Theodorus, in 530 A.D., is quite as explicit with regard to the position of the church. "In the middle of the city,â he says, "is a basilica; from the west side you may enter to the Holy Resurrection, where is the Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is the Mount of Calvary, to which Mount the way is by steps, and it is under one roof.â
We know by contemporary evidence (the Pascal Chronicle) that this Basilica of Constantine was destroyed, in 614 A.D., by Chosroes the Persian. Several small chapels were soon after erected instead, by the monk Modestus, and they are described in 630 A.D. In 700 A.D. Arculphus gives a detailed account of these new buildings, including the round Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the square Church of the Virgin, the Chapel of Golgotha, and, on the east, the Basilica of Constantine separated by an open space from the round church and from Golgotha. The relative positions of Calvary and of the Sepulchre in this account, are the same described by the previous writers, and by Eusebius in his history of the building of the original Basilica in 333 A.D. Arculphus' description of the Sepulchre as a place "large enough to allow nine men to pray standing,â might have been written of the Holy Tomb in the present church. In 722 A.D. it is again described, and the door of the tomb is then said to be, as it still is, on the east.
We are thus able to identify the site chosen by Constantine in the fourth century, with that recognised in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. The chapels of Modestus were destroyed, according to contemporary writers, in 1009 A.D. by the mad Khalif Hakem, but were restored in 1048. From the year 1033 down to 1099 A.D. innumerable pilgrimages took place, but accounts of the buildings are not known. The Crusaders, however, replaced the third system of churches by a magnificent cathedral, and united once more the Sepulchre and Calvary under one roof. Their erection dated from 1103 A.D., and remained intact till 1808, when it was partly destroyed by fire; the southern façade is however still attributable to the twelfth century. Of the position of the Crusading site there is also no doubt, and it is shown on charts of the fourteenth century. Sæwulf, in 1102 A.D., places the site of Calvary "on the _declivity_ of Mount Sion,â thus agreeing with Eucherius, who had described it in the fifth century as "placed outside Mount Sion, where a knoll of scanty size exists to the north.â Both these expressions fit well, as the plan will show, with the actual site of the present building.