Visits to Monasteries in the Levant

by Robert Curzon

Returning towards the door of the church, and leaving it on our right hand, we ascended a flight of about twenty steps, and found ourselves in the Chapel of the Cross on Mount Calvary. At the upper end of this chapel is an altar, on the spot where the crucifixion took place, and under it is the hole into which the end of the cross was fixed: this is surrounded with a glory of silver gilt, and on each side of it, at the distance of about six feet, are the holes in which the crosses of the two thieves stood. Near to these is a long rent in the rock, which was opened by an earthquake at the time of the crucifixion. Although the three crosses appear to have stood very near to each other, yet, from the manner in which they are placed, there would have been room enough for them, as the cross of our Saviour stands in front of the other two.

Leaving this chapel we entered a kind of vault under the stairs, in which the rent of the rock is again seen: it extends from the ceiling to the floor, and has every appearance of having been caused by some convulsion of nature, and not formed by the hands of man. Here were formerly the tombs of Godfrey de Bouillon and Baldwin his brother, who were buried beneath the cross for which they fought so valiantly: but these tombs have lately been destroyed by the Greeks, whose detestation of everything connected with the Latin Church exceeds their aversion to the Mahometan creed. In the sacristy of the Latin monks we were shown the sword and spurs of Godfrey de Bouillon; the sword is apparently of the age assigned to it: it is double-edged and straight, with a cross-guard.[11]

In another part of the church is a small dismal chapel, in the floor of which are several ancient tombs; one of them is said to be the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea. Of the antiquity of these tombs there cannot be the slightest doubt; and their being here forms the best argument for the authenticity of the Holy Sepulchre itself, as it shows that this was formerly a place of burial, notwithstanding its situation in the centre of the ancient city, contrary to the almost universal practice of the ancients, whose sepulchres are always found some short distance from their cities; indeed, among the Egyptians, whose manners seem to have been followed in many respects by the Jews, it was a law that no one should be buried in the cultivated grounds, but their tombs were excavated in the rocks of the desert, that the agricultural and other daily pursuits of the living might not interfere with the repose of the dead. It is mentioned in the Bible that Christ was led out to be crucified; but it is not quite clear from the passage whether he was led out of the city of Jerusalem itself, or only from the city of David on Mount Sion, which appears to have been the citadel and place of residence of the Roman governor. If so, the site of the Holy Sepulchre may be the true one; and, in common with all other pilgrims, I am inclined to hope that the tomb now pointed out may really be the sepulchre of Christ.

Descending a flight of steps from the body of the church, we entered the subterranean chapel of St. Helena, below which is another vault, in which the true cross is said to have been found. A very curious account of the finding of the cross is to be seen in the black-letter pages of Caxton's 'Golden Legend,' and it has formed the subject of many singular traditions and romantic stories in former days. The history of this famous relic would be tedious were I to narrate it in the obsolete phraseology of the father of English printing, and I will therefore only give a short summary of the legend; although, to those who take an interest in monastic traditions, the accounts given in old books, which were read by our ancestors before the Reformation with all the sober seriousness of undoubting faith, afford a curious instance of the proneness of the human intellect to mistake the shadow for the substance, and to substitute an unbounded veneration for outward observances for the more reasonable acts of spiritual devotion.

In the middle ages, while the worship of our Saviour was completely neglected, the wooden cross upon which he was supposed to have suffered was the object of universal adoration to all sects of Christians; armies fought with religious enthusiasm, not for the faith, but for the relic of the cross; and the traditions regarding it were received as undoubted facts by the heroes of the crusades, the hierarchy of the Church, and all who called themselves Christians, in those iron ages, when with rope and fagot, fire and sword, the fierce piety even of good men sought to enforce the precepts of Him whose advent was heralded with the angels' hymn of "peace on earth and good will towards men."

It is related in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, that when Adam fell sick he sent his son Seth to the gate of the terrestrial paradise to ask the angel for some drops of the oil of mercy, which distilled from the tree of life, to cure him of his disease; but the angel answered that he could not receive this healing oil until 5500 years had passed away. He gave him, however, a branch of this tree, and it was planted upon Adam's grave. In after ages the tree flourished and waxed exceeding fair, for Adam was buried in Mount Lebanon, not very far from the place near Damascus whence the red earth of which his body was formed by the Creator had been taken. When Balkia, Queen of Abyssinia, came to visit Solomon the King, she worshipped this tree, for she said that thereon should the Saviour of the world be hanged, and that from that time the kingdom of the Jews should cease. Upon hearing this, Solomon commanded that the tree should be cut down and buried in a certain place in Jerusalem, where afterwards the pool of Bethesda was dug, and the angel that had charge of the mysterious tree troubled the water of the pool at certain seasons, and those who first dipped into it were cured of their ailments. As the time of the passion of the Saviour approached, the wood floated on the surface of the water, and of that piece of timber, which was of cedar, the Jews made the upright part of the cross, the cross beam was made of cypress, the piece on which his feet rested was of palm, and the other, on which the superscription was written, was of olive.

After the crucifixion the holy cross and the crosses of the two thieves were thrown into the town ditch, or, according to some, into an old vault which was near at hand, and they were covered with the refuse and ruins of the city. In her extreme old age the Empress Helena, making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, threatened all the Jewish inhabitants with torture and death if they did not produce the holy cross from the place where their ancestors had concealed it: and at last an old Jew named Judas, who had been put into prison and was nearly famished, consented to reveal the secret; he accordingly petitioned Heaven, whereupon the earth trembled, and from the fissures in the ground a delicious aromatic odour issued forth, and on the soil being removed the three crosses were discovered; and near the crosses the superscription was also found, but it was not known to which of the three it belonged. However, Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, repairing with the Empress to the house of a noble lady who was afflicted with an incurable disease, she was immediately restored to health by touching the true cross; and the body of a young man which was being carried out to burial was brought to life on being laid upon the holy wood. At the sight of these miracles Judas the Jew became a Christian, and was baptized by the name of Quiriacus, to the great indignation of the devil, for, said he, "by the first Judas I gained much profit, but by this one's conversion I shall lose many souls."

It would be endless were I to give the history of all the authenticated relics of the holy cross since those days; but of the three principal pieces one is now, or lately was, at Etchmiazin, in Armenia, the monks of which Church are accused of having stolen it from the Latins of Jerusalem when they were imprisoned by Sultan Suleiman. The second piece is still at Jerusalem, in the hands of the Greeks; and the third, which was sent by the Empress Helena herself to the church of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme at Rome, is now preserved in St. Peter's. There is indeed little reason to doubt that the piece of wood exhibited at Rome is the same that the Empress sent there in the year 326. The feast of the "Invention of the Cross" continues to be celebrated every year on the 3rd of May by an appropriate mass.

Besides the objects which I have mentioned, there is within the church an altar on the spot where Christ is said to have appeared to the Virgin after the resurrection. This completes the list of all the sacred places contained under the roof of the great church of the Holy Sepulchre.

I may remark that all the very ancient specimens of the relics of the true cross are of the same wood, which has a very peculiar half-petrified appearance. I have a relic of this kind; the date of the shrine in which it is preserved being of the date of 1280. I have also a piece of the cross in a more modern setting, which is not of the same wood.