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Pilgrimage of Etheria

Egeria, tr. McClure and Feltoe, 1919

d11

11. The Churches in Jerusalem and the Neighbourhood

In the Holy City itself Etheria mentions or refers to these Church buildings: —

1. The old Cathedral Church on Mount Sion, which in her day was no longer regularly used for service. The congregation, however, went there (her expression is proceditur or itur) on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, on Easter Day and its Octave, and on Whitsunday.

2. The Anastasis (Resurrection), on the traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre.

3. The Sanctuary of the Cross, on the traditional site of Golgotha (where the wood of the true Cross, etc., were kept). This consisted of two parts: (a) ante Crucem, an open court (atrium, locus subdivanus) with cloisters, and (b) post Crucem, a smaller roofed-in building.

4. The Martyrium (ecclesia maior), which was also post Crucem, but exactly where in relation to 3 (b) is not quite clear (see conjectural plan on p. 137 of Bernard’s edition); the great doors (valvae maiores) of it opened on to the market-place (de quintana parte).¹

These last three buildings were set up by the Emperor Constantine in 337, the same year in which the Church of the Apostles (mentioned by Etheria, p. 44) had been completed by him in Constantinople. He also built the baptistery near the Anastasis referred to on p. 79.

The bishop’s house (p. 50) was probably close by this group of buildings, no longer on Mount Sion.

The (eight-day) Dedication festival of the Anastasis and the Martyrium was held in September, in close connexion with the Discovery of the Cross and its Exaltation at the same time of the year and on the analogy of the Dedication of Solomon’s Temple at the (autumn) Feast of Tabernacles.² A very large concourse assembled in Jerusalem on this occasion, not only of monks from Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt (especially the Thebaid), but also of bishops and clergy and the faithful laity, and the churches were decked out as at Easter and Epiphany (see pp. 95 f.).

In the environs of Jerusalem she mentions: —

1. The Church at Bethlehem built and adorned by Constantine, with the help of his mother Helena³ (p. 54). This was the appointed place for the night of the Epiphany and for the Ascension festival.

2. The Church Eleona (ἐλαιών) on the Mount of Olives, where was the cave in which our Lord used to teach His disciples.

3. The Imbomon (ἐν βωμῷ),⁴ the traditional site of the Ascension, which was higher up on the Mount. It seems to have been rather an enclosed site with seats than a regular church (see p. 66).

4. The “graceful” Church in Gethsemane, which was no doubt lower down than Eleona (p. 71).

5. The Church on the road to Bethany where Mary, Lazarus’s sister, met our Lord (p. 63).

6. The Lazarium in Bethany itself.

No particulars are to hand of these buildings that the present writer is aware of.

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