[456] De Vogüé, Les Églises, &c. p. 251.
[459] Early Travels in Palestine. Bohn's Ant. Libr. p. 168.
CHAPTER V.
INVESTIGATIONS IN THE VIA DOLOROSA (OR THE WAY OF THE CROSS). THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER REMARKABLE BUILDINGS IN IT OR IN ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD AND IN THE REST OF THE CITY, TOGETHER WITH ALL THE CONVENTS OF THE DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES.
The Via Dolorosa is the street our Saviour is supposed to have passed along on his road from the Prætorium to Calvary. The following is the course assigned to it by the only tradition which mentions it. It begins in the street which passes by the northern side of the barrack of the Haram[460], and goes westward till it meets the central valley (Tyropœon), which it follows for a short distance southward; it then turns along the first street to the west, and after going through the Judgement Gate, must have again turned to the south a short distance beyond it, (opposite to the little street running to the north,) in order to reach the Church of the Resurrection, just at the north-east angle inside the Chapel of S. Helena. The last part of its course, if this were its course, is now entirely covered by the buildings of the Greek Convent of S. Charalampes. The present Via Dolorosa is divided into fourteen stations: these are visited with religious care by pilgrims, because they are asserted to be the very places at which the last scenes of the Passion of Christ were enacted. They are as follows:
(i). Prætorium of Pilate (Barrack of the Haram); Jesus condemned to death.
(ii). Site of the 'scala sancta' (near to the north-east corner of the Barrack); Jesus given His Cross to bear.