HAUPT— GOLGOTHA. 239 



(EB^^ 7, 506''). St. Helena is said to have found, not only the true 

 cross, but also the superscription over the head of Jesus on the cross 

 as well as the nails with which He had been crucified. Constantine 

 is supposed to have sent a piece of the Holy Cross to Rome where 

 it is still exhibited in the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme on 

 May 3 as well as on Good Friday and the third Sunday in Lent. 

 In a vault of this church the superscription on the cross is said to 

 have been accidentally found in 1492. If Constantine had sent it 

 to Rome, it must have been lost sight of for more than a thousand 

 years. Two of the nails, with which Christ was affixed to the cross, 

 are reputed to be preserved at Milan and Trier, respectively (EB^^ 

 7> 507**) • St. Helena is supposed to have presented to Trier also 

 the seamless robe (tunica inconsittilis) of Christ. It was exhibited 

 in 1891 to two million pilgrims. There are twenty holy seamless 

 coats, e.g., at Argenteuil near Paris, St. John Lateran at Rome, 

 etc. (RE^ 17, 60, 45}. 



The authenticity of the site of the Holy Sepulcher has been ques- 

 tioned from early times. The Father of Biblical Geography, 

 Edward Robinson, stated (1841) after his researches in Palestine 

 that the traditional site could not be the true one. A German book- 

 seller, Jonas Korte, of Altona, who visited Jerusalem in 1738, sug- 

 gested that Golgotha was west of Jerusalem, near the Mamilla Pool 

 (JAOS 39, 143, b) which is ^ mile northwest of the Jaffa Gate. 

 In 1842 Otto Thenius, of Dresden, came to the conclusion ttiat the 

 place of crucifixion was above Jeremiah's Grotto outside the Da- 

 mascus Gate in the north, and this view of the German Biblical 

 critic has been endorsed by Canon Tristram, Dr. Selah Merrill, Gen- 

 eral Gordon, Col. Conder, etc. (EB" 24, 657^). Three years before 

 his death at Khartum in 1885 Gen. Gordon spent a year in Palestine, 

 studying Biblical history and the antiquities of Jerusalem. An 

 ancient rock-cut tomb, about 200 yards west of Jeremiah's Grotto is 

 sometimes called Gordon's Tomb of Christ. This tomb, however, 

 seems to be later than the time of the Crucifixion. In 1847 the 

 author of The History of Architecture, James Ferguson, made 

 the startling proposal that the Dome of the Rock on the site of the 

 Solomonic Temple was the church built by Constantine over the 



