CHAPTER XII.

THE TEMPLE AND CALVARY.

The subject of Jerusalem topography is too large to be minutely treated in the present volume; and I hope to be able to write a separate work on it at some future time. The following chapter is devoted to the two questions of primary interest--the Temple and Calvary.

The sources of our information as to the Temple are two--the first Josephus, the second the Talmud. The first is simply a general and pictorial account; the second is a laborious and minute description by men in whose eyes the subject was all-important; and the tract of the Mishna, called Middoth, or “measurements,” gives the details of arrangement, in some parts, with an exactitude which is rare among Jews, and which allows of plans being made. We have also this great advantage--that all the scattered accounts in the Talmud have been summarised and arranged by the famous Maimonides, “the second Moses,” a man of great ability and thoroughly trustworthy, and that every statement he makes in his systematic account of the Holy House can be traced back to the original passages hidden away in the Talmud.

While, therefore, it is from Josephus that we get a general idea of the appearance and arrangements of the Temple, it is from the Talmud, and from Maimonides, that we obtain that exact information which enables us to make a plan of the Holy House and of its courts.

A considerable initial difficulty arises, for Josephus makes the area of the Temple to have been a square furlong, or 625 feet side, and the Talmud gives it as 500 cubits, which, as will be seen, is probably 666 feet; but the Haram has a mean measurement of 982 feet by 1565 feet--a trapezoid, containing an area of thirty-five acres, or three and a half times the area given by the Talmud. Thus the question arises, has the present boundary any connection with that of the Temple? And if it has, where are we to place the smaller area within the larger?

There are many indications leading to the conclusion that the present outer wall of the Haram is the old boundary of the Temple Hill. In the south-west corner we have the remains of the great bridge which Josephus so often mentions. The south wall is trisected by the line of the two underground portals, answering to the two Huldah or “Mole-gates” of the Temple. Captain Warren’s excavations have also shown us that the south wall is probably all of one date and in one piece, with a “Master Course” six feet high, except near the west, where, for over 200 feet, this feature is wanting, and where the stones below the original surface existing at the time of the great bridge are less finished, being probably never visible. In the south-east corner, where the stones are smoothly finished down to the rock, are the Phœnician mason’s marks, denoting the courses; and from this corner to the Golden Gate the masonry is apparently of the same character. The junction of the Ophel wall at the south-east corner serves to identify this angle of the Haram, with the corresponding angle of Herod’s Temple enclosure. The west wall has been examined for nearly half its length, and proves to be of the same style as that on the south-east. Finally, in 1873, I found the same masonry, in the north corner of the west wall, reaching up to a higher level than that at which it was previously known in any other part of the Haram, and founded on rock. The natural conclusion is that all this beautiful and gigantic masonry is of one period, and formed one area. The question is, to what period does it belong?

I may, perhaps, insist upon an indication of date connected with the dressing of the stones, which I have never seen brought to bear on the question. Drafted masonry, imitating that on these walls, was used by Byzantine builders and by Crusading masons; but they never dressed their stones in the manner in which those of the Temple are dressed. This is distinctive and unique. It consists of a careful cross-chiselling, on the draft, and for a depth of three inches round the margin of the raised part of the stone--a regular “criss-cross” pattern, never found in the later masonry. This dressing also occurs _on the stones of the voussoirs of the great Tyropæon bridge_, an indication which I have never seen noticed before. The bridge and the wall then are, to all appearance, of one period; the lower courses of the wall are proved, by excavation, to be _in situ_, and thus the existing line must, I conclude, be referred to the time of the bridge. No one has disputed as to when this bridge was built. Captain Warren has shown that an older arch fell, and a pavement was made over it, before the present ruined bridge was built; thus the present arch is generally thought to be not earlier than Herod’s time; and hence the Haram wall is attributable, according to the indications obtained from its masonry (as was long ago pointed out by the Comte de Vogüé, arguing from different premises), to the time when Herod rebuilt the work of Solomon, doubling the area enclosed (Wars. i. 21, 1), and in part, if not altogether, “took away the old foundations” (Ant. xv. 11, 3).

On the north other important indications exist which require careful consideration. Josephus tells us that a tower called Baris (probably meaning “the castle”) was built by Hyrcanus and repaired by Herod. It was on a hill which originally joined that of Bezetha, but was severed by an artificial trench. The fortress was re-named Antonia; it stood on a rock fifty cubits high (B. J. v. 5, 8), and at the north-west corner of the Temple, which it commanded, being on the “top of the hill” (B. J. vi. 1, 5). Now there is just such a rock-fortress in the north-west part of the Haram. It is a great scarp, with vertical faces on the south and north, standing up forty feet above the interior court, and separated from the north-eastern hill of Jerusalem by a ditch fifty yards broad, in which are now the “Twin Pools”--the Bethesda of St. Jerome. This block of rock is “the top of the hill,” and occupies a length of 350 feet along the course of the north wall of the Haram. No other such scarp exists in or near the enclosure of the High Sanctuary. Can we, then, hesitate to place Antonia here?

The foregoing observations knit together the various parts of the Haram enclosure, as constituting a single building of one period. The east wall, from the Golden Gate southwards, is in one piece with the south wall; the south-west corner has the remains of Herod’s bridge contemporary with the wall; the west wall is all of one style with the rest; at the south-east angle the Ophel wall is found joining the east wall of the enclosure as described by Josephus, and the north-west corner is occupied by Antonia.

But we have still the north-east corner of the Haram to consider, and here we have, I think, indications that it was not originally part of the Temple enclosure. There is no rock north-east of the present platform for a great depth: a valley runs across this part of the area, and even the present surface is very low. It is also ascertained that the east wall has, near the north-east corner, a character distinct from the remainder, and much rougher, and that it runs beyond the present north-east corner of the Haram without a break.

Nor can it, I think, well be doubted, that the north wall of the Haram, east of the rock scarp, is less ancient than the other walls. In the first place, the vaults in this part, which Captain Warren explored, and which I also visited, are Crusading or Saracenic work; they are of masonry, with groined roofs and pointed arches, not of rock, like the great passages under the Platform. In the second place, the north wall consists of at least two thicknesses of rough small masonry, which was once covered with the plaster of the great pool called Birket Israîl. This masonry is certainly more modern than the time of Herod, and the pool is not clearly mentioned, in any account of Jerusalem before the twelfth century, about which period, perhaps, it was first constructed. Had a fine wall existed on the north side of the Haram, surely the cement would have been spread directly over it, and not over a facing of inferior stonework far more liable to leak. A boring through the wall would here be most valuable as an exploration, but, even without it, there is I think ample evidence that the north-east corner of the Haram, east of Antonia, north of the Golden Gate, is not a part of Herod’s enclosure, as its walls and subterranean vaults are distinct in character.

Assuming the outer boundary of the Temple Hill, to have been thus defined, as coinciding with the Haram walls except on the north-east, we have next to explain the statements of the Talmud, which make the “Mountain of the House” 500 cubits by 500.

The explanation is not difficult. Maimonides tells us, in a passage of which Dr. Chaplin kindly sent me a translation, in 1873: “The men who built the second Temple, when they built it in the days of Ezra, they built it like Solomon’s, and in some things according to the explanation in Ezekiel.”

The learned Professor Constantine l’Empereur, speaking of the same question in 1630 A.D., quotes the Talmud Commentary as follows:

“The Mountain of the House was to the north of Jerusalem, and the mountain was indeed much greater than five hundred cubits on each side would contain, but to the outer part of it the sanctity did not extend.”

In this particular, then, the men of the second Temple followed the injunction in the Book of Ezekiel. “Five hundred long and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place” (Ezekiel xlii. 20); or, in the words of the Revelation (xi. 2): “The court which is without ... measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles.”

Thus the 500 cubits refers apparently to that part of the Temple, within the Soreg or Druphax, which could not be entered by any Gentile.

The measurements of Josephus are only approximate. They cannot, as we have seen in the case of Cæsarea, be relied on for accuracy, and in one particular (the measurement of the altar) they are impossible. But it is otherwise with his general descriptions. Dimensions estimated in a distant country may be incorrect, and figures are liable to alteration in copying; but general position and arrangement we must accept, unless we condemn the author as thoroughly untrustworthy. As to the position of the Holy House, Josephus and the Talmudic writers are in accord. The Temple stood on the top of the hill, which, at first, was scarcely large enough for the Holy House and the Altar (B. J. v. 5, 1). This statement is the proper starting-point for any reconstructive plan of the Temple and its courts.

The top of the Temple Hill is, without dispute, the Sakhrah Rock; from it the mountain slopes down on all sides, and we now know accurately the general lie of the rock. At the Sakhrah, consequently, Josephus places the Holy House.

Three traditions consent in pointing to the same spot. In other cases, such as Joseph’s Tomb, Jacob’s Well, and the Tomb of Eleazar, we also find such a consent of tradition, and the latter sites are generally accepted as real. When, as in the case of David’s Tomb, traditions are not in accord, we get but little help from them; but, in the few instances where both Moslem and Christian traditions agree with that accepted by the Jews, we may fairly argue that from the Jews they were originally derived. This is the case in the present instance. A rock called “Stone of Foundation” (Eben Shatiyeh) existed, according to the Jews, in the Holy of Holies; round it the world was first gathered together, in it the Ark was hidden, and over it the Mercy-Seat originally stood. The same tradition seems to be repeated in the Crusading chronicles, and the Christians of the twelfth century placed the Holy of Holies above the Sakhrah rock. Moslem tradition also connects the Sakhrah with the Stone of Foundation, for it is, in their eyes, the foundation of the world, as in the tradition of the Jews was the Eben Shatiyeh under the Holy of Holies.

After taking this position for the Holy of Holies as a starting-point, a serious question at once confronts us, namely, the length of the cubit. Here again we must trust to the Jews. The measure they used was not an Egyptian cubit, not a Babylonian cubit, not a Greek or Roman cubit; it was a measure of their own, the Hebrew Amah. Maimonides tells us that the Temple cubit was of forty-eight barley-corns, and any one who will take the trouble to measure barley-corns, will find that three go to the inch. This gives us sixteen inches for the cubit, or the average measure from the elbow to the first joint of the finger, which the Amah is said to have been. I am the more inclined to accept this length, because I find that the Galilean synagogues, measured by it, give round numbers. Thus in the synagogue of Umm el ’Amed, which I measured in 1875, I found the pillars to be ten cubits high, their bases one cubit, their capitals half a cubit, and the synagogue itself thirty cubits by forty, taking the cubit used to have been sixteen inches. The dimensions of the Haram masonry are also commensurate with a sixteen-inch unit; and the piers at the north-west angle have an interval of ten cubits of sixteen inches.

The result obtained from these data is extremely striking. The weak point of all restorations of the Temple which I have as yet seen is this, that no attention has been paid to the character of the ground, or to the elevation of the building. If we apply the well-known measures of the Temple courts, given in the Middoth, to the ground, on the assumption that the Sakhrah is the Holy of Holies, the result is satisfactory, and in fact exact, as regards level. The various levels of the courts we know from the writings of Maimonides; they agree to a foot with those of the rock round the Sakhrah, as a glance at the plan will show: but only in this position is it possible to make them agree; in any other we are obliged to suppose gigantic masonry foundations which are not mentioned by the writer who says the Temple was built on “the higher part of the hill” (B. J. v. 5, 2), and of which not a trace has been found inside the Haram.

The plan shows this agreement better than words can explain it; there is only space here to point out some of the special tests which can be applied.

Placing the floor of the Holy House on the level of the top of the Sakhrah, 2440 feet above the Mediterranean, the Altar-Court should be at a level six cubits lower (2432). The rock is actually known to have the level 2432, immediately west of the supposed position of the Altar on the present plan.

The Court of the Women should have a level 2418·6. The rock in this part is known to be lower than 2419 over a considerable area. The gates north and south of the Temple led down to a level about 2425. The rock in their immediate neighbourhood has been fixed at the levels 2425 and 2426. The outer part, near the Soreg or Wall of Partition, had, on the east, a level 2410. The rock is here known at the level 2409 and 2406.

Nor are these the only indications of exactness in detail. North of the Court of the Priests was the great Gate-house Moked, “the house of the fireplace,” from which a gallery, apparently that noticed by Josephus (Ant. xv. 11, 7), ran under the Sanctuary to the subterranean gate Tadi or Teri, and from this gate the Bath-house was reached. The great subterranean passage called No. 1 on the Ordnance Survey, starts from the north wall of the Court of the Priests, as placed on the present plan, and it leads just as far as the boundary of the 500 cubits. On this same line is the north end of the great excavation No. 3, which Captain Warren has proposed as representing the Bath-house; somewhere on the line of No. 1 gallery, then, I would place Tadi, just outside the Sanctuary, close to the entrance of the Bath-house vault. I may remark that a visit in 1874 showed me that these great galleries are closed on the north by rude modern walls, and the vaults may very possibly run on to meet near the north wall of the Platform.

On the south we have another indication. The Water-Gate of the Holy House was on this side, and was connected with a cistern outside the Court of the Priests. A glance at the plan shows that the shaft leading down to the long rock-cut reservoir No. 5, is on the present theory just outside the position of the Water-Gate as defined by the Mishna.

There is not space to go farther into detail, though the investigation has been pursued farther; but the above facts are, perhaps, sufficient to speak for themselves. We see the Holy House in its natural and traditional position, on the top of the mountain; we see the Courts descending on either side according to the present slopes of the hill; we find the great rock-galleries dropping naturally into their right places; and finally we see the Temple, by the immutability of Oriental custom, still a Temple, and the site of the great Altar still consecrated by the beautiful little Chapel of the Chain. Push the Temple a little to the north or south, and the levels cease to agree; lengthen the cubit to the Egyptian standard of twenty-one inches, and the exactitude of the adaptation is at once destroyed.

And now we must turn from this interesting question to one not less important--that of the position of Calvary. I have no wish to review the long controversies which have arisen on this subject. But I may give in detail some new indications which appear to me of importance.

It is a recognised fact that Calvary was outside the city-wall that existed in the time of Our Lord. This fact was also understood by the early fathers, and Eusebius gives a long description of the growth of New Jerusalem, to account for the position of Constantine’s site almost in the heart of the town. Sæwulf also, in 1108, says: “We know that Our Lord suffered without the gate, but the Emperor Hadrian, who was called Ælius, rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord, and added to the city as far as the Tower of David, which was previously a considerable distance from the city.” St. Willibald (723 A.D.) echoes the same feeling, speaking of “the place of Calvary which was formerly outside of Jerusalem,” and Sir John Maundeville (1322) says the same. Thus, even as early as the eighth century, attention had been drawn to the fact that the accepted site was apparently too near the middle of the city, but the modesty and faith of pilgrims rendered them willing to accept, without question, the answers which they received from the monks regarding their difficulty as to the site.

The main arguments in favour of the present site are two. The first, insisted on by the Comte de Vogüé and others, is the existence of an undoubted Jewish tomb, just outside the rotunda of the Church of the Sepulchre, and now called the Tomb of Nicodemus. This has been cited as evidence that the place was outside the old city-wall, but we know from the Rabbis that the Tombs of the Kings of Judah were left within Jerusalem, and there seems good reason to suppose that they actually refer to the ancient tomb now called the Sepulchre of Nicodemus. The second argument, brought forward by Chateaubriand, is that tradition had handed down the site, and that its exact position was known in the fourth century, because Hadrian had built a Temple to Venus on the spot. Of the latter fact we have no intimation in any known author of the time of Hadrian, though several buildings of his in Jerusalem are noticed by contemporary writers. Coins of Antoninus Pius representing a Temple to Venus in Jerusalem have been found, but no ancient author pretends that any tradition was handed down to the fourth century respecting the site of the Holy Sepulchre. Moreover, as regards continuity of tradition, we have a break during the time when the Christians, flying to Pella, were absent from the city; finally we have no sound reason for supposing that the early Christians paid any attention to the site of the Sepulchre. As Jews, their horror of dead bodies would naturally have prevented their visiting a place which would pollute them; and had it been considered important to hand down the exact position of the Tomb, we should surely have had sufficient indications in the Gospel narrative to fix its locality, whereas nothing can be gathered from the New Testament, further than the statement of the Epistle that “Christ suffered without the gate” (Heb. xiii. 12), with the incidental remarks of St. John, that the Sepulchre was “nigh at hand” to Calvary (John xix. 42), and that Calvary was “nigh unto the city” (20).

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands near the centre of the lower part of modern Jerusalem, but this is unimportant, if it can be shown to have been outside Jerusalem in the time of Christ.

On this question the new rock levels have a most important bearing, and the indications obtained from them will now be summed up as concisely as the subject will allow.

The account which Josephus gives of the site on which Jerusalem was built is explicit and easily understood. It was placed on two hills (B. J. v. 4) opposite each other, with a valley between. The hill of the Upper City was the highest and largest; the second, that of Acra, was lower; a third hill, lower still, was to the east, separated by another valley, which was filled up by the Hasmoneans. The first valley--the Tyropœon, which divided the Upper and Lower City--ran down to Siloam. Other deep valleys with precipices existed beyond the city on all sides, except on the north where three successive lines of fortification protected the town.

Turning to the plan of the rock beneath modern Jerusalem, which is given in illustration, we see just such a site before us. On the south is a large and high hill, the top 2540 feet above the sea, with a deep valley to the south and west, and a second valley, almost equal in size, to the north and east. Down the last-mentioned valley David Street now runs, but the accumulation of rubbish is in parts fifty feet deep. By the observations taken in making excavations in the old Hospital of the Knights of St. John, and in a vault farther east, as well as at the foundations of the Bishops’ Palace and of the hotel near David’s Tower, we ascertain the following details: that the valley, breaking down suddenly eastward, has its head at a narrow saddle at a level about 2500 feet above the sea, and that this saddle separates the head of the eastern valley from that of Wâdy Rabâbeh, which runs to the west of the Jaffa Gate: the eastern valley proves to have a depth of more than 100 feet below the summit of the southern hill. Other observations, farther east, show that the precipice, visible just opposite the great bridge from the south-west corner of the Haram, runs north and turns westward, where either a vertical scarp, or a very steep slope, forms the north-east angle of the southern hill above the corner where the great valley sweeps round southwards descending towards Siloam.

The plan further shows that the ground rises again north of the valley, and forms a small knoll in the neighbourhood of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with a second valley head to the east. This knoll is actually fifty feet lower than the top of the southern hill, and, from the lie of the ground, it appears to be still lower than it really is. The second valley on the east of the knoll separates off a third hill now occupied by the Mohammedan quarter of Jerusalem, and this is divided from the Temple Hill, of which it is really a part, by the rock-cut trench forty feet deep, hewn on the north side of the scarp, which I have endeavoured to show was the Castle of Antonia. The third hill is lower again by fifty feet than the knoll last mentioned.

I do not see how we can hesitate in applying to this “rock site” the names given by Josephus. The southern, higher, and larger hill must be the Upper City, the “Mountain Fort” of Zion; the knoll north of it is Acra (which is identified by the Septuagint Version with Millo), the site of the Lower City; the broad valley between is the Tyropœon; the second valley is the Hasmonean; the third hill is Bezetha, north of the Temple.

The existence of the narrow saddle at the head of the valley, as will shortly appear, is an important indication. The fact is proved by no less than ten distinct observations, made in sinking the foundations of three large buildings, and the rock is here found to be slightly higher than the top of the Acra knoll.

The conformation of ground in Jerusalem is not radically different, even now, from that existing before the rubbish accumulated. David Street is indeed forty feet above the bed of the Tyropœon, but it still is reached from the southern hill by a steeply sloping street with steps. The ground falls away east of the Acra knoll to the Hasmonean Valley on somewhat the same line which the rock beneath it follows, and it again rises into the third hill on the north-east. Thus any observer from the roofs will see in modern Jerusalem a very fair reproduction of the ancient city beneath; the main features are the same, but the differences of level, in the hills and valleys, are less marked.

Such being the rock site, Josephus’s description of the walls is easily followed. The first wall embraced only the Upper City, and in its north-west corner were the Royal Towers, which formed the fortress of that part of the town. The north line of the wall is that most important to define, and it can scarcely be doubted that a line from David’s Tower (where Hippicus and its two companions are placed in almost every plan) towards the Haram will represent the First Wall. Remains of towers have been found along this line, and, as above noticed, it is the line of the northern crest of the hill of the Upper City. As to this there is but little dispute between various authorities, nor is there any radical difference of opinion as to the line on the south and west sides of the Upper City. The valuable excavations made in 1874 by Mr. Maudslay have thoroughly opened up the great scarp which formed the south-west corner of ancient Jerusalem. Captain Warren’s adventurous shafts have shown where the great wall joined the Temple. The line between these points might be traced without much difficulty, by simply following out the work already done.

From the first wall the second had its start, and here the difficulty arises, and here also the real value of the rock-levels is most noticeable. Can the wall be drawn to exclude the traditional Calvary, or must it of necessity include that spot? The answer, I think, may be given without hesitation, and the present site of the Holy Sepulchre will probably be discarded by any unprejudiced inquirer, if the following facts are taken into consideration.

The description of Josephus is tantalising from its brevity; but one word seems wanting--a word which must be supplied by the rocks themselves.

“The second wall took its beginning from the Gate Gennath, which belonged to the first wall. It encircled the north quarter of the city, and reached as far as the Tower Antonia” (B. J. v. 4, 2).

The word rendered “encircled” cannot well be construed with any other meaning. The wall had no angles, as had the first and third, it therefore required no lengthy description. The second wall started from the first wall, and running in a curve enclosed the Lower City, and terminated at the north-east corner of the Temple.

The one statement wanted is that which should fix the Gennath Gate, which, as is generally admitted, was somewhere in the north face of the wall of the Upper City.

Now, as we have seen above, a great valley separates the Upper City from Acra, and a second valley runs southwards on the west side of the upper hill. No military man will suppose for a moment that the wall of a fortress could have been constructed in a deep valley and commanded from without by high ground immediately near. The wall must have stood _on the high ground_, and must have included one valley and excluded the other. Thus we are confined to a very narrow limit--to that saddle of rock at the head of the Tyropœon, which connects the great peninsula of the Upper City with the Acra knoll, for this little saddle is the only place where the rampart could protect the lower ground east of it, and command the valley to the west.

Here, therefore, hidden by the palace of the Protestant Bishop, still perhaps exists the foundation or the rock scarp, in which was the Gennath Gate; and from this isthmus of high land the second wall circled round to Antonia. The sudden deepening and the great breadth of the Tyropœon appear to me to render it impossible to draw the line farther east.

If we accept this new indication, the wall can hardly be drawn otherwise than to include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; for the knoll on which that building stands is, as contended above, the knoll of Acra--the Lower City included by the wall; and if this knoll be excluded, the same military objection will again arise--the “encircling” wall would be commanded by a hill immediately outside it.

The line of argument thus followed is, I believe, a new one, though the result is old. The observation of the rock-levels is a matter of primary importance, and the special observations on which the argument has been based have never before been published. The military consideration seems to me to set the matter at rest; and, to state the idea in a nutshell--“fortresses stand on hills, not in deep ravines.”

The course of the third wall is a matter which has little bearing on the question of the site of Calvary; but it may be noted that the line laid down on the plan is controlled by three considerations. First, the necessity of placing the great corner tower, Psephinus, on very high ground, the position indicated being the very top of the watershed; second, the distance from the Women’s Towers to the Tomb of Helena, which was three furlongs according to Josephus; third, the line passing through the “Caverns of the Kings,” as described by the same author, and extending to the Tower of the Corner.

The third wall was built by Agrippa about ten years after the Crucifixion, to enclose the suburbs north of the city. There seems every probability therefore that the greater part of this suburb already existed in the time of Christ--an additional argument, were one needed, against the claims of the traditional sites of Calvary and of the Holy Sepulchre.

Will any reader who holds in veneration so sacred a spot feel disappointed at such a result? In the last chapter I endeavoured to give a faithful account of the yearly Pandemonium which disgraces the ancient walls, and of scenes which lower the Christian faith in the eyes of the Moslem. Surely none who read those pages could still wish to believe that the place thus annually desecrated is the Tomb of Christ.

The question which naturally next demands attention is that of the real site of Calvary; but the Gospel gives us no indication sufficient to settle the matter, though the words in the Epistle are enough to condemn the miraculously-discovered fourth-century site.

There is a fact bearing on this question which has never been published. It was mentioned to me by Dr. Chaplin, and by his consent I now make use of it.

The place called Calvary was, according to our general idea, the public place of execution. Some have supposed its name--Golgotha, or “place of the skull”--to be derived from this fact; though others, including many of the early fathers, suppose it to refer to the shape of the ground--a rounded hill, in form like a skull. We look naturally for some spot just outside the city, and beside one of the great roads.

We have yet another indication--namely, that Calvary should be near the cemetery in which was the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in the garden beyond the city. Now the great cemetery of Jewish times lies north of Jerusalem, on either side of the main north road; here we have the sepulchre of Simon the Just, preserved by Jewish tradition; here is the magnificent monument of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, fitted with a rolling-stone, such as closed the mouth of the Holy Sepulchre. The first of these tombs dates from three centuries before Christ; the second was cut in the first century of His era. Thus the northern cemetery was probably that which was in use in His time.

The Holy Sepulchre cannot have been one of the _kokim_ tombs originally used by the Jews, in which each body lay in a long pigeon-hole, with its feet towards the central chamber; for in that case angels could not have been seated “one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain.” It must have been one of the later kind of tombs, in which the body lay in a rock sarcophagus under a rock arch parallel with the side of the chamber. This is the kind of tomb which throughout Palestine we find closed by a rolling-stone; it is the kind in use in the late Jewish times, and the kind, moreover, which is found north of Jerusalem. Here, then, among the olive-gardens and vineyards of Wâdy el Jôz, one would naturally look for the site of the new tomb in the garden, far beyond the Acra hill, and in the cemetery which was used by the Jews at the time of Christ.

These considerations would lead us to fix Calvary--the place of execution--north of Jerusalem, near the main road to Shechem, and near the northern cemetery. Now, close to this road, on the east, is a rounded knoll, with a precipice on the south side, containing a cave known to Christians as Jeremiah’s Grotto. The knoll is called by the natives El Heidhemîyeh. The Arabic word is, however, known to be a corruption of El Heiremîyeh, “the place of Jeremiah.”

A venerable tradition has fixed on this neighbourhood as the scene of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. A church dedicated to him stood, in the fifth century, near the knoll. There can be little doubt that the stoning of Stephen occurred at the place of public execution, and if we are right in supposing that place to be Calvary, then we have traditional reason for identifying the latter with the neighbourhood of the Heidhemîyeh knoll.

But a stronger confirmation remains to be noticed. I have before shown how valuable is tradition, when, by common consent, Jew and Christian point to the same spot. In this case also the Jewish tradition agrees with that above mentioned. Dr. Chaplin tells me that the Jews still point out the knoll by the name Beth has Sekilah, “the Place of Stoning” (Domus lapidationis), and state it to be the ancient place of public execution which is mentioned in the Mishnah, and which was apparently well known at the time at which the tract Sanhedrim was written. Thus 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.

I wish I could bring before the reader’s mind as vividly as it now rises in my memory, the appearance of this most interesting spot. The stony road comes out from the beautiful Damascus Gate, and runs beside the yellow cliff, in which are excavated caverns, perhaps once part of the great Cotton Grotto. Above the cliff, which is some thirty feet high, is the rounded knoll without any building on it, bare of trees, and in spring covered in part with scanty grass, while a great portion is occupied by a Moslem cemetery. To the north are olive-groves, to the west, beneath the knoll, is a garden, in which the remains of the Crusading Asnerie, or Hospice of the Templars, were found in 1875. From the knoll a view of the city, backed by the Moab hills, is obtained, and of the long white chalky ridge of Olivet dotted with olives. The place is bare and dusty, surrounded by stony ground and by heaps of rubbish, and exposed to the full glare of the summer sun. Such is the barren hillock which, by consent of Jewish and Christian tradition, is identified with the Place of Stoning, or of execution according to Jewish law.

I have but a word in conclusion to add in support of these views. Immutability is the most striking law of Eastern life. The Bible becomes a living record to those who have heard in men’s mouths the very phrases of the Bible characters. The name of every village almost is Hebrew, each stands on the great dust-heap into which the ancient buildings beneath its present cabins have crumbled, and the old necropolis is cut in rock, near the modern site. For thousands of years the people have gone on living in the same way and in the same place, venerating (perhaps in ignorance) the same shrines, building their fortresses on the same vantage-ground.

This is also the case in Jerusalem. The great barracks of Antonia are still barracks. The fortress of the Upper City is still a fortress. On the rock-scarp of the “Tower of the Corner,” a corner tower now stands. On the high ground, where the stronghold of Psephinus once stood, the Russians have erected buildings which are regarded by many as a menace to the city. The Upper Market is a market, the Lower Market (mentioned with the former in the Talmud) is the main bazaar of Jerusalem. The old Iron Gate retains its name in the present Bâb el Hadîd. The Temple Area is still a sanctuary; finally, the Rock of Foundation is still covered by a sacred building, and the “Place of the Skull” is now a cemetery, while close to it is the slaughter-house of the city.

Knowing the immutability of sites in Palestine, we cannot, I would urge, consider these facts to be mere coincidences; they are rather strong confirmations of the accuracy of the more generally accepted views regarding the topography and monuments of ancient Jerusalem.