The general effect is poor, for the interior is whitewashed and coarsely painted; only at the south end do any remains of the old glass mosaics still exist, and here are found close together the beautiful pulpit of parquetted wood-work from Damascus, and the new glass chandelier from Constantinople, the twisted columns of the Templars' dining-hall, and the heavy basket-work capitals of the Byzantine basilica, while, in the vault beneath, is the huge monolith, which three men can scarcely girth, supporting the porch of the Temple-gate--a mixture of styles which cannot perhaps be found in any other building in the world.
Many chapters might be written on the High Sanctuary and its buildings, but space is wanting to describe the gates, the underground passages, the chambers and cisterns, which I again and again explored, and which had, already, been minutely examined and described by Major Wilson and Captain Warren. We must hasten therefore to another building, surpassing in interest even the Temple enclosure itself, namely, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
It is a grim and wicked old building that we now approach. Perhaps no other edifice has been directly the cause of more human misery, or defiled with more blood. There are those who would willingly look upon it as the real place of the Saviour's Tomb, but I confess that, for myself, having twice witnessed the annual orgy which disgraces its walls, the annual imposture which is countenanced by its priests, and the fierce emotions of sectarian hate and blind fanaticism which are called forth by the supposed miracle, and remembering the tale of blood connected with the history of the Church, I should be loth to think that the Sacred Tomb had been a witness for so many years of so much human ignorance, folly, and crime.
The place is nevertheless venerable from its many memories, for whether or no it encloses the Sepulchre of Christ, it may at least claim to be the site which Christians, from the fourth century downwards, have venerated as such. Of this we cannot well have any doubt when we review the descriptions of the place which have been written in consecutive centuries, including several recently published.
Jerome places Golgotha north of Sion, and the early Christians included under the title Sion only the Upper City of Josephus. Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, writing in 440 A.D., repeats this description of its position, and speaks of Siloam as below the city wall, and beneath the precipitous _eastern_ rock of Sion--a description of relative position which can only apply to the hill now known as Mount Sion. Jerome himself speaks of Sion as the citadel of the town, which is still true of the modern site.