CHAP. XVI. of his country, and placed it upon the tomb. Humbler comers heaped the memorials of an accomplished pilgrimage; and while their sighs alone interrupted the silence of the sanctuary, a solemn service was begun. Thus ended our visit to the Sepulchre.

If the Reader has caught a single spark of this enthusiasm, it were perhaps sacrilegions to dissipate the illusion. But much remains untold. Every thing beneath this building seems discordant, not only with history, but with common sense. It is altogether such a work as might naturally be conjectured to arise from the infatuated superstition of such an old woman as was Helena, subsequently enlarged by ignorant priests. Forty spaces from the sepulchre, beneath the roof of the same church, and upon the same level, are shown two rooms, one above the other. Close by the entrance to the lower chamber, or chapel, are the tombs of Godfrey of Boulogne, and of Baldwin, kings of Jerusalem, with inscriptions in Latin, in the old Gothic character. These have been copied into almost every book of Travels, from the time of Sandys(745) to the present day. At the extremity of this chapel they exhibit a fissure or cleft in the natural rock; and this, they say, happened at the crucifixion. Who shall presume to contradict the tale? But, to complete the naïveté of the tradition, it is also added, that THE HEAD OF ADAM WAS FOUND WITHIN THE FISSURE. Then, if the traveller has not already heard and seen enough to make him regret his wasted time, he may ascend by a few steps into a room above. There they will shew him the same crack again; and, immediately in front of it, a modern altar. This they venerate as Mount Calvary, the place of Crucifixion, exhibiting upon this contracted piece of masonry, the marks or holes of the three crosses, without the smallest regard to the space necessary for their erection. After this he may be conducted through such a farrago of absurdities, that it is wonderful the learned men, who have described Jerusalem, should have filled their pages with any serious detail of them. Nothing, however, can surpass the fidelity with which Sandys has particularized every circumstance of all this trumpery; and his rude cuts are characterized by equal exactness (746). Among others, should be mentioned, the place where the cross was found;

because the identity of the timber, which has since supplied CHAP. XVI. all Christendom with its reliques[747], was confirmed by a miracle[748], proof equally infallible with that afforded by the eagle at the Tomb of Theseus, in the Isle of Seyra, when Cimon the Athenian sought the bones of the son of Ægeus[749].

It is time to quit these degrading fallacies: let us break from our Monkish instructors; and, instead of viewing Jerusalem as pilgrims, examine it by the light of history, with the Bible in our hands. We shall thus find many interest- Plan for the Survey of the ing objects of contemplation. If Mount Calvary has sunk City. beneath the overwhelming influence of superstition, studi ously endeavouring to modify and to disfigure it, through so many ages; if the situation of Mount Sion yet remains to be ascertained[750]; the Mount of Olives, undisguised by fanatical labours, exhibits the appearance it presented in all the periods of its history. From its elevated summit almost all the principal features of the city may be discerned and the changes that eighteen centuries have wrought in its topography may perhaps be ascertained. The features of Nature continue the same, though works of art have been done away: the beautiful Gate of the Temple is no more; but Siloa's fountain haply flows, and Kedron sometimes murmurs in the Valley of Jehosaphat(751).

It was this resolve and the determination of using our own eyes, instead of peering through the spectacles of priests that led to the discovery of antiquities undescribed by any author: and marvellous it is, considering their magnitude, and the scrutinizing inquiry which has been so often directed to every object of the place, that these antiquities have hitherto escaped notice(752). It is possible that their position and the tenor of their inscriptions, may serve to throw new light upon the situation of Sion, and the topography of the antient city. This, however, will be a subject for the investigation of future travellers. We must content ourselves with barely mentioning their situation, and the circumstances of their discovery. We had been to examine the hill which now bears the name of Sion; it is situated upon the south side of Jerusalem, part of it being excluded by the wall of the present city, which passes over the top of the mount. If this be indeed Mount Sion, the

Discovery made by the Author.

CHAP. XVI. prophecy (753) concerning it, that the plough should pass over it, has been fulfilled to the letter; for such labours were actually going on when we arrived. Here the Turks have a mosque over what they call the Tomb of David. No Christian can gain admittance; and as we did not choose to loiter among the other legendary sanetities of the mount (754) having quitted the city by what is called "Sion Gate," we descended into a dingle or trench, called Tophet, or Gehinnon, by Sandys. As we reached the bottom of this narrow dale, sloping towards the Valley of Jehosaphat, we observed, upon the sides of the opposite mountain, which appears to be the same called by Sandys the "Hill of Offence," facing Mount Sion, a number of excavations in the rock, similar to those already described among the Ruins of Telmes sus, in the Gulph of Glaucus; and answering to the account published by shaw(755) of the Crypto of Laodicea, Jebilee, and Tortosa. We rode towards them; their situation being very little elevated above the bottom of the dingle, upon its southern side. When we arrived, we instantly recog nized the sort of Sepulchres which had so much interested us in Asia Minor, and, alighting from our horses, found that we should have ample employment in their examina, tion. They were all of the same kind of workmanship, exhibiting a series of subterranean chambers, hewn with marvellous art, each containing one, or many repositories for the dead, like cisterns, carved in the rock, upon the sides of those chambers (756). The doors were so low, that, to look into any one of them, it was necessary to stoop, and in some instances, to creep upon our hands and knees; these doors were also grooved, for the reception of immense stones, once squared and fitted to the grooves, by way of closing the entrances, Of such a nature were, indisputably, the tombs of the sons of Heth, of the Kings of Israel, of Lazarus, and of Christ. This has also been proved by Shaw(757), but the subject has been more satisfactorily elucidated by the learned Quaresmius, in his dissertation concerning antient Sepulchres (758). The cemeteries of the antients were universally excluded from the precinets of their cities(759). In order, therefore, to account for the seeming contradiction implied by the situation of the place now shewn as the Tomb of the Messiah, it is pretended

that it was originally on the outside of the walls of Jeru- CHAP. XVI. salem; although a doubt must necessarily arise as to the want of sufficient space for the population of the city, be tween a boundary so situated, and the hill which is now eailed Mount Sion. The sepulchres we are describing carry, in their very nature, satisfactory evidence of their being situated out of the antient city, as they are now out of the modern. They are not to be confounded with those tombs commonly called "the Sepulchres of the Kings," to the north of Jerusalem, believed to be the burial-place of Helena, queen of Adiebéné. What therefore are they? Some of them, from their magnificence, and the immense labour necessary to form the numerous repositories they contain might lay claim to regal honours; and there is one which appears to have been constructed for the purpose of inhuming a single individual. The Karaan Jews, of all other the most tenacious in adhering to the customs of their ancestors, have, from time immemorial, been in the practice of bringing their dead to this place for interment; although this fact was not wanted to prove it an antient Jewish cemetery, as will be seen in the sequel. The sepulchres themselves, according to the antient practice, are stationed in the midst of the gardens. From all these cir- Inference cumstances, are we not authorised to seek here for the the Discovery, Sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, who, as a pious Jew, necessarily had his burying-place in the cemetery of his countrymen, among the graves of his forefathers; The Jews were remarkable for their rigid adherence to this custom: they adorned their burial-places with trees and gardens and the tomb of this Jew is accordingly described as being in a garden; and it was "in the place (760) where our Saviour was crucified." Of what nature was that place of crucifixion? It is very worthy of observation, that every one of the Evangelists, (and among these, "he that saw it and bare record(761),) affirm, that it was place of a Scull;" that is to say, a public Cemetery (762), Golgotha, or "called in the Hebrew, GOLGOTHA;" without the city, Cavalry. and very near to one of its gates. St. Luke calls it CALVARY, which has the same signification. The church, supposed to mark the site of the Holy Sepulchre, exhibits no where the slightest evidence which might entitle it to

"the

derived from

CHAP. XVI. either of these appellations. Can there be therefore aught of impiety or of temerity in venturing to surmise, that upon the opposite summit, now called Mount Sion, without the walls, the Crucifixion of the Messiah was actually accomplished? Perhaps the evidence afforded by existing -documents may further illustrate this most interesting subject. These will now be enumerated.

Greek

66

Upon all the sepulchres at the base of this mount, which, as the place of a scull," we have the authority of the Gospel for calling either Calvary or Golgotha, whether the place of crucifixion or not, there are inscriptions, in Hebrew and in Greek. The Hebrew inscriptions are the Inscriptions. most effaced: of these it is difficult to make any tolerable copy. Besides the injuries they have sustained by time, they have been covered by some carbonaceous substance, either bituminous or fumid, which rendered the task of transcribing them yet more arduous. The Greek inscriptions are brief and legible, consisting of immense letters deeply carved in the face of the rock, either over the door, or by the side, of the sepulchres. Upon the first we observed these characters:

Having entered by the door of this sepulchre, we found a spacious chamber cut in the rock, connected with a series of other subterranean apartments, one leading into another, and containing an extensive range of receptacles for the dead, as in those excavations before alluded to, (but which appear of more recent date,) lying to the north of Jerusa lem, at a more considerable distance from the city; and also as in the Crypto of the Necropolis near Alexandria in Egypt. Opposite to the entrance, but lower down in the rock, a second, and a similar aperture, led to another chamber beyond the first. Over the entrance to this, also, we observed an inscription, nearly obliterated, but differing from the first, by the addition of two letters: