The particular effect of the sacking of Jerusalem by the Persians, upon the condition of this little edifice, is not related by the historians. Eutychius, however, informs us that the destruction of the sacred buildings was systematically carried out, and that the Jews in enormous numbers had followed the Persians, to gratify their vengeance against the Christians, by assisting in this work. The Church of the Sepulchre was destroyed by the help of fire, and it is needless to say that it was plundered of its riches, and that the edifice in question must have been reduced to a misshapen and ruined block. In the subsequent restoration by Modestus, it seems to have preserved its character of a little sepulchral chapel. The earliest description of it that follows this restoration2, is that of Arculfus, (A. D. 697), which is sufficiently

columns that surrounded it. Indeed, Eusebius mentions twelve columns, the number of the apostles, as having been placed by Constantine round the apse of the Basilica, as will be seen below.

2 The credulous narrative of Antoninus Placentinus is of uncertain date, lying between the time of Justinian, whom he mentions, and the Mohammedan conquests, to which he does not allude. But it appears doubtful whether it is to be placed before or after the Persian sack of Jerusalem. His entire description of the buildings about the Sepulchre corresponds in so many particulars with that of Arculfus, that I am inclined to place him after Modestus. His account of the Sepulchre is as follows: "The monument, in which our Lord's body was laid, is hewn out of the natural rock.... The stone which closed the Sepulchre still lies before it. The colour of the stone, which was

hewn out of Golgotha, cannot be distinguished, for it is ornamented with gold and gems. The rock of the Sepulchre itself is like millstone, and prodigiously decorated with gold and gems, crowns, girdles, belts, and other ornaments suspended from iron rods. The Sepulchre itself is in the fashion of a church, and covered with silver, and before it is placed an altar." This Itinerarium is to be found in the Acta Sanctorum. Maii, Tom. II. p. xii.; and in Ugolini Thesau. Tom. VII. I subjoin the original text...." Ingressi sumus in sanctam civitatem, in qua adoravimus Domini monumentum.... Ipsum monumentum, in quo corpus Domini positum fuit, in naturalem excisum est petram. Lucernæ hydria, quæ illo tempore ad caput ejus posita fuerat, ibidem ardet diu noctuque:... Lapis vero, unde clausum fuit monumentum ipsum, est ante illud monumen

minute, and shews that it then was very different from the chapel in its more modern form. Having described the round church, he proceeds to state that in the middle of it is situated “a round cabin (tegurium)1, cut out of a single piece of rock, within which there is space for nine men to stand and pray. The vaulted roof is about a foot and a half above the head of a man of no short stature. The entrance of this little chamber is to the East. The whole of its exterior surface is covered with choice marble, and the highest part of its outer roof, ornamented with gold, sustains a golden Cross of no small magnitude. The Sepulchre of the Lord is in the North part of the chamber, and is cut out of the same rock as it, but the pavement of the chamber is lower than the place of sepulture; for there is an altitude of about three palms from the pavement to the lateral edge of the sepulchre.......... By the Sepulchre, properly so called, is meant that place in the north part of the monumental chamber, in which the Body, wrapped in linen clothes, was deposited, the length of which Arculfus measured with his own hand as seven feet. Which sepulchre is not, as some erroneously imagine, hollowed out into a double form, (i. e. in the shape of the body), having a projection left from the solid rock, between and separating the legs and thighs,

tum. Color vero petræ, quæ excisa est de Golgotha (non dignoscitur): nam petra ipsa ornata est auro et gemmis: et postmodum de ipsa petra factum est altare, in loco ubi crucifixus est Dominus. Petra vero monumenti velut molaris est et infinite ornata: virgis ferreis pendent brachialia, dextroceria, (Dextrocherium, vide Du Cange, Gloss.)

murenæ, monilia, annuli capitulares, cingella, baltei, corona, imperium ex auro vel gemmis, et ornamenta plurima. Et ipsum monumentum in modum ecclesiæ coopertum ex argento: et ante monumentum altare positum."

TEGURIUM. Locus seclusus ac superne tectus, a tegere voce deducta. Du Cange, Gloss.

but is simple and plain from the head to the feet, and is a couch affording room for one man lying on his back. It is in the manner of a cave, having its opening at the side, and opposite the South part of the monumental chamber. The low roof is artificially wrought

above it.

"In this sepulchre twelve lamps, according to the number of the twelve holy Apostles, burn day and night continually, of which four are placed below in the inner part of that sepulchral couch, and the other eight above, over the margin on the right side......... This chamber of the Lord's monument, not being covered within by any ornaments, exhibits to this day the marks of the workmen's tools by which it was excavated. The colour of the rock of the monument and sepulchre is not uniform, but a mixture of red and white2."

2 "In medio spatio hujus interioris rotundæ domûs rotundum inest in una eademque petra excisum tegurium, in quo possunt ter terni homines stantes orare, et à vertice alicujus non brevis staturæ stantis hominis, usque ad illius domunculæ cameram, pes et semipes mensura in altum extenditur. Hujus tegurioli introitus ad Orientem respicit, quod totum extrinsecùs electo tegitur marmore, cujus exterius summum culmen auro ornatum, auream non parvam

sustentat crucem. In hujus tegurii aquilonali parte sepulchrum Domini in eadem petra interiùs excisum habetur, sed ejusdem tegurii pavimentum humilius est loco sepulchri. Nam à vimento ejus usque ad sepulchri marginem lateris, quasi trium mensura altitudinis palmorum haberi dignoscitur...

pa

...Sepulchrum verò propriè dicitur ille locus in tegurio, hoc est, in aqui

lonali parte monumenti, in quo dominicum corpus linteaminibus involutum conditum quievit, cujus longitudinem Arculfus in septem pedum mensura propria mensus est manu.

Quod videlicet sepulchrum non (ut quidam falsò opinantur) duplex est, et quandam de ipsa maceriola petram habens excisam, duo crura et femora duo intercedentem et separantem : sed totum simplex à vertice usque ad plantas, lectum unius hominis capacem super dorsum jacentis præbens spatium in modum speluncæ, introitum à latere habens ad australem partem monumenti è regione respicientem, culmenque humile desuper eminens fabrefactum: in quo utique sepulchro duodenæ lampades, juxta numerum duodecim sanctorum Apostolorum semper die ac nocte ardentes lucent, ex quibus quatuor in imo illius lectuli

He adds, that the stone which was rolled from the mouth of the cave was then broken in two pieces, of which the smaller part, bound with iron, stood in the great Rotunda before the door of the tegurium or chamber, serving for the purposes of an altar, while the larger part, similarly iron-girt, and as an altar, was fixed in the Eastern part of the same Church.

Willibaldus', in A. D. 765, describes the Sepulchre

concisely, adding nothing of importance to the above description; and Bernardus in A. D. 870, refers for the description of the Sepulchre to Bede, who in his tract, "De Locis Sanctis," has merely abridged Arculfus. Epiphanius mentions, but does not describe, the Sepulchre. And these are all the authorities that exist previous to the destruction of the churches by Hakem in A.D. 1010.

It will at once be admitted, that the minute description which Arculfus has given of the interior of the chamber, shews it to have presented a very different appearance from the present one. It was then wholly uncovered in the interior, and exhibited the rocky surface of the cavern, and the sepulchral loculus in its original perfection.

Comparing the description of this loculus with the various kinds which I have endeavoured to describe in Section III., it must be concluded, that it was an archlike receptacle sunk in the face of the rock, the bottom of which was either flat or only slightly hollowed as a couch, and its margin raised three palms, or about two feet, above the floor of the chamber. It resembled, in short, the arco-solium of figs. X, Y, Z, (Sect. III.) supposing the hollow solium to be filled up, so as to leave a level bed for the reception of the body. And this

of fine workmanship, which was erected over the Sepulchre, and was surmounted by the Cross.

2 It is not very clear whether we are to understand from Arculfus that the bottom of the cavity was simply flat like a shelf, or whether a hollow place was sunk into it so as to form a shallow flat-bottomed chest to prevent the body from being displaced, which appears on the whole most probable, VOL. II.

for Arculfus only contradicts the assertion that there was a sunk cavity in the shape of a human body. Quaresmius distinctly asserts that the bottom of the Sepulchre was like a chest, large enough to contain a human body, as he was told by those who had seen it when it was laid open (that is, during the repairs of Bonifacius in 1556): "Locus est ad instar arcæ, cujus amplitudo humanum corpus commode

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