Greek, Roman, and Armenian priests were performing their different rites in various nooks and corners, and crowds of disciples were rushing about in all directions, some laughing and talking, some begging, but most of them going round in a regular and methodical way to kiss the sanctified spots, and speak the appointed syllables, and lay down the accustomed coin. If this kissing of the shrines had seemed as though it were done at the bidding of enthusiasm, or of any poor sentiment even feebly approaching to it, the sight would have been less odd to English eyes; but as it was, I stared to see grown men thus steadily and carefully embracing the sticks and the stones, not from love or from zeal (else God forbid that I should have stared!), but from a calm sense of duty;they seemed to be not "working out," but TRANSACTING the great business of salvation.
Dthemetri, however, who generally came with me when I went out, in order to do duty as interpreter, really had in him some enthusiasm. He was a zealous and almost fanatical member of the Greek Church, and had long since performed the pilgrimage, so now great indeed was the pride and delight with which he guided me from one holy spot to another. Every now and then, when he came to an unoccupied shrine, he fell down on his knees and performed devotion; he was almost distracted by the temptations that surrounded him; there were so many stones absolutely requiring to be kissed, that he rushed about happily puzzled and sweetly teased, like "Jack among the maidens."A Protestant, familiar with the Holy Scriptures, but ignorant of tradition and the geography of modern Jerusalem, finds himself a good deal "mazed" when he first looks for the sacred sites. The Holy Sepulchre is not in a field without the walls, but in the midst, and in the best part of the town, under the roof of the great church which I have been talking about. It is a handsome tomb of oblong form, partly subterranean and partly above ground, and closed in on all sides except the one by which it is entered. You descend into the interior by a few steps, and there find an altar with burning tapers. This is the spot which is held in greater sanctity than any other at Jerusalem. When you have seen enough of it you feel perhaps weary of the busy crowd, and inclined for a gallop; you ask your dragoman whether there will be time before sunset to procure horses and take a ride to Mount Calvary. Mount Calvary, signor? -eccolo! it is UPSTAIRS - ON THE FIRST FLOOR. In effect you ascend, if Iremember rightly, just thirteen steps, and then you are shown the now golden sockets in which the crosses of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed. All this is startling, but the truth is, that the city having gathered round the Sepulchre, which is the main point of interest, has crept northward, and thus in great measure are occasioned the many geographical surprises that puzzle the "Bible Christian."The Church of the Holy Sepulchre comprises very compendiously almost all the spots associated with the closing career of our Lord. Just there, on your right, He stood and wept; by the pillar, on your left, He was scourged; on the spot, just before you, He was crowned with the crown of thorns; up there He was crucified, and down here He was buried. A locality is assigned to every, the minutest, event connected with the recorded history of our Saviour; even the spot where the cock crew when Peter denied his Master is ascertained, and surrounded by the walls of an Armenian convent. Many Protestants are wont to treat these traditions contemptuously, and those who distinguish themselves from their brethren by the appellation of "Bible Christians" are almost fierce in their denunciation of these supposed errors.
It is admitted, I believe, by everybody that the formal sanctification of these spots was the act of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, but I think it is fair to suppose that she was guided by a careful regard to the then prevailing traditions. Now the nature of the ground upon which Jerusalem stands is such, that the localities belonging to the events there enacted might have been more easily, and permanently, ascertained by tradition than those of any city that I know of. Jerusalem, whether ancient or modern, was built upon and surrounded by sharp, salient rocks intersected by deep ravines. Up to the time of the siege Mount Calvary of course must have been well enough known to the people of Jerusalem; the destruction of the mere buildings could not have obliterated from any man's memory the names of those steep rocks and narrow ravines in the midst of which the city had stood. It seems to me, therefore, highly probable that in fixing the site of Calvary the Empress was rightly guided.
Recollect, too, that the voice of tradition at Jerusalem is quite unanimous, and that Romans, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, all hating each other sincerely, concur in assigning the same localities to the events told in the Gospel. Iconcede, however, that the attempt of the Empress to ascertain the sites of the minor events cannot be safely relied upon. With respect, for instance, to the certainty of the spot where the cock crew, I am far from being convinced.
Supposing that the Empress acted arbitrarily in fixing the holy sites, it would seem that she followed the Gospel of St.
John, and that the geography sanctioned by her can be more easily reconciled with that history than with the accounts of the other Evangelists.
