Calvary

Site of Golgotha, within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A diagram of the church and the historical site, based on a German documentary.

The altar at Golgotha. Pilgrims are bowing down to kiss the star which marks the traditional spot where the Cross of Jesus was planted.

Calvary or Golgotha are the English language/Western Christian names given to the site, outside of ancient Jerusalem’s early 1st century walls, ascribed to the crucifixion of Jesus. The exact location is handed down from antiquity. Although the significance of the name is lost to modernity, Calvariae Locus in Latin, Κρανίου Τόπος (Kraniou Topos) in Greek, and (Γολγοθα) Gûlgaltâ in Aramaic all denote "place of [the] skull". In some Christian and Jewish traditions, the name refers to the location of the skull of Adam.

Calvary and Golgotha in the Bible

Although usage since the sixth century has been to designate Calvary as a mountain, the Gospels call it merely a "place." The word "calvary" is only found in the King James Version of the English Bible in Luke Luke 23:33. The word "calvary" is not from the original Greek versions, being the Latin gloss given for "Golgotha" in the Vulgate. The original Greek versions instead use the Greek gloss, "Κρανίου Τόπος". The location called "place of the skull" is mentioned in all four of the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion in the canonical Gospels:

Matthew Matthew 27:33

And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, (KJV)

Mark Mark 15:22

And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. (KJV)

Luke Luke 23:33

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. (KJV)

John John 19:17

And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha. (KJV)

The location of Calvary

The Holy Sepulchre (1) in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem.

Roman emperor Constantine the Great built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on what was thought to be the sepulchre of Jesus in 326–335 AD, near Calvary. According to tradition, the Tomb of Jesus and the True Cross were discovered at that site by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, in 325.

Regarding the location of the church, there has been some question of the legitimacy of its claims as it appears to sit within Jerusalem's Old City Walls. However, although the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is now within Jerusalem's Old City Walls, it was beyond them at the time in question. The Jerusalem city walls were expanded by Herod Agrippa in 41–44 and only then enclosed the site of the future Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Professor Sir Henry Chadwick (Dean Emeritus of Christ Church Oxford University) comments: "Hadrian's builders replanned the old city, incidentally confirming the bringing of Golgotha inside a new town wall" (a fact implicit in a Good Friday sermon 'On the Pascha' by Melito, bishop of Sardis, about thirty years later). On this site, already venerated by Christians, Hadrian erected a shrine to Aphrodite.

The Rock of Golgotha inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Inside the church is a rock, about 7 m long by 3 m wide by 4.8 m high, that is believed to be what now remains visible of Calvary. During 1973–1978 restoration works and excavations inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it was found that this place was originally a quarry from which white Meleke limestone was struck. In 1986, a ring was found of 11.5 cm diameter, struck into the stone, which could have held a wood trunk of up to 2.5 m height.

Icon of Jesus being led to Golgotha, 16th century, Theophanes the Cretan (Stavronikita Monastery, Mount Athos).

The church is accepted as the Tomb of Jesus by some prominent historians and the little rock currently inside the present church as the location of Calvary. In 333, the Pilgrim of Bordeaux wrote, "On the left hand is the 'little' hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified (Latin original: … est monticulus golgotha, ubi dominus crucifixus est.), pages 593, 594). About a stone's throw from thence is a vault (crypta) wherein his body was laid, and rose again on the third day. There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built a basilica, that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty." Eyewitness Cyril of Jerusalem, a distinguished theologian of the early Church, speaks of Golgotha in eight separate passages, sometimes as near to the church in which he and his listeners were assembled: "Golgotha, the holy hill standing above us here, bears witness to our sight: the Holy Sepulchre bears witness, and the stone which lies there to this day." Of course one would not expect Cyril to contradict the emperors mother, so his testimony is not final. And just in such a way the pilgrim Egeria often reported in 383: "… the church built by Constantine, which is situated in Golgotha ,and also bishop Eucherius of Lyon wrote to the island presbyter Faustus in 440: "Golgo­tha is in the middle between the Anastasis and the Martyrium, the place of the Lord's passion, in which still appears that rock which once endured the very cross on which the Lord was." Eusebius (338) and Breviarius de Hierosolyma (530)). Professor Dan Bahat, one of Israel's leading archaeologists, the former City Archaeologist of Jerusalem and a senior lecturer at the Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, comments, "We may not be absolutely certain that the site of the Holy Sepulchre Church is the site of Jesus' burial, but we have no other site that can lay a claim nearly as weighty, and we really have no reason to reject the authenticity of the site" (Bahat, 1986). In 2007, he stated, "Six graves from the first century were found on the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That means, this place laid here outside of the city, without any doubt, and is the possible place for the tomb of Jesus."

Disputed claims of Charles Gordon

Rocky escarpment some claim to resemble the face of a skull, located northwest of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, near the Garden Tomb. Picture in foreground is a historical photograph (date unknown) of the same rock face.

After time spent in Palestine in 1882–83, Charles George Gordon suggested Calvary might have been in a different location. It was not then known that the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was actually outside of the city walls at the time of the crucifixion. The Garden Tomb is to the north of the Holy Sepulchre, located outside of the modern Damascus Gate, in a place that was used for burial at least as early as the Byzantine period. The Garden has an earthen cliff that contains two large sunken holes that people say are the eyes of the skull to which "Golgotha" refers.

Other uses of the name

• The name Calvary often refers to sculptures or pictures representing the scene of the crucifixion of Jesus, or a small wayside shrine incorporating such a picture. It also can be used to describe larger, more monument-like constructions, essentially artificial hills often built by devotees.
• Churches in various Christian denominations have been named Calvary. The name is also sometimes given to cemeteries, especially those associated with the Roman Catholic Church.
• Two Catholic religious orders have been dedicated to Mount Calvary. Several places worldwide have been named after it; including the town Kalvarija in Lithuania and towns Góra Kalwaria and Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in Poland.
• In the 18th and early 19th centuries at Oxford and Cambridge universities the rooms of the heads of colleges and halls were nicknamed golgotha. Apart from the obvious pun on the place of skulls (i.e. heads), this was also due to the punishments that students received in these rooms.
• Golgotha is a family in `H` consisting of Dillyn Golgotha and Roxas Golgotha.

External links

• Golgotha (Calvary) Hill-Photo: white stones, here visible right and left in the underground
• The Hill of Calvary (Golgotha) shown in its original state
• Location of Golgotha
• Web site for European Sacred Mountains, Calvaries and Devotional Complexes