miles. Beneath, tliis platform is a garden of olives still, full of excavations. In one of these, I think, was the sepulchre."
(c) Others, and among them another friend, who has travel- led much in Palestine, and published the results of his travels, inclined to think that Golgotha was on the west side of Jerusa- lem, near the Jaffa gate. The friend I refer to says, in a letter to me on this subject, " When I was first in Jerusalem in 1857, I visited some extraordinary fissures and cracks in the rocks west of the city, reminding me of the expression, the rocks rent. (Matt, xxvii. 51.) These fissures are now all filled up." Much, lie adds, depends on the question whether Pilate resided in the tower of Antonia, and had his judgment hall there, or in the tower of Hippicus. This, however, we have no means of as- certaining.
In the face of sucb conflicting opinions I dare not speak pos- itively, and I must leave my readers to judge for themselves. The question is one about which no one, it is clear, has any right to be heard, unless he has actually seen Jerusalem.
Why the place was called " the place of a skull " we are not told, and are left entirely to conjecture.
{a) Some think, as Gualter, Bullinger, Musculus, Gerhard, Burgon, Alford, Besser, and others, that the verse points to the bones, skeletons, and skulls, of executed criminals, which were lying about on Golgotha, as the common place of execution. This theory, however, is open to the grave objection, that it is most unlikely that dead men's bones would be left lying above ground, so near the city, when, according to the Mosaic law, they made any Jew unclean who touched them. The Pliari sees, with their excessive scrupulosity about externals, were not likely to tolerate such a source of defilement close to the holy city ! — Moreover, John expressly says, that in the place where Jesus was crucified " there was a garden." (John xix. 41.) This does not look like a place where dead men's bones and the skulls of criminals would be left lying about ! The very mention of this " garden " would suggest the idea that the place was not ordinarily used for execution, and that the Phar- isees chose it only for its singular publicity. If it was on the east side, we can well believe that they felt a diabolical pleas- ure in tormenting our Lord to the last, by making Him die with the temple, the Mount of Olives, and His favorite Gethsemane before His eyes.
(&) Some think, as Lampe, Ellicott, and others, that the name, " place of a skull," arose from the shape of the small rising ground, like a skull, on which the cross was fixed. That such small elevations of limestone rock are to be found in that vicin- ity, is asserted by some travellers. To me there seems more prolmbility in this theory than in the other. The name " Cal vary," we should remember, is never used in the Greek ; and