New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-07-19
TIE SITE or CALTARY.
bOot-jacks,

A dispatch from London was, a few weeks
ago, printed in the newspapers Of this country,
announcing that o geological plate just COM
pleted by the Oriental Typographical Corps
gives especial prominence to the skull-shaped
line of the hill outside the Damascus Gate and
near the North Wall of Jerusalem. The dis
patch went on to state that this supports the
theory Of this hill being Calvary. Ii the ex-
plOradons of this able and scientific body Of
topographers shall result in establishing this
theory it will be a great point gained in
our knowledge of the Bible Lands, but
the chief credit Of it will be due to
American scholarship. DR.. Robinson and Dr.
Eli Smith made the first careful and conclusive
attack upon the authenticity Of the commonly
received location of the Holy Sepulcher, and
another American investigator, Mr.. Fisher
Howe Of Brooklyn, two years ago published
an ingenious monograph on "The True Site
"of Calvary which asserted and went far to
prove, what Drs. Robinson and Smith shrank
from assuming, that the skull-shaped hill by
the Damascus Gate, usually designated as the
GrottO of jeremiah, was the spot made mem
orabie by the Passion and Resurrection OF Our
Lord.
any one to intimate a doubt of the anthem
ITCHY of the places which have been revered
for centuries as shrines Of faith. Mr.. Williams,
in his elaborate and important work, e" The
Holy City," distinctly intimates that he holds
that orthodoxy is interested in uphOlding the
received tradition. He says "the credit Of the
"whole Church, for fifteen hundred years, is
" in some measure involved in it," and adds
that "the moral character Of one important
"branch Of the Church, if not the whole
Church, is at stake.n lie makes the mistake,
which is always deplorable, of imagining
that there is anything preferable to the
truth. Neither in science nor in history has
Christianity anything to fear from the fullest
investigation, and it is always to be regretted
when its defenders, in their indiscreet ZEAL try
to create the impression that it is threatened
by new reaction in the laboratory, or a new
fact in geology or archaeology. In the case of
tho Holy Sepulcher, the traditions are worth
nothing whatever. AT the time when Helena,
the Mother of Constantine, made her pill
grimage to the Holy Land in the year 800 of
our era, there were few trustworthy means of
information in regard to the history or tOpO-
graphy Of the ancient city. 1t is not even
certain that the churches ascribed to her were
built by her order, and if they were, they were
more likely to have been mere memorials of
the events whose names they bear than to
mark the spots where these events took place.
At all events, it is impossible that the site of
Calvary should have been the place now occu-
pied by the Holy Sepulcher The accounts of
the Crucifxion given by tho Eyangelists
clearly require several conditions. The place
was without the walls of Jerusalem in the
immediate vicinity Of the city; it was known
as the place of the Skull; by leading thor
oughfare; conspicuous from q distance in a
neighborho0d occupied for gardens and for
sepulchers The site of the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher lacks all these conditions. In spite
of all the efforts Of Dir. Williams and
others to establish the contrary, it has long
been probable, and the researches of the En-
glish engineers have made it perfectly evident
that the "second wall of Jerusalem included
in its limits the entire district of Aka where
that church stands, and that the Damascus
Gate at present existing is built upon the toun-
datons of the ancient Gate which stood there
in the time of Titus. The skull-shaped hill,
referred to by recent. dispatches, on the other
hand, satisfies all these requirements. 1t stands
lust outside the Damascus Gate, near the
great thoroughfare by which the country
neople from the region north and west Of the
eitv came in and out of Jerusalem; its conif-
nation instantly suggests n skull to all OBJ
servers; and its relative distance from those
portions of the city whose position has been
ascertained in every instance agrees with The
statements of the Gospel. The locality of the
Sepulcher is not indicated with such clearness
in the Scriptures, but in regard to both
places, DR.. Edward Robinson remarks