Except on such rare occasions as the passage of the caravan of pilgrims to the Jordan, there must also be a great contrast between the silence and loneliness which now pervades the mount and the busy scene which it presented in later Jewish times. Bethpage and Beth- any are constantly referred to in the Jewish authors as places of much resort for business and pleasure. The two large cedars already mentioned had below them shops for the sale of pigeons and other necessaries for wor- shippers in the Temple, and these appear to liave driven an enormous trade (see the citations in Lightfoot, ii,39, 305). Two religious ceremonies performed there must also have done much to increase the numbers who re- sorted to the mount. The appearance of the new moon was probably watched for, certainly proclaimed, from the summit — the long torches waving to and fro in the moonless night till answered from the peak of Kurn Surtabeh ; and an occasion to which the Jews attached so much weight would be sure to attract a concourse. The second ceremony referred to was the burning of the Red Heifer. There seems to be some doubt whether this was an animal ceremony. Jerome {Epitaph. Pau- Ice, § 12) distinctly says so; but the rabbins assert that from Moses to the captivity it was performed but once; from the captivity to the destruction eight times (Light- foot, ii, 30()). This solemn ceremonial was enacted on the central mount, and in a spot so carefully specified that it would seem not difficult to fix it. It was due east of the sanctuary, and at such an elevation on the
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mount that the ofBciating priest, as he slew the animal and sprinkled her blood, could see the facade of the sanctuary through the east gate of the Temple. To this spot a viaduct was constructed across the valley on a double row of arches, so as to raise it far above all possible proximity to graves or other defilements (see citations in Lightfoot, ii, 39). The depth of the valley is such at this place (about 350 feet from the line of the south wall of the present Haram area) that this viaduct must have been an important and conspicuous work. It was probably demolished by the Jews them- selves on the approach of Titus, or even earlier, when Pompey led his army by Jericho and over the Mount of Olives. This would account satisfactorily for its not being alluded to by Josephus. During the siege the 10th legion had its fortified camp and batteries on the top of the mount, and the first, and some of the fiercest, encounters of the siege took place here.
" The lasting glory of the Mount of Olives," it has been well said, " belongs not to the old dispensation, but to the new. Its very barrenness of interest in earlier times sets forth the abundance of those associations which it derives from the closing scenes of the sacred history. Nothing, perhaps, brings before us more strik- ingly the contrast of Jewish and Christian feeling, the abrupt and inharmonious termination of the Jewish dis- pensation— if we exclude the culminating point of the Gospel history — than to contrast the blank which Oli- vet presents to the Jewish pilgrims of the Middle Ages, onh' dignified by the sacrifice of the ' red heifer,' and the vision, too great for words, whicli it offers to the Christian traveller of all times, as the most detailed and the most authentic abiding-place of Jesus Christ. By one of those strange coincidences, whether accidental or borrowed, which occasionally appear in the Rabbinical writings, it is said in the Midrash (rabbi Janna, in the Midrash Tehillim, quoted by Lightfoot, ii, 39 ; perhaps a play upon the mysterious passage Ezek. xi, 23), that the Sheliinah, or Presence of God, after having finally retired from Jerusalem, 'dwelt' three years and a half on the Mount of Olives, to see whether the Jewish peo- ple would or would not repent, calling, ' Return to me, O my sons, and I will return to you ;' ■ Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near ;' and then, when all was in vain, returned to its own place. Whether or not this story has a direct allusion to the ministrations of Christ, it is a true expression of his relation respectiveh' to Jerusalem and to Olivet, It is useless to seek for traces of his presence in the streets of the since ten times captured city. It is impossible not to find them in the free space of the Mount of Ol- ives" (Stanley, Sin. and Pal. p. 189).
A careful consideration of the passage in Acts i, 12 shows that it cannot affect in one way or another the direct statement made in Luke regarding the scene of the ascension, because — (1st.) Bethany was upon the Mount of Olives; therefore the expressions, " //e led them out as far as to Bethany" and " they returned from the mount called Olivet" indicate the same spot. (2dly.) It is not certain whether the " Sabbath-day's journey" is intended to describe the distance of the mount or of the exact scene of the ascension. (3dly.) Suppose it did refer to the latter, still it would not necessarily mil- itate against the statement in Luke that Bethany was the place, because the exact length of a Sabbath-day's journey is uncertain— some say 2000 cubits, or nearly one Roman mile; others, 2000 Roman paces, or two miles : and, moreover, the point from which the meas- urement commences is unknown — some say from the city wall; others from the outer limit of "the suburb Bethphage, a mile beyond the wall (see Lightfoot, /. c. ; Wieseler; also Barclay, who gives important measure- ments. City of the Great Kiiir/, p. i><J). On the other hand, the statement in Luke is explicit, fwc {I'c B;;^rt- viav. There is nothing here to limit it; and in all other places Bethanj- means the village (Clever ; Lech- ler, On Ads; Langc; Alford; Ebrard). The ascension