Reason and Scripture alike point to this spot as the scene of that great death, which has no parallel in suffering as it has no equal in results. Reading the four Evangelists from the brow of this desolate rock, all the details of the inspired account appeared fulfilled with an exactitude not unworthy an intelligent faith. Coming out of St. Stephen’s Gate, the mournful procession proceeded along that ancient road on which Simon of Cyrene was returning from the country,to whom fell the honorable part to bear the cross of the fainting Son of God.[220] Reaching this desolate scene, the horrid tragedy was enacted. The place was no less appropriate to the mind of the Divine Sufferer than to those who were the instruments of his death.It is nigh unto the city that had rejected him.[221] Before him rose Olivet, his bower of prayer; beneath his eye lay Gethsemane, the scene of his agony; while, as if to mitigate the sorrow of the final struggle and light up the darkest hour of his life, the Mount of Ascension rose in grandeur before him, crowned with the glory of his exaltation. Around the cross, both on the summit of Bezetha and on the slopes of Olivet beyond, is room for the multitude who had assembled to witness the melancholy spectacle,and for those women who, “beholding afar off,”[222]“bewailed and lamented him.”[223] From the adjacent walls of the city the chief priests, scribes, and elders beheld him, and mockingly said,“He saved others, himself he can not save.”[224] On the road which passed beneath the cross came those Jewish travelers who, on reading Pilate’s superscription, wagged their heads in disdain, and tauntingly greeted him, saying,“Thou that destroyest the Temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself.”[225] Here the rocks aretorn and riven;for when he gave up the ghost, “the earth did quake and the rocks were rent.”[226]In the hill-side are tombs, which probably are “the graves that were opened, and from which the saints who slept arose.”[227] Down in the sequestered vale of the Kidron are gardens, where some old sepulchres still remain, any one of which answers well the description of the Savior’stomb—“Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre.”[228] Where else in the environs of the Holy City should Joseph, a rich man of Arimathea, have his own new tomb but in the renowned Valley of Jehoshaphat, where sleep in death his ancestors, whose sepulchral monuments continue to this day? And where within the circuit of the city of his rejection should Jesus rise triumphant from the grave but in sight of the garden of his sorrow, the rock of his crucifixion, and the mount of his ascension?
The Via Dolorosa is a lane-like street, narrow and crooked, leading from St. Stephen’s Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and its dolorous name is no less significant of the tragical events which, according to tradition, occurred along its course, than of its forbidding and gloomy aspect. Like the “street which is called straight” in Damascus, and the Via Sacra in ancient Rome, the Via Dolorosa has a world-wide renown. Its windings, its rough pavement, its prison-like walls—penetrated with low doorways and grated windows—its rude arcade, excluding the sunlight and casting a deeper gloom within, sadden the mind, and are in keeping with the monkish legends that have given to it universal notoriety. Along this dreary walk, amid its shadows and solemn memories, a wounded spirit finds companionship. As the industrious shrine-makers of this and of other ages, the monks have consecrated eight stations in this narrow street, commemorative of as many events in our Lord’s journey from the dungeons of Antonia to the site of Calvary. In the northern wall of the Temple area are the two arches, now walled up, where stood Pilate’s staircase, down which our Lord descended after his sentence was pronounced, and directly opposite is the Church of Flagellation, marking the place where he was scourged. Not many paces to the west is the Ecce Homo arch, where Pilate exclaimed to the infuriated mob, “Behold the man!” At thebottom of a gentle descent the lane turns to the left, and then to the right. Beyond this angle is shown a deep impression in the solid stone wall, made by the shoulder of Jesus when he leaned against it at the time he fainted. Near it is the house of St. Veronica, the illustrious woman who presented the Savior with a handkerchief to wipe his bleeding brow. From her residence to the terminus of the street the gloom and silence are painful; and at well-apportioned intervals are indicated, by broken columns, the places where Simon was compelled to bear the Redeemer’s cross, where Jesus addressed the weeping daughters of Jerusalem, and where his tragical death occurred.
VIA DOLOROSA AND THE ARCH OF THE ECCE HOMO.
Throughout Good Friday groups of pious pilgrims were threading the Via Dolorosa and offering their prayers at its legendary shrines. That night the Latin monks dramatized the crucifixion of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At an early hour the venerable Church of St. Helena was thronged with natives and strangers, consisting of Greeks, Latins, Copts, Armenians, Turks, and Franks. To prevent a disturbance, the military governor of the city had ordered a detachment of Turkish soldiers to be present. Among the dignitaries in attendance to witness the fictitious tragedy were foreign consuls attended by liveried cawasses, a hundred French officers, with their orderlies, who had that day arrived from Beîrut, and prominent among the distinguished persons was Lessep, the famous canal-digger, who had ascended from Egypt in an improvised chariot drawn by a pair of the noblest camels, and was the first who had crossed that ancient road since the day of Roman chariots.
It was past eight o’clock when the solemn drama was opened with the recitation of prayers in the sacristy of the Latin chapel. The light of a hundred gold and silver lamps, fed by olive-oil, scarcely dispelled the darkness of the hour. At 9 P.M. the pageant was fully commenced, and the long procession began its march, each person bearing a wax taper that shone dimly on the air of night. First came Augustine friars, attired in brown cowls and cassocks; then followed a stalwart monk, bearing an immense cross of light-colored wood, curiously figured. On the cross was nailed the carved figure of a man, covered with thorns, from whose side the life-blood was flowing, and around whose loins was drawn a white linencloth. Behind the crucifix came two choirs of monks and catechumens robed in white, chanting a funeral dirge, with responsive chorus; following the singers was Rome’s eminent prelate, the patriarchal Bishop of Jerusalem, crowned with a gold mitre, wearing a black velvet cloak richly trimmed with gold lace, and bearing in his right hand a gold crucifix adorned with jewels; following in his train were priests of lesser rank in dark robes, and barefooted friars with shaven heads, to imitate the crown of thorns, and nuns in blue and black garments and white linen bonnets; and next came the French consul, the military officers, the common soldiers, poor pilgrims, and strangers from all nations, whose devotion or curiosity prompted them to join the imposing procession.
Within the church are lateral chapels, regarded as shrines by the pious, such as the prison of Christ, the chapel where he was bound, where he was mocked, and where his vestments were divided by the Roman soldiers. At the chapels the procession halted to listen to sermons preached in the Italian, French, German, Arabic, and English languages. It was near midnight when the procession reached the foot of Calvary. Slowly ascending the rude steps cut in the solid rock, the heavy cross was set in its original resting-place on the summit. In imitation of the supernatural darkness, every light was extinguished. At that moment a tumult occurred. The rough voice of derision rose above the universal clamor, and echoed through the aisles and arches of that ancient building, as the Turkish soldiers charged upon the people. Enraged at the insult offered to his religion, the French consul drew his sword, threatening death to Turk or Christian who should crowd upon him. In a moment quiet was restored and the scene went on. Accident gave the charm of reality to the occasion. There stood the captain of the guard, with the smile of scorn upon his attractive though stern features; around him were his troops, and near them were fanatical Moslems reviling the spectacle; standing afar off were Christian women, robed in white sheets, concealing their person except their soft dark eyes, which peered out above their veils; and surging to and fro, like mighty waves, was a motley throng eager to behold the drama. Amid the solemnities human nature was revealed. A magnificent French priest, who had been appointed to preach at the cross of the unrepentant thief, so far forgothis duty as to pronounce a glowing eulogium upon France, and the part she had taken in supporting the Catholic faith in the East. His commanding eloquence touched alike the pride and vanity of the French, and the otherwise decorous officers, forgetting the time and place, applauded the time-serving priest.
The three sermons at the several crosses ended, the lights burn dimly again. And now began the descent from the cross, after the style of Rubens’s great picture. Three venerable monks, impersonating Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and St. John the Evangelist, approached the cross to take the body down. One, climbing up behind the cross, and throwing a sheet around the body and under the arms of the image, held it fast, while another tenderly drew out the nails, kissing each one in turn as he laid them upon a silver plate; then receiving the body into his arms, with the head resting on his shoulder, wrapped it in fine linen, placed it upon a bier, and to the chant of another dirge the procession descended to the pavement of the church, where the image was placed upon the stone of unction for anointing, and hence borne to the tomb of Joseph, to await the joyous notes of Easter Sunday.
Such is a brief description of a scene which annually occurs in Jerusalem; and though producing a transient impression on the common mind, darkened by error and deluded by superstition, the sublime farce is as irreverent as it is offensive to the enlightened Christian. Debased must be the intellect and vitiated the moral sensibilities of a people who delight in such mournful tragedies, and corrupt must be the church which sanctions ceremonies so degrading to earth and repugnant to heaven. With equal propriety, the murder scene of a beloved friend might be yearly re-enacted, harrowing the soul with the bloody memories of the past, and imitating in fiction the ghastly deeds of veritable murderers. Who could be induced to witness a sight so mournful? The last request of the Redeemer to his people was to remember his death, and not to re-enact it; to cherish his memory, and not perpetuate the triumph of his foes. Devotion attains its greatest purity, and piety its highest form of spirituality, as pompous ceremonials are displaced by the simple aspirations of the heart for God, and by the practical embodiment of faith, hope, and charity.
For fifteen hundred years the Church of the Holy Sepulchrehas been the shrine of devout worshipers from all lands, and the antiquity of its traditions, together with the profound reverence in which it is held by the Christian world, render it an object worthy of consideration. Whether considered as a work of art, or as a historic site around which cluster the most sacred legends of the Eastern churches, it awakens a thrilling interest in the thoughtful and intelligent mind. Such are the number and complications of the added apartments, a delineation of the structure is as tedious as it is difficult. Though, as a whole, the architecture is of the Romanesque order, yet in its different parts it combines a greater variety of styles than any other edifice of equal notoriety extant. Standing on the eastern slope of Mount Akra, in the most populous part of the Holy City, its approaches are from the east and west through low, narrow doorways leading into a spacious court ninety feet long and seventy wide, formed laterally by the two projecting wings of the church, by the façade of the basilica on the north, and by a stone wall on the south, inclosing the green plateau once adorned by the palace of the Knights of St. John. A more novel sight is not to be seen on earth than is daily presented in this stone court-yard during Passion Week. Lining three of its sides, with now and then one in the centre, sit the hucksters of pious wares, recalling the money-changers in the court of Solomon’s Temple. It is the great religious mart for holy trinkets in Jerusalem, and the most auspicious place for the ethnologist to study human varieties, for the costumer to examine diversities of dress, for the traveler to witness the manners of many nations, and for the artist to sketch the most picturesque of living scenes. There are Turks, with lofty turbans and flowing robes; wild Bedouins of the Desert, clad in capotes of camel’s hair, and girt about the loins with leathern girdles, or attired in their gay, fantastic riding costume, brandishing the polished spear; Franciscan friars in coarse brown cowls, and ivory crucifix dangling at their side; Greek monks in long black flowing garments, high square hats, with magnificent beards, and hair long as a woman’s, twirling a rosary of mother-of-pearl or of beautiful agate; French and Italian nuns in black, with white linen bonnets, and rosary and crucifix falling from their waist; beggars in rags, the lame with crutches, the blind protected by a dog, invoking the charities of the rich; and pilgrims from everynation—Syrians, Turks, Arabs, Nubians, Egyptians, Algerines, Armenians, Copts, Greeks, Jews, Italians, French, Russians, Germans, English, and the ubiquitous American. Passing through this motley throng, beggars implore your charities and the venders of pious wares solicit your patronage. Here are for sale sandal-wood beads from Mecca, bowls of bitumen from the shores of the Dead Sea, glass rings and bracelets from Hebron, olive-wood rosaries from Olivet, crosses of mother-of-pearl from Bethlehem, and shells on which are rudely carved representations of the birth and resurrection of Jesus, small tin cans in which water from the Jordan is carried to the ends of the earth, wax tapers to be lit at the sacred tomb, and shrouds of cotton cloth or fine linen to be laid in consecration on the Holy Sepulchre, and then borne to the uttermost parts of the earth by the faithful, to be wrapped in in death as a pledge of their resurrection.