explain this, if they themselves are even aware of its history. But the effect of their exhibiting an altar, which is plainly a construction of marble slabs, as the representation of a tomb which we have the words of Holy Writ to assure us was hewn out of the solid rock, is, and always has been, to provoke incredulity, censure, and doubts as to the genuineness of the spot itself. William de Baldensel, a traveller, even so early as A.D. 1336, describes the "domuncula" or chapel in question, and the place of the Lord's Sepulchre, on the right hand. But he adds, that "it must be remarked, that the monument placed over that most holy spot is not the very one in which the sacred Body was originally laid, for that, according to holy Scripture, was hewn out of the living rock; even as many monuments of the ancients, and especially those in the neighbourhood, were formed. But this is made of numerous stones, put together with fresh mortar, and very rudely, so as to appear scarcely decent1." He then goes on to account for this

"...In medio Ecclesiæ parvula domuncula est, in quam propter portæ demissionem versus Orientem, intrare oportet corpore incurvato: supra verò testudinata est ad modum semicirculi, opere Mosaico, auro et marmoribus deornata, nullam habens fenestram, candelis lampade illustrata. In hujus domunculæ parte dextra locus est Dominicæ Sepulturæ, attingens extremitates prædictæ casa in longum, scilicet ab Oriente versus Occidentem, cujus longitudo novem communium palmarum est, latitudo verò tam monumenti, quam spacii cæteri ipsius domunculæ residuum, in latitudine circa sex palmas communes utrobique se extendit; circa 12 palmas potest esse altitudo domunculæ supradictæ. Illud verò adverten

dum est, quod monumentum illi sanctissimo loco superpositum, non est illud, in quo corpus Christi sacratissimum exanime primitùs est immissum; quia, sacro attestante eloquio, monumentum Christi erat excisum in petra viva, scilicet, quomodo antiquorum monumenta, et præcipuè in his partibus fieri communiter consueverunt; illud verò ex petris pluribus est compositum, de novo conglutinato camento, minus artificialiter et minus quàm deceat, ordinatè... Veruntamen quicquid sit de hoc, ipse locus sepulchri Christi formaliter moveri non potest, sed remansit et remanebit immobilis in æternum." Guilielmi de Baldensel, Hodaporicon ad Terram Sanctam. A. D. 1336. Canis. Thes. Tom. IV. p. 348. From the man

in his own way, by saying that if any part of the original monument had remained, the Christians never would have abandoned the spot to the Pagans, and so on; and that, after all, if the Sepulchre be gone, the place where it stood can never be moved.

Clarke visited Jerusalem in 1801, therefore before the fire. He relates that "there are no remains whatsoever of any ancient known Sepulchre, that with the most attentive and scrupulous examination he could possibly discover. The sides of the chamber consist of thick slabs of that beautiful breccia vulgarly called verd-antique marble, and over the entrance, which is rugged and broken owing to the pieces carried off as relics, the substance is of the same nature?"

Richardson, a very intelligent describer, who visited the Church in 1822, states that "the tomb exhibited is a sarcophagus of white marble, slightly tinged with blue, six feet one inch and three quarters long, three feet three quarters of an inch broad, and two feet one inch and a quarter deep, measured on the outside. It is but indifferently polished, and seems as if it had been at one time exposed to the pelting of the storm, &c.... The sarcophagus occupies about one half of the sepulchral chamber, and extends from one end of it to the other. A space about three feet wide in front of it, is all that remains for the reception of visitors, so that not above three or four can be admitted at a time 3."

The North side above the altar or tomb was occu

ner in which the word monumentum is used (which I have marked in Italics), it is plain that. he employs it for the altar or loculus only, and does not intend to apply it to the entire sepulchral chamber.

544.

2 Clarke's Travels, 4to. Vol. 11. p.

3 Richardson's Travels along the Mediterranean, &c. 1822, Vol. 11. p.

322.

In

pied by a picture representing the Resurrection'. the interior view of the Sepulchre, which Le Brun has engraved, this picture is shewn, and the altar appears detached from the ends of the apartment by a small space; but this is inconsistent with the accounts of other travellers. He shews the roof in the form of a common groined vault, and states that there were forty-four silver lamps kept constantly burning, and all suspended from the roof. Of these lamps thirteen belonged to the Latins, twenty-one to the Greeks, four to the Armenians, and four to the Copts. The smoke was let out by three holes in the vault. And as there was no opening from the chamber but these holes and the little door of entrance, the heat and closeness of the atmosphere were overpowering2. At present these openings are replaced by some open work of marble, of the most chaste and elegant workmanship, according to Mr Wilde, who adds, that the top of the chamber is evidently of modern construction, but that the sides of the door as well as the part above it are hewn out of the solid grey limestonerock, which is there distinctly seen. If this be correct, the marble lining described by Quaresmius and others has been removed since the fire3.

VII.

THE FORMER STATE AND HISTORY OF THE

SEPULCHRE.

COMPARING the above account with the description of the rock-tombs given in the previous sections, it

must certainly be concluded that the appearance of the Holy Sepulchre at present, and as it existed before 1808, as little resembles a genuine Jewish cave-sepulchre as possible. But it was not always so miserably metamorphosed. If we trace its history through the writers that mention it from Eusebius downwards, it will appear, that although its exterior was by Constantine's orders disguised under a mask of architectural ornament to do it honour, yet that its interior was reverently left in its original cavern form, and that the present state of the interior is not earlier than the time of the Crusades. I shall have occasion below to refer fully to the principal writers and pilgrims for the explanation of the history of the entire group of buildings around the Sepulchre; but I have thought it best, in the first place, to extract from them all that relates to the Sepulchre itself, in order to keep the history and description of that principal object entirely distinct.

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Notwithstanding the importance which Eusebius attaches to the sacred cave, his information with respect to its decoration is very scanty, for he merely says that the Emperor's magnificence decorated it, as the head of the whole work, with choice columns, and he ornamented it with great care in every possible manner." From the Lectures of St Cyril we learn that the rock was pared and shaped down by the Emperor's orders: "The entrance which was at the door of the Salutary Sepulchre... was hewn out of the rock itself, as is customary here in the front of Sepulchres. Now it appears not; the outer cave or vestibule having been hewn away for the sake of the present adornment; but before the Sepulchre was decorated by royal zeal, there was a cave in

the face of the rock." (Lect. xiv.) In another place he appeals to the "stone which was laid at the door of the Sepulchre, which lies to this day by the tomb." (Lect. xiii. 39.) This is all the information which we possess of the state of the Sepulchre from the time of its arrangement by Constantine, to the first attack upon it, which was that made by the Persians, (A. D. 614). But we know, from the innumerable examples that remain, that the practice of both Romans and Greeks was to make the most remarkable of their sepulchral monuments in the form of a small edifice or temple, either wholly constructed of separate stones, or else wholly or partly monolithic.

It was therefore in perfect accordance with their usual habits, that the artists first commissioned to do honour to the Sacred Cave, then a mere excavation in the face of a cliff, should conceive the design of converting it into an isolated edicula, and shaping it by paring down the surrounding rock, so as to leave it standing up in a manner that admitted of an architectural casing. We are told that it was decorated with choice columns. From the form of the Western. part, it is pretty certain that it was a circular or polygonal building, probably consisting of two stories, in accordance with the usual practice1.

In the plan, Plate 2, Fig. 6, which is a conjectural representation of its state at this period, I have shewn it as decorated with columns in the simplest manner; namely, by converting it into a dodecagonal temple with a peristyle. The West end of the chapel, in Figs. 7 and 8, indicates that the rock was hewn into a portion of a dodecagonal figure.

The apse, which appears in its Eastern side, being a classical form, is not improbably a reminiscence of Constantine's architecture, or erected on his foundation, and the number twelve, in accordance with that of the apostles, is also a very probable number to have governed not only the form of the rocky polygon, but also the number of the