What is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

The Christian population gave names to the streets, and point out traditional sites of many events recorded in scripture, but of course without the slightest authority. Of these arbitrary identifications the one that appears the most improbable is that of the CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, said to cover the spots where the Lord was crucified and where He was buried, which is within the city. See CALVARY.

Helena, the Emperor's mother, deserves a passing notice. She embraced the religion professed by her son. Her devotion, piety, and munificence were great. She travelled from place to place; visited the scenes which had been hallowed by the chief events of scripture history; ordered the temple of Venus to be demolished, which Hadrian had built on the site of the holy sepulchre, and gave directions for a church to be built on the spot, which should exceed all others in splendour. She died A.D. 328.

We have now seen, alas! too plainly, the sorrowful truth of the Lord's words, that the church was dwelling where Satan's seat is. Constantine left it there. He found it imprisoned in mines, dungeons, and catacombs, and shut out from the light of heaven; he left it on the throne of the world. But the picture is not yet complete, we must notice other features in the history, answering to the likeness in the Epistle.

From an early period pilgrimages to the Holy Land became a ruling passion with the more devout and superstitious. Jerome speaks of the crowds which from all quarters thronged the sacred places. But the supposed discovery of the real sepulchre, the disinterment of the true cross, the magnificent church built over the sepulchre by the devout Helena and her son Constantine, awakened in all classes a wild enthusiasm to visit the Holy Land. From this time (A.D. 326), the stream of pilgrimage continued to flow, and with increasing fulness, down to the period when Jerusalem was captured by the Mahometans, under the Caliph Omar, in 637. The pilgrims had been protected and cared for by the way; they had only to encounter the privations and perils of a long journey. But under the Mahometan government they were prevented from entering the holy city, unless they purchased the privilege by paying tribute to the Caliphs. This being agreed to, the pious soon began to flock in undiminished numbers to perform their devotions at the holy sepulchre.

As early as the days of Constantine, reverence for the relics of saints and martyrs had assumed the more definite form of positive adoration. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, in her superstitious zeal to do honour to the places in Palestine which had been hallowed by the life and death of the Saviour, erected splendid churches over the supposed places of His birth, His death, and ascension. During the necessary excavations the Holy Sepulchre, it was affirmed, came to light; and in the sepulchre were found the three crosses and the tablet, with the inscription originally written by Pilate in three languages. The news of this wonderful discovery rapidly spread all over Christendom, and created great excitement. As it was doubtful to which of the crosses the tablet belonged, a miracle decided the claims of the true cross. Singularly enough, the nails of the Saviour's passion were also found in the holy sepulchre. These precious treasures, we need scarcely say, proved inexhaustible capital for the traffic in relics. Parts of the true cross were made into crucifixes for the rich, and parts were enshrined in the principal churches both in the East and the West. So rapidly did the wood of the cross vegetate, said the wits, that it soon grew into a forest.

The Greek is κρανίον, 'a skull.' The word 'Calvary' is from the Latin Calvaria, having a like signification; agreeing also with the Hebrew GOLGOTHA, which has the same meaning. Matt. 27:33; Luke 23:33. The place where the Lord was crucified, and near to which the tomb was situated in which He was buried. The traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre is now well within the city of Jerusalem, and great efforts have been made to prove that this spot was at that time outside the city, but this is not at all credible. A much more probable place is that pointed out by the Jews on the north of the city, near the Grotto of Jeremiah. Visitors have declared that this site has, at a distance, the natural contour of a human skull. It would have been near the city yet outside it, and near also to where there could have been a garden, in which a tomb could have been cut. It is also a spot from whence the crucifixion could have been seen by the passers-by (on the road from the Damascus gate). This site has therefore several points in its favour.

The actual place is however unknown; and doubtless God has so ordered it that it should not be made an object of idolatry, or turned into a holy shrine, over which there would have been great contention, as there has been, with bloodshed too, over the so-called Holy Sepulchre.

"The crusaders," says Robertson, "inflamed to madness by the thought of the wrongs inflicted on their brethren and by the obstinate resistance of the besieged, spared neither old man, woman, or child. Seventy thousand Mahometans were massacred; many who had received a promise of life from the leaders were slaughtered by the soldiery. The temple and Solomon's porch were filled with blood to the height of a horse's knee, and, in the general rage against the enemies of Christ, the Jews were burnt in their synagogue. Godfrey took no part in these atrocities, but immediately after the victory repaired, in the dress of a pilgrim, to the church of the holy sepulchre, to pour out his thanks for having been permitted to reach the holy city. Many followed his example, relinquishing their savage work for tears of penitence and joy, and offering at the altar the spoil which they had seized; but, by a revulsion of feelings natural to a state of high excitement, they soon returned to their savage work, and for three days Jerusalem ran with blood."*

Jerusalem in the Hands of the Christians

*It was, I think, Canning who saw this, and avowed in Parliament that Palestine was the central question of the politics of the earth, and spoke about the awful war of principles and races yet to come. The Crimean war had its origin in a quarrel about what they call the Holy Sepulchre and who should keep the keys of it, Romish priests, or Greek. This drew in Louis Napoleon as the Eldest Son of the Romish, and the Emperor of Russia as the head on earth of the Greek Church. Prophecy is clear as to the Land being yet redeemed and governed again righteously.

Thus far these two writers, both personally acquainted with this spot, have written about it. Other sites are contended for. The Armenian Christians have selected one a little to the north of it. And some have located it farther up the valley, and to the north of the Church of St. Mary. But those ancient and venerable trees give a prestige to the garden of the Latin Convent, and will, till the exact spot, if it be elsewhere, can be really identified. For the general reader it is, however, sufficient to know the landmarks given us in the Gospels by Luke and by John. To the Mount of Olives the Lord frequently retired, and to that garden He often resorted, so John informs us (18:2). Probably the garden was owned or tenanted by some disciple, as was the case, it would seem, with the upper room. But though often visited by the Lord (so Judas knew where he would find Him), we have no mention of it after that night of the Agony. It was clearly not the mind of the Holy Ghost to have the holy places, as they are called, for ever identified. God, who buried the body of Moses, so that no man knew of his sepulchre, has not seen fit to authenticate by reliable tradition places in the Holy Land specially connected with the life and even death of the Lord. The stable at Bethlehem, the house at Nazareth, as well as the place of the Crucifixion, and even the new tomb hewn by Joseph out of the rock, whatever tradition may assert, are places still lacking verification. Occupation with holy places on earth is foreign to the spirit of Christianity, of which the only holy Temple on earth is composed either locally of all professing Christians in any one place (1 Cor. 3:17), or generally of the whole company of professing Christians alive here at any one time (2 Cor. 6:16).*

The Crucifixion. — The end now approached. A few hours, and the Lord's life on earth would terminate; the world to see Him no more, till to its astonished gaze the spectacle will appear of opened heavens, and the exit of a train, such as never yet has been seen, headed by the crucified One, arrayed in the emblems, not of mock, but of real sovereignty. The world might see Him going to Golgotha and bearing His cross. It will see Him with many diadems on His brow, returning to deal with His enemies, and to have them put completely under His feet. But the day of which John now writes was the day of the Lord's deepest humiliation, and most awful sufferings. To the cross He was going. "They took Jesus therefore," we read, "And He went out, bearing the cross for Himself, to a place called The place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha" (17) — very likely so named from "the look or form of the spot itself, bald, round, and skull-like." Several details noticed by others are here omitted, — as the Lord's words to the women on the way; His prayer to His Father for His murderers; and the wine mingled with myrrh, offered him by the soldiers before crucifixion, which was customarily provided, it is said, to deaden the sensibility of the crucified ones to the pain of that death. Nor have we any notice of the mockings, of the chief priests, the jeers of the mob, nor the revilings of the two thieves, followed by the conversion of one of them.

But to the chief priests such a title was an offence. It stated that which they refused to admit, so they wanted Pilate to alter it, and to write, "that he said, I am the King of the Jews." Pilate refused to comply with their request. He could be firm when he wished it. Firmness he now manifested. "What I have written I have written" (22), was the Procurator's curt reply. That settled the matter. Well had it been for him, if he had manifested similar firmness, when pressed to consign to the cross One whom he well knew was innocent. The title then remained unaltered, which publicly declared that the Jews had crucified their King. Many read it; for Golgotha was nigh to the city, and probably near some thoroughfare. That name Golgotha will never be forgotten. Whatever may have been the association connected with it previously, that name can now never drop into oblivion. It lies embalmed in the Sacred Word. Golgotha was its name before the Lord's crucifixion; Golgotha is the name it has borne ever since. Yet its site is still a matter of discussion. Through the vicissitudes of the city and nation certainty as to its recognition, for the present at least, has perished. And surely we may trace Divine wisdom in that. God would guard His people, if possible, from idolatry. What more sacred spot could there be, than that where the Redeemer breathed His last? And if people now would, in lands far distant from Palestine, falling down, venerate a cross, many a devotee, if the actual spot could be definitely identified, would be ready to prostrate himself on it. Matthew, Mark, and John knew it well, and could have conducted pilgrims to the place; yet none of them have left sufficient indications to enable modern travellers to cry Eureka — i.e. I have found it.*

Constantine proceeded to erect churches for christian worship in many places, and Helena his mother erected a church at Jerusalem, where some wood was found which superstition claimed to be the cross of our Lord!