Gethseni'aue (re.&<T?;/(«j'J) v. r. reSr(j)]itapH, prob. for Aramtean ^""'JTii, oil-press, such being doubtless in the vicinity), the name of a small field (_\iopi(ii', plot, A.V. "place," Matt, xxvi, 36) or olive- yard (conip. /o/TToc-, John xviii, 1), just out of Jerusa- lem, over the brook Kedron, and at the foot of the Mount of Olives, to which Jesus, as often before (comp. Luke xxii, 39), retired with his disciples on the night of his betrayal (Mark xiv, 32), and which was the scene of his agony (q. v.). Tlie Kedron runs in the bottom of a deep glen, parallel with the eastern wall of Jerusalem, and about 200 yards distant. Immediate- ly beyond it rises the steep side of Olivet, now, as for- merh', cultivated in rude terraces. Somewhere on the slope of this mount Gethseuiane must have been sit- uated (see Nitzsch, Be horto G€thsemane,V\teh. 1750). According to Josephus, the suburbs of Jerusalem abounded with gardens and pleasure-grounds (irapa- diiaoic. War, vi, 1, 1 ; compare v, 3. 2) ; now, with the exception of those belonging to the Greek and Latin convents, hardly the vestige of a garden is to be soon. There is, indeed, a favorite paddock or close, half a mile or more to the north, on the same side of the con- tinuation of the valley of the Kedron, the property of a wealthy Turk, where the Mohammedan ladies pass the day with their families, their bright, flowing cos- tume fonning a picturesque contrast to the stiff, som- bre foliage of the olive-grove beneath which they clus- ter. But Gethscmane has not come down to us as a scene of mirth ; its inexhaustible associations are the
offspring of a single event — the agony of the Son of God on the evening preceding his passion. Here em- phatically, as Isaiah had foretold, and as the name imports, were fulfilled those dark words, " I have trod- den the wine-press alone" (Ixiii, 3 ; compare Kev. xiv, 20, "the wine-press . . . without the city"). "The pe- riod of the year," remarks Mr. Gresswell (Harm. Diss. xlii), " was the vernal eciuinox ; the day of the month about two days before the full of the moon — in which case the moon would not be now veiy far past her me- ridian, and the night would be enlightened until a late hour towards the morning;" the day of the week Thursda}', or rather, according to the Jews, Friday, for the sun had set. The time, according to Mr. Gress- well, would be the last watch of the night, between our 11 and 12 o'clock. Any recapitulation of the cir- cumstances of that ineffable event would be unneces- sary, any comments upon it unseasonable. A mod- ern garden, in which are eight venerable olive-trees, and a grotto to the north, detached from it, and in closer connection with the Church of the Sepulchre of the Virgin — in fact, with the road to the summit of the mountain running between them, as it did also in the days of the Crusaders (Sauuti, Secret. Fidel. Cruc. lib. iii, p. xiv, c. 9) — both securely enclosed, and under lock and kej', are pointed out as making up the true Gethsemane. These may be the spots which Eusebius {Onomast. s. v. Ti^aii-iavi], "where the faithful still re- sort for prayer"), St. Jerome (Liber de Situ et Komini- hus, s. v.), and Adamnanus mention as such ; and from the 4th century downwards some such localities are spoken of as known, frequented, and even built upon. This spot was probablj' fixed upon at the wish of He- lena, the mother of Constantine, in A.D. 320. The pilgrims of antiquity say nothing about those time- honored olive-trees, whose age the poetic minds of Lamartine and Stanley shrink from criticising — they were doubtless not so imposing in the 6tli century; still, had they been noticed, they would have aflforded undying testimony to the locality — while, on the other hand, few modern travellers would inquire for and adore, with Antoninus, the three precise spots where our Lord is said to have fallen upon his face. Against the contemporary antiquity of the olive-trees, it has been urged that Titus cut down all the trees round about Jerusalem ; and certainly this is no more than Josephus states in express terms (see particularly War, vi, 1, 1, a passage which must have escaped Mr. Wil- liams, Holy City, ii, 437, 2d edit., who only cites v, 3, 2, and vi, 8, 1). Besides, the tenth legion, arriving from Jericho, were posted about the Mount of Olives (v, 2, 3 ; and comp. vi, 2, 8). and in the course of the siege a wall was carried along the valley of the Ke- dron to the fountain of Siloam (v, 10,. 2). The proba- bility, therefore, would seem to be that they were ])lanted by Christian hands to mark the spot ; unless, like the sacred olive of the Acropolis (Bahr, ad Herod. viii, 55), they may have reproduced themselves as sci- ons from the old roots, a supposition which their shape and position render not unlikely (Aiion, Land of the Messiah, p. 204). Maundrell (Early Trav. in Pakstine,
Garden of Getlisemane as seen from the North.
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