Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and SectionsPierotti, Ermete
History
Jerusalem Explored, Volume 1—Text: Being a Description of the Ancient and Modern City, with Numerous Illustrations Consisting of Views, Ground Plans and Sections
Pierotti, Ermete
Jerusalem -- Antiquities; Jerusalem -- Description and travel
Tradition asserts that the sentence of death was affixed to the
Judgement Gate, by which the condemned criminal went out on his way to
execution, and that as our Lord passed by here He fell the second time.
Adrichomius holds that the name is derived from its being the place
where the Sanhedrim assembled to pronounce sentence, but he gives no
reason for their meeting there rather than in any other place. I
consider that probably it was called the Gate of Ephraim[483] previous
to the building of Herod's wall, and that the name was afterwards
changed. The Evangelists make no mention either of it or of the second
fall of Christ.
Our Lord's meeting with the 'daughters of Jerusalem' is mentioned by S.
Luke[484], but, owing to the circumstance that Titus attacked the second
line of walls from this side, it is obvious that, even if the event
happened in this neighbourhood, all traces of the exact spot must have
been swept away in the changes that the place has undergone; so that the
tradition is valueless.
The station of the Third Fall needs no comment. With regard to the
Calvary and Sepulchre I have already expressed my opinion in the fourth
chapter. I believe the other stations to be in the neighbourhood of
them, so that while I cannot undertake to fix their exact position, I do
not absolutely refuse to give any credence to them.
I hold, therefore, that the present Via Dolorosa is only a
representation of the true one; and regard it in the same way as I do
the Stations in Churches; that is, as a useful agent in arousing
religious feelings, and bringing to remembrance the solemn scenes of the
Redeemer's Passion. The changes wrought in the city at its destruction
by Titus and rebuilding by Hadrian, and the numerous alterations at
other times, the accumulation of rubbish, and, above all, the
impossibility of the position of one part of the street, lying, as it
would do, in the north ditch of the Antonia, seem to me insuperable
difficulties in the way of establishing the identity of this with the
road trodden by our Saviour. That I believe to have commenced on the
west side of the Antonia, and to have followed the line of the present
street of S. Helena's Hospital up to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Along this, in my opinion, the Stations might more reasonably be placed;
for, whatever theory be adopted about the tower Antonia, the difficulty
of the valley cannot be explained away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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