Evidence of Earliest Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land Comes to Light in Holy Sepulchre Church
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The compound of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is not only Christianity’s holiest site it is also one of the most fascinating buildings in the world. Its nucleus goes back to the 4th century A.D.—how many 4th century buildings are still in existence and in use?—and its various components represent almost every period during the last 16 centuries.a
Archaeologists have been excavating in Jerusalem for over a century, but only recently have they been allowed to dig in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1960 the three principal Communities that share the compound—the Latin Catholics, the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Orthodox—agreed not only on a plan of extensive restoration, but also on a program of archaeological investigation and excavation. Both the restoration work and the archaeological work are still in progress.
Despite the very restricted areas available for excavation, the archaeological work has contributed substantially to our knowledge of the history of this unique edifice. Only in the past few years has sufficient archaeological evidence come to light so that we can 043locate and draw the plan of the original basilica church built by the Emperor Constantine beginning in 326 A.D. This church he constructed in front of Jesus’ Tomb; the Tomb itself was venerated by pilgrims in an open courtyard. Later, Constantine built a magnificent rotunda almost 70 feet in diameter over and around the Tomb. Much of this rotunda still survives—in places up to 35 feet—in the basic structure of the present rotunda over the Tomb.
In November 1975, I was asked by the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate to supervise clearance work at the eastern extremity of the compound (east of St. Helena’s Chapel, known to Armenians as St. Krekor’s [Gregory’s] chapel).
Despite the confined area—only about 10 yards square—the results have been most gratifying.
The most astounding item we found was a bold drawing of a ship which we were able to date to about 330 A.D. The drawing is made on a carefully smoothed and polished stone block embedded in a wall of rougher stones (see color illustration).
Beneath the drawing is a Latin inscription “DOMINE IVIMUS”: “Lord, we went.”
The vessel is a small Roman sailing merchantman, typical of the kind that plied the waters of the Mediterranean Sea between different parts of the Roman Empire. Executed in firm, elegant strokes, its bow is on the left and its stern on the right. The stern tapers into a goose head, the most popular ship ornament in antiquity. The steering oars are aft. Behind the mast is a furled square mainsail.
The mast itself presents a problem: Is it lowered or is it broken? Is the ship resting in a harbor after its voyage or has it been wrecked? I incline to the belief that the artist meant to draw a broken or fallen mast—perhaps wrecked in a storm. No doubt the pilgrims made the voyage all the way from the western Mediterranean—Rome, Gaul or even Spain. We know they came from the western Mediterranean because the inscription is in Latin. Greek, not Latin, was used in the eastern part of the Roman Empire.
The furled mainsail and the lines binding it are in red (ochre-sinopia); the rest of the drawing, including the inscription, is in black (graphite). The stone block which the artist specially prepared for the drawing is about 33 inches long and 18 inches high.
The inscription “Lord, we went” may be the simple exclamation of a pilgrim that “we went to the Tomb of the Lord.” More probably, however, it contains an allusion to Psalm 122, as Father Pierre Benoit, O.P. of the École Biblique has suggested. Psalm 122 is the classical psalm of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It begins: “In domum Domini ibimus”—“Let us go to the house of the Lord.” By this allusion, the pilgrims have affirmed that they have gone up to the house of the Lord.
The inscription is apparently the joyous exclamation of pilgrims who sailed from the western part of the Empire and finally reached the Holy City—perhaps after a perilous voyage signified by the lowered (damaged?) mast. The tableau may also be an ex voto—a fulfillment of a vow—commemorating the pilgrims’ deliverance from the dangers and perhaps narrow escape of the arduous voyage.
The date of the drawing is determined by the type of ship, the inscription and the archaeological context. The ship is typical of the first centuries of the Christian era. The inscription implies that it was made after the conversion of the site from a pagan edifice to a Christian shrine. The archaeological evidence suggests the decade before 335 A.D.—in other words, during the first decade of Constantine’s basilica which was begun in 326 A.D. The early Church Father Eusebius tells us that this area was covered with pagan shrines before Constantine built this church. It is most unlikely that a Christian would have dared to paint this inscription before 326 A.D., at a time when the area was covered with pagan shrines and Christianity 044was an outlawed religion. After 335 A.D. this area was filled in and inaccessible. Therefore, the ship and the inscription must have been drawn sometime during the construction of the Constantinian basilica, that is, about 330 A.D.
While some Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land began as early as the second century, only after Constantine’s conversion in 324 A.D. did pilgrims come in substantial numbers. The earliest extant account of a Christian pilgrim’s journey to the Holy Land is by a man known to history only as the Pilgrim of Bordeaux. His Latin Itinerarium Burdigalense tells about a pilgrimage made in 333 A.D. To this early testimony may now be added the painting and inscription we have found in the Holy Sepulchre Church.
The pilgrim ship, although the most startling of our finds, was only a small part of what we learned in our comparatively small excavation. From a later period (12th century) we found the eastern wall of the Crusader’s St. Helena Chapel.
From an earlier period (the 7th century B.C.), we learned that the area was a rock quarry. (To discover this we had to dig down almost 40 feet.) When Jerusalem expanded in the 7th century B.C., this area was inhabited for the first time. Our excavations uncovered evidence that then the area was covered with a beaten-earth floor. Seventh century pottery was found on and under the floor. Our 7th century dating was also confirmed by carbon-14 tests of the ashes in the floor.
Into that beaten-earth floor were dug the foundations of a Roman building—almost certainly the Roman Forum of Jerusalem, probably built by the Emperor Hadrian.
When Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he thoroughly demolished the pagan buildings, including the Roman Forum. As Eusebius tells us:
“Godless people … had gone to great pains to cover up this divine memorial of immortality [Jesus’ tomb] so that it should be forgotten. With much labor they [the Romans] brought in soil from elsewhere and covered the whole site, and by raising the level and laying a stone pavement they concealed the divine cave under a heap of earth. And, as though this were not enough, they built above ground … a gloomy shrine of lifeless idols dedicated to the impure demon Aphrodite, where they poured foul libations on profane and accursed altars … As soon as he [Constantine] had issued his orders, this false device was cast to the ground … with its images and gods. The Emperor also commanded that the stone and timber of the ruins should be removed and dumped as far away as possible, and that a large area of the foundation soil, defiled as it was by devil-worship, should be dug away to a considerable depth, and removed to some distance. At once the work was carried out, and, as layer after layer of the subsoil came into view, the venerable and most holy memorial of the Saviour’s resurrection, beyond all our hopes, came into view; the holy of holies, the Cave was, like our Saviour, ‘restored to life’ … by its very existence bearing clearer testimony to the resurrection of the Saviour than any words.” (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.25–3.28. J. Wilkinson’s translation.)
Soundings in and around the Holy Sepulchre have confirmed that Constantine removed not only the pagan superstructures, but also the substructures. In our site, however, some of the pagan substructure was found untouched by Constantine’s demolition team (see illustration).
We also uncovered the foundations of the northern stylobate of the Constantinian nave and the foundations that supported the rock ledge on which the facade of the Church was built.
Thus, in quite a small area, we were able to bring to light evidence from almost 2000 years of history—from the 8th–7th centuries B.C. to the 12th century A.D.
The compound of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is not only Christianity’s holiest site it is also one of the most fascinating buildings in the world. Its nucleus goes back to the 4th century A.D.—how many 4th century buildings are still in existence and in use?—and its various components represent almost every period during the last 16 centuries.a Archaeologists have been excavating in Jerusalem for over a century, but only recently have they been allowed to dig in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1960 the three principal Communities that share the compound—the Latin Catholics, […]
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Footnotes
See J.-P. B. Ross, “The Evolution of a Church—Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre,” BAR 02:03.