14600 - Jerusalem (Kidron Valley) - Tomb of Zachariah

A common tomb with the remains of James, brother of the Lord, Symeon the Elder and Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, was revealed in the mid-4th century CE in a certain burial cave in the Kidron Valley. Several places were proposed for this inventio. This invention of the saints relics wasn't accepted unconditionally already in 4th century CE: for example, St. Jerome expressed his doubts about the authenticity of them. He wrote that the tomb of James was already known to Christians and Jews both in the 2nd century CE and that until the Bar Kokhba revolt there was a stele, commemorating the martyred saint near the Temple Mount (Jerome, De viris illustribus liber 2, ed. E.C. Richardson (TUGAL 14, Leipzig, 1896), p. 8; quoted after Di Segni, ARAM 18-19, 2006/7, 382f). It might be testified by the quotation of the 2nd century writer Hegesippus by Eusebius of Caesarea, who had located the tomb of St. James near the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount (the place of St. James martyrdom; Eusebius, HE II, 23, 18, ed. Schwartz (GCS 9 i, Leipzig, 1903), p. 170; quoted after Di Segni, ARAM 18-19, 2006/7, 382f). The inventio of the St. James relics was also firstly ignored by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem, who became very suspicious with the announcement of the vision, after which the relics were found. According to the Latin source that Abel had published ("La sepulture de saint Jacques le mineur", RB 28 (1919), pp. 480-499), a certain monk named Epiphanius lived at the foot of Mt. of Olives opposite the pinnacle of the Temple. In 351, following the indications received by St. James in a dream, he found three skeletons in his cave and identified them as the remains of Jacob, the brother of Christ, Simeon and Zachariah (as was indicated in the vision). When St. James appeared to Epiphanius for the first time, he didn’t believe the vision himself, so St. James appeared for the second time to Epiphanius and to a noble man Paul from Eleutheropolis to convince them and Bishop Cyril to start the excavations in the tomb. Thereafter, a shrine/chapel was built there with the support of Paulus. The Bishop Cyril was convinced and transported the relics firstly to Mount Sion and after the building of the chapel – to the reliquary under its altar table. The church became the main locus sanctus, dedicated to St. James, and probably, a monastery was organized around it soon (the monastery of St. James near Silwan was probably established in Epiphanius’ hermitage; in the 7th century it belonged to Armenians). A similar story was preserved also in Georgian Lectionary. According to it, the invention of the relics of these saints in the edifice of Paul was celebrated annually on Dec. 1; their deposition - on May 25 (Garitte 1958: 67 and 227-8; 68 and 232-3, 107 and 400). Apparently, the remains of this chapel with crypt were identified and excavated in 1959-60 (Stutchbury, PEQ 93, 1961, 101-3; Di Segni, ARAM 18-19, 2006/7, 382f.). Pilgrims through all the Early Byzantine period had visited the loca sancta and the chapel in Kidron Valley. Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333 CE) identified two monolith tombs of Absalom and of Zachariah with the tomb of the prophet Isaiah or with the tomb of the Jewish king Hezekiya (It. Burd. 595, CCSL 175, 17f.; and cf. J. Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels, 1981, 159f., 274). The tomb and the chapel were visited by the pilgrims in the 6th century CE (Theodosius, TS 9, CCSL 175, 119; Gregory of Tours, In gloria martyrum I, 26, ed. B. Krusch (1885) 53). Adamnan, which reported the testimony of the Bishop Arculfus (7th century CE), identified the tombs of Absalom or of Zacharia with the tombs of Symeon the Elder and of Joseph, Mary's husband (Adamnan, LS I, 14, CCSL 175, 196). In the Crusader time William of Tyre reported that three saints lay together in the common tomb. So, these traditions, early and late, do not support the theory of Lea Di Segni (2012), based on the reading of the inscriptions on the Tomb of Absalom, that the burial place behind it belonged to Symeon the Elder and Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, already in the mid of the 4th century. A Greek inscription on the Tomb of Absalom, reads: "This is the tomb of Zachariah, the martyr, the holy priest, the father of John" (Barag 2003; see reading ad explanation in Cotton, Di Segni, CIIP, Jerusalem Vol. II, 2012, no. 959, 331-335). In the interpretation of the inscription it was noted, that its reading and dating are very dubious due to the state of preservation. The earlier identification of the burial, where the relics of James, Simeon and Zacharias were originally revealed, belongs to Abel (1919), who had suggested to locate it below the tomb of Benei Ḥezir family. All these literary sources and remains seem to relate to the same memorial monastic complex.