CHAPTER V.
Laws of the Credibility of Tradition.—Dean Trench on Words.—Scenes of the historical Events of Christianity not well defined.—Palm Sunday in Jerusalem.—Crossing the Mount of Olives.—Journey to Bethany.—Site of the City.—Home of Mary and Martha.—Tomb of Lazarus.—Christ frequented Bethany.—To his Visits is due its Significance.—Touching Legends.—Resurrection of Lazarus.—Scene of Christ’s triumphal March to Jerusalem.—Garden of Gethsemane.—Old Gardener.—Walls and Iron Gate.—Place of Sweet Repose.—Flowers.—Pictures.—Aged Olive-trees.—Overwhelming Emotions.—Ascent of the Mount of Olives.—Three Paths.—David’s Ascent.—Connection of the Mount with the two Dispensations.—Scene of the Ascension.—True Place.—Commanding View from the Summit of Olivet.—Passion Week in Jerusalem.—Footsteps of our Lord.—Good Friday in the Holy City.—Visit to the Garden.—Lord’s Supper.—Sleepless Night.—Calvary.—True Location.—Its Appearance.—Appropriate Place.—Via Dolorosa.—Pilate’s Judgment-hall.—Ecce Homo Arch.—Legendary Stations.—Crucifixion of Christ dramatized by the Latin Monks.—The Procession.—Ascent to Calvary.—Tumult.—Spectators.—Sermons.—The Cross.—Church of the Holy Sepulchre.—Architecture.—Scene in the Court.—The Façade.—Imposing Interior.—Chapel of the Greeks.—Rotunda.—Dome.—Holy Sepulchre.—Magnificent Decorations.—Its Interior.—The Tomb.—Holy Shrines.—Not the Tomb of Christ.—Difficulties of the Question.—Evidence for its Identity.—Objections.—Argument against the Site.
Some general laws are yet to be deduced touching the credibility of tradition as to biblical topography. At present, the traditional sites of many important events in sacred history are accepted or rejected according to the taste, creed, or judgment of the traveler. There is a lack of harmony among chorographers upon the localities where occurred the great facts of our religion, and not unfrequently eminent scholars are found maintaining opposite theories. The inspired writers were too much absorbed in recording the stupendous facts of their history to define, at all times, with accuracy the boundaries of those places where such events transpired. Facts, not places, are the burden of their record. They tell us of the deed, and fearing lest, by adoring the spot, we might fail to reap the full advantage of the transaction, they leave the localities subject to inference. Yet they never ignore the sacrednessof places consecrated by memorable deeds, nor could they have been unconscious of the important relation which frequently exists between the natural features of the scene and the fact they commend to our belief. Indeed, the proof of many of their statements depends upon the exact position of mountain and plain, of valley and river, of desert and sea, which we are left to gather from close investigation and comparative induction. Tradition, therefore, has its claims upon our faith no less than written history.
The traveler is guided, in his search for sacred places, by the information derived from three general sources: prevailing tradition, the language of the common people, and the Bible. The first is reliable in proportion to its approximation to the event the memory of which it perpetuates, and to the unity of the rival sects in the land upon the subject. But, owing to the fact that the prevailing traditions were first collated and recorded by Eusebius and Jerome in the fourth century, the absence of any authentic record of such legends during the three preceding centuries requires us to receive the testimony of those eminent fathers with due precaution. It is of little moment how long these traditions have since been received; the question of greater importance is, How nearly can they be traced to the events the memory of which they transmit? While with pleasure we accord to those early fathers varied learning and superior advantages to acquire information, yet it is due to an intelligent faith to accept what they record only so far as it is supported by contemporary history and by the harmony existing between the physical features of the locality and the inspired account.
Dean Trench has said that “language is fossil history.”[181]With slight alterations, the familiar names of the Bible have been preserved in the Arabic language, which derived them from the Aramean, the vernacular language of the country when invaded by the Arabs.[182] In some instances the proper names of large cities have been changed, but the ancient appellations of rural places are retained, and this not unfrequently is the only hint to identify some renowned site. But the marvelous minuteness and accuracy of the Bible constitute it the great guide-book in the Holy Land, and, when read with care and reflection upon the spot, in connection with the lightderived from other sources, never fail to lead to right conclusions, and at the same time they afford the reader the satisfaction of treading in the footsteps of those illustrious men whose words and deeds are the enduring glory of our race.
There is less difficulty in identifying those places connected with Jewish history than in determining those sites forever sanctified by the acts and teachings of our Lord. For more than fifteen centuries the Jews were permanent residents in the land, and during that long and prosperous period they reared monuments commemorative of historic events, which the spoliations of war have not been sufficient to efface, nor the attritions of time able to destroy; hence, without a doubt, the traveler of to-day stands with delight within their ancient cities, or lingers with melancholy interest amid their ruined towns.
It is otherwise, however, with Christian antiquities. The Founder of our faith was but a sojourner in the land, and his followers failed to become a distinct and ruling people till the early part of the fourth century. Always oppressed, and never respected, till the son of Helena bore the Cross in triumph to the gates of Jerusalem, they were without the rights and destitute of the means to perpetuate by enduring monuments the memory of those places hallowed by the presence of the Great Teacher of mankind. Driven from the city in the year 69 A.D., they were compelled to seek an asylum at Pella, on the eastern bank of the Jordan, near Jabesh Gilead, and for seventy years thereafter, from its capture by Titus to its rebuilding by Adrian, Jerusalem ceased to be the home of the Christians. It is not, therefore, surprising, that during the exile of so many years hallowed sites should have passed to the shades of oblivion, and that any attempt to recall them now should be attended with some uncertainty.
Though unable at all times to stand with confidence where Jesus stood, and walk where he walked, it is nevertheless a source of unspeakable delight to know that Jerusalem is the city in which he taught; that there are the skies he sat beneath; there the hills and vales he traversed; there the garden of his agony; and that rising above is Olivet, whose flowers were moistened with his tears, whose echoes were awakened by his prayers, and whose summit was the last spot of earth pressed by his adorable feet.
Palm Sunday dawned upon the Holy City in all the beauty of a Syrian spring. A sweet repose pervaded earth and sky; the very air was at rest, and a vernal sun shone softly from skies of a purple tint. It was the anniversary of our Lord’s triumphal entry into the city of David, and I was in the spirit to join the imaginary throng on the same highway, and shout, “Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” From early dawn, through all the lanes and streets of the city, pilgrims were hastening to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, thronging the spacious aisles, rotundas, and lateral chapels of that venerable edifice. Differing from the Greeks a moon or a month as to the time of the festival, the Latins were assembled in their Franciscan chapel adjoining the rotunda. The altar was decorated with vases of flowers, and over it were suspended palm-branches, the symbol of the day. The bishop and officiating priests were attired in their elegant robes; a noble organ pealed forth the responses to the intoned service, and in the vast audience were monks and nuns, officers of the state and of the army, and pilgrims and strangers from all lands.
The scene of our Lord’s triumphal march from Bethany to Jerusalem is no less distinctly marked by a universally received tradition than by the everlasting hills and valleys whose awakening echoes responded to the anthems of the rejoicing multitude. The distance from the Holy City to Bethany is correctly stated by the Evangelist as fifteen furlongs, or a little less than two miles, counting eight furlongs to the Roman mile. The ancient path leads from St. Stephen’s Gate down the steep sides of Moriah, and, after crossing the stone bridge that spans the Kidron, ascends to the walls of Gethsemane. From the garden three roads lead to the village home of Lazarus. One, winding up a slight depression in the western side of Olivet, sweeps round the hamlet of Jebel et-Tûr, which crowns the summit, and descends the green slopes on the eastern side. The second branches from the first just above the garden, and, winding upward, skirts the valley on the south, intersecting the former a short distance above Bethany. The third, which is the most ancient and frequented of the three, turns to the right below the garden wall, and, following the devious base of Olivet on the south, leads to Bethany, to Jericho, and to the heights of Moab beyond the Jordan. In theEast, the land itself is not older than the great highways of the nation. Chosen alike for ease and directness, the valleys and mountain slopes are the principal thoroughfares, which, to succeeding generations, remain the landmarks of the past.