It was

Emperor now began to rear a trophy of the Saviour's victory over death." From the words αντιπρόσωπος τῇ παλαία Finlay infers “ that the temple of Venus was, even in the time of Eusebius, without the walls."* But I have already pointed out that elsewhere Eusebius speaks of the site as being v μow of the city. The passage, however, is a striking one, and makes strongly for the traditional site. By the New Jerusalem Eusebius meant, not the new city, but the new Church, with reference to St. John's use of the expression in the Apocalypse (xxi. 2).† But by "the Old Jerusalem" it is almost certain that he means Jerusalem within the second wall. "right opposite" that Old Jerusalem, and therefore outside of it, that Constantine's church was built. The space between the second and third walls was only twenty-six years old when the City was taken by Titus, and therefore could hardly be included in the "Old Jerusalem." Eusebius had probably also in his mind the site of the old Temple, and the description of the Holy Sepulchre as "straight opposite" the Temple is strictly accurate, but does not fit the new site at all. It is an example of the carelessness with which the assailants of the traditional site write that Major Conder tells us that "Eusebius gives a long description of the growth of New Jerusalem, to account for the position of Constantine's site almost in the heart of the town."‡ The description is of the building of a church, not the growth of a town; and as to its length, it occupies fifteen lines of Greek.

As I have quoted Major Conder, I will notice here a military argument against the traditional site which he thinks fatal to its authenticity. Assuming, without any evidence, the direction of the second wall, he finds that if we make it exclude the Holy Sepulchre it would run through a valley commanded by high ground, and it is an axiom of military science that "fortresses stand on hills, not în deep ravines." I reply-(1) That Major Conder assumes the point in dispute-namely, the topography of the second wall. (2) Though his axiom applies to the choice of a site for a fortress and its encompassing wall, it does not apply to subsequent walls to surround the extension of population outside the original fortress. Considerations not entirely military would then come in, such, for example, as the distance of the rising ground from the farthest limit of population. (3) As a matter of fact, we know that the wall of ancient Jerusalem did pass through a valley. See 2 Chronicles xxvi. 9; Nehemiah iii. 13.

I suppose I ought to say something about Mr. Haskett Smith's arguments against the old site and in favour of the new, as he is the literary Corypheus of those who appeal for funds to buy "Gordon's tomb." But really it is difficult to discuss his brochure and his History of Greece," i. 473.

+ See Valesius in loc. correcting the mistake of Socrates.

屮 "Tent Work in Palestine," 362.

+

letters to the Times in terms which shall be at once accurate and courteous. In all my experience in controversy I have seldom seen. so much nonsense packed into so small a space. "We know," he says he is never troubled with any doubts-"that the site was lost," and he appeals to "the flight of the Christians to Pella" and "the complete desolation in which the city lay under the Emperor Trajan." But when he asks us to accept his own site we find that it was never lost at all, for he quotes Jewish traditions to identify the knoll beyond the Damascus Gate with Golgotha, and gravely argues that the site was so well known to the early Christians that they built churches and excavated graves on the spot in order to worship and be buried "near their Lord." Golgotha, he tells us, was the Jews' "place of execution," and was surrounded with graves ; a place therefore which was "an accursed spot." A conclusive reason why a rich Jew, who was also a member of the Sanhedrim, could not have had his villa and garden there. It was also "the recognised place of crucifixion." But crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment, and the Romans, as is plain from Josephus, had no "recognised place of crucifixion." The emphasis which all four Evangelists lay on Golgotha I have explained by its traditional association with Adam's burial; and it was probably because it was regarded as a holy place by the Jews that Pilate ordered Jesus and the two robbers to be crucified there, just as he insulted them by the title which he put on the cross. He did violence to his conscience in yielding to their clamours, and he took this method of revenging himself.

A Roman pavement has been discovered in the basement of the Convent of the Sisters of Sion, which some identify with Gabbatha, the pavement of the Prætorium, from which Jesus was led out to Golgotha. "The pavement points unmistakably in the direction of the Damascus Gate," says Mr. Haskett Smith, " and is nearly at right angles to the so-called 'Via Dolorosa,' which leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre." As if streets always ran in a straight line, and were never at right angles with the pavements of the houses which they pass! The summit of Olivet is seen from Mr. Smith's spurious site, and Jesus would thus have been comforted by seeing from His cross the scene of "His crowning triumph" at the Ascension. But the summit of Olivet is also seen from the old site; and, moreover, Christ did not ascend from the summit of Olivet, but from Bethany (St. Luke xxiv. 50), which is some distance below the summit, on the eastern declivity of the mountain, and invisible both from the summit and from Jerusalem. After the Ascension the disciples "returned from the mount called Olivet" (Acts i. 12), for Bethany is on Olivet, and three roads lead from it to Jerusalem; one, a footpath, over the summit. "The tomb was never finished," Mr. Smith tells us. Where did he learn that ? Where he learnt all his facts

-from his own imagination. There is no authority for the statement either in the Gospels or in ecclesiastical history. He could not have been better acquainted with the tomb if he had been Joseph of Arimathea's architect, for he not only tells us all about its internal and external arrangements, but gives the reasons for them. It was

once occupied." How does he know that it was only once occupied ? In a letter written to the Times of September 24, 1892, Major Conder says that he “ was present at the excavation of 'Gordon's tomb' in 1873, and found in it the remains of the bones of a large number of persons." That was an awkward fact for Mr. Haskett Smith's assertion in Murray's Handbook, and in his pamphlet on "Calvary and the Tomb of Christ." But Mr. Smith is proof alike against the logic of reason and the logic of facts. He wrote to the Times to say that " no one of experience will for a moment deny" that " Gordon's tomb at Jerusalem has been used at some time as a place of general interment." But it was Mr. Smith himself, and he only, who had denied it by asserting that the tomb had been only "once occupied," and by one body. In a tomb near Gordon's" were found "two memorial stones, which almost appear to settle the question." On one of these are inscribed the words: "Buried near his Lord." On the other: "To Nonus and Onesimus, deacons of the church of the Witness of the Resurrection of Christ." Here at last, I will frankly admit, is a piece of evidence which, if it can be substantiated, "appears to settle the question." In the close neighbourhood are the ruins of

St. Stephen's church, and also another ruin which Mr. Smith takes for a church. And his theory is that one of those two churches bore in early days the title which is inscribed on the tombstone. Now if he can prove that point, I will admit at once that he has overthrown my argument for the traditional site. The question

then is, have we any evidence to show that there was a church in Jerusalem which bore that title, and where it was situated? Let us see. Eusebius in many places refers to a church called "the Martyry of the Resurrection"; and when the Arian Council of Tyre adjourned to Jerusalem, soon after the Nicene Council, they assembled at the Saviour's Martyry." Bede also speaks of a church in Jerusalem, which is called the Martyry" ("quæ Martyrum appellatur ").* Cyril of Jerusalem also makes several references to it, and in one place he asks why it should not, after the manner of other churches, have been called the church of Golgotha, or of the Resurrection, instead of “the Martyry of the Resurrection?" and he suggests an explanation.ț

* De Loc. Sanct., c. ii.

† βλέπεις ὅτι καὶ τὸν τόπον τῆς ἀναστάσεως προεἶδεν ὁ προφήτης Μαρτύριον ἐπικληθησόμενον; Τίνι γὰρ τῷ λόγῳ, μὴ κατὰ τὰς λοιπὰς Εκκλησίας ὁ τοῦ Γολγοθᾶ καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως οὗτος ὁ τόπος Εκκλησία καλέιται, ἀλλὰ Μαρτύριον ; Αλλ ̓ ἴσως διὰ τὸν προφήτην τὸν εἰπάντα. Εἰς ἥμεραν ἀνατάσεως μου εἰς μαρτύριον.-Cyril, “ Catech.” xiv. 6.

It is evident, therefore, that there was a church in Jerusalem in early days which was called "the Martyry of the Resurrection,” and occupied the site of Golgotha. Have we any clue to the history and position of that church? I am sorry for Mr. Haskett Smith, for it is always painful to have one's fond illusions shivered. But the plain truth is that "the Martyry of the Resurrection " is the historic title of the church which Constantine built at Golgotha, and which is now known as the Holy Sepulchre. And the two deacons, Nonus and Onesimus, were deacons of that church. It is the only church in Jerusalem which ever bore that title. And the Christian symbols, of which Mr. Smith makes so much, undoubtedly belong to Crusading times. What are we to think of an archeologist who, writing in the character of an expert, professes to have supplied us with a case in favour of "Gordon's tomb," in which there is "actually not a link missing in the chain of evidence which connects this tomb with the sepulchre of Christ,"* and yet has not taken the trouble to master the alphabet of the facts with which he has to deal? Mr. Smith, too, like Dr. Robinson, has neglected to consult his Bible. We learn from St. Mark xvi. 5, that on passing from the outer into the inner chamber of Christ's Sepulchre, the loculus for the body was on the right, and it is so in the real tomb. In "Gordon's tomb" it is on the left. may also add here, in confirmation of what has been said on page 174 as to other family tombs on the traditional site, that the tombs which bear the names of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, near the Holy Sepulchre, are undoubtedly Jewish tombs of a date not later than the time of Christ.

My space is exhausted; but I think I have said enough to prove that the new site cannot, and that the old site must, be the true site. And the method of reasoning adopted by the advocates of the new site appears to me more reprehensible even than their conclusion. It is an example of the criticism which seeks to substitute the dogmas of a "verifying faculty" in the critic for arguments which can be fairly tested, and thus undertakes to tell us for certain, not only what portions of ancient books were, or were not, written by the authors whose names they bear, but even what parts of our Lord's discourses were, or were not, spoken by Him. I have a profound distrust of these "verifying faculties," and we have a specimen of their arrogant fallacy in the futile assault on the traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre.

MALCOLM MACCOLL.

*"Calvary and the Tomb of Christ," p. 15.

THE MILITARY COURAGE OF ROYALTY.

MR.

R. E. B. LANIN'S paper in the January number of the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW on the present Emperor of Russia is so brilliant, so well-informed, and so interesting that one has the consciousness of being censorious in taking exception to an incidental detail of that masterly performance. But since the point is one of some importance, and as since I perhaps can bring to bear on it more knowledge of a personal character than Mr. Lanin would seem to possess, I venture to advance some comments on one of his

statements.

Mr. Lanin observes: "Marvellous personal courage is not a striking characteristic of the dynasty of the Romanoffs as it was of the English Tudors." It will be conceded that periods materially govern the conditions under which sovereigns and their royal relatives have found opportunities for proving their personal courage. The Tudor dynasty had ended before the Romanoff dynasty began. It is true, indeed, that the ending of the former with the death of Elizabeth in 1603 occurred only a few years before the foundation of the latter by the election to the Tzarship of Michael Feodorovitz Romanoff in 1612. But of the five sovereigns of the Tudor dynasty it happened that only one, Henry VII., the first monarch of that dynasty, found or made an opportunity for the display of marked-scarcely perhaps of "marvellous "-personal courage; and thus Mr. Lanin's selection of the Tudor dynasty as furnishing a contrasting illustration in the matter of personal courage to that of the Romanoffs is not particularly fortunate. Henry VIII. was only once in action; he shared in the skirmish known as the "Battle of the Spurs" because of the precipitate flight of the French horse. Edward VI. died at the age of sixteen, and the two remaining sovereigns of the dynasty were women, of whom it is true that Elizabeth was a strong and vigorous ruler, but in the nature of things had no opportunity for showing