PILLAR TO WHICH (ACCORDING TO TRADITION) WAS AFFIXED THE THE ENTRANCE OF THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, VIEWS OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE (FAÇADE, STAIR, BELFRY, CHAPEL OF CALVARY, THE GENERAL VIEW), POOL OF BETHESDA AND POOL OF SILOAM, 76 103 137 158 192 197 200 254 282 INTRODUCTION. THIS Volume unites several characteristic features which may tend to make it not only very readable and of general interest, but also to stamp it with a special and permanent value amongst popular works on Palestine. The aim of the Editor and the Publishers in presenting the Book and its Illustrations to the public is threefold :— 1. To offer in a cheap but elegant form a concise reprint of Mr. Osborn's "Palestine, Past and Present," one of the most comprehensive and suggestive of recent publications on the Holy Land. The narrative has been divested only of such portions as are more immediately interesting to the man of science and the Biblical scholar, or references to parts of the tour unconnected with the main subject. The substance of a large volume published in America, at a high price, is thus brought into an accessible form. A good book on such topics is calculated to be useful at once as an aid to Bible study and an incentive to the young in the acquirement of a knowledge of scriptural topography and antiquities. 2. To present a variety of views from photographs and good drawings of some of those prominent objects or places of interest (whether of genuine or merely of relative and legendary interest), such as every traveller goes to see, and most travellers describe. Six views, on a reduced scale (two of them being general, and four details of particular parts), are given, in two Plates, from the large and fine photographs recently published in France by M. Salzmann, in his great collection, illustrative of the Holy Land. Nine Views, in seven Plates, are given from the expensive and now scarce folio of 1803, published by Bensley, which contains the drawings of Luigi Mayer. One Illustration, that of "The Novel Method of Churning at Jericho," is taken from an original in Mr. Osborn's own volume, whilst "The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre," and the Vignette of "Joseph's Tomb," are drawn from the larger illustrations by M. Rouargue, accompanying the "Notes of Travel in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, collected and arranged by the Abbé G. D." 3. To accompany these drawings with such notes and brief cautions as will prevent the false impressions which are too apt to seize the general reader and the young with regard to the credence to be given to vague tradition and monkish faith concerning scriptural localities. The hallowed associations of the sacred land naturally sway every Christian imagination, and we most profitably dwell upon them with a due regard to the true and the false-the great natural features of the country, which stand unchanged, as contrasted with the crumbling or dubious monuments of human handiwork. But it is to be feared that, as regards certain special objects of the latter class, somewhat hazy notions are much too common. This is to be readily accounted for by the frequent descriptions of the places and objects which are written by travellers who allude but slightly, if at all, to the grounds of authenticity; or, it may be sometimes, from mistaken piety or the prejudice of a foregone conclusion, examine the subject with imperfect scholarship after slender consideration, or with a partial eye. These references and descriptions permeate literature to the detriment of the non-scientific reader. Accordingly, in the few following pages, also at the foot of some of the Plates, and at the end of the volume, are given such short and general remarks as will guard or prevent misconception on the part of those who have not studied the antiquities of the Holy Land. The Notes are chiefly abstracts from the well-known work of Dr. Robinson, of New York, "Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions," a book confessedly of first authority, amongst modern treatises, on these questions. No attempt is made, nor is it necessary, of course, for the present purpose, to record and weigh the arguments which are brought forward by opposing parties concerning the authenticity of the Holy Sepulchre-the probability of the Chapel of the Nativity being built over the spot where our Saviour was born, &c. These, and such like vexed questions, have been fruitful subjects of ingenious theory, historic surmise, and much discussion amongst travellers and others. It is sufficient here to state, in a few words, those results at which Dr. Robinson has arrived, and in which the majority of the best Biblical scholars concur. Perhaps a better key-note to the whole subject could not be struck than by the following observations from the pen of the sagacious and impartial author already quoted. It sets the matter in its true light by Scripture and common sense :- "That the early Christians at Jerusalem must have had a knowledge of the places where the Lord was crucified and buried there can be no doubt; that they erected their churches on places consecrated by miracles, and especially on Calvary and over our Lord's sepulchre, is a more questionable position. There is at least no trace of it in the New Testament, nor in the history of the primitive Church. The four gospels, which describe so minutely the circumstances of the crucifixion and resurrection, mention the sepulchre only in general terms; and although some of them were written thirty or forty years after these events, yet they are silent as to any veneration of the sepulchre, and also as to its very existence at that time. The writers do not even make in behalf of their Lord and Master the natural appeal, which Peter employs in the case of David, "That he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.' The great Apostle of the Gentiles, too, whose constant theme is the death and resurrection of our Lord, and the glory of His cross, has not in all his writings the slightest allusion to any reverence for the place of these great events, or the instrument of the Saviour's passion. On the contrary, the whole tenor of our Lord's teaching and that of Paul, and indeed of every part of the New Testament, was directed to draw off the minds of men from an attachment to particular times and places, and to lead the true worshippers to worship God, not merely at Jerusalem, or in Mount Gerizim, but everywhere, 'in spirit and truth.' The position that the Christian churches, in the apostolic age, were without the walls of the city, is a mere fancy springing from the similar location of the sepulchre; and still more fanciful and absurd is the assertion, that those churches, if any such there were, might have escaped destruction during the long siege by Titus. JERUSALEM ITS TOPOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES." The reader must bear in mind, that, for the lapse of more than fifteen centuries, Jerusalem has been the abode not only of mistaken piety, but also of credulous superstition, not unmingled with pious fraud. During the second and third centuries after the Christian era the city remained under heathen sway; and the Christian Church existed there, if at all, only by sufferance. But when, in the beginning of the fourth century, Christianity became triumphant in the person of Constantine, and, at his instigation, aided by the presence and zeal of his mother Helena, the first great attempt was made in A.D. 326 to fix and beautify the places connected with the crucifixion and resurrection of the Saviour, it then, almost as a matter of course, became a passion among the multitude of priests and monks, who afterwards resorted to the Holy City, to trace out and assign the site of every event, however trivial or legendary, which could be brought into connexion with the Scriptures, or with pious tradition. The fourth century appears to have been particularly fruitful in the fixing of these localities, and in the dressing out of the traditions, or rather legends, which were attached to them. But the invention of succeeding ages continued to build upon these foundations, until, in the seventh century, the Mohammedan conquest and subsequent oppression confined the attention of the Church more exclusively to the circumstances of her present distress, and drew off in part the minds of the clergy and monks from the contemplation and embellishment of scriptural history. Thus the fabric of tradition was left to become fixed and stationary as to its main points; in much the same condition, indeed, in which it has come down to our day. The more fervid zeal of the ages of Crusades only filled out and completed the fabric in minor particulars. It must be further borne in mind, that as these localities were assigned, and the traditions respecting them for the most part brought forward by a credulous and unenlightened zeal, well meant, indeed, but not uninterested; so all the reports and accounts we have of the Holy City and its sacred places have come to us from the same impure source. The fathers of the Church in Palestine, and their imitators, the monks, were themselves for the most part not natives of the country. With few exceptions, they knew little of its topography, and were mostly unacquainted with the Aramaan, the vernacular lan |