There are very many difficulties in the way of a reconstruction of the City of Herod. The course of the second and third walls, the position of Antonia, and even that of the Temple itself, have been made the subject of very keen and bitter controversy; and, coming to later times, the site of Constantine’s buildings on and round the Holy Sepulchre has been assigned to two positions. Without attempting to go thoroughly into the question, which would not only take too much space, but would give this volume a character quite foreign to our purpose, let us only state the ground taken up as to the two chief sites only, that of the Temple and that of the Holy Sepulchre.

Everyone has seen plans of the modern city. The eastern side is mainly occupied by what is called the Haram Area, a four-sided space surrounded by vast walls, which are, in some places, buried a hundred feet deep in dÉbris. One only of its angles is a perfect right angle, that at the south-west corner. In the middle is a platform constructed round a rough rock, projecting above the surface; in the rock is a cave. Above it is the Kubbet-es-Sakhrah—the Dome of the Rock—an octagonal building of very great beauty. Along the southern wall are various mosques and praying places, the most conspicuous being the JÁmi‘-el-Aksa. Tradition has always assigned to the platform in the centre the site of Solomon’s and Herod’s Temples, but Mr. Fergusson, followed by Messrs. Lewin, Thrupp, and others, places the Temple in the south-west corner, measuring off six hundred feet from each angle to get its limits. We have thus, without considering minor points of difference, two sites for the Temple.

The so-called Church of the Holy Sepulchre is situated in the western part of the city, north of what is now called Mount Zion. There, according to the voice of tradition, were erected the buildings of Constantine, and there has existed, ever since, the cave which Christians have reverenced as the Sepulchre in which our Lord lay.

Mr. Fergusson maintains, on the other hand, that the Dome of the Rock is a building erected by Constantine to cover the Sepulchre of our Lord, and that the cave in the rock is the Sepulchre itself. To support this he endeavours to prove that the rock was not enclosed by the city walls at the time of the crucifixion; that the cave may very well have been a tomb: and that, independent of all argument from architecture, the description of historians and pilgrims accord with his position of the church, up to the end of the tenth century, over the rock in the Haram Area. And at some period, most probably after the demolition by Hakem in 969, the Christians abandoned the old site, and collected money to build a new church on the present site, which they pretended was the real site.

There are three ways of considering the question: by excavation, by history, and by arguments derived from a study of the architecture. For the first, Captain Warren is the only person who has excavated, on a scale of sufficient magnitude to produce results which bear upon the question at all. We subjoin a few of his results and opinions, with one or two brief explanatory remarks:

Most of these results and opinions, it will be found, weigh very heavily in favour of the traditional view. At the same time an opinion may always be wrong.

II. Let us pass on to the evidence given by history.

The only historical evidence we can rely on as to the actual site of the Temple, on which subject little information can be found in the Bible itself, is to be obtained from Josephus. We refer to three passages:

Next, let us take the historical evidence from Eusebius downwards, as to the site of the Sepulchre. We adduce the principal passages which bear on the question.

First comes Eusebius. His evidence we have given in full (p. 57). It seems to us to amount to this:—

Constantine, taking down a temple to Venus which had been, according to tradition, built over the site of the Holy Sepulchre, and clearing away the earth, found a tomb, cut in the rock, still remaining. His workmen immediately concluded that this could be no other than the tomb of our Lord. He surrounded it with pillars and decorations. In front of it, or round about it, he made a level place. On the east side of the level place he built a magnificent church, the Basilica of the Martyrion, the only church which he erected at all. In front of this church was an open market-place. Market-places, it may be remarked, are always in the middle of towns, not on the outside.

Eusebius is contemporary with the event, and writes as if he actually witnessed the building of the church and the decoration of the tomb. His evidence is therefore of the highest importance; and from him it would appear that Constantine built no church over the Sepulchre at all.

We come next to the accounts left behind by pilgrims and others. First in order comes the Bordeaux pilgrim, who was in Jerusalem while Constantine’s buildings were being erected. His account is as follows:—

“Also to you going out into Jerusalem, to ascend Sion, on the left hand and down below in valley by the wall in the pool which is called Siloam.... In the same way Sion is ascended, and then appears the place where was the house of Caiaphas the priest; and the column is still there at which they beat Christ with scourges. But within, inside the Sion wall, is seen the place where David had his palace, and [where were] seven synagogues, which once were there, [but] one only remains [standing], for the rest are ploughed up and sowed over, as Isaiah the prophet hath said. Thence, in order to go outside the wall, to those going to the Neapolitan gate, on the right hand, down in the valley, are walls where was the house or prÆtorium of Pontius Pilate. There our Lord was heard before He suffered. But on the left hand is the hill of Golgotha, where the Lord was crucified. Thence about a stone’s throw is the crypt where His body was placed, and (from which) He rose again on the third day. There, lately, by order of Constantine, a Basilica has been built, that is, a church of wonderful beauty,” &c., &c., &c.

(2.) St. Cyril. Fourth century.^[82]

“The cleft (or 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. For now it appears not, the outer cave having been hewn away for the sake of the present adornment;^[83] for before the sepulchre was decorated by royal seal, there was a cave in the face of the rock.”^[84]

(3.) Antoninus Martyrus gives the following facts:—

“From the monument to Golgotha is eighty paces,” i.e., about two hundred feet. But between Siloam and Golgotha is a distance of about a mile.

(4.) Antiochus the Monk. A.D. 630.

Modestus ... templa Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, quÆ quidem barbarico igni conflagrarunt, in sublime erigit omni prorsus digna veneratione, puta Ædes CalvariÆ ac SanctÆ Resurrectionis; domum insuper dignam omni honore venerandÆ crucis, quÆ mater ecclesiarum est.^[85]

(5.) Arculf. A.D. 695.

Bishop Arculf, returning from pilgrimage to the Holy Land to his bishopric in France, was wrecked and cast away in the Hebrides, whither contrary winds had carried the vessel. He was hospitably received by Adamnanus, the Abbot of Iona, and beguiled the winter evenings by narrating his adventures in Palestine, and describing the sacred sites. The abbot wrote down his account, and sent copies of it to different parts of England. Bede gives an abridgment. Arculf also made a plan of the Church of the Sepulchre, which has come down to our times.

“The Church of the Holy Sepulchre ... is supported by twelve stone columns of extraordinary magnitude. In the middle space is a round grotto (tegurium) cut in the rock itself, about a foot and a half higher than a man of full stature, in which nine men could stand and pray.^[86] The entrance of the grotto is on the east side; on the north side, within, is the tomb of our Lord, hewn out of the rock, seven feet in length, and raised three feet above the floor. Internally the stone of the rock remains in its original state, and still exhibits the mark of the workman’s tools. To this round church, which is called the Anastasis, that is, the Resurrection, adjoins on the right side the square church of the Virgin Mary, and to the east of this another church of great magnitude is built on the spot called in Hebrew Golgotha, from the roof of which there is hung by ropes a great brazen wheel with lamps....”

And in another place, “In that famous place where was formerly the splendidly-built temple, in the neighbourhood of the eastern wall, the Saracens have erected a quadrangular house of prayer, ... which house is able to contain about three thousand men at once.”

(6.) Willibald. A.D. 765.^[87]

The Sepulchre had been cut out of the rock: and the rock itself stands out above the ground, and is square at the bottom and grows pointed at the top. On its summit is the Cross of the Sepulchre; and thereupon is built a beautiful house; and on the eastern side in that stone of the Sepulchre is a gate by which men enter within to pray; and there is within the couch on which lay the body of the Lord.

With a very few trifling exceptions, which may be found enumerated in the ‘Bible Atlas,’ p. 73, the whole voice of writers since the tenth century is clearly and unmistakably in favour of the present site.

We must not omit to notice the opinion of Mr. Lewin, that the Dome of the Rock was originally the Temple of Jupiter, which Dion Cassius tells us was built on the site of Herod’s Temple. But he goes on to suppose that Hadrian was deceived as to the real situation of the Temple, a thing which seems to us impossible. The foundations which the Mohammedans found when they began to build, may very well have been those of the Temple of Jupiter, and many of the old pillars may have been used for the new Dome. The destruction of the Temple was probably due to Chosroes, who clearly left nothing standing at all. It may, however, have been destroyed by the pious zeal of the Christians.

So far therefore, as the historical evidence goes, it appears to us that the following facts come out with great clearness.

(1.) Josephus, and therefore the Jews generally, believed that Solomon’s temple was built on the highest part of the hill, the ground being afterwards raised artificially.

(2.) Herod’s temple was built, with greater magnificence, in the same spot.

(3.) Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Hill.

(4.) Julian attempted to rebuild the temple itself from its old foundations. Did he, to effect this object, first destroy the Temple of Jupiter? If not, who did?

(5.) For four centuries after this the place remained a receptacle for filth of all kinds, but not forgotten.

(6.) Omar erected a small mosque in front of it (p. 76).

(7.) ‘Abd el Melik and his successors repaired the whole Masjid (the Haram Area), built the Mosque el Aksa, and the Dome of the Rock (p. 79).

(8.) The Crusaders called the Dome of the Rock, Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord, to distinguish it from the Mosque el Aksa, which they called Templum Solomonis, the Palace of Solomon.

With regard to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we have the following data furnished us.

(1.) Constantine decorated the cave, and erected a magnificent Basilica over the site of the Crucifixion.

(2.) All Constantine’s buildings were destroyed by Chosroes; and rebuilt, after a fashion, by Modestus, with the assistance of John Eleemon, Patriarch of Alexandria.

(3.) The Mohammedans at the taking of the city spared the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

(4.) Hakem ordered the destruction of the church. This was done, and collections were made in every part of the Christian world to rebuild it.

(5.) This church was burned down in 1808.

With regard to the discrepancies in the accounts given by pilgrims, and the impossibility of completely harmonizing their descriptions with any theory of sites, this may be remarked: Too much stress must not be laid upon the accuracy or inaccuracies of stories told by early travellers. Why should we look for accuracy in the narrative of a pilgrimage spent in a state of mental exaltation, of which we cold-blooded Christians can have no possible idea? When the pilgrim, arrived at the goal of his journey, was crawling on his knees from site to site, praying and praising, abandoning himself to all the emotions which the memories of the places evoked, was it a time to pull out the measuring tape and to count the paces?

To sum up, next, the historical evidence as regards the Dome of the Rock.

(1.) When Mohammedan writers speak of the Masjid el Aksa, they mean, not the Mosque el Aksa, but the whole Haram Area, including all the oratories, mosques, minarets, &c.

(2.) All these were built, as has been related, chap. IV., by ‘Abd el Melik.

(3.) The Dome of the Rock is only a supplementary building (see p. 83).

(4.) When the pulpit, the ‘kiblah,’ &c., of the Masjid el Aksa is spoken of, we must refer it to the Jami‘ el Aksa.

The Haram Area, when Omar visited it first, presented an aspect somewhat similar to what it has at present, so far as its outward walls, dimensions, and general level are concerned. In the centre was the rock, where, as everybody knew, had been the Temple. This was covered with rubbish and filth. And round the rock, and about it, were certain old foundations, most likely those of Hadrian’s Temple to Jupiter, possibly those of the Temple of Herod. Along the south wall were extensive ruins. At the south-east angle lay arches and substructures overthrown; and further west the ruins of a Christian church, most probably that of Justinian’s church, now the Jami‘ el Aksa. All these substructures were repaired by the Mohammedans, the position of the walls being, naturally, retained. Then, being desirous of building a dome over the Sacred Rock, ‘Abd el Melik issued letters and collected money. He first designed and built a small dome, the same which is now called the Cubbet es Silsilah, for a treasury. He was so pleased with the work that he ordered his great dome to be built on the same model. The Dome of the Rock must not be compared with other mosques, because it is not one, and was never meant for one, but it may advantageously be compared with other welis, or Mohammedan oratories. Therefore no argument can be drawn from what would be an exceptional shape for a mosque.

It must be distinctly understood that Arabic historians are as clear and explicit as to the building of this splendid dome as we should be over the building of St. Paul’s by Christopher Wren; and that in the account given by us (p. 79 et seq.) no single sentence is inserted for which there is not full authority in the Arabic historians.

The third and last method of argument is from architecture. History may be misinterpreted. It may even purposely deceive. But architecture cannot lie. Within limits, superior and inferior, the date of a building can be assigned to it. These limits approach each other more nearly as we come to modern times. Architects find no difficulty, for instance, in distinguishing buildings of the fifteenth from those of the sixteenth century. But the limits recede from each other as we go back. Therefore it is that this is an argument, as concerns the Holy Sepulchre, which can only be used by hands of the greatest experience. Nor ought any conclusion to be generally accepted by the world until it has been acceded to by a majority of that small number of architects competent to judge. Mr. Fergusson has written on the architecture of the Dome of the Rock; his conclusions however have not met with the approval of authorities, such as Professor Willis, or the Count de VogÜÉ, of equal rank with himself. Until architects agree, then, surely we have nothing to rest on but the historical evidence.