The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 8, 1856. itcraturt. Later Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions. By Edward Robinson, LL.D., Professor of Biblical Literature in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. London: Murray. OF late years there has been a quantity of literature, of various degrees of merit, relating to the geography of the ll* Land. The sub ject possesses enduring interest in those coun tries where, as in England, Germany, and America, the Bible forms the foundation of the national religion ; and the litterati of Christendom, without any distinction of sect, must always feel interest in whatever relates to a region where events of so stupendous a character, and of such eternal interest to the human race, have been transacted. Forty years ago the writings of Chateaubriand on the Holy Land were read with great ardour, and in our times the travels of Lamartine found many admirers. In 1847 M. Carmoly published at Brussels the well known work, " Itineraires de la Terre Sainte," being seven Jewish itineraires belonging to the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven teenth centuries. The work of Colonel Churchill has been reviewed in our columns ; and the results of the United States' expedi tion, under Lieutenant Lynch, are familiar to all who take interest in the geography of Pales tine. The printing-presses at Stuttgardt, Leipsic, Berlin, and Paris have produced many works of value on this great subject. Last, and perhaps most important of all, Mr. Stanley has added to our own literature on the subject a work of utnivalled accuracy, power, and descriptive beauty. The volume before us is carefully written, and is composed of solid matter collected, not from books, but from direct personal observa tion. There is no showy writing no vivid description in its pages ; its rhetoric is under written rather than overdone; sometimes we would wish for more animation, but the value of the volume will be found in its cool statement and minute details. The author is master of the subject: he has visited the Holy Land for a second time, and meditates a complete and still more extensive work. Book-clubs, we think, will be disappointed in not finding eloquent passages in its pages ; but Dr. Robinson has written for the sake of science, and this volume is addressed to theo • logians, and to scriptural inquirers, rather than to generil readers. To criticise this work, from the vast quantity of its matter, would be difficult within our space ; but the former writings of this author on the geography of Palestine have been copiously commented upon in journals specially devoted to religious subjects. Dr. Robinson's journey included all the points of chief interest in Palestine. Nearly an octavo volume full of matter is occupied with the chapters devoted to Jerusalem and its environs ; and we cannot show the charac ter of this work bette►' than by extracting what Pr•. Robinson has written on the site of the Holy Sepulchre : Having thus completed what I have to say respecting the topography and antiquities of the Holy City in the times of the New Testament and of Josephus, I turn for a few moments to another monument of later celebrity ; first known indeed to history in the fourth century ; but ever since that time overshadowing in importance all other monuments, in the estimation of much of the Christian world. I mean the Holy Sepulchre. It will not be denied that since the publication of the "Biblical Researches" in 1841 this topic has been dis cussed with great fulness; and, in some parts, under a new aspect. My purpose here is simply to ascertain, in brief, what progress may have been male towards a final determination of the question, whether the present site is the true one. The evidence on which the whole question turns is of two kinds. topographical and historical. The particulars of this evidence, so far as then known, were given in my former work ; and the result which seemed to me to follow, was against the authenticity of the present site. I. In ies:iect to the topographical evidence, we have already seen that the discovery of the ancient chambers at the Damascus gate, and the general recognition of them as belonging to an ancient gate of the second wall on that spot, has wrought a change in the mode of treating of the second wall among the advocates for the authenticity of the sepulchre. The course of that wall is now laid down by them along the street of the baaaar to the Damascus THE PRESS. gate ; and for this purpose the gate Gennath is held to have been opposite to that street on the northern brow of Zion. Both of these new positions, I have endeavoured to show, are untenable. I have also brought forward facts and evidence, stronger than before, which demonstrate that the second wall must have run considerably on the west of the sepulchre ; and which show also that its pro bable course was near the street leading northwards from the castle to the Latin convent. So far, then, as the topographical evidence is concerned, it appears to be incompatible with the idea of the authen• ticity of the present site of the sepulchre. Hence have arisen, apparently, the efforts made to transfer the Tyro pmon and Akre, to another part of the city ; in order to get rid both of the ancient reservoir now known as the pool of Hezekish, and also of the waters of Nihon on the west. Hence, too, the theory of sources, which do not exist, ou the northern quarter of the city. 11. In respect to the historical testimony, there has likewise been some change in the manner of bringing it forward. Instead of the plausible ci priori statement of Chateaubriand, we have had froM one writer " an antece dent probability "; and from another the "strong pre sumption in favour of a right conclusion." But the actual historic facts remain for the most part unmodified. . . The precise and main point of inquiry in relation to this topic is: hid there exist, in the time of Constantine, any such historical evidence or tradition respecting the place of our Lord's sepulchre, as to lead to the selection of the present site as the true one? Here Eusebius is the first and chief witness. No earlier father or writer makes even the slightest allusion to the sepulchre as then existing; nor to any tradition respecting it. Nor does any later writer speak of the circumstances attending the discovery of the site, until seventy years after the event. The Bourdeaux pilgrim in A. D. 33:3, and Cyril, a deacon under Macarius, and a few years afterwards Bishop of Jerusalem, are utterly silent. Eusehius, therefore, the contem porary and an actor in these transactions, the friend and agent of the Emperor Constantine in Palestine, is the sole writer who bears testimony to the historical facts as an eye-witness. This father, writing ten years or more before the alleged discovery of the sepulchre, speaks of crowds of pilgrims, who flocked to Jerusalem to pay their devotions on the Mount of Olives, where our Saviour taught his disciples and then ascended into heaven. He speaks also of the place of our Lord's nativity at Bethlehem ; which, indeed, was marked by a still earlier tradition. Now had there been, in like manner, a definite tradition as to our Lord's sepulchre, it is bard to conceive how these crowds of pit grams, who were eager to seek out even the most trivial scriptural localities, should have neglected to ascertain and visit the sacred spot; and, also, how Eusebius should have omitted to allude to the fact when speaking of the two other coll'•teral traditions. Indeed, the language of Ensebius would seem rather to imply the non-existence of any such tradition. He relates that after the council of Nicea (A. D. 3:.15), the Emperor Constantine became desirous of " performing a glorious work in Palestine, by adorning and rendering sacred the place of our Lord's resurrection." This was undertaken by him, not without a divine admonition, but as moved thereto in spirit by the Saviour himself. " For hitherto impious men, or rather the whole race of demons through their instrumentality, had made every effort to deliver over that illustrious monument to darkness and oblivion." Such language, certainly, would hardly be appropriate in speaking of a spot definitely known and marked by long tradition. Indeed, Eusebius expressly affirms that the discovery of the sepulchre was "beyond all hope." In like manner the Emperor himself, in his letter to Macarius preserved by Eusebius, regards the discovery of "the monument of the Saviour's most sacred passion, which for so long a time had been hidden under ground," as " a miracle beyond the capacity of man sufficiently to celebrate, or men to comprehend." The mere removal of obstruc tions from a well-known spot could hardly have been de scribed as a miracle so stupendous. Indeed, as T have elsewhere remarked, the whole tenor of the language both of Ensebius and Constantine shows that the discovery of the sepulchre was held to be the result, not of a previous knowledge derived from tradition, but of a supernatural in timation. Great stress continues to he laid upon the circumstance first reported by Eusebius, that the same " impious men," after !covering over the sepulchre with: earth, nad built upon it " a dark retreat or cavern for the lascivious demon Venus." Nothing is here intimated as to the time of its construction. Jerome, some seventy years after the dis covery, places a marble statue of Venus on the "rock of the cross" or Golgotha, and an image of Jupiter on the place of the resurrection ; and affirms that they had been upon the spot from the time of Adrian. There is here a discrepancy between this account and that of Eusebius ; and the Latin father must he in the wrong ; for Eusebius was an eye witness, and Jerome not. The historians the next century•, too, adopt the account of Eusehius, and say nothing of Adrian in this connection. What, then, is the amount of all this testimony? Why simply just what I have formerly stated, that writers ex post facto have men• tioned such a temple or idol as standing, not over the sepulchre known of old as that of Christ, but over the spot fixed upon by Constantine as that sepulchre. There is no reason to doubt that a temple and idol stood upon that spot ; but this fact in itself has no bearing to show that the place was the true sepulchre. Indeed, the two parts of the argument are inconsistent with each other. If the Pagan temple had thus actually marked the place of the sepulchre as a " lasting record" from the days of Adrian, or for any period of time, then this site was a definite and well-known spot. Yet, according to Eusebius and the later writers, the sepulchre hail been consigned to utter oblivion, and its discovery was the result of a divine warning, uc• companied by diligent inquiry. In respect to what is usually and appropriately termed the invention of the true cross, which historians of that 1071 and the next century narrate as part and parcel of the discovery of the sepulchre, the advocates of tradition seem at present disposed to say as little as possible. As to the cross, Eusebius is silent. Yet in less than twenty years we find Cyril, and afterwards Jerome, speaking of its exist ence as a public and well-known fact; and such not im probably is the import of the epistle of Constantine. So that I may still say, as before, that there is hardly any fact in history better accredited than this alleged discovery of the true cross. The discovery of the sepulchre, and the discovery of the cross, belong historically and appropriately together. Thus a consideration of the contemporary historical evi dence goes to show that in the selection of the present site there was neither any prior tradition nor any direct proba bility to guide the choice. The argument is here stated calmly, and is afterwards supported by arcbteological evi dence, and the text is annotated with scholarly precision. lie sums up his opinion on the subject in the following words : In the particular instance of the Holy Sepulchre, probably no one at the present day, except Mr. Fergusson and his followers, supposes there has been any transfer of the site, since it was originally fixed in the fourth century. The theory of that writer assumes that the church erected by Constantine was the present grand mock es Sukhrah in the middle of the Haram area. His position is very in• geniously elaborated and sustained; but is directly con tradicted, as it seems to me, by the historical evidence. need only refer to ta o witnesses. The pilgrim of Bor deaux in A. D. 333, a contemporary writer, relates that `• those going from Zion to the gate of Neapolis. . . . have on the left band the hillock Golgotha, where the Lord was crucified; and a stone's throw off the crypt where his body was laid, and rose again on the third day ; and there, also, by order of the Emperor Constantine, a church has been erected of admirable beauty." Here the gate of Neapolis can only be the present Damascus gate. In like manner Eusehius, who also was a contemporary, relates that the splendid propylaea of the Basilica of Con stantine extended on the east of tne same to the .nidat of the street of the market; which can be referred to nothing but the present street of the bazaars. The two witnesses thus accord together, and sustain each other. Thus in every view which 1 have been able to take of the Holy Sepulchre and its traditions, I am led to hold fast the position which I have formerly laid down—viz., ."That ail ecclesiastical tradition rtspecting the ancient places in and around Jerusalem and throughout Palestine is of no value ; except so far as it is supported by circumstances known from the Scriptures, or from other contemporary testimony." _ _ Careless rcaders would be apt to misinterpret the meaning of some of this author's opinions, as he does not sufficiently dwell upon his con clusions. For example, it is only against the value of the " ecclesiastical tradition," as dis tinguished from bona-fide history, and the philosophical inferences of the learned, that the author expresses so adverse an opinion. We concur with him as to the worthlessness of mere " tradition " iii the antiquities of Jerusalem. All Oriontal archaeology is more or less seen through a mist, except when we have the Bible and authentic history to guide us. On the Upper Fountain of Bethesda Dr. Robinson writes:— UPPER FOUNTAIN.—This has been commonly known as the Fountain of the Virgin. Of its irregular and inter mitting flow we formerly were witnesses; and we also passed through the subterranean channel by which its waters are conducted to Siloam. All this is fully described in a former volume. The inquiry was there started, Whether perhaps this irregular flow is to be explained by some connection with waters from the temple or Harem above, the taste of which was found to be the same? On this point 'nothing new has since come to light, except that the exploration of the well west of the Harem has shown that at least those waters apparently have no outflow either towards Ithe Harem or the valley. The likeness of taste, therefore, is probably to be ascribed rather to the like soil and rock through which the waters of both fountains percolate. Whether any communication whatever exists with the Harem above, is a matter yet to be determined. The present popular report of such a connection, like that re specting running water at the Damascus gate, is too in definite and legendary to be of any weight. Yet the writers of the Talmud have recorded the tradition of their day, that the blood from the great altar was drained off by a sub terranean channel into the valley of the Kidron ; where it was sold to the gardeners fur manure. In respect to the suggestion formerly made by me as to the possible identity of this intermitting fountain with the pool of Bethesda, 1 may now venture a somewhat more definite statement. The irregular flow certainly corre sponds perfectly well with the "troubling " of the water. When it is said that " an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water," probably there is no one who would hold that on every such occa sion there was the visible form and appearance of an angel. This mysterious motion of the waters, of which none could comprehend the cause, the people ascribed to the direct supernatural agency of an angel; and this in accordance with the general principle that God administers the laws of the universe through the agency of the angels, his messengers. Again, when it is said that " whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had," it is evident that the healing power was held to lie, not in the eater itself, but