Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Wednesday, Feb. 20. 1856. — We went at ten to service in the mission church, a handsome building on Mount Zion, in digging for the foundation of which some years ago, no less than forty feet of rubbish had to be penetrated. So completely is modern J erusalem built upon the ruins of the old city. Surely “they have laid Jerusalem on heaps,” (Psa. lxxix. 1; Jer. ix. 11; Micah iii. 12). It has been “turned upside down,” (2 Kings xxi. 13).
Mr Crawford preached with much life and truth on Luke xv. 18, “I will arise and go to my father,” We were not sorry to begin our sojourn in Jerusalem with worship on Mount Zion; and it was pleasant to be greeted with such words, — words from the lips of Him who here died and rose again.
Between one and two we set out for a walk along the city walls, on the inside of which, about five feet from
WALLS OF JERUSALEM.
the top, there runs a ledge some two or three feet broad, as in other fortified towns. This ledge was our road. These walls only date three centuries back. The ancient walls against which Sennacherib “shook his hand,” when encamping at Nob (Isa, x. 32), which Nebuchadnezzar overthrew, against which the thrones of “the kingdoms of the north” were set (Jer. i. 15), which Titus scaled, all these are gone; the work of David, and Nehemiah, and Agrippa, is now rubbish. Jerusalem has shrivelled up into the third part of her former size; tower and wall, gate and bar, have fallen. Most literally has that come to pass which is written, “go ye up upon her walls and destroy; but make not a full end; take away her battlements, for they are not the Lord’s,” (Jer. v. 10).
We ascended the walls at the Jaffa gate, not far from which tradition points out the gardens of Bathsheba, and the house of Uriah the Hittite. From this we made a circuit round the west and north and east, till stopped by the mosque of Omar. Inside we saw the whole mass of houses, with their square structure and flat roof, with small central elevation like a dome, occasioned by the arch within. But in none of these is there any relic of the real Jerusalem. It was not the ancient city that lay under our eye. That has passed away. Ploughed and re-ploughed by Roman, Persian, Saracen, and Crusader, nothing of old Jerusalem remains, but the dust. It is on the grave of the ancient citv that the modern city stands. In this sense “Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles;” for but a small part of it belongs to the Jews. Their “quarter” on Mount Zion is almost imperceptible. Above this mass of houses we see towering the mosque, the minaret, the church, the dome, forming the great features of the city, and telling us again that “Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles,” for all these, — Mahommedan, Protestant, Greek, Latin, Armenian, — are Gentile. Israel’s synagogues are obscure and invisible, the lowest part of some of these poor houses that lie hard by. “Their teachers are removed into a corner,” and they eat “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,” (Isa. xxx. 20). Waving in the noon-breeze there are the flags of many nations, the British, the Prussian, the French, the Austrian, the Turkish, all of them Gentile! No Jewish flag floats over any house or tower of Jerusalem. The lion of Judah and the wolf of Benjamin have no banner in a city which was once wholly their own. “Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles “her” gates lament and mourn, and she being desolate sits on the ground,” (Isa. iii. 26). The voice of the Moslem, from a dozen of minarets, rings shrilly over the city, five times a day, “Allah is great, Allah is the greatest; come to prayer, come to prayer; prayer is better than work; come to prayer;” but no voice of Jewish song comes up, no silver trumpet tells the new moon or the solemn feast. This is the long day of Jerusalem’s “heaviness and sorrow,” (Isa. xxix. 2), when that is come to pass which is written, “thou
PLACES OF INTEREST.
shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the gr&hnd, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper (peep or chirp) out of the dust,” (Isa. xxix. 4). Look at the city under any aspect, its houses, its walls, its rubbish, its dust, and see how truly God has brought to pass his word, “I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down,” (2 Kings xxi. 13).
If, as we move along the walls, we look outside the city, we see many a spot of interest. There to the west is what is called the “Upper Pool “of Gihon, and close at hand a Turkish burying-ground; for the foot of the Gentile is there. To the north, Scopus where the” armies of the alien “encamped. On the east, the Mount of Olives, with a Moslem village on the top, and beside it the church of the Ascension; still shewing the foot of the Gentile treading down J erusalem. “We stop at the Great Mosque, not without remembering that there stood the temple once; but the tread of the Gentile is now within. Its courts are filled with Mahommedan worshippers, just as David’s castle has become barracks for Mahommedan soldiers.
We come down from the walls and go out of the city by St Stephen’s gate, called by the name of the martyr, though none but monks would venture to say that St Stephen had ever crossed its threshold. In a little we find ourselves in Gethsemane. We enter the Latin garden of that name, neatly kept and stocked with olives, cypresses, and flowers. But is this Gethsemane? A stone’s cast off the Greeks have enclosed another spot of the valley with its clump of olives; and they say, “This is Gethsemane,” The Armenians will soon be doing the same; for these enclosures are most profitable concerns. But which of the three will be Gethsemane? Probably none of them. That Gethsemane was somewhere in this hollow, which to this day is called Jesononiya, we know. There is no uncertainty as to this. This half-mile of garden-ground, with its numerous olives and gay wildflowers, is the real Gethsemane. More than this we cannot say. If we might fix a spot, we should suggest some of these fields farther up than the Latin or Greek enclosures. The evangelists speak of the garden as being “beyond the Kedron” and at “the Mount of Olives,” (Matt. xxvi. 36, John xviii. 3).* So far the spot is definite; beyond this we need not go. Let us keep to what is certain. The Latin garden seems decidedly too far down, too near the city gate and wall, too close by the thoroughfare across the Kedron, where
* We read that when they had sung a hymn (or hymns, i. e engaged in praise, vfJbvrjoavrsg), “they set out for the Mount of Olives.” As they were going, or when they had reached the hill, Jesus said, “All ye shall he stumbled,” as he said before, “one of you shall betray!’ After this he proceeded from the mount to that part of it where there was a garden called Gethsemane. It was in going from the city to the mount that he quoted Zechariah’s prediction of the smitten shepherd and the scattered flock. Were there flocks then feeding there as there are now, and was he pointing to them ]
I the high and low roads to Bethany meet and diverge, too much within reach and sound of the bustle, to be a place of retirement. Gethsemane must have been farther up. This is all that we shall say. But it matters not. To try to fix it is as useless as to say, “Lo, here is Christ, or lo there,” Somewhere in this olive-shaded hollo wr, He found a solitude away from the noise and mockery of the city. Somewhere here, He cast himself on the ground, when his “soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground,” We could find no satisfaction in looking at the rock where the monks find a good trade in saying that his disciples fell asleep, or at the place where they say Judas kissed Him. These vain additions take away from the reality of the scene. The scene itself is a reality; wre could not think of destroying that by stories made for superstition, and spots selected, ages after, for the sake of gain.
These old olive trees! How venerable they seem! Rough in their trunks, dark green in the upper side of their leaves; but as the wind comes along the valley and tosses up the branches, how silvery and bright does the under side appear! Are they really the trees under which the Lord himself has walked and knelfc and prayed? Not just the same; for Titus cut down every tree around Jerusalem, till he stripped her suburbs utterly bare.* But the olive, like the palm, birch,
* “He gave his soldiers leave to set the suburbs on fire, and ordered that they should bring timber together and raise banks against the city. laurel, and some other trees, is not killed by being cut down. It shoots up several stems in place of one. Now look at these olives. There is hardly one of them that has a single trunk. Three, four, or five stems come up out of each root. The stem and branches then may not be the same as in the days of the Lord, but the roots probably are. So that, thus far, they are really the same trees; and as the olive is a very long-lived tree there is nothing unlikely in this.
From Gethsemane we turned up to the Bethany road, the low road to Bethany. There can be little doubt that it is the same path along which so often walked Christ and his disciples. In several places it is formed of steps cut out of the rock along the slope of the hill; and these identify it as the very way traversed by holy feet eighteen centuries ago! For roads, in these countries, do not change. They vary, indeed, in one way, — that is, they get worse and worse, as this has done, and as all the Syrian roads have done, from not being cared for; but they keep the same track. That old road to Bethany! What memories lie strewn along it! Not a stone nor a turn but seems to speak of Him who went up it in the quiet evening, and came down it in the cool morning,
... So the trees being cut down the suburbs were stripped naked.” — Josephus, Jewish War, v. 6, 2. “All the trees that were about the city, within the distance of an hundred furlongs, had their branahes cut off.” — ib. v. 8, L
VALLEY OF J EHOSHAPHAT.
as he went to his daily teaching in the temple. How often had he turned round to gaze, as we did, upon the city spread beneath him! We did not, at present, pursue the road far; but, after visiting the tombs of the Prophets, came down the slope towards the valley of Jehoshaphat, Then, passing through the Jewish burying-ground, we visited the different tombs cut out in the solid rock. Almost hidden from view is the tomb of Jehoshaphat, its entrance nearly covered up with earth and little more than its entablature visible. The earth was quite fresh, as if recently disturbed, nor was the aperture quite closed. We concluded that it had been recently opened. From time to time this is done by the Jews, in order to bury here their old worn-out rolls. They count it unlawful to bum these; and whenever a roll becomes useless by tear and wear, it is brought to this spot and buried in the tomb of Jehoshaphat. We would fain have dug into it, and got hold of some of these old rolls; but we had no implements, and there was a great mass of thick clayey soil upon the entrance. We went to the tomb of Absalom, the body of which is cut out of the solid rock, though the cone or peak on the top is not. There is little doubt that this is the very monument which Absalom constructed for himself in the king’s dale (2 Sam. xviii. 18). It is singular that the pillars which adorn its front are of the Ionic order. Those in the adjoining tomb of Zach arias, which we visited next, are the same, and those in the tomb of the apostle James, which we also visited, are simple Doric. These architectural orders, then, are not really Grecian. Greece borrowed them. But from whom? We cannot say from Judaea; but, at least, from Phoenicia, or Egy7pt, or Etruria. It may yet be seen that all that Greece has been admired for, in architecture, was to be found in Tyre, or S>lon, or Zoan, before one column stood upon the hill of Mars.
After visiting these tombs we went down and crossed the dry bed of the Kedron. Whether, in former ages, it contained more water, we cannot say. Possibly it might; for the land was once better watered than now But at present it is only after some very heavy fall of rain that it contains any water. Yet its Scripture name is the “brook Kedron,” both in the Old Testament and the New; and its Arabic name, “Wady Kedrun,” preserves the memory of other days. Here David crossed, “barefoot” and weeping, as he ascended the mount (2 Sam. xv. 30).* Here Christ and his disciples passed on their way to Bethany and Gethsemane. The brook might be a poor one; but not so the histories that rested over it.
We then passed up to the south-east corner of the city* wall, to examine the immense stones which are here built into it. As it is at this part alone that these large stones occur, and as here the temple stood, we infer that these are the temple stones. Not, indeed in their original places; for not one stone has
* Of “discalceation,” ay a sign of mourning, see Braunius De Vestitu Sacerd. Hebr., pp. 45, 16 Bynaeus de Calceis Hebraeorum. B. ii. ch. 5.
temple stones.
been left upon another; but still the very stones to which the disciples, in their admiration, pointed. Some were eighteen feet long by four broad, others longer and broader; but we had not the means of measuring them exactly. A little farther on are four or five stones, in a line, on the lowest course, which look very like as if they were really in their old position. Not far from this is the half-arch of a gateway, finely carved, wrhich is generally believed to be one of the original arches of the temple. It is the entrance to one of the subterraneous passages, which seem to be as old as the days of Solomon. The whole of this angle of the wall is full of interest. You cannot look at any part of it without repeating the exclamation of the disciples,” See what manner of stones and what buildings are here V
At night the moon came out in cloudless splendour; and about midnight we got up to the roof to see the city by moonlight. It wras a scene of rich but mellowed brilliance, such as one loves better to look upon than to describe. The moon was at the full, and, high in the heavens, seemed t3 hang right over the city, whose uneven and irregular mass of yellow roofs it wrapt in one soft veil of braide 1 silver, hiding deformities which sunlight exposed too faithfully, and bringing out beauties of shade and light, curve and angle, swell and depression, in minaret, dome, wall, vale, and hill, such as only moonlight can reveal. Strange scenes had that calm orb looked down upon during the past three thousand years, transacted within this narrow circle. The armies of Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, had all been here, — kindling their watchfires on yon flat ridge to the north, where now the moonbeams rest so tranquilly; as if no noise of war had ever disturbed its quiet. What sounds had it listened to from the time when David chaunted his Psalms and Solomon his Songs, to the night when, led by the Son of God, the band in the upper chamber sung the hymn, ere they went out to the Mount of Olives; from the time when the shouts of the Roman legions rung through the red streets, to the time when Crusader and Saracen alternately shook its walls with their assaults. It once shone upon Jehovah’s majestic temple. It is now shining on yon gaudy mosque which bears the false prophet’s name. It is still shining on Golgotha, on Gethsemane, on Olivet, as in ages past; though He whose life and death have given to these spots all their interest has departed. “He is not here, he is risen he is gone up on high, and J erusalem “shall not see him again till she shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” The only thing that breaks the full stillness of the moment, though it wakes not the still city, is the sound of the drum or tum-tum from some house in one of its central streets. That sound proclaims an approaching marriage; and it came upon us like the cry of that midnight, when all shall be slumbering and sleeping, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.”
Jerusalem, Thursday, Feb. 21. 1856. — About seven, went out alone by the Jaffa gate, and strolled to the valley or hollow below the upper pool of Gihon,.. took a stone for my seat under an olive, and read some psalms, the thick foliage keeping off the bright morning sunshine, reminding one of that verse, “I sat down under his shadow. with great delight” (Song. ii. 3),.. marked the peculiar aspect of the hollow, which rises on all sides into a sort of amphitheatre, on the slope of which, perhaps, Solomon was crowned. At the command of David, Solomon was set upon the king’s mule, and “brought down” from Zion to Gihon (1 Kings i. 33, 38*). Ascending the slope opposite to Zion, Zadok and Nathan and Benaiah seem to have fixed upon this bending sweep as the place where Solomon would be seen from the castle of David and the walls of the city, and also where the inhabitants might assemble to witness the coronation. Accordingly we read that “all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them.” This shout went down the valley to En-Eogel, which is not very far off, and where Adonijah was feasting, and alarmed him and his adherents. His company dispersed, and he himself fled to the temple, which was in that part of the city which is nearest to En-Eogel.-y- I then walked to the upper
* There can be little doubt that Gihon was somewhere here, for Hezekiah is said to have brought down the waters of Gihon, straight to the west side of the city of David, which would answer well to this place.
+ Thus I wrote home at the time. ‘l Gihon, Feb. 21. Here am I sit-Absalom’s fillar.
1S7
pool, and examined it. There was some water in it, but not much. Close by, to the north-west, is a Turkish burying-ground to which a group of mourners were going.
In the afternoon we went to examine the large temple stones which we had seen the day before. There was nothing to discover, but much to interest. From this we went down, and crossing the Kedron, we re-visited Absalom’s pillar. In front of it lies an immense heap of small stones, while the face of the monument itself is scarred and worn, not by weather, but apparently by violence. We made inquiry, and the explanation was soon given. Jewish parents bring their children here, to remind them of Absalom’s doom, and to teach them the sin of filial disobedience. When standing before the pillar they are made to take up stones and cast at it, as if setting their seal to the righteousness of Absalom’s doom, and their abhorrence of such a course of sin. We added our seal to the condemnation, and our stones to the heap.*
We then slowly climbed the Mount of Olives, visited
ting in all the still bright sunshine of early morning in the place where I suppose Solomon was crowned. It is not a plain, but a large hollow, whose sides rise on all hands and form an amphitheatre, where the ten thousands of Israel could witness the coronation. The whole south-western part of the city commands a view of this valley, and the houses, on Mount Zion look straight down on it. It is only five or six minutes’ walk from the Tower of David. The shout of the people could easily be heard at En-Rogel. I’ll pull off for you a twig of the olive under which I am sitting.”
* I find that casting stones at Absalom’s memory is a practice not of Jews only but of Moslems too. — Thomson’s Travels, vol. iii. p. 175.
VIEW FROM OLIVET.
again the tombs of the prophets on the side of the hill,* and soon stood upon the top. What a view! To the east, the plain of Jordan, scorched and barren, with glimpses of the river, like a flashing scimitar half sheathed in the sand. Then farther south the Dead Sea, with its bright quicksilver gleam, and the mountains of Moab, casting over it the shadow of their towering precipices, bare and gloomy, yet with some patches that looked like verdure, such as where the River Arnon finds its way through deep recesses to the lake, redeeming some spots from the brown desolation that covers these nigged mountain-walls. Nearer us lay Bethany, the “house of dates,” according to the usual interpretation, or the “house of sorrow or lowliness,” as Jerome gives it, but not visible to us. We could only see the eminence behind which it lies. On our other side lay the city, with all its features fully unfolded, like a flower opening to the noon; tower, wall, gate, and minaret, brightening in the sunshine. Mr Graham has a house or tower a little way down the hill. To this we turned our steps; and seated at the window that overlooks the city, we
* A recent traveller briefly describes these, “They comprise two corridors, one adjoining to the other, in the form of a couple of semicircles, each with rows of niches excavated within the wall for the bodies, one above and the other below its fellow,” (Dupuis’ Holy Places, vol. ii p. 6). The fol lowing remark of this writer is worth quoting, “were it possible to lay the neighbourhood and the holy city bare, by cutting a section through some portion of it, I am inclined to the opinion that these sections would exhibit a succession of cells, comparable to nothing that exists elsewhere, but rather resembling the cellular construction of a hornet’s nest,” (lb. p. 8). read some of the chapters that relate to Olivet and Gethsemane. We then ascended to the roof, and with a fine large telescope, we examined various distant objects, such as the Herodion or Frank Mountain, and .Neby-Semwll. We expected in a few days to see these nearer; but meanwhile it was worth looking at them from afar, specially from such a point of elevation. Leaving this tower we crossed the hill, and soon found ourselves on the upper road leading to Bethany. We soon came within sight of it, walking through olive-trees, almond-trees, fig-trees, and pomegranate-trees. What a spot of beauty and peace! In a wToody hollow half way up one of the eastern off-shoots of Olivet, there it lies, like the nest of one of its own turtle-doves, embosomed in verdure! The old ruin that rises above all the other houses, and is said to be the house of Lazarus, brought up the special scenes and memories that give Bethany such strange attractiveness. It was “the town of Mary and her sister Martha,” (John xi. 1). It is called a “certain village where a certain woman named Martha received him into her house,” (Luke x. 38). Here, too, was <c the house of Simon the leper,” at whose table the Lord was sitting when Mary brought out her spikenard, (John xi. 2; Matt. xxvi. 7; Mark xiv. 3). It was here that he “wept;” it was here that he “groaned in spirit and was troubled “it was here that he shewed himself” the resurrection and the life it wras here that he sought retreat from city-noise and temple-strife, soothing himself not merely with vilno
BETHANY.
lage-quiet, but still more with the love and fellowship of Lazarus and his sisters. The present name of the village is El-Azariyah, as if all that was memorable about it were associated with him whom the Son of God raised from the dead. The day was fast going down, so we could not visit the interior; which was perhaps the less to be regretted as it is distance that lends such special enchantment to Syrian towns, as we saw at Hebron and Bethlehem. One stroll through a single street or bazaar breaks the spell. To this even Bethany and Jerusalem are no exceptions. It was not, however, the fear of having the spell broken, but the lateness of the hour that hindered our visiting Bethany. We had to hasten down the lower road, across the Kedron, up by the slope of Moriah, in order to reach the Zion gate before it was closed. But when we came it was closed. So on we walked to the Jaffa gate, as it stands open a little later. It, too, was closed. However, by fair words and a few piastres, we persuaded the guard to open it; for nothing in the east, either law, or custom, or right, can resist the touch of gold or silver. “Money answereth all things,” (Eccl. x. 19). But the entrance into the better city is free. Night and day there is welcome. Of the rebuilded J erusalem it is written, “thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night,” (Isa. lx. 11); and of the heavenly Jerusalem, we read that u the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there,” (Rev. xxi. 25).
David’s tomb.
Jerusalem, Friday, Feb. 22. 1856. — Went out about seven, and walked along Mount Zion... Sat down under an olive in a ploughed field upon that hill, a little in front of the Tomb of David. In that tomb there is little doubt the dust of that king rests, as well as the dust of many of his successors; for of the most of them it is said that “they were buried in the City of David, in the sepulchres of their fathers,” (2 Chron. xii. 16; xxi. 1).* But no access can now be got to the interior of this tomb any more than to the Cave of Machpelah. The Moslem guards them. The Gentile refuses to the Jew entrance into the sepulchres of his fathers. Even in his own land Israel is an alien. Temple and tomb are alike forbidden him. Before me was the Mount of Olives, and in the distance the dark hills of Moab, over which the sun had just risen. There is a slight depression or slack of the hills at the right of Olivet, where I see a blue gleam apparently at the foot of these mountains of Moab. Is it Jordan, or is it the Dead Sea? I am told that neither of these is visible from Mount Zion; but there is one of them. It seems to me Jordan; the natives tell me that if it
* Asa was buried in the City of David, but in a sepulchre of his own, (2 Chron. xvi. 14). Jehoram was also buried in the City of David, ‘-but not in the sepulchres of the kings,” (2 Chron. xxi. 20). In connection with these sepulchres there was “a field of burial belonging to the kings,” in which Uzziah the leper was buried, (2 Chron. xxvi. 23). Ahaz was buried in Jerusalem, “but not in the sepulchres of the kings,” ( 2 Chron. xxviii. 27)- Hezekiah was buried “in the chiefest of the sepulchres (literally “the ascent of the sepulchres n) of the sons of David,” (2 Chron. xxxii. 33). Marasseh was buried in his own house, (2 Chron. xxxiii. 20),
ZION PLOUGHED AS A FIELD.
is anything it is the Dead Sea, It is but a thin edge of blue, with hills before and hills behind; but it gleams brightly and relieves the wildness of the view. Below me, and not far off, is the village of Siloam or Selwan, giving its name to the fountain, or perhaps taking its name from it; for in the east it is not first a village and then a well, but first a well and then a village. As I returned to the city, I pulled up and preserved some of the green corn growing on the hill, as a witness to the literal fulfilment of the prophetic word, “For your sake shall Zion be ploughed as a field,” (Mia iii. 12). But go where you will around Jerusalem, you find everywhere the evidence of the exact accomplishment of the divine word. Israel’s sorrow has been no figure. Her cities and her hills are proof that every word of Scripture is minutely and accurately true. This ploughed field through which I am walking, once the site of palaces, the fragments of whose tesselated floors lie all around; this handful of green corn which I have just plucked, shews in what sense God meant his word to be taken, and indicate a literality of fulfilment which can only be accounted for by the fact, that the words as well as the thoughts of Scripture are entirely and accurately divine.
At three o’clock we went to the J ewish place of wailing inside the city, at a place outside the wall of the mosque, which is most likely, from its position, to be part of the old temple wall, and where the large stones, wThich are enormous blocks, evidently belong to the old temple; some of them perhaps in their original position. The place is narrow, being part of a court or alley paved with square stones; but it is away from the noise of the town, and the Jews are allowed to meet here each Friday in peace, no one making them afraid. We counted thirty-five Jews, men and women, of many nations, as their different dresses shewed. Some were reading the 102d Psalm, some the Lamentations, and, strange to say, some the Song of Solomon. Some were sitting on the ground with their Hebrew Bibles, or parts of Bibles, before them, which they most willingly shewed us. Most of them were standing with their faces to the wall, and bending their bodies as they read aloud the psalm or the prophecy, touching the second row of the stones with their foreheads. Besides this muttered reading of the Scriptures, they sometimes uttered a sentence in a louder voice, in which all, in an instant, joined, giving the sound of a bitter and impassioned cry. But in general there did not appear much real feeling. Some were looking about them at the Gentile strangers, others were reading in a way such as shewed that they were going through a form. Just as the mourners at Hebron among the tombs did not seem to be uttering much sorrow, so these Hebrew wailers did not seem real mourners. Yet there might be some, saying with Jeremiad’s heart,” The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces... Mine eyes do fail
JEWISH WAILERS.
with tears, for the destruction of the daughter of my people,” (Lam. ii. 7, 11).
In the fourth century there was a stone to which the Jews came once a year, anointing it, and at the same time lamenting and rending their garments.* But this may not have been the present place of wailing; it looks more like the great rock of the mosque. Benjamin of Tudela mentions a place on which the Jews inscribed their names; but of these there are no traces here.*f- He also speaks once and again of “the mourners of the downfall of Jerusalem,“^ He mentions also a class of Jews in Gentile lands whose profession was that of” mourners of Zion and of Jerusalem /’§
From the place of wailing we went to see the stones of the original arch that connected Moriah and Zion. They are remarkable for their size, being twenty-one feet long by five or six broad, and they are no less peculiar as “being evidently in their original position. The
* Jerusalem Itinerary, p. 279. + Asher’s Benjamin, vol. i. p. 71.
t lb., vol. i. p. 74.
§ lb., vol. i. p. 113. At another place he thus speaks of them moro particularly, — “Whenever a traveller visits them they are rejoiced thereat, and hospitably receive him. They are full of hopes, and say, be of good spirit, dear brethren, for the salvation of the Lord will be quick, like the twinkling of an eye; and were it not that we doubted hitherto that the end of our captivity had not yet arrived, we should have assembled long ago. But this is impossible before the time of song arrive, and the sound of the cooing dove gives warning; then will the message arrive, and we will ever say, the name of the Lord be exalted.. Those that spend their time as mourners of the downfall of Zion and the destruction of Jerusalem, are always dressed in black clothes and pray for mercy before the Lord, for the sake of their brethren.” — Vol. i. p. 163. curve forming the spring of the arch is quite distinct, and the size of the arch itself must have been immense. Indeed, everything connected with the buildings on Moriah and Zion was on a large scale, — stones, arches, courts, and towers. Massive magnificence is the characteristic of Solomon’s work, and it is curious to notice how much the size of individual stones adds to the greatness of the whole. It is hardly possible for a brick building to be truly great or impressive.
A garden lies at the foot of this part of the wall, hedged in by prickly pears, and stocked with cauliflowers of a very large size. Indeed, the cauliflowers on Mount Zion are the largest I have any where seen. One would be a dish for a considerable company. We had scaled the little wall, pushed through the prickly pears, and were moving up and down the garden at our ease, when the EfTendi to whom it belonged appeared. He was very angry; but he was in the right and we were in the wrong, for we had trespassed on private property. He said that he would have given us the key and taken us in, had we but asked him; but he did not like such intrusion. Such we were told was the meaning of his Arabic, for some of us at least, understood not a word of what he was saying. We made our apology at once, and confessed ourselves wrongdoers, but told him our object. He was pacified at once and began freely to converse. We asked him as to the arch in question. He said that it was the work of Solomon, for whom, EFFEXDES HOUSE.
be it remembered, the Moslem has as great a reverence as the Jew. We inquired how such enormous stones could be lifted. He told us that the “Gins” or genii did it for Solomoru* He then asked us to go into his house, which not only overlooked this garden, but on the other side overlooked the mosque. We went with him to the first door which was close at hand; but admittance was denied; the women were in that part at present, and instead of quitting, to let us in, they remained there and compelled us to take a circuit. This we did, and soon found ourselves in a good Moslem house with large rooms and windows that gave the survey of the whole platform of the mosque. We did not fail to use our advantage and saw all that could be seen. He then led us into a small well-furnished apartment, where pipes and coffee were presented, of the latter of which we partook. We then hinted at a backshish; but he was an effendi, a gentleman, could we offer him money for a visit to his house? Would he not be affronted? Not at all. He quietly said that he did not ask anything, but if it were offered, there would be no refusal and no affront. So he pocketed the offered dollar with great good-will.
* This is the old Moslem tradition, “When God revealed unto Solomon that he should build a temple, Solomon assembled all the wisest men, genii, and Afrites of the earth, and appointed one division of them to build, another to cut blocks and columns from its marble mines, and another to dive into the ocean deeps and fetch therefrom pearls and coral.” — Jalal Addin’s History of the Temple of Jerusalem, p. 32.
We then went to Aceldama, opposite Mount Zion.* The caves here are very numerous, and have evidently been sepulchres; yet the modern Jew makes no use of these empty tombs of his fathers. They are carefully hewn out in the rock, with chambers inside, and sometimes a well-carved front, on one or two of which there are inscriptions. None of them go dovmwards. They are all cut horizontally into the face of the rock; so that there was no letting down into the tomb, as with us, but rather a lifting up. The entrances were in general small, and could easily be filled up with rolling a stone to them, as in the tomb of J oseph of Arimathea. We explored one of them with candles, and found it large beyond any idea that we had formed. Its chambers were endless: some to the right, some to the left, some in front, extending one beyond the other in succession, and each of these chambers shelved or boxed round with receptacles for the coffins, — all cut out of the rock. The coffins, or sarcophagi, were away, but their contents were there; and the amount of skulls, bones, and dust, is beyond description. The whole of
* The present name of this spot is El-Fardus, — that is, Paradise; or, at least, it belongs to a hill which goes by that name. Can this be from Solomon’s Fardus or orchard immediately below 1 For the king’s gardens are just at hand. It is too far off to be connected with the Frank mountain which goes by the name of El-Fureidis, or Little Paradise; but there seem to have been several places of that name. Mr Wilde says that it is still called, by Mohammedans as well as Christians, Aceldama. But Mr Valentiner, of the Jerusalem mission, made particular inquiry for me as to this, and found that Fardus was the native name. Tobler, in his minute and valuable map of the city gives Jebel Kebur, the hill of tombs, as the name.
THE FIELD OF BLOOD.
this rocky slope is now called Aceldama; but whether all this was the field purchased by Judas’ money (Acts i. 18, 19), may be doubted. Thirty pieces of silver would not buy very much land in the neighbourhood of a city. Perhaps the spot called Aceldama was originally only a part of this great burying ground, though afterwards the whole was called by this name.* The matter is not of much moment; but the scene itself is the monument of guilt, the record of man’s hatred of God, and his willingness to make gain, not merely by the sale of God’s gifts, but of God himself. Here was “the field of blood,” and this was “the price of blood,” (Matt, xxvii. 6). It had originally been the property of the potters. Perhaps a large pottery was established here; but then it was for sale, and Judas’ thirty pieces were the price. It was the” reward of ini-
* The reader will find full information as to this whole place, and especially the tomb which I have mentioned, in “Wilde’s Narrative,” vol. ii. pp. 337-357. He thus sums up his architectural and anatomical analysis of the sepulchre and its contents: —” From all the circumstances connected with this tomb; its being situated on the acknowledged field of blood; the appearance of its external architecture, particularly the door, which differs from all other sepulchres that we have yet heard of, except the one at Petra, in being formed for occasional opening; from its curious internal hall and chambers; the remarkable human remains found in them, so perfectly different from one another, and these belonging to foreign nations, and not to Hebrews, I conceive there is a strong probability, almost amounting to presumptive proof, that this sepulchre was one of these tombs, if not the actual one, purchased with the thirty pieces of silver to bury strangers in.” Mr Wilde says that he saw the “marks and remains of bricks and pottery ware in the adjoining ravine.” — (IL p. 339) quity” that bought this ground on which we stand, (Acts i. 18). Here is the investment of the traitor’s ill-gotten gain. Strange neighbourhood and strange remembrances! Judas, the chief priests, the potters, the silver which rang upon the temple floor, the bitter cry, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood” (Matt, xxvii 4), the cruel taunt in return, “What is that to us!”