OUTLINE PLAN OF JERUSALEM.

The True Site of Calvary.—The question has been much debated whether the Church of the Holy Sepulchre occupies the true site of Calvary or not. We know that Jesus suffered and was buried at some spot outside the city, for it was “as they came out” that they found Simon of Cyrene, and compelled him to go with them to bear the cross. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is almost in the heart of the present city; but we have to remember that at the date of the crucifixion the third wall was not yet built. The first question to be settled is the course of the second wall, and the point whether it included the site of the church or not. In this connection the discovery of a portion of the second wall, running north-west, along by the Greek Bazaar, was very important: only it was not followed far enough to remove all doubt. If we adopt Herr Schick’s line for the second wall, the Church of the Sepulchre would be outside: but this is not enough. If the site were within the second wall it could not be Calvary; if it was outside the wall it may be Calvary or may not. The Church is closer to the wall than we should expect the place of execution to be; and unless Calvary were further away there would hardly seem to be reason enough for pressing Simon of Cyrene into service to carry the cross.

But another discovery must be mentioned which has some bearing on the question. A little way east of the church, on a piece of ground belonging to the Russians, the excavators passed through the remains of some bazaars which were known to have existed there in the middle ages, and below these they came upon a Byzantine pavement, which appears to be the one laid down by Constantine around the buildings which he erected. Thus it becomes morally certain that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands on the spot where Constantine built his church, believing it to be Calvary. But between the days of Christ and the days of Constantine there was time and room for mistake to arise. Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70, the Christians did not return to it until eighty years after, and by that time it might be difficult to identify the sacred sites. When Constantine came to build his church he found the site occupied by a temple of Venus, a circumstance which may argue the traditional sacredness of the site, but scarcely the tradition that it had been the Jewish place of execution. Major Conder says he could devoutly wish that the site may turn out not to be genuine, because it is disgraced by the scenes that occur there.

Passing through the doorway we enter the vestibule, in which is the Stone of Unction, a slab of marble which is devoutly kissed by 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 basketwork capitals. Beneath this, again, is the dark cave so suggestively named the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross. The rotunda is well lighted with a dome light blue in colour, and covered with golden lilies and arabesques. 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. 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. The most impressive portion of the church is, however, the nave east of the rotunda, belonging to the Greeks, with its great screen in front of the three eastern apses. The floor is unoccupied, save by the short column marking the “centre of the world.” The dome above is poor, rudely whitewashed, and painted in fresco; but the glory of the place consists in the large screen and the panelling of the side walls.[47]

On Sundays the Christians of various churches—Greek, Latin, Armenian, Coptic—hold their services simultaneously, under the dome and in the side chapels which open off it. On one occasion when I was present the Greek patriarch was preaching under the dome of the rotunda, at the east end of the Chapel of the Sepulchre, when suddenly the Latins struck up their instrumental music and singing, drowning the preacher’s voice. I was prepared to sympathise with the Greeks, when presently they formed a procession and marched round the rotunda, passing right through a little band of Copts who were engaged in their own way of worship at the west end of the Chapel of the Sepulchre. This want of consideration for the members of other churches seemed so calculated to lead to quarrels that I was not surprised to find a hundred Turkish soldiers drawn up in front of the church to keep the peace. This was a fortnight before Easter. At Easter time itself, when the so-called miracle of the “holy fire” is enacted, and Christians of all churches struggle with one another to be the first to light their tapers at the sacred flame, quarrels do actually arise, and the place is a pandemonium. Woe to the owner of the taper first lit; it is snatched from him, and extinguished by having a dozen others thrust into it. Strong men struggle with one another, and even delicate women and old men fight like furies. We may well join with Conder in wishing that the evidence may finally prove Calvary to have been somewhere else.

For some years past a site has been coming into favour, outside the present north wall, not far from the Damascus Gate. Here is a rounded knoll with a precipice on the south side of it, containing a cave known to Christians as Jeremiah’s Grotto, from the tradition that Jeremiah lived in it and composed his Lamentations there. When this knoll is looked at from the south-east, especially from the southern shoulder of the Mount of Olives, it appears to many observers to bear a striking resemblance to a huge skull. As long ago as 1871, Mr Fisher Howe of Brooklyn proposed the identification, in a little book called “The True Site of Calvary,” published in New York.[48] Dr Chaplin and Major Conder have given additional probability to it by bringing into prominence the Jewish tradition which regards this knoll as the place of public execution. When the death was by stoning, the condemned person was hurled from the top of the cliff, which is about 50 feet high, and if he was not killed by the fall, stones were cast at him till he died. The place was called the House of Stoning, and Christian tradition has regarded it as the place of the martyrdom of Stephen. The circumstance that Jesus Christ was put to death in the Roman manner, being crucified and not stoned, makes little difference to the argument for the site of Calvary, since there is no reason to suppose that Jerusalem possessed two places of execution. It may be added that the surface of the knoll is now used as a Mohammedan burial ground; and this may also have been its character in Jewish times. About 200 yards west of the Grotto, Conder made the interesting discovery of an indisputably Jewish tomb judged to belong to the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. It would be bold to hazard the suggestion that this is the very tomb in which the body of Christ was laid—the new tomb in the garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea—yet its position so near the old place of execution is certainly remarkable. “Thus,” says Conder, “to ‘a green hill far away, beside a city wall,’ we turn from the artificial rocks and marble slabs of the monkish chapel of Calvary.”

[Authorities and Sources:—“Tent Work.” Major Conder. “The Recovery of Jerusalem.” Colonels Warren and Wilson. “Sinai and Palestine.” Dean Stanley. “Walks about Jerusalem.” W. H. Bartlett. “Quarterly Statements of Palestine Exploration Fund.”]