Ecclesiastical Geography and Topography of the Christian World - Chapter X

 Chapter X

The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre: A Brief History of the Basilica with the most important stages (construction of the first Basilica, destruction, cross-reconstruction)

The New Christian - the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre: The tomb of Jesus

The most important monument of Jerusalem for Christians is the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. First, we must set the monument in its history. The starting point is the topography of the city. Today the Sepulchre is at the centre of the old city; according to the Gospels instead, Jesus died outside the city. To be precise, the Gospels do not speak of a place outside the city but simply say it is called "Golgotha" (Matthew 27.33, Mark 15.22, John 19.17). John is the evangelist who sees more details: he speaks of a garden and a tomb carved into the rock (19.41). Even the letter to the Hebrews states that Jesus "to sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the city gate" (13,12). Furthermore, a tomb could only be out of the city. Josephus states that only two people were buried inside the city walls: David and John Ircanus (War Jude V, 259); a Jewish tradition also spoke of the tomb of the prophetess Hulda.

In any case, the tomb of Jesus was outside the walls, or what was called "the first wall ". The place was an abandoned stone quarry and then filled with earth. Even the ancient pilgrims speak of a rocky site with broken stones. They attributed the cracks in the rock to the earthquake that followed the death of Jesus narrated by the Gospel texts. It was a very jagged, irregular environment, abandoned for centuries, where there were protruding rocks that could easily be excavated as sepulchres. Once the quarry was abandoned, the area was used as small vegetable gardens and cultivable gardens and in the rocky walls carved by the quarry, along the hill, were made a series of family tombs.

The same Golgotha, the "mountain " on which the crosses were founded, must have looked like a higher rock spike, and separated from the hill, a suitable place, therefore, for the demonstrative execution of the capital punishments. Since 41-42 AD Erode Agrippa expanded the wall circuit of Jerusalem to the northwest, the Golgotha became part of the city and from an isolated place, over time, became an integral and central part of the city.

With the re-foundation of Jerusalem in 135 A.D. as a Roman colony, with the name of Aelia Capitolina, the topographical situation changed. In the new urban structure, the garden of Golgotha came to be in the centre of the city. In that same area a pagan temple was erected built on an embankment that sealed the oldest remains, as reported by the testimony of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in the fourth century and St. Jerome, who lived in Bethlehem from 386 until his death. The Jewish and Christian memories are cancelled. The place of Golgotha and the Sepulchre disappear under the bulk of the new temple dedicated to Venus Aphrodite.

Brief history of the Basilica - The discovery of Jesus' tomb

After 313 Constantine invited to look for the tomb of Christ. In 325 the emperor decided to honour the tomb of Christ and the place of his martyrdom, the Rock of Calvary, with a monument worthy of God. The decision was favoured by the commitment of the empress's mother Helena and Constantine's mother-in-law Eutropia. In 333 the pilgrim of Bordeaux came to Jerusalem: he tells of a mound called Golgotha and a place "at a stone's throw" where the body of Christ was buried. In this place, Constantine had a basilica called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre built. The pagan temples were destroyed by Constantine's will, the venerated tomb was brought to light and the grand complex of the Holy Sepulchre, which culminated in the Anastasis, was inaugurated on 13 September 335. What we see today is a monument that combines elements from the Muslim, Byzantine, and even Constantinian eras with a Crusader structure.

Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, at the time metropolitan of the Roman province of Palestine, gave the official speech on the day of the inauguration of the basilica in 335. Bishop of Aelia Capitolina was Macarius to whom the seventh canon of the Council of Nicaea (325) had assured the honour owed to him as bishop of the city without however harming the rights of the metropolitan!

On the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre in the construction of the Basilica writes Eusebius in the Life of Constantine:

"And this saving cave (the tomb of Jesus) that some atheists and impious had thought to make disappear from (the eyes of) men, foolishly believing to conceal the truth in this way. And so, with great difficulty, they had dumped the earth brought from outside and covered the whole place; they had then raised it up and paved it with stones thus hiding the divine cave under that great mound of earth. So, as if this were not enough yet, on earth, they had erected a truly fatal burial ground for the souls building a dark recess to a lascivious deity, Aphrodite, and then offering you abominable libations on impure and cursed altars. Because only this way and not otherwise they think that they would have implemented their
project, hiding that is the salvific cave with similar execrable filth ".

           The Constantinian Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, 335

Empress Elena the discovery of the relics of the Holy Cross

The Persian invasion of Palestine and the Arab conquest

The captivating of Jerusalem by the gods Persians in 614 was accompanied by three days of looting and destruction. The same Patriarch Zaccaria was taken prisoner and the relic of the stolen Vera Cross was brought back to Jerusalem by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in 630.

The complex of the Holy Sepulchre where the Jerusalem Christians took refuge during the siege, was set on fire and many faithful died there. The abbot of San Teodoro, Modesto, engaged in the search for funds for the reconstruction of the churches destroyed in Jerusalem by the Persian hordes. He stated that all were restored by 625 AD and it follows that the damage suffered by the Holy Sepulchre was also repaired.

In 638, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Sofronio, peacefully handed over the city to the caliph Omar: The Byzantine defeats against Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula changed the course of Palestine for the next four centuries.

It is due to the visit of the caliph to the Holy Sepulchre and to his prayer outside the Basilica of the Martyrion, at the eastern portico, the loss of the right of access to the sanctuary from the entrance main, which instead became a place of individual prayer for Muslims. The pilgrimages to the Holy City continued interrupted and the travellers’ accounts offer a description of the Holy Sepulchre and the changes that occurred in this period, such as the shifting of access to the south side, the construction of a church on the site of Calvary and the church of Santa Maria. besides the veneration of new relics such as the cup of the Last Supper, the sponge and the lance exposed to the religious treat.

The destruction of Al Hakim

In 1009 the fanatical Fatimid caliph of Egypt al-Hakim bi Amr Allah issued the explicit order to destroy the churches of Palestine, Egypt, and Syria, and especially the Holy Sepulchre, as well says the historian Yahia ibn Sa'id.

 

 

                                                     Archaeological traces of the destruction of Al-Hakim.

 

 

It was a radical destruction of the sanctuary, which led to the demolition of the church of Calvary, what remained of the surviving structures of the Martyrion and the complete demolition of the Edicule of the Sepulchre. All the furnishings were destroyed or stolen. The devastating atria stopped only in front of the robustness of the Constantinian structures of the Anastasis which in part were saved because submerged by the ruins of destruction.

Crusader transformation

The growing difficulty of accessing the holy places of Christianity led the Byzantine emperors to seek help from the West, who responded with the start of the Crusades campaign.

On July 15, 1099, the Crusaders stormed the Holy City, massacred Jews and Muslims and made it the heart of their reign for almost a century, until October 2, 1187. A few days after the taking, Count Goffredo of Bouillon received the title of Advocatus or lay protector of the Holy Sepulchre, with the implicit task of defending the holy places on behalf of the pope and the Latin clergy.

                                        Crusader Basilica (1099 - 1187)

The Crusaders began the work of reorganizing some parts of the Sanctuary at the heart of Christianity, which had recently been restored. To adapt the sanctuary to the Latin liturgy in the space of the Constantinian triple portico, a Chorus Dominorum (Chorus of Lords) was built together with the Anastasis, in which the Latin religious officiated

The other important crusade was the construction of the church of Saint Elena on the place where the Jerusalem tradition recalled the discovery of the True Cross by the mother of Constantine. The crusader's intent was to create a single church that would group all the memories that were celebrated there, giving it a form suitable to welcome thousands of pilgrims.

The diversity of European Romanesque styles represented by the first interventions in the basilica by the will of King Baldwin I (1100-1118) found over time a greater cohesion especially thanks to the artists who worked for King Baldwin III (1140-1150). The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre as it stands today echoes the Crusader Romanesque style which brought together in a single structure the sacred memories linked to the death and resurrection of Christ.

Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre today

             Chapel of Santa Elena: the place where the Holy Cross was found

                                               The Crusader Basilica, 1149 A.D

                                                    Calvary today

The Muslim reconquest

In 1187 Jerusalem was reconquered by Saladin's army and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed. Thanks to agreements with the 'Emperor of Constantinople settled in the Basilica a Greek hierarchy. Catholics, called Franks or Latins, were readmitted for short truces only to be removed again during the brutal invasion of the Charismins of 1244 when the Christians were attacked and killed and the basilica once again badly damaged.

The Thietmar pilgrim in 1217 writes that “the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the place of the Passion are increasingly closed without worship and without honour, and do not open that sometimes the pilgrims to the money power.”

Faced with protests from the Christian world the sultan apologized to Pope Innocent IV attributing the devastation as irresponsible. It assured that repaired the damage, and he entrusted the keys to two Muslim families because it would open the basilica to the arrival of pilgrims, the situation remained unchanged until today.

It was a dark period where unscrupulous officials mocked the desire of communities to have access to the basilica. Pilgrims, after payment of a fee, were introduced in the basilica and were given a place and a special altar where they could also attend multi-day ceremonies held in their language.

At that time, various Christian colonies from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Armenia, Ethiopia, Syria, Greece, and Georgia lived in Jerusalem. The Georgian Queen Tamara obtained for her the communities ' exemption from the tax and permission to their true in the church. The monks received food and offerings through openings cut into the door of the basilica. The sanctuary gradually decayed. The sovereigns of the West, having lost the possibility of recovering the holy places with weapons, entered negotiations with the sultans to ensure Catholic worship and assistance to pilgrims. Full success was the real Naples in 1333 who obtained a residence for the Latin community in Jerusalem.

In addition, from 1217 they began to arrive in the first Friars Minor Holy Land, conducted a mission by Brother Elia Coppi. Between 1219 and 1220 St. Francis of Assisi went on a pilgrimage to the holy sites.

From the Muslim Empire to today

The Franciscans at the Holy Sepulchre in 1342: All orders founded by St. Francis of Assisi, with the Bull of Pope Clement VI, the Holy Sepulchre and other holy places are entrusted with custody. By this time a Franciscan community settled inside of the Basilica venerated.

Under the Turkish dominion, 1517: The period of Ottoman rule was marked by 'alternation of the favours granted by the Sultans, especially to the two Latin and Greek communities. The Franciscans, supported by the European powers, built the new Sepulchre Newsstand in 1555 and restored the dome of Anastasis in 1719.

The period of the British Mandate, 1922: The Holy Sepulchre during the Mandate British Palestine is constantly monitored for fear of collapse of old-growth structures that, even after the great earthquake of 1927, are made safe with heavy scaffolding and props.

From Mandate to today, 1948: The last decades of the Holy Sepulchre history are happily marked by the agreements signed by the three Communities for the restoration of the Basilica and the many pilgrims who tirelessly come from all over the world to pray at the holy sites of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Internal Holy Sepulchre

                                              Holy Sepulchre, aedicule

                                            Holy Sepulchre, exterior

                          Other holy places in Jerusalem and Palestine

Other Holy places in Jerusalem and Palestine

We only need to mention that the construction of the Holy Sepulcher complex was only the beginning of the new Christian Jerusalem. Until the 7th century, numerous churches, chapels and monasteries were built in the places linked to the episodes told by the Gospels (Gethsemane, Bethesda, Praetorium, Cenacle, Mount Zion). Numerous hospices were also built for the city's poor and for pilgrims. In the 7th century, a monk called Jerusalem “the city of Christians” – this statement makes us understand the profound transformation of the city over the three centuries from Constantine to the Persian and Arab conquests.

                   Holy place - Santa Anna church near the Bethesda pool

Holy place - Gethsemane

An important source for the topography of Jerusalem at the beginning of the 7th century. is the work of Strategos (a monk from the monastery of St. Sheba in Mount Zion) wrote his “Account of the Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians” in 614. Escaping the carnage and escaping from captivity, Strategos tells of the arrival of the Persians, of the capture of the Wood of the Cross and of the Patriarch Zechariah and his deportation to Persia, of the sacking of the city and finally, he adds the list of those killed. Strategos also lists the churches and holy places of the city: in his list, there are 35 churches. Also, throughout Palestine, they erected monuments in the “Evangelical sites”: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Bethany, Capernaum, Tiberias etc.

An example of the transformation of the city after the Arab conquest: Al Aqsa Mosque

Al Aqsa Mosque  - Present External Structure

The building is situated upon the revered site of the Temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed during the reign of Emperor Titus. Later, during the time of Emperor Hadrian, a temple honouring Jupiter Capitolinus was constructed in its place and the entire city was renamed Aelia Capitolina.

In the past, a basilica was built to honour the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, when the Muslim conquest began in 674, it is believed that a wooden structure was built on top of the remains of the church, around 48 years after the supposed date of Muhammad's death. Unfortunately, this structure was destroyed by fire. The first permanent structure made of sturdy materials was constructed between 705 and 715 by the Umayyad Caliph al-Walīd I, the son of Abd al-Malik. He named this new mosque al-Aqṣā, which means the moschea ultima (Last Mosque).

Some scholars, such as Oleg Grabar of Harvard and Christoph Luxenberg, believe that the original Christian church was not destroyed but was instead converted into a mosque. They base their conclusion on various architectural and literary investigations. Grabar argues that the octagonal shape of the structure was typical of Christian churches during that era, such as Charlemagne's chapel in Aachen and the Byzantine octagonal basilica in Capernaum, which placed significance on the eighth day as the day of resurrection. Another argument comes from linguistic studies of inscriptions in the mosque, where the word 'Muhammad' would mean 'blessed' rather than the proper name of Muhammad, and would refer to Jesus as 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord'. However, the results of this research have caused controversy, and careful archaeological research would have to be conducted on-site to confirm or disprove this theory. Unfortunately, this is not currently possible.

Charlemagne's Chapel, Aachen, 786 - 804

Geography of the Gospel

[M. Piccirillo, Ricerca archeologica e Vangelo e i luoghi santi di Palestina, pp. 56-58]

The geographical area in which the Gospel narrative moves is limited to Galilee and Jerusalem, touching marginally on the pilgrimage roads that, crossing Samaria and Perea, united the northern province to the holy city where the Temple was magnificently rebuilt by Herod.

In the Gospel of John, the story begins along the river in Bethany beyond the Jordan, therefore in Perea, with the preaching of John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus. The Evangelist himself mentions the two groups also present at Ainon on the west bank of the river. After the imprisonment and beheading of John, by order of the Tetrarch Herod Antipas, in the fortress of Macheronte, also in Perea, on the border with the Nabataean Kingdom of Petra, as the historian Josephus Flavius points out, Jesus continued his message first in the synagogues and villages of Galilee, then in Capernaum on the shore of the lake.

The Evangelists are keen to emphasise that Jesus and his disciples moved around the villages inhabited mainly by Jews preaching in their synagogues, rarely trespassing into 'pagan' lands. On one occasion we find them in the territory of Tyre and Sidon on the border with Phoenicia (Mk 7:24); on another occasion, on the eastern shore of Lake Tiberias, in the territory of the "Gergesei" (according to a geographically relevant textual variant of Origen to Mk 5:1), on the borders of the territory of Hippos of the Decapolis. The group even went as far as the territory of Caesarea Philippi, as the city of Paneas had been renamed, which stood near the source of the Jordan of Ayn Banias on the northern border of the ancient kingdom of Israel (Mk 8:27).

Jesus spent most of his public life in Galilee on the shore of the body of water that was 'the sea' for the locals. "He left Nazareth and settled in Capernaum, which was by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali" (Mt 4:13). Tradition has left us records of visits to the villages of Nazareth, Jesus' birthplace (Lk 4:16 f.), Bethsaida, Chorozain (Mt 11:20-24), Nain (Lk 7:11), and Cana of Galilee (Jn 4:46).

In the chapters dedicated by Luke and Matthew to the infancy of Jesus, the narrative moves between Galilee (Nazareth where Mary, betrothed to Joseph, lives), Judea (Jerusalem where the Temple where the priest Zechariah officiates, the mountain where he lives with Elizabeth his wife, Bethlehem where Jesus is born on the occasion of an imperial census), and Egypt, where Joseph flees to save the Child and his mother, and then returns to Nazareth on the death of Herod. The family makes the annual pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Moving from Galilee, pilgrims, who went up to Jerusalem for Passover or other feasts, had several ways to reach the Holy City. There were two most popular routes. The shorter one, leaving the plain of Esdrelon, wedged through the mountains of Samaria and led directly to Jerusalem. To avoid the dangers that the Jews ran in crossing the villages of the Samaritans, the valley road was preferred in Perea on the eastern bank of the river. At Jericho, they crossed the Jordan River again and, after a stop at the oasis of Jericho, pilgrims could reach Bethany on the Mount of Olives in a day.

Both routes return in the Gospel account. The episodes narrated in Lk 9:5l-56 and from Jn 5 take place on the mountain road. The valley road is recalled in Mt 19:1, (Perea); 20:29; Lk 19:1ff (Jericho); Jn 11-12 (Bethany); Mt 21: l (Bethphage). From the top of the Mount of Olives, the endpoint of the road from the Jordan Valley up the mountain of Judea along the wadi el-Kelt, one overlooked the city and the Temple, where work begun by King Herod was still in progress.

With meticulous topographical details, the evangelists have left us a record of Jesus' journeys to Jerusalem, where he gladly lingered in the Temple, under Solomon's porch (Jn 10:23). Jesus passes by the pool of Bethesda (Jn 5), sends the man born blind to wash in the pool of Siloe (Jn 9:7). In the city, he celebrates Easter in the great hall on the upper floor of a house known to him (Mk 14, 12 ff). At sunset, he leaves the city and spends the night in a farm called Gethsemane (Mt 26, 36), "beyond the Cedron stream where there was a garden known to Judas the traitor because Jesus and his disciples had often gathered there" (Jn 18, 1-2). He is led by Anna and then by Caiaphas (Jn 18, 12. 24), and from the house of Caiaphas into the Praetorium (Jn 18, 28). He is condemned to death "in the place called Litostraton (Paved), in Hebrew Gabbata" (Jn 19, 13). He was crucified in the place "called Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha" (Jn 19, 17). He was buried in a new tomb dug in a garden nearby (Jn 19: 41).

Before the end "Jesus withdrew to the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim" (Jn 11:54, today Tayybeh, north of Jerusalem).

            To evangelists interested theologically in highlighting the message of Jesus and the mystery of his person as overcoming the ancient Jewish order, the few geographical references serve mainly to link his figure as the suffering Messiah-King, the realiser of the promises made to the Fathers, with the Land of the Old Covenant, with his people and with Jerusalem. Jesus is the descendant of David, born in Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah (Lk 2:1-6), who from Galilee in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, begins to radiate his light of salvation (Mt 4:13ff). Son of David, he preaches through the villages of Israel the coming of the Kingdom that he gathers in faith in his Person and in his bloodshed as a sacrifice for all the scattered children of God. With his word of life, he reconstitutes the new Israel by calling the Twelve Apostles to follow him, the continuers of his work. Jesus leaves to the Apostles the mission to be "his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Consequently, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, after dwelling on the gradual affirmation of the Christian mission in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, a mission that takes Peter to Samaria (Acts 8:14), to Lydda, Joppa and Caesarea on the Sea (Acts 9, 31-10, 1ff), he goes on to recount Paul's apostolic activity, which takes the form of a tireless missionary journey along the roads of the empire up to Rome, the centre of that world to which the gospel was to be proclaimed at the Master's command. (To be Continued)

Fr. Nicholas Macedon OCD

Carmelite Priory, Oxford.            

9698453101

nicholasocd@yahoo.com

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