A Double Scandal of Particularity

Readers of NLM will be familiar with the concept of the scandal of particularity and how it may be applied to liturgical considerations, namely:

1. The Incarnation is scandalously particular. The universal Logos takes flesh from a particular maiden at a particular time in a particular place to become the person Jesus of Nazareth. 
2. God is also scandalously particular in His love for us, not only in the way that He loves us in our individuality but in the way He reaches out to us—the parents who made sure you were baptized, the friend who gave you a book that changed your life, the time you randomly landed on a Catholic radio station that led to your conversion (all true stories). As Joseph Ratzinger puts it, “God wants to come to men only through other men.”
3. In a healthy liturgy, the scandal of particularity abounds. It is evident not only in its generous use of concrete symbols but in its embrace of its own tradition, that democracy of the dead linking us to the “other men” from the past who handed to us the Faith. Ratzinger noticed, for example, that the traditional Roman Rite is a “mysterious fabric of texts and actions [that] had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history.”

In my Lost in Translation series, I often dwell on the scandal of particularity with respect to the Roman Rite’s Romanitas, its conspicuous affirmation and development of its Christian Roman heritage which, rather than creating a myopic insularity, opens up the believer to the universal Gospel. Examples include the use of Rome’s stational churches to shape the liturgical year; frequent petitions within the liturgy to the twin founders of Christian Rome, Peter and Paul; and, of course, the language of the Romans, now conquered, pruned, and repurposed to serve the truth, humbly laboring under the unglamorous sobriquet, “ecclesiastical Latin.”

I have recently learned of another aspect of the Roman Rite’s scandal of particularity: its capacity to work well with other particulars, at least holy ones. Last week I had the privilege of attending a Latin Mass in the Austrian Hospice in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa, the only TLM currently in the city. As I assisted, the prayers I have been saying or reading for twenty-five years took on a new meaning. A few examples:

“I confess to… blessed Mary ever Virgin,” who was born less than a few blocks east of here, who fell asleep in the Lord at what is now Dormition Abbey three quarters of a mile south, and who was assumed into Heaven at the Tomb of the Virgin a quarter of a mile east of St. Anne’s.

The birthplace of the Blessed Virgin Mary, exterior

The birthplace of the Blessed Virgin Mary, interior

The crypt of Dormition Abbey

Tomb of the Virgin Church, exterior

“I confess to… blessed John the Baptist,” who was martyred at Herod’s desert fortress in Machaerus (east of the Dead Sea in present-day Jordan), and was born five miles west of here, at what is now St. John the Baptist Church.

The birthplace of John the Baptist

“I confess to…Saint Peter,” who learned the Our Father from Jesus Christ in what is now Pater Noster Church on the Mount of Olives (one mile east--see below), who participated in the Last Supper in the Upper Room (one mile south), who slept in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives while Our Lord underwent His agony (about half a mile east), and who denied Our Lord at Caiaphas’ residence, which is now St. Peter in Gallicantu, St. Peter at the Cock’s Crow (over a mile south).

Upper Room/Room of the Last Supper, rebuilt by the Crusaders

St. Peter in Gallicantu

“I confess to… Saint Paul,” who bolted out of the Damascus Gate (about a quarter of a mile north) with a warrant to kill Christians, and came back through the same gate a contrite Christian - the gate that I used to get to this Mass.

“Take away from us our iniquities, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we may be worthy to go in unto the Holy of Holies with pure minds,” the physical symbol of which once stood on the Temple Mount, less than half a mile southeast of here.

“Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy,” a cry that is conspicuous in Jerusalem for its absence. The Canaanite woman uttered this plea along the coasts of Tyre and Sidon (Matt. 15, 22) and the blind man did the same in Jericho (Mark 10, 47; Luke 18, 38), but there is no biblical record of anyone asking the Son of God for mercy in the Holy City.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will,” the song of the Angels who appeared to shepherds on a hill roughly seven miles south of where I was kneeling (and which I had visited the day before).

“Cleanse my heart and my lips, O almighty God, Who didst cleanse the lips of the prophet Isaiah with a burning coal.” Isaiah was no stranger to Jerusalem. Its fiercest critic, he also rejoiced knowing that the Assyrian assault on the city would be in vain. To Sennacherib their king he relayed the following:

This is the word which the Lord hath spoken of him: ‘The virgin the daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged the head after thee…. When thou wast mad against me, thy pride came up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.’ (Isa. 37, 22 and 29)

“He suffered under Pontius Pilate,” a suffering that began when Christ was condemned by Pilate a couple of blocks up the Via Dolorosa from our location and scourged.

“He was crucified for us” on Golgotha, now the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, over a quarter of a mile southwest.

“He was buried. And on the third day He rose again,” also at what is now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Tomb of Jesus, inside the church

“He ascended into Heaven” from the Mount of Olives at what is now the Chapel of the Ascension, which reputedly contains the footprints of Our Lord miraculously preserved in limestone and covered with a mysterious oil, about a mile east of here.

“Communicating with and honoring…the memory of Thy blessed Apostle and Martyr James [the Less],” the first bishop of Jerusalem and the second martyr (after Stephen) who was thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple, stoned by an angry mob, and bludgeoned to death with clubs at the base of the Temple Mount.

The Martyrdom of St James, by the Master of the Oberaltaich Mans of Sorrows, early 16th century. Image from Wikimedia Commons, © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 4.0

“For this is the Chalice of My Blood of the new and everlasting testament, the mystery of Faith; which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.” These words were first said in the Upper Room south of here. And while He carried the Cross, Jesus Christ dripped blood onto the street that is now called the Via Dolorosa, upon which I walked in order to get to Mass.

“Upon these deign to look with a favorable and serene countenance and to accept them, as Thou wert graciously pleased to accept the gifts of Thy just servant Abel and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham.” Abraham’s virtual sacrifice of Isaac took place on Mount Moriah, which later became the Temple Mount.

“To us sinners also, Thy servants confiding in the multitude of Thy mercies, deign to grant some part and fellowship with Thy holy Apostle and Martyr Stephen,” who was stoned to death north of the Damascus Gate, at the current site of Saint-Etienne Basilica, less than half a mile north.[1]

“Our Father, who art in Heaven.” Our Lord taught this prayer to His Apostles on the Mount of Olives, allegedly in a cave now venerated as a shrine.

Pater Noster Church

One of many translations of the Lord’s Prayer at the church. This one is in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The Latin version, you will be happy to know, is inscribed on the altar.

“The cave in which the Lord taught His Apostles on the Mount of Olives”

Ecce Deus Sunday

Providence blessed me further when it arranged that I attend Mass on a rare occasion where Roman Catholic and modern Jewish memories intersect. The Church calendar contains several “baptized” Jewish holidays—Good Friday and Easter (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), but all of them were celebrated by Jesus Himself. As far as I can tell, there is only one Jewish “feast day” that the Church commemorates that was instituted decades after Our Lord ascended into Heaven: Tisha B’Av.

Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, usually falls sometime in late July or early August. It is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, for it commemorates the destruction of the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 69 as well as the Babylonians’ destruction of the First Temple in 523 B.C. For twenty-five hours, observant Jews do not eat or drink, wear leather footwear, bathe, apply ointments or creams, engage in marital relations or any form of intimacy, sit on a chair of normal height, or greet one another. The sorrow of Jews on this day is reminiscent of that of their ancestors during the Babylonian Exile: “If ever I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten.” (Ps. 136, 5)

The priest reading the Sunday Gospel at the Austrian Hospice on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The traditional Roman Rite’s Ninth Sunday After Pentecost, which is also celebrated sometime between late July and August, hearkens to Tisha B’av. In the Gospel reading, Our Lord has just made the arduous climb up to the Mount of Olives, which has a breathtaking view of Jerusalem. Before him lies the Holy City and its crown jewel, the Second Temple. But all Our Lord sees is the future, when the Romans legions will starve the city into submission (and cannibalism) and raise the Temple to the ground [2]:

At that time, when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it saying: “If thou also hadst known, and that in this day, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side; and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee; and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.” (Luke 19, 41-47)

The Gospel reading on the wall of Dominus Flevit Church

One is reminded of another lamentation of Our Lord’s:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not. Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate. (Mt. 23, 37-38)

On the wall of the Salon of the Austrian Hospice

Mosaic on the altar of Dominus Flevit Church

This year, Tisha B’av was on July 22-23. I arrived in Jerusalem just as the Jewish fast was ending. Three days later, on July 26, I attended a Low Mass for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. As I heard the words of the Gospel, I thought of the Temple Mount within eyesight of the Hospice. The Mount, of course, is not only bereft of its Temple but topped with the Dome of the Rock mosque. As if to echo the eeriness of Jerusalem’s history, during the Offertory and Canon, the silence was broken by the muffled sound of a muezzin’s megaphone praying to Allah from a minaret outside. [3]

The Dome of the Rock from the rooftop of the Austrian Hospice

Moreover, during the Mass I thought of the Dominus Flevit church, the site on the Mount of Olives where Our Lord wept over Jerusalem. I had visited the church the day before, and now I was hearing the Church solemnly proclaim the sacred words that gave rise to it.

Dominus Flevit Church

View of the Temple Mount that the priest has when celebrating ad orientem from the altar of Dominus Flevit Church

Notes

[1] A Greek Orthodox tradition dating from the twelfth century, on the other hand, holds that the Proto-martyr was stoned at the Lion’s Gate near the Mount of Olives, over a quarter of a mile east of the Hospice.

[2] You can read Josephus’ account in The Jewish War or Gueranger’s summary in The Liturgical Year, vol. 11, 215-223.

[3] I confirmed this with one of the congregants after Mass, an Arab Catholic born and raised in Jerusalem. When I mentioned that this was the first time I had heard a muezzin in real life, his face grew solemn and he said: “I have heard one every day of my life.”

N.B. Regarding my choice of words regarding this gentleman, I have been told that while some native Christians are fine with the label “Palestinian,” others are not because, it is claimed, 1) the nationality “Palestinian” is a construct invented by Yassar Arafat, and 2) the construct applies mostly if not exclusively to Muslims. As with everything in the Middle East, opinion on the matter is divided.

The Dedication of the Holy Sepulchre

In the Byzantine Rite, there are three observances on the calendar today. The first is a very ancient feast adopted from the liturgical tradition of the city of Jerusalem, the annual commemoration of the dedication of the basilica of the Anastasis, which is now generally called in English “the church of the Holy Sepulchre.” This dedication was performed in the year 335 by the bishop of Jerusalem, St Macarius, in the presence of the Emperor Constantine, who had financed the building project. This church was completely destroyed in 1009 at the orders of the Muslim caliph; the building which stands on the site today is a replacement first completed about 40 years later, and has, of course, subsequently undergone innumerable modifications and renovations. (Photos of the Holy Sepulcher from a distance, on the left in the 1st photo, and of the Edicule and Rotunda, both by Fr Lawrence Lew, from this post of 2019: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/05/photos-of-holy-land-from-fr-lew.html).

In the Byzantine liturgical ranking of feasts, Easter stands in a class by itself, followed by Twelve Great Feasts, eight of Our Lord and four of Our Lady. Most of these are preceded by a day of preparation called a Fore-feast, the equivalent of the vigils of the Roman Rite, and followed by an After-feast, the equivalent of a Roman octave, although they vary in length. Today is therefore also the Forefeast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Many major feasts in the Byzantine Rite are followed immediately by a “synaxis” (“σύναξις” in Greek, “собóръ” in Church Slavonic), a commemoration of a sacred person who figures prominently in the feast, but who is, as it were, overshadowed by its principal subject. (Scholars of the Eastern rites also call them “concomitant feasts.”) This past Tuesday, for example, was the Synaxis of Ss Joachim and Anne, which is kept the day after the Birth of the Virgin Mary. Another is kept in honor of the Virgin Herself on the day after Christmas, another of St Gabriel on the day after the Annunciation, etc.

The Dedication of the Anastasis was one of the most important feasts in Jerusalem itself, and according to the oldest sources of the city’s native liturgical rite, was kept with an octave. (This rite is also known as the “Hagiopolite Rite”, from the Greek “Hagia polis – the Holy City.”) The Exaltation of the Cross began as a kind of synaxis or concomitant feast for this dedication, since the complex of the Anastasis also contained the site where the True Cross was found, and the Cross itself was long kept within it. In Byzantium, however, the Exaltation supplanted the dedication in importance, since the latter celebration was closely tied to the Holy City, but obviously less important outside it.

The chapel of the Finding of the Cross within the Holy Sepulcher, served by the Armenian Apostolic Church; from this post of photos by Nicola dei Grandi, also from 2019:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/04/a-visit-to-church-of-holy-sepulchre.html

The third feast of today is that of the centurion Cornelius who receives the Apostle Peter in his house in Acts 10. This makes for a very subtle and cleverly thought-out connection with the other two feasts. The liturgical texts of the dedication and the fore-feast refer several times to the conversion of the nations, as for example in the very first hymn of Vespers. (The text is taken from a sermon of St Gregory of Nazianzus, 44 “On the new Sunday”; P.G. XXXVI, col. 608.) 

“It was the old law that dedications be honored, and rightly so; all the more should the new things be honored through dedications, for ‘the islands are made new unto God’, as Isaiah saith, by which we should understand the churches now established from among the nations, which receive a firm foundation from God; wherefore, let us spiritually celebrate this present dedication.” (From 0:27 to 2:21 in this video: Ἐγκαίνια τιμᾶσθαι, παλαιὸς νόμος, καὶ καλῶς ἔχων· μᾶλλον δὲ τὰ νέα τιμᾶσθαι δι᾿ Ἐγκαινίων· ἐγκαινίζονται γὰρ νῆσοι πρὸς Θεόν, ὥς φησιν Ἡσαΐας· ἅς τινας ὑποληπτέον τὰς ἐξ ἐθνῶν Ἐκκλησίας, ἄρτι καθισταμένας, καὶ πῆξιν λαμβανούσας βάσιμον τῷ Θεῷ· διὸ καὶ ἡμεῖς τὰ παρόντα Ἐγκαίνια πνευματικῶς πανηγυρίσωμεν.)

Cornelius, an official representative of the Roman Empire, sends his men to fetch the Apostle Peter, the future bishop of Rome, and they find him praying in the house of Simon the Tanner at Joppe. There Peter receives the vision of the winding sheet, and learns from God Himself that the gentile nations are not required to keep the dietary restriction of the old law. The episode concludes with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the members of the house, and “the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the gentiles also.” The conjunction of Cornelius’ feast with the other two therefore represents the Cross of Christ as the source of grace from which the nations are converted, the Church as the place of that conversion, and the church building as the visible sign of God’s enduring presence among them.

There is another important historical detail that ties into this theme. September 13th was the date on which the ancient Romans commemorated the dedication of one of their city’s most important temples, that of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, where he was called “Jupiter Capitolinus.” This massive edifice and the complex that surrounded it were clearly visible from the heart of Rome’s public life, the Forum, but also from the foreigners’ quarter on the other side of the Tiber, where the Jews resided, and many of the earliest Christians among them. The historian Tacitus describes it by saying that “the enormous wealth of the Roman people acquired thereafter adorned rather than increased its splendor.” (Histories 3, 72)

The Roman Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more or less as it would have been seen from an elevated point on the opposite side of the Tiber, with various other buildings. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In 70 A.D., the Romans put down a great rebellion of the Jews that had broken out in Judaea four years earlier, and destroyed a considerable part of Jerusalem, including, most importantly, the temple. Sixty years later, the Emperor Hadrian decided to found a Roman colony on the site, which he called “Aelia Capitolina”, from his family name “Aelius”, and from a large temple to Jupiter Capitolinus which he built on or very near the site of the former Jewish temple. This may have been what provoked another rebellion in 132, which the Romans also put down with great violence, and after which, Jews were forbidden from entering the city except on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, to mourn the destruction of the temple on its anniversary. The memory of “Jerusalem” as such was erased so completely that the Romans themselves even forgot the name. In 310, Firmilian, the governor of the Roman province of Palestine, arrested a large number of Christians, and when they were asked what city they were from, they replied “Jerusalem”, meaning the heavenly Jerusalem, which they said was “in the East” and belonged to Christians only. Firmilian, having never heard of this place before, took this to mean that the Christians had founded a new city, which enraged him to persecute them all the more fiercely. (Eusebius of Caesarea, The Martyrs of Palestine, 11, 8 sqq.)

Jerusalem in a mosaic map in the floor of the church of St George in Madaba, Jordan, ca. 570 A.D., discovered in 1884. The main street of the Roman city of Aelia is clearly visible running through the middle of it. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

With the coming of Constantine, however, and the liberation of the Church, there also began first era of major church constructions. After building six great basilicas in Rome, Constantine moved East to Byzantium, and built several more major churches on important Christian sites, including the Anastasis. This project would have entailed destroying Hadrian’s temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

It seems very likely, therefore, that September 13th, the date of the dedication of the original Roman temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, was deliberately chosen for the dedication of the Anastasis, as a sign that Jerusalem was now definitively cleansed of the profanation inflicted on it by the Romans, and beginning a new life as a Christian city. This is also strongly suggested by the Greek word for dedication, “enkainia”, which derives from “kainos – new.” In John 10, 22, this word refers to a festival that commemorated the “renewal” of the temple under Judas Maccabee after it was profaned by the Greeks. In the same way, the “enkainia” of the Holy Sepulcher refers to the renewal of the specific site of the Anastasis, and by extension, of the entire Holy City, after its profanation by the Romans.

Beautiful Liturgical Objects from the Holy Land

Thanks once again to our friend Fr Joseph Koczera SJ, who has often shared his photos with us, this time for these pictures of an exhibition going on at the Marino Matini Museum in Florence of items from the collection of the Terra Sancta Museum in Jerusalem. On display are vestments, books, and other liturgical items, many of the very highest quality, donated to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem by the royal houses of Europe.

Father also pointed out to me one of the didactic panels from the exhibition, which offers a very wise rationale for the use of such beautiful and well-crafted objects. “… since the 1960s, certain currents within the Church have sought to condemn the existence and use of such riches, considered contrary to the spirit of the Gospel… However, striving to express the Truth as perfectly as possible through art and beauty, and aware that luxury offered to God brings nothing to the Creator, these extravagant gifts benefit their donors, bringing them closer to perfection, depending on the purity of the intention with which these offerings are placed at the foot of the altar. Thus, in Christian thought, Evil, the Prince of this world, can be defeated not only by Good, but also by Beauty.” Amen!

A fourteenth-century Office antiphonary, donated to the Franciscans of the Holy Land by King Henry IV of England. (It is here opened to a responsory for the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist.)

A portable altar given by King John VI of Portugal in the early 1820s; the Portuguese coat of arms are on the backboard and the missal cover.

A crucifix made of gold and lapis-lazuli, given by King Charles of Naples, the future King Charles III of Spain, in 1756.

Altar furnishings given by Kings Philip IV and Charles II of Spain in the 1660s and ‘70s.

A very nice set of vestments donated by the Serene Republic of Venice in the later part of the seventeenth century.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Dedication of the Holy Sepulchre

In the Byzantine Rite, there are three observances on the calendar today. The first is a very ancient feast adopted from the liturgical tradition of the city of Jerusalem, the annual commemoration of the dedication of the basilica of the Anastasis, which is now generally called in English “the church of the Holy Sepulchre.” This dedication was performed in the year 335 by the bishop of Jerusalem, St Macarius, in the presence of the Emperor Constantine, who had financed the building project. This church was completely destroyed in 1009 at the orders of the Muslim caliph; the building which stands on the site today is a replacement first completed about 40 years later, and has, of course, subsequently undergone innumerable modifications and renovations. (Photos of the Holy Sepulcher from a distance, on the left in the 1st photo, and of the Edicule and Rotunda, both by Fr Lawrence Lew, from this post of 2019: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/05/photos-of-holy-land-from-fr-lew.html).

In the Byzantine liturgical ranking of feasts, Easter stands in a class by itself, followed by Twelve Great Feasts, eight of Our Lord and four of Our Lady. Most of these are preceded by a day of preparation called a Fore-feast, the equivalent of the vigils of the Roman Rite, and followed by an After-feast, the equivalent of a Roman octave, although they vary in length. Today is therefore also the Forefeast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Many major feasts in the Byzantine Rite are followed immediately by a “synaxis” (“σύναξις” in Greek, “собóръ” in Church Slavonic), a commemoration of a sacred person who figures prominently in the feast, but who is, as it were, overshadowed by its principal subject. (Scholars of the Eastern rites also call them “concomitant feasts.”) This past Friday, for example, was the Synaxis of Ss Joachim and Anne, which is kept the day after the Birth of the Virgin Mary. Another is kept in honor of the Virgin Herself on the day after Christmas, another of St Gabriel on the day after the Annunciation, etc.

The Dedication of the Anastasis was one of the most important feasts in Jerusalem itself, and according to the oldest sources of the city’s native liturgical rite, was kept with an octave. (This rite is also known as the “Hagiopolite Rite”, from the Greek “Hagia polis – the Holy City.”) The Exaltation of the Cross began as a kind of synaxis or concomitant feast for this dedication, since the complex of the Anastasis also contained the site where the True Cross was found, and the Cross itself was long kept within it. In Byzantium, however, the Exaltation supplanted the dedication in importance, since the latter celebration was closely tied to the Holy City, but obviously less important outside it.

The chapel of the Finding of the Cross within the Holy Sepulcher, served by the Armenian Apostolic Church; from this post of photos by Nicola dei Grandi, also from 2019:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/04/a-visit-to-church-of-holy-sepulchre.html

The third feast of today is that of the centurion Cornelius who receives the Apostle Peter in his house in Acts 10. This makes for a very subtle and cleverly thought-out connection with the other two feasts. The liturgical texts of the dedication and the fore-feast refer several times to the conversion of the nations, as for example in the very first hymn of Vespers. (The text is taken from a sermon of St Gregory of Nazianzus, 44 “On the new Sunday”; P.G. XXXVI, col. 608.) 

“It was the old law that dedications be honored, and rightly so; all the more should the new things be honored through dedications, for ‘the islands are made new unto God’, as Isaiah saith, by which we should understand the churches now established from among the nations, which receive a firm foundation from God; wherefore, let us spiritually celebrate this present dedication.” (From 0:27 to 2:21 in this video: Ἐγκαίνια τιμᾶσθαι, παλαιὸς νόμος, καὶ καλῶς ἔχων· μᾶλλον δὲ τὰ νέα τιμᾶσθαι δι᾿ Ἐγκαινίων· ἐγκαινίζονται γὰρ νῆσοι πρὸς Θεόν, ὥς φησιν Ἡσαΐας· ἅς τινας ὑποληπτέον τὰς ἐξ ἐθνῶν Ἐκκλησίας, ἄρτι καθισταμένας, καὶ πῆξιν λαμβανούσας βάσιμον τῷ Θεῷ· διὸ καὶ ἡμεῖς τὰ παρόντα Ἐγκαίνια πνευματικῶς πανηγυρίσωμεν.)

Cornelius, an official representative of the Roman Empire, sends his men to fetch the Apostle Peter, the future bishop of Rome, and they find him praying in the house of Simon the Tanner at Joppe. There Peter receives the vision of the winding sheet, and learns from God Himself that the gentile nations are not required to keep the dietary restriction of the old law. The episode concludes with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the members of the house, and “the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the gentiles also.” The conjunction of Cornelius’ feast with the other two therefore represents the Cross of Christ as the source of grace from which the nations are converted, the Church as the place of that conversion, and the church building as the visible sign of God’s enduring presence among them.

There is another important historical detail that ties into this theme. September 13th was the date on which the ancient Romans commemorated the dedication of one of their city’s most important temples, that of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, where he was called “Jupiter Capitolinus.” This massive edifice and the complex that surrounded it were clearly visible from the heart of Rome’s public life, the Forum, but also from the foreigners’ quarter on the other side of the Tiber, where the Jews resided, and many of the earliest Christians among them. The historian Tacitus describes it by saying that “the enormous wealth of the Roman people acquired thereafter adorned rather than increased its splendor.” (Histories 3, 72)

The Roman Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more or less as it would have been seen from an elevated point on the opposite side of the Tiber, with various other buildings. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In 70 A.D., the Romans put down a great rebellion of the Jews that had broken out in Judaea four years earlier, and destroyed a considerable part of Jerusalem, including, most importantly, the temple. Sixty years later, the Emperor Hadrian decided to found a Roman colony on the site, which he called “Aelia Capitolina”, from his family name “Aelius”, and from a large temple to Jupiter Capitolinus which he built on or very near the site of the former Jewish temple. This may have been what provoked another rebellion in 132, which the Romans also put down with great violence, and after which, Jews were forbidden from entering the city except on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, to mourn the destruction of the temple on its anniversary. The memory of “Jerusalem” as such was erased so completely that the Romans themselves even forgot the name. In 310, Firmilian, the governor of the Roman province of Palestine, arrested a large number of Christians, and when they were asked what city they were from, they replied “Jerusalem”, meaning the heavenly Jerusalem, which they said was “in the East” and belonged to Christians only. Firmilian, having never heard of this place before, took this to mean that the Christians had founded a new city, which enraged him to persecute them all the more fiercely. (Eusebius of Caesarea, The Martyrs of Palestine, 11, 8 sqq.)

Jerusalem in a mosaic map in the floor of the church of St George in Madaba, Jordan, ca. 570 A.D., discovered in 1884. The main street of the Roman city of Aelia is clearly visible running through the middle of it. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

With the coming of Constantine, however, and the liberation of the Church, there also began first era of major church constructions. After building six great basilicas in Rome, Constantine moved East to Byzantium, and built several more major churches on important Christian sites, including the Anastasis. This project would have entailed destroying Hadrian’s temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

It seems very likely, therefore, that September 13th, the date of the dedication of the original Roman temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, was deliberately chosen for the dedication of the Anastasis, as a sign that Jerusalem was now definitively cleansed of the profanation inflicted on it by the Romans, and beginning a new life as a Christian city. This is also strongly suggested by the Greek word for dedication, “enkainia”, which derives from “kainos – new.” In John 10, 22, this word refers to a festival that commemorated the “renewal” of the temple under Judas Maccabee after it was profaned by the Greeks. In the same way, the “enkainia” of the Holy Sepulcher refers to the renewal of the specific site of the Anastasis, and by extension, of the entire Holy City, after its profanation by the Romans.

Holy Week in Jerusalem: A Post-War Documentary

Many thanks to Nicola for bringing to my attention this wonderful documentary about the celebration of Holy Week in Jerusalem, recently published on the YouTube channel of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Places. There are no credits to indicate the date, but from the style, and the appearance of a broad stole, it seems to be from between World War Two and the 1955 Holy Week reform. (Of course, like their brother St John XXIII, the Franciscans might have decided to just pretend the reform didn’t happen, so that may not be really indicative of anything.) The narration is in Italian, but like any good documentary, it shows more than it tells, and most of it is footage of the liturgical and devotional life of the Holy City. An outline is given below.

Start: a ritual held every first Thursday of the month at basilica of Gethsemani, the reading of the Passion Gospel, which is slightly different Passion tone from the classic Passion tone.

01:39 In the refectory of the Friars of the Custody on Good Friday, the rector of the house serves the meal, which is taken kneeling.

02:54 Part of the daily procession held in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, from the chapel of the Apparence of Christ to the Virgin Mary, stops at the column of the flagellation, then goes to the prison of Christ, the place of the dividing of the garments, down to the chapel of St Helena, where the relics of the Cross were found, up to Golgotha, and then to the site of the sepulcher.

05:35 Beginning outside of the basilica, a long section showing pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa.

13:33 Then ceremony of the deposition of the body of the Christ from Cross.

16:28 Blessing of bread at the sanctuary at Emmaus, which the Latin bishop gives out to the faithful as Christ gave bread to the two disciples at the Supper at Emmaus.

17:14 “The reality of the mystery which is spiritually tangible, evoked through these rites, stirs up in the soul sentiments not unlike those lived by the fortunate protagonists of these great matters: being present for the miracle of the Incarnation, suffering with Jesus the agonies of the Passion, rising in Him to a new life, contemplating Him in the glory of the Ascension, living again that transformation which His Gospel brought about in the world. All this has the serene spontaneity of a dream, but impresses upon us the effects of an deep devotion. ‘I will fulfill in me what is lacking in the Passion of Christ.’ ”

Churches in Jerusalem Under Snow

Almost four years ago, I posted pictures of some of the churches of Rome after a snowstorm, a very rare event in the Eternal City. Snow is not quite as rare in Jerusalem, but is definitely not common, happening about once every 3 years or so. A friend who is studying there, Mr Alexandre Newman-Gallot, took some pictures of the Holy Sepulcher and other sites in the Holy City after it snowed there earlier this week, and was kind enough to share them with NLM. Gratias tibi, optime! “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem: praise thy God, O Sion. ... Who giveth snow like wool.” (Psalm 147)

The Domes of the Holy Sepulcher

The entrance

The roof

The monastery of the Dormition

The outside of the Armenian Orthodox Seminary

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