We have thus far had what sailors call plain sailing, for no one can easily be at a loss as regards the eastern, southern, and a portion of the western boundaries of the ancient Jerusalem. The northern limits offer a subject of greater difficulty, and it is one also of greater importance, for on this depends the question whether the spot pointed out as Mount Calvary be really the place of the crucifixion or not. The objectors, including almost all Protestant visitors, say it is not and cannot be, since this spot was evidently within the ancient city; and both from the Scriptures, and from the well-known custom of the Jews on such occasions, we know that this event occurred without the walls. This subject we will now examine.
The valley of Cheesemongers, commencing, as we have seen, just south of the temple, took a course to the north-westward, and formed the boundary of Mount Zion on the north, separating this hill from another on the eastward, called Acra,[30] probably from the Greek word αχρος, high. Acra was originally a flat[31] on the summit, except at one part, where it rose to a peak of sufficient height to overlook the temple. On this Antiochus Epiphanes (B. C. 168.) erected a citadel, strengthened with high walls and towers, which proved such serious annoyance to the citizens, that, under the rule of Simon Maccabeus, (B. C. 143.) not only was the citadel demolished, but, to prevent its being rebuilt, the hill or peak itself was cut down to the level of the adjoining ground. In this way the whole of Acra got to be comparatively low ground,[32] and, to facilitate intercourse between the Temple and the “Upper City,” or Mount Zion, a bridge[33] was carried from a gate near the S. W. corner of the Temple quite across to the neighborhood of the palace of David.
Of the valley of the Cheesemongers after it enters the modern city, there are at present no traces, it having doubtless been filled up at the time when Jerusalem was levelled with the ground by order of Titus; but as Mount Zion was much higher than Acra, we may expect to find some remains of the steep ascent by which they passed from this valley up to Zion, or, as it was called by them, “The Upper City.” And of this there are considerable remains. Mr. Nicholayson’s house stands about three hundred feet a little east of south from the Jaffa gate, which is designated on this [map] by the figure 1, at the place where the roads from Bethlehem and Jaffa meet. Sixty feet eastward from his house is a slope, about twenty-five feet high, and so steep as to make it difficult even for donkeys to ascend. Standing on its edge, we are still able to overlook a large part of the city to the east of it. This slope continues thence to the south-eastward, keeping parallel to some extensive ruins now to be seen there, the remains of a hospital belonging to the time of the Crusades; the slope being separated from them by a narrow bazaar. This slope is undoubtedly the north-eastern edge of Mount Zion, and I have so expressed it in the [map] which we are endeavoring to form. I have not been able to trace it further than to the end of this bazaar; but as it passes in the direction of Siloam, or the opening of the valley of Cheesemongers, I have marked it in the map as continuing down to that place, as I have no doubt that it does. This gives us the northern boundary of Mount Zion exactly as described by Josephus, who says that “this city laid over against the temple in the manner of a theatre.”[34] At the place where this slope approaches the nearest to the valley of Hinnom, or near Mr. Nicholayson’s, I have placed the tower of Hippicus, which stood at the northern angle of the city of Zion.[35]
The “old wall,” as it is called by Josephus, first erected by David and Solomon, and strengthened by succeeding kings, commences at the tower of Hippicus, and had its course on the west and south, directly along the edge of the valley of Hinnom. On reaching the valley of Kedron, it bent to the northward, and curving again to the east just below the pool of Siloam, joined the temple wall nearly at its south-eastern angle. On the northern side, starting again at the tower of Hippicus, it kept along the edge of the bank above the valley of Cheesemongers, until curving opposite the Xistus, it here crossed the valley, and passing by the Xistus and the council-house, joined soon after the western wall of the temple, probably at the south-western angle.[36]
He does not tell us what is meant by “the Xistus,” but it is probably from the Greek word Χιστος, “a division” or “separation;” and I suppose refers to the branching of the valley of the Cheesemongers, one part keeping along by Mount Zion, and the other just on the west of Mount Moriah; the latter branch, as I have already said, was filled up by the Maccabees. Just south of the temple, on the ground sloping down to the pool of Siloam, was a small section of the city called Ophlas.[37]
It is probable that a wall separated also Mount Zion from Ophlas; for we find, that when Titus had possession of Acra and the Temple, he had still to bring his engines against the northern wall of Zion;[38] which would not have been necessary if he could have passed at once through Ophlas into that city.
Mount Zion was called by David “The Citadel;” it afterwards frequently went by the name of “The Upper City,” in contradistinction to Acra, the latter being frequently styled “The Lower City.”[39]
Acra, we are informed by Josephus, was “in the shape of a moon when she is horned;”[40] and though he gives no intimation to that effect, I suppose the horns must have been to the northward, for I do not see how it is possible that they could have been otherwise. On the west they certainly could not have been, nor on the south, nor on the east; and there remains only the position which I have given them. The northern wall of Acra, sometimes called “the second wall,” commenced at the gate Gennath, (i. e. “gate of the gardens,”) and then making a curve,[41] terminated at the castle of Antonia.[42] I have placed the gate Gennath about five hundred feet from the tower Hippicus, and have carried the wall, in the first place at right angles across the valley of the Cheesemongers, and then placing a tower at the angle, have there commenced the course over towards Antonia. My reasons for this arrangement are as follows. When Titus had set down with his army before Jerusalem, and came to select a spot for his assaults, he determined to commence at the tomb of John the High Priest, because the outer wall (marked here by the zigzag lines) was weakest at that place; and here, too, he could pass at once to the “old” or “third wall,” without the necessity of first taking the second;[43] which expectation “of an easy passage to the third wall” would not have been reasonable, had the gate Gennath and the branching of the northern wall of Acra been nearer to the tower of Hippicus than I have placed them. And when the Romans had taken this outer wall, and the Jews were driven to their next line of defences, they immediately commenced a line of fortification, which seems to have been from the second wall to the tower of Hippicus; for which reason, as well as because it is a more rational way of carrying a wall across a valley, I have made this angle in the outer wall of Acra.
These walls, namely, those of Mount Zion and Acra, are all that were standing in the time of our Saviour. The outer wall, marked here by the zigzag lines, was erected by Agrippa, not till eight years or more after the crucifixion; a circumstance that seems to have escaped the attention of those who maintain that the spot now marked as Calvary was then within the city. At the time of our Saviour, a very large suburb extended northward from the temple and the tower of Antonia, occupying a hill called Bezetha, but it was not yet walled in. Speaking of this outer wall, Josephus says, “It was Agrippa (Agrippa ruled over Judea from A. D. 41 to 43.) who encompassed the parts added to the old city with this wall, which had been all naked before; for as the city grew more populous, it gradually crept beyond its old limits; and those parts of it that stood northward of the temple, and joined that hill to the city, made it considerably larger, and occasioned that hill, which is in number the fourth, and is called Bezetha, to be inhabited. It lies over against the tower Antonia, but is divided from it by a deep valley, which was dug on purpose.... This new built part of the city was called Bezetha, in our language, which, if interpreted in the Grecian language, may be called The New City. Since, therefore, its inhabitants stood in need of a covering, the father of the present king, and of the same name with him, Agrippa, began that wall we spoke of; but he left off building it when he had only laid the foundations, out of the fear he was in of Claudius Cæsar, lest he should suspect that so strong a wall was built in order to make some innovation in public affairs; for the city could no way have been taken if that wall had been finished in the manner it had been begun; as its parts were connected together by stones twenty cubits (thirty-six feet) long and ten cubits broad, which could never have been either easily undermined by any iron tools, or shaken by any engines. The wall was, however, ten cubits wide, and it would probably have had a height greater than that, had not his zeal who began it been hindered from exerting itself. After this it was erected with great diligence by the Jews as high as twenty cubits, above which it had battlements of two cubits, and turrets of three cubits altitude; insomuch that the entire altitude extended as far as twenty-five cubits.”[44] De Bel. lib. v. cap. 4. § 2.
The slope which I have noticed as near Mr. Nicholayson’s house, and as showing, southward from that, the outline of Mount Zion, does not however terminate at the site of the tower Hippicus. It there bends to the eastward, and again, near the present Latin convent, turns to the northward, but is at that place reduced to an elevation of only five or six feet. For a reason to be seen in Josephus, de Bel. lib. v. c. 7. § 3, as well as on account of the ground, I have made Agrippa’s wall, which started from the tower Hippicus,[45] keep along the upper edge of this slope, and have placed the tomb of John at the angle; the reasons for which may be found also in the above reference. Thence the course of this wall is uncertain; we only know that it proceeded far to the northward, and enclosed the suburb of Bezetha; but, though the course which I have drawn corresponds, as far as I can judge, with the data given us in Josephus, those data are too few to furnish us with any thing positive. I think, however, the outline cannot be far from the truth.