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AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

OF THE PRINCIPAL

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SITES

AT JERUSALEM.

BY

MAJOR ERASER. R.E,

LONDON : PUBLISHED BY EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS.

1881.

Price One Shilling".

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AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

OF THE PHINCIPAL

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SITES

AT JERUSALEM.

BY

MAJOR FlIASER, R.E.

LONDON :

tUBLISliED BY EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSSv

1881.

AN HISTORICAL REVIEW

OF THE

PRINCIPAL JEWISH AND CHPJSTIAN SITES AT JERUSALEM.

If an equal surface-projection of the earth's surface be taken, Jerusalem will be found nearly, if not quite, at the centre of the whole of the dry land on the globe. It also, by the assenting homage of the great majority of the human race, holds the same position in the universe of mundane thought and destiny. Why this is the case, and in what respects the site of this city differs from every other place on the face of the earth, are unknown. Perhaps the only other problem of the kind, though of far less importance in comparison, is the exact situation of the Garden of Eden. The earliest possessors of the site of Jerusalem were the Jebusites, sprung from Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, who appear to have been unaware of anything except the strength of its position. Long before Jerusalem became the city of the Jebusites, the faint breathing of tradition speaks of a temple in the rock, with an entrance by nine porches, and supported by two pillars with a per- pendicular depth of eighty-one feet, in which was deposited an equilateral triangle of gold enriched with precious

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stones encrusted on an agate, and containing an all-powerful name ; the whole reposing on a pedestal of white marble, with which the name of Enoch is connected. Then suc- ceeds a passing mention of Melchizedek, king of Salem and also priest, and who must have lived about 1918 B.C. at Jerusalem. Shortly after, Abram, I'esiding in Philistia, went towards the land of Moriah, and saw the place at which he was to sacrifice his son, on the third day, far off. We are told he called the place " Jehovah Jireh," and that it was in the Mount of God. It is commonly accepted to have been upon the heights enclosed in the Haram Area. Tradition goes that Shem, son of Noah, settled at Jerusalem, and imparted specially important knowledge to Abram, which, as he died about 1824 B.C., might easily have been the case. The probability is that a priesthood was founded by Melchizedek, which the patriarch then continued. But there is a mere glimpse afforded at this period of an age which has otherwise left its mark in the profound depths of the immediate neighbourhood.

Then there succeeds another patriarchal system, the Exodus, and the wanderings, and we have Jerusalem as- signed 1444 B.C. to the tribe of Benjamin. Even in the time of David the Jebusites had still their stronghold, not, we may be sure, on the dry sides of the Haram position, but opposite, on the declivity looking north-east, which carries the modern town.

The slumbering importance of Mount Moriah was first disclosed upon the pestilence succeeding the numbering of the people. The angel stood, the sacrifice was offered, and David made a purchase of the threshing-floor of Araunahi To know that it was such a floor is no great help in deter- mining the site. For threshing by oxen in the East, all that

is required is a fiat circle of rock or beaten earth, about a dozen feet in diameter, the more sheltered the better if there is a saddle or eminence close by, on which winnowino* of the grain can take place. Solomon was divinely author- ised to build the Temple, and the construction was manao-ed with the assistance of Canaanitish hands. The Syrian workmen were employed in the masonry, and Hiram, a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali, and whose father was of Tyre, superintended the brazen castings. In most books taken up by chance, whether of history or sacred topography, it will be found stated that Solomon's Temple was built on the top of Mount Moriah, in the place where now stands the Mosque of Omar. The locality is so plausible at first sight, that it has been readily accepted, until now it is most difficult to procure attention to the want of evidence or proof upon which the statement rests. The work was of great magnitude. Solomon raised a levy of 30,000 men from Israel,, and sent them 10,000 a month by courses to Lebanon, to fell and transport timber, keepino- a course two months at home. Adoniram was over the levy. He had, including the Syrians, 70,000 people carry- ing loads, and 80,000 masons under 3300 superintendents. Immense hewn stones were prepared at the quarries, so that no sound of iron tools could be heard during buildinof. Josephus gives an account of Solomon's Temple (Ant. b. viii. chap. iii. sec. 2), which has caused difficulty. But it seems intelligible enough if the plain narration is followed. He says, " The king laid the foundations of the Temple very deep in the ground." To begin with, this cannot refer to the site of the so-called Mosque of Omar, where there is hard rock near the surface, and least occasion to dig deep. The Temple must therefore have stood on some place where

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there was a thickness of earth, and nearer the base than the top of Moriah. The dimensions Josephns gives are : height 60 cubits, length 60 cubits, and breadth 20 cubits, to roof. There was another structure over it of equal dimensions, so that the whole height was 120 cubits. There was a porch 20 cubits long by 12 cubits wide, and the same height as the Temple. The dimensions in feet would of course depend upon whether the cubit of a man, some 18 inches, or the sacred cubit of 25*05 inches were adopted. In the one case the height would be 21 8f feet, otherwise 250| feet. However, Solomon's Temple was at its first appearance a tower of from 218 to 250 feet in total height, built, as I believe, of two storeys, in the south-west corner of the present Haram Area, and over that part of it which has not been yet explored, but near which Julian the Apostate's workmen came upon the globes of flame. Just in front must have stood the threshing-floor of Araunah, on which the altar was built. This explains how the porch had such an altitude of 120 cubits. Little is known about the arrangements of Solomon's Temple. There were upper chambers inlaid with gold, no doubt for quasi-secular uses, protected by the sanctity of the rooms of worship below. It is most likely that the rest of the hill was irregularly laid out; some of it stepped off" in terraces, other parts built upon and filled up, while Josephus states (Ann., b. XV. chap, ii.), " The hill was a rocky ascent that declined by degrees to the east side of the city, till it came to an elevated level. This hill Solomon had compassed with a wall." The buildings must have looked singularly pictur- esque, and were the expression of a new order of government upon earth, but quite diflferent from the Temple and its courts and palace at a later period. Solomon had, according

to Joseph US, encompassed the hill with a wall by divine revelation, and this no doubt equally guided the position of the Temple foundations. A great expense was incurred in laying these, which might have been easily saved by moving some yards away ; but the place was chosen with an object, with which we are not directly made aware.

Solomon's Temple lasted till the captivity took place, 588 B.C., under Nebuchadnezzar, when the Chaldeans broke up the fine castings made by Hiram, and took the vessels of the Temple to Babylon. They burnt the house of Jehovah, brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and destroyed the palaces and goodly contents, carrying off' the treasures. It may be easily understood that a temple in the form of a lofty tower would, when once it fell into the possession of the Babylonians, lined as it was with cedar, burn like a furnace_, and be soon reduced to complete ruin.

So the city and Temple remained till 536 B.C., when the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, was stirred to proclaim the rebuilding of the house of the Lord ; and we are told the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jeru- salem. The same process had to be gone through as at the oriojinal instauration. Jeshua and Zerubbabel were over the work, Syrians again brought timber from Lebanon, and masons and carpenters were employed by the Levites. There was no question regarding the site on this occasion ; because the priests and ancients had seen Solomon's Temple standing. The decree of Cyrus contained the specification for the Temple, but the Temple was actually built under Darius, who found the decree of Cyrus in the house of the Eolls. The expense was originally to have been defrayed by the king's treasury. There is no certainty that the limits prescribed by Cyrus were not exceeded, for the people helped the

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work, and the restoration of the walls of the city was divided amongst the leaders. Probably the Temple of Zerubbabel was a close reproduction of that of Solomon, then fresh in recollection. Hasty work or defective orna- mentation was remedied about 301 B.C., when Simon, the high -priest in the reign of Ptolemy Lagus, added to the walls of Jerusalem.

In 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes profaned and despoiled the Temple, but did not destroy it, and its worship and influence were restored by Judas Maccabseus. The Jewish polity continued unbroken within the Temple enclosure under the Asmonean princes, until, the throne being vacant, the Pharisees proposed one candidate and the army another.

A conflict followed, and the Romans interfered. Pompey decided in favour of Hyrcanus II., the candidate of the Pharisees, and in 63 B.C. captured Jerusalem. Josephus narrates (" Wars," book i. chap, vii.) : " Pompey saw the walls were firm, the valley before the walls terrible ; the Temple which was within that valley was encompassed with a very strong wall, so that if the city were taken the Temple would be a second place of refuge for the enemy to retire into." If this passage is read backwards it conveys a clearer meaning, because this order goes from the abstract to the concrete. The Temple was a second refuge if the city were taken ; it had a strong wall ; the Temple was within a valley (the Tyropoeon and not on the top of Mount Moriah), and the valley to the south of the Temple and city walls terrible then, as is the case now, but more conspicuously so because not filled with rubbish. Josephus proceeds : '* Aris- tobulus's party retired into the Temple, and cut off" the communication between the Temple and city, by breaking

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down the bridge that joined them together. Bat Pompey himself filled up the ditch that was on the north side of the Temple, and the entire valley also." For an explanation of this passage we have only to turn to Wilson and Warren's " Recovery of Jerusalem." The remains of this bridge exist to the present hour. No one can also look at the longi- tudinal section of the Haram Area from south to north without recognising the hollow which is now partly closed with earth, and in part occupied by the pool of Eethesda, as the ditch on the north side to which Josephus refers. It was, of course, not of the full section all through, but con- nected itself with the head of the Tyropoeon valley by a depressed saddle, if not by a steep artificial cut. When the Temple was taken, Pompey entered the Holy of Holies, and it was remarked that from this time he ceased to be successful. But he rifled none of the treasure, and cleansins" the Temple, directed the resumption of its services. Crassus, the prefect of Syria, was in 51 B.C. not so moderate. He plundered the wealth that Pompey left untouched, stated to have amounted to two millions sterling. The defeat of Crassus by the Parthians hastened the strife between Csesar and Pompey ; the Rubicon was crossed, and the defeat at Pharsalia ended the consulate.

On the ides (15th) of March, 44 B.C., Julius Csesar came by his tragic death. The year before he had attained, in all except name, absolute sovereignty over the Roman Empire, and had just convened a meeting of the Senate to obtain the imperial title. The conspiracy against him was an out- burst of suppressed republican feeling, and for some time the government was conducted by the joint presidency of Augustus and Antony. The battle of Philippi, 42 B.C., ended republicanism in Rome, and confirmed their authority.

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With his colleague's consent, Antony, 40 B.C., made Herod king of Judea. Antipas, the grandfather of Herod, was an Idumean, and governor of Idumea under Jannseus ; who, being a Sadducee, was opposed by the rival Jewish faction* The support of the Pharisees contributed to the elevation of an Idumean over Jerusalem, and the sceptre departed from Judah. It has never been clearly related how the gap oc- curred that made way for Herod's Temple. That of Zerub- babel emerges with apparently a fabric in material respects undamaged, after attack and pillage on these several occa- sions, and there is no distinct record of Herod having found a mere heap of ruined buildings to invite restoration. To trace the condition of Zerubbabel's Temple, it is necessary to go back to 168 B.C., when Antiochus Epiphanes caused the discontinuance of the daily sacrifice. At that period (1 Mac. i.) " her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness ;*' but this may not imply more than removal of the Jewish ornaments and a dismantling of the interior. But the orders of Antiochus were " that they should follow laws strange to the land ;" the religion of the Jews was sup- pressed, " overseers were appointed over the people," the Temple of Jerusalem was dedicated to Jupiter, an image set up, and sacrifices offered on a new altar. It was the practice to erect the altars for such strange rites upon the tops rather than sides of hills, and the description given in 1 Mace. iv. of the condition of the Temple when Judas Mac- cabseus proceeded to cleanse it, "all the host assembled themselves together and went up into Mount Sion. And they saw the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burnt down, and shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest or in one of the mountains, yea, and the priests' chambers pulled down," is inconsistent with the de-

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corous cult even of Olympian Jupiter, The altar of the Jews rendered unclean, the Temple was deserted ; and if a shrine were not built, the summit of Moriah can neverthe- less be conceived smoking with unblessed fires.

Towards the close of 165 B.C. the stones were clinked to- gether, the Jews rekindled their daily sacrifice on a fresh altar, and Judas Maccab?ous fortified the Temple, after having built up the sanctuary and the inner parts of the house. The celebration of the event lasted eight days, and was annually repeated as the feast of the dedication, even in the Temple of Herod. The Maccabsean rulers added to the fortifications of Jerusalem, and national freedom was restored under Simon, in 143 B.C., high-priest, governor and leader of the Jews. A rather remarkable passage with re- ference to him occurs in 1 Mac. xiv. : " For in his days things prospered in his hands, so that the heathen were taken out of their country, and they also which were in the city of David in Jerusalem, who had made themselves a tower, out of which they issued and polluted all about the sanctuary, and did much hurt in the holy places; but he placed Jews therein, and fortified it for the safety of the country and the city, and raised up the walls of Jerusalem." As Simon is narrated to have raised a stronghold near the Temple for his own residence, which after became the tower of An tenia, it is not at all improbable that the position was at any rate thus marked by the tower of the heathen in the city of David, which must have closely adjoined.

In 109 B.C. Hyrcanus, Simon's son, built the Castle Baris^ a fortress on the north-west corner of the Temple courts, square in shape, and which was afterwards expanded into the Tower Antonio. The history of Zerubbabel's Temple is, up to this point, epitomised by Milton :

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" Returned from Babylon by leave of^ kings, Their lords whom God disposed, the house of God They first re-edify ; and for awhile In mean estate live moderate ; till grown In wealth and multitude, factious they grow ; But first among the priests dissension springs, Men who attend the altar, and should most Endeavour peace : their strife pollution brings Upon the temple itself ; at last they seize The sceptre, and regard not David's sons ; Then lose it to a stranger."

Nothing is stated with regard to the condition of this Temple between 109 B.C. and 17 B.C., when Herod com- menced the more splendid edifice, which has sunk in a more profound oblivion. But it may be readily conjectured that a building completed 515 B.C., gutted in 168 B.C., hastily re- habilitated three years afterwards, and of whose repairs nothing is heard after 109 B.C., had grown dilapidated and unsuitable by 37 B.C., when Herod entered upon his govern- ment. Being an Idumean, he could not hold the office of high-priest ; but he could give a permanent tone to the mode of conducting the services of the Jews by causing the erection of a new Temple. It is evident the old struc- ture was still existing, because the Jews expressed a fear that if he pulled it down they would have none in its place; but Herod gave a pledge that he would not begin demolition till materials had been collected. Josephus describes Herod's procedure in building the new Temple in a way that is easily followed (Ant. b. xv., chap, ii.) : '* Herod took av/ay the old foundations and laid others, and erected the Temple there, 100 cubits long and 20 cubits highj which fell down on the sinking of their foundation." It is incredible that this construction was on the hard crown of Moriah where the Dome of the Rock now stands. It must have

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been on much lower and far more slippery ground. Josephus proceeds : " Temple stones were white and strong, 25 cubits lonor, 8 cubits h\crh, and 12 cubits broad." ''The whole structure, as also the structure of the Koyal Cloister, was on each side much lower, but the middle was much higher, till visible to those living in the country for a great many fur- longs, but chiefly to those who lived opposite." It will be found on referring to the photographs of the Ordnance Sur- vey of Jerusalem, that if Herod's Temple be assigned to a position south of the Sakhra, it must have been very con- spicuous from the north and west sides of Jerusalem, and in the most advantageous grouping with the spread of the city, when viewed across the valley from the east, or over the Tyropoeon from the roofs and windows of the town. Josephus continues : " The neck was rocky, anticlinal, quietly slanted with (irpo^) the eastern members of the city to a summit point. This ridge Solomon had compassed with a wall," or in Greek, with interlinear translation :

" Toviov 6 TTfjooTO^ rjfxwv /SaaiXev^ SaXo/Mcov This, the foremost of us King Solomon, Ka(, eiTicppoavvTji/ rov Oeov ixe^akai^ 6pya(Tiai<; and the wise plan of God, with great operations, aireTeL')(^i,^6v avwOev ra nrepi ttjv afcpav walled off, to be above those round the summit."

The passage has given rise to uncertainty whether in what follows Josephus is not recounting the dimensions of Solomon's Temple ; but it is evidently a parenthesis, and Josephus resumes the doings of Herod. When the wording however is closely examined, it is very applicable to the tower-temple built by Solomon, from a low site in the

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south-west corner of the Haram Area, so high as to over- look the crown of the ridge.

As to Herod, " He also built a wall till the largeness of the square edifice was immense, and its altitude :

he walled over also from below under the spur that com- manded, etc." The term, an immense square edifice, cannot relate to Solomon^s Temple, whose dimensions and mode of construction were, as described, very different. Josephus continues : ''This work was joined together as part of the hill itself to the very top ; he made it level on the external surface, and a smooth level also. This hill was walled all round and in compass four stadia, the distance of each angle containing a stadium (or 604*85 feet)." Then in Greek :

" E(TC0T6pci) 8e TOVTov Kat irap avrrjv ttjv ai<pav, Within also it, and towards the very summit, oXKo TeL-)(p^ avd) XlOcvov irepiOei,, Kara fiev another wall tier of stone runs round, on in fact

ecoav pax^^ '^^^ ^^^X'^^) ^^^^ '^V'^ '^P^ tovtwv

the east slope of the walls, and fronting these ^apayya cj^ofiepav to re cepov et'To? t?;? (papajyo^;. a hiatus formidable, and the Temple within the hiatus. AvTo 6e KaTa to ivpoaapiCTtov t<\i/jLa ttjv tov That also on the northern incline on that of the

Ta(f)pov e%oi; Kat, ttjv ^apayya iraaav vXrjv

sepulchre he heaped, and the entire hiatus material

(TVfX(popOV(TaV T7]^ hvpa/jL6co^.

brought by the labour.

The meaning of this somewhat involved passage seems to be that Herod, dealing with the same features of the ground as Solomon, began to build an immense square re-

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vetement, just to south-west of the Sakhra, then probably clad with soil, and barely showing above the surface. It was carried up some height, perhaps eighty feet, at one corner, where there was a string-course, or some mural line; and then came a second tier of walls, the interior, about 600 feet square, being at first, while the work was in progress, a vast hiatus. In the middle of this the Temple foundations were relaid, and the superstructure brought up to the level of the revetement outside, in the seclusion that was desirable for building not only the sanctuary, but the treasure-house of the nation. There appears to have been a place of sepulture on the north, on which, and within the walled limits, he naturally deposited the materials while the work was in progress. The revetement was made not to join on to the top of Moriah, but so solid as to resemble the rock itself right up to the top of the v/alls; and on the north was built a citadel square and strong.

In this way Herod's Temple foundation stood out a square and protected block of masonry, in the most picturesque spot that could have been chosen on Zion; and the Temple itself stood with its cloisters and courts on this basement, indica- tive of a centre for the Jewish polity that was originall^T" marked, not by the summit of the ridge, but by divine command. The sections which are given of the Haram Area in the '* Recovery of Jerusalem," impart the idea that the basement of Herod's Temple was of a greater height than generally supposed ; for the shingle which now fills up the old bed of the Kedron, and half obliterates the Tyropoeon Valley on the opposite side, has evidently been poured or drawn down from a higher level, or from being, in fact, much of it at one time the filling of the basement of the terrace. Before the invention of gunpowder, a steep

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Cyclopean square of masonry, 150 feet in average eleva- tion, would have presented a nearly insuperable obstacle to attack, from an enemy operating in a mountainous country, possessing few supplies. The north was the feeblest side; but the summit of Moriah, evidently from Ezekiel (xliii. 7, 8) a remarkable passage, contained the burial-place of the kings, and was in close connection with the Temple, perhaps joined by a terrace ; and the whole of the open space to the north was elaborately defended by sets of walls. It would not be difficult, in a model of the city of David and hill of Zion, to reproduce the entire system of the Temple and outworks from the elaborate information accumulated by the Ordnance Survey, and the researches of Mr. James Fergusson and others, with some approach to fidelity. But this work, although admirably attempted, cannot be said to have been yet conclusively accomplished. Upon the supposition that the area of the Temple mea- sured a stadium, or 604'35 feet, and that the cubit of Josephus and the Talmud was 1.824 feet, the cubit of a man of Deut. iii. 11, the ground-plan minutely worked out by Mr. Fergusson leaves little to be desired in the present state of the question. It brings the holy of holies, and the altar^ opposite where the Jews to this day congregate to bewail the misfortunes of their tribes, and the alienation of their holy house. Antonia is placed at the north-east corner, projecting half out, and half inside^ the Temple wall, and continued in its outbuildings, over the ruins discovered by Captain Warren. But the position of the tower is open to the objection that its demolition would not exactly fit the weird tradition that the Temple was not to be taken till it became four square. Tiie Antonia was an old tower already built when the foundations of Herod's Temple were being

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laid ; and it is unlikely that the massive revetements would be cut short, and abut against an old wall, but more reason- able to suppose that the Antonia was itself built against in such a manner, tliat the Temple really stood out square when the tower was demolished. The point is, however, of minor importance. A very symmetrical restoration of the ground-plan of the Temple of Herod is contained in the finely-executed work of the Marquis de Vogue. The induce- ment to place the altar of the Jews on the top of the Sakhra arises from a difficulty experienced in rejecting the Golden Gateway as being connected with the Temple, its principal entrance, and beautiful gate. The authorisation is a some- what vague passage in Josephus, "Wars," i. chap. 21, 1 :

Top vaov eireavevaae kul ttjv irepi avTov aveTet^taaro The temple he heaped, and round this walled

'^oopav T7?9 ovdT]'^ SiirXaaiav.

a space of what was, the double.

There is no way of determining the exact limits of the walled enclosure which Herod doubled.

From such account as we possess of Zerubbabel's Temple, the actual court must have been of irregular outline, be- cause on sloping ground ; and as the area of a figure nearly four-sided is as the square of the side, 420 feet increased to 600 feet would give the requisite double space, and at the same time aftbrd the widest extent that could be reasonably claimed for the Temple of Zerubbabel. The plan, as restored by De Yogue, has undeniable nobility of conception, and thorough command of the key of the position. But if eleva- tions were drawn, and still more in perspective view, the Haram constructions of Herod's time form a feeble group spread over such a wide area as the walled enclosure which

2

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De Vogue assumes. There were also several walls defend- ing the ground immediately adjacent to the northern side of the Temple, and it is therefore not quite certain to what exterior limits Josephus referred. Question on the matter seems to arise, more than anything, from the com- plete absence of any visible mark of the spot on which the altar stood. There is an unrestinc: feelino; of oblio^ation to find in the Haram Area some indication of the kind, and the prominent feature of the Sakhra is seized for want of better. But there is nothinsf in the conditions of the altar to connect its position with any extruding peak. It had its origin in the sacrificial heap raised on a threshing-floor. For the purposes of the Temple an elevated base had to be built 83 cubits, or about 60 feet square; and if Josephus's numbers be taken rising 24 feet above the level of the threshing-floor, with the real altar of unhewn stones some 3 feet more, and almost 22 feet square. There was a drain, according to the Talmud, which carried the blood of the sacrifices away from the top of the base to the Kedron. But there was no indisputable natural feature to denote the site, except such as attaches necessarily to the threshing-floor of Araunah. The altar site is a point in the Temple area to be indirectly fixed, rather than by referring, except collaterally, to the face of the rock. It is by no means certain that in the vicissitudes the Temple and Mount Zion underwent before the time of Herod, sacrifices of a different kind to those of the Levitical law had not been offered upon a high place, and a desecrated altar. The fa9ade of Herod^s Temple pre- sents more difficulty than the ground-plan. Josephus seems grossly to exaggerate the heights; and yet it is undesirable to reject the measurements of an eye-witness of the edifice for those of the rabbis of the Talmud. In preparing eleva-

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tions to test the imperfect description of Joseph us, it is necessary to prepare some sort of probable cross-section, and to do this sections are required to a natural scale of the surface of the Haram Area at the level at which the founda- tions were laid b}^ Herod. One is wanted longitudinally through the Huldah Gate, north and south ; and the other at right angles to this, or from the modern town to the Kedron, nearly across the wailing-place of the Jews. The last-named is of course not at present obtainable, and the exact conformation of the rock is a matter of absolute con- jecture. But if the information were procurable, the revete- ments would have first to be laid down their 600 feet square, as it was already described Herod built them, recollecting that from the rubbish accumulated, the platform containing the Stoa Basilica and the principal courts was in all likeli- hood quite as high as, and for some part of the north en- virons detached from, the Sakhra. It was made soil within the Temple enclosure, and natural ground for the most part outside. While attempting to restore the design of the Temple itself, the heights would have to be reckoned from the low level of the hillside, and not from the platform formed by filling up the interior of the square. This mode of proceeding gives ample scope as far as height is con- cerned. A crypt, with store and treasure rooms, is at once suggested. Then the storeys of chambers can be arranged in tiers so as to make a priest's cell 11 or 12 feet high, or at most 17|^ feet, unless there is some other mode of arrange- ment. For the offices of the Temple, many may well have been in a sunk court running round three sides of the central building, with the several courts rising in a grada- tion that must be determined with reference to the level of the altar, which stood a few feet comparatively above the

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environing terrace upon the south side of which the Corin- thian columns of the Stoa Basilica displayed their arresting splendour. In form the facade of the Temple may have borne a resemblance to Mr. Fergusson's elaborate reproduc- tion in his " Temples of the Jews." The roof had perhaps even a higher pitch, and either partially or wholly gilt would have been ablaze in the morning and evening sun. Reach- ing, as it appears to have done, from ground to roof, the porch must have formed a special feature, disclosing through its hangings some of the magnificence of* the interior. The whole edifice may have had also a specific Jewish character, denoting the Temple to be a national monument.

The turning-point in Jewish history was now reached, and the Temple and its sacrificial rites were superseded by the Christian dispensation. It is memorable that the accu- sation preferred against our Lord was on the subject of the Temple, and making nothing of this, the high-priest directed the final personal inquiry, Sv a 6 XplaTo^j 6 vto^ tov ivXoyrjTov, and obtained the plain answer, and a prediction that is yet unfulfilled. At that time doubtless Moriah was better covered with soil, and all to the north of the Temple wall was in part laid out in gardens, and much of it an open green. The whole Haram Area was probably enclosed with a wall sufficiently high to protect the Temple, but by no means so loftj^ as the square revetement. There was access from the town to the country past the Antonia and across the Haram Area to a gateway that may be supposed to have stood on the foundations of the existing Golden Gate. The scene of the Crucifixion must, then, have been without the gate and tlierefore it is likely at no great distance from its eastern face. The ground is now so much altered that it is impossible to infer from the mere surface appearance what

21

was the situation of Golgotha. If it can be shown that the old wall at Jerusalem bent at right angles, following the street which sharply marks such a course on the modern map, it is just as easy to place Golgotha where it is shown in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but that the tomb prepared by Joseph of Arimathea for himself shoiald have been just opposite and within 190 feet of the place of public execution is difficult to credit. There is perhaps no regret so poignant as that caused by the discovery that extremities have been proceeded to under a mistake. The leaders of the Jews found themselves only opposed by the feeble resist- ance of matter to the infinite when they had expected super- natural strength ; the tie was severed, and their national welfare for ages shattered. Herod's Temple was a silent witness of the rash attempt which left its lesson to be the strength of Christendom, and the most formidable scientific problem that concerns the race of man unsolved. The Temple continued to rally round it the expiring forces of Judaism^ and the holy places to the present time involve more in their mere situation than at first sight appears. Eevolt- ing against the oppression of the Romans, with hopes from the befriending aid that audibly left the Temple of Herod for ever, the Jews were besieged in 70 A.D. by Titus^ and the building was consumed by fire.

The popular impression that the rituals of the Eomans were in honour of creations of a childish imagination, can only be held by those unacquainted with the bearings of the subject. There can be little question that some at least of the sites on Mount Moriah, either the altar of Abraham or that of David, and the sites of the three temples, those of Herod, Zerubbabel, and Solomon, had an interest for the Pontifex Maximus and the Romans. Their power held the

22

Haram Area, as the Turks do at the present moment, against dreaded opposition. The Jewish tradition (Allen's " Modern Judaism") is that the descendants of Esau spread from Seir, and, increasing in numbers after the Assyrians and Baby- lonians had overthrown the republic of the twelve tribes, passed over and subjugated Italy, founded Rome, and, re- crossing under Titus, destroyed the Temple. From the number of Jews in the neighbourhood of the Holy City in the time of Hadrian, lol A.D., it is certain that the Romans were satisfied, so long as they garrisoned the Haram, and prevented them rebuilding their Temple. They no doubt lived and traded in the opposite city, while the Christians were growing into a compact body in unobserved retreats amongst them, under the protection of Roman impartiality. Hadrian had been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries at Athens, and gave orders for the rebuilding of Jerusalem as -^lia Capitolina. The consequence was an insurrection of the Jews, which was put down ; and their race was entirely banished from Jerusalem. " Ubi quondam erat templum et religio Dei, ibi Hadriani statua et Jovis idolum collocatum est." (Valerius, vol. iv. p. 37.)

Such was the state of the Haram Area in 136 A.D. The attention of Hadrian was drawn to the Jews, while he tolerated the Christians. It was an obvious measure of safe policy to supplant the Temple worship by the Roman rites ; and symbolise in the two statues the combined pon- tifical and imperial power. But it is almost certain that the Sakhra, held afterwards in so rooted a veneration, would have at that time commanded some regard. In the absence of a specific account it is to be presumed that the oriental inhabitants, nominally Christian, maintained its historic

23

sanctity by at least some formal enclosure ; and that they had one or more places in the town for their religious cele- brations and worship. But there were many Jews amonoj the Christians ; and a suspicion of Judaism began to attack, if it did not actually invade, the Christian body. The Church of Jerusalem split up, in 150 A.D., into Christians and Nazarenes. The Nazarenes were mere Jews, except that they believed in Christ. We lose sight all this time of the sect of the Essenes, who no doubt, with others of kindred opinions, kept alive many of the traditions connected in- separably with the contents and situation of the Haram Area,

The pressure of Christianity was felt by the emperors in their pontifical seats, and gave rise to persecutions, the records of which are fragmentary and dissatisfying. Under Severus, Maximin, and Valerian, the Christians experienced interdict and massacre. But the invasion of his family by the proscribed doctrine evoked a curious edict of Diocletian, 282 A.D., for the suppression of the Christians and the de- molition of their churches ; a process which Galerius con- tinued in the East. The probability is that it was at this time the temple of Venus was erected over the site of the Holy Sepulchre, and the tomb itself obliterated from the rock. " It appears from the earliest age of Christianity," observes De Vogue, "Les Eglises de la Sainte Terre," *' that there existed a number of edifices consecrated to the Holy Mysteries. It is evident that these modest chapels were concealed with care, and were plain oratories over the holy places. History mentions them not, only talks of the temples of Venus and Adonis, which for two centuries fixed the place of Goliiotha and Bethlehem."

The mention of Diocletian brings us down toConstantine.

24

They were contemporary, and also correspondents. Learn- ing the nearness of the invisible, Constantine was at com- plete variance with Diocletian in his opinion of Christianity. He wrote in the following strain to Diocletian :

' AWa TO [lev TvaOrjiJia tKeivov viro tcov Trpo^Tjriov tJBt]

7rpOK6fC7]pVKTO Se KoX 7] (JCD/JLaTiKTJ y6VV7]aL<; aVTOV.

''And Babylon will be wasted, says the prophet, and Memphis lies in ruins ; not by missiles but by prayer."

The burning question of the Temple, but not that made with hands, naturally reappeared, in a simple and unin- formed age, to agitate the Church. Quite beside the articles of faith, in its kind a profound, but from any other point of view superfluous, question of science, sects arose, from the impossibility of explaining the physical facts attending the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. To be in a position to do this, the mind would have to form an idea and explain the conditions of physical existence. But early Christendom attempted a task for which they had not acquired the scientific data, and, stumbling here and there upon an ill-expressed truth — for the analytical grasp of the human intellect often goes beyond ascertained facts — divided irreconcilably upon the scientific question. According to Neander, there were at first two theological systems in the Church. One was theistic in tendency, which distinguished the Son of God from all created beings, and maintained what is termed the " unity of essence." This became the system of the Western Empire, and practically supported the principle of monarchy in civil government. In the East the " unity of essence" was combated, and a theory of ''emanation" propounded; so as to make a greater distinction between the personality of God and the Son of God. It would in the present state

25

of knowledge be next to impossible to give a clear definition of such deep elementary principles, even if possessed by the originators of the controversy, which they were not. Dif- ficulties were increased by the doctrines of Arianism, a third view of the same question. Arius was educated by Lucian at Antioch. He appears to have rejected the theory of " eternal generation," and would not accept a difference between a generation from God and the notion of a creation. In 321 A.D., Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, excommuni- cated Arius ; but Eusebius was an old friend, and inclined to agree with him in doctrine. Constantino succeeding to power in 324 A.D., found the Arian schism^ regretted it, and determined to unite all his subjects in one worship. His words were, " irepi fxev ovv rrj^ Oeia^ 7rpovoia<; fiia tl^; eu vfjLLv 6<jTco 7r/crT(9." But his attempts to reconcile Alexander and Arius failed, and a serious semi-political movement broke out in Egypt between the Arian and Melitian party. Constantino was puzzled how to act. He sided with Alexander on the subject of the " unit}^ of essence ;" but the orientals objected that the doctrine gave occasion for sensu- ous representations. He summoned the Council of Nice, 325 A.D., who as well as they could embodied the orthodox belief in the Nicene Creed. Constantino deeming the Arian tenets subversive of Chris tianit}", used all the expedients of Byzantine despotism in suppression; he banished first Arius, and then Eusebius.

It would be strange if no impress of these distracting controversies by three powerful sections was left on the holy places at Jerusalem ; surprising if there alone they could unite on points which elsewhere defied the streno-th of the Eastern Empire. The traces were left ; and it is not easy to account for two distinct sites for the Holy Sepulchre,

26

one in the heart of the town, and tlie other on the Haram Area, without going back to the origin of these rifts in Christendom. It was as part of Constantine's scheme of uni- fication of public worship, that he resolved to erect basilicas and memorials over the sacred sites. The Empress Helena went over to Palestine, and Constantine entered upon the operations at Jerusalem 326 A.D. Neander observes that, " Nothing certain is known with regard to the relations between Helena and her son as to this matter." But any- one who will examine such records as exist, will find that there was a complete divergence in their sentiments; and that the influences under which empress and son acted were wholly different.

Constantine's brother-in-law, Licinius, was a pagan, who however assumed the direction of Christian ritual in his part of the empire. He was the first who divided males and females in Christian congregations. Constantine, on the other hand, destroyed the pagan shrines. Among the ladies of Constantine's family there was a strong disposition to favour Arius. By their intercession Eusebius was restored to place in 327 A.D., and Arius was received two years later. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria at the time, was peremp- torily commanded on pain of exile to ratify the measure. There is other confirmatory evidence of a genuine difference between the objects of Helena and Constantine. Doubts have been expressed regarding the correspondence, and there is no detailed account of what the empress did from first to last when at Jerusalem. Eusebius has a mere para- graph (" Vita," lib. iii., cap. xlii.), " For when she had de- cided to perform the office of pious affection due to Almighty God, both on behalf of her exalted son emperor to wit, and on behoof of her sons the Csesars, dear to God, when she

27

had charged her grandchildren that they should pray with supplications, although already of advanced age, yet with juvenile mind, she, a woman of rare shrewdness, hastened to travel through the land worthy of veneration; and she visited the provinces of the East, and the cities, and people, with an almost regal solicitude and preparation. But after she revered, with appropriate worship, the steps of our Saviour, according as the prophetic declaration had of old predicted, ' Adoremus in loco ubi steterunt pedes ejus,' forthwith also left the fruit of her piety to her descend- ants ' (xliii.) ; " For she immediately dedicated two temples, one at the cave in which the Lord was born, the other in that mount from which He had ascended to heaven." There is no mention of Helena having built any Church of the Resurrection, but at the same time it is a matter of un- certainty on what mount she founded the Church of the Ascension ; because a little farther on in the same chapter (xliii.), Eusebius says : '' Besides that of the Ascension of the Saviour of all to heaven, the mother of the emperor raised a memorial, with lohy constructions, upon the Mount of Olives, erecting the holy house of the church and a temple over the summit of the whole mountain." The ascension is known not to have taken place from the top of the Mount of Olives, so that Helena cannot have been accurately guided, if that event was commemorated by the church and temple.

The Church of the Kesurrection, however, was taken in hand by Constantine himself, whose writings show that he was as accurately informed on every point of Gospel history as at this day we can be ourselves. He had evidently experienced a difficulty in ascertaining the proper site, but without having the communication in which the

28

invention of the cross, or perhaps more correctly the iden- tification or indication of the scene of the passion of our Lord, was described, it would be impossible to sa}^ if the emperor relied upon the miracle when ordering the con- struction of the Martyrium. The rescript to Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem at the time, is worth quoting :

" The Victor Constantine the Great and Worshipful to Macarius.

"So great is the grace of our Saviour, that no abund- ance of speech seems adequate to the narration of the present miracle. For the indication of that sacred passion, till now hid for such a long space of years under ground, through the base enemy of all, till its removal^ to have appeared bright to the servants freed of it, really exceeds all admiration. For if all who have ever been considered wise on earth had been collected into one and this place, should wisli to say anything worthy of this deed, they would not seem to me able to rival the least part of it. For the repute of the miracle as much surpasses as human divine things. "Wherefore this is alone and especially my sole aim, that, just as the faith of the truth is daily exhibited with new wonders, so also our minds may be incited to observance of the most sacred law with all modesty and concordant alacrity. And because I think it manifest to all, and I wish that to be particularly credited, how it con- cerns me most of all, that the yery holy spot, which by the providence of God I have relieved from the basest ac- companiments of an idol, as if from a superincumbent weight, which had been holy from the beginning by the judgment of God, and has been manifested more holy from when the evidence of our Saviour's passion has been brought

29

to light, we should adorn with the beauty of buildings. It becomes therefore your acumen that you should so arrange and care for the things necessary for the work, that not only should the Basilica be better than any everywhere, but that the rest be such that all the fairest things of the kind in other towns may be distanced. And concern- inor the raisinor of the walls and adornment, to Dracilianus our friend, ruling the sections of the most important pro- vinces, and to the Archon of the province, the care has been entrusted by us. For it has been ordered by our piety that workmen, and artificers, and all needed to obtain for the building, advised b}" your discretion, should through their foresight immediately be sent. However, regarding the marble columns you may think to be most valuable and useful, their synopsis drawn, hasten to write to us. That as many and of what sort through your letter we may know necessary, these can be passed over from all quarters. And the vault of the Basilica, whether fretted, or it strikes you should be by any other work, 1 wish to be told from you. For if you would prefer a fretted roof, it can be embellished with gold. The rest thy holiness will make known quickly to those foresaid judges, and how much labour, artisans, and treasury money ; and that you may refer to me direct not only concerning the marbles and columns, but those things concerning the frets, if you think this work should be more splendid. May God pre- serve you, loved brother."

As Eusebius is so silent with regard to the circumstances of Helena's pilgrimage, it is useful to turn to any light, how- ever dim, that other authors can throw.

Sozomen lived about 400 A.D., or seventy odd years after

o

0

the erection of the Basilica. He says Helena tried to find the Holy Sepulchre. It was no easy matter. The Greeks, who at the first promulgation of Christianity tried to exter- minate it, heaped up mounds of earth on the holy places, and had enclosed the place of the resurrection and Mount Calvary within a wall, and had ornamented the whole locality and paved it with stone. A temple and statue (^codtov, little animal) to Yenus had also been erected on the same spot by these people, that the true cause of worship might be forgotten, and that the temple and statue would come to be regarded as exclusively appertaining to the Greeks. At length the secret was discovered, some say by a Jew. When the place was excavated the cave was discovered, and at no great distance crosses. Constantino erected a temple. Helena also erected two. Such is the substance of the nar- rative of Sozomen. A decided line is drawn between the structures erected by Helena and the emperor, agreeing with Eusebius, but supplying a few particulars in which his account is deficient. Abulfeda (" Hist. Ante Islam") who lived 1200 a.d., is another authority, a Mohammedan view- ing history from his own standpoint. He writes : " Urbs Hierosolymorum a Tito vastata instaurari coepit. Aliquis Imperatorum Romanorum ei operam dedit. Eam ^iiam appellari jussit quod significat domum Domini; eam res - tauravit et sedificia collapsa rearsit Haec tertia urbis in- staurata3 etas ad illud pertinet, quo Helena crucem qusesitura eo venit. Tunc enim sepulchro in quo christum jacuisse existimant ecclesiam quoe Kumamah vocatur super- struxit, templum solo cosequavit, ct in loco quo steterat, urbis purgamenta et sordes conjici jussit. Ita locus es Sakhne (Sacri Saxi in quo Jacobus dominus caput de- posuisse dicitur) in sterquilinium conversus est. Sed," etc.

31

This is exactly what would be done under Constantine's orders, whose intention was to unify public worship, and obliterate any remnants from the Jewish ritual ; although, had the emperor ever gone to Jerusalem, his taste -svould hardly have permitted the Temple site to be more than levelled. But the sentence last quoted reads against the theory that the Sepulchre Church of the Kumamah was near the Sakhra. Looking more closely at the quotation, it will be seen that church and temple are named in one breath, and may be fairly inferred adjacent. On the other hand, the expression " locus es Sakhra " does not neces- sarily mean the same as " es Sakhra " by itself, and it is quite within credibility that the premises of the Sakhra might be abandoned to defilement, whilst the Sakhra was built around, and preserved intact. The Temple that was demolished was no doubt that in which the image of Jupiter was put by Hadrian. The suspicion, however, gathers inten- sity that there was some kind of Christian establishment at that time upon the spot in the heart of the town, where there now stands the Church of the 'Holy Sepulchre. It may have been on no scale, but sufficient to affix import- ance to the locality. The section of Christians likely to occupy that situation would be the Nazarenes, who were objects of aversion to the Romans. Whether the cross was discovered here by Helena, and Constantine, learning the topography, disregarded, the site as he appears to have done for his Basilica, and placed it on the Haram instead, are alike uncertainties. But at the time of Helena's visit the Arians were probably in occupation, having succeeded the Nazarenes, and the empress was under their control, and imbued with Arian sympathies. Arius himself may have been more unguarded than erring, but Blunt ("Die. of Sects")

32

observes : " If Arianism be true, Jesus Christ was not God. It necessarily leads to an open denial of the divinity of our Lord." There are no grounds for considering either Con- stantino's or the empress's letter spurious, and the contents amply account for his own interference with and taking in his own peremptory care the building of the Church of the Anastasis. They are as follows :

" To Victorious Triumphant Eternal August Son Con- stantino, Helen Eternal August.

'' Wise reason does not reject truth, nor truly right faith ever sustain any damage. Therefore about to be deemed accepted by divine goodness, because you have been held ap- proved who have receded from the vanity of idols ; but about to lend yourself to error ; because you have believed Jesus Christ to be true God, and this Son of God to be in the heavens, who a Jew, and on account of the theology of the Magians was condemned, and by sentence pronounced, of suffering the Cross, died. But to your piety so far was success accorded, because you first among emperors dis- placed the idols. For the true and eternal God wishing to show those whom you have denied^ to be no true gods, has granted you health, by which having laid aside all fear of idols you can know, because neither asked can they confer safety or irritated take away any. Weakness has left thy vanish^ ing reverence the error of this superstition ; now virtue will attend thee returning to the omnipotent God, who never could be overcome. Which beginning to worship, you will obtain the Kingdom of David and of wise Solomon. For there are about to be with thee prophets to whom God spake, and whatever you will ask through them you will obtain.^'

Constantino's reply was :

33

" To Lady Eternal August Helen Mother, Son Constan- tine Eternal August.

" God who of all ages is ruler, who governs, directs and vivifies us all, throufrh whose favour it is He bestows life and breath, and to all princes has deigned to entrust that they may give their rights to men. As therefore we have eminence among men, so far human hope centres on us. Therefore the eyes of all, the wills of all, what to us be- seems, they incline to do ; what we do not smile at, they siiun. Wherefore, Lady Eternal August, not only ii'repre- hensible but also commendable appears our pleasure ; and really think nothing honest we do not wish. But what I have said is placed in our dispositions, but to know God is beyond our insight of mind. Wherefore cease the opposing of our rashness. But rather let the bishops of the Jews assemble into one, we ourselves hearing, and concerning these things dispute among themselves, that by their objec- tions and arguments we may prevail to know the evidence and certainty of the true faith. For thus from Holy Scrip- tures we can, they and us, concerning the truth become assured, and encourage the whole world to right and firm faith. Adieu, Lady Mother Eternal August, florid with happy events."

The instructions given in Constantine's own words relate to a basilica at Jerusalem. Originally basilicas were halls of audience and justice, and the form, as accommodating a large number of people, was early adopted for Christian churches. A very good idea of what a basilica of those days was, can be formed from the longitudinal section of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, which has been preserved, and is a work of Constantine's. If tlie Emperor's

3

34

orders were carried out, the Basilica of the Resurrection must have been a still more iiiaposing structure. Sozomen says: *Vept iravja rov rrjf; avaaTaaea)<; ^(^wpov, Kai tov ■)(^pavLov ^L6KoajuL7]aa. There was also a curious tradition, Chrysostom mentions, that Adam died in the place of a skull, and lies there. He cites Zech. xii. 10. But the authority for what Constantino actually built is Eusebius, who was a contem- porary of the Emperor. His writings are important, be- cause they are almost the onl}^ testimony we have, except such as can be drawn from the architectural character of any surviving remains. Much difficulty has been raised in the interpretation, as is to be expected when an author without technical knowledge undertakes to describe a group of buildings, without plans, in a distant country. The account given by Eusebus is however so critically important that an interlinear translation of Vita c, 33 — 40, is for the first time brought forward :

Kau Se Kar avro to atOTrjpiov fzapTvptov tj

And indeed round that the Saviour's place of witness the vr}a. Kare^KEva^eTO lepovaaX-Tj/ju avr lit po a cotton tt? irdkau new Jerusalem was built oppositely faced to the old ^owrjixevi^j i] fiera rrjv KvpioicTOvov fjiaiai^oviav

famed one which after the Lord's execution, slaughter pol- €p7]fjiia^ eTT eo-^aro. TTepLTpairetaaj hiKr]V erio-e luted desolation to last degree experienced the penalty paid ^vpael3a)v oCKrjtopcov } Tavrrj Se ovv avTL')(pv<^

of the impious inhabitants ; to this then therefore opposite, fiaaiXev^ rrjv Kara tov OavaTov acoTijpLov viKrjv TrXovaiai^ the king, over death the Saviour's victory with

Kai haylriXeaLv avv^ov ^CkoTLp.iai^ '^^X^ '^^^ TavT7}v rich and copious honours raised ; rapidly where that

35

( vaav T}]v Sea 7rpo(l)riTLKcov Oecnrccr/jLaTcou KeKijpvyfievrjv

was which by the divine Prophets had been proclaimed, KaLvr}v Kat veav lepovaaXrjjjb t;? irept jxaKpoi Xoyoi

fresh and new Jerusalem, which concerning long accounts, fivpia 8L6c6eov Trvevixajo^ Oeairi^ovre^;

a thousand things by the divine spirit prophesying, avvjjbvovai. KaL Br} rov iravro^ w^irep TLva KeSaXrjv celebrated. And indeed of all as if in a sort the head, TTpcoTOV airavTcou to lepov avrpov eKoa/iec, fjuvrjixa

first of all the Sacred Cave he adorns, the sepulchre 6K6LV0 OeGTrecTLov Trap co (pco<i e^aaTpaiTTcov Trore

SO divine beside which light glancing, formerly

ayyeXof; ttjv Sea top acoTTjpc^ evBuKvvixevrjv TraXi'yyevecnav the angel that by the Saviour declared new generation

T0i9 TVaCTiV eV7]ry<yeXL^€T0.

to all announced. TovTO pbev ovv TrpooTov coaavec rov Ttavro^; fce(l>a\7)Vf This then therefore first, as if of all the head, e^acperoL'i Kcoac, Koa/xco t6 irXetaTCi)

with selected columns, and with the greatest taste KaTeiTOLKiXKev tj PaaiXeco^ (j)L\oTtfjLLa Travrotoi^

was varied by the royal munificence with manifold orna- KaWcoTncr/uiaaL fcaTacj^aiSpwouaai Aif.^aive 8 ef?;?

mentS) making it resplendent. And one crossed next, €7rt, TrafJLfjie'yedrj %wpoz^ ei9 fcaOapov aiOpiov avaireiTTafxevov over a very great area,anto a clean court open to the skies, ov he Xc6o<; Xajxirpo^ KareaTpccfJievo^ eir eBacpov^i and which a brilliant stone distributed about thepaving- eKoapLei. ixaKpoL^ TrepiBpopLot^ cttocov €K rpi-

stones decked, with long rounds o£ corridors from three TrXevpov it ep 16^(0 [xevov. sides surrounded.

o — Z

36

To) fyap KaravTiKpv irXevpco rov avrpou o 3e 7Tpo<i

For on the opposite side of the cave, and that to avia')(0V7a rfkiov ecopa o paaCkev^ o-vvrjirro veo)<; the rising sun which looks, the king connected the Temple, epyov e^aiaiov et? u^cro? aireipov ijpfievov /xrjKov^; t6 a work to an untried heiofht elevated, heis^hts and KM TrXarou? ein irXeiaTov evpvvofievov ov Ta [lev eiorco t7}<^ also widths to the farthest, extended : whose interior oiKo'^ojjbia<; v\7]<; /jLap/xapov iroiKikr}'^ 3i€Ka\v7TTOV

structural material, with variegated marble they concealed,

ir\aKco(T6L<^ 7] Se €kto<; tmv toij^^wv ocj^t^ ^earo)

plating it over, and the outer surface of the walls with Xl6oo rai^ Trpo? efcaajov apfioyat^ (Tuvrj/jbiiieva) XajbLTrpvvo/nevT] dressed stone, each to each, in bond adapted, resplendent, V7r6p(j)ije^ TL ')(pr)fjia KaWov^ rr]^ etc fjiap/jiapov irpoaoyjreco'; admirable as a work, the fair aspect of a marble surface

ovBev aiTodeov, Trapay^ev. wanting not, stood forth.

Avo) Se 7r/309 auroL<; opofj)Ot<; ra jxev ekto<; SoofJiaTa And above over those roofs, the domes that were outside IxoXvjSov TTepce^paTTev vXr) o/JL/3poov aa(j)a\€<^ epv/xa also, with lead he protected ; a material, a safe preservative, ')(eifjiepiwv Ta Se t?;? etaw orreyrj^i y\v(f)ai<;

from wintry rains. And the interiors of the roof, with

(parvcofiarcov aTrrjpTLCTjJieva, /cat, cocnrep n /aeya carvings of the framings, was filled, and as some great TreXayo'; Ka6^ oXov tcu jSaatXetou olkov avve)(^C(7L Tai^ sea down the whole of the royal house, with panels 7rp09 aXX7]Xa<; avfJL'JTXoKai<; avevpevvofieva %pfO"(W

connected to each other again and again traced, and with

76 hiavyei Bl oXcv KeKaXviJifxevaj (j)COTo<; oia

burnished gold entirely covered, of light as with the

37

/jLap/jLapoyaL<; rov Travra vecou e^acnpainetv eiroiei. scintillations, the whole Temple he made to sparkle.

AfM(pt> 8' efcarepa ra irXevpa Slttcov arooov avayetouv And round each of the sides of the two corridors above, re Kai KaTa'yeiwv hthvpiOL 7rapo.aTa^€<^j too /nrj/cec rov and also below ground, double porticos, to the height of

vecD avv6^6T€LvovTo ')(pya(o Kai aurac tov<; opo(j)ov<i

the Temple alike extended ; and with gold their roofs were ireTTOLKiKfjbevai, cov ai fxev eiri irpoacoiTov rov olkov

dotted, of them some on the front of the buildinor

KLoai TrafifieyeOeatv eirrjpeihovTOj at Betaco twv

by grand columns were supported, and those within in efjLTTpoaOev viro 'iTe(T(Toi<; aveyecpovro ttoXuv top

front of these under soft gravel were built up much of the

e^codev TTepiOelSXTjfievoL^ Koaixov. TIvKai. he

exterior ornament on those (columns) so girt. And gates T/oet? 7r/?09 auTOv avicr^ovTa ifKiov ev hiaKeifjuevai ra irXtjOrj three to the rising sun well disposed, the crowds Toov ecaco (pepo/jievcov VTreSe^^^ovTo. of those borne within, regulated.

TovTcou havTLKpv TO K€(paXaiov rov iravTo^ rjiiKK^aipiov 7]v And opposite these the head of all was the hemisphere, eiraKpov tov jSaatXecov eicTeTafievov o he

from the extremity of the Basilica led off; and this hvo Kai Befca Kcope<; eaTe(j)avovv toi<^ tov acoTT]po<^

twelve columns " adorned, to the apostles of the airoaToXoL^; iaapLOjioL KpaTTjpac fxeyiaTOt'^ ef apyupov

Saviour, equal in number, with great capitals made 7re7roLTj/jL€voL<; Ta<; Kopv(j)a<; Kocrfiov/jievot ou? Be ^aaiXevf; of silver, their heads ornamented, and which the kinor avTo^ avady/jLa KaXXiGTov eiroLeLTO tco avTov Oeco. himself made a beautiful offerino: to his God.

o

8

EvOev he TrpoLovjcov ein ra^; irpo rov veco

And of those proceeding within at the approaches lying KeijJLeva^; etaoBov^ aiOpiov hiekajxPavev rjaav he evravOoi Trap before the Temple, a court intervened and were there near

eKarepa nai avXrj Trpcorr] cnoau t eiri Tavrrj

each other also the first hall and corridors against this, Kai, eiTi iracriv ac avXetoL irvXac fied' a? evr' avTr]<;

and for all the entrance gates. After which, in the /uLe(T7j<; 7r\aTeLa<^ ayopa<; ra tov iravro^i

midst of the street of the market itself, the places before

TTpo irvKaia (^ikoKoKw^ rjG-Krjjjbevaj tol<; ttjv eKTo<; the gates of the whole suitably planned, to those entering TTopeiav 17010V (lev oi<^ KarairkriKi iK,'r)v 'TTapei')(ov rr/i' twv evhov from without, striking exhibited, the prospect of opcofievoov Oeav those things visible within.

Such is the description of the buildings actually erected in the Haram area by Constantino that Eusebius gives. The interlinear translation requires and allows the meanings, rather ruggedly disposed, to be corrected as far as accuracy demands, and the Greek is more satisfactory than the more rounded periods and necessarily foregone conclusion of the Latin version. Briefly, Constantino raised a New Jerusalem opposite the old guilty site, and began by decorating the Sacred Cave with columns and ornaments. Before the Cave was a very large open space, and beyond a paved court open to the skies surrounded on three sides by long colonnades. This open space was evidently to west of the Cave, and not, as hitherto supposed, at the Golden Gate ; because on the opposite and eastern side the Emperor connected the Cave with the Basilica, whose dimensions were very large, the outside of ashlar, and the inte-

39

rior covered with variegated marble. The roof of a basilica would properly be of wood. There is no mention of timber in the description ; so that the roof may have resembled the vaulting of the Golden Gate, and any domes were covered with lead. The expanse of the roof was in panels, like a vast sea, and highly gilt. This certainly suggests a modern roof with a flat pitch. There were side corridors in two stories, with porticoes the same height as the Basilica, their roof covered with ornament. Some of the ornamental roofs were supported by grand columns, the others by underground columns, while there were on the east three gates to regulate the crowd. Opposite these gates, leading off from the top end of the Basilica, was the hemisphere of twelve columns with silver capitals, the offering of Constan- tine himself. Between the entrance-gates and the Basilica a court intervened. There was first a hall^ then against this corridors, and lastly came the gates. After which the pavements before the gates were skilfully set out in the middle of the thoroughfare of the market, and from the " propuleia " there was a striking view of the magnificence within. It is difficult to make more of these chapters of Eusebius than the sketch. The fortieth chapter of Eusebius distinctly states that the Emperor constructed this temple, the " white stone Marturion," as testimony of the Saviour's resurrection. Whatever may have been the intention, the Sacred Cave, although it may have been covered with a hemispherical dome, was only adorned with columns. Eusebius would scarcely have quoted the instructions to Macarius, or have followed this with such an imperfect description if he had ever seen the completed buildings. They agree in so far as this, that the orders are for a " Basilica et reliqua membra," and it was only the Basilica

40

and its members that were erected. Eusebius when writing had no doubt access to information, and was guided in a literary way by this, so as to avoid decided inaccuracy ; but the absence of local knowledge has caused the twentj^- ninth chapter to differ from the letter to Macarius which immediately succeeds. For Eusebius says, that the Empe- ror forthwith directs a solid structure to be built of sacred model, with ample and regal magnificence, round the Cave of Salvation ; olkov ev/crypiov deoTrpeirr) aiKpi to awTrjpLop avTpov eyKeXeverat irXovaia kul ^aaCkiKr) 8ei./iaa6ac TroXvTe- \€ia ; but when the only letter which exists is examined, it is not clear whether this sentence refers to some such edifice as the Dome of the Rock, or to the Basilica and its appurtenances, which was really put up.

The probability is that the Emperor originall}? proposed to erect a basilica, with a chapel all in one over the Cave ; but that the Empress and those about her prevented the scheme being carried out in its original conception. The Basilica was placed near, but clear of the Cave, and a hemispherical colonnade, a pavement, and columnar decora- tions were erected actually round the sacred rock. In a sense, the whole group was around the Cave. But as there is the evidence of a strong party in Jerusalem at the time, it is unlikely that their opinions would not find some ex- pression in the case of buildings whose sites comprised the points round which controversy revolved. After cen- turies are, at all events, indebted to this for the absence of particulars regarding the conclusion of the Emperor's cor- respondence with Helena. But there can be little question that the rock which contained the Cave was adorned by Constantino ; and whether the building about it took the form of a circular colonnade of a kind seldom met with, or

41

of a hemispherical dome over a set of twelve columns, depends very much upon the significance attached to the word hemisphere. It makes, indeed, very little difference ; because if the Basilica of Constantino were in the Haram area, the nucleus of a building must have been placed by him, where the Dome of tlie Kock now stands.

As an example of the style in which the Basilica was built, we have the church at Bethlehem, an undoubted work of Constantino's time, to which to refer. The longi- tudinal section given by De Vogue contains a cave under the transept, suggestive, but at the same time inapplicable to the Basilica. The plan is a compromise between Byzan- tine and Latin features^ and the low double rows of columns which support the clerestory upon a horizontal architrave specially draw attention, as the same trabeate construction is followed in the Dome of the Bock. So with the semi- circular window heads.

The Basilica at Jerusalem bore a considerable resem- blance, it may be supposed, to the church at Bethlehem. According to the scanty description of Eusebius it must have been more beautiful, coated with coloured marble inside, and its freshly dressed stone almost marble-white on the exterior. But the site was the sloping side of a hill, and the building lying right athwart the slope required to be adapted to its position. We have corridors on each side with a means of ascent to the main floor no doubt, and at their extremities double-storied porticoes, whose roofs were carried on grand columns; and inside were built under what seems to be concrete.

The Golden Gate must be the principal entrance of the new city, though outworks and a row of arches built into the Haram Wall are still unexplored and unexplained. If

42

tlie Ordnance Survey Photographs (Captain Wilson's) are carefully examined it will be found that of the east eleva- tion of the Golden Gate, all above the main cornice is stonework of the same age as the Damascus Gate, 1587 (?) A.D. The cornice is of fourth century work, wanting the upper projecting member, and may have been reset. The abutment of the curved cornice to north seems old work. The south abutment has been repaired and underpinned. There is again old work near the ground ; and two courses of the large rusticated stones of the Haram Wall appear to be carried along into the exposed basement of the Golden Gate. The Haram Wall above ground does not bond with the gate, but looks as if it were notched on. The inner or west face will be seen to be a complete architectural com- position; and unless a later copy, may be set down as fourth century work, remaining as it was built. The south side elevation has finished pilasters, and mere stone blocks for capitals ; but most of it appears to be equally ancient masonry. The roof, and perhaps the interior columns and the ceiling they support, are, as De Yogue considers, of Byzantine date, re-edifications of a dismantled portion.

There is something in the appearance of the east face to suggest that formerly there was an upper story ; and in the sunk condition of the structure that it was designed to conduct from a lower to a higher level.

The Church of St. Georoje at Saloniki belonf^s to Con- stantine's age. Its construction is similar to the Pantheon at Rome, and the material is brick without mouldings. Nothing can be learnt from the appearance of the building, but a curious, though remote, correspondence subsists be- tween the Mosaics on the interior of the Dome, beautifully drawn by Pullan and Texier, and the group of Constan-

43

tine's edifices in the Haram Area as fancy combines with Eusebius to depict them. M. Texier observes: "Quoique la composition de I'architecture de ces tableaux soit variee, le sujet est toujours le meme; il represente un petit temple au millieu d'une splendide colonnade." Since Con- stantine founded Saloniki in 326 A.D., and resided there for two years, erecting churches and other works, this set of mosaics may very readily have been pictorial outlines of the project he was contemplating and had actually begun for Jerusalem ; that is, if they are as old as the Dome. The order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre is said to have been instituted by the Empress Helena in 302 A.D., but how far their prowess aided and maintained the work is unstated.

However, by 336 A.D., the Basilica at Jerusalem was completed ; and the Emperor, desirous of consecrating the building in peace, summoned the Council of Tyre to decide the Arian controversy. Arius was received into the com- munion of the Church, and Athanasius was banished. Constantine died in 337 A.D., and twenty years after the Arian philosophy was triumphant in the West. In the East, Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was deposed and banished. The testimony of Cyril, who was born 315 A.D., and actu- ally preached in the Basilica which Constantine had erected, is very valuable. He writes. Cat. x.,

AXaXayfia fjuovov ' ein tov tvttlkov

Kareirecre ra Tei^e t?;? IepL')(Oy Kai, Sea to

there has fallen the walls of Jericho, and through the

eLireiv tov Irjaovv '^ ov /jlt] acpedyj coSe \l9o^ cttl utterance of Jesus " there shall not be left here stone on XlOov" TreTTTcoKev o avTifcpv^; tj/jLwv tcov lov^aicov

stone," there has fallen the opposite us Jewish

44

vao<; ov)^ OT 7] a7ro(j)aa(,<; tov ireaeiu ania aW temple, not that the utterance was the cause of falling, but OTL 7] a/xapTLa rcov Trapavouwv fyeyove tov irecretv because the evil of transgressors was the cause of acTia. falling.

Here Cyril talks of the Temple of the Jews as opposite where be was speaking. He proceeds, Cat. si. :

O yo\yo6a<; o ayto^ oiro? o virepaveajriKW^ Golgotha the sacred which had stood high above, [xapTvpei (j)aLvofjL€vo<;, to fjLvrjfjLa tt;? aytOTrjTO<; flap- witnesses as it appears ; the sepulchre of holiness wit- Tvpei Kai 0 XlOc^ o /^€)(pL arjixepov Keifxevo^. Cat. xiii. nesses ; and the stone up to this day lying. Kat yap apvrjaojjiaL vvv ekey^ev fie ovto^ o

And were I sceptical, now would reprove me that very yo\yo6o<; ov irKrjaiov vvv iravTe^ Trapea/xev. EXeyx^c Golgotha not near now we all are at present. Eeprove fie TOV aTavpov to ^v\ov to fcaTa jxiKpov evTevdev me also the wood of the Cross, that in a short time hence nraarj tt] oLKOVfievrj Xolttov SiaSodev. EcTTavpayOrj

to all the world, the relic was distributed. The Lord 0 KvpLc<; 6L\rj(f)a^ Ta? fxapTVpia^ opa<^ tov yoXyoOa tov tottov. was crucified.

Then Cyril goes on to observe :

ZrjTovfiev Be yvcovat cac^co? ttov TedanTai!

We seek then to know clearly where he had been buried.

Tlie prophets reply (Isa. li. 1 ; Ecc. ii. 11 ; 1 Pet. ii. 6 ; Iisa. xxviii. IG) :

45

Micrriaov tov<; \6yovTa<; on Kaia (j)avTacnav ea-TavpcdOrj. Abhor those saying that in Q^gj he was crucified. ei 'yap Kara (j^avraatap earavpaide eic aravpov Se for if in effio^y he was crucified and from the cross 7] acorrjpLa Kai tj acoTrjpta (paVTaata. Cat. xiii. O 70X70^09 salvation, then salvation a phantom. Golgotha

0UT09 0 ayto^ 0 virepavecncof; Kai fJ^^XP^ aij/JLepou

so holy that had been elevated and to this day ^uLvofjievo'^ Kai Bei/cvvcov fi^XP^ ^^^ ottw? hia Xpiajov au appearing, and showing till now how through Christ the ireTpai eppavrjaav to fjuvrj/jia to 7t\i](JLCv ottov eTe6i] rocks were poured on the near sepulchre where he was laid;

KaL 0 eiTiTeOei'^ tt] Ovpa \ido<i o fie^P^' aijfiepov

that was placed on the opening the very stone to this day irapa too /uivr]/ji€L(o K€LfjL6V0<;. Cat. xiv. BeXet? Se yvcopuL beside the tomb lying. And you wish to know

TOP TOTTov (refers to Cant. vi. 10) Kai iroOev eyrjyepTac the place and whence the Saviour had

o acoTTjp. Aeyei ev TOi<^ Aa/jLaac tcov AafiaTcov ii, 10, Kat been raised. It says in tlie Song of Songs and

6v T019 6^7;? (Ibid. 14). 'S'ceirrjv Trj<^ 7T6Tpa<; eiire Tr}V in the following the cave of the rock ; it says there

Tore Trpo tt;? Ovpa^; tov acoTijpiov fJLvrjfxaTo^ cvaav then, before the entrance of the Saviour's tomb, was

(TK67rr]v Kai e^avTr]<; tt]^ TreTpa^ KaT6(jo<^ avvrjOe^ evravOd a cave; and always at the rock, as usually, there fyLveadai irpo tcov fivij/juaTcop XeXa^eufievcov vvv

exists before the sepulchres hewn in stone, for now ^yap ou (j)aiv6Tai. eireibrj tote e^eKoXac^Orj to

it does not appear after once was chiselled away the TTpoa/ceTraa/jia Sta ttjv irapovaav euKocrfnav irpo yap tt}^ envelope through the present decoration, for prior to the

46

^aoCKiKri^ (j)i\oTi/Jiia<; rou ixvrjfiaro^ aKenrj rjv efiTrpoaOev royal enterprise the cave of the sepulchre was in front of T7]^ irerpa^. AXka ttov eanu rj Trerpa rj e^ovaa ttjv the rock. But where is the rock that contained the crfceiTrjv apa irepi ra fiecra tt;; TroXeco? KeiTai r) irepi cave ? Perhaps about the midst of the town it lies; ortowards

Ta T£L)(^r] fcac ra reXevreia Kat, irorepov ev rot? apyaiOL^ the walls and the suburbs ; and whether in the old Tei')(^eaii> eaTiv 77 rct^ varepov nTpOTa')(^LafxaaL \iyei>

walls it is; or in the nether outworks; it says TOLvvv ev TOi? AafxaaiVy ^^ ev afceiTT] t?;? Trerpa? ey^o- accordingly in the Song of Songs. fjLcva Tov 'TrpoTei')(L(Tp.aTo^^' (Cant. ii. 14).

" Judas eos ad ilium deduxit. Turn vero Deus speciem Christi in Judam ipsum transtulit quare hunc abreptum verberarunt . . . turn eum quem pro Christo habebant, in crucem egerunt, etc., ut tradant Mattheus, etc." (Abulfoeda). This is probably the belief of the unreflecting section of Mohammedans.

It may be remarked (when reading Cyril, that he is acquainted with all the sites except the Holy Sepulchre ; and the passage above quoted shows that its identification was as uncertain in 349 A.D. as at the present day. Cat. xv. ^' Kp^ejai he,'' says Cyril, " 0 AvTLXptaro^ Tore orav ev ro) vao) Twv lovhaLcov \i6o<; eirc XtOov fxrj fxeivr]" The Arabic ac- count of the buildings at Jerusalem is very scanty, but it confirms the hesitation of Cyril. Jalal Ud Din speaks of the '' Bab al Mukadas," consecrated house. " In tlie last times shall be a general flight to it, and the Shekinah shall be lifted upon high in this temple." That it is the most beloved place. When the Greeks obtained possession of it

47

they built upoa it a building as broad at the base as it was high in the sky, and gilded it with gold and silvered it with silver. It fell. They built a second ; it fell. They built a third ; it fell. An old man came and said : ** All holiness has departed and been transferred to this other place ; I will therefore point out this as the place wherein to build the Church of the Kesurrection." He cheated them. He commanded them to cut up the rock, and build on the place he ordered them. Thus they demolished the mosque, and carried away the columns and stones, and built therewith the Church of the Resurrection. Jalal also makes Omad say : " To return to the Sakhra, the Franks had built a church upon it . . . adorned it with images and candlesticks, and erected separately from the other build- ings, a little chapel raised upon marble pillars. The Sakhra was hidden, being covered by the buildings on it. The Sultan commanded this coat of marble to be stripped off, and building taken to pieces. Thus the Sakhra was re- stored. Moreover, the Franks had cut off a piece from the Sakhra, and had carried it to Constantinople. A piece to the Russians."

Orientals write history in a different mode from the nar- rative style of the West, but there is every indication here of the Sakhra having at one time been built upon by the Franks. That subsequently they were misled into cutting off a portion of the Rock, demolished the mosque which perhaps should be read Basilica, and with the columns and stones, as Cyril hints, built in the heart of the town the Church of the Resurrection. Meantime a body was rising which has not been well understood, and of whose influence little notice has been taken, in considering the question of the Holy Places. The Nestorians were originally (see

48

Badger) founded by Addai and Mari of the seventy apostles in Mesopotamia. Mari went to Cashgar and else- where, and died in 82 A.D. One of his successors was a relative of the Virgin Mary, and a disciple, Aha d' Abhoi, was consecrated at Jerusalem in the Church of the Resur- rection about 205 A.D., which shows that Constantine's buildings were not the first Marturion.

The Nestorian community, if any, therefore, were ac- quainted with the earliest Christian traditions. The first germ of the persuasion under that name, however, was a sermon preached before Nestorius in 428 A.D. He was a Syrian, and Bishop of Constantinople. About the end of the fourth century a singular female sect, the Collyridians, existed in Arabia; so called from the fcoWvpa, or cake, they dedicated to tlie Virgin. The spread of Mariolatry in the Church is attributed to this sect, and to the invocation of the Virgin Nestorius was opposed. He was displaced from his bishopric 431 A.D., by the Council of Ephesus. The publication of the Theodosian Code in 488 A.D. caused persecutions, not of Pagans, but of Christians against Christians. Eutyches, the Archinaandrite of Constantinople, opposing Nestorian views, asserted that although two natures existed in our Lord before His incarnation, after- wards there was only one : for which about 451 A.D. the term " Monophysite " was used.

This controversy divided the Eastern and Western Churches. Nestorius, consequently, was cut off from both. Nestorianism becomes important, and ceases to belong to mere Church history. It spread in Persia, and Chosroes and his court considered Nestorianism their established faith. How far this maintained its purity is a theological question ; but it may easily be imagined to have retained

49

its traditions. Osborn mentions, and it will be found else- where, that when a youth Mohammed was taken, about 581 A.D.J in a caravan of merchants to Bosra in Syria, where he was for some time under the teaching of a Nestorian recluse. As this town, situated in the tribe of Manasseh, beyond Jordan, is not a hundred miles away in a direct line, there is every probability of Mohammed having at an early period of his life personally visited Jerusalem. At all events, for the Scriptural travesties that are to be found in the Koran, the tuition of the Xestorians is one of the ac- knowledged sources. It will in great measure account for the divided allegiance paid to the Caabah at Mecca and the Haram Area at Jerusalem ; a conflict between Arab incli- nations and policy and correct tradition. As a matter of fact, the Nestorians are indirectly the custodians of the Sakhra and the Temple site at present, through the Mo- hammedans.

Before the growth and expansion of the Mohammedans, the Byzantine emperors continued to protect the Christian churches and communities at Jerusalem. Sects will be found to be numerous, differing upon abstruse and essen- tially unimportant theories, which are as difficult to explain completely now as then. After the Council of Chalcedon, 451 A.D., the Monophy sites separated from the Orthodox Greek Church ; found sympathy with, and were patronised by, the Mohammedans, to whose belief they partially ap- proached ; and formed the sect of Copts, which is spread in Egypt, and has a place of worship in the modern Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They were, however, depressed in Justinian's reign. This emperor succeeded to power 527 A.D., and his great aim was uniformity of public worship. The decision of the Council of Chalcedon was favoured by the

4

50

emperor, but was in Egypt considered one in the Nesto- rians' interest. There was an insurrection of monks in Palestine 451 — 453 A.D., led by the Empress Eudoxia. After tlie sixth century the Monophysites became known as Jacobites, and were established in Egypt by the Moham- medans, because the Orthodox or Melchite party were representatives of the Greek Empire. The Annenians also inclined to the Monophysite principle, and have been long associated with the Turks.

Justinian tried and failed to unite Catholics and Mono- physites. In the East he persuaded the Jews to acknow- ledge Christianity, and this was evidentl}^ the origin of his constructinof fresh buildino^s in the Haram Area. Instead of obliging the Jews to worship in the Basilica of Constan- tine, he endeavoured to conciliate their national prejudices, doubtless by raising his Mary Church upon the edge of the made ground that had been disturbed so very inauspiciously by Julian. In a letter to Bishop Epiphanius, Justinian wrote : " When, therefore, on a former occasion we had found that certain aliens from the Holy Apostolic Church had followed the deception of the impious Nestorius and Eutyches, we promulgated our holy edict as your holiness also knows, whereby we checked the madness of the here- tics." The impression left by Procopius's account of the Mary Church of Justinian^ a translation of which is given in Williams's "Holy City," vol. ii. p. 369 et seq.y is that the Mary Church was situated at the south-east corner of the Haram ; and for some reason, rather imp)lied than expressed, great expense was incurred in raising the substructurCi But there is a curious passage to the effect : " The place, however, being situated inland, at a distance from the sea, and fenced off with abrupt mountains on all sidesj

51

as I have described, rendered it difficult for the contrivers of the Temple to introduce columns from elsewhere. But as the emperor was distressed at the difficulty of the task, God showed a kind of stone in the nearest mountains well adapted for the purpose, whether it existed and was con- cealed previously, or was now created. In either case there is credibility," etc.

This certainly looks as if some other building, containing columns of the kind required for the interior of a church, had been despoiled on this occasion ; and an emperor who was endeavouring to place all churches on the same level would not scruple to authorise such an expedient. It would indeed be a great assistance in deciding upon some of the facts of the topography of Jerusalem., if the materials of the different buildings could be traced. It is a small place, entirely isolated in those days from large supplies of skilled labour, and having no roads. Therefore there was every inducement to make any decorative materials to hand available for a new design. The Palestine explorations have as yet shown no spare columns or useful squared stones, or even fragments to form part of the accumulations that have filled the valleys in Jerusalem. Yet the stones of the old temples and palaces of the Jews, the decorations of the Sakhra, and the Basilica of Constantino^ and those of Justinian's edifices, must all. exist in some shape, and have been passed from one set of constructions to another. Jus- tinian's church (see Tobler) was visited in 808 A.D., and was in all its glory when Bernhard was at Jerusalem in 870 A.D. So that it must have been for long standing by the side of the Mosque el Aksa. Procopius mentions that Faustinus, a man of Jewish extraction, but who for security had taken the name of a Christian, came to be governor of Palestine

4—2

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under Justinian. He was accused by the Jewish priests for his duplicity, and for having committed cruelties against the Christians during his government, and condemned at Constantinople. But by degrees a good sum of money mollified the emperor, and his credit became so great that he had unchecked management of the Imperial domains in Phoenicia and Palestine. Such an ally must have been a great assistance in dealing with the Jewish population,, and promoted an outward, but probably fallacious, uniformity.

Justinian died 565 A.D. The various forms of worship centred at Jerusalem continued. We are now approaching an important period, when the Mohammedan creed was about being promulgated, and the Pope was on the eve of acquiring temporal power. The native Syrians were to a great extent Nestorians at this time ; and Nestorians were opposed to the Greeks. Heraclius^ the Greek emperor, from political motives, persecuted the Jews. So that when Chosroes II., the head of the Nestorian community — for Nestorianism was in 500 A.D. the established religion of Persia — led a revolt of the Persians, and invaded Palestine, he was accompanied by a large number of Jews, and the attack was made by two combined parties having each their own ground of dissatisfaction with the Greek Empire. Finlay relates that Chosroes burnt the Church of the Sepulchre ; Williams states that, accompanied by Jews, he demolished the Church of Gethsemane, the Basilica of Constantine^ the Churches of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. Why the Nestorian Chosroes should permit the destruction of the Basilica erected by Constantine, for a purpose they of all the sects might be supposed to revere^ is involved in obscurity. But if the Jews set the Basilica on fire, it is intelligible that the Nestorians demolished the

Monopbysite edifices of Getlisemane, Calvary, and the Sepulclire, that owed their commencement to the Arian party and the Empress Helena.

This period is marked in England, in a manner linking on to our times by the founding 611 A.D. of Westminster Abbey. But whether the churches at Jerusalem were more than damaged on this occasion is doubtful; as Williams states that in 937 A.D. the Mohammedans attacked the Church of Constantine, and laid waste the Churches of Cal- vary and the Resurrection. In 629 A.D. Heraclius retook Jerusalem, and as he endeavoured to reunite religions it may be conjectured that repairs of churches, as far as prac- ticable, generally took place, and it is now we hear of Modestus having rebuilt the Church of the Sepulchre. Mohammedanism had now declared its principles. At Mo- hammed's uprising, Nejd, the central province of Arabia, under Moseylema, opposed his pretensions. It was bounded on the north by the Byzantine Empire, on the south by Yeman, and on the remaining land side by Persia. The inhabitants had socialistic proclivities, and held the same opinions which were more actively put in force subsequently by the Ismalians and Carmathians. Moseylema was slain at Hanefah by Kalid, after a fierce encounter^ and his sect was dispersed, but it left Mohammed undisputed master, and an extreme dislike of Islam in the breast of every Arab attached to Nejd and its esoteric mysteries. -

The downfall of this seemingly obscure sect placed Mo- hammed in an opposition that still subsists. Heraclius was at Jerusalem celebrating the restoration of the Holy Cross, which Chosroes had removed, and driving the Jews out of the city, when the first hostilities between the Mussulman and Roman troops occurred. At this time Sophronius was

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head of a Greek or Melchite congregation, in the midst of a hostile Monophysite or Jacobite population. This alone would tend to mark the Haram Area to be his residence, and any building of Constantine's remaining, as his church. The last to be heard of Heraclius is when he mounted a hill (Abulfeda Ams), and turning towards Syria, said : " Vale Syria et ultima vale, neque enim mihi licebit dein- ceps te invisere, neque Romano cuiquam te intrare, nisi parenti, donea tandem nascatur inauspicatus ille infans, quern nunquam nasci majis expediebat et optandum erat. Tam ille Romanam rem insigniter affliget ; tantos ille tan- que acerbos tumultus excitabit."

In 637 A.D. Omar advanced to Jerusalem. The Christian Syrians fled to Lebanon, and their descendants are known as Mardaiites, supposed to be the present sect of Maronites. Ockley's account is that Omar went first to the Temple of the Resurrection. Then Sophronius took him out from thence into Constantine's church, but he would not pray there. Then he went alone to the steps near the east gate of Constantine^s church, and prayed there. Omar, leaving the churches to the Christians, built a new temple where Solomon's formerly stood. Notwithstanding his precau- tions, the Saracens seized the church at Bethlehem, and so they did St. Constantine's church at Jerusalem ; for they took half the porch where those steps were v/hich Omar had prayed upon, and built a mosque there, in which they included those steps ; and had Omar said his prayers in the body of the church they would have taken that too. Abulfeda relates in Latin : " The Locus es Sakhra was turned to a dunghill, but things were altered no sooner had Omar ibn el Chattal acquired Jerusalem. For he having been shown by somebody the place of the Temple,

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ordered it first to be cleared of filth, thereupon he built there a Mohammedan structure^ which remained uninjured to the time of Abd el Malek, who having demolished that building, placed on the old foundation another, which is called the Musjid el Aksa ; for whom the Sakhra was en- closed (cui inclusa est es Sakhra). In these no change has taken place to our day, 1200 a.d. These are the matters to which El Aris refers, who is responsible for the state- ments. In which I think the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem he speaks about relates to that edifice which had been built over the Sakhra": "nam Aedis illius El Mesjid El Aksa jam in traditione sacra de adscensu prophetse nos- tri in coelos mentio fit."

It is necessarily difficult to assign from Abulfeda's ac- count their proper situation to churches and mosques, when the narrator had himself such a confused idea of the real circumstances. The whole would be consistent if the v/ords " Locus es Sakhra" and " cui inclusa est" did not occur; but if the terms mean that the locality or near neighbour- hood of the Sakhra, and that part of it where the Temple of the Jews had been built especially, and not the Sakhra itself, was cleared by Omar ; and that he reared a mosque, which was destroyed by Abd el Malek, so as to erect an- other on the same foundations, the same Abd el Malek who appropriated and roofed the Sakhra, ambiguity disappears. Finlay wonders how Sophronius, who was a Melchite Patri- arch, consented to become the minister of the Moham- medans. But there is a probable cause, and Omar was evidently averse to interfering with the Christian system, working in harmony both in Constantine's and Justinian's buildings on the Haram Area. There is all along: an im- pression that the Monophysite party had separate religious

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establishments, on a different site ; to which, in order to confer the necessary sacredness, the fragments of the Sepul- chre and perhaps a portion of the rock of Golgotha had been conveyed. If this was not the case, the Basilica of Constantine must have been repaired after its injury on the occupation of Chosroes. Because Ockley asserts that the " Sultan ordered bolts to be fixed to the Church of the Resurrection, and pilgrimage forbidden. Some advised it to be destroyed. The majority said that was no use ; they adore the site of the Cross and the tomb, not the buildings."

Omar cannot be imagined to have been unaware of the peculiar significance of the Sakhra, which has descended in the form of floating tradition rather than in precise terms ; he however rested content with a small mosque. It is difficult to form an idea from Mohammedan accounts of their reasons for venerating the Sakhra. The subject is ably treated by Edouard Sayons, who brings out the fact that the Mohammedans are divided on the cardinal doctrine which is the base of the faith of Christendom. " Les com- mentateurs," observes Sayons, "ont peine pour arranger tout cela, mais ils sont arrives a deux solutions differentes; d'apres les uns Jesus serait monte au ciel sans passer par le sepulchre, d'apres les autres il aurait fait un court sejour dans le tombeau, il y serait reste trois heures ou sept heures."

It is generally asserted that the Sakhra derives its im- portance from having been Mohammed's point of departure on his night journey to the heavens ; but this explains little, as the tale is obviously vague and allegorical. Jalal ud Din calls the Sakhra " the halting-place of the night journey, the resting-place of the Lord of Apostles, the resting- place of apostles and prophets, the mansion of Abraham." The

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preacher Kudi Moh is quoted as having said : "This is the spot from which your prophet ascended to heaven, this is the Kiblah, this is the reposing-spot of the prophets, this is the burial-place of the apostles^ here descended the reve- lation, upon this land will take place the resurrection ;" and uttered a prayer, " that as entrance had been given into the consecrated Temple, they might be given entrance into the remaining parts of the land, and be made masters of the fortunes of the infidels and of their chieftains." The Arab song runs :

" Great is my love ; If my love were in the Sakhra, That great and wonderful Rock the Sakhra, It would be broken Into a thousand pieces."

The history of Islam at this time becomes very much involved, and is the more difficult to unravel^ because Mo- hammedanism is usually regarded as a unified system. Abu Sophian had long been the inveterate enemy of Mo- hammed, and 661 A.D. his son Moawiyah ascended the throne established by the prophet^ and transferred the seat of government to Damascus. The Caliph Ali perished in the conflict, and the Suni Mohammedans gained the upper hand. The overthrown sect appears to have included opinions which afterwards were developed into those of the Ismaliens. According to them an Imam must belong to the house of Ali ; the world is never without an Imam, but he is not always visible. When visible, the doctrine is concealed ; when hid, missionary labours begin ; Prophets reveal. Imams interpret. In 684 A.D. Abd el Malek, the Ommyad, succeeded to the Caliphate at Damascus. There were four aspiring parties in the Mohammedan world at

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the time, and tbe principal opponent was Abdalla ibn Tobeir, grandson of the Caliph Abu Bekr, and nephew of the favourite wife of the prophet. It is related by Ockley, that Abdalla holding out at Mecca, " Abd el Malek enlarged the Temple of Jerusalem so as to take the stone into the body of the church, and the people began to make their pilgrimage thither."

The plan of the Aksa suggests that it was an enlarge- ment of the mosque at the south wall built by the Caliph Omar, and the longitudinal section given by De Vogue, that the constructor had been guided by recollection, at all events, of the Basilica of Constantine, the flat architraves of which were conveniently replaced by Gothic arches. But the Aksa might have been quite independent of altera- tions of Constantine's remaining buildings, then probably verging on a ruinous state ; and to promote the objects of pilgrimage he may have, as the Cufic inscription in the Cubbet es Sakhra asserts, " built this dome in the year 72 " (691 A.D.), independently of the Mosque el Aksa. Before the time of Abd el Malek, the Ommeyide Caliphs employed a divan of Syrians to conduct public business, and the records were in Greek. Arab officials and the i^.rabic lan- giiage were his introduction, which will account for the subversion of the system that had been allowed to be per- petuated under Omar and Moawiyah. To some extent a divided Islam was due to the separate derivation of the Arabian tribes. The Koreish, to which Mohammed be- longed, were descended from Ishmael ; but there was another race of Arabs deriving their descent from an older Semitic stock, the Joktan Arabs ; and the latter were the ruling masses at Damascus. The Caliph Abd el Malek died 705. At this period the Mohammedans had, it is probable, appro-

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priated the Dome of the Rock, but allowed the peaceable occupation of Justinian's buildings, and any of the Basilica that was tenan table, as well as such establishments as the Christian community possessed in the heart of the town.

It was under the Fatimite dynasty that this toleration was first disturbed. About 900 A.D. Abou Abdallah was the Ismalien missionary for the son of the seventh concealed Imam. By giving himself out as the precursor of the " Mehdi," or Mohammedan " expected one," he was instru- mental in the conquest of Kairwan in Northern Africa; and the result was the defeat of the native race and subjec- tion of Egypt successively to Al Moer and the Caliph Hakim. The possession of Egypt by the Fatimites was, however, to be disputed by a sect founded on the principles of Abdallah, the fourth concealed Imam of the Ismalian line. He cast aside all theological beliefs, and rested human life and society on a basis of materialism. Carmath was a missionary of the sect who have been styled Carmathians. They increased in power and audacity, and in 937 A.D. sacked Mecca, tore up the pavement of the Kaaba, and split the black stone. No Moslems before or since have so greatly outraged Islam ; but about the close of the century they were driven to the shores of the Persian Gulf, " a district," as GifFord Palgrave says^ " a heap of exoteric doctrines." " The Wahabee reigns supreme there, but the Carmathian reaction burns sccretl}^ on^ and waits but an occasion to break out afresh into a blaze sufficient to consume perhaps for the last time the superstructure of Wahabeeism and Islam."

An attack of the Mohammedans is recorded at this time by Williams upon the Christian edifices in Jerusalem. The Carmathian seizure of Mecca made it more than ever neces-

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sary to render tlie centre of pilgrimage in Palestine attrac- tive, and whether they injured the Church of Constantine, and laid waste tlie Churches of Calvary and the Resurrec- tion or not, we may be tolerably certain that at this time the Christians were rigidly excluded from the Haram Area. The belief of the Fatimites was that it was not enough for the Mohammedan world to have an infallible book, but there must be an infallible interpreter ; and this is a know- ledge w^hich can only be inherited by right of blood from the Prophet. " It was/' remarks Osborn, " under the Khalifate of Hakem, the grandson of the conqueror of Egypt, that these doctrines attained their fullest ex- pansion." Utterly convinced of his own impeccability, he indulged every fantastic whim. But Hakem organised the constitution of his sect, and held " Conferences of Wis- dom" in the palace. It is singular that at the present moment the Druses of the Lebanon regard El Hakem as their incarnate prophet, and believe that he will appear again. The Druses oppose the Turks, but incline to the Shiite faction, differing from them by their allegorical in- terpretation of the Koran.

In 996 A.D. El Hakem, nephew of the Patriarch of Jeru- salem on the mother's side (De Vogud), incited by the Jews, demolished the Christian buildings. Lord Carnarvon states that the reason of Hakem's attack was rage at the informa- tion brought to him of the Greek fire, and the chain on which, oil being poured, the flame rose in the Church of the Sepul- chre. It would appear that Justinian's buildings had already been destroyed, no doubt to effectually dislodge Latin Christianity from the Haram Area; so that the edifices most obnoxious to El Hakem's interference were the Dome of the Rock and the group of churches in the

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heart of the town; unless, indeed, Oonstantine's Basilica was used for the Greek fire. But it is to be gathered from such fragmentary accounts as exist, that the churches in the town were those attacked. For the Jews must have ob- served that these were the only link attaching the Chris- tians to the Holy City. Hakem about one year afterwards restored the materials, and tolerated the Christians.

The present Church of the Holy Sepulchre was recon- structed by Greek architects in 1048 A.D., to become even- tually the Crusaders' Church. The severe exactions of the Mohammedans furnished a pretext for the First Crusade ; Jerusalem was taken 1099 A.D. ; and, says De Vogue, " After their final victory the Crusaders onl}^ found in the Holy City the Church of the Resurrection, the Latin Convent of St. Mary, and the Basilica of Bethlehem. But there were other buildings, for Addison states that when the Crusaders came in 1099 A.D. they tore down the crescent from the Dome of the Rock, and put up a massive Cross. Isac. De Vibi, Hist. Hier., mentions that the Saracens held this building in such veneration that none dared to defile it. William of Tyre also speaks of the Octagonal Temple. The rock was left uncovered for fifteen years, after which the Crusaders cased it with an altar, on which priests officiated. The order of the Templars were now on Mount Moriah, their church was the Cubbet es Sakhra, their banner was a Lamb, and they lodged in the Mosque el Aksa. The entry of Baldwin is described by Guizot. In the morning the clergy and the king went to the Temple of the Lord, where Solomon's wisdom had been promised. The Greeks and the Syrians remained in the monument of the Holy Sepulchre. "Our people having prayed, returned to the Church of the Sepulchre."

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In the eleventh century another body of Christians had settled near this church, who in 1130 A.D. became the mili- tary order of the Knights Hospitallers. Much about this time these very knights were presumably the Crusaders who are said to have reunited in one monument all the old isolated Christian sanctuaries, with evident reference to the churches in the heart of the town alone. In 1187 A.D. Saladin chased the Francs from Jerusalem, and only spared the Churches of the Holy Sepulchre, Josaphat, and Bethle- hem ; converting the rest to mosques or destroying them.

The disposition of the Saracen mind at the time is well illustrated by a sermon preached by a Mohammedan priest on Moriah upon Saladin's capture of Jerusalem, 1187 A.u. Extract : " Praise be to God, Who hath glorified Islamism ; by His power hath debased Polytheism ; I praise Him for having purified the polluted house from the impieties of Polytheism. Oh, men, publish the blessing, recapture and deliverance of this city which we had lost, and has made it the centre of Islamism after having been during one hundred years in the hands of the infidels. This house was built and its foundations laid for the glory of God and in the fear of heaven. For this liouse is the dwelling of Abra- ham; the ladder of your Prophet; the Kiblah to which you prayed at the commandment of Islamism ; the abode of prophets ; the aim of saints ; the place of revelation ; the habitation of order and defence. It was in this mosque that Mohammed prayed. It was this city to which God sent His servant^ his messenger, the word which He sent to Mary," etc.

The Crusades were the cause of the temporary eclipse of the Greek Empire by the Latin. Baldwin took Constan- tinople in 1204 A.D., and in 1229 A.D. Jerusalem was again

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occupied by the Crusaders, representing a Latin dynasty ; and who appear to have made slight restorations of the buildings. The treaty made on this occasion by Frederick, grandson of Barbarossa, with the Syrian Sultan, lasted ten years. It was broken, and the Mohammedans, who seem all the time to have reserved the Dome of the Rock for them- selves, regained ascendancy. A fresh treaty, made in 1240 A.D., only lasted two years. Again in 1243 A.D. the Templars retook Jerusalem, but the Charesmians, flying before the Mogul power of Central Asia, overran Syria and Palestine; and in 1244 A.D. made themselves masters of the Holy City. The Charesmians probably reduced the Haram to a state of disrepair, and damaged the Christian churches.

St. Louis, King of France, was at Jerusalem in 1252 A.D., and resided there for four years, effecting nothing of mo- ment. The Christians were always divided among them- selves, the knights were moved to Ehodes and Malta, and Jerusalem became an easy prey, with the rest of Syria, to the Turks. The invention of firearms altered the conditions of defence, the Greek fires were completely paled, and in 1453 A.D., a memorable year, Mohammed II. took Constan- tinople, and the Turkish power assumed guard over the Haram Area.

A. T. Fraser*

December 6, 1880.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTVPERS, OUILDFCIRD'.

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