Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/416

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JERUSALEM


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JERUSALEM


previously or protected the suburbs that stretched north of the Temple from the time of Ezechias to Herod. Lastly, there is the Sheep Gate (D. V. "flock gate") (II Esd., iii, 1; xii, 3S), near the Probatic Pool.

Of the ancient Temple nothing is now to lie seen but the holy rock and a number of cisterns. The Harani esh Sherif is four-sided, and has right angles on the south-west and north-east. The southern wall measures 922 feet and is pierced by three entrances: the Double Gate, the Triple Gate, and the Single Gate — remarkable works of the type of the Golden Gate and, like it, restored in the sixth century of our era. The eastern and the northern walls are each 1042 feet in length; the western 1601. The stones are carefully shaped and bevelled, 3J feet in height, the longest of them 20 to 39 feet long, while on the south there is one course, 600 feet long, in which the stones are 7 feet high. At the south-west angle this colossal wall goes down to a depth of S5 feet below the present surface of the soil. Forty feet to the north of this angle may be seen three rows of stones, forming a vault 51 feet in width, called " Robinson's .\rch ", after the explorer who first recognized in these remains the fragments of a viaduct. The English engineers have as a matter of fact discovered, 54 feet to the west of this fragment of vaulting, and 55 feet below the actual level of the soil, three courses of the corresponding upright supporting wall. At the foot of Mount Sion, 246 feet from Robin- son's Arch, more remains have been found of the same viaduct, of w'hich, indeed, Josephus clearly makes mention (.\ntiq. Jud., XIV, iv, 2; Bell. Jud., I, vii, 2; VI, vi, 2). The supporting wall rests upon a paved foundation, which in its turn is supported by a bed of earth 23 feet in thickness. In this mass of earth, in which no traces of masonry are found, there lie vault- ing-stones of from 3 to 3t feet in height and width, and 7 feet in length — the remains of a much older bridge. Authorities have attributed the first viaduct to Herod and the second to the Kings of Juda, or even to Solomon. At the very bottom of the valley there is a channel cut into the rock and vaulted in the Phoenician manner; this is an aqueduct which was later used as a drain (Wilson and Warren, op. cit., pp. 76-111 ; Perrot and Chipiez, " Hist, de I'art ", IV, 168. Cf. Ill Kings, xi, 27).

The second entrance to t he Temple, called " Bar- clay's Gate", opens ISO feet farther north; then, be- yond the Wailing Place, comes a third gate called "Wilson's Arch". This is a viaduct arch 42 feet along the axis and 39 feet in span, built of blocks from 6 to 12 feet in length. In the bottom of the valley, round about the viaduct, Wilson has discovered some very ancient habitations and pieces of handiwork which seem to be of Phcenician origin. The viaduct, which is supposed to date from the time of Herod, was reconstructed in the Byzantine period. It both con- nected the Temple with Mount Sion and served as an aqueduct for the canal that runs from Bethlehem. Near Wilson's Arch there is an ancient vaulted pool, Biiket el Bouraq, to which an aqueduct leads down from the citadel. Josephus places the Xystus, the gymnasium constructed by the High Priest Jason, be- tween the two viaducts. Beyoncl Wilson's Arch the first city wall joined the Temple enclosure (Wilson and Warren, op. cit., pp. 76 .sq.).

The Second Wall. — "The second wall", says Jose- phus, " began at the gate that is called Gennath, which belongs to the first city wall. Enclosing only the southern district, it continued as far as the Antonia " (Bell. Jud., V, iv, 2). It is the work of Ezechias and of Manasses. In ISSl, in the course of excavations for the foundations of a house, 20 feet to the north of the ditch of the citadel, a wall was brought to light, constructed of large stones, extending east and west to a distance of about 100 feet. At its western ex- tremity it forms a somewhat obtuse angle with a Stronger and .still lietter constructed wall which runs


north (Selah Merill, "Quart. Stat.", 1S86, pp. 21 sq • 1S87, p. 217; 1888, p. 21). In 1900 a Greek high school was built 180 feet farther on, and it was found that the rock is almost on a level with the gromid to the west, while it forms a counterscarp to the east. In the accumulated fillings of the hollow remains of medieval structures were discovered; Ijut the explora- tions on this spot were not followed up. Many Pales- tinologists, however, see here marketl indications of a ditch. At the north-east angle of the Greek school, C. Schick ("Quart. Stat.", 1897, p. 219; 1883, p. 19) had already ascertained that the wall turns once more at an angle eastwards. Up to this point the city wall skirts the Pool of Ezechias at a distance of ISO feet to the west and 65 feet to the north. In building the great Greek bazaars south of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, the workmen came upon a scarp which had once been crowned with a thick wall, some fine blocks of which were found still in situ; the wall sloped back from the face of the rock (Schick, "Quart. Stat.", 18S8, p. 571; 1S94, p. 146). Next, in 1893, while building the German Protestant church which took the place of the church of St. Mary the Latin, the engi- neers found that the latter edifice had stood upon filled ground. Digging down 30 feet below the actual level of the ground, they came to the rock, and then, under the great nave of the old church, they found a strong wall to the east and the west, though in bad preserva- tion. It keeps, however, some of its facing in the shape of carefully dressed slabs. Guthe (in " Zeit- schrift des Deutschen Palastinavereins", XVII, p. 128) and Scliick (in " Quart. Stat.", 1894, p. 146), with many others, regard this as a part of the second wall.

In the time of Christ, Calvary was thus shut out from the perimeter of the second city enclosure. In- deeil, the existence of the Jewish hypogea — the Holy Sepulchre, another one 30 feet to the west, and a third to the north-east — leaves no room for doubt on this point; for only the kings enjoyed the privilege of sepulture within the city. Some thirty years ago English engineers asserted that the wall of Ezechias must necessarily enclose Ciolgotha, because this zig- zag city wall would, otherwise, have been built con- trary to all the rules of military art. But since then the exploration of ancient Jewish and Chanaanitish cities has revealed irregularities of the same kind. While, upon the fine indicated, the haphazard dig- gings made on various structures have all brought to light fragments of braces of a homogeneous wall, the religious communities in the Christian quarter to the north-west of Golgotha have in recent times executed important building operations without finding any traces of ditch or of rampart.

At the angle where the wall turned northwards should be found the new Gate of Ephraim (II Esd., xii, 38). But the course of the wall from this jioint is less easy to follow. It was, very probably, replaced in the time of Hadrian by the colonnadetl street which led, almost in a straight line, from Mount Sion to the Gate of Damascus, and which was founded upon rock tlu-oughout. Following this street, we pass, on the left, the first courses of the facade of Constantine's Basilica, which was completely discovered in 1907J and, on the right, 230 feet from tliis structure, the Khan ez Zeit, which is built in a Jewish cistern partly hewn out of the rock. To the east of this cistern, on the slope of El Wad, the rock appears, cut oljliquely. Farther on, the Old Gate (II Esd., iii, 6; xii, 3S) may be placed. Where the Street of the Columns was crossed by another, coming from the west, a tetra- pylon marked the intersection; one superb marble column of it still remains in silu. 23 feet high, leaning against a fine wall of Roman construction. Investi- gation has demonstrated the existence, at a point 200 feet west of this column, of a count<'rscarp and a deep ditch, running from .south to north (."^cliiek, "t^uart. Stat.", 1887, p. 154). It was by this gate that, ac-