صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

are so slightly pointed, that the hoodmolds are very nearly semicircular. The string-courses of this front are richly sculptured.

The western side of this court is formed by the campanile and the range of chapels with polygonal apses already described, and the southern side retains the bases of a row of columns that once belonged to a cloister or portico. They stand on the top of a flight of steps that rise from, and extend entirely across, the court. On this South side of the court originally stood the buildings of the Knights Hospitallers, and the monasteries, male and female, of Sancta Maria Latina, the history of which will be found in another part of this volume.

The western side of the court is occupied by a range of buildings, probably of no great antiquity, and in this side are three doors, of which the most northerly (57), close to the chapel of the porch, opens to a chapel dedicated to St Michael and All Saints, in possession of the Copts, and through which is the passage to their convent, which, as already described, occupies part of the site of the Crusaders' convent of Canons. The middle door (58) opens to an Armenian Church of St John3, and the southern door (59) to the Greek monastery of Abraham, which derives its name from the Chapel of Abraham's Sacrifice, attached to these buildings.

One of the ancient traditions of this spot is that this sacrifice took place upon the mount of Calvary, and Antoninus Placentinus enumerates the place where

* Of S. John the Baptist, according to W. Wey, Saligniaco, Breydenbach, and Quaresmius; but the Pilgrim's

Guide of Chrysanthus makes it of S.
John the Evangelist.

Abraham sacrificed, and that where he was met by Melchisedech, amongst those which were visited by the Pilgrims by the side of the place of Crucifixion. Arculfus and Sawulf only mention the first. However, these two localities are still indicated by two Altars in a small Chapel (74) constructed behind the Chapels of Calvary1. They are reached by means of a narrow passage and staircase leading through the Greek convent of Abraham; and, to complete the list, the pilgrim is shewn the ancient olive at the back of the buildings, which he is told is the tree in which Abraham's ram was caught by the horns?.

IX.

THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE GROUND.

I HAVE NOW conducted my reader through the buildings that surround the Holy Sepulchre, and must endeavour, in the next place, to investigate the probable form of the rocky surface, as it existed before the buildings of Constantine and those that followed them were undertaken.

For it is evidently shewn by the traces of hewn rock that we have encountered in various parts of our survey, as, for example, in the tomb called of Joseph of Arimathæa, in the Prison, in the Chapel of St Helena and the stairs that lead to it, in the Chapel of the Invention, on Calvary, and in the Chapel of Adam, not to mention the Holy Sepulchre itself3; by all these examples, I say, it

These are not exactly laid down upon any of the plans, but by description must be located in the space indicated in my plan at (74).

2 Quaresmius, T. 1. p. 281; Zuallardo, &c.

3 Vide Plate 2, Nos. 1, 6, 23, 28, 30, 33, 72, 47.

is shewn that the site, originally rough and rocky, must have been levelled into platforms for the reception of the first buildings that were erected here; and it is necessary that we should endeavour to discover what the natural form of the ground was. Plate I. Fig. 1, is intended to illustrate this point, and I shall refer to it throughout this Section; I have traced upon it the outlines of the principal buildings, namely, the Chapel of Helena at the east end, and the aisle-wall of the Rotunda at the west with its three apses; also the Prison on the north; and the apse of the Chapel of Adam with the outline of the three vertical faces which at present bound the rock of Calvary on the south. I have also added the four streets which in the present town enclose the site. Upon these I have endeavoured

to represent the original undulating surface.

The area is bounded by four streets, namely, Sepulchre Street on the north, Palmer Street on the south, Patriarch Street on the west, and St Stephen Street on the east. Sepulchre Street had at its eastern extremity (I) the Porta Judiciaria, of which a column still remains to shew the position, and this street is described as a steep regular ascent from I to K; which, considering the length of the street, would place K about thirty feet higher than I1.

Patriarch Street is described as descending very gently and imperceptibly from north to south (from K to L). But at the point L, those who wish to reach the Church of the Sepulchre turn off from Patriarch Street, and after passing through a narrow lane (LM) with

For Sepulchre Street is 360 feet in length, from I to K, which, if the mean inclination be one in twelve, would give

thirty feet for the elevation of K above I. One in twelve is by no means a very steep ascent.

several crooked turnings and a steep descent with steps, find themselves at the South end of the court of the Church, where, as we have already seen, was once a cloister. From this point three steps more lead down to the court and into the Church. Thus it is evident that the gradual slope of the Northern street is compensated for in the Southern street by a rapid descent with many steps, which shews that something like the brow of a cliff is situated between Patriarch Street and the court of the Church, for Palmer Street (M G) from this court to St Stephen Street appears to be tolerably level, and so also is St Stephen Street from G to I, or at least their slope is a mere gentle inclination downwards towards the south-east. It follows from this, that the pavement of the Rotunda lies at about the same level as the Street of St Stephen, and that the point of Patriarch Street, which lies in contact with the Rotunda, cannot be less than from twenty to twenty-five feet above that pavement. I have already shewn that the western door of the Rotunda gave admission to the triforium of the Church; and it seems that in the original state of the ground this abrupt slope at L must have extended northwards, forming the rugged brow of a cliff, in which the cave of the Holy Sepulchre C and the catacomb D (of which the socalled tomb of Joseph and Nicodemus was a part) were excavated. The architects of Constantine must have cut away the rock on the south, west, and north sides of the Sepulchral cavern, leaving it standing in a manner analogous to that in which the tombs of Absalom and Zachariah were detached from the rock that lies behind them'.

1 Mr Fergusson, in a passage distinguished by his usual felicity of ex

pression and good taste, informs us that "the out-and-out advocates for the

So far therefore from the cave having been originally formed in an isolated rock that stood up from the level land, as it is usually represented, the present state of the ground shews that this Sepulchre was excavated out of the face of the cliff like the common tombs of Jerusalem and elsewhere, described in the second section above; and that its conversion into an isolated monolith was the work of Constantine. And this explains very readily the concealment and preservation

identity of the present Sepulchre insist that it is a cave in a rock, but that the rock has been cased with stone, inside and out; as however, according to all the plans I have had access to, Mr Williams' among others, the rock, with its casing, is in some places only two feet thick, and nowhere more than five, and the casing cannot be less than nine inches to a foot on each side, it would have been easier for the impious men to have removed it in toto, than to have covered it up: half-a-dozen men would have accomplished the job in a week," p. 88. The text, to which this passage is appended as a note, shews that by the "impious men" he means those mentioned by Eusebius, as having covered up the Cave to conceal it, and to afford a foundation for the Temple of Venus. Mr Fergusson can scarcely require to be informed that the advocates for the identity of the present Sepulchre necessarily suppose it to have been wrought, by Constantine's orders, into such a form externally as would enable it to receive the ornamental casing; as indeed S. Cyril implies in the passage qnoted, amongst others, by Mr Williams, in the first edition of the Holy City, p. 295; and although it is quite true that by this process the thickness

of rock and casing has been in some places brought down to less than three feet at the western corners of the chamber, it is equally clear that the state of it must have been very different when "the impious men" operated upon it two centuries before, in the time of Hadrian. Indeed, I have endeavoured to shew that it was only brought to its present form by a very laborious excavation. Mr. Fergusson's supposition of from nine inches to a foot for the thickness of the casing, would be true if it were an ashlaring of stone, but it is a lastrication of marble slabs, for which three or four inches is an ample allowance.

Eusebius, in the Theophania, evidently describes the Cave as he saw it, after the operations of Constantine had taken place. "It is astonishing to see even this rock standing out erect and alone, in a level land, and having only one cavern within it." Book III. p. 199, of Lee's translation. If the above supposition be rejected, we must conclude that the Sepulchre of the Gospels was originally detached from the Rock, like those of Absalom and Zachariah; but the latter are evidently Pagan tombs, and not Jewish.

« السابقةمتابعة »