Section 5. The Discovery of the Holy Cross{287} 157. IN the year after the Nicene Council, A.D. 326, St. Helena, mother of Constantine, and then nearly eighty years of age, went on a pilgrimage, as it was afterwards called, to the Holy Land, and especially to Jerusalem. Her purpose was to visit the scene of the wonderful events recorded in Scripture, and the spots consecrated by the presence of our Lord. Among other objects of her pious search was the Cross upon which He suffered. It was the custom of the Jews to bury the instruments of death with the corpses of the malefactors [Note 1]; and, considering their eagerness to remove the bodies both of Christ and of His two companions before the approaching Feast, there seemed no reason to doubt that, after Joseph had begged His body of Pilate, and placed it in the neighbouring tomb, His Cross, and {288} those of the two thieves, as well as their corpses, had hastily been thrown into the ground on the very place of crucifixion. But where that place was, at first sight, was not so easy to determine. The city had been destroyed, and its soil (it is said) ploughed up, in punishment of the very deeds, of which Helena was seeking to recover the memorial. Our Lord had suffered outside the walls; but the population, driven beyond Mounts Sion and Acra, which it had hitherto occupied, had overflowed toward the north, and, without as yet covering Calvary itself [Note 2], had obliterated the features of the immediate neighbourhood. And Hadrian, by erecting statues of the Pagan divinities over the sacred spots which were in question [Note 3], had driven away worshippers, and at length {289} effaced all general recollections of their respective localities. But what had destroyed the tradition about them with the many might reasonably be expected to be the means of preserving it with the few; nor did it seem difficult, even without such accidental advantage, to recover, with proper pains, at least the general position of the spot where so great and memorable a deed had been done. The Empress availed herself of the assistance of the most learned both of Christians and of Jews [Note 4], and she seems to have been animated by a hope, surely not presumptuous, that she was under a guidance greater than human [Note 5]. At length there is said to have been a general agreement as to the place; it was covered, first with a vast quantity of earth, next with the Pagan edifices; the place of Crucifixion and Burial lay beneath. Helena gave the word, and the soldiers who attended her began to clear away both buildings and soil. 158. Hitherto the main outlines of the history are confirmed by Eusebius, though he speaks of Constantine, his Imperial Patron, instead of St. Helena, and only of the Holy Sepulchre, not of the Holy {290} Cross. And though Constantine seems, during the years 326, 327, to have remained in the parts of his Empire between Thessalonica, Sirmium, and Rome, yet under his direction or authority Helena doubtless acted. Eusebius attests the intention of Constantine to build a church over the Holy Sepulchre; its desecrated state; the huge mound and stone-work which covered it; the shrine of Venus which had been raised at the top; and then the demolition of the whole mass of heathenism at the Emperor's command, statues, altars, buildings, mound, and the earth which lay under it. He then continues thus: "And when another level appeared instead of the former, viz., the ground which lay below, then at length the solemn and all-holy memorial of the Saviour's Resurrection appeared beyond all hope; and thus the cave, a holy of holies, imaged the Saviour's revival, and, after being sunk in darkness, came to light again, and to those who came to the sight presented a manifest history of the wonders which had there been done, witnessing by facts more eloquently than by any voice the Resurrection of the Saviour." [Note 6] Here Eusebius ends his narrative; he proceeds, indeed, to speak of the church which Constantine built upon the spot, but he says nothing of any discovery besides that of the Sepulchre itself. As to the Cross on which our Lord suffered, judging from the course of his narrative, {291} we should conclude, not only that it was not found, but that it was not even sought after, nay, according to his literal statements, that St. Helena did not come to Jerusalem, only to Mount Olivet and Bethlehem [Note 7]. 159. Yet, though he is silent himself, he has preserved Constantine's Letter to Macarius, Bishop of that see, on occasion of the proposed Martyry or Church of the Resurrection. This letter does not contain any express mention of the Cross; and yet, did we read it without knowing the fact of the historian's silence when writing in his own person, we certainly should have the impression that it is of the Cross that Constantine was speaking. He says that "the token of the Saviour's most holy passion" had been "buried under the earth for many years;" and he speaks of it as a discovery "surpassing all human calculation and all amazement," and again and again of the miracle which it involved or had effected [Note 8]. {292} 160. It is remarkable, too, that Eusebius also, though silent about the Cross, makes mention of miracles as attending the discovery of the Sepulchre, in a passage of his Commentary upon the Psalms. Treating of the words, "Dost Thou show wonders among the dead?" he says, "If any one will give his attention to the marvels which in our time have been performed at the Sepulchre and the Martyry of our Saviour, truly he will perceive how the prediction has been fulfilled in the event." [Note 9] Yet, commenting on the 108th (109th) Psalm, he mentions the honours paid to "the Sepulchre of Him who was delivered over to the Cross and death," without saying a word of honours paid to the Cross itself. Eusebius died about A.D. 338, i.e. eleven years after St. Helena's visit to Jerusalem; and this is all the evidence which {293} we have on the subject, whatever is its value, for about the first twenty years. 161. St. Cyril of Jerusalem is our next informant concerning the discovery of the Cross. He was one of the Clergy of the Church of Jerusalem, and delivered his Catechetical Lectures about A.D. 347, in the very Church of the Resurrection which by that time Constantine had built; and in the first year of his Episcopate, A.D. 351, he wrote his letter to Constantius concerning a luminous Cross which had just then appeared in the air over Jerusalem. As he died A.D. 386, and was a Priest and (as St. Jerome says) a young man in 347, he must have been in his boyhood at the time of St. Helena's visit; whether in Jerusalem is not known. In his Catechetical Lectures he speaks of the Holy Cross as discovered, though he does not mention the circumstances or the time of its discovery. Speaking of our Lord's crucifixion, he says, "Shouldest thou be disposed to deny it, the very place which all can see refutes thee, even this blessed Golgotha, in which, on account of Him who was crucified on it, we are now assembled; and further, the whole world is filled with the portions of the Wood of the Cross." Again, speaking of the witness borne in such manifold ways to Christ, he says, "The Holy Wood of the Cross is His witness, which is seen among us to this day, and by means of those who have in faith taken thereof, has from this place now {294} almost filled the whole world." Once more, speaking against the heretics who denied the reality of our Lord's passion, "Though I should now deny it, this Golgotha confutes me, near which we are now assembled; the wood of the Cross confutes me, which has from hence been distributed piecemeal to all the world." [Note 10] Considering then that we hear nothing of the Wood of the Cross in Ecclesiastical history before this date, and that this date follows close upon the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, it does not need further proof, though St. Cyril said nothing else, that there is some connection between this alleged discovery of the Cross, and that of the Sepulchre. It does not need St. Cyril's express statement to that effect in his Letter to Constantius a few years later, as we there read it; and it does not matter, even though that letter be spurious, as some Protestant critics, though without strong reason, contend [Note 11]. His words are these: "In the time of thy father, the divinely favoured Constantine of blessed memory, the salutary {295} Wood of the Cross was found in Jerusalem, divine grace granting the discovery of the hidden holy places to one who laudably pursued religious objects." 162. From the evidence of St. Cyril and the passages of Eusebius, we gain, then, as much as this; that the discovery of the Holy Cross was a received fact twenty years after St. Helena's search for the Holy Sepulchre; that it was by that time notorious throughout the world, because portions of the Cross had been sent in all directions; hence, that the professed discovery must have taken place some years before the end of the twenty years when St. Cyril mentions it, to allow of such a general publication and dispersion of it; and that it must have been well known to Eusebius, who wrote his Life of Constantine A.D. 337, only ten years before St. Cyril's Lectures, whether he believed it or not; further, that his silence about it did not necessarily proceed from disbelief, because he is silent about St. Helena's search after it, nay, as I have said above, even about her visiting Jerusalem, an historical fact which cannot be gainsaid [Note 12], and {296} again, because, in his Comment on the Psalms, he speaks also of miracles wrought at the Sepulchre, of which nevertheless he says nothing at a later date, in his Life of Constantine; lastly, that Constantine recognized the discovery of the Cross at the very time, because, while the terms [Note 13] he employs in his Letter to Macarius are more suitable to denote the Cross than the Sepulchre, the strong expressions of his amazement are also more suitable to the discovery of the former than of the latter, a discovery which, as we have seen, was certainly reported and generally believed a few years later. 163. I conceive, then, that the evidence already brought together is conclusive of the fact of the alleged discovery of the Cross about the time of St. Helena's visit to Jerusalem, and in connection with that visit. Eusebius's silence is of course a difficulty, and, as it would appear, cannot satisfactorily be accounted for [Note 14]. Yet he is silent at other times about {297} facts which he cannot be said to disbelieve [Note 15]. We should also ask ourselves what it is that his silence is to be taken to prove; not that he had not heard of the alleged discovery, for that it was alleged is undeniable; it can only be taken to show that he did not believe in it [Note 16]. Yet his statement elsewhere, that certain miracles occurred at the Sepulchre, while it suggests some further story which he does not relate, is favourable, as far as it goes, to his belief in the received one. Moreover, if the discovery was not really made, there was imposture in the proceeding [Note 17]; an imputation upon the Church of Jerusalem, nay, in the event on the whole Christian world, so heavy, as {298} to lead us to weigh well which is the more probable hypothesis of the two, so systematic and sustained a fraud, or the discovery of a relic, or in human language an antiquity, three hundred years old. 164. Now let it be observed that hitherto this passage of history has had nothing definitely miraculous in it. It does but relate to the discovery, by ordinary methods of inquiry, of an instrument of death used by Roman executioners three centuries before. And perhaps it is right to draw a line between the above testimony and the evidence which follows at a later date, and which is next to be considered, except so far as the later evidence happens to be confirmatory of the earlier. It would seem impossible that the original story should not receive a colour or an exaggeration [Note 18] when taken up as a matter of popular belief, and that in countries far removed from the scene to which it belongs. While, then, we may be prepared for additions which will not compromise the original evidence, those additions, when we find them in subsequent writers, whether true or false, are exposed primâ facie to a suspicion which does not {299} attach to the particulars which we have hitherto been reviewing. 165. Now St. Ambrose, in his discourse upon the death of Theodosius, (A.D. 395,) and St. Chrysostom, in his Homilies upon St. John, (about A.D. 394,) speak of three Crosses, not one; and say that the True Cross was known by the title which Pilate fixed on it. 166. St. Paulinus, St. Sulpicius, and Theodoret, agreeing in the main in the additional circumstances related by St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom, differ from them in assigning a miracle as the test by which our Lord's Cross was ascertained. Paulinus writes to Sulpicius, and the latter reports in his history, that it was distinguished from the other two by its restoration of a corpse to life. These two authors write about A.D. 400, Paulinus in Italy, Sulpicius in Gaul. Theodoret, who wrote his Church History, about A.D. 440, in Syria, speaks, not of a corpse restored to life, but of a sick woman restored to health. 167. Again, Rufinus, (about A.D. 400,) and Socrates and Sozomen, (both about A.D. 440,) say that the inscription was detached from the Cross, and that the female, who was the subject of the miracle, was only on the point of death. Moreover St. Ambrose, Rufinus, Theodoret, Socrates, and Sozomen speak of the nails as found at the same time. A further miracle is spoken of by Paulinus; that the portion of the Cross {300} kept at Jerusalem gave off fragments of itself without diminishing [Note 19]; and he adds, that "it has imbibed this undecaying virtue and this unwasting solidity from the blood of that Flesh, which underwent death, yet saw not corruption." [Note 20] This is mentioned here, as being one of the alleged miracles which followed upon the discovery of the Cross, though it has no connection with the discovery itself, which is our proper subject. 168. Such is the evidence arranged in order of time, in behalf of this most solemn and arresting occurrence [Note 21], which is kept in memory, even to this distant generation, in the Greek, Latin, and English Calendars on the 3rd of May and the 14th of September. It seems hardly safe absolutely to deny what is thus affirmed by the whole Church [Note 22]; whether however {301} miracles accompanied the discovery, must ever remain uncertain. That a sick, dying, or dead person was restored by means of the Cross, rests on the authority of Latins writing at the distance of seventy years after the discovery, and of Greek authors of forty years later still; not on any testimony given with particularity or at the time. Moreover, such an occurrence is inconsistent with the account, taken in the letter, of St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom, who say that the True Cross was recognized by its title. On the other hand, whether there was one Cross or three [Note 23], some mode of recognizing it is implied in the very idea of recognition; and a miraculous recognition is perhaps the most natural and obvious hypothesis. Nay, the very fact that a beam of wood should be found undecayed after so long a continuance in the earth would in some cases be a miracle [Note 24]. And perhaps {302} there are few imaginations, which are once able to surmount the shock of hearing that the very Cross on which our Lord suffered was really recovered, but will be little sensitive of difficulty in the additional statement, that miracles were wrought by means of it. It must not be forgotten too, that Eusebius himself, though silent about the Cross, alludes to the occurrence of miracles at the Sepulchre; and these of course become more credible, if we suppose some great object, such as the recognition of the Cross, to account for them. 169. An objection, however, has from time to time been urged with much earnestness by several writers, which, if substantiated, would altogether overthrow the history of the discovery of the Cross; viz., that Helena chose a wrong site for the Holy Sepulchre. This was Dr. Clarke's opinion, whose reasons were discussed and answered by a writer, it is believed Bishop Heber, in the Quarterly Review for March, 1813. It has lately been revived with some additional considerations by one or two controversialists, one of them at least with the view, not simply of disproving the fact, which is a point of secondary importance, but of fixing upon the Fathers and Church of the fourth century the imputation of deliberate imposture, and that for selfish ends. Indeed, a drift of this kind is the only intelligible explanation of the earnestness {303} which such writers manifest [Note 25]. It might not seem to be worth any great exertion to construct a proof that the Holy Sepulchre was not found by St. Helena, if no conclusion is to follow but that we need not pay attention to the festivals of the Cross, or to the claims of particular pieces of wood professing to be fragments of it. Even admitting the True Cross was discovered, it would be still open to Protestants to treat it with neglect or disrespect, and they would doubtless exercise their right. The Cross on which Christ suffered would be in their eyes but a piece of wood; or again, as they sometimes speak both of it and of the sign of it, it would be a something loathsome and hateful, bringing our Lord under the curse rather than sanctified by Him; and that the more, because, like the Brazen Serpent, it had been the occasion of superstition and idolatry. When then writers set themselves to oppose passages of history such as that now before us, it is for a far bolder purpose than is directly implied in their opposition; it is of course in order to depreciate or destroy the authority of the Church. It is an attempt to transfer the quarrel between her religion {304} and their own, from the province of opinion to the ground of matter of fact; nor can there be in itself a fairer procedure towards the Church, or one of which her children have less cause to complain, however they may be pained at the spirit in which it originates. 170. Nay, perhaps such controversialists are fairer to the Church than to themselves; and though undoubtedly, if they once prove their point, they will but gain the greater credit and the more decisive victory, by so frank a procedure, yet it is plain there is at first sight a very strong probability against their proving it. The chance is, that they have undertaken more than they can accomplish. For it stands to reason, which of two parties is the more likely to be right in a question of topographical fact, men who lived three hundred years after it and on the spot, or those who live at a distance of eighteen hundred, and at the Antipodes? Granting that the fourth century had very poor means of information, it does not appear why the nineteenth should have more ample. There are indeed branches of knowledge in which we have decidedly the advantage of the early Church. If it were a point of philology which was under review or a question about the critical interpretation of the Hebrew text, or the etymological force or derivation of a Greek term; or a problem in physics, such as whether or not such and such an occurrence were beyond, or beside, or according to the {305} laws of nature, and properly miraculous; or if it required some subtle analysis, and could only be wrought out by a mathematical formula; or if, though a question of history, or chronology, or topography, it was disputed by writers of the fourth century one with another, so that we must oppose this great name or that, and choose a side; or if it was advanced by some one Father, and by him unsupported, and in himself of no great authority, then the attempt to contradict him would be plausible; but in such a matter and under such circumstances as the present, when Calvary is the spot and Eusebius the informant, when a very learned and not over-credulous writer, whose silence about the Cross is thought so ominous of his disbelief, reports and assents to the unanimous decision of the local Church in favour of the discovery of the Sepulchre, and is supported, not merely by the silent assent, but by the concurrence of the literature of his own century [Note 26], the presumption is very great, before going into {306} the case, that such acute and ingenious persons, as now for the first and last time in their lives traverse Jerusalem with their measuring tape, are wrong, and those who were natives of the place fifteen hundred years ago are right. Of course such presumption constitutes no plea at all for declining to examine their arguments; it weighs nothing against an overwhelming proof, when they have brought it; but, to use the language of their school, when speaking of the miracles of the Church, unless the proof is overwhelming {307} we are not "obliged" to accept it; when there is but a balance of arguments, "we may suspect it" to be fallacious, and may pronounce it "unsatisfactory." It may be entered upon with a just prejudice, listened to with suspicion, criticized with fastidious precision, and rejected on the ground of counter-arguments in themselves of inferior cogency. 171. Let it carefully be observed that a point of evidence like this has nothing to do with the question of honesty or dishonesty in the parties who give it. Were Macarius or St. Cyril and the Clergy of Jerusalem the most covetous and unprincipled of hypocrites, why should this lead them to fix on a false site for our Lord's crucifixion and burial? Why should they not do their best to fix on the right one? why should they subject themselves to an additional chance of detection, and give to persons like their present impugners a gratuitous advantage, as if it were not enough to fabricate a Cross, but they must hazard a superfluous mistake in fabricating a Sepulchre? Were they then knaves and impostors of the deepest dye, this would be no reason for their omitting, nay, the strongest reason for their taking, all possible pains to find the very and true spot where our Lord suffered. And therefore the question returns to the issue on which it has already been put—which is the more likely, that inhabitants of Jerusalem in the fourth century, or of New York in the {308} nineteenth, should be able rightly to determine Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre [Note 27]. I mean no disrespect to the traveller to whom I allude, which is not due to one who accuses the Church of Jerusalem of the fourth century of deliberate fraud. And I make a great distinction between a learned person like himself, who writes with gravity and temper, and the English writer who has made use of his statements in a work to which reference has been several times made at the foot of the page. Yet I do not see why {309} weak arguments should be treated with indulgence because they are directed against sacred persons and better times. In order to form a due estimate of them, we must now consider with some attention the site of Jerusalem. 172. Jerusalem in our Lord's time occupied four hills: Sion, on which was the city of David, or the upper city, on the south (A); on the north of it, Acra, the site of Jerusalem proper, or the lower city (B); to the east of Acra, Moriah, on which was the {310} Temple (C); and to the north of Moriah, Bezetha (D), on which lay the new city, containing the overflowings of the population, which were at that time very considerable. Denoting them by the four letters, A, B, C, and D, we shall have the nearest idea of their relative position by considering B and C on a line running from west to east; A under B, and D above C. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is in the space between B and D, and the question, roughly stated, is whether the city wall which went across from B to D fell within or without its site. 173. The first and most ancient wall, which included A and C, Mounts Sion and Moriah, ran nearly in a straight line, on its north side, which alone it concerns us here to consider, from the north-west corner of Sion, where Herod afterwards built a tower called Hippicus, to the western portico of the Temple on Moriah. Accordingly the lower city (B) was exterior to it, or, if any part was included, it was whatever lay in the angle between Sion and Moriah, A and C. This wall is supposed to be as early as David's time; and in its northern line, which thus divided Sion and Acra (A and B), stood the gate Gennath, from which in process of time was drawn a second wall, across or around Acra, terminating in the tower Antonia, which stood at the north-west corner of the Temple, opposite Bezetha (D). After our Lord's death a third wall was drawn by Agrippa, which inclosed Bezetha also; but {311} with this we are not concerned. At the time of His crucifixion the second wall was the limit of the city; and the question in controversy is whether that second wall went across Acra or outside it. Our Lord suffered and was buried outside the wall: now St. Helena's traditionary site is nearly upon the descent of Acra on the north [Note 28]. If, then, the wall traversed the hill, that site falls without the wall; if it inclosed the hill, within it. 174. The argument advanced by the learned writer in question for the latter of these alternatives is of the following kind: he admits that a straight line drawn from Gennath to Antonia would fall short of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but he observes truly that Josephus expressly says that the wall had a curvature in the interval between its extreme points. Next he draws attention to a certain pool called the pool of Hezekiah, which is situated only a little to the south-west of the Church of the Sepulchre, and which he remarks Hezekiah formed inside the city. If, then, the pool was within the wall, the Church must have been within the wall too; for the wall could not include the former and exclude the latter without making a short turn at their point of contact, which we have no warrant in supposing. Further, {312} unless we suffer the wall to extend beyond the alleged site of the Holy Sepulchre, we shall not allow room enough for the lower city, which in our Saviour's time was extensive and populous. And, lastly, there are certain circumstances in the ground which interfere with the supposition of a narrower circuit; and there are some large hewn stones far to the north, near the gate of Damascus, which, being masonry probably of an age long anterior to that of our Lord, cannot belong to the third, and therefore are probably a part of the second wall. 175. Now, of these arguments it is obvious that not much stress can be laid upon the last. The ground on which Jerusalem stands has gone through many alterations at various times: valleys have been filled up, summits have been levelled. If the surface was so much changed that Helena could not at once find the Holy Sepulchre, surely its changes are great enough to hinder a modern traveller from determining, by its present appearance, the course of the second wall. Nor does it follow, though the ruins at the Damascus gate are as early as the date of the Jewish Kings, as this writer implies, that therefore they belong to the second wall, for he does not prove that the second wall existed so early as that time, as will be noticed presently; and they may be remains of some other ancient work, even if it did. 176. Nor surely is it any great objection that the {313} lower city will be much straitened if we draw its boundary short of the present Holy Sepulchre; for Josephus expressly speaks of the scantiness of the limits of the city, and of the population exceeding them in consequence. The population covered the north side of the Temple Mount, and then crossing the deep trench which bounded it, overflowed upon the opposite hill Bezetha, where it formed two large suburbs, one or both of which were called the "New City," [Note 29] and both of which were external to the then walls. Mount Sion itself also contained ample room for a population, the original city of David being but a citadel upon it. And, for what appears, the eminence or ridge Ophel to the south of Moriah afforded additional accommodation [Note 30]. But however this be, {314} the simple question for us to consider is whether the deduction from the supposed larger area of the city which adherence to the present site of the Sepulchre requires, will materially lessen that area. I conceive {315} not [Note 31]. If the area be too scanty for the population with this reservation, will it be sufficient without it? Sion, the greater part of Acra, and Moriah, within the walls, and Bezetha outside of them, remain; and if we suppose the wall which is in question, on starting from Gennath, first to run north, and then to curve round, when it came over against the site of the present Latin convent, very little of Acra will be lost. Dr. Robinson refers to a passage in Josephus, in which that historian speaks of a northern and a southern portion of the second wall, a mode of expression which requires some such change of direction to account for it. 177. Nor is it easy to see how the New City can be altogether excluded from the second wall, as we know it to have been, if the second wall is extended any great way beyond the present Holy Sepulchre; and if it is not extended, how any great increase of room will be obtained merely by including the Holy Sepulchre. Nor is it natural in Josephus to speak of the population overflowing across the trench of Moriah upon Bezetha, if it lay all along the west of the latter {316} hill already, and had thence extended itself upon Bezetha eastward. In short, if there be a difficulty in accommodating the population, it lies in this, that the hill of Acra, from Hippicus, on the north-west corner of Sion, to the east side of the Temple, is little more than the third of a mile across, as Dr. Robinson measures it [Note 32]. No theory about the north wall of the city can dispose of this fact [Note 33]. 178. Putting aside, then, considerations such as these, which might be useful to corroborate a proof, but have very little intrinsic force to create one, we come to the main circumstance on which the author's argument {317} depends, and which certainly deserves a careful consideration,—viz., the position of the pool of Hezekiah. To judge from his plan, this pool nearly joins the Holy Sepulchre on the south-west; and was once even considered as attached to it, and was called from it. Now Hezekiah formed his pool or reservoir within the city; either, then, the Holy Sepulchre lay within the city also, or the wall ran between the pool and the Sepulchre. 179. Now, first I would observe that there is no absurdity in the latter supposition. Let us allow that it would involve a sharp bend in the second wall [Note 34], which is our author's objection to it; yet Josephus, as we have seen, expressly speaks of a northern and southern portion of the wall, which implies a change of direction somewhere; and even though a range be supposed for the wall beyond the present Sepulchre, it could not materially change its direction without considerable abruptness. Dr. Robinson observes that the wall could not exclude the Holy Sepulchre, unless it {318} "made an angle expressly in order to exclude" it; but let it be observed, the angle must be made anyhow in order to arrive at Antonia; nay, and such an angle he himself makes in his own conjectural description of it. 180. Again, it is obvious to remark that, supposing Calvary was a place used for the execution and burial of criminals, as is not unnatural to suppose, and as its name may be taken to mean, there was a reason why the second wall, whenever drawn, should avoid it. And we know that, wherever it was, it was close upon the wall, both from the Apostle's saying that it was "without the gate," and from the custom of the Jews fixing their places of execution outside their cities [Note 35]. 181. But, next, dismissing this question, we come to this most important and remarkable circumstance, which will strike most readers even at first sight; viz., that the author under review, whose learning none can question, and whose zeal for Scripture all must honour, has fixed the site of Hezekiah's pool by tradition, and tradition alone. He says that Hezekiah "built {319} within the city a pool, apparently the same which now exists under his name," and upon this traditionary determination of the pool of Hezekiah he proceeds to deny the faithfulness of the tradition concerning the site of the Holy Sepulchre. Yet it does not at all appear why the latter tradition is not as good as the former, especially since far greater pains have been taken to ascertain the site of the Sepulchre than that of the pool. Nor can it here be urged that springs of water are not of a nature to be formed at will; that they have a perpetuity and a possession of the soil which mounds, or walls, or sepulchres have not; that they are not of common occurrence in Jerusalem, and that there is no great choice of pools between which the tradition might err. This, indeed, would be an argument if the pool were any more than a reservoir; and that too, as Dr. Robinson himself observes, in part at least of modern workmanship; but as the case stands, of course it is quite inapplicable. Nor can he intend to make a distinction between Christian tradition and Jewish, as if the Jews were deserving of more consideration and credit than the interested clergy or the superstitious laity of the Christian Church. For he candidly admits that the destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian involved the destruction of all their local recollections. "It may perhaps be asked," he says, "whether there does not exist a Jewish tradition, which would also be trustworthy? {320} not in respect to Jerusalem itself; for the Jews for centuries could approach the Holy City only to weep over it." [Note 36] By a law of Hadrian they were forbidden to approach within some miles of the city, and Constantine did but permit them to view it from the neighbouring hills. 182. It seems, then, that our author's argument against the alleged site of the Holy Sepulchre depends on a definite and single fact, and for that single fact he offers no proof whatever, except that very kind of proof, and that not so good in its kind as that on which the site of the Holy Sepulchre is at present received. He cannot tell how long the reservoir has been called Hezekiah's pool, though he does tell us that it used to be called by the Monks the Pool of the Sepulchre; while we know, on the other hand, that the Sepulchre was fixed in its present site as much as fifteen hundred years ago. He does not know under what circumstances the pool was determined to be Hezekiah's; whereas we do know that the site of the Sepulchre was settled after a public formal examination, and, as it is reported, with the united aid of learned Jews and Christians, and with a unanimous decision. Yet, if the real pool was within the wall, and the real Sepulchre without it, and if their professed sites are so close to each other that {321} both must have been without or both within (a point which itself, as we have seen, is not at all clear), he asserts that the tradition concerning the Sepulchre must be the false, and the tradition concerning the pool must be the true [Note 37]. 183. To proceed: it will be observed that Dr. Robinson takes for granted another point, besides that of the existing pool being really Hezekiah's; viz., that Hezekiah's pool was within the second wall. Certainly it was within the city wall, as it ran in Hezekiah's time; but it is obvious to ask, why was it only within the second wall, and not within the {322} first, which was drawn short of the second? Did the second wall exist as early as Hezekiah? But if Hezekiah's pool was within the first wall, and the existing pool is Hezekiah's, then Dr. Robinson will have proved too much; for he will have brought up the city of David all across the valley of the Tyropœum to the ridge of Acra on which the Holy Sepulchre stands, and within "less than a quarter of an English mile" of the north-west corner of the Temple. 184. It is necessary then for his argument that he should clearly show, not only that the pool really was Hezekiah's, but also that the second wall was built and bounded the city, in Hezekiah's time. On this point, however, he does but speak as follows; "Of the date of this erection," i.e. the second wall, "we are nowhere informed; but it must probably have been older than the time of Hezekiah, who built within the city a pool, apparently the same which now exists under his name." [Note 38] That is, on the one hand, Hezekiah's pool was within the second wall, not within the first, because the second wall, not the first, was in Hezekiah's time the boundary of the city; and on the other hand, the second wall, not the first, was in Hezekiah's time the boundary of the city, because Hezekiah's pool is within, not the first wall, but the second. Such is the author's proof of the second fact {323} by which he shows that the Church of the Sepulchre was built upon a pretended site. 185. But it may be asked whether Scripture throws no light upon the position of the pool; for in this way perhaps the tradition respecting it may gain an authority which it has not in itself. No tradition certainly is tenable which contradicts Scripture; but many a tradition deserves attention or commands assent about which Scripture is silent, or to which it devotes but a few words or a passing allusion. Dr. Robinson is more rigorous on this point than I should be myself; "This is the point," he says, "to which I would particularly direct the reader's attention, that all Ecclesiastical tradition respecting the ancient places in and around Jerusalem and throughout Palestine is of no value" (and he prints the words in capitals,) "except so far as it is supported by circumstances known to us from the Scriptures or from other contemporary testimony." [Note 39] It would seem, then, as if according to his deliberate principle, distinctly and formally avowed, some Scriptural argument ought to be forthcoming in favour of the traditionary settlement of the site of Hezekiah's pool;—what Scripture does say, may be told in a very few words. 186. In the Second Book of Chronicles we simply read as follows: "This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper water-course of Gihon, and brought it {324} straight down to the west side of the city of David." [Note 40] Now, what Gihon is, and where, is not here the question; Dr. Robinson has some very interesting remarks on the subject, on its concealment by Hezekiah, and on the subterraneous channels by which he fed the reservoirs in Jerusalem. All that here concerns us to observe in this passage are two distinct statements, each of them quite inconsistent with the tradition that the supposed pool of Hezekiah is really the work of that king. First, the inspired writer tells us above that Hezekiah brought the water to the city of David, and the pretended pool is not in that city; and next, that he brought it to the west side of the city, and the pool is on the north of it. What then can be said, but that this author's argument against the truth of the alleged site of the Holy Sepulchre is based, not only on a blind Jewish tradition, the like of which he elsewhere reprobates, but on a disregard of the sacred text which it is the special object of his work to exalt? 187. In conclusion, I will but draw attention to the light which this discussion has thrown upon the extreme {325} improbability, which was noticed before entering into it, that the parties who aided St. Helena in her search should have placed the Sepulchre where we find it, unless it were the true site. If facts are as clear as Dr. Robinson would consider them, they were too clear for any one to miss them [Note 41]. If the present pool of Hezekiah was then acknowledged to be such, close upon the present Sepulchre, is it credible that, with that intimate knowledge of the letter of the inspired writings which no one denies to their times, the clergy of Jerusalem should have fixed on a site for the Sepulchre which, according to Dr. Robinson, they would be confessing to be, not only within the lower city, but even within the city of David? Did the pool escape their eyes, or its title their ears, or the sacred text their memory, or the conclusion from {326} these data their reason? Could it be that a pool, which Scripture says was within the walls, should be situated upon a place of execution which Scripture as surely places without them? And in like manner we might ask, were it worth while, if the stones near the Damascus gate wear an antique look now, were they not likely to tell their own story better, if they were on the spot then? and have traces of the old wall become fainter or stronger in the course of years? and had the disposition of the ground undergone more alteration then than now, or less, considering Hadrian rebuilt the city on the site on which he found it [Note 42]? But it is needless to dwell on the improbability of an hypothesis which has been shown to be altogether gratuitous. 188. On the whole, then, I cannot doubt that the Holy Sepulchre was really discovered as Eusebius declares it to have been; and I am as little disposed to deny that the Cross was discovered also, as that the relics of St. Cuthbert or the coffin of Bishop Coverdale have been found here in England, in our own day. Notes1. "Accedit consuetudo Judæorum quibus solemne
instrumenta suppliciorum juxta cadavera sontium obruere." Gretser de
S. Cruc. tom. 1. i. 37, he refers to Baronius and Velser. S. Basnage
agrees, Annal. 326. g. [Vid. also Aringhi Rom. Subterr. p. 98, ed.
1659.] 2.
St. Cyril says of Calvary, that "it was a garden before, and the
tokens and traces thereof remain." Catech. xiv. 5. 3.
St. Jerome mentions Hadrian by name. Eusebius, in the vague way which
he adopts on other occasions (as not writing a history but a
panegyric, V. Const. i. 11), says, "Ungodly men formerly, or rather
the whole race of demons by means of them." V. Const. iii. 26. In like
manner he speaks of "tyrants of our days who essayed to fight against
the God of all, and oppressed His Church," i. 12, meaning Dioclesian;
"the Emperor who had first rank," i. 14, meaning the same;
"tyrannical slavery," i. 26, i.e., the sovereignty of
Maxentius; vid. also i. 33, etc., "news came that some dreadful beast
was attacking," etc. viz. Licinius. i. 49, "news came of no small
disturbance having possessed the Churches," ii. 61, meaning the Arian
controversy; "a man well approved by Constantine for the sobriety of
faith," etc., meaning Hosius, ii. 63; "the ruling city of Bithynia,"
meaning Nicomedia, iii. 50, etc., etc. 4.
This consideration answers, as far as the present question is
concerned, Professor Robinson's remark, that "the Fathers of the
Church in Palestine, and their imitators the Monks, were themselves
for the most part not natives of the country." Palestine, Vol. i. p.
373. 5.
Calvin, however, considers that St. Helena was urged by "stulta
curiositas," or "ineptus religionis zelus," De Reliqu. p. 276. 6.
V. Const. iii. 28. 7.
Dallæus objects that St. Cyril "nihil addit de Helenâ." Rel. Cult.
Obj. v. 1. p. 709. Yet we shall see Professor Robinson's reluctant
admission presently, note d [Note
12]. As to Eusebius, his object
was to praise Constantine. In V. Const. iii. 41, he first speaks as if
Constantine founded the Churches at Bethlehem and Mount Olivet, and
then corrects himself. [It is remarkable, moreover, that the Bourdeaux
Pilgrim, A.D. 333, vid.
Wesseling Itinerarium, pp. 589-596, whose silence about the Cross is
sometimes brought in corroboration, (vid. Gibbon, Hist. Ch. xxiii.,
note 63), is also silent about St. Helena's Church on Olivet, which no
one doubts about; vid. Euseb. V. Const. iii. 42, 43.] 8.
Const. iii. 30. Mr. Taylor says, that "the phrases he [Eusebius]
employs [i.e. in Constantine's Letter] clearly imply the
invention of the Cross, although apart from other evidence they would
leave us in the dark as to the facts." Anc. Christ. Part vii. p. 296.
I should say the same; but it is not granted by the Centuriators (who
say that St. Ambrose is the first to mention the discovery), nor by
Dallæus, S. Basnage (who speaks of the "intoleranda Bellarmini
sive inscitia sive audacia" in maintaining it, Annal. 326, 9),
Hospinian, etc. The elder Protestants wish to put the "cultus
reliquiarum" as late as possible; Mr. Taylor as early. Tillemont
understands Constantine to speak of the Cross, but Zaccaria, Dissert.
t. 1. v. 4. § 5, is disposed, at least for argument's sake, to give
up the point. 9.
Psalm lxxxvii. 13. Thus Montfaucon, but Zaccaria strangely denies the
allusion. 10.
Cat. iv. 10; x. 19; xiii. 4. 11.
The authenticity of this Epistle is denied from its omission in St.
Jerome's list of his works, and its mention of the [homoousion];
e.g., by Dallæus, Rel. Cult. Obj. v. 1. p. 707. J. Basnage
Hist, de l'Eglise, p. 3. xviii. 13. § 2. Mr. Taylor seems to grant
it, Anc. Christ. Part vii. p. 292. The mention of the [homoousion]
would be decisive against it, did it not occur at the end, in a sort
of doxology which will admit of being considered an addition. The
question is discussed at length by Zaccaria, ibid. in answer to
Oudinus. 12.
"Such is the account which Eusebius, the contemporary and eye-witness,
gives of the Churches erected in Palestine by Helena and her son
Constantine. Not a word, not a hint, by which the reader
would be led to suppose that the mother of the Emperor had anything to
do with the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, or the building of a
Church upon the spot. But ... all the writers of the following
century relate as with one voice that the mother of Constantine," etc.
Robinson, Palestine, Vol. ii. p. 14. Yet this same writer says in the
very next page, "Leaving out of view the obviously legendary portions
of this story, it would seem not improbable, that Helena was
the prime mover in searching for and discovering the sacred Sepulchre!" 13.
[Gnorisma tou pathous], V. C. iii. 30; whereas Eusebius
calls the Sepulchre [tes athanasias mnema], 26; [tes
anastaseos martyrion], 28. 14.
"Notwithstanding the silence of Eusebius, there would seem to be
hardly any fact of history better accredited than this alleged
discovery of the True Cross." Robinson's Palest. Vol. ii. pp. 15, 16;
vid. also, "However difficult," etc., p. 76. 15.
He does not mention St. Antony, or Methodius of Tyre, or the
Martyrdoms of Perpetua and Felicitas, etc., etc. 16.
Dallæus contends Eusebium nescivisse quod tacet. Rel. Cult.
Obj. v. 1. p. 706. The Centuriators are vague, so is J. Basnage, Hist.
de l'Egl. p. 3. xviii. 13. § 2. S. Basnage implies Eusebius's knowledge
but disbelief of the story. Annal. 326. 9. Jortin says that
Eusebius "either knew nothing or believed nothing of it."
Eccles. Hist. Vol. ii. p. 223. 17.
Basnage considers it a pious fraud of St. Cyril's. Annal, 326. 9. Mr.
Taylor prefers to impute it to Macarius to imagining "Cyril and his
colleagues to have hatched the fraud coolly and at leisure twenty
years afterwards." Anc. Christ. Part vii. p. 297. "Cyril of Jerusalem
and Augustine are the two Fathers who may be believed to have been the
dupes of, rather than the actors in, the frauds of their times."
Ibid. p. 292. "It would perhaps not be doing injustice to the
Bishop Macarius and his clergy," says Professor Robinson, "if we
regard the whole as a well-laid and successful plan for
restoring to Jerusalem its former consideration, and elevating his see
to a higher degree of influence and dignity." p. 80. 18.
We have an instance of such exaggeration in the report of the
Samaritan woman, "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I
did." If the men of her city had been instructed in Protestant
divinity, they would have cross-examined her as to what she meant by all,
and then said that there was evident inaccuracy, and grounds for
suspicion, that they were not called upon to stir, that they were not
obliged to believe her, etc., etc. 19.
Jortin, Eccles. Hist. (Works, Vol. ii. p. 222), translates Tillemont
as believing this miracle, and as saying that "St. Paulinus relates a
very singular thing," putting the words in italics, and
prefacing his extract with observing that "the words of Tillemont are
full of what the French call unction, and the English canting;"
whereas in fact Tillemont at the least doubts Paulinus's account. Mem.
Eccles. Vol. vii. p. 8. 20.
Ep. 31. fin. 21.
St. Jerome too says of St. Paula, A.D. 386, "Prostrataque
ante Crucem, quasi pendentem Dominum cerneret, adorabat." Ep. 108. n.
9. 22.
"This history of the discovery of the Holy Cross," says W. Lowth
in Socr. i. 17. ed. Read., "is not found in Eusebius. But Cyril,
Bishop of Jerusalem, who lived in the same age, openly witnesses that
the Wood of the Holy Cross was divinely shown to the Emperor
Constantine; also in his Catechetical Lectures he speaks of its
discovery, as of a thing known to all. Wherefore of the faith of this
history we cannot doubt." Upon this Jortin asks, "What did this
Protestant Divine of ours mean? Could he believe that the True Cross
was found? or would he only say that a pretended one was discovered?"
Ibid. 23.
S. Basnage urges, however, "vero non esse proximum, latronum cruces
cum illa Christi, uno eodemque loco fuisse conditas;" Annal. 326. 9. because
crosses were always buried with the bodies, but no bones were
found with the Cross,—an assumption. There were too many bones
surely in "the place of a skull," to discriminate, or to mention the
fact. 24.
Quæri et illud potest, num annis pænè trecentis in solo absque
putredine cessante miraculo," etc. S. Basnag. Ann. 326, 9. 25.
The Quarterly Reviewer of December, 1841, professes to consider it
only a question of "poetic statement," "fond reminiscences," "reverential
feelings," "pleasing visions," and the like; and contrasts with them "the
stern voice of truth," etc., etc., whereas the simple question is
whether we shall consider the Church of the fourth century very
credulous or very profligate. Mr. Taylor is far more perspicacious. 26.
The main authority for the present site of the Holy Sepulchre
is Eusebius; and the warrant for its preservation or recovery is the
Pagan Temple raised over it upon the destruction of the city by
Hadrian, which became a lasting record of the spot. What is to be
urged against Eusebius I know not; but it is urged against the
argument from the Pagan Temple, first, that only St. Jerome, and not
Eusebius, attributes its erection to Hadrian. But why is not St.
Jerome, a learned Father, well acquainted with Palestine, and no
friend at all (as Mr. Taylor allows) to the superstitions and
pollutions of which in his time Jerusalem was the scene, why is he not
a sufficient authority? whereas Eusebius (after his manner)
does but say "ungodly men;" vid. supr. n. 157, note t [Note
3]. Next, it is objected that
there was no recognized tradition of the spot, because St.
Helena had to search for it, and to summon learned Jews and
Christians to her assistance: but it does not follow, because there
was no popular tradition, that therefore there was no historical and
antiquarian knowledge of the fact, or, again, no means of recovering
it, though forgotten. Further, it is urged that it was unlike Hadrian's
character to insult the Christians, when he was but punishing the
Jews. But, granting his general leniency towards the former, what
Sulpicius says, Hist. Sacr. ii. 45, suggests the conjecture, that,
from the circumstance of the Jewish Bishops not only being natives and
inhabitants of the place, but practising circumcision, he
confused them and their flocks and the objects of their veneration
with the Jews. From these three considerations, (1) that St. Jerome is
the first informant that Hadrian placed a Temple over the Sepulchre;
(2) that there was no continuous public local tradition to that
effect; and (3) that it is a deed unlike Hadrian, it is proposed to
infer that a place was pitched upon at random as the site of the
Sepulchre, and that, among all places in Jerusalem, a heathen temple.
As to the actual Sepulchre found under the mound, that of course is
the work of fraud. 27.
As if to meet this presumption, Dr. Robinson and Mr. Taylor set
themselves to prove incontrovertibly that St. Helena did fix the site
of the Ascension on Mount Olivet wrongly; and if she was wrong in one
case, she might be in another. And their proof is as follows: 1st, St.
Luke in his Gospel says that our Lord led out His disciples as far as Bethany,
therefore He ascended from Bethany (in spite of his saying in the
Acts, that they returned from Olivet); 2nd, St. Luke says that
from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem is a Sabbath-day's journey, but the
Church of the Ascension is only half a mile from Jerusalem. It has
been usual to say in answer (1) that Bethany was not only a village,
but a district which extended over a portion of Olivet. Thus Bethany
is considered by Lightfoot, Chorogr. in Matt. 37; ibid. 4; Chorogr. in
Marc. 4; Hor. Hebr. in Luc. xxiv. 50, and in Act. Ap. i. 12. In a
previous work he had thought otherwise, vid. Comment, in Act. Ap. on
the ground that names of towns and names compounded with "Beth"
never were extended to a district. He gets over this difficulty, in
his later work, by saying that the town was called from the district,
not the district from the town. The same explanation of "Bethany" is
given by Beza, Grotius, Sanctius, and De Dieu in Poole's Synopsis.
Again, Spanheim calls it "tractus montis Oliveti." Geogr. Sacr. part i.
fin. (2) As to the alleged difficulty of the Sabbatical distance, it
is not really such, till critics are agreed what that distance
is. "Iter Sabbaticum octo stadia excepit aut totum milliare."
Lightfoot, Chorogr. in Matt. 40. Elsewhere he says, "Iter Sabbaticum
ex septem et dimidio," in Luc. xxiv. 50, adding, that it was "bis
mille cubitorum." Yet, Comment. in Act. i. 12, he says that, while the
Sabbatical distance is nine stadia if the cubit is three feet, it is
but four and a half if the cubit be a foot and a half; and that the
latter is the true calculation. "What space is a Sabbatical journey?"
says Drusius in Poole's Synopsis; "in the number two thousand most
agree; but some say cubits, others paces, Jerome feet, Origen ells,
which Origen's translator calls cubits." De Dieu (ibid.) with
Lightfoot in Act. makes the cubit a foot and a half, or the Sabbatical
journey about five stadia, which is the distance of Mount Olivet,
according to Josephus, and the actual distance of the Church of the
Ascension, from Jerusalem. Grotius considers it eight stadia. Reland
quotes Origen for its being eight (Palæst. i. 52. fin.), but thinks
this too much; and quotes Epiphanius for its being six, which
according to him (vid. Wolf in Act. Ap. i. 12.) would make the
Sabbatical journey a quarter of an hour's walk. It must be added that,
if the Church of the Ascension is short of the Sabbatical distance
(which, as we see, it is not proved to be), at all events Bethany is
in excess of it. 28.
Clarke and Maundrell make it on the edge of Mount Moriah; but Dr.
Robinson "directly on the ridge of Acra." Vol. i. p. 391. 29.
Josephus in one place speaks of "Bezetha and the new city;"
Bell. Jud. ii. 19. § 4; at another of "[he katotero
kainopolis]," v. 12. § 2. If this second suburb was to the west
of Bezetha, it must occupy the north of the present Sepulchre; which
would almost be a proof that the present Sepulchre was without the
second wall. 30.
Sion seems to have been covered with streets and private houses, in
spite of its public buildings. Josephus says that "the houses" on Sion
and on Acra "ended in the ravine between them:" v. 4 ; and says
that Sion was called "the Upper Agora," which implies a population. De
Bell. Jud. v. 4. In the sacking of Sion, he speaks of small houses on
it ([domatia]), and lanes or alleys, [stenopoi],
ibid. vi. 8. § 5. Indeed, we might infer a population from the length
of the hill, which was far beyond the needs of a citadel, palace, and
public buildings. Manasseh, too, seems to have taken in a space beyond
the city of David to the south; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14. Bezetha seems to
have been very thickly inhabited; Josephus speaks of the shops of
mercers and braziers, the clothes-market, and the alleys running upon
the city wall. De Bell. Jud. v. 7. fin. The lower city, too, was full
of alleys or narrow lanes, as appears by the following chapter. The
Tyropœum, or deep valley between Acra and Sion [and Acra and Moriah],
was "ædificiis densa." Spanheim's Geograph. p. 49. The height of the
houses, too, in such localities should be considered. At Rome a law
was passed by Augustus, that houses should not be above seventy feet
high. The poor inhabited them in floors. Vid. Gibbon, Ch. xxxi. [vid.
also Merivale, Rom. Empire, Vol. 5. Ch. 40.] It is a question, too,
whether a portion of the inhabitants did not live in the excavations
under Sion and Moriah. The deeper caves were used for the purposes of
concealment in the sack of the city by Titus. Lightfoot tells us,
Chorogr. in Luc. 1. § 6, that both Iturea and Idumæa were remarkable
for their caverns, and he even derives the name of the former from
this circumstance. Strabo speaks of two caverned mountains, one of
which would hold four thousand men; Lib. xvi. p. 1074. The cave of
Zedekiah, according to a Rabbinical authority, whom Lightfoot quotes,
held eighteen thousand. And according to William of Tyre there was a
cave on the other side of Jordan, sixteen miles from Tiberias, with
different stories in it. Vid. also Joseph. Antiqu. xv. 10. § 1. It is
the Ecclesiastical tradition that a cave was the place of the
Nativity; S. Justin Martyr notices it, and Origen says that in his day
it was visited by pilgrims. However, Dr. Robinson brings this
tradition specially as a sample of the spuriousness of traditions
about sacred history in general, because a cave or grotto is
introduced. Nothing, he says, is done without grottoes. As if, too,
some traditions might not be true and some false; the latter
imitations of the earlier. 31.
The Quarterly Reviewer for December, 1841, says: "One argument appears
to us absolutely insuperable. To exclude the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, the ancient city, that is, the part between the western
wall and the hill of the Temple, must be narrowed to less than a
quarter of a mile." This is an inexplicable statement. It assumes that
the second wall always continued at the same distance from the
Temple Mount which it had over against the Sepulchre. 32.
Dr. Robinson says that "the breadth of the city is the same now
as anciently," Vol. ii. p. 67; i.e., to show that it could
spare nothing in length; now he says elsewhere that the breadth from
the brow of the valley of Hinnom near the Yaffa gate to the brink of
the valley of Jehoshaphat is 1,020 yards; while the length, measured
on his map, from Herod's Gate to the limit of the ancient city on the
south, is 1,700 yards or short of a mile. Therefore an area of a mile
by ⅝ of a mile is greater than the site of the old city,
and makes no allowance for the Temple, fort, etc., etc., yet even this
is little more than half a square mile. Here then is a fixed limit
agreed on by all who do not adopt the random hypothesis of Dr. Clarke,
that the Hill of Evil Counsel is Sion. Might not an objection be made
to the smallness of even such an area by those who do not consider how
the population of fortified cities packs? Nothing seems known
for certain about the ordinary population of Jerusalem. Mr.
Greswell makes several calculations, Dissert. xxiii., which exceed
what at first sight the space could seem possibly to admit. 33.
Such difficulties are of frequent occurrence in history; e.g.,
Oxford in the middle ages is said to have had 30,000 students. 34.
Mr. [Dr.] Milman has no difficulty in such a supposition; "the second
wall," he says, "began at a gate in the old or inner one, called
Gennath, the gate of the gardens; it intersected the lower city, and
having struck northward for some distance, turned to the east,
and joined the north-west corner of the town of Antonia." Hist. of
Jews, Vol. iii. p. 16. And he even represents it on his plan of the
city as turning at an acute angle. Dr. Robinson himself, as is said
over-leaf cannot escape a bend. When he has brought his supposed
second wall near Bezetha, he speaks of its "bending southward
to the corner of Antonia." Vol. i . p. 468. 35.
Deut. xvii. 5; Luke iv. 29; also 2 Kings x. 8; vid. also Lev. xxiv.
14; Numb. xv. 35. Zorn. Opusc. Sacr. Vol. ii. p. 193, upon Heb. xiii.
12, refers to 1 Kings xxi. 13; Acts vii. 59. And for the like custom
among the Romans, to Plaut. Mil. Act. ii. sc. 4; Tac. Ann. ii. 32; Hor.
Epod. 5. 99. On the Jewish cemeteries as without the cities, vid.
Lightfoot, Chorograph. in Matt. 100. However, they were far enough to
be out of sight of the inhabitants. The cemeteries of the Levitical
cities were two thousand cubits off. Ibid. Chorograph. in Marc. 8. §
8. 36.
Vol. i. p. 376, note; vid. also p. 350; [vid. Lumper, P. H. t. 6, p.
660.] 37.
Professor Robinson, after speaking of Hippicus, Antonia, and Hezekiah's
pool, says: "We have then three points for determining the probable
course of this wall" (the second); "we repaired personally to each
of these three points," etc. Vol. ii. p. 67. Now of the first
he does but say himself, "it early occurred to us that [the tower of
David] was very probably a remnant of the tower of Hippicus,"
Vol. i. p. 455; "this impression was strengthened," etc.; of
the second Lami says, "I have set down several places in the map,
whose true situation is not known; as, for instance, the castle
Antonia;" App. Bibl. p. 76, ed. 1723, London; though Dr. Robinson
considers he has ascertained it. And what reliance is to be placed on
the site of the pool we have seen in the text. In like manner Dr.
Robinson can but say of Gennath "apparently near Hippicus," p.
411; "doubtless near Hippicus," p. 461. And of the second wall,
"Josephus's description of the second wall is very short and unsatisfactory,"
p. 461. And he locates the Tyropœum differently from other writers.
Yet on these private inferences from doubtful conjectures on probable
assumptions from unsatisfactory testimony, the Catholic Church is to
be convicted of fraud and folly. 38.
Vol. ii. p. 67. 39.
Vol. i. p. 374. 40.
2 Chron. xxxii. 30. If it is necessary to appeal to authority, Calmet
considers Hezekiah's pool to have been in the western quarter of the
city of David, in 2 Paralip. xxxii. 30, and fed by Gihon, in 2 Esdr.
ii. 14. So does Lightfoot, Chorograph. in Matt. 25, and in Joan. 5.
§§ 2, 3. Reland places the fount of Gihon, from which it was fed, at
the south-west. Palest. iii. p. 859. 41.
Dr. Robinson begins by speaking of the "difficulty arising from the present
location" of the Sepulchre "in the heart of the city," which "has been
felt by many pious minds." Yet what so natural, as Maundrell
observes, as that the Sepulchre, when found, should attract the city
round it? Again, why is it not a difficulty that Sion is now so
deserted? Is not this extension, if not change, of site, what happens
to all cities of any standing? Was Dr. Robinson sceptical about St.
Giles's in the Fields when he came to London? Pope Gregory was
perfectly aware of the change of site of the city. "Hoc quoque quod
additur," he says, "Non relinquent in te lapidem super 'lapidem,'
etiam ipsa jam ejusdem civitatis transmigratio testatur; quia
dum nunc in eo loco constructa est, ubi extra portam fuerat
Dominus crucifixus, prior illa Jerusalem, ut dicitur, funditus est
eversa.'' Hom. in Evang. 39. init. 42.
Those who deny that the Pagan Temple was built on the site of the
Sepulchre, have to account for the utter oblivion to which, on their
hypothesis, the place of our Lord's crucifixion was consigned; whereas
the circumstances attendant on that profanation which the Temple
occasioned will explain such partial ignorance concerning it as seems
to have obtained among the Christians of Jerusalem. Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman |