TERIES.
II. Explicit Information from Ancient Souixes as to
Coiiiuhiau lomb at 1 etra.
the Style of Sepulchres. — 1. From a Comparison with Early Heathen Nations. — It has been too much the fash- ion to look to Egypt for the prototype of every form of Jewish art. The Egyptian tombs at Thebes were ex- tensive excavations in the barren mountains which skirted the city on the west. In like manner, the mag- nificent tombs in the necrofiolis of Sela, in Arabia Pe- tnea, were sculptured out of the sides of the rock sur- rounding the ancient city. See Petra. The Edom- ites and the Egyptians seem to have regarded the habitations of the living merely as temporary resting- places, while the tombs are regarded as permanent and eternal mansions ; and, while not a vestige of a habita- tion is to be seen, the tombs remain monuments of splentlor and magnificence, perhaps even more wonder- ful than the ruins of their temples. Funeral urns or vases are found in great numbers on the plains and mounds of Assyria and jMesopotamia containing human skeletons or fragments of bones which appear to have been calcined.
But in Jewish history there is a total diversity from these customs in the matter of tombs. From the buri- al of Sarah in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii, 19) to the funeral rites prepared for Dorcas (Acts ix, 37) there is no mention of any sarcophagus, or even coffin, in any Jewish burial. No pyramid was raised — no sep- arate hypogeum of any individual king, and, what is most to be regretted by modern investigators, no in- scription or painting which either recorded the name of the deceased or symbolized the religious feeling of the Jews towards the dead. It is true, of course, that Jacob, dying in Egypt, was embalmed (Gen. 1, 2), but it was only in order that he might be brought to be en- tombed in the cave at Hebron, and Joseph, as a natural- ized Egyptian and a ruler in the land, was embalmed; and it is also mentioned as something exceptional that he was put into a coffin, and was so brought by the Is- raelites out of the land and laid with his forefathers. Hut these, like the burning of the body of Saul, were clearly exceptional cases. See E.mbai.iiinc.
Still less were the rites of the Jews like those of the Pelasgi or Etruscans. With that people the graves of the dead were, or were intended to be, in every respect similar to the homes of the living. The lucumo lay in his robes, the warrior in his armor on the bed on which he had reposed in life, surrounded by the furni- ture, the vessels, and the ornaments which had adorned his dwelling when alive, as if he were to live again in a new world with the same wants an<l feelings as before. Besides this, no tall stele and no sepulchral mound has yet l)een found in the liills or plains of Jud;ea, nor have we any hint eitlier in tlic I'.ilile or Jose[ihus of any such having existed which could be traced to a strictly Jew-
SEPULCHRE
556
SEPULCHRE
Eegular Plan of Jewish Sepnlchie.
ish origin. In very distinct contrast to all this, the sepulchral rites of the Jews were marked with the same simplicity that characterized all their religious observ- ances. The body was washed and anointed (Jlark xiv, 8; xvi, 1; John xix, 39, etc.), wrapped in a clean linen cloth, and borne without any funeral pomp to the grave, where it was laid without any ceremonial or form of prayer. In addition to this, with kings and great per- .sons there seems to have been a "great burning" (2 Chron. xvi, 14; xxi, 19; Jer. xxxiv, 5), all these being measures more suggested by sanitarj' exigencies than by anj' hankering after ceremonial pomp.
' 2. Normal Style.— This simplicity of rite led to what may be called the distinguishing characteristic of Jew- ish sepulchres— the deep loculus— which, so far as is now known, is universal in all purely Jewish rock-cut tombs, but hardly known elsewhere. Its form will be under- stood by referring to the annexed diagram, representing the forms of Jewish sepulture. In the apartment marked
A, there are twelve such loculi about two feet in width by three feet high. On the ground - floor these generally open on the level of the floor; when in the upper story, as at C, on a ledge or plat- form, on which the body might be laid to be anointed, and on which the stones might rest that closed the outer end of each loculus. The shallow loculus is shown in chamber B, but was apparently only used when sarcophagi were employed, and therefore, so far as we know, only during the GraBco-Roman period, when for- eign customs came to be adopted. The shallow loculus would have been singularly inappropriate and inconven- ient where an unembalmed body was laid out to decay, as there would evidently be no means of shutting it off from the rest of the catacomb. The deep loculus, on the other hand, was as strictly conformable with Jewish customs, and could easih' be closed by a stone fitted to the end and luted into the groove which usually exists there. This fact is especially interesting, as it affords a key to much that is otherwise hard to be understood in certain pas- sages in the New Test. Thus in John xi, 39, Jesus says, " Take away the stone," and (ver. 40) " they took away the stone," without difficulty, apparently; which could hardly have been the case had it been such a rock as would be required to close the entrance of a cave. Also in XX, 1 the same expression is used, "the stone is taken away;" and though the (ireek word in the other three Evangelists certainly implies that it was i-olled away, this would equally apply to the stone at the mouth of the loculus, into which the Marys must have then stooped down to look in. In fact, the whole narra- tive is infinitely more clear and intelligible if we assume that it was a stone closing the end of a rock-cut grave than if we siqjposc it to have been a stone closing the entrance or door of a hypogeum. In the latter case the stone to close a door — say six feet by three feet — ^could hardly have weighed less than three or four tons, and could not have been moved without machinery. There is one catacomb — that known as the "Tombs of the Kings" (see below) — which is closed by a stone rolling across its entrance; but it is the only one, and the im- mense amount of contrivance and fitting which it has required is sufficient proof that such an arrangement was not applied to any other of the numerous rock tombs around Jerusalem, nor could the traces of it have been obliterated had it anywhere existed. From the nature of the openings where they are natural caverns,