appears to have been witnessed by the disciples alone. It was not in Bethany, nor was it on such a conspicuous place as the summit of Olivet. Dr. Porter, who has carefully examined the whole region, saw one spot, as far from Jerusalem as Bethany, near the village, but concealed bv an- intervening cliff; and this he thought, in all probability, was the real scene. The disciples, led by Jesus, would reach it by the path over the top of Olivet, and they would naturally return to the city by the same route (I/and-book, p. 102 sq.).
Since the days of Eusebius the summit of Olivet has been the traditional scene of the ascension. As this fact has been questioned (Stanley, >S. and P. p. 447), it is well to quote his words : , . . tp^a ToTg tavrov {la^r]- Ta~iQ ini TtiQ aKpwpiiaQ tov twv tXaiiuv upovg rd vipi rijc avvTtXtlag ^warlipia TrapaSiSouKoroQ, tvTtv^Ev re Tuv tig ovpai'oi'Q dvoSov TTfTToi/j/iei'ov (^Demonstr. Evanrj. vi, 18; comp. Vit. Const, iii, 41). In honor of the event the empress Helena built a church on the spot ( Vit. Const, iii, 43). Since that time the tradition has been almost universally received (Baronius, A nnales, A.D. 34 ; Reland, Palast. p. 337) ; but the statement of Luke is fatal to it — " He led them out as far as to Beth- any," and Bethany is nearly a mile beyond the summit of the mount. The tradition has still, nevertheless, a number of devoted adherents, whose arguments are wor- thy of careful consideration (Williams, Holy City, ii, 440, 009 ; Ellicott, Life of our Lord, p. 413). The Bor- deaux Pilgrim, however, who arrived shortly after the building of the church (A.D. 333), seems not to have known anything of the exact spot. He names the Mount of Olives as the place where our Lord used to teach his disciples; mentions that a basilica of Con- stantine stood there; ... he carefully points out the Mount of Transfiguration in the neighborhood (I), but is silent on the ascension. From his time to that of Arculf (A.D. 700) we have no information, except the reference of Jerome (A.D. 390), cited above. In that long interval of 370 years the basilica of Constan- tine or Helena had given way to the round church of Modestus (Tobler, p. 92, note), and the tradition had become fairly established. The church was open to the sky " because of the passage of the Lord's bodj-," and on the ground in the centre were the prints of his feet in the dust (pulrere). The cave or spot hallowed by his preaching to his disciples appears to have been moved off to the north of Bethany {Early Ti'ar. p. 6).
The spot is just about 850 yards from the present city wall. The church has long since disappeared, and a mosque has taken its place. In the centre of an open court beside it is a little domed building covering a rock, on which is the supposed impress of Christ's foot, where he last touched the earth. Formerly, tradition affirms, there were two footmarks, but the Mohamme- dans stole one of them, and put it in the Mosque el- Aksa (Williams, Holy City, ii, 445 ; Stanley, S, and P. p. 447 ; Maundrell, under April 7).
4. Holy Places. — AVith these, as above partially noted, Olivet is thickly studded, where they have been lo- cated by the superstitious of former ages, and preserved by tradition. The majority of these sacred spots now command little or no attention. Onlj- two or three of them have even a shadow of claim to be real, while most of them are absurd. Several of them have been fully considered above. They may most conveniently be described in connection with the three, or rather per- haps four, independent summits or eminences into which the entire ridge, especially when seen from below the eastern wall of Jerusalem, divides itself. Proceeding from north to south these occur in the following order: Galilee, or Yiri Galilaei; ]\Iount of the Ascension; Prophets, subordinate to the last, and almost a part of it; Mount of Offence. In considering these, we shall have an opportunity to complete the above physical de- scription.
(1.) Of these eminences, the central one, distinguished bv the minaret and domes of the Church of the Ascen-
OLIVET
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OLIVET
sion, is in every way the most important. The church, and the tiny hamlet of wretched hovels which surround it— the Kefr et-Tur— are planted slightly on the Jordan side of the actual top, but not so far as to hinder their being seen from all parts of the western environs of the mountain, or, in their turn, commanding the view of the deepest recesses of the Kidron valley (Porter, Hand- hook, p. 103). The eminence above noted, a little to the north-east of that containing the mosque, and actu- ally somewhat higher, now occupied by the Mohamme- dan cemetery, deserves no special notice in this survey, as it is of no" traditional importance, and is hidden from observation in the city.
The central hill, which we are now considering, pur- ports to contain the sites of some of the most sacred and impressive events of Christian history. During the Middle Ages most of these were protected by an edilice of some sort ; and, to judge from the reports of the early travellers, the mount must at one time have been thickly covered with churches and convents. The following is a complete list of these traditional spots, as far as they can be compiled from Quaresmius, Doubdan, Mislin, and other works.