OLIVET
357
OLIVET
than 600 yards distant. Beyond them Zion appeared crowned with Herod's palace, and the lofty towers of the wall and citadel. Looking on so much splendor and beauty, and looking onward to future desolation, what wonder that divine compassion manifested itself in tears I
The traditionary spot of the lamentation over Jeru- salem, however, now marked by a small tower, is on a mamelon or protuberance which projects from the slope of the breast of the hill, about 300 yards above Gethsemane. The sacred narrative requires a spot on the road from Bethany at which the city or Temple should suddenly come into view; but this is one which can only be reached by a walk of several hundred yards over the breast of the hill, with the Temple and city full in sight the whole time. It is also pretty evident that the path which now passes the spot is subsequent in date to the fixing of the spot. As already remarked, the natural road lies up the valley between this hill and that to the north, and no one, unless with the special object of a visit to this spot, would take this very inconvenient path. The inappropriateness of this place is obvious (Stanley, Si- nai and Palestine, p. 190-193).
(2.) From a commanding point on the western side of Olivet Jesus predicted the Temple's final overthrow. He had paid his last visit to the Temple. When pass- ing out, the disciples said, " Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here !" (Mark xiii, 1). They had probably heard some word fall from his lips which excited their alarm, and they thus tried to awaken in him a deeper interest in their holy temple. He re- plied, " Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down" (ver. 2). He passed on over the Kid- ron, took the lower road to Bethany, which led him up to a spot " on the Mount of Olives over against the Temple" (ver. 3) ; and there, with the Temple, its stately courts, and the colossal magnitude of its outer battle- ments before him, he predicted its final ruin, summing up with the words, " This generation shall not pass till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." The whole discourse in Mark xiii was spoken on that spot (comp. Matt, xxiv ; Luke xxi).
(3.) After the institution of the Supper, " when they had sung a hymn," our Lord led his disciples "over the brook Cedron," "out into the Mount of Olives," to a garden called Gethsemane (John xviii, 1 ; Matt, xxvi, 30, 3G). That was the scene of the agony and the be- trayal. See Gethsemane.
(4.) The Ascension was the most wondrous of all the events of which Olivet was the scene. Luke records it at the close of his Gospel history, and the beginning of his apostolic history. In the first record Olivet is not mentioned. Jesus led his disciples out twQ tig Brj^a- viav, " as far as to Bethany.^' In the second record the reader is referred back to the former. The narrative opens abruptly at the spot to which he had led his dis- ciples, as indicated in the Gospel. A fuller account of his last words is given; and after the ascension, the writer adds, "Then returned they unto Jerusalem,,/V()m the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sab- bath-day's journey " (Luke xxiv, 50-53; Acts i, 9-12).
Considerable diflSculty has been felt in reconciling the topographical notices in these passages; and still more in attempting to bring them into harmony with the traditional scene of the ascension on the summit of Olivet. The difficulties are as follows: («) In Luke Christ is said to have led his disciples "as far as to Beth- any,'" where he ascended, (b) In Acts the return from the scene of the ascension is described as from Olivet, which is a Sabbath-day's journey from Jei-usalem. (c) A Sabbath-day's journey was, according to the Talmud, 2000 cubits, about 7i stadia (Lightfoot, Ilor. lleh. in Luc. xxiv, 50). (ff) Bethany was fifteen stadia distant from Jerusalem (.John xi, 18). Lightfoot in one place explains these apparent discrepancies by stating that
the ascension took place at Bethany; that the disciples returned over Olivet ; and that the Sabbath-day's jour- ney refers to the distance of that mount from the city {Comment, in A cf. i, 12). But in a later work he gives ! a totally different explanation. He says that by Beth- any is meant a district, and not the village; that dis- trict included a large section of Olivet ; and its border, where the ascension took place, was a Sabbath-day's journey from Jerusalem {/lor. IJeb. ut sup.). Light- foot's opinion, therefore, is not of much critical value (see, however, Robinson, Bibl. Sacra, i, 178 ; Williams, Holy City, ii, 440 and 611, 2d ed.).
The presence of the crowd of churches and other edi- fices implied in the ecclesiastical descriptions must have rendered the Mount of Olives, during the early and middle ages of Christianity, entirely unlike what it was in the time of the Jewish kingdom or of our Lord. Ex- cept the high places on the summit, the only buildings then to be seen were probably the walls of the vine- yards and gardens, and the towers and presses which were their invariable accompaniment. But though the churches are nearly all demolished, there must be a con- siderable diflFerence between the aspect of the mountain now and in those days when it received its name from the abundance of its olive -groves. It does not now stand so pre-eminent in this respect among the hills in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. " It is only in the deeper and more secluded slope leading up to the north- ernmost summit that these venerable trees spread into anything like a forest." The cedars commemorated by the Talmud (Lightfoot, ii, 305), and the date-palms im- plied in the name Bethany, have fared still worse : there is not one of either to be found within many miles. This change is no doubt due to natural causes, variations of climate, etc. ; but the check was not improbably given by the ravages committed by the army of Titus, who are stated by Josephus to have stripped the country round Jerusalem for miles and miles of every stick or shrub for the banks constructed during the siege. No olive or cedar, however sacred to Jew or Christian, would at such a time escape the axes of the Boman sappers, and, re- membering how under similar circumstances every root and fibre of the smallest shrubs was dug up for fuel by the camp-followers of the army at Sebastopol, it would be wrong to deceive ourselves by the belief that any of the trees now existing are likely to be the same or im- mediate descendants of those which were standing be- fore that time.