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Chapter VIII.—Place of S. Cyril’s Lectures.
We have seen in a passage already quoted307
that at Milan S. Ambrose expounded the Creed
to Catechumens in the Baptistery. But whatever may have been the
custom in other places, it is certain from numerous passages in
Cyril’s Lectures that they were delivered in the great Basilica,
or Church of the Resurrection, built by Constantine on the site of the
Holy Sepulchre, and consecrated, as we have seen, with great splendour
in the year 335308
308 See above, Ch. I. p.
2. Cf. Cat. iv. 10; x. 19; xiii. 4, 22, 39; xiv. 9, 14, 22,
&c. | . In a
passage309 where Cyril is speaking of the descent of the
Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, he says, “as we discourse on
Christ and Golgotha here in Golgotha, so it were most fitting that we
should also speak concerning the Holy Ghost in the Upper Church; yet
since He who descended there jointly partakes of the glory of Him who
was crucified here, we here speak concerning Him also who descended
there.” It appears from a passage in the Introductory
Lecture310 that it was delivered in the Church itself
before the whole congregation, after that portion of the daily Service
to which Catechumens were usually admitted: “Dost thou
behold this venerable constitution of the Church? Dost thou view
her order and discipline, the reading of Scripture, the presence of the
Ordained, the course of instruction?” The same custom was
retained in Jerusalem in the time of John, Cyril’s successor in
the Bishopric, who in writing to Jerome says, “The custom with us
is that we deliver the doctrine of the Holy Trinity publicly during
forty days to those who are to be baptized311
311 Hieron. Ep.
61 (al. 38). The passage is quoted more fully below on p.
xliv. | .”
The Mystagogic Lectures were delivered not in the
Church, but after the conclusion of the public Service “in the
Holy Place of the Resurrection itself312 ,” that is,
in the small Chapel which contained the Holy Sepulchre, and to which
the name “Anastasis” more properly belonged. Happily
we are not required by the purpose of this work to enter into the
disputed questions concerning the Holy Places. Whether the cave
re-fashioned and adorned by Constantine was the actual sepulchre in
which our Lord’s body was laid, and whether the present Churches
occupy the same site as the Basilica and Anastasis of Constantine, are
matters still under discussion, and awaiting the result of further
researches. What more properly concerns us is to collect the
chief passages in which Cyril refers to these localities, and to try to
give a fair representation of his testimony, comparing it with that of
earlier or contemporary writers.
Next to Eusebius, and the Bordeaux Pilgrim who visited
Jerusalem in 333, Cyril is the earliest and most important witness as
to the site of Constantine’s Churches.
In Cat. xiv. § 5, he says, “It was a garden
where He was crucified. For though it has now been most highly
adorned with royal gifts, yet formerly it was a garden, and the signs
and the remnants of this remain.” From this it is evident
that the traces of a garden close to the Church were still visible both
to Cyril and his hearers. Twice again in § 11 he mentions
the garden, which he had most probably himself seen in its former
state, before the ground was cleared at the time of the recovery of the
Holy Sepulchre in 326.
On this point it may be well to quote the words of
Mr. Walter Besant, Honorary Secretary of the Palestine Exploration
Fund, who, in an article on “The Holy Sepulchre” in the
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, writes as follows:
“While the temple of Venus with its foundations was being cleared
away, there might have been, and most probably was present, a Christian
lad, native of Jerusalem, eleven years of age, watching the discovery,
which did as much as the great luminous cross which appeared in the sky
four (? twenty-four) years later to confirm the doubtful and strengthen
the faithful, that of the rock containing the sacred tomb. It was Cyril, afterwards
Bishop of Jerusalem. One must not forget that he is the third
eye-witness who speaks of these things; that though he was a boy at the
time of the discovery, he lived in Jerusalem, and must have watched,
step by step, the progress of the great Basilica; that he was ordained
before the completion and dedication of the buildings, and that many,
if not all, of his lectures were delivered in the Church of the
Anastasis itself.”
That Cyril’s testimony concerning the Holy
Places was in full accordance with the general belief of his
contemporaries is clear from the fact that he so frequently points to
the traditional sites as bearing witness to the truth of the
Crucifixion and Resurrection. He speaks of Golgotha in eight
separate passages, sometimes as near to the Church in which he and his
hearers are assembled313
313 xiii. § 4:
οὗτος ὁ
Γολγοθᾶς οὗ
πλησίον νῦν
πάντες
πάρεσμεν. | , and sometimes as
standing up above in their sight314
314 x. § 19:
ὁ Γ. ὁ
ἅγιος οὗτος ὁ
ὑπερανεστηκὼς
μαρτυρεῖ
φαινόμενος.
Cf. xiii. 19. | . In one
place he asks, “Seest thou this spot of Golgotha?” and the
hearers answer with a shout of approval315
315 xiii. § 23:
῾Ορᾶς
τοῦ Γολγοθᾶ
τὸν τόπον;
᾽Επιβοᾶς
ἐπαίνῳ ὡς
συντιθέμενος. | . In other passages he speaks as if the
Church itself was in or rather on Golgotha316
316 iv. § 10:
ὁ μακάριος
οὗτος Γ. ἐν ᾧ
νῦν διὰ τὸν
ἐν αὐτῷ
σταυρωθέντα
συγκεκροτήμεθα.
Cf. § 14: ὁ ἐν τῷ Γ.
τούτῳ
σταυρωθείς.
xiii. § 22: xvi. 4: ἐν τῷ Γ
τούτῳ
λέγομεν. | , the same Preposition (ἐν) being repeated
when he mentions “Him who was crucified thereon.”
In explanation of these different modes of
speaking, the Benedictine Editor comments thus317
317 Cat. xiii. § 4,
note 1. | : “The Church of the Resurrection
was built on part of the hill Golgotha (intra montem G.):
but the actual rock on which our Lord was crucified was not within the
limits of the Church, yet not far off, namely about “a
stone’s throw,” as the author of the Jerusalem
Itinerary says. For the Church had been built on the site of
the Sepulchre. Some think that the place of Crucifixion was
included in the vast area which was enclosed with colonnades between
the Sepulchre and the Basilica,…that Golgotha was midway between
the Basilica of the Crucifixion, and the Anastasis or Sepulchre.
But the area in question Constantine paved with stones, and it must
therefore have been flat, as we learn from Eusebius318
318 Vit. Const. iii.
c. 35. | ;
Golgotha, on the contrary, stood up high319
319 Cat. x. § 19; xiii.
§ 39. | , and
moreover shewed a cleft made there at Christ’s death320 , which would either have been a hindrance to
the paving or covered up by it. In addition to this, from the
doors of the Basilica there seems to have been a view of the Sacred
Tomb321
321 Eus. Vit.
Const. iii. c. 36. | . This would have been obstructed if
Golgotha had been between them.”
The cleft in the rock of Golgotha is mentioned in
a fragment of the defence made before Maximinus in 311 or 312 by Lucian
the Martyr of Antioch322
322 The fragment is
added by Rufinus to his Latin translation of Eusebius, Hist.
Eccl. ix. 6, and is also given in Routh, Rell. Sacr. iv. p.
6. | : If yet you
believe not, I will also offer you the testimony of the very spot on
which the thing was done. The place itself in Jerusalem vouches
for these facts, and the rock of Golgotha broken asunder under the
weight of the Cross: that cave also, which when the gates of hell
were burst, gave back the Body in newness of life.” On this
passage Dr. Routh remarks that Maundrell, Journey from Aleppo to
Jerusalem, at Easter, 1697, “shews that the rock had been
rent not by any instrument, but by the force of an earthquake.
Also it is related by Eusebius in his Theophania, a book now recovered,
that there was one cave only in this cleft of the
rock.”
According to Eusebius in the passages of the
Life of Constantine already referred to, the Emperor first
beautified the monument or sepulchre with rare columns, then paved with
finely polished stone a large area open to the sky, and enclosed on
three sides with long colonnades, and lastly erected the Church itself
“at the side opposite to the cave, which was the Eastern
side.”
The following
is the statement of the Bordeaux Pilgrim: “From thence (the
Palace of David) as you go out of the wall of Sion walking towards the
gate of Neapolis, on the right side below in the valley are walls where
the house or Prætorium of Pontius Pilate was: here our Lord
was tried before His Passion. On the left hand is the little hill
(monticulus) of Golgotha, where the Lord was crucified.
About a stone’s throw from thence is a vault (crypta)
wherein His body was laid, and rose again on the third day. There
by command of the Emperor Constantine has now been built a Basilica,
that is to say, a Church of wondrous beauty, having at the side
reservoirs (exceptoria) from which water is raised, and a bath
behind in which infants are washed (baptized).” Neapolis
was the name given by Vespasian to the ancient city of Shechem, now
Nâbulus: the “porta Neapolitana” therefore was
in the North wall of Sion.
In reference to the passage quoted above, Mr.
Aubrey Stewart says: “The narrative is clear and connected,
and it is hardly possible, for any one who knows the ground, to read it
without feeling that the Pilgrim from Bordeaux actually saw
Constantine’s buildings standing on the site now occupied by the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre323
323 The Bordeaux
Pilgrim, Introd. p. ix. | .”
From these earlier testimonies, compared with the
several passages already quoted from Cyril, we may safely draw the
following inferences, (1) The Anastasis properly so called, or Church
of the Holy Sepulchre, in which the five Mystagogic Lectures were
delivered, was built by Constantine over the cave which, according to
the evidence then existing, was fully believed to be the Burial-place
of our Lord. (2) The Great Basilica, called also the Church of
the Holy Cross, in which the Catechetical Lectures were delivered, was
erected on the East of the Anastasis, and separated from it by a large
open area. (3) The hill of Golgotha (on which at a later period
there was built a third Church, called the Church of Golgotha, of Holy
Calvary, or of Cranium) stood about a stone’s throw on the North
side of Constantine’s two Churches, and about equidistant from
them. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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