Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 46:181 (Jan 1889)
Article: Pseudo-Kranion
Author: J. A. Paine

BSac 46:181 (Jan 1889) p. 171

Pseudo-Kranion

Professor J. A. Paine

My noted and beloved friend, Dr. Charles S. Robinson, is trying to realize an ideal. In the purity of his heart he yearns after the perfect, and if he could he would very quickly purge our fallen world, or rather humanity, of all its defects and unholiness, not stopping to reflect that then heaven itself would be most unreasonably antedated.

In the November issue of the Century Magazine he has related what happened more than eighteen years ago, when together we scanned from far and near the cliffs and the cave of the Grotto of Jeremiah, beyond Jerusalem on the north, and stood upon the summit of the hill adjoining. Had he published this article then, it would have been timely, but now it is too late. From the drift of his gentle words it is evident he imagines good men generally to be accepting this adjacent hill as “The True Site of Calvary,” and “a sort of competition “to be prevailing “among explorers as to the credit of having first suggested the knoll by the Damascus gate as being probably the exact place where our Lord was crucified;” but, alas! just the contrary is the case—already the fantasy is obsolete.

Within the last five years much new evidence of topographical and archaeological character has been discovered, revealing the course of the northern wall of Jerusalem at the era of our Lord to have been south of the modern Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and the site of this church, being shown to have been outside the town in those days, thus becomes the unquestionable place of his crucifixion and tomb of his resurrection.

Inasmuch as my good friend seems to be incompletely advised as to the origin of the movement he joins, roaming away from the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre, let us, for a moment, retrace its history.

Half a century ago Dr. Edward Robinson recoiled from the traditional locality very much as Dr. Charles S. Robinson now does. To this he was impelled by such considerations as these :—

“It is not therefore without some feeling of wonder, that a stranger, unacquainted with the circumstances, on arriving in Jerusalem at the present day, is pointed to the place of crucifixion and the sepulchre in the midst of the modern city, and both beneath one roof. This latter fact, however unexpected, might occasion less surprise; for the sepulchre was nigh to Calvary. But beneath the same roof are further shown the stone on which the body of our Lord was anointed for burial, the fissure in the rock, the holes in

BSac 46:181 (Jan 1889) p. 172

which the crosses stood, the spot where the true cross was found by Helena, and various other places said to have been connected with ...