THE ROUND-SHAPED CHURCH BUILT OVER THE LORD'S SEPULCHRE
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2. (3) This is a very large church, entirely made of stone, and built on a remarkable round plan. Three walls rise from the foundations, and the distance between one wall and the next is about the width of a street. There are three aitars arranged in three special emplacements in the middle wall. (4) In this lofty round church one of these altars is on the south, another on the north. and a third on the west. The church rests on twelve columns of remarkable size. (5) It has eight doors, or entries, in the three walls divided by the width of a street. Four of them are on the north facing east, also called the Caecias wind, and the other four are on the south facing east. (6) In the centre of the round space enclosed by this church there is a small building hewn from a single rock. Nine men can stand praying inside it, and a man of fair height has one and a half feet between his head and its roof. (7) The entrance of this small building faces east. Its whole exterior is covered with choice marble, and the roof is decorated on the outside with gold, and supports a large gold cross. This small building contains the Lord's Sepulchre, which has been cut into the rock on the north side. (8) The floor of this small building is in a lower position than the Sepulchre, and the distance between the floor and the edge of the Sepulchre on the side is about three palms. This information was given me by Arculf, who had been many times into the Lord's Sepulchre, and measured it accurately. (9) At this point it is worth drawing attention to the meaning, or rather the two different meanings of the words 'tomb' and 'sepulchre'. The small round building we have mentioned above is called by evangelists the 'tomb': it was at the mouth of this that they tell us the stone was rolled and then rolled back when the Lord rose again. (10) But 'sepulchre' is the correct word for the place inside the small building, the one on the north side of the 'tomb', in which the Lord's body was placed, and where he lay wrapped in linen cloths. Arculf measured it with his hand, and found it to be seven feet long. (11) People wrongly say that this sepulchre is divided in two by a ridge of living rock dividing the shins and thighs and keeping them apart, but the whole thing is a single shelf stretching from head to foot without division, which would take one person lying on his back. It is like a cave with its opening facing the south part of the tomb, and is made with a low roof over it. (12) They are the number of the twelve apostles. Four of them are lower down at the foot of the tomb-shelf, and the other eight higher up above the edge on the right hand side. They are oil lamps, and give a bright light. (13) It should also be mentioned that this same small building, the Saviour's tomb-chamber, can correctly be described as a cavern or cave. Indeed a prophet said words about it which prophesied the Lord Jesus Christ's burial there. He said, "He dwelt in a lofty cave of the strongest rock" <Is. 33:16> and a little further on added this about the joy of the apostles at the Lord's resurrection, "You shall see the King in his beauty" <Is. 33:17>. (14) The accompanying picture shows the shape of this round church, and, set in its centre, the small round building which contains on its north side the Lord's sepulchre, and there are pictures of three more churches about which an explanation will be given below. (15) The plans of these four churches we drew copying the original sketch which, as mentioned above, holy Arculf plotted out on a small wax notebook. There is no hope of giving a proper picture of the churches, but from this rough little sketch of Christ's Tomb you may at least be able to see the way it is set in the centre of the round church, and make out which churches are closer to this one, and which are further away.
THE STONE WHICH WAS ROLLED AGAINST THE DOOR OF THIS TOMB
3. (1) This is the place to say something about the Stone, already mentioned, which, after the Lord's crucifixion and burial, with several men pushing it, was rolled against the door of his burial-place. Arculf reports that it was split, and divided into two pieces. The smaller piece has been shaped and squared up into an altar, whfch is to be seen set up in the round church we have mentioned in front of the door of the Lord's Tomb, the small building already described. The larger part of this stone has also been cut to shape, and forms a second square altar which stands, covered with linen, in a position at the east of this church. (2) Masons had chiselled out the interior of this small building from rock, and the Lord's Sepulchre on its north side was also cut in the rock. I asked Arculf about its colouring, and he replied, "To this day there is not a trace of ornament inside this small building forming the Lord's Tomb, and over its whole surface where it has been hollowed out you can see marks of the tools which the masons and stoneworkers used when they made it. But the rock of the Tomb and Sepulchre is not plain. but a mixture of red and white, with both colours appearing in the same rock". So much for this.
(transl. Wilkinson)
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