Mark 16:1-8 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices… Can we believe, someone asks, that this is really the place where the Body of the Lord was laid after His death? Why not? Christendom, east and west, has believed it, at least since A.D. 335. In that year the first Christian Emperor completed the church which the historian Eusebius tells us he made up his mind to build on this spot immediately after the Nicene Council. At its consecration a great many bishops came to Jerusalem, and Eusebius himself among the rest; and no doubt was entertained by them that this was the genuine tomb of our Lord. But then the question arose, How did Constantine and his bishops know that the sepulchre over which he built his church was really the sepulchre of our Lord, and not of someone else? And one answer which is sometimes given to this question, as by Robinson, is, that the place was revealed to Constantine by a miracle, and that as the miracle may at least conceivably have been a pious fraud of some kind, there is no certainty that the presumed site was the true one. Robinson quotes a letter of Constantine to the then Bishop of Jerusalem, in which the Emperor speaks of the gladdening discovery of the Sign of the sacred Passion of the Redeemer as miraculous. But the allusion in this expression is to the real or supposed finding of the wood of the Cross. Constantine says nothing about the finding of the Sepulchre, nor is there any real ground for thinking that it was ever discovered at all, for the simple reason that its position had never been at all lost sight of. The wood of the Cross might well have been buried and forgotten; and if it was ever to be certainly identified, some extraordinary occurrence might be necessary to identify it; but the burial place of Jesus was not likely to have been lost sight of. Constantine was not farther removed in point of time from the date of the earthly life of our Lord, than we are from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and we know pretty well where most people who attracted any public attention during her reign were buried. The Jews, like the Egyptians, took especial care to preserve memorials of the dead. St. Peter, in his first sermon, alludes to David's sepulchre as being "with us even to this day." Would St. Peter, think you, or those whom he taught, have ever lost sight of the sepulchre of "David's greater Son?" Would not each generation of Christians have learned, and handed on to their successors, all that was known about it? Above all, would not the great Alexandrian school, who diffused so much light and knowledge in the first ages of the Church, have kept its eyes steadily on a matter of some real importance like this? Even in those days a visit from Alexandria to Jerusalem and back might have been easily taken, the weather being favourable, in three weeks; and men like Clement and would have learnt, either from personal observation or through others, all that could be learnt respecting the exact scene of the momentous event which was the keystone of the religion which they taught. Indeed, it was notorious amongst the Christians, that in the days of the Emperor Hadrian ( A.D. 132) a temple of Venus had been built on this very spot, and this building, in something less than two centuries was finally removed by Constantine, who uncovered the tomb in the rock beneath. Notwithstanding the ruin which fell upon Constantine's Church at the time of the Persian invasion, and upon its successor under the mad Caliph El Hakim, there is no reason to think that the site and identity of the tomb were ever lost sight of. There are, of course, other opinions on the subject. The late Mr. Ferguson maintained with great ability what scholars have come to consider a paradox, viz., that the site of the Sepulchre was that of the so-called Mosque of Omar in the Temple area. A more plausible opinion, warmly upheld by the late General Gordon, is, that it is in a garden at the foot of the striking hill which is just outside the Gate of Damascus. This site is so much more picturesque and imposing than the traditional one that, had there been any evidence in its favour in Constantine's day, it would certainly have been adopted. The old belief is likely to hold its ground unless one thing should happen. We know that our Lord was crucified and buried outside the Gate of Jerusalem. The Epistle to the Hebrews points out the typical importance of His suffering "without the gate." If excavations ever should show that the second (i.e., in our Lord's day, the outer) wall of the city embraced the site of the Sepulchre within its circuit, then it would be certain that the traditional site is not the true one. At present there is not much chance of these necessarily difficult excavations being made; and while no one can speak positively, high authorities believe that the real direction of the second wall is that which Constantine and his advisers took for granted. We may therefore continue to hold with our forefathers that the chapel under the larger cupola of the Church of the Sepulchre does really contain the place where the Lord lay. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. |
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