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
stained with the Lord's blood, to which He is said to have been bound
and scourged. The place is pointed out where the Holy Ghost descended
upon one hundred and twenty believers." In the year 415, on Dec. 26th,
the remains of the Proto-martyr S. Stephen were transported to the
Apostles' Church, during the patriarchate of John[778]. Antoninus of
Piacenza, Arculf, Willibald, and Bernard the Wise, in the sixth,
seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries respectively, mention the basilica
on Sion[779]. Arculf describes its plan without details as a regular
parallelogram of considerable length. We do not know whether the church,
described by these authors, was the same as that spoken of by S. Cyril;
but it is very probable that, owing to the persecutions suffered by the
Christians, the fabric was destroyed and rebuilt more than once. At any
rate, by the end of the eleventh century it had entirely fallen to ruin,
as we find from the Gesta Francorum[780]. The Crusaders rebuilt it, and
though their church no longer exists, we possess an accurate description
of it by the authors of the twelfth century. I abbreviate this from the
work of M. de Vogüé[781], who has derived it from the anonymous writers
of the manuscripts of Vienna and of Paris, and from John of Würtzburg
and John Phocas. "The church was composed of two parts: the lower,
consisting of a nave and two aisles, with barrel-vaults, was
terminated, like most of the buildings of the period of the Crusades, by
three apses at the east. In the apse most to the north was an altar,
supposed to mark the place where the Virgin died.... That on the south
was supposed to indicate where Christ appeared to His disciples after
His Resurrection. In this lower church, sometimes called the crypt in
the middle ages, they say that Our Saviour washed the Apostles' feet.
The upper church had a groined roof, with a central dome. This was the
Coenaculum, properly so called, where tradition placed the scene of
the Last Supper in the nave, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost in the
principal apse. The two floors communicated one with another by means of
an inner staircase of 61 steps (this number, given by Phocas, is
evidently exaggerated), which opened from the ground-floor in the
southern apse. The interior of these two churches, in the time of the
Latin Kings, was covered with wall-paintings, representing the subjects
of the traditions attached to the spot." After giving a list of these,
M. de Vogüé goes on to say, that "on the left of the principal church
was a small one dedicated to S. Stephen, in remembrance of a very
ancient tradition, according to which the martyr's body was removed from
its first resting-place at Caphar Gamala to this place. A convent had
been built in the neighbourhood, occupied by a chapter of Augustinian
Canons, who had the care of the Sanctuaries under the direction of an
Abbot. The society bore the twofold name of S. Mary of Mount Sion and of
the Holy Ghost." M.
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