Temple-area, and when we come to examine it, we shall find that it halts throughout, and fairly breaks down at the last. But I am here prepared to maintain that, if the architectural argument were without a flaw-if the Mosk were as perfect a specimen of Constantinian architecture as could be devised, still, if historical evidence is worth anything, Mr Fergusson's theory cannot hold. I am convinced that it would be quite as easy to prove that the present St Paul's was a pagan temple, or that Westminster Abbey is the identical St Paul's that was burnt down in the fire of London; in short, there is nothing so extravagant that might not be proved by such a process of historical criticism and architectural reasoning as that adopted by Mr Fergusson, who himself allows, that "it is rather a startling fact, to find in a building so often burned down,-according to the chroniclers, the very original ceiling with which it was erected fifteen centuries ago3."

"

The scriptural narrative," and "the testimony of subsequent writers, both Christian and Mohammedan," are appealed to with almost as much confidence as the architecture; and to these I must advert. With regard to the former, it is admitted that "the indications of the New Testament are so slight, that nothing positive can be concluded from them directly in favour of any system." The topographical argument, when considered in laying out the ancient Temple, will be found to be directly opposed to this new theory, and it is difficult to notice the scriptural objection to the received Sepulchre, because I know not what idea Mr Fergusson— who, it should be remembered, has never been at Jeru

salem-has formed of it; I know only that it must be an erroneous idea1. He says, the Evangelists all agree that those who came to look for the body, "looked down into the Sepulchre." The statement is not correct, though the words are marked as a citation. The disciples are said to have stooped down, in order to look in2; and this description is entirely consistent with the present tomb, with its very low door-still low, though probably somewhat heightened for the accommodation of the pilgrims; nor can I imagine any period when it would have been possible to look in without stooping nearly to the ground; much less when it would have been necessary "to stand on tip-toes to have looked in."

We will proceed to Eusebius, who witnessed the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and assisted at the dedication of the Church of Constantine. His description of the site, of the Sepulchre, and of the buildings about it, are wholly irreconcilable with Mr Fergusson's hypothesis, as they are consistent with the established tradition. It has been already shewn, by an incidental agreement with the language of Josephus, how correctly the New Jerusalem is placed by Eusebius opposite to the Old; the other notice that "the Sepulchre is situated in the northern parts of Sion," has been also explained3; and a glance at the plan will shew that it is true as regards the received Sion and the actual Sepulchre. But this relative position of the Sepulchre and Sion does not suit Mr Fergusson's hypothesis;

1 Mr Fergusson places the tomb "several feet above the level of the Church," and speaks of a "pavement and filling-up," of which no previous writer had any idea, and for which he

cites no authority, p. 88.

2 παρακύψας βλέπει, Luke xxiv. 12; John xx. 5. παρέκυψεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, John xx. 11.

3 Above, pp. 62, 3.

so the difficulty is disposed of by a very summary process. The Greek of the Onomasticon, supported as it is by the literal translation of the Latin of St Jerome, is pronounced " at best a mere assertion-[as all the statements in the Onomasticon necessarily are]-without any detail or circumstantial evidence by which to test its credibility, and just such an expression as any meddling monk or commentator, copying the book after the first Crusade, might easily alter, supposing it to be a mistake, if he found it so completely at variance with the known locality of the place as it then stood." In other words, the notice of Eusebius and St Jerome agrees entirely with the present sites, but not at all with Mr Fergusson's theory of Mount Sion and the Sepulchre; therefore, without the authority of a single MS., and in defiance of all rules of historical criticism, the passage is to be set aside as an interpolation. It is enough to stateI cannot be expected to refute-such an argument. Thus much for the site.

Then for the Sepulchre itself. It was, according to Eusebius, a "rock standing out erect and alone upon a level ground," as the present Monument does, but as the Sakhrah neither does nor ever did; and it was dressed up with columns and other adornments, (according to the received custom of the Romans"), which could not have been applied to the rough unshapen rock in the Mosk of Omar, sunk as it is in the very pavement.

But the historian's notice of the buildings about the

4 Essay, p. 90.

See Theophania as cited above, pp. 78, 79.

• Abundant examples of the style of ornament employed in Roman Se

pulchres, will be cited by Professor Willis. For the adornment of the Sepulchre, see Eusebius, Vita Constantini, Lib. III. cap. xxxiv.

Sacred Cave, does not less strongly militate against Mr Fergusson's views. We need not go beyond the propylæum, which he places at the Golden Gate'. How could he fail to see that Eusebius, in the very same. short chapter in which he describes that gateway, remarks that it opened upon the very middle of the wide market-place, as must have been the case with the propylæum of the ancient Basilica, (supposing it to have stood East of the present Sepulchre, and the modern bazaars to occupy the position of the ancient market) -while the Golden Gate opens upon a narrow ridge above the deep Valley of Jehoshaphat?

And when to all this it is added, that we have no evidence whatever that Constantine built any Church over the Holy Sepulchre, but rather the express testimony of Eusebius to the contrary, it will be granted that Mr Fergusson has slender support indeed from the pages of Eusebius. Besides the adornment of the Cave, already mentioned, nothing more was then done to the Sepulchre, except that the open court in which it stood was paved with marble and a peridrome of columns carried round it on three sides3. On the fourth side,

When then we are

i. e. on the East, was the Basilica. told that the Church of the Anastasis, with its very ceiling, as erected by Constantine fifteen centuries ago,

1 Essay, p. 99.

2 Vita Constantini, Lib. 111. cap. xxxix. ἐπὶ πᾶσιν αἱ αὔλειοι πύλαι μεθ' ἃς ἐπ ̓ αὐτῆς μέσης πλατείας ἀγορᾶς τὰ τοῦ παντὸς προπύλαια. The passage in the Laudes Constantini is not irreconcilable with this ; τῆς Ἑβραίων βασιλικῆς ἑστίας ἐν μέσῳ, κατ' αὐτὸ δι τὸ σωτήριον μαρτύριον οἶκον πλουσίως

κατεκόσμει. cap. ix. p. 630.

3 Vita Con. cap. xxxv. After describing the adornment of the Sepulchre itself, he proceeds: Διέβαινε δ' ἐξῆς ἐπὶ παμμεγέθη χώρον, εἰς καθαρὸν αἴθριον ἀναπεπταμένον· ὃν δὴ λίθος λαμπρὸς κατεστρωμένος ἐπ ̓ ἐδάφους ἐκόσμει μακροῖς περιδρόμοις στοῶν ἐκ τριπλέυρου περιεχόμενον.

is standing to this hour, it is not surely unreasonable to require some evidence that this Emperor did erect a Church over or around the Sepulchre; and if no such evidence can be adduced, however admirably the architecture may suit that period, the "startling fact" becomes pure fiction.

The Bordeaux Pilgrim, coeval with Eusebius, meets with no better treatment at Mr Fergusson's hands. In passing from the part of Mount Sion occupied by the palace of David and the only one of seven synagogues that had escaped desolation, to the gate of Neapolis, the Pilgrim had Golgotha on the left and the Palace of Pilate on the right. Now, taking the Palace of David and the Synagogue to mean, as is most probable, the Sepulchre of David and the Cœnaculum, and supposing the Neapolis gate of the Itinerary to be Nablouse or Damascus gate (and it is not easy to believe that it can be any other), then the notice of the Pilgrim exactly falls in with the actual sites. But granting all that Mr Fergusson assumes, which is not a little, they cannot be brought to agree with his theory; for although he has the whole disposing of all the sites indicated, he is sadly perplexed about this aforesaid gate, suggesting that it may be the Nablouse or Damascus Gate, or the gate of the New City,-i. e. the New Jerusalem of Eusebius, at the South of the Haram,-or of the New City of Josephus, far to the North of the Temples! It were surely much better at once to cut the knot, and “ unhesitatingly to reject the testimony of an anonymous

4 Itinerarium Hierosol. p. 594. Ed. W'esseling.

5 For these three irreconcilable-the

VOL. II.

ories, the choice of which is left to the reader, see Essay, pp. 92, 122.

"Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?”

7