JERUSALEM. 
Jews were remarkable for their rigid adherence to this custom : 
they adorned their burial places with trees and gardens: and 
the tomb of this Jew is accordingly described as being in a 
garden ; and it was “ in the place # where our Saviour was cru¬ 
cified. ” Of what nature was that place of crucifixion ? It 
very jvorthy of observation, that every one of the Evangel, 
ists, (and among these, “ he that saw it, and bare record.”!) af¬ 
firm, that it was “the place of a scullf that is to say, a public 
Coemelery X “ called in the Hebrew, Golgotha without the 
city, and very near to one of its gates. St. Luke calls it Cal¬ 
vary, which has the same signification. The church, suppo¬ 
sed to mark the site of the Holy Sepulchre, exhibits no where 
the slightest evidence which might entitle it to either of these 
appellations. Can there be therefore aught of impiety or of 
temerity in venturing to surmise, that upon the opposite sum¬ 
mit, now called Mount Sion, without the walls, the-, crucifix¬ 
ion of the’Messiah was actually accomplished ? Perhaps the 
evidence alForded by existing documents may further illus¬ 
trate this most interesting subject,—These will how be enu¬ 
merated. 
Upon all the. sepulchres^ t the base of this mount, which, 
“ as the place of a scullf we have the authority of the gospel 
for calling either Calvary or Golgotha, whether the place of 
crucifixion or not, there are inscriptions in Hebrew and in 
Greek. The Hebrew inscriptions are the most effaced : of 
these it is difficult to make any tolerable copy. Beside the 
injuries they have sustained by time, they have been coveted 
by some carbonaceous substance, either bituminous of fumicl, 
w hich rendered the task of transcribing them yet more ardu¬ 
ous. The Greek inscriptions are brief and legible, consisting 
ol immense letters deeply carved in the face of the rock, either 
& John xix. 4‘1. 
f John xix. 35. 
I Retail d says, that the -bill was-called Golgotha, from its’ resemblance to the 
shape of a human scull. “ GoJgfitham ,eoiiem exiguum § forap, civnii humani 
dictum, quam -referebat, "notutn est.” . (PkMs'tira liiostiata lib. iii. tom. 1L 
'p. S60. Utrecht, 171A) But the words of the gospel do not imply this. Tlie idli is 
expressly denominated “ tlie place of a,scull” by ail the evangelists. And, indeed, 
the cii c u instance of the tomb Oi Joseph of Arirhathca be eg there situated, i» complete 
proof that"it was a place .of burial,' 
