribe of Issachar, Joel at Bethor, Amos at Tekoah, Obadiah and Elisha at Sebaste, Jonah at Geth, Micah and Habakkuk near Eleutheropolis, Nahum at Begabar. Thus the burial-places of the greater number of the prophets are elsewhere: but still we may suppose that some of the others may have been interred in these tombs; for example, Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi, and many others of the Messengers of God, mentioned in Holy Scripture, who have not left any writings, as Gad, Nathan, Ahijah the Shilonite, and others. It is enough for some of these to be buried here, in order to give the place a claim to its name. It is also possible that the Jews may have collected the remains of their more distinguished Prophets, and placed them in these tombs on the Mount of Olives." No more need be said to shew how slight are the grounds for the traditional name. It is indeed possible that the words of our Lord may refer to these tombs: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the Prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous[701]." "Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the Prophets, and your fathers killed them[702]." Certainly I do not consider these tombs to be as ancient as many others in the Valley of Kidron and Hinnom and on the north of the city, which we shall presently examine.
Quitting the Mount of Olives, let us take the path running eastward, which will lead us to the ancient village of Bethphage, so well known in connexion with the Redeemer's entry into Jerusalem. It formerly belonged to the Levites employed in the Temple. Origen, in his treatise on S. Matthew[703], explains the word to mean House of the Jaws. S. Jerome[704] speaks of it as follows: "When He had come to Bethphage, to the House of the Jaws, which is a village belonging to the Priests, and a type of (Christian) confession, situated on the Mount of Olives." Again, in the account of S. Paula's journey[705], he says, "After she had entered the Tomb of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, she saw the hospice and Bethphage, the 'Village of the Jaws,' which were the priests' portion." Others interpret the word 'House of Figs,' and the Easterns assert that it means 'House of the Rock in the Valley.' The position of the place is certainly in favour of this last signification, as just there the valley is divided into two branches by a rocky hill.
At the present day there are no traces of the church, which is said to have stood there, or even of the village itself; nothing is seen but bare rock, broken here and there by patches of badly tilled ground. Quaresmius[706] gives an account of the long procession which used in his time to be made on Palm Sunday, "When the Guardian of the Holy Land, with his attendant monks, had reached the spot, he preached to the people: then a deacon chanted the Gospel for the day. At the words, 'Jesus sent two disciples, saying unto them,' two monks fell on their knees in front of the reader, who continued, 'Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them and bring them unto me.' Then the two departed and brought an ass, on which the Guardian mounted, while the bystanders spread their garments and olive-branches in the way, and so the procession started for Jerusalem, chanting as they went, 'The sons of the Hebrews brought branches of olive,' and proceeded to the city." Even in the time of Quaresmius nothing remained of either the church or the village. I could wish that some of the ceremonies still performed in the Holy Sepulchre, had, like this, fallen into disuse.
After descending from Bethphage for about half a mile by a very steep and stony path, we come to the village of Bethany. It may perhaps be asserted, that this way going from the Mount of Olives through Bethphage and Bethany was not in existence in former times, and is rather a cattle-track than a road, but it is mentioned by S. Epiphanius[707]: "Then he (Marcion) does not give any account of His journey from Jericho until He arrives at Bethany and Bethphage. But there was an ancient road which led from Jerusalem by Mount Olivet, which those who traverse these regions are acquainted with." Therefore it is evident that this road was more ancient than that which went from Jerusalem to Bethany by the Mount of Offence. The former is the one which we suppose our Lord to have traversed on His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and on other occasions. Bethany was a Jewish fortress on the eastern slope of Olivet: it was the home of Lazarus and his sisters[708], and is frequently mentioned in the Gospels[709], being the favourite resort of Jesus and His disciples. The position of the village is incontestably fixed by history, tradition, and the locality itself.