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Title: The Stations of the Cross
        an account of their history and devotional purpose

Author: Herbert Thurston


        
Release date: August 8, 2026 [eBook #79316]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Burns & Oates, 1914

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS ***

                       The Stations of the Cross




                          _By the same Author_

          =LENT & HOLY WEEK=: Chapters on Catholic Observance
   and Ritual. With 3 Plates and 14 Illustrations in the text. Crown
                            8vo, 6s. _net_.




[Illustration: _VERONICA_. The Fourth of the set of Seven Stations
carved by Adam Krafft at Nuremberg (c. 1490-1505). It will be noticed
that the Carving is set in the wall of a house. See p. 63. The
inscription runs: “Hier hat Cristus sein heiligs angesicht der heiligen
Frau Veronica auf iren Slayr gedruckt vor irem Haus Vc (500) Sritt von
Pilatus Haws.—Here has Christ left the impress of His holy Face for the
holy woman Veronica upon her veil in front of her house, 500 paces from
Pilate’s House.”]




                      =THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS=

          _An Account of their History and Devotional Purpose_

                                  =By=
                        =HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.=

                             BURNS & OATES
                     28 Orchard Street, London, W.


Reprinted 1914




                              The Preface


This little book upon the Stations of the Cross explains itself
sufficiently to dispense with any lengthy preface. Although its purpose
is mainly historical, it will not, I trust, be found so devoid of
edification as to be unsuitable for Lenten reading. That devotional
attitude of mind on the part of our forefathers which is illustrated in
the following pages may be full of _naïveté_ and is sometimes even
grotesque in its extreme literalness and credulity, but there is nothing
in it which need scandalize the most sensitive. On the contrary, it is
impossible to come into close contact with the thought of the religious
teachers of that age without being deeply impressed by their nearness to
the world of spirit and by the intense reality of their personal
devotion to our Lord and His Blessed Mother. The legendary element no
doubt is always present in some measure, but it is for the most part
devoid of offence. Upon the true Catholic attitude towards this feature,
which appears in so many of our most venerated practices of piety, I may
refer the reader to some remarks which will be found later on at the
beginning of Chapter VII (p. 136).

From the historical point of view the chief novelty which will be
discovered in the following pages is the conclusion—the evidence for
which appears to me to be quite irresistible—that the arrangement of our
actual stations, though professedly made in imitation of a pilgrimage
along the Via Dolorosa, owes less to Jerusalem and the Franciscan
custodians of the Holy Places than to the pious imagination of a
Carmelite friar who lived all his life in Belgium. That our fourteen
stations derive directly from the _Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ_ of Adrichomius
has for some time been recognized, e.g., by Bishop von Keppler in his
excellent work “Die XIV Stationen des heiligen Kreuzwegs.” But when, on
the one hand, we find in Adrichomius, himself a Fleming, an explicit
avowal of indebtedness to the book of Brother Jan Pascha, and when, on
the other, Pascha’s book presents us with the identical enumeration of
subjects and distances which appear in the later writer, there can be
little doubt that Pascha must be regarded as the immediate source of the
subsequent developments. Further, it is clear that Pascha’s own system
was evolved in part out of the devotion of the “Seven Falls” which, at
the close of the fifteenth century, had become widely popular in Germany
and the Netherlands. This devotion is now completely forgotten, but it
has left behind one splendid memorial of itself in the famous sculptures
of Adam Krafft (c. 1490) still preserved at Nuremberg. I am inclined
also to think from the wide diffusion of a fifteenth century booklet
attributed to a certain “Heer Bethlem” (see Appendix A) that we must
regard this little work as another early and important element in the
popularizing of the exercise of the Way of the Cross. The full knowledge
of its popularity, however, came to me somewhat too late to deal with it
adequately in the text of my essay.

While giving prominence to such technical points as these, which may
help in some measure to throw light upon the byways of liturgical
history, it seemed desirable not to lose sight of other devotional
influences of wider range and more general interest. For this reason the
reader will find that the question of pilgrimages to the Holy Land is
illustrated rather more fully than was perhaps quite necessary for its
bearing upon the immediate subject of this volume. With regard to what
is said at pp. 161-172 upon the question of the indulgences of the Holy
Places, which no doubt had a considerable influence in attracting
pilgrims to Jerusalem, I should like to point out that I have formed no
final opinion as to their authenticity, and that I should be glad if the
few remarks I have thrown out should lead to further discussion.

Although part of the substance of this essay has already been published
in the form of articles in _The Month_ (July to September, 1900), I have
been able in the interval which has elapsed since the articles appeared
to add very considerably to my former materials. Amongst other minor
discoveries, I came quite lately upon a little volume in the Bodleian
library which is entitled “A Spiritual Pilgrimage to the Holy Land,” and
which was obviously printed abroad in the seventeenth century for
Catholic use. Upon examination it proved to be an abridgement in English
of that scarce “Gheestelyck Pelgrimagie” of Brother Jan Pascha which
plays so large a part in the argument of my little essay. As this
Bodleian volume may fairly be called the first book containing the
Stations of the Cross which was published in the English language, I
cannot, I think, better conclude these few words of introduction than by
reproducing a portion of the old translator’s preface. The sentiments
expressed are such as every priest in the twentieth century not less
than in the seventeenth may be glad to make his own.


    THE PREFACE TO THE READER


    Seeing it is so (my Catholic brother) that this present life is no
    other thing but a continual pilgrimage which we are to make upon the
    earth, and that all the time of our life is a term prefixed of GOD
    the Creator, during which space we ought to accomplish this voyage
    ... were it not great folly and negligence in us if we should forget
    ... the principal place of our repose?... Let us behold therefore
    what care and pains our loving LORD hath taken of our salvation, let
    us learn to travaille courageously and like devout and holy pilgrims
    to follow His steps, who hath left us an example of His blessed life
    and passion, and ruminate in our hearts every day apart, some
    general point thereof, and after well to practise the same in
    ourselves, for such ought to be the end of our spiritual exercise,
    by which means we may attain to the happy end that we desire.
    Whereof having found this little treatise of _A Spiritual
    Pilgrimage_, assuring myself that it would be a thing very agreeable
    to all manner of devout and pious persons, I thought good to bring
    the same to light. Beseeching the gentle reader to accept of this
    little gift, and to respect more my hearty affection than the
    littleness of the thing. The rest I remit to the disposition of
    Almighty GOD the Creator of all things, whose only honour and glory
    I desire herein. Amen.

    Thy hearty well-willer in CHRIST JESUS,

    R. H.

The kind friends who in many various ways have lightened my task in
preparing this book for the press, will know, I trust, that if I do not
make more particular mention of the help that they have rendered, it is
not for lack of sincere gratitude.

HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.

_31 Farm Street, London, W._




                              The Contents


CHAPTER I—_The Veneration of the Holy Places._ ... Pp. 1-19.

Imitative tendency in our popular devotions—The Stations a pilgrimage in
miniature—Ardour shown in making pilgrimages to Jerusalem—The Lady
Egeria—The Holy Places measured to be copied in the West—St
Petronius—Peter and John Bechetti or Becket—The spiritual Way of the
Cross of the Blessed Henry Suso—The vow of the Nun of Lorvão.


CHAPTER II—_The Beginnings of the Via Crucis._ ... Pp. 20-45.

The Porte Doloreuse—Sites of incidents on the way to Calvary—The
inverted order of the official pilgrimage route—The legend of our Lady’s
pilgrimage—Fabri’s description of the road to Calvary and of our Lady’s
daily journey—A night with the pilgrims in the Holy Sepulchre
Church—Rules to be observed—The reopening of the doors.


CHAPTER III—_The earliest Stations and their Sequence._ ... Pp. 45-61.

The word “Station”—William Wey’s use of it in connexion with the road to
Calvary—Wey’s memorial verses—Sir Richard Guylforde’s “pylgrymages
within Jerusalem”—Torkington’s copy in reverse order—The practice of
measuring the distances—Discrepancies in the order of the Stations.


CHAPTER IV—_The “Seven Falls.”_ ... Pp. 46-75

The Stations at Görlitz—The “Seven Falls” of Adam Krafft at
Nuremberg—The “Cruysganch” of Louvain—Romanet Boffin and the sets of
seven pillars at Rhodes, Fribourg and Romans—The Stations of the Seven
Dolours at Antwerp—Fifteenth-century engravings of the Seven Falls—The
book of the “Mount of Calvary”—The Seven Falls in Pascha’s “Spiritual
Pilgrimage.”


CHAPTER V—_The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Jan Pascha._ ... Pp. 76-95.

Some Dutch books relating to the stations—Bethlem’s “Meditations on the
Passion” with distances—The Nuremberg “Ghostly Way” of 1521—Prevalence
of the practice of erecting Stations—The “Spiritual Pilgrimage” of Jan
Pascha the Carmelite—Description of the book—Various editions and
translations—The “proper” Way of the Cross—Adrichomius and his
indebtedness to Pascha—Origin of the triple fall in our present system
of Stations—Impossibility in the sixteenth century of any public
exercise of the “Way of the Cross” at Jerusalem—The initiative
consequently did not come from the East but from Europe, especially from
the Netherlands—Practice of the Stations in an Antwerp convent.


CHAPTER VI—_The Via Dolorosa at Jerusalem from the Seventeenth century
to the Present Day._ ... Pp. 96-135.

Unique authority of the Franciscan traditions at
Jerusalem—Contradictions with the map of Adrichomius—Testimony of
Bernardino Amico and Quaresmius—Description of the Via Dolorosa—The
Stations according to Surius—The _Ecce Homo_ Arch—Place of our LORD’S
meeting with His Blessed Mother—The place of the first fall and of the
coming of Simon of Cyrene—Attempt to harmonize the Jerusalem tradition
with the system of Adrichomius—Sites of our LORD’S meeting with the
women of Jerusalem and with Veronica—The Judicial Gate—The gradual
displacement of the traditional Stations in the eighteenth century—The
question of the site of the Prætorium and of the true Way of the
Cross—Prevalence of other systems of Stations and notably of that of
Father Parviller.


CHAPTER VII—_The Devotional Aspect of the Stations._ ... Pp. 136-158.

Survival of the fittest in our devotional practices—A legendary element
permissible and often helpful to piety—Words of Père Lagrange—Devotional
suggestiveness of the legend of Veronica and of the triple
fall—Illustrations from the writings of Cardinal Newman and Henri
Perreyve—The spirit of the medieval pilgrims—Fabri’s description of
Calvary and of the Holy Sepulchre—Perreyve’s meditation on the Holy
Sepulchre.


CHAPTER VIII—_The Stations In Modern Times._ ... Pp. 159-177.

One uniform system now prevalent—Committed specially to the charge of
the Franciscan Order—Indulgences of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem
attached to the ordinary Stations of the Cross—Early belief to this
effect—Origin of the indulgences of the Holy Places—Impossible to
attribute them to Pope St Silvester—Remarkable Bull of confirmation
issued by Pope Pius IV—Conditions for gaining the indulgences at the
present day.


APPENDIX A—_Heer Bethlem’s “Ovewegingen,”_ p. 179

B—_Table of Indulgences_, p. 182

C—_Relative Antiquity of the various Stations_, p. 182




                       The List of Illustrations


Veronica (the fourth of the set of seven Stations carved by Adam Krafft
at Nuremberg) ... _Frontis_

Jerusalem and Palestine (Map from “Le Pèlerin Véritable” of 1615) ... 11

Church of the Holy Sepulchre (from Breydenbach, 1486) ... 28

Part of Bernardino Amico’s Map of Jerusalem (1609-1620) ... 32

Church of the Holy Sepulchre (_c._ 1835) ... 44

Map of Jerusalem (1616) from MS. Addit. 33566 ... 56

The Second and Fifth Stations, carved by Adam Krafft at Nuremberg (_c._
1490) ... 64

The Incident of Simon of Cyrene, from the “Geystlich Strass” (1521) ...
68

Title page of the “Geystlich Strass” (1521) ... 80

Page of Pascha’s “Ghestelyck Pelgrimagie” ... 84

Adrichomius’s Map of Jerusalem, with Stations of the Cross (1584) ... 87

A page of the French translation of Pascha’s “Gheestelyck Pelgrimagie”
(1666) ... 88

The Via Dolorosa according to Zuallardo (1587) ... 105

Plans of the Via Dolorosa ... 106-107

The _Ecce Homo_ Arch according to Amico (1620) ... 110

Christ at Pilate’s House (from the “Geystlich Strass,” 1521) ... 112

The _Ecce Homo_ Arch (from a recent photograph) ... 114

The Site of the First Fall (Station III) ... 116

The Via Dolorosa near Veronica’s House ... 126

The Via Dolorosa looking down-hill ... 140

The Entombment (from the “Geystlich Strass,” 1521) ... 154

Title page of French Edition (1566) of the “Gheestelyck Pelgrimagie” ...
162




              Chapter I—The Veneration of the Holy Places


It may be said of many, perhaps most, of our popular devotions that they
are not so much spontaneous as imitative. They have been prized at first
as the substitute for something better, because they seemed to bring
within the reach of the many some practice of piety which had been
hitherto regarded as the merit or the privilege of the few. To recite,
for instance, the entire Psalter daily was the ambition of the early
ascetics, but obviously the repetition of one hundred and fifty psalms
was a feat beyond the capacity of men busied with the concerns of
everyday life. It was only when the convention was devised of
representing each psalm by a Hail Mary that the bulk of the faithful
found that they could imitate the long vigils of the monks by reciting
the fifteen decades of “Our Lady’s Psalter.” Again, a monastic habit was
not a desirable or possible attire for ordinary Christians living in the
world, but by an imitation of a portion of that habit, rapidly
diminishing in size until hardly a suggestion remained of its former
significance, secular persons found that they could wear the livery of
the Order of their choice, not merely at the hour of death, as so many
aspired to do, but even while going about their daily occupations. Or
once more, when the Divine Office, the official prayer of the Church,
was found to be too long and too difficult for any but clerics to
recite, the Hours of our Lady, which were much shorter and practically
invariable, formed a substitute which even the more ignorant of the
laity need not despair of mastering.

The devotion commonly known to us as the Stations of the Cross has a
very similar origin, and in its singular combination of old and new, of
elements dating from the beginning of Christianity, with forms which
have only become fixed during the last four centuries, it affords an
almost typical example both of the gradual growth of practices of piety
and of the working of the imitative tendency just alluded to. As the
Rosary, then, was a miniature Psalter, as the scapular was a miniature
monastic habit, and as the Hours of our Lady were a miniature Office, so
the Stations of the Cross constituted a miniature pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. Despite all the courage and fervour of the Christians in the later
middle ages, the number of those who were actually able to make their
way to Palestine was, relatively speaking, insignificant. It was a boon
when men were taught how to join in a make-believe pilgrimage which did
not take up an hour of time, and which stimulated their devotion to the
bitter sufferings of CHRIST as much as, or even more than, a perilous
journey over seas. Such, at any rate, is the very simple idea which has
made the Stations dear to the heart of the poor in every part of the
world. But in spite of its simplicity there have been many stages in the
growth of this devotion, and these, so far as I am able to elucidate
them, will form the subject of the pages which follow.

It is commonly said that the _Via Dolorosa_, the route of our SAVIOUR’S
painful journey to Calvary, has from the earliest ages been reverently
marked, and that already in the time of Constantine it was the goal of
pious pilgrims from all parts of the world.[1] However probable this may
seem antecedently, it must be confessed that no direct evidence is
forthcoming in support of such a statement. If our Blessed Lady really
did spend her last days upon earth in traversing again and again the
scenes of the Passion of her Divine Son, no trustworthy record of the
fact is at present known to survive. Only in the later middle ages do we
meet the full details of the story of the Mother’s daily pilgrimage, and
indeed it must be admitted both that the records of pilgrims of the
first ten centuries are silent as to the existence of any traditional
Way of Sorrows, and also that the first indications of it which we
encounter are not easily reconcilable with the sites now venerated. On
the other hand, antiquity speaks clearly as to the principle of paying
honour to the holy places. There is sufficient reason to believe that
the memory of the more important spots connected with the life of our
Blessed LORD was accurately preserved in the fourth century. The
Christians of Jerusalem were already a numerous body. They seem to have
had no doubt about the accuracy of their identifications. The instinct
of such traditions of locality was strong amongst them. It would appear,
then, that only an extreme scepticism will question the fact that the
spots where Constantine built his churches, the spots which Christians,
like the Bordeaux pilgrim of A.D. 333, came from the ends of the earth
to visit, were really the sites they claimed to be. On the one supremely
important question of the identification of the holy Sepulchre and
Calvary, it may be said fearlessly that, despite the attempts of sundry
English and American Protestants to find a Calvary of their own in
another quarter, the evidence of archæology and excavation is altogether
on the side of the old tradition. The narrative of the Lady Egeria’s
Pilgrimage, _c._ 380, discovered within the last few years,[2] has also
come to reinforce what we already knew from St Jerome, the Bordeaux
pilgrim, Eusebius, and others concerning the intense feelings of
veneration which the residents of Jerusalem felt for the holy places (a
very limited number) pointed out by local tradition.[3] There is no
reason to fear, in the case of such Christians as she describes for us,
that their imagination was stimulated to new flights by a keen
anticipation of baksheesh.

We have just said that in point of fact the sites which were pointed out
in Jerusalem in the time of the Bordeaux pilgrim, of St Jerome or of
Egeria, seem to have been few. This may be due to some extent to the
fact that the most detailed account of the city, that of Egeria, is
imperfect. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that this lady
of Galicia was keen to make mention even of spots of minor interest when
they were pointed out to her. A short quotation in her own words will
probably illustrate better than any verbal description the spirit in
which Egeria, and no doubt most of her contemporaries, approached such
questions. She had travelled more than a thousand miles to visit the
holy places, and landing first in Egypt had skirted the northern shore
of the Red Sea taking in Mount Sinai on her way. Now these are the terms
in which she speaks of the sites shown her by the monks on Mount Sinai
in their own immediate neighbourhood.

“Having satisfied every desire with which we had made haste to ascend,
we began now to descend from the summit of the Mount of GOD to another
mountain which is joined to it. The place is called Horeb, and we found
a church there. This is that Horeb to which the holy Prophet Elijah
withdrew when he fled from the face of King Ahab, and where GOD spake to
him saying, ‘What dost thou here, Elijah?’ as it is written in the Book
of Kings. For the cave where holy Elijah hid is shown to this day before
the door of the church which is there; the stone altar is also shown
which holy Elijah built that he might offer sacrifice to GOD. All which
things the holy men deigned to show us. There we offered an oblation and
an earnest prayer, and the passage from the Book of Kings was read; for
we always especially desired that when we come to any place the
corresponding passage from the book should be read. There having made an
oblation, we went on to another place not far off, which the priests and
monks pointed out, namely, that place where holy Aaron had stood with
the seventy elders when holy Moses received from the LORD the law for
the children of Israel. There, although the place is not roofed in, is a
huge rock having a circular flat surface, on which it is said these holy
persons stood. And in the middle there is a sort of altar made with
stones. The passage from the Book of Moses was read, and one psalm said,
which was appropriate to the place; and then, having offered a prayer,
we descended.”[4]

It need hardly be said that in studying the sites and the ceremonial of
Jerusalem the Lady Egeria was not less earnest. She speaks of the Church
of the Anastasis over the Holy Sepulchre, of the “Martyrium” close
beside it on Calvary or Golgotha, of the Church of the Ascension on the
Mount of Olives, of Gethsemani and the Grotto of the Agony, of the way
across the brook of Cedron, of Mount Sion and the Column of the
Flagellation which was erected there, but she says nothing of our _Via
Dolorosa_, nor of the site of any episode for which there is not warrant
in the Gospels.

Although the narrative of Egeria is the earliest detailed account which
we possess of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, there are a number of other
records in succeeding centuries which allow us to see that the eagerness
of the faithful to visit the holy places did not slacken, and which
leave a tolerably complete picture of the shrines honoured in Jerusalem
at each successive epoch in early Christian history. Almost from the
very beginning there went hand in hand with this earnestness in making
pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre a desire to reproduce at home in some
imperfect way the venerated sites that had been visited. It is to this
instinct probably that we owe both the ancient Church of the Anastasis
(the Resurrection) at Constantinople, which by some confusion was later
on associated with the cultus of the virgin martyr St Anastasia, as well
as that of Sta Croce in Rome, together with the Church of Sta Maria
Maggiore, or _Ad Præsepe_, which was meant in some sense to serve as the
counterpart of Constantine’s basilica at Bethlehem. To develop this
subject adequately would lead us too far afield, and it must suffice to
say that the design of perpetuating the memory of the holy places may be
traced even in the representations of ancient mosaics. One has of late
years been found in Palestine itself, which may claim to be regarded as
nothing less than a map of the province of Syria, including a plan of
Jerusalem in the sixth century,[5] while Father Grisar identifies the
background of the great mosaic in the apse of S. Pudenziana, assigned by
de Rossi to the year 398, as an attempt to represent pictorially the
chief buildings of the same Holy City.[6]

This spirit of imitation seems in some measure to have grown and
developed with the lapse of ages. Perhaps one of the most interesting
monuments which it has left behind may be recognized in the curious
group of churches, communicating with each other and forming one
building, originally erected as part of the Monastery of San Stefano in
Bologna. With regard to the construction of these venerable churches we
know little or nothing that is trustworthy. It seems, however, highly
probable that the tradition regarding them is substantially correct. The
buildings were intended to reproduce in some way the more important
shrines of Jerusalem, and may be regarded as perhaps the most ancient
existing example of a set of Stations of the Holy Land, even if they do
not in strictness deserve to be called Stations of the Cross. St
Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, to whom the construction of S. Stefano is
attributed, lived in the fifth century. The chronicle of the monastery
preserves a long life of him, which is no doubt a medieval fabrication,
and which may or may not incorporate some fragments of genuine
tradition. But in any case the manuscript itself seems to be of the
twelfth century. Assuming this to be approximately the date of the
composition, it bears witness to the existence, at least at that epoch,
of an attitude of mind with regard to the holy places which must have
had much to do with the development of our devotion to the Stations. The
writer tells us that in the very ornamentation of the monastery which
Petronius constructed he copied the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and
that he had with singular foresight measured everything accurately with
a measuring-rod during his stay in the Holy Land.[7] It is to be noted
that the description of this work given in the life bears a quite
extraordinary resemblance to certain prominent features of the mosaic of
the sixth century found at Mâdaba, and it is quite conceivable that the
compiler may here be incorporating the language of some authentic early
document.[8]

The writer further tells us that Petronius also built a monastery upon
another more elevated spot which down to the writer’s own day was called
Mons Oliveti. This was at the exact distance from Golgotha which the
saint had himself measured when he was in the Holy Land. On the top of
this “Mount Olivet” the saint planted a second church, reproducing the
Church of the Ascension. The valley between was called Josaphat, and
there was a pond constructed to represent the _natatoria Siloe_. The
seven connected churches at S. Stefano were no doubt meant to recall the
many sacred sites which tradition grouped about the Holy Sepulchre,
though we cannot attach any particular importance to the vague language
of Galesinius, who informs us that in the compass of S. Stefano
Petronius reproduced the column at which our LORD was scourged, the
cross upon which He died, the chamber in which He suffered, the spot
where Peter wept over his fall, and the room in which the angel saluted
our Blessed Lady.[9] It seems certain, however, that the monastery was
familiarly known as Hierusalem, and it is stated to have been described
by this term in the Bulls of several popes.[10]

[Illustration: _MAP OF JERUSALEM & PALESTINE_. This little map, copied
probably from some late mediæval source, was engraved to serve as a
frontispiece to “Le Pélerin Véritable” a guide-book printed at Paris in
1615. Note the landing of the pilgrims at Jaffa; one of them kneels to
kiss the ground, a Franciscan friar comes to meet them, while armed
Turks on foot and horseback scour the open country. Note also in the
right hand lower corner the conversion of St Paul on the way to
Damascus, which is represented in quite the wrong direction.]

Whether these ideas belong more properly to the fifth or to the twelfth
century we are not here called upon to determine. I may confess that I
incline to the former date, but in any case it must be admitted that the
devotion of the Stations down to near the close of the middle ages had
not reached any further stage of development. Examples of imitative
buildings like that of S. Stefano of Bologna were comparatively rare and
isolated, though the idea of imitation never died out, and definite
instances can be quoted. Thus we hear of a Mount of Olives and a chapel
of the Holy Sepulchre erected by the Augustinian John von Schaftolsheim
in 1378.[11] Again there is a well-known model of the Holy Sepulchre in
Bruges which was set up there by two knightly pilgrims on their return
from the Holy Land before the year 1435. So also, to turn to what is of
more immediate interest to English readers, it would seem that at
Fabriano, in the marches of Ancona, certain memorials of the holy places
were erected by the pious care of two brothers, Peter and John Bechetti,
or Becket, said to be members of the family of St Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury.[12] They were beatified in the early part of the last
century, and in the documents of the process special mention is made of
their pilgrimage to the Holy Land and of the chapels which they built on
their return.

Whether these two Augustinian friars were in any true sense collateral
descendants of the saint seems to me more than doubtful, but John da
Fabriano was unquestionably lecturing at Oxford about the year 1388,
though he was not himself born in England. In 1393 Peter da Fabriano
obtained leave from the Franciscan General and from the pope to make a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his return he is said to have encouraged
his brother, or cousin, John, to follow his example. After this they
both went to reside in their native town, and, as the process of
beatification tells us, “They caused a church to be erected which they
called the Holy Sepulchre, and in which they placed five altars. One,
dedicated to our SAVIOUR crucified—‘al SSmo Crocifisso,’—stood on an
elevation which was reached by twelve steps, and they called it Mount
Calvary. Another which was dedicated ‘alla Madonna dello Spasimo,’ in
memory of our Lady’s anguish when she swooned away on meeting her divine
Son, they named, strange to say, ‘la Valle di Giosafat.’[13] The third
altar commemorated our Lady’s grief when she received her Son into her
arms. There they placed an image of the ‘Pietà,’ and to reach it you had
to descend ten steps. The fourth altar was erected in honour of our Lady
‘delle Gratie,’ and at the fifth their bones (so writes Torelli in 1680)
are at the present time enshrined. Besides this they built two chapels,
one on each side of ‘Mount Calvary,’ in one of which the Holy Sepulchre
is reproduced in the same size as at Jerusalem, and in the other chapel
is the tomb of the Blessed Virgin, with gilt statues beside it
representing the other Marys.”[14]

Again it is related of the Dominican, Blessed Alvaro, who died in 1420,
that he made a pilgrimage to Palestine, and “in order that some sort of
memorial of these holy places might remain for ever in the friary which
he erected, he arranged in it a series of oratories in which the
mysteries of our redemption might be set forth in separate stations; the
which pious institution of his is said to have been copied in other
religious houses.”[15] Similarly the Blessed Eustochium, a Poor Clare of
Messina, is recorded, out of devotion to the Passion, “to have set up
representations of the holy places as if it were at Jerusalem. And so
within the enclosure she had constructed the birthplace of CHRIST and
there too the house of His blessed Mother, there the Mount of Olives,
there the Garden in which our SAVIOUR was seized, there the Supper Room,
there the houses of Annas and Caiphas, there the Prætorium of Pilate,
there the Mount of Calvary and the tomb beside it. To these spots she
came daily, and just as if she were present at the very scenes
themselves she contemplated with tears the meekness of her heavenly
Spouse and all the acts which He did, each in its due order.”[16]

Blessed Eustochium died in 1491, and it is plain that neither in this
case nor in the others we have quoted is there anything at all closely
resembling our modern “Way of the Cross.” None the less we must allow
that the idea of the counterfeit devotional pilgrimage is there in
principle. Moreover this germ occasionally admitted remarkable
developments in the practice of the ascetics of the middle ages, as is
touchingly illustrated by the example of Blessed Henry Suso, the famous
Dominican mystic. The pious exercise described in the following passage
must have been adopted by him as early as the year 1326, for the
dialogue form into which he threw his “Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit,” or
“Horologium Sapientiæ,” begun in that year, is said to have been
suggested to him during one of these nightly devotional pilgrimages.[17]

“He [Blessed Henry] now began every night after matins at his usual
place, which was the chapter room, to force himself into a Christlike
feeling of sympathy with all that CHRIST, his LORD and GOD, had suffered
for him. He stood up and moved from corner to corner, in order that all
sluggishness might leave him, and that he might have throughout a lively
and keen sensitiveness to our LORD’S sufferings. He commenced this
exercise with the Last Supper, and he accompanied CHRIST from place to
place, until he brought Him before Pilate. Then he received Him after He
had been sentenced at the tribunal and he followed Him along the
sorrowful way to Calvary from the court-house to beneath the gallows.
The following was the manner in which he made the ‘Way of the Cross’: On
coming to the threshold of the chapter house, he kneeled down and kissed
the print of the first step which the LORD took, when, on being
sentenced, he turned Him round to go forth to death. Then he began the
psalm which describes our LORD’S passion, ‘DEUS, DEUS meus, respice in
me’ (Ps. xxi), and he went out by the door into the cloister repeating
it. Now there were four streets through which he accompanied Him. He
went with Him to death along the first street, with the earnest desire
and will to go forth from his friends and all perishable goods, and to
suffer for CHRIST’S glory misery without consolation and voluntary
poverty. In the second street he proposed to himself to cast aside all
perishable honour and dignity and voluntarily to despise this present
world, considering how the LORD had become a ‘worm and the outcast of
the people.’ At the beginning of the third street he kneeled down again,
and, kissing the ground, willingly renounced all needless comfort and
all tender treatment of his body in honour of the pains of CHRIST’S
tender body; and he set before his eyes what is written in the psalm,
how that all CHRIST’S strength was dried up, and His natural vigour
brought nigh to death as they drove Him onward thus pitiably; and he
thought how fitting it is that every eye should weep and every heart
sigh on account of it. When he came to the fourth street, he kneeled
down in the middle of the road, as if he were kneeling in front of the
road through which the LORD must pass out; and then falling on his face
before Him he kissed the ground, and crying out to Him prayed Him not to
go to death without his servant but to suffer him to go along with Him.
Then he pictured to himself as vividly as he could that the LORD was
obliged to pass quite close to him, and when he had said the prayer,
‘Ave, rex noster, Fili David!’ (Hail, our King, Son of David) he let Him
move onwards. After this he knelt down again, still turned towards the
gate, and greeted the cross with the verse, ‘O crux ave, spes unica’
(Hail, O Cross, our only hope!) and then let it go past. This done he
kneeled down once more before the tender Mother Mary, Heaven’s Queen, as
she was led past him in unfathomable anguish of heart, and he observed
how mournfully she bore herself, and noted her burning tears and
sighings and sorrowful demeanour; and he addressed her in the words of
the ‘Salve Regina’ and kissed her footsteps. Then he stood up and
hastened after his LORD until he came up with Him.

“And the picture was sometimes so vividly present to his mind that it
seemed to him as if he were in body walking at CHRIST’S side, and the
thought would come to him how that, when King David was driven from his
kingdom, his bravest captains walked around him and gave him loving
succour (2 Kings, xv). At this point he gave up his will to GOD’S will,
desiring that GOD would do with him according to His good pleasure. Last
of all he called to mind the epistle which is read in Holy Week from the
prophecy of Isaias, beginning ‘Quis credidit auditui nostro’ (Is. liii),
and which so exactly describes how the LORD was led forth to death, and,
meditating upon it, he went in by the door of the choir, and so up the
steps into the pulpit until he came beneath the cross in the place where
one day the hundred considerations upon the Passion had been made known
to him. He kneeled down and looked upon JESUS stripped of His garments
at the moment when He was cruelly nailed to the cross. Then, taking a
discipline and in a passion of fervour, nailing himself to the cross
with his LORD, he prayed that neither life nor death, weal nor woe,
might ever separate him from the Crucified.”[18]

A singularly touching legend regarding a spiritual pilgrimage of the
same kind may be read in the Cistercian Chronicle of Frey Bernardo de
Brito.[19] He tells us that in the ancient Cistercian convent of Lorvão
not far from Coimbra there was a certain holy lay-sister who before
dedicating herself to GOD as a nun had led a very mortified life in the
world. Among her other good undertakings, however, she had made a vow to
go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and when she entered religion she
was continually haunted by the recollection of this promise to GOD which
left her a prey to many harassing scruples, as she saw no means of
fulfilling her engagement. Still she always hoped that in some way she
might yet be enabled to keep her vow, and for this end she prayed very
earnestly and practised the most severe mortifications. Now it happened
while she was in this state of distress that a solemn jubilee was
proclaimed by the pope, and that extraordinary faculties were given to
confessors to commute vows of all kinds, even those of pilgrimage to the
Holy Land. There was of course no real need of any such commutation in
the case of our lay-sister, as vows of devotion, according to the common
teaching of theologians, are annulled _ipso facto_ by solemn profession
in a religious order. However, the sister, tortured by scruples,
presented herself to the confessor during the jubilee-tide, and humbly
asked him for some commutation which might discharge her conscience. He
decided that it would be best for her to make a spiritual pilgrimage for
such time as the actual journey to the Holy Land would have lasted had
she been able to travel thither, and so for a year together, with the
leave of her superior, the good lay-sister spent all her time in passing
from altar to altar and from shrine to shrine within the convent
enclosure, identifying them with those sacred spots which are venerated
by pilgrims in the holy city. Before the day appointed for commencing
this exercise she bade a solemn farewell to her sisters in religion, and
during all the time which followed she spoke no word to them nor they to
her. She took her scanty repasts in the refectory when the others had
finished, leaving the larger share of her allotted portion to be given
to the poor, and at night she lay down on the ground and slept in the
church or in the cloister, wherever she might be when the hour sounded
for retiring to rest.[20] For full twelve months this exercise
continued, and it happened that on the night when the year of pilgrimage
would expire, she was seen praying in the church before the Blessed
Sacrament with hands uplifted. There she must have remained in this
attitude from midnight until dawn; but when the sacristan who came to
open the church approached to warn her that the people were entering for
Mass, she found the sister lifeless and cold, but still kneeling as
before, while her face was all aglow with supernatural light. This
unusual occurrence deeply moved the townspeople, who cut away portions
of her habit and preserved them as relics, by which many miracles were
afterwards said to have been wrought. But the strangest marvel of all
happened only a few days later when a pilgrim newly returned from the
Holy Land knocked at the gate and asked for news of Sister Maria Minz,
this being the name of the good lay-sister who had so peacefully
departed. They bade him tell them how he came to know her and to make
such inquiry, whereupon he related that in all his pious visits to the
holy places of Jerusalem this sister had been his companion; but that on
such a day, naming the day of her death, she had suddenly quitted him as
they were journeying homeward, informing him that she was wanted in her
convent and bidding him call there to ask for further tidings.

Father Brito adds that he could not ascertain the year in which this
event took place, but that the memory of the holy lay-sister was still
venerated in the convent of Lorvão. Such historical foundation as the
story may have would seem to belong to the pre-Reformation period, while
the mention of the jubilee, which was proclaimed for the first time by
Boniface VIII, shows that it must in any case be subsequent to the year
1300.

But we may turn back now from the devotional practices of Europe in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to see how in Jerusalem itself a
definite _Via Dolorosa_ or Way of Sorrows had meanwhile gradually come
to be recognized, although perhaps it was not as yet called by any
specific name.[21] There can in any case be little doubt that when the
two brothers de Fabriano or Alonso the Dominican visited Palestine, they
would have had pointed out to them by their guides as an object of
special devotion the path followed by our SAVIOUR on His way to Calvary.

Footnote 1:

  This is stated even by Thalhofer, in the second edition of the
  “Kirchenlexicon,” art. Kreuzweg.

Footnote 2:

  This has hitherto been printed and is commonly quoted under the title
  of “Peregrinatio Silviæ.” We owe to Dom Férotin, O.S.B., the discovery
  that the author’s true name is not Silvia but either Egeria, Etheria
  or perhaps Eucheria.

Footnote 3:

  “Certe si consortia nostra displicuerint adorasse ubi steterunt pedes
  Domini, pars fidei est, et quasi recentia nativitatis, et crucis ac
  passionis vidisse vestigia.” (St Jerome to Desiderius, Migne, P. L.
  xxii, p. 493).

Footnote 4:

  “Pilgrimage of St Silvia,” pp. 15, 16, in the translation of the
  Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society.

Footnote 5:

  See “La Mosaïque Géographique de Mâdaba,” by the R. P. Lagrange, O.P.,
  in the “Revue Biblique,” 1897, pp. 165-185 and 450-458.

Footnote 6:

  “Civiltà Cattolica,” p. 722, September, 1895.

Footnote 7:

  “Illo plurimo labore typice gessit opus mirifice constructum instar
  Dominici sepulchri, secundum ordinem quem viderat et provida cura cum
  calamo dimensus fuerat cum esset Hierosolymæ” (“Acta Sanctorum,” Oct.
  vol. II, p. 459; Molinier “Itinera Hierosolymitana,” II, p. 145).

Footnote 8:

  I refer particularly to the long porticoes with their rows of columns.
  “Aliud quoque ædificium idque plurima varietate columnarum a
  fundamentis ædificavit cum atrio in circuitu, cum duobus ordinibus
  preciosarum columnarum, cum basibus et capitellis suis, signis
  multiplicibus decoratis, ita ut super inferiorem ordinem columnarum
  alius pretiosior supereminebat, tali modo extendebatur usque ad locum
  qui figurate Golgotha, hoc est Calvaria, nuncupatur, ubi crux in qua
  CHRISTUS pro salute mundi fixus est posita fuit” (ibid.) The use of
  the word Golgotha is suggestive of an early date and a genuine
  Palestinian tradition.

Footnote 9:

  “Acta Sanctorum,” Oct. vol. II, p. 466.

Footnote 10:

  e.g., Celestine III: “Cum itaque in templo gloriosi martyris Stephani,
  quod dicitur Hierusalem de Bononia quod servus DEI Petronius, ejusdem
  civitatis episcopus, instar sepulchri DOMINI nostri JESU CHRISTI in
  Hierusalem erexit et construxit,” etc. (Acta SS., loc. cit. p. 434.)

Footnote 11:

  See Sepp, “Jerusalem und das heilige Land,” 2nd edition, vol. I, p.
  504.

Footnote 12:

  See Father John Morris, S.J., “Life of St Thomas of Canterbury,” 2nd
  edition, p. 508.

Footnote 13:

  The traditional shrine of the Swoon of our Lady at Jerusalem was
  certainly not located in the Valley of Josaphat, but, as every pilgrim
  of the fourteenth and fifteenth century tells us, it stood near the
  Ecce Homo arch.

Footnote 14:

  I have translated this from a printed copy of the “Approbatio Cultus”
  in the process of beatification, pp. 13-14. The copy is in the library
  of the Bollandist Fathers at Brussels.

Footnote 15:

  Barbier de Montault, “Œuvres,” vol. VIII, p. 152, from the Dominican
  Breviary.

Footnote 16:

  Wadding, “Annales Minorum,” ad annum 1491.

Footnote 17:

  From the Preface to the French edition of Suso by Verard (1493), of
  which there is a beautiful copy on vellum in the British Museum
  library (IB, 41151), we learn that attention was early directed to his
  “Way of the Cross.” “Assavoir est que ceste maniere de parler entre
  sapience et le disciple fut trouvee et commencee par l’occasion qui
  ensuit. Advint une fois que le disciple dont ce livre fait memoire
  faisoit apres matines une procession autour le cloistre ou par
  l’eglise de son convent [sic] en lonneur et souvenance de cette tres
  piteuse procession que nostre sauveur jhu crist fist quant on le mena
  de jerusalem en calvaire. Et avoit acoustume le dit disciple a faire
  chascune nuyt apres matines une telle procession” (Prologue, sig. a,
  iv recto).

Footnote 18:

  I have copied Father Knox’s excellent translation of Suso, pp. 50-54,
  but I have modified a phrase here and there, where the original seemed
  to require it. It may be noted that the phrase “Way of the Cross” is
  equally used by Suso of a journey which he took in imagination to
  accompany our Lady home after the entombment.

Footnote 19:

  “Primeira Parte da Chronica de Cister,” Lisbon, 1602, book VI, c.
  xxxiv, fol. 463.

Footnote 20:

  Father Quaresmius, who borrows the story from Brito, omits these
  details. He evidently thought that such a flagrant neglect of all
  means of healthful relaxation was not calculated to edify.

Footnote 21:

  Tobler, “Topographie von Jerusalem,” considers that the name _Via
  Dolorosa_ did not come into common use before the end of the sixteenth
  century. This however must be a mistake, for the Spanish poet Juan de
  la Enzina, in his “Viage de Jerusalem” (1519), speaks of the street
  (_calle_) along which our LORD dragged His cross, “which nowadays is
  called the street of anguish” (_qu’ oy dia se dize la Cal de
  Amargura_). At this period it was also sometimes called the _Via
  Sancta_—Holy Way.




              Chapter II—The Beginnings of the Via Crucis


In the useful essay upon the Stations of the Cross which has been
published by Dr von Keppler, Bishop of Rottenburg, as an introduction to
the “Kreuzweg” of the Beuron Art School,[22] he states that before the
eleventh century, although we find some indications of a _Via Sacra_, a
certain determined route along which pilgrims were conducted in visiting
the holy places of Jerusalem, there was as yet no _Via Crucis_, no trace
of any recognition of the path by which our SAVIOUR bore His own Cross
to Calvary. Bishop von Keppler considers that the earliest suggestion of
such special recognition is to be met with in the French pilgrimage book
of 1187, “La Citez de Hierusalem.” Even here, though there is mention of
a _Porte Dolereuse_ or sorrowful gate, by which our LORD went forth to
die, the reference to the road to Calvary is slight and indirect. There
is no allusion as yet to particular sites along the road, indulgenced
stopping-places which the faithful are taught to regard with veneration
and to greet with prayer. This was to come later on, but it was remote
in the twelfth century. There is equally little trace of a _Via Crucis_
in the narratives of a number of other pilgrims belonging to this
period. They are so ready to give information when they possess it, that
it seems barely credible that when Fetellus (1130), John of Würtzburg
(1170), Theodore of Würtzburg (1172), John Phocas (1185), Wilbrand von
Oldenburg (1212), and others, are all silent, the _Via Crucis_ can
really have been honoured by the pilgrims of that age. It is, perhaps,
in the account of Philippus Brusserius Savonensis (1285-1291), that we
first meet with anything like a series of halting places marking the
incidents of the journey to Calvary. Riccoldo (1294) speaks of the “via
per quam ascendit CHRISTUS bajulans sibi crucem,” the road by which
CHRIST ascended carrying His cross. In Marino Sanuto (_c._ 1310), in
Pipino (1320), and Ludolf of Suchem (1350), the impression becomes
stronger, but even here the _Via Crucis_ has no special prominence. We
find indeed that mention is made of the places where Simon of Cyrene was
forced to help our SAVIOUR, where the women of Jerusalem wept, where
Mary swooned at meeting her Son, none of which are heard of in earlier
centuries; but these things are not associated together as having a
particular interest of their own. They are, and remained for centuries
later, merely items in a long series of holy places to be visited in
turn. The tour occupied the whole day, and the Way of the Cross was only
a fraction of it. Even as late as the seventeenth century so irrelevant
an element as the house where Dives of the parable is said to have lived
was retained amongst the other sites or stations which were venerated on
the road to Calvary.

By the end of the fourteenth century, largely owing no doubt to the
restrictions of the Turkish rule, a definite and almost invariable
programme had established itself with regard to the entertainment of
each band of pilgrims that visited the Holy City. For at least a whole
night they were locked into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and were
left free to wander about its precincts, to visit its holy places, to
hear or say Mass, and to perform other devotions, always, be it
understood, under the guidance of some of the Franciscans of Mount Sion.
Then they returned to their hospice, and at midnight, or at any rate two
hours before dawn, they were brought back to the open space before the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre with a great flare of torches; and starting
from that point, along with their Franciscan guides, they made the tour
of the holy places within the city and outside the walls, crossing to
Mount Olivet and returning to Sion before the evening had drawn in. It
will be noticed from this arrangement that the pilgrims inverted the
order of the stations of the Way of the Cross, passing not towards but
away from Calvary, a fact which alone must make it sufficiently clear
that the idea of _accompanying_ our SAVIOUR in spirit on His last sad
journey was as yet entirely wanting. On the other hand, as the scenes of
the carrying of the Cross, in their reverse order, were the first to be
visited in the long pilgrimage, the stations in question must often have
been seen only by torchlight or in the grey of the morning. This latter
fact may account perhaps for a certain amount of confusion about the
sites in the narratives of travellers. In any case we cannot doubt that
such an arrangement of time which left hardly any interval for sleep
must have been intensely fatiguing. It was no doubt adopted by the
Franciscans of Mount Sion, who in all these matters had autocratic
powers, in order to avoid friction with the Turks in the frequented
parts of the city, and in order to get the pilgrims away from Jerusalem
again with all possible despatch. However, it was not very long before a
more devotional reason was forthcoming for this practice, and in the
narrative of Felix Fabri (1480) we find an elaborate account of the long
and wearisome pilgrimage to all the holy places of Jerusalem, made each
day by our Blessed Lady while she remained on earth, the manner,
duration and extent of her journey being, strange to say, the exact
counterpart of that which was compulsorily followed by the pilgrims of
the fifteenth century. As this, according to popular tradition, would
have been the earliest example of the Way of the Cross, it seems worth
while to say a few words on the subject.

The first traces of the legend of our Lady’s pilgrimages in Jerusalem
are of early date. Thus a Syriac recension of the apocryphal departure
of my Lady Mary from the world, which is assigned on high authority to
the fifth century, records:

“In the year 345 (of the Seleucian era, i.e., A.D. 34), in the month of
the latter Teshrin, my Lady Mary came forth from her house and went to
the tomb of the MESSIAH, because day by day she used to go and weep
there. But the Jews as soon as the MESSIAH was dead closed the tomb and
heaped up large stones against its door, and set watchmen over the tomb
and Golgotha, and gave them orders that if any one should go to pray by
the grave or on Golgotha he should straightway die.... And the watchmen
came in and said to the priests, ‘Mary comes in the evening and in the
morning, and prays there.’ And there was a commotion in Jerusalem
concerning my Lady Mary; and the priests went to the judge and said to
him, ‘My Lord, send and order Mary not to go and pray at the grave and
Golgotha.’”[23]

In a Latin adaptation of what is substantially the same story, printed
by Tischendorf, a larger scope is given to our Lady’s devotional
pilgrimage. This account states that:

“When the apostles had separated in order to preach the gospel and had
travelled to different parts of the world, the blessed Virgin our Mother
is said to have remained in Jerusalem in a house which was situated
close to Mount Sion. Thence as long as she lived she used to visit every
spot which her Son’s presence had sanctified, the place of His baptism,
of His fast, of His passion, resurrection and ascension.”[24]

The legend gradually developed, and in the thirteenth century we begin
to hear of a definite spot near the Church of the Ascension where our
Lady used to rest, and where the archangel Gabriel appeared to her
before her death, bringing her the branch of a palm tree. The scene of
this angelic apparition was not always very clearly defined and was
sometimes distinguished from our Lady’s resting place, but the very
ancient story of the coming of the angel with the palm branch, to be
borne before her bier—“a token,” says Fabri, “of her complete victory
over death and over the enemy of the human race”—invariably attached
itself in later times to her supposed pilgrimage to the holy places. But
Fabri’s account of our Lady’s pilgrimage, conveying as it does a
truthful impression of the devotional spirit of the age at which the
exercise of the Stations took its rise, deserves to be cited at some
length. I quote from the translation of this extremely interesting book
published a few years since by the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society.[25]

“Our Blessed Lady was careful every day to visit the holiest places in
Jerusalem and the neighbourhood. In the early morning, as dawn drew
nigh, after having received holy Communion from St John on the LORD’S
Mount of Sion, she went forth with her maidens and entered that great
chamber which had been made ready for the Last Supper, where she
meditated upon the immense boon there conferred upon the human race,
looked into the deepest mysteries, and kissed the place where her Son
had sat. From thence she would go to the house of Annas the high priest,
and after praying there entered the hall of Caiaphas, and mused, not
without sorrow, upon the sufferings undergone by her Son in that
building. Thence she went down from the Mount Sion out of the city and
came to the rock of the Cross, which she embraced and sweetly kissed,
pitying that dearest One who was crucified thereon, and rejoicing
nevertheless in His precious devotion to those whom He redeemed. From
thence entering into the garden of the LORD’S tomb she would go to the
place where the Body of her Son and LORD was anointed and preserved in
spices, where she kneeled and kissed the stone, and swiftly rising from
thence, made her way to the LORD’S tomb, whose cave she entered, and
embracing His sepulchre, was filled on that spot with unspeakable joy.
Leaving these places she went down the hill of Calvary towards the city
gate; and on her way, not unmindful of her Son, how He was led out of
the city along that path, burdened with the heavy Cross, and in the
places where she had seen her Son either fall beneath the load of the
Cross or be assailed by some special outrage, she would kneel down and
pray. Thus she would enter the city by the Judicial Gate (‘per portam
judiciariam’), go up to Pilate’s judgement hall, and kiss the places
where He was scourged and crowned with thanksgiving. Coming out from
thence she would go to the house of Herod and kiss her Son’s footprints
there. From thence she would go up to the temple of the LORD, and after
praying there, would leave the temple on the other side, and come to the
Golden Gate, where she reflected upon her Son’s entrance on Palm
Sunday.”[26]

It will be noticed how closely this corresponds with the course
prescribed for the fifteenth-century pilgrims by their Franciscan
guides. They have to make their way first from Sion to the Holy
Sepulchre, and then after saluting the sites which are there they too
begin their pilgrimage “down the hill of Calvary towards the city gate.”
Our Blessed Lady, while mindful of her Son and of the sufferings of His
last cruel journey, is represented by Fabri as travelling in the
contrary direction to that which He followed. So too, almost invariably,
did the pilgrims, as it would be easy to show from any one of the scores
of such narratives which have been published in our own and earlier
times. Fabri’s own account of his experience is too elaborate to follow
in every detail, but we may quote it in part. He, being a Dominican,
seems to have been entertained as a guest amongst the good Franciscans
of Mount Sion, while his secular companions, “the pilgrim lords,” as he
calls them, were lodged at the hospice provided for that purpose.

“When the sun,” he says, “had set, the pilgrims went down to their
hospital to rest, but many of them remained with us on Mount Sion, and
kept vigils in the holy places. At midnight we rose together with the
brethren for the office of Matins and Lauds, after which we began to say
private Masses, each in whatever place he chose, until it grew light.
When the fifteenth day of July began to dawn, before sunrise we who were
on Mount Sion went down to the hospital and roused up our brethren, the
pilgrim lords, for a pilgrimage. When they were ready we came out of the
hospital with some of the brethren of Mount Sion[27] and Calinus
Elaphallo, the Saracen, with his stick, who afforded us safe conduct and
kept the boys from throwing stones at us. First of all we went to the
courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and there prostrating
ourselves at the place where CHRIST fell beneath the Cross, as described
above, we received plenary indulgences.”[28]

[Illustration: _CHURCH of the HOLY SEPULCHRE at JERUSALEM_. _Copied from
the Early Edition of Breydenbach, printed at Mainz in 1486._ In the
courtyard, pilgrims are shown kissing the stone marked with the cross,
which represented the Site of the Third Fall.]

It may be instructive to quote the fuller description here referred to.
The courtyard of the Holy Sepulchre Church, corresponding to the site of
the last of the falls in our modern system of Stations, was the first
halting place in the reverse pilgrimage undertaken by Fabri. The
detailed account given by the Dominican pilgrim bears the following
heading:

    “_The Courtyard in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre hath in
    it these places following._

“After we had seen that we came down by the same steps which we had gone
up into the courtyard of the church, and near the door we were shown a
stone in the pavement upon which were imprinted the marks of two human
feet, just as if a man had stood upon a lump of soft wax, and pressed
his feet into it; and it is evident that these traces of footsteps are
not made in the stone by art, but by a miracle, though nothing is known
for certain about this. However, they say that these are the footsteps
of the LORD JESUS, who stood there at the foot of the rock of Calvary
awaiting His crucifixion. Before this stone we bowed ourselves to the
ground and kissed the sacred footprints. From thence we went in
procession to a place close to the way out of the courtyard, where our
LORD, as He carried His heavy cross, is said to have fallen beneath it
through anguish and horror when He beheld the rock of Calvary before
Him.... This holy place is marked with a stone, whereon many crosses
have been cut by pilgrims. We therefore kissed this place and gained a
plenary indulgence.”[29]

Next in order as Fabri made the descent from Calvary towards Pilate’s
house came:

    “_The Gate, outside which our_ LORD JESUS _was led to be crucified_.

“After this we came out of the courtyard into a street which leads from
Mount Sion to Mount Calvary and from thence leads down into the city
through all its length. When we had gone down someway into the town,
down that street up which the LORD JESUS ascended to Mount Calvary
carrying His cross, we came to an ancient gate, broken on the right-hand
side, whereof no more remained than one side, reaching from the ground
to the curve which supported the arch, all the rest being gone.... This
gate ... was called the Old Gate because it stood there in the time of
the Jebusites. Afterwards it was called the Gate of Judgement (_Porta
Judiciaria_) because judgement was given therein after the manner of the
ancients, and those who had been judged and sentenced therein were sent
out of it to be executed. Both of these names, which are one and the
same, to wit, the Old Gate and the Gate of Judgement, are mentioned in
the third chapter of the Book of Nehemiah.

“Out of this gate the LORD was led to be crucified, carrying His cross,
wherefore it is said of this gate in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter
xiii: ‘JESUS that He might sanctify the people with His own Blood
suffered without the gate.’ Let us human pilgrims then go out to Him
without the gate bearing His reproach. Who, I pray you, could behold
this gate save with devout compassion? From hence Abel went forth to the
field of Afrem to be slain. Through this came Isaac carrying the wood
that he might be sacrificed upon the mountain. Here was seen the cluster
of grapes borne upon the staff. At this gate we repeated the prayer
appointed in the processional, and knelt and gained indulgences.”

Fabri’s account of Veronica and the subsequent halting places is rather
lengthy. It will be well to substitute for it a shorter notice found in
“Le Voyage de la Saincte Cyté Hierusalem,” the narrative of a pilgrim of
the same date (1480).

“And first, in going from the holy Sepulchre to Mount Olivet, we passed
before the house of Veronica, who, seeing our SAVIOUR being led to His
Crucifixion, lent Him a fine white cloth to cleanse His face, which was
all disfigured by wounds and the filth thrown at Him by the false
tyrants. And in putting the said cloth against His face His own likeness
remained impressed upon it. The said Veronica is now at Rome, most
preciously and jealously preserved.

“At the right-hand side, at the end of the street where is the house of
the said Veronica, is the house of the wicked rich man, who would not
give alms to the poor, of whom it is said that he is buried in hell. And
in the said house there is an arch and gallery which goes across the
street. In that street, on the left hand, there is a cross-way called
the Trivium, and there the Jews compelled a good man named Simon the
Cyrenian, whom they met there, to carry our LORD’S cross, because our
LORD could carry it no longer.

“Also, a stone’s throw beyond the said cross-road, there is the place
where our Lady fell to the ground, and her heart failed her, when she
saw our LORD among so great a multitude of Jews, and that He was being
led out to die, and there a chapel was erected. From hence one passes
under an arch on which are two beautifully hewn stones, as large as the
base of a cask of wine. And our SAVIOUR was seated on one of these
stones when He was condemned to death by Pilate, and Pilate was on the
other stone.”[30]

The writer has apparently overlooked the incident of the women of
Jerusalem. It is inserted by Fabri between the place where our LORD’S
face was wiped by Veronica and the cross-way where Simon of Cyrene,
according to the then prevalent tradition, was compelled to lend his
aid. But it must be carefully understood that these sites, with which we
are now familiar, formed but a very small part of the whole pilgrimage.
Our Blessed Lady was believed to have passed right through the city
across the brook Cedron to the Mount of Olives, visiting every scene and
every holy place, and Fabri describes how—

“After having visited Gethsemani, she again sought the high ground, and
climbed upwards, slender and fragile as a wreath of smoke, being already
worn away by her various penances, and burned within by the flame of
pious love; thus in cheerful guise she would with unspeakable longing
seek the top of the holy hill of Olivet, from whence she had descended,
and would return to the place of the LORD’S Ascension, whither she would
go as though herself about to ascend straightway and meet her Son. When
she was there, she would caress the aforesaid footprints with many
kisses, lifting at one time her eyes, at another her hands to heaven,
and on that spot she would feel much joy at the thought that there the
greatest honour possible was bestowed upon her Son and upon herself,
when that flesh which had been born of her was taken up from hence and
exalted above all the heavens. Leaving this place, she would make her
way home, and walk down the Mount, by the place where the apostles had
put together the creed which she herself had taught them, where she
would stand still for a little space and pray for those who professed
the faith. Passing on from thence to the place where the LORD had taught
them to say ‘Our Father,’ she would stop and say that prayer, and as she
went on would give thanks at the place where the eight beatitudes were
preached. From thence she would come down to the place where CHRIST sat
with His disciples and told them the terrible story of the Last
Judgement, where she offered a prayer that He might be merciful in His
second advent; and went on till she came to the dwelling where already,
at the outset of this pilgrimage of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, I have
said was her place of rest and recovery of breath. Now at the time when
the Blessed Virgin Mary was alive there stood there a dwelling,
inhabited by good peasants, who, observing the unfailing passing by of
the Virgin, invited her to sit and refresh herself in the shade; and she
frequently would come out of the road, sit down and rest her frail
maiden limbs.”

[Illustration: _PART OF BERNARDINO AMICO’S MAP OF JERUSALEM, 1609-1620._
_The right hand side of the Map is the North._ 47—Prætorium. 48—Herod’s
Palace. 1—The Ecce Homo Arch. 12—St Mary’s Swoon. 4—Simon of Cyrene.
30—Daughters of Jerusalem. 6—Veronica’s House. 27—Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. 37—The Temple (the Mosque of Omar).]

From this rough resting-place Brother Fabri describes her as rising:

“So having resumed her strength, which she had not lost, but which had
been in abeyance at the aforesaid place, she came down the foot of the
mount into the valley, where after visiting the sepulchres of some of
the prophets, she came to the sepulchre of her own most chaste husband,
Joseph, who was buried there in a cleft of a rock, before which
sepulchre she would stand and remember him with tender emotion. From
thence, crossing the bridge over the brook, she would go up again to
Mount Sion, and when there would go to the place where she herself and
the disciples received the HOLY GHOST on the day of Pentecost, where
again she would be filled with fresh joy.”[31]

It was in like manner that the pilgrims of the fifteenth century, after
their short course through the city, spent the greater part of the day
on the Mount of Olives and the places outside Jerusalem. For nearly two
hundred years (i.e., from about 1350 to 1530), in what we may call the
officially conducted pilgrimages, this route was invariably followed. It
was only by degrees that a select few among the sites so visited, partly
in consequence of the more liberal indulgences attached or believed to
be attached to them, seem to have acquired a special prominence.

Fabri’s account of our Lady’s pilgrimage will seem to many very
fanciful, and the most ardent defender of local traditions will probably
admit that no great reliance can be placed upon the details of this
description of our fifteenth-century traveller. None the less, the good
Dominican’s narrative, in its frankness, simplicity and voluminousness,
holds a unique position among such records. It is very valuable for the
insight which it affords into the devotional spirit of the pilgrims of
that age, and before passing on to other topics I am tempted to make
some further quotations illustrating the conditions under which
pilgrimages were then made, and the patient endurance with which
humiliations of all kinds were met. We hear so much of the decay of
faith and piety in the closing decades of the period preceding the
Reformation that one is glad to call attention to the evidence of
earnestness involved in the cheerful endurance of so many hardships. No
man can have held his religion lightly who was willing to encounter the
very real perils entailed by a journey to Jerusalem, and that without
any prospect of tangible gain. However, we are not for the moment
concerned with the graver dangers from ship-wreck, pirates or
pestilence, but rather with those minor humiliations and discomforts
which must, we might be tempted to think, have been so great a hindrance
to devotion.

A word has already been said above of the locking-up of the pilgrims in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they were free to venerate those
holy shrines now honoured in the five last Stations of the Cross. This
is the account which Fabri gives of his experiences:

“On the fourteenth day, beginning the day from the evening of the day
before, because the procession to the holy places is appointed in that
fashion, when the sun was setting, warning was given to all the pilgrims
that they should straightway present themselves at the court or yard
which lies before the [door of the] Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and
that they should hurry over their supper, because the Moorish lords who
keep the keys of the holy church were waiting for us there. So we made
haste, and having taken with us the things which we meant to use, we
came down to the courtyard of the aforesaid church, wherein we found a
great disorderly crowd of eastern Christians and Saracens—men, women and
children. Also dealers in precious wares sat there and sold them, and
some had loaves of bread, eggs and grapes for sale, whereof we bought
some, and put them in our scrips for the repast which we should take
within the church. Now, as soon as all the Saracen lords who had to do
with the opening of the church were present at the door of that holy
temple, they took their places gravely and seriously. Before the door on
either side thereof great stones of polished marble have been placed for
benches, upon which these men sat, with their faces turned away. They
were men of a fine presence, well stricken in years, handsome, wearing
long beards, and of solemn manners, dressed in linen clothes, and with
their heads wrapped round and round with countless folds of very fine
linen. When all of us were collected together before those doors, they
opened the church doors with their keys, and, standing beside them, let
us in two by two, counting us even as they did when we came out of our
ship on to the land, as aforesaid, and they looked at us very keenly. It
is said of them that they are greatly skilled in the art of physiognomy,
and that as soon as they look upon any man they perceive his station in
life, his disposition and his desires. We went by them with shame and
blushing, because it is a great confusion that CHRIST’S faithful
worshippers should be let into CHRIST’S church by CHRIST’S blasphemers;
and they let in whom they please, and keep out whom they please; for
they drove away from the church-doors, with blows from their staves and
fists, many Christians of other rites who wanted to come in together
with us. I confess that while I was passing between them into the church
I was filled with confusion and covered with blushes, nor could I look
them straight in the face by reason of the shame which I felt: not
because of the badge of the cross which I bore on my clothes, but
because of their unrighteous and impious power over those who bear the
cross. There sat those dogs, as though they were our judges, and
doubtless judged us to be fools because of the cross of CHRIST, because
the name and sign of the cross is foolishness to them that are appointed
to perish (1 Cor. i, 23). Thus, however, is it ordered by the divine
wisdom, that the followers of the Crucified should be brought to the
place where the cross stood by those who scoff at the cross, that by the
foolishness of the cross they may believe and be saved. Now, as soon as
we were all inside, the Saracens straightway pulled back the doors of
the church quickly behind our backs, locked them with bolts and locks,
as men are wont to do after they have pushed robbers violently into a
dungeon, and went away with the keys, thus leaving us prisoners in the
most delightful, lightsome and roomy of prisons, in the garden of the
most precious sepulchre of Christ, at the foot of the Mount of Calvary,
in the middle of the world. Oh, how joyous an imprisonment! how
desirable a captivity! how delightful an enclosure! how sweet a
locking-in, whereby the Christian is locked in and imprisoned in the
sepulchre of his LORD!”[32]

It is easy to see from the tone of Fabri’s narrative that the relief of
being free for a time from the contemptuous and often threatening
glances of the Saracen conquerors gave free play to devotional feelings
of which we should otherwise have had a very imperfect idea. The
following incident affords a very pleasing insight into the character of
the narrator:

“Lo, my brethren! the truth compels me to begin by telling you of my own
stupid carelessness and grievous irreverence, for which I beseech you to
pray to GOD on my behalf, that He may not lay up my misdeeds for
punishment at the last. This was what befell me, unhappy wretch that I
was, on my first pilgrimage. When we had been locked into the church,
and no longer feared any one, because no infidel was with us, we began
in our joy to run to and fro through the church, seeking the holy places
without any regular order, and every man went whithersoever he would at
the bidding of his own spirit. I did not hurry, but went with a slow
step towards the middle of the church, walking without any set purpose,
and after I had gone forward about seventeen paces I stopped, and
lifting up my face, looked at the vault above me. I cast my eyes upon
the upper windows with curiosity, as ill-bred men stare about in strange
places and houses without respect for any one, and so I stood by myself
with wandering eyes. As I stood thus thoughtlessly, there came to me two
ladies who were pilgrims; one of them was a German, Hildegarde by name,
and they fell down before my feet and lay there weeping and sobbing,
kissing the stone whereon I was standing. I was surprised and
astonished, and said in German to her: ‘What is the matter, Lady
Hildegarde, that you should do so?’ She answered me, scarce able to
speak for weeping: ‘Lo, my brother! the stone whereon you stand is that
whereon Joseph and Nicodemus laid the most precious body of our LORD
when He was taken down from the cross, and they anointed Him and wrapped
Him in His shroud upon this table of stone.’ When I heard this I
trembled, and drawing back my feet with horror, I fell on the earth
before the stone. I scarce dared now to touch with my mouth that which
before I had not feared to tread irreverently upon with my shod feet. ‘O
LORD,’ I prayed, ‘remember not the past sins of my youth, and the
present sins of my ignorance. O LORD my GOD, Thy chosen servant Moses
was bidden by Thee when in the desert of Midian to put his shoes from
his feet because the ground whereon he stood was holy; and the holy
Joshua did not dare to stand shod in the field of Jericho, yet I, who am
devoid of all holiness, full of vices, have dared to trample with my
shod feet all irreverently upon the place which Thou Thyself hast
sanctified with Thy most precious body, naked and wounded; nor can I
find any excuse, for we read that Uzzah was stricken dead by Thee
because he put forth his hand to the wain which bore Thy ark when it was
like to fall. And behold, here we have incomparably more beneath our
feet than the land of Midian or the field of Jericho; and a stone which
is more worthy of honour than the wain or the ark. Therefore, LORD GOD,
have patience with me, and I will pay Thee all reverence and honour at
Thy holy places, and will render to Thee whatever else is Thy due with
all the piety of which I am capable, and which Thou Thyself shalt bestow
upon me.’ After having prayed thus, I arose, and sought my lords and
companions throughout the church, and found them sitting together in the
chapel of the Blessed Virgin, waiting till the procession should be
formed.”

I trust that the reader will not take in bad part the prolixity of
Brother Fabri’s Scripture references. They bring out something of the
moral conditions under which medieval pilgrimages were made, just as the
material conditions are well illustrated in the passage which follows.

“Now the Father Guardian called together all the pilgrims, and set forth
to them the rules and customs of the Church, which he reduced to
thirteen heads:

“First, he told us that every pilgrim must buy a wax taper, which he
must carry lighted in the procession. For many merchants had come in
with us having wax tapers and other things for sale.

“Secondly, he bade the pilgrims take care to walk orderly in the
procession, so that one should not get in the way of another nor push
against him, as also we were bidden to do in the sixth article given to
us at Rama.

“Thirdly, that we should consecrate this night to God, and take part in
Matins and other services without any slackness.

“Fourthly, that we should not make the house of prayer into a house of
merchandise, and not sit and waste our time trafficking with the Eastern
merchants.

“Fifthly, he begged all such as were priests to go and celebrate Mass
without disputing one with another. For they are wont to quarrel about
places, and all of them want to celebrate Mass in the holy Sepulchre of
our Lord, which is impossible in one day.

“Sixthly, he appointed four altars for the celebrants—that is to say,
one in the Holy Sepulchre, one on Mount Calvary, one at the place of the
unction of Christ, whereof I have already spoken, and a fourth in the
chapel of the Virgin Mary. Besides these there are many other altars in
different parts of the church; but they belong to schismatics and
heretics, wherefore we did not celebrate Mass at them.

“Seventhly, he bade all pilgrims make ready to confess themselves, and
every one of them receive holy Communion after the service.

“Eighthly, he gave authority to all pilgrim priests, and to his own
brethren who had entered the church with us, to hear confessions both
actively and passively[33] and to absolve from all sins, even from those
reserved for the Holy See, for the guardian of Mount Sion has this power
delegated to him by the pope.

“Ninthly, he forbade any priest to administer the Eucharist to any
pilgrim as he stood at the place where he celebrated Mass, but he
ordered that all should receive the Sacrament after High Mass on Mount
Calvary from the priest who officiated there, unless he should grant any
special privilege to any one.

“Tenthly, he warned the pilgrims not to lay down or leave about their
property while they were making the round of the holy places in the
church, lest they should lose it, because thefts often took place there,
when suspicion and much disturbance arose.

“Eleventhly, in case any one should wish to give alms at the holy
places, and in giving them should wish to favour the Catholics rather
than the schismatics, he explained to them which were the places of the
Catholics and which were those of the schismatics.

“Twelfthly, he warned us that, as has been already treated of in the
first of the articles delivered to us at Rama, we must not break
anything off at the holy places, neither must any man draw his coat of
arms there, lest by their means holy places should be defiled.

“Thirteenthly, he besought us that each of us would rouse himself to a
spirit of lively devotion and that we would profit by these most holy
places, showing them that honour and reverence which is due to them.”

Of the emotions suggested by the procession itself as it passed from
shrine to shrine within the enclosure—the friars of Mount Sion arrayed
in their sacred vestments, the pilgrims following with lighted candles,
the precentor at the head of the procession intoning the “Salve Regina,”
as they started, “in a loud and cheerful voice” while all present took
up the strain—we shall have opportunity of speaking in a later chapter.
Fabri enumerates seventeen separate shrines which were thus visited,
including of course the place of the Crucifixion, the Holy Sepulchre,
the stone of unction, and the spot where our LORD was stripped and
nailed to the cross. Appropriate hymns and prayers were appointed for
each, and the ceremony must have taken some hours. In what follows the
narrator again reveals the spirit of the earnest pilgrim.

“When the procession was over, the pilgrims drew together according to
their several companies, into the various corners of the church, each
company sitting in its own place, for we were wearied and worn out, and
we made a sober meal. After we had eaten, we laid our heads against the
wall for a short rest, and lay asleep against the pavement. I myself
abode with the brethren of Mount Sion in the chapel of the Blessed
Virgin, who had given me a quiet place to sleep in, but I could by no
means close my eyes to sleep. Wherefore I arose straightway, lit my
candle, and joined the watchers at the holy places; for indeed the
greater part of the pilgrims were wandering about all the aforesaid holy
places as each one pleased, passing hither and thither as the spirit of
prayer moved them; for a pilgrim may enter the Holy Sepulchre, ascend
the Mount Calvary, or descend into the chapel of the Invention of the
Cross, and the other places as often as he pleases. In these solitary
visits to the holy places men feel greater devotion and abstraction from
the world than when they do so in the general procession, in which there
is much pushing and disorder and disturbance and singing and weeping,
whereas in the other case there is silence and peace. As I went the
round of the places for the second time I went down to the place of the
Invention of the Cross, and there said my matins. I took great delight
in that underground place, because it was quiet and suited to me, for
the Mount Calvary and the LORD’S Sepulchre and the other places up above
were filled with an unbroken throng of pilgrims, and very noisy.
Meanwhile some of my lords and their servants were running to and fro in
the church up above me, hunting in every corner, seeking for me to hear
their confessions, and never guessed me to be in that place. At last
they came down to where I was, and I heard them there, sitting in the
chair of St Helena.”

A quaint and very frank description follows of the struggle among the
priests to say Mass at the most coveted altars, and then good Brother
Fabri tells us briefly how:

“After we had finished our services and Masses, there came the pagan
Moorish lords, who threw open the gates of the church, making a great
noise with the doors, that we might go forth more quickly. On hearing
this we were frightened and distressed at our separation from such
delightful places, and we ran round from one holy place to another
kissing them; but as the pilgrims delayed their going by acting thus,
the Moors became angry, banged the doors of the church so violently that
the hinges creaked, and ran about with frightful yells among the holy
places, from which they drove the pilgrims by force, and turned every
one of us out of the church, except only the usual guardians. When they
had turned us out they shut the church doors and went their way, leaving
us in the courtyard outside. There we addressed ourselves to the
visiting of certain holy places near to the church.”

It is not very difficult to understand in the light of these
descriptions, first, that if men were resolute enough to face the
hardships of such a pilgrimage, the consolation and merit of visiting
the holy places must have appealed to them very strongly; and, secondly,
that among those unable to leave their homes a very ardent desire must
often have been felt to replace the actual pilgrimage by some domestic
practice of devotion. It is undoubtedly to this longing to share the
privileges of those who travelled beyond seas that we owe both the first
suggestion and the later developments of the exercise of the Way of the
Cross.

[Illustration: _THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE._ _From a Drawing by W.
H. Bartlett, c. 1835._]

Footnote 22:

  Keppler, “Die XIV Stationen des hl. Kreuzwegs. Eine geschichtliche und
  kunstgeschichtliche Studie,” p. 13. Freiburg: Herder. This has been in
  large measure supplemented by an article by Dr N. Paulus in the
  “Katholik” for April, 1895, entitled, “Zur Geschichte der
  Kreuzwegandacht.”

Footnote 23:

  “The Departure of my Lady Mary from this world,” translated from the
  Syriac by Dr William Wright, “Journal of Sacred Literature,” April,
  1865. This account is copied from a MS. of the sixth century. On the
  apocryphal “Transitus Mariæ,” see O. Sinding, “Mariæ Tod und
  Himmelfahrt,” and Mommert, “Die Dormitio und das deutsche Grundstück
  auf dem traditionellen Sion,” Leipzig, 1899.

Footnote 24:

  Tischendorf, “Apocalypses Apocryphæ,” introduction. This account is
  derived from the Codex Ambrosianus, L. 58.

Footnote 25:

  This, on the whole excellent, translation is the work of Mr Aubrey
  Stewart. In this and future extracts from Fabri I have occasionally
  ventured to modify a phrase or two where the original Latin seemed to
  be less felicitously rendered.

Footnote 26:

  Fabri (P.P.T.S.), vol. I, pp. 505, 506.

Footnote 27:

  According to the statement of an English pilgrim in MS. Harleian 2333,
  fol. 5a, the Franciscan guides used to explain everything in four
  languages, “that is to say, latyn, italien, frensche and duche.”

Footnote 28:

  Felix Fabri, p. 440.

Footnote 29:

  “The Book of the Wanderings of Brother Felix Fabri,” vol. I, pp. 393,
  394.

Footnote 30:

  “Voyage de la Saincte Cyté de Hierusalem,” ed. C. Schefer, p. 75.

Footnote 31:

  Fabri, pp. 508, 509.

Footnote 32:

  pp. 340, 341.

Footnote 33:

  The Latin is “dedit auctoritatem omnibus sacerdotibus ... active et
  passive audiendi confessiones.” It probably means that they could both
  receive the confession and give absolution.




          Chapter III—The Earliest Stations and their Sequence


The word _statio_ (station) appears in Christian literature from a very
early date, with a special and quasi-liturgical signification. It is not
quite easy to trace its primitive development. There can be little doubt
that its Christian meaning grew out of the military use of the term to
designate an outpost or picket, especially for night duty.[34] Early in
the second century it is familiar to Hermas[35] in the sense of a
“fast,” possibly, because on certain days, _stationes_ (i.e., vigils)
were kept up during the night and early morning beside the tombs of the
martyrs, such vigils being, perhaps, marked by a fast, or at least a
_semijejunium_. This, however, is quite uncertain. In the time of St
Cyprian, the word frequently had reference to the “synaxis,” or
gathering of the faithful for liturgical purposes, which took place on
those fast-days. In the indications still retained in the Roman Missal,
e.g., “Statio ad S. Anastasiam, Statio ad S. Laurentium,” etc., _statio_
no doubt denotes rather the service itself than the meeting-place in
which it was held. Such a rubric was intended to convey that the
_statio_, i.e., solemn Mass, with its accompanying procession, etc.,
took place on this day at the Church of St Anastasia or of St Laurence.
But the further use of the term in the general sense of halting-place in
a procession, or site calling for special veneration, was obvious, and
became familiar in the vulgar tongue of most European countries during
the middle ages. The “Stations of Rome,” for instance, is the title of a
fourteenth-century English guide-book, which gives in rude verse an
account of all the more conspicuous churches and of the holy places in
the city where indulgences could be gained.

In this sense the word _statio_ has been applied to the different
halting-places along the _Via Dolorosa_. Curiously enough, the first
instance of its consistent use, with this signification, meets us in the
narrative of an English pilgrim, Master William Wey, one of the original
fellows of Eton College. Wey visited Palestine on two separate
occasions—in 1458 and 1462. On both occasions he went to Jerusalem, and
made the ordinary round of the holy places (through the the city, and to
the Mount of Olives and back), under the guidance of the Franciscans of
Mount Sion. He obviously took special interest in the minute details of
these tours, for he has not only written a twofold account of most of
them, but he has invented an elaborate _memoria technica_, of which more
anon, for recalling them to mind in their proper order. Now, while Wey
gives minute descriptions, providing also memorial verses for each, of
several other tours, namely, the holy places around Bethlehem, the
places within the precincts of the Holy Sepulchre, the holy places
beside the Jordan, the holy places on Mount Sion, etc., he reserves the
name Stations for one tour, and one tour only, that within Jerusalem,
which begins with the sites of the _Via Crucis_. If these places had
been but once referred to in the volume which he has left us, we might
easily have supposed that the word _stationes_ appeared there by
accident, but seeing that it occurs four separate times in the same
connexion, and nowhere else, it would hardly be reasonable to explain
its presence in these passages by mere coincidence. First, we note that
among the headings of the memorial verses the tour beginning with the
_Via Crucis_ is entitled “Loca Sancta in _Stacionibus_ Jerusalem.” In
none of the rest does the italicized word appear, though we have “Loca
Sancta in Monte Syon,” “Loca Sancta in templo sancto Christianorum,”
“Loca Sancta in Bethlehem,” etc., in any one of which we might have
expected to find it. Again, in the general account, which is given
apart, when Wey begins a detailed description of the same tour, starting
eastwards from the Holy Sepulchre, we meet the rubric, “Hic incipiunt
sancte _Staciones_,” the other tours being headed like those just
referred to—“Peregrinaciones Vallis Josaphat,” “Peregrinaciones Montis
Oliveti,” “Peregrinaciones sacri Montis Syon,” etc. Then, in Wey’s
narrative of his first pilgrimage, the same word is twice repeated in
connexion with the same series of sites under the form “Peregrinaciones
ad loca _Stacionum_,” and, finally, in the account of the second journey
of 1462, the term seems to be introduced with emphasis into the text
itself. It will be well to translate this brief passage:

“After supper,” says the writer, “we lay down upon mats, and at early
dawn the brothers came to call us to make the round of the stations
(veniunt fratres vocantes nos ad peragrandum _staciones_). And so, upon
July 20, we traversed those sites (ivimus per ista loca). First, the
stone with crosses upon it on which CHRIST fell;[36] second, that paved
street in which CHRIST carried the cross; third, the house of the rich
man that was damned; fourth, the meeting of the ways where CHRIST fell
with His cross; fifth, the place where the women wept over CHRIST;
sixth, where Veronica received the countenance of CHRIST upon her
napkin; seventh, where the Blessed Virgin Mary swooned; eighth, the gate
through which CHRIST was led out to death; ninth, the pool where the
sick were healed at the moving of the waters; tenth, where are two white
stones built into the wall over the head of the passers-by, upon which
Jesus stood when He was sentenced to death by Pilate; the eleventh is
the school of the Blessed Mary, where she learnt to read; and along that
road on the other side is the house of Pilate, in which CHRIST was
scourged and condemned to death; and so on for the rest of the places in
Jerusalem—Josaphat, the Mount of Olives, the Valley of Siloe and Mount
Sion, as I have described them in my preceding itinerary.”

It seems to me not wholly accidental that Wey interrupts his list at the
house of Pilate. We may remember that the famous stations erected in
Nuremberg, at the instance of Martin Ketzel, begin with a _Pilatushaus_,
and were suggested seemingly by the pilgrimage he made in Palestine
about 1468, six years after Wey’s last visit to the Holy Land. We may
also remember that in the next century there is strong evidence of a
special cultus paid to this clearly-defined portion of the tour
(_peregrinatio_, _circulus_ or _Umgang_). Hence it seems likely that Wey
himself regarded the road along which our Saviour travelled to His death
as standing out in some conspicuous manner from the rest.

Other pilgrims in the latter part of the fifteenth century use the name
_Stationes_, though not seemingly with such an exclusive reference as
this English traveller to the sites along the Holy Way. The matter
deserves fuller investigation, although, on account of the very large
number of those who have left accounts of their pilgrimages at this
period, the undertaking would be a serious one. I may be content to
notice here the prominence given to the word Stations in the Pilgrims’
Guide of Antonio de Aranda, a Spanish Franciscan, who wrote in 1530. The
book is particularly important, because it does not, like so many of the
others, record merely the fleeting and necessarily inaccurate
impressions of a single hurried visit to the holy places, but the
writer, who was guardian of the important Franciscan Friary of Alcalà,
seems during a considerable period to have been the honoured guest of
his brethren of Mount Sion, and to have had constant opportunities of
obtaining information from those who lived on the spot.[37] Of Aranda’s
volume we shall have to speak further, but for the present it will be
sufficient to notice that he uses the word _estaciones_ frequently, and
that it seems to be particularly applied to the sites on the way to
Calvary, and not so commonly to be employed of the sites, even though
richly indulgenced, in the pilgrimages outside Jerusalem. Thus Chapter
XIV bears the following heading, conspicuous among the few such headings
in which the word _estaciones_ is introduced:

    “_Cap. XIV.—Of the Stations [estaciones] which there are from the
    House of Caiphas up to Calvary along the Road which_ CHRIST
    _travelled_.”

In this chapter, when referring more particularly to the way between
Pilate’s house and Calvary, Aranda makes the further statement that “in
this road there are three stations.” The first station so specified is
the meeting-place of our Blessed Lady and her Son. The second is that of
the meeting with the women. The third the house of Veronica.

Now, whether we look to the sites which, according to the testimony of
travellers, were held in honour in Jerusalem itself, or whether we look
to the imitation pilgrimages which were carved in stone or set down in
books for the devotion of the faithful at home, we must recognize that
there was a complete want of any sort of uniformity in the enumeration
of the Stations. As so much has just been said of William Wey’s
pilgrimage, we may conveniently take the first two verses of his
_memoria technica_, which by a coincidence happen to commemorate just
fourteen sites. They run as follows: In Wey’s own manuscript, and in the
reproduction of it for the Roxburghe Club, the words of which the verses
are made up are written in a very large hand, while the explanations of
each, here given in footnotes, are added in minute writing over the word
to which they have reference. The crosses, which in the MS. have been
written in red ink, indicate the places where plenary indulgences may be
gained.[38]

    “_Loca Sancta in Stacionibus Jerusalem_

    “Lap[39] strat[40] di[41] trivium[42] flent[43] sudar[44]
    sincopizavit[45]

    “Por[46]☩pis[47]☩lap[48]☩que schola[49]☩domus[50]☩ Her[51]
    Symonis[52] Pharisey.”

Those of my readers who do not understand the Latin explanations may be
referred back to the passage already translated from Wey (p. 48). The
places there mentioned are the same as those cited here, except that two
others, viz., the house of Herod and the house of Simon the Pharisee are
here added. It should be observed, too, that the memorial verses
continue without any break or division to indicate nearly thirty sites,
some within Jerusalem, some outside the walls. In all, the holy places
about Jerusalem number in his reckoning more than a hundred. It will be
seen that the fourteen Stations on this list by no means correspond to
those with which we are familiar. If we count the first mentioned by Wey
(_Lapis cum crucibus_, i.e., the stone with crosses shown in the
courtyard before the church of the Holy Sepulchre,) as the equivalent of
the scene of His third fall, we have only four others which can be
properly identified with ours. These are _trivium_, the “cross-road”
where Simon of Cyrene was made to assist our LORD; _flebant_, the
weeping women; _sudar_, i.e., _sudarium_, the napkin of Veronica; and
_sincopizavit_—“she swooned,” the meeting with Mary. _Strat_, the paved
way leading to the hill of Calvary; _di_, the house of the rich glutton
of the parable; _por_, the judicial gate of the old city: _pis_, the
probatic pool; _lap_, the two stones in the Ecce Homo arch; _schola_,
our Lady’s school; and the houses of Pilate, Herod and Simon the
Pharisee, expressed by the words _dom_, _Her_, _Symonis Pharisey_, are
only remotely related to the Way of the Cross as we know it. For
purposes of comparison it may be interesting to quote the narrative of
another English pilgrim, a layman of distinction, who made the same
round of stations about fifty years later, in 1506, and who has left an
account in the vernacular. He also, like Wey, travelled eastwards from
Calvary, but the pilgrimage, which in Wey’s time was performed in one
day, seems in 1506 to have been spread over several. The site which Wey
mentions first as _lapis cum crucibus_ (the stone with crosses) is
included by Sir Richard Guylforde[53] in the series of “stations” at the
Holy Sepulchre, being referred to in the following words:

“And withoute, forthe before the entre into this Temple (of the Holy
Sepulchre), X paces in distaunce, is put a stone in memorye and token
that our SAVYOUR CRISTE, berynge His Crosse, for very feblenesse, fell
there to the grounde undernethe the crosse.”

Then under the heading, “Pylgrymages within Iherusalem,” Guylforde
continues:

“[7] And so this day aforesayde we vysited all ye longe wey by the
whiche our SAVYOUR CRISTE was led frome the hous of Pylate unto the
place of His crucyfyinge.

“[6] And firste, as our way laye, we came to the house of Veronica,
whiche is from Pylate’s house 550 paces, where as our blessyd SAVYOUR
impressyd ye ymage of His face in her wympell whiche is at Rome, and is
there called the varnacle.

“[5] And from thens we went to the house of Diues Epulonis, qui sepultus
est in inferno, etc.

“[4] And from thens we went to a place called Bivium, that is as moche
to say as a crosse strete, or a crosse wey, where ye women of Jherusalem
stode and sorowfully wepte whan oure SAVYOUR was led to His deth, to
whom He sayde, ‘Wepe ye not vpon me, ye daughters of Jherusalem, but
wepe ye vpon yourself and vpon your children,’ etc.

“[3] Item nexte is the place where ye Jewes constreyned Symeon Cirenen,
comynge from the towne, to take the crosse after our SAVYOUR, etc.

“[2] The next place y^t we come to is wher our blessyd Lady stode when
she met with her dere Sone berynge His crosse, where, for ouer moche
sorowe and dolour of herte, she sodenly fell into a sowne and
forgetfulness of her mynde; and this place is called Scta Maria de
Spasmo. Saynt Elyn buylded a churche there, but it is downe, and ye
Sarrasyns haue often attempted to buylde there, but their edifying wold
not stande in no wyse.

“[1] Item, as we passyd by ye strete, there standeth an arche ouer ye
way, vpon ye whiche stoude ii large whyte stones; vpon the one of them
our SAVYOR stode whan he was juged to deth, and upon ye other stode
Pylate whan he yaue sentence yt he shuld be crucyfied.”

I have prefixed numerals in square brackets to these paragraphs to call
attention to an interesting change in the practice of the pilgrim guides
at Jerusalem. Eleven years after the voyage of Sir Richard Guylforde to
the East, another English pilgrim, Sir Richard Torkington, a priest, set
out to visit the holy places, and he also compiled an account of his
adventures. In accordance with a custom very prevalent in the days when
literary copyright was yet unknown, Torkington freely availed himself of
the descriptions left by previous travellers. Guylforde’s pilgrimage had
been printed by Pynson in 1511, and from this source Torkington has
copied almost verbatim the account there given of the various shrines
and stations in Jerusalem. But there is one noteworthy modification. In
his description of “the longe way by whiche our SAVYOUR CHRISTE was led
unto the place of His crucyfyinge,” Torkington, while borrowing sentence
by sentence the exact words of his predecessor, has carefully arranged
the sites in the reverse order. From this it seems clear that in 1517
the good Franciscans at Jerusalem had for some reason changed their
practice and now conducted the pilgrims along the way of the Cross
_towards_ Calvary, as our LORD Himself had travelled on His last
sorrowful journey. At any rate, so far as I am aware, we do not after
this date find in the descriptions of the _Via Dolorosa_ that the sites
are any longer enumerated in the reverse order _from_ Calvary eastward.

But to return to Sir Richard Guylforde’s description. It may be noted
from what follows that he passes without perceptible break from the
Stations of the Way of the Cross to other sanctuaries. We may fairly
infer that in 1507 the Way of the Cross was not yet generally recognized
as a separate object of devotion:

“From thens we went vnto ye hous of Pylate, in ye whiche our SAVYOURE
was scorged, betyn, crowned with thornes, and put to all iniuryes y^t
myght be deuysed, and fynally condempned to deth; there is also clene
remyssyon.

“And there is also the way that gothe to the Temple, by the whiche, when
the Jewes came from the Temple, they cryed, ‘Crucifige,’ etc.

“From thens we went vnto the hous of Herode, that is on the lefte hand
of Pylates hous, and standeth hygher vpon the fronte of the hyll, into
the whiche hous our SAVYOUR was presented unto Herode by Pylates
sendynge, accusyed by ye Jewes; neverthelesse, the sayde Herode clothed
hym in a whyte garment, and sent hym agen to Pylate, _et facti sunt
amici Herodes et Pilatus in illo die_, etc., and thyse ii houses of
Pylate and Herode be yet now moch what the fayrest houses in Jherusalem,
and specyally the house of Herode.

“Therby is an other fayre hous y^t was sometime a fayre churche of Saynt
Anne, but now ye Sarrasyns have made thereof a muskey [mosque], that is
to say, theyr temple, and that is the selfe place y^t was Saynt Anne’s
house, and there she died; and in a vaught vnderneath is the very selfe
place where our blessyd Lady was borne; and there is plenarye remyssyon.
The Sarrasyns wyll suffre no man to come into this place, but pryuely or
for brybes, because it is theyr muskey.

“Nota that relyques of the stones of the place there our Lady was borne
is remedy and consolacion to women that travayll of childe, etc.

“Item, a lytell therby is Probatica Piscina, where our SAVYOUR healyd
many men that were seke, as the Gospell sheweth, etc.

“From thens we went to the hous where the synnes of Mary Magdalene were
foryeuen.”[54]

[Illustration: _MAP OF JERUSALEM._ _From MS. Addit. 33566, at the
British Museum, drawn about 1616 by Giovanni Cales to illustrate the
Viaggio di Gerusalemme of Vincenzo Favi._ The dotted line from 29 to 38
represents the Via Dolorosa. The other dotted line represents what Cales
believed to be the position of the City Wall in the time of Our Lord.
_The principal sites, as indicated by the numbers, are thus explained by
the artist_: 12-14. The Temple, now the Mosque of Omar. 29. Pilate’s
House. 30. Herod’s House. 31. Supposed place of the Scourging. 32. Arch
from which Christ was shown to the people. 33. Church of Our Lady’s
Swoon. 34. Place where Simon of Cyrene came to help our Lord. 35. The
Glutton’s House. 36. The House of the Pharisee. 37. House of Veronica.
7. Judicial Gate. 38. Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 9. Mount Sion and
the Cenacle.]

However, despite a good deal of variation in the selection, arrangement,
number and distances of the Stations, it is clear that at Jerusalem in
the early part of the sixteenth century the traversing of the route of
our SAVIOUR from Pilate’s house to Calvary had already begun to be
regarded as a special exercise of devotion which was in some sense
complete in itself. Aranda, who, by the by, sets down the distance at
1,862 _passos_,[55] tells us that this is the Holy Way, _par
excellence_, “Esta es la via sancta particularmente ansi llamada de los
Cristianos”; and he remarks further, “Also it is to be observed that
this road from Pilate’s house to Calvary is that which we friars
(nosotros los frayles) are wont to follow when for our devotion, and out
of reverence for our SAVIOUR, we set out to traverse the very road
which, as we believe, His most compassionate Majesty Himself trod.”

Undoubtedly one of the earliest indications of special veneration
attaching to the holy “Cruysganck,” i.e., the carrying of the Cross, is
the practice of measuring the distance from the Prætorium to the place
of Crucifixion. The first traveller who seems to attach importance to
the exact distance from Pilate’s house to Calvary, and who professes to
have carefully measured it, is Martinus Polonus, in 1422.[56] Polonus
estimates the length of our LORD’S last journey at 450 paces. Martin
Ketzel, who had the famous Stations erected at Nuremberg, lost the
measurements he made during his first pilgrimage (_c._ 1468), and
actually undertook a second pilgrimage some few years later in order to
take the measurements again. In spite of all the care supposed to have
been used by Polonus and others the most extraordinary diversity
prevails in the measurements given, which, for fear of the Turks, could
only be made in paces. Thus, while Polonus, in 1422, gives the distance
from Pilate’s house to Calvary at 450 paces, it is set down by sundry
different travellers—as Tobler[57] points out—in 1479, at 1,050 paces;
in 1491, 1000; in 1507, 1,067; in 1508, 500; in 1519, 846; in 1586, 750;
in 1593, 1,321 (this last measurement is that of Adrichomius); in 1611,
850. It is to be noted that by _passus_ some travellers must have meant
a double step, others a single stride, but even so the divergence is
difficult to explain. Probably the main cause of the discrepancy was the
fact, as we shall have occasion to note further on, that the ground
between the old Judicial Gate and Calvary was all built over. Hence
pilgrims could only guess at the path actually followed by our LORD.

The only satisfactory way of bringing home to the reader the wide
divergence between the Stations in Jerusalem itself, as known to
travellers between 1300 and 1720, and those of our modern Way of the
Cross would be to draw up an elaborate table recording the dates of the
principal narratives and all the sites mentioned in them. This can
hardly be attempted here save on a very small scale, which does not in
any way make apparent to the eye the complete absence of any record
regarding the first two falls, the sentence by Pilate or the stripping
of the garments. On the other hand, if we accept the mention of the Ecce
Homo Arch—i.e., the two stones, as Wey calls them—as the equivalent of
the reception of the cross, and the stone marked with crosses before the
Holy Sepulchre as the site of the the third fall, it may be said that
these two stations—the second and the ninth—appear in the narrative of
almost every early traveller.[58] This disposes of six stations, and the
four last—the nailing to the cross, the crucifixion, the taking down and
the entombment of our SAVIOUR—call for no comment. We are left,
therefore, with four variable stations, which may be thus indicated: the
meeting with our Blessed Lady by M, that with Simon of Cyrene by S, that
with the women of Jerusalem by W, and that with Veronica by V. With
regard to these, the data of our selection of travellers may be
tabulated as follows. The order of these meetings is that in which they
would have occurred as our SAVIOUR made His painful way from the
Prætorium towards Calvary.[59]

              1294     Ricoldo              W M       S

              1320     Pipinus              M S       W

              1350     Dublin MS.           W M       S

              1384[60] Gucci                M M[61]   S

              1391     Swinburn and Brigg   M         S

              1395     Ogier d’Anglure      M W       S
                                            M

              1419     Nompar de Caumont    M { W

                                              { S

              1422     Johannes Polonus     M { W

                                              { S

              1435     Lochner              M V W     S V

              1436     Georg Pfintzing      M W       S V

              1458     Wey                  M V       W S

              1480     Fabri                M W       S V

              1483     Breydenbach          M S       W V

              1484     Francisco Suriano    M W       S V

              1491     Dietrich von         M { W     V
                       Schachten

                                              { S

              1496     Harff                M W       V

              1506     Guylforde            M S       W V

              1530     Aranda               M S       W V

              1586     Zuallardo            M S       W V

              1620     Bernardino Amico     M S       W V

              1639     Quaresmius           M { S     V

                                              { W

              1646     Surius               M S       W V

              1656     Parviller            M S       W V

              1674     Nau                  M S       W V

              1694     Caccia               M S       W V

              1713     Hietling             M S       V W

              1716     Turpetin             M S       W V

              1724     Francisco Jesus      M S       W V
                       Maria

              1735     Myller               M S       V W

              1736     Antonio do           M S       V W
                       Sacramento

              1744     Horn                 M S       V W

It will be remarked that no mention of Veronica occurs before the
account of Lochner in 1435. In his narrative, her name appears twice,
though that marked V(1) is but a casual allusion. In all the later
descriptions down to 1713, with the single exception of Wey in 1458, the
meeting with Veronica comes nearest to Calvary. Wey is so painstaking in
his descriptions that when we couple his divergence from the commoner
arrangement with the double mention of Veronica in Lochner we are led to
the conclusion that the tradition about the site of Veronica’s house
remained rather vague and uncertain until some years after we first hear
of it. During the same period the meeting of our LORD with Simon of
Cyrene and that with the holy women were uniformly regarded as having
taken place close together. It is noteworthy, then, how completely our
present arrangement of stations, which separates the holy women and
Simon of Cyrene by Veronica and by the second fall, contradicts all
local tradition. But upon this point there will be occasion to speak
further in a later chapter.

Footnote 34:

  See Professor Funk’s article in the “Real-Encyclopädie der
  Christlichen Alterthümer” (F. X. Kraus), II, p. 783.

Footnote 35:

  “Pastor”; Sim. v, I.

Footnote 36:

  It will be noticed that Wey, like the pilgrims referred to in our last
  chapter, travelled in the opposite direction to our Lord, beginning
  from Calvary and going eastwards.

Footnote 37:

  “Verdadera Informacion de la Tierra Sancta,” by Ant. de Aranda,
  Guardian de Sant Francisco de Alcalà de Henares. The preface is dated
  1530 from the Franciscan monastery of Mount Sion, but the first
  edition of the book, it is interesting to note, was printed in 1533,
  by Miguel de Eguya, the printer who harboured St Ignatius at Alcalà,
  and brother of the Diego de Eguya who became a Jesuit, and who was the
  saint’s confessor down to the time of his death. I have only had
  access to the edition of Toledo, 1550.

Footnote 38:

  Wey also copied into his book another account of the holy places at
  Jerusalem in English verse. This is seemingly of older date than his
  own, and no mention is made of Veronica. But we read, e.g.:

                    Ther JHESU mett with his Modyr Marie
                    Ther sorowyd together both He and she;
                    And ther the wymmen of Jerusalem
                    Wept on CHRYST when that He cam.

  Another copy of this poem, with many variations, is in MS. Ashmole,
  61.

Footnote 39:

  _Lapis_ cum crucibus super quem CHRISTUS cecidit cum cruce.

Footnote 40:

  _Strata_ per quam CHRISTUS transivit ad suam passionem.

Footnote 41:

  Domus _divitis_ negantis micas dare Lazaro.

Footnote 42:

  Ubi CHRISTUS cecidit cum cruce.

Footnote 43:

  Locus ubi mulieres _flebant_ propter CHRISTUM.

Footnote 44:

  Locus ubi vidua sive Veronica posuit _sudarium_ super faciem CHRISTI.

Footnote 45:

  Locus ubi beatissima Maria _sincopizavit_.

Footnote 46:

  _Porta_ per quam CHRISTUS transibat ad passionem.

Footnote 47:

  _Piscina_ in qua egroti sanabantur tempore CHRISTI.

Footnote 48:

  _Lapides_ super quos stetit CHRISTUS quando judicatus erat ad mortem.

Footnote 49:

  Locus ubi beata Maria transivit ad _scolas_.

Footnote 50:

  _Domus_ Pilati.

Footnote 51:

  Domus _Herodis_.

Footnote 52:

  Domus _Simonis Pharisey_.

Footnote 53:

  Sir Richard Guylforde was Master of the Ordnance, Knight of the Garter
  and a privy councillor. He died at Jerusalem in the course of his
  pilgrimage, and the account of his travels was written by his
  chaplain.

Footnote 54:

  “The Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde to the Holy Land, A.D. 1506,”
  pp. 28-30.

Footnote 55:

  He evidently means to be particularly accurate, for he remarks that
  the said paces are “those which we friars commonly use when we are
  stepping out freely”; “que comunmente hazemos los frayles quando
  caminamos a passo largo.”

Footnote 56:

  “Et est notandum quod a loco Calvarie usque ad idem prætorium sunt 450
  passus, quos omni diligentia, qua potui, numeravi” (Tobler,
  “Descriptiones,” p. 229).

Footnote 57:

  “Topographie von Jerusalem,” I, p. 236.

Footnote 58:

  Curiously enough this stone with crosses—“_lapis cum crucibus_,” as
  Wey called it—in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
  seems to drop out of sight in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
  It is clearly shown in Breydenbach’s woodcut (_c._ 1487), copied on p.
  28, where the pilgrims are seen kissing it. Not only Wey but Fabri
  asserts that there were many crosses on the stone (see p. 29 above).
  Yet many other pilgrims state that it was a small stone marked with
  only one cross. See e.g. M. Tschudi, 1519, “Reyss,” p. 191.

Footnote 59:

  In the narratives of the pilgrims, as explained above, the Stations
  are nearly always described in the reverse order, as seen by one
  travelling eastwards away from Calvary.

Footnote 60:

  Where two M’s or two V’s are given there are two mentions of Mary or
  Veronica, as the case may be.

Footnote 61:

  Dietrich expressly states that CHRIST spoke to the Holy Women in the
  very act of being relieved of His Cross by Simon of Cyrene. Aranda
  suggests the same. Others, e.g., Brasca, remark that He spoke to them
  as soon as the taking of the cross by Simon enabled Him for the first
  time to turn His head.




                      Chapter IV—The “Seven Falls”


Although we have already taken note of some isolated attempts to imitate
in western lands the construction or relative position of the
sanctuaries of Jerusalem, there seems to be no evidence of the erection
of anything like a definite “Way of the Cross” before the closing years
of the fifteenth century. It is not quite easy to determine what is the
earliest example of any system of devotional Stations in stone or wood
intended to recall the road to Calvary. Perhaps from their nearness to
the source of inspiration a set of seven columns at Rhodes, of which we
hear something at the beginning of the sixteenth century, may have the
best claim to take precedence, but I must confess that my efforts to
gain any authentic information about these interesting pillars have been
unsuccessful. An almost equal degree of obscurity attends the erection
at Görlitz of a series of Stations which are known to have begun with
some sort of representation of “Pilate’s house.” A certain George
Emmerich, we are told, who visited the Holy Land in 1465, erected a
model of the Holy Sepulchre on his return. Besides this he attempted to
reproduce the scenes around, building his chapel at the exact distance
from the Church of St Peter that Calvary was separated from the
Prætorium. A set of Stations was added, two of which, though the
subjects can hardly be recognized, are still preserved.[62]

[Illustration: _THE SECOND AND FIFTH STATIONS._ _Carved by Adam Krafft
at Nuremberg. See pp. 64 and 63 note._]

But by far the best known work of this kind of early date[63] is the
famous series of carvings executed by Adam Krafft of Nuremberg at the
instance of Martin Ketzel, to whose pilgrimage reference has already
been made. These Stations were probably completed before 1490, and are
still to be seen, though they have undergone several restorations, and
some of them, which were more exposed to the weather, have of late years
been removed to the museum.[64] They are seven, or more accurately
eight, in number, and have inscriptions carved under them, naming the
subject of the group, and giving the distance from Pilate’s house. Thus
the inscription under the first Station runs: “Here JESUS meets His dear
and Blessed Mother, who swooned away for anguish of heart. Two hundred
paces from Pilate’s house.”[65] The other six subjects, with their
distances, may be more summarily named. The second is Simon of Cyrene,
295 paces; the third, the women of Jerusalem, 380 paces;[66] the fourth,
Veronica, 500 paces; the fifth, JESUS sinking under the cross and
belaboured by the Jews, 780 paces; the sixth, JESUS prostrate under the
cross, 1,000 paces; the last, JESUS laid in the arms of His Blessed
Mother.[67] The distances are in each case supposed to be measured from
Pilate’s house, but no figures are given in the last case. It seems
certain that this and similar arrangements of seven Stations, resembling
but not necessarily identical with Krafft’s, were popularly known as the
“Seven Falls,”[68] for in all of them our SAVIOUR, if not actually
prostrate, was conceived as either sinking under His burden, or
staggering again to His feet. In the case of the Nuremberg Stations the
evidence for the use of this name is quite unequivocal. A chronicler of
the city records that in the year 1508 he (Adam Krafft) had carved in
stone and erected before the gate of the Garden of Beasts the Seven
Falls of Christ, as they were commonly called, with seven crosses
extending to Mount Calvary, that is to say, to the chapel besides St
John’s Church, called the Sepulchre Chapel; and there there was a great
cross with the two thieves.

The Stations supposed to be imitated from Krafft at St Getreu, in
Bamberg, dating from 1507, were also seven in number, and Tilmann
Riemenschneider seems to have carried out other sets of a similar
character.[69] We may very probably regard an early set of Stations
erected by one Peter Sterckx (or Peter Potens) at Louvain after his
return from Jerusalem about 1505 as another example of the Seven Falls.
There are said to be eight subjects, but it does not seem very clear
whether there were eight different halting-places. They ended in a
chapel, known as the Capelle van Calvarien, and they began with the
House of Pilate, which stood at the corner of St James’s Churchyard.
Peter Calentyn, whose devotional work on the Stations will shortly be
mentioned, wrote a separate tract on the _Cruysganck_ of Louvain, in
which he assigns the exact locality where each sculpture had been
erected. After the House of Pilate, which no doubt represented our
modern Station, “JESUS is condemned to death,” there follows (2) the
first fall, (3) Simon of Cyrene (this stood near the house of the Irish
Dominicans), (4) Veronica, (5) the second fall, (6) the women of
Jerusalem, (7) the third fall, (8) the stripping of the garments. It
will be noticed that these Stations correspond with those of Adam Krafft
neither in subject nor in order; but in spite of this there was great
pretence of accurate measurement. From the Louvain Pilatushuys to the
Capelle van Calvarien were counted 662 double paces or 1,324 single
steps. Each step, Calentyn is careful to note, measured two-and-a-half
feet, and each pace consequently five feet. These Stations long
continued to excite the devotion of the faithful. A writer who gave a
description of them in 1666 tells us: “On y va en pélerinage fort
dévotement principalement en la semaine sainte.” We shall see further on
that this set of Stations at Louvain has exercised a preponderating
influence upon the selection and arrangement of the fourteen now
universally adopted in our churches.[70]

The little work of Peter Calentyn on the Stations of Louvain seems to be
much more rarely found than his translation of the devotional work of
Jan Pascha.[71] I have not been able to meet with a copy of the former,
and I know it only from the extracts given by Van Even.

Another set of Stations which has given rise to a whole literature of
its own, mostly consisting of volumes absolutely inaccessible outside of
France, are those connected with the famous Calvary of Romans in
Dauphiné.[72] If we were to attempt any account of the Calvaries which
existed in Brittany, Southern France, Italy and Germany, it would be
impossible to keep this little book within reasonable limits.[73] But in
the story of the foundation of the Calvary of Romans we hear
incidentally of two other sets of Seven Stations. One Romanet Boffin, a
merchant of Romans, having had occasion for matters of business to
travel to Fribourg in 1515, was greatly impressed by certain memorials
of the Passion of our SAVIOUR which had been erected in that city. These
consisted of a Calvary with seven “pillars,” which a Knight of Rhodes,
Peter of Englisberg, who had been made commander of the commandery of St
John Baptist of Fribourg, forthwith set up as an exact reproduction of
seven other pillars existing in the Isle of Rhodes, which commemorated
in their turn the holy places of Jerusalem. Romanet Boffin was so
edified that he asked the permission of the magistrates of Fribourg to
erect a similar set of Stations in his native city, and was presented
with a document, still extant, which attests that he had accurately
measured the distances.[74]

Boffin had previously sought and obtained the approval of the
magistrates of his native town, who gave him leave to appropriate the
sites which were necessary for his purpose.[75] His plans seem to have
developed and to have grown more ambitious as he found that the scheme
gained in popularity. He accordingly obtained a Bull from Leo X giving
him permission to visit the Holy Land, and there is also extant an
indulgence granted to this Calvary a few years later.

The story is rather obscure, but the Calvary at Romans seems to have
consisted of a multitude of Stations, which varied greatly in number at
different epochs. Two friars of Jerusalem told Boffin that there ought
to be thirty-one in all. In certain books of piety published about the
Romans Calvary as early as 1515 twenty-five are named. In the “Voyage et
Oraisons du Mont Calvaire de Romans,” printed by Jacques Kerver in 1556,
the number is nineteen. In the “Directoire du Voyage” of Friar Archange
de Clermont in 1638 there are as many as thirty-seven.

Although it is extremely interesting to hear of these seven Stations at
Rhodes, from which the Stations of Fribourg were copied, it may perhaps
seem rash to infer that all such sets of seven, like Krafft’s,
represented the seven falls.[76] Curiously enough, however, a piece of
evidence which at first sight appears to create a serious difficulty
proves on examination to tell the other way.

[Illustration: _THE INCIDENT OF SIMON OF CYRENE._ _An illustration of
the “Geystlich Strass,” Nuremberg, 1521. See pp. 79-80._ The pillar form
affected in these illustrations undoubtedly bears witness to the
familiar occurrence of such stations erected at carefully measured
distances in churchyards, or by the wayside. The artist who designed
these illustrations has clearly been inspired by Adam Krafft’s carving.]

We may find in Sanderus’ “Chorographia”[77] a mention of the cemetery of
the Franciscans at Antwerp, which had seven sculptures, depicting the
seven dolours of our Blessed Lady. “So great,” he says, “is the devotion
of the populace to these Stations, that people are to be found making
them at all hours of the day. Especially on Fridays, after Compline, the
friars all go two and two to the altar of our Lady of Sorrows, and there
two cantors intone aloud the ‘Stabat Mater,’ to which the community
respond very beautifully in harmony. Then they all go out to the
Stations, a great crowd of people following behind. The whole assembly
kneels down before each Station in turn, and three ‘Our Fathers’ and
‘Hail Marys’ are said by each person in silence. At the end is sung the
antiphon, ‘Sancta Maria,’ etc., by way of conclusion. This is not,” says
Sanderus, “a modern devotion. It was famous in this place as far back as
the year 1520, when Leo X granted an indulgence of 100 days for each
Station.”[78]

Now it would of course seem at first sight that a series of seven
sculptures consecrated to the dolours of our Lady almost necessarily
excluded the idea of any other object of devotion, and notably the seven
falls of our Blessed LORD. But this, as appears on further examination,
would be a rash inference.

In the National Museum at Stockholm are to be found an extremely
interesting series of fifteenth-century engravings representing
simultaneously the seven falls of our LORD _and_ the Seven Sorrows of
His Blessed Mother. They bear inscriptions as follows:

“1. This picture shows the first painful fall, when the LORD JESUS, tied
as He was with bonds, was thrown down off the bridge into the brook
Cedron.

“2. This picture shows the second painful fall when the LORD JESUS in
the open street fell, heavily to the ground on His way from Herod to
Pilate.

“3. This picture shows the third murderous fall, when the LORD JESUS
fell heavily swooning upon the steps [apparently before Pilate’s
judgement seat].

“4. This picture shows the fourth pitiful fall, when the LORD JESUS,
after the scourging, fell fainting beside the pillar.

“5. This representation shows the fifth lamentable fall, when the LORD
JESUS fell to the ground under the cross upon which he had been
condemned to die. [Simon of Cyrene is shown trying to help to lift our
LORD.]

“6. This picture shows the sixth painful fall, when the LORD JESUS was
cruelly thrown down naked upon the cross [‘mütternackt,’ as naked as
when He was born].

“7. This design [‘hochentworff’] shows the seventh heart-breaking fall,
when the LORD JESUS, already nailed to the cross, was again cast down to
earth. ‘O Mary help us, Amen.’” (The cross is supposed to have fallen
forward out of its socket.)

In each of the seven pictures our Lady is shown with the sword in her
heart. No exact date, or even approximate estimate, is assigned by
Schreiber for this series.[79]

Another similar set of woodcut pictures is described by the same
authority in nos. 645, 647, 653, 655 and 683. (To these we may add
perhaps 643, the fall into the Cedron, where our Lady is represented
with a sword in her breast, an engraving dated by Schreiber, _c._ 1490.)
This second series seems once to have had an inscription repeated in
each picture: “O mensch betracht dy siben vell CHRISTI und di siben
hertzenlayd Marie.—O man, contemplate the seven falls of CHRIST and the
seven heart-breaking sorrows of Mary.”

645 represents a fall in the street. There is no cross, but Mary and
John are there looking on. No sword is represented.

647. JESUS falls on being dragged up the steps to the Governor Pilate.
Mary, with sword in her breast, and John are present.

653. JESUS, in a swoon, falls to the ground beside a pillar. Judas is
looking in through one window; Mary and John through another.

655. JESUS falls under the cross. Simon of Cyrene tries to help Him.
Mary looks on with a sword piercing her heart; John stands besides her.

683. Erection of the cross. Mary, with the sword in her heart, is
standing by.

The series is incomplete.

The subjects represented in these two sets of the “Seven Falls” are
apparently identical, and they must be compared with the pious
contemplations contained in a little devotional booklet called the
“Mount of Calvary” (“Dit is den berch van Calvarien”), printed at Leyden
in Holland about 1520.[80] Here we find suggested a pious method of
following with prayers and aspirations the Passion and seven falls of
our SAVIOUR, though these are not in any way identical with Krafft’s,
but begin, like the series just mentioned, with the legendary fall of
our Blessed LORD in crossing the brook of Cedron (_de torrente in via
bibet_). The booklet is illustrated with woodcuts of the roughest
description, but it is noteworthy that these include both the sentencing
of CHRIST to death by Pilate and the stripping of the garments. As for
the falls, the seven enumerated are (1) at the brook of Cedron, (2) on
the way to Herod, (3) on the steps of Pilate’s house when sentence was
passed, (4) at the scourging, (5) during the carrying of the cross, (6)
when thrown down for the nailing, (7) when the cross, with our LORD upon
it, was allowed to slip back just after it had been raised, so that His
sacred face was once more dashed against the ground.

This is not supposed to be an exhaustive list of the falls of our
SAVIOUR; for the text of the book expressly states that our LORD
revealed to a holy virgin that He fell thirty-two times “between
Jerusalem and Calvary.” As the reader who may compare this list with
that given above will see at a glance, the series of falls contemplated
here is identical with that delineated in the Stockholm woodcuts. On the
other hand, they are quite different, as already noticed, from the Seven
Falls of Adam Krafft, though the purpose of both exercises is identical.
This purpose is plainly declared upon the first page of the “Berch van
Calvarien,” where the title runs: “This is the Mount of Calvary: a very
devout handbook for a Christian man, to teach him how men ought to climb
the Mount of Calvary and help our LORD to carry His heavy cross, when He
has become very weary through the grievous dread of death.”

We may conjecture perhaps that the exercises of the booklet are really
older than the time of Martin Ketzel, Krafft and Sterckx, and that these
latter considered that they would accomplish their devout purpose better
if, to make the exercise still more realistic, they confined the set of
Seven Falls to the incidents of the journey from Pilate’s house to
Calvary. The inclusion by Sterckx of the stripping of the garments as
one of the “falls” (see above, p. 65), must, one would think, be more
than a coincidence.

Before quitting this subject I may call attention to a paragraph about
the Seven Falls, occurring in an English Catholic book of devotion of
the early seventeenth century. It is abridged from a Flemish volume of
much older date, about which we shall have much to say in the next
chapter. The passage runs as follows:

“Considering it is almost impossible, for a Pilgrim to goe a longe way
without fallinge, thou shalt recollect the seaven fallings of CHRISTE
our LORD, takinge one of them for every day in the weeke.

“The first, the falling our LORD being taken, when they hastened Him to
passe over the water of Cedron.

“The second, the falling of our LORD in the streete, being sent from
Pilate to Herod and back againe, thrust and thronged by the Jewes.

“The third, the fallinge of our sweete REDEEMER with His face upon the
steppes of Pilate’s House.

“The fourth, His fallinge after His scourging through His extreme
debilitie and weakness.

“The fifth, in His voiage to the Mount of Calvarie, falling seaven
sundry times to the earth by the way under the heavie burden of His
crosse.

“The sixth falling was when so inhumainly He was thrown downe upon the
crosse, and most lamentably nayled and stretched thereon.

“The seventh fallinge, when He was nayled, lifted up and let fall into
the mortice of the crosse, with a most stronge torture and rueful paine
to al His holy members.”[81]

Two points are noteworthy in this extract. First it will be observed how
the writer, or rather the sixteenth-century Flemish original which he is
summarizing, shows his consciousness, under heading five, of the
prevalence of a twofold system of falls, one embracing the whole of the
Passion, the other confined, like Adam Krafft’s sculptures, to the
carrying of the cross to Calvary. Secondly the change in the character
of the seventh fall should not be overlooked. In the examples hitherto
cited we have heard of the cross falling again to earth after it had
been fixed in its place. Here it is assumed that by the seventh fall of
our SAVIOUR we are only to understand the terrible shock with which the
cross settled down into the hole prepared for it. This last, of course,
is a much less extravagant supposition, but there can be no question
that the former legend was current among many writers at the beginning
of the sixteenth century. A prayer in the little Flemish book, “Den
Berch van Calvarien,” already mentioned, leaves no room for ambiguity;
this is how it is worded:

“O sweet LORD JESUS, I thank You from the bottom of my heart, and remind
You of that most painful fall when You were lifted up upon the cross,
and those ferocious Jews made You fall down again so cruelly with the
cross, that Your holy Face was imprinted on the earth, and all Your
veins rent and all Your sinews torn. And this was the greatest pain that
You suffered on this earth. O holy, strong and sweet GOD, I pray You by
this most heavy fall imprint again on me Your divine image and forgive
me the seven deadly sins in so far as I may have been guilty of them.
Have mercy on me, dear LORD, and receive me again into Your divine
grace. Amen.”

Footnote 62:

  See Lutsch, “Die Kunstdenkmäler des Reg. Bezirks Liegnitz,” part IV,
  pp. 676-677. This erection was commemorated in verse a century later
  by Bartholomew Andreade, who writes, for instance:

               Quosque per anfractus DOMINUS salebrasque viarum
                 Robora sustinuit bajulus alta crucis,
               Hos certo referet quem pingimus ordine tractus,
                 Unum ut qui novit, norit utrumque locum.

  See C. G. Hoffmann, “Scriptores Rerum Lusaticarum,” vol. I, part ii,
  pp. 129-120.

Footnote 63:

  Mgr von Keppler quotes Wadding’s “Annales” for the statement that
  Philip of Aquila in 1456 erected a set of Stations in the Franciscan
  friary to which he belonged. I can find no justification for this
  assertion in Wadding or in the “Acta Sanctorum.” Wadding states only
  that B. Philip built little oratories, but no mention is made of the
  Passion or the Way of the Cross.

Footnote 64:

  Daun, “Adam Krafft und die Künstler seiner Zeit,” 1897, p. 65; and cf.
  “Mittheilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg,” II,
  1880, p. 83.

Footnote 65:

  “Hir begegnet JESUS seiner wirdigen lieben Mutter, die vor grossem
  herzenleit anmechtig ward; IIc. schrytt von Pilatus haus.” The two
  Stations represented opposite have only been superimposed for
  convenience sake. Originally of course they stood many hundred yards
  apart, as the inscriptions indicate. The fourth of the series is
  reproduced in the frontispiece.

Footnote 66:

  How untrustworthy all these data are, may be seen from the fact that
  by several of the earlier fifteenth-century pilgrims the meeting with
  Simon of Cyrene and the women of Jerusalem is represented as taking
  place at the same point of the crossroads, and yet according to these
  measurements these two spots are nearly one hundred yards distant from
  each other.

Footnote 67:

  Although another carving, now very much mutilated, represents the
  Crucifixion, it would almost seem that this and the last are intended
  to form but one Station.

Footnote 68:

  “Anno 1508 hat er (Adam Krafft) vor dem Thiergärtnerthor in Stein
  gehauen und aufgerichtet die _Sieben fäll_ CHRISTI, welche man
  gemeiniglich nent bei den 7 Kreutzen bis hinaus _ad montem Calvariæ_,
  zu dem Capellein bey S. Johannes, zu dem Heiligen Grab genandt,
  dasselbig grosse Creuz, mit samt der zween Schäger” (J. Neudörffer,
  apud Daun, “Adam Krafft,” p. 140).

Footnote 69:

  Bishop von Keppler, “Kreuzweg,” p. 33; Weber, Riemenschneider, p. 24.

Footnote 70:

  We learn from Adrichomius that other sets of the Seven Falls,
  apparently copied from that at Louvain, existed at Mechlin (for many
  years the residence of Jan Pascha), Vilvorde and other towns of
  Brabant.

Footnote 71:

  “Een devote maniere om gheestelyck pelgrimagie te trecken tot den
  heyligen lande,” Louvain, 1563. Three editions of this—two in Flemish
  and one in French—are in the British Museum. The Museum does not,
  however, possess a copy of the first edition. There was a second
  edition of the French translation, which Röhricht in his “Bibliotheca”
  seems to have mistaken for an original work. Another Flemish edition
  was printed at Ghent in 1612.

Footnote 72:

  A full bibliography is given by U. Chevalier, “Bulletin d’Histoire
  Ecclésiastique des diocéses de Valence,” etc., vol. IV, p. 68.

Footnote 73:

  The famous Sacro Monte of Varallo was first instituted by Blessed
  Bernardino Caimi, Guardian of the Franciscan Observants in 1491. He
  had twice resided in the Holy Land, and had been _custode_ of the holy
  places in 1477 and 1487. See “Miscellanea di Storia Franciscana,” I
  (1886), p. 61, and Galloni, “Uomini e Fatti Celebri in Valle Sessia,”
  p. 84. Cf. also Motta, “Il beato Bernardino Caimi” (1891), p. 16, and
  S. Butler, “Ex Voto,” pp. 46-56.

Footnote 74:

  “Société Départementale d’Archéologie, etc., de la Drôme, Bulletin,”
  vol. XV, p. 228; “Archives de la Société d’Histoire du Canton de
  Fribourg,” vol. V, p. 274 (1891). We learn that this set of Stations
  began with “la maison dudit Ponce Pilate, en laquelle la croix feust
  mise sur son pouvre doz.” The sites of these Stations at Fribourg can
  still be traced.

Footnote 75:

  “Le 1 Octobre, 1516, a esté exposé, par honneste homme Romanet Richard
  (he is described elsewhere as Boffin, dit Richard) marchand de ceste
  ville qu’il a faict faire sept piliers de pierre qui sont
  demonstratifs des saincts Lieux de Jérusalem, les quels il voudroit
  mettre et asseoir en certaines places et lieux de ceste ville, comme
  il a été compassé par le prestre de monsieur de Sainct-Pol et autres
  religieux de Jérusalem: ce qu’il n’oseroit faire sans le bon vouloir
  et consentement de mes dicts seigneurs les consuls et de la ville. A
  la quelle chose sont accordés les dicts messieurs les consuls et
  l’assemblée et que iceluy Romanet puisse prendre les lieux a luy
  nécessaires sans contradiction quelconque” (Extract from the Consular
  Registers of Romans, “Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie de la
  Drôme,” vol. XV, p. 229).

Footnote 76:

  There can be little doubt that these seven pillars really corresponded
  to the Stations we have been describing. Speaking of the house of
  Pilate at Romans, Chevalier says: “C’est la première station qu’érigea
  Romanet Boffin, suivant le dessein qu’il avait d’abord conçu de faire
  sept piliers, dont le premier était placé dans le cimétière de Saint
  Bernard. Sur ce pilier on voyait un Ecce Homo.” Further he remarks of
  the Station representing the third fall, now the twenty-first in the
  series of Romans: “C’est la dernière station avant d’arriver au
  Calvaire... Elle a remplacé le sixième pilier du voyage primitif”
  (“Bulletin d’Histoire Ecclésiastique,” vol. III, pp. 226-229).

Footnote 77:

  Sanderus, “Chorographia Brabantica,” vol. II, Antwerp, FF. Min., pp.
  7, 8.

Footnote 78:

  Leo X apparently granted a good many such indulgences. In some cases
  there can have been no question of seven sculptures (See the “Regesta
  Leonis PP. X,” ed. Hergenröther, nn. 14237-8, and 14627).

Footnote 79:

  Schreiber, nos. 642, 644, 646, 652, 654, 659 and 685. He seems,
  however, to be quite satisfied that the engravings are fifteenth
  century.

Footnote 80:

  “Dit is den berch van Calvarien.” “Een seer dovoet hantboecxken voor
  een jegelic kersten mensce hoe men den Berch van Calvarien opclimmen
  sal, ende helpen onsen heere zijn swaer cruyce draegen, want hi seer
  moede is geworden van swaren ancxte des doots. Ghedruct tot Leyden by
  my, Jan Mathijszoon, wonende of die Hoy-graft.” Another edition, of
  which there is a copy in the Bodleian, appeared at Amsterdam some
  years later.

Footnote 81:

  “The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Hierusalem, contayninge three hundred and
  sixtie five days,” etc. The Preface is signed R. H. The book is
  abridged from Jan Pascha’s “Gheestelyck Pelgrimagie,” and must have
  been printed abroad about the year 1630.




            Chapter V—The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Jan Pascha


The booklet just mentioned, “Den Berch van Calvarien,” is only one of a
group of similar devotional works which seem to have had great vogue in
Germany and the Netherlands at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
If I am not mistaken in my conclusions, it is to one particular ideal
pilgrimage of this type, of which more anon, that we are primarily
indebted for the form in which the exercise of the Way of the Cross is
practised at the present day. But before we turn our attention to the
volume in question, it will be well to say a few words regarding some
other similar booklets which must have influenced many pious minds and
have familiarized them with the idea of a spiritual accompanying of our
SAVIOUR on His journey to the summit of Calvary.

The earliest work[82] of this sort of which I have found mention has
unfortunately proved inaccessible. This is the more to be regretted as
its title seems to promise much that would be of interest to our present
inquiry. The book is briefly described in Campbell’s Bibliography of
Dutch Incunabula, and I must content myself here with translating the
title which he has copied. The drift of the little volume is
sufficiently indicated in this summary description:

    “_The Journey which our_ LORD JESUS _made from Pilate’s House up to
    the Mount of Calvary._

“This is the journey which our LORD JESUS made from Pilate’s house,
loaded with His heavy cross, up to the Mount of Calvary, and it is
arranged in thirteen points which are very devout to read.”[83]

The thirteen points probably correspond to as many stations. As regards
date the little volume is certainly older than 1501, and was probably
printed in 1499.

Another early “Stations” book which deserves special mention is a tiny
brochure of sixteen leaves, with many rough illustrations, of which I
have seen two editions both printed at Antwerp, one of 1536, the other
of 1561. It is possible that this little treatise had been in use for
many years, as it is difficult to trace and has no proper title.[84] The
heading states that it is a collection of meditations on the Passion of
our LORD with the measurements from one to another of the places at
which He suffered for us. The book is also arranged according to days of
the week. The considerations begin with Monday, and for that day is
arranged the journey from the room of the Last Supper to the Garden of
Olives, of which the distance is said to be “xxxc ellen” (3,000 ells,
say 4,000 yards). Then from the place where He left the apostles to
where He left Peter, James and John (34 ells), from thence to the grotto
of the Agony (12 ells), and further to the place of the meeting with
Judas (34 ells). A “Pater” and “Ave” are to be said at each of these
stopping-places. On Tuesday we are conducted to Annas, Caiphas, Pilate
and Herod, all the distances as estimated by the writer being given as
before. The Wednesday is taken up with the journey back to Pilate’s
house where sentence is pronounced; and to this are added two other
Stations, one the place where the cross was laid on our LORD’S shoulders
(11 ells from the place of judgement), and the other, the site of the
Scala Santa (25 ells further on) upon which stairs JESUS, crushed under
the weight of the cross, met with a terrible fall. On the Thursday we
are bidden to contemplate the journey from “the place of the fall” to
the _Ecce Homo_ Arch (23 ells), from the arch to the place of our Lady’s
swoon (100 ells), thence again to the place of meeting with Simon of
Cyrene (72 ells), thence again to the house of St Veronica (282 ells),
and finally to the Judicial Gate (recht poorte) 300 ells further on,
where He again fell prostrate and could not rise. The journey of 230
ells from thence to Calvary is meditated on Friday, and with it the
stripping of the garments and the crucifixion. Finally, the Saturday is
given to devotions at the Sepulchre. Much care has been spent upon the
printing of the 1536 edition of this little book, copies of which exist
both in the Bodleian and at the British Museum. The earlier copies
inform us that the meditations were written by a devout priest named
Heer Bethlem,[85] who had sojourned for a long time at Jerusalem and had
measured all the holy places over again. For some reason or other the
author’s name is omitted in the edition of 1561. There is much earnest
and simple piety conspicuous in the prayers with which the exercises are
diversified.[86]

Another book published in 1521 at Nuremberg is typographically a much
more important work. The printing is good, and the woodcuts, several of
which have been reproduced here,[87] are said by modern authorities to
show distinct traces of the influence of the seven sculptures of Adam
Krafft.[88] There are fifteen, or more strictly sixteen stations, and a
picture corresponding to each. This represents a group or groups of
sculpture raised upon a pillar. The subjects begin much further back
than ours, the first representing our SAVIOUR taking leave of His
blessed Mother at Bethany; the second, the Last Supper; and the third,
Gethsemani. With each Station certain psalms and prayers are printed for
recitation. The purpose of the whole book is clearly indicated in the
verses which form its only title page, and which are reproduced
opposite.

[Illustration: _TITLE-PAGE (reduced) OF THE “GEYSTLICH STRASS”
Nuremberg, 1521._]

                   Die geystlich strass bin ich genant
                   Im leyden CHRISTI wol bekant.

                   Wiltu die geng gantz gnaw ausrechen,
                   So hastu psalmen die magstu sprechen;
                   Hastu lust zum heyligen lande,
                   Was da sey, findst auch zuhande.[89]

In close accord with these verses are the following remarks freely
summarized from the preface:

“Our LORD said that the love of many should wax cold, and St Paul, in
his Epistle to Timothy, said that men would be lovers of themselves
rather than lovers of GOD. We see that these sayings are verified, and
especially that of St Paul to the Philippians: ‘All seek their own and
not the things of JESUS CHRIST.’ Thus from the exceeding wickedness of
mankind the love of CHRIST is forgotten, and although the image of
CHRIST is placed in the churches and streets, men have so little
compassion for His sufferings that they scarce pause to say an ‘Ave
Maria’ before the picture, or consider what it means. Such pictures are
called the lay-folk’s books, because men may read therein and lay to
heart the words of our LORD in the Book of Lamentations: ‘O all ye that
pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow.’

“Amongst the common simple people one finds much love for the Passion of
CHRIST. Some men also show their devotion by setting up various
memorials to awaken the piety of others, as for instance the cross, or a
representation of the Last Supper or the Mount of Olives. Some choose
the Seven Falls or the seven bloodsheddings, and some again the carrying
of the cross, with all the episodes which happened until He came to
Calvary, such as the meeting with Mary, the compelling Simon to bear the
cross, the meeting with Veronica, and the like. These are often set up
nowadays with their descriptions, measures and distances, according as
noble pilgrims have brought back the measurements from the Holy Land, or
themselves have set them up. In order, therefore, to keep in remembrance
the sufferings of CHRIST, I have not only considered our LORD while on
His cross, but from the beginning to the end of His Passion, that is,
from Bethany to the crucifixion. And what happened at one time or in one
place I have put together, as, for example, the three incidents on Mount
Sion, i.e., the passover, the washing of feet and the institution of the
Blessed Sacrament. So, again, three events took place on Olivet, where
the LORD went with His three disciples alone, and where He prayed three
times, and where the Jews came and took Him. Then at Mount Calvary,
whither He is brought; in one place the cross is made ready, in another
spot our LORD is left until the cross is ready; afterwards He is led to
the cross, stripped and crucified. All these I have set forth in order,
each in its proper place, and each stage has a picture belonging to it.
But in these four incidents, viz., Sion, the Mount of Olives, Pilate and
the Judgement-place,[90] the same picture contains several episodes.
Also in each stage we ought to contemplate, not only what CHRIST
suffered by the way, but also what happened at each place from which or
to which He is led. And it is particularly to be observed that a passage
of the holy Gospels is always set down along with the picture so as to
explain it, as well as a passage from the prophets or psalms. I have
also added the distances of the holy places, etc. Lastly, as my desire
has been to bring to men’s contemplation the sufferings of CHRIST,
therefore I have adopted this method of portraying them to the eyes, to
the heart and to the lips, by picture, by meditation and by prayer. Rich
and poor, religious and seculars may use this book in private or in
public. The rich may have similar sculptures set up, the poor, in
looking upon them, can say their psalm-prayer or ‘Pater noster,’ or what
they will. Nay, every man can erect these stations in his own house. A
simple cross will serve to mark them. There is no need to reproduce the
exact distances from one to another, or to take as many paces as are
measured here. It is much better to make pilgrimage with one’s heart
than with one’s feet.”

The book does not seem to be particularly rare, though it is not known
that there was more than one edition of it.

A third devotional work of still greater importance is the volume
already alluded to, written by John Pascha,[91] and edited by Peter
Calentyn, at Louvain, in 1563. Its title in French is “La Pérégrination
Spirituelle.” The pilgrimage is to occupy 365 days, and it is made very
realistic by the assigning for each day a definite section of the
journey to the Holy Land, along with a subject for meditation, and
certain general devotions as explained in the introductory chapter. On
the first day, for instance, the pilgrim imagines himself to travel from
Louvain to Tirlemont, and is directed to meditate upon the truth that
God is the final end of all creation; on the second, he travels from
Tirlemont to Tongres, and meditates upon the creation of the angels, and
so on. But when we get to the Holy Land and, on the 188th day, are
visiting the scene of the agony in the garden, we have a new exercise
interpolated with this conspicuous heading:

“Here begins the first prayer of the long journey of the Cross.☩

“And the prayers of this Way of the Cross are fifteen in number, and
they are good to say also outside the time of pilgrimage, for instance,
on Fridays, or on other days, for affairs of great importance.”[92]

The second station is given under the 193rd day at the house of Annas;
the third, under the 196th day, at the spot where CHRIST is kept a
prisoner and mocked. Then, under the 206th day, when the pilgrim has
meditated upon our SAVIOUR’S trial before Pilate, we have another
noteworthy interruption of the text, with the heading: “_Hier beghint
den rechten Cruysganck na den berch van Calvarien_—Here begins the
proper Way of the Cross to Mount Calvary.”

The prayer for the fourth station, which follows, has reference to the
condemnation of CHRIST by Pilate.[93]

Then follow the succeeding stations in order, still mixed up with the
days of the pilgrimage, but frequently supplemented from this time
onwards with measurements in feet or double paces (= five feet) of the
distances from one station to another. The fifth station is the place
where CHRIST receives the cross; it is thirteen paces from the place
where He was sentenced. The sixth station is at the spot where CHRIST
met His Blessed Mother, and where also He fell for the second time; and
here the author is careful to tell us that between this spot and the
place where our LORD received the cross there had already been a first
fall when He had advanced forty paces. The meeting with His Blessed
Mother was 418 feet (in Louvain measurement) from the place of His
sentence. The seventh station, 179 feet further on, is where Simon of
Cyrene took the cross, and JESUS fell a third time. The eighth station,
478 feet from the last, is the scene of the meeting with Veronica, and
also of the fourth fall; and after another 842 feet we reach the foot of
the ascent to Calvary, where CHRIST fell a fifth time, but this is not
counted as a station. The ninth station is 872 feet further on up the
ascent. Here CHRIST turned to the women of Jerusalem, and here also He
fell a sixth time. After another 404-1/2 feet Calvary itself is reached.
Here is the stone engraved with crosses, just outside the church of the
Holy Sepulchre. This marks the place of the seventh and last fall, and
is the tenth of Jan Pascha’s stations. The prayer for the eleventh
station, nine paces further on, is taken up entirely with the theme of
our SAVIOUR’S being stripped of His garments, but no special name is
given to this station. The twelfth station is still six paces further,
and commemorates the nailing to the cross. We are also told that the
total distance from the place where our LORD was sentenced by Pilate to
this spot is 3,306 feet (of Louvain). The thirteenth station
commemorates the death of CHRIST upon the cross, and the fourteenth
station the taking down from the cross. Finally is given a prayer for
the fifteenth station, which is concerned with the burial of CHRIST.

[Illustration: _A PAGE OF THE 1568 EDITION OF PASCHA’S “GHEESTELYCK
PELGRIMAGIE”._ If this woodcut of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre be
compared with that of Breydenbach on p. 28, it will be noticed that this
illustration has been clumsily imitated from Breydenbach, but reversed
in cutting the block. The tower should of course stand on the left hand
side of the entrance porch.]

Let me furthermore point out that precise details are everywhere given
with such confidence and with such minuteness that it is not wonderful
that the book should have produced the impression of having been written
out of abundant and scientific knowledge. A single specimen will
suffice.

“Now you must know,” says Pascha, “that the cross was fifteen feet long
and the arms together eight feet, and the said cross weighed 100 pounds.
From the place where CHRIST was sentenced to the place where the cross
was laid upon His shoulders there were thirteen strides, and from the
same spot where the cross was laid upon Him to the place where He fell
for the first time under the cross there are forty strides. And also
from this same spot where He fell for the first time to the place where
His Mother stood upright in front of Him there are thirty strides and
three feet. The number of persons who accompanied our SAVIOUR was
15,000.”

And here in the French version the translator interpolates a note of his
own.

“It will be well,” he says, “to explain here in order to the
understanding of what has just been said above and also of other
passages which follow, that a stride (_enjambée_) is the space you leave
between one leg and the other [‘l’espace qu’on faict d’une jambe à
l’autre’—he really seems to mean the space between the print of one foot
and the next imprint of the same foot], and it contains two paces, in
other words five feet. For by one pace (_avant pas_) we mean the
distance ordinarily covered in going or walking at an ordinary rate, and
a footstep (_un pas_) is nothing but the sign or mark of a foot. We are
compelled to render it thus and to give you notice in our translation,
on account of what we find in the Dutch original which cannot be
otherwise expressed.”[94]

Now, any reader who will have the patience to study these details in
Pascha’s book, and to compare them with the subjects of the fourteen
stations now universally adopted, will perceive at once that this old
Flemish pilgrimage supplies the key of the whole problem. The order of
Pascha’s Stations is exactly the order of our modern Stations. Though
the number is greater, and the starting-point seems different, Pascha
himself, or his editor, Calentyn, by remarking that “the _proper_ way of
the cross” begins with Pilate’s house, has suggested the very
modification which, in fact, has come to prevail. It has been commonly
asserted, e.g., by Bishop von Keppler and by Doctor N. Paulus, that our
present Stations are to be traced back to the book of Adrichomius,
“Jerusalem sicut CHRISTI tempore floruit,” published in 1584. This, in a
sense, may be true, for Adrichomius enjoyed a very wide popularity, and
was early translated into most European languages, even into English,
Polish and Czech. His delineation of the stations along the _Via
Crucis_, in his map of Jerusalem, has been reproduced on a reduced scale
opposite, and the attentive student will perceive that, while
Adrichomius makes no mention of the last two Stations, the first twelve
are exactly those of our modern Way of the Cross. But Adrichomius, who
cites Pascha amongst his authorities, has undoubtedly borrowed both the
arrangement and all the measurements of the much older Flemish pilgrim.
Dr N. Paulus, in his extremely valuable article in the “Katholik”
(April, 1895), had already suggested this as a possibility, but as no
copy of the “Gheestelyck Pelgrimagie” was accessible to him at Munich,
he was unable to confirm his conjecture.[95]

[Illustration: _REPRODUCTION, MUCH REDUCED, OF PART OF THE MAP OF
JERUSALEM, BY ADRICHOMIUS (1584), SHOWING THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS._
The Stations begin in the upper right hand corner with the condemnation
of Christ. 121 marks the receiving of the cross; 122, first Fall; 123,
Mary; 124. Simon of Cyrene; 44, Veronica; 247, second Fall; 248, Women
of Jerusalem; 249, third Fall; 250, stripping; 251, nailing; 252,
raising on cross. The left is the North side, but, as explained
elsewhere, the details of the map are quite inaccurate.]

Perhaps the most interesting result of a comparison between the books of
Pascha and Adrichomius is the light which we are enabled to throw upon
the origin of that most puzzling feature in the Stations, the triple
fall of our SAVIOUR beneath His cross. It arises clearly from a curious
blending of the old stational system of seven falls (as depicted by Adam
Krafft at Nuremberg, and by his imitators) with certain traditional
sites pointed out to pilgrims in Jerusalem. Four of these falls are
supposed by Pascha to have synchronized with other episodes, i.e., the
meetings of CHRIST with His Mother, Simon of Cyrene, Veronica and the
women of Jerusalem. In these four cases the mention of a fall is
suppressed, but it survives in the remaining three, which have nothing
otherwise to distinguish them.[96] The first fall, which precedes the
meeting with Mary, and the fifth fall, which follows that with Veronica,
are not counted by Pascha as stations. Adrichomius, however, seeing that
he begins only with the condemnation at Pilate’s house, finds room for
them as separate stations in his system. The seventh and last fall at
the summit of Calvary was commemorated by a stone marked with crosses,
and is mentioned by almost every pilgrim in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, though they speak of no other falls. This stone is the first
item, lap(is), in Wey’s _memoria technica_ (reverse order), and
Breydenbach in his pilgrimage (1486) gives an excellent illustration,
reproduced on page 28, of the pilgrims kissing it.

Allusion has been made above to an English abridgement of Pascha’s book,
which, under the title of “The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Hierusalem,”[97]
was printed abroad about the year 1630. Jan Pascha’s name is not
mentioned, but there can be no question that it is his work, which has
been partly translated, partly adapted by “R. H.,” a writer whom it is
not easy to identify. Two copies of this little volume are in the
Bodleian Library. Even in its condensed form the allegorical setting of
the original has been retained, as for instance where we are told on the
43rd day, as the pilgrim is supposed to be setting sail for Venice,
“pray for a good wind and say _Veni Creator Spiritus_.” The English
version has been slightly adapted to suit the circumstances of its new
readers, and thus it ends on the 365th day not at Louvain but with “thy
lodgings in London or from where thou departedest.” It is particularly
interesting that in “the Way of the Cross” the curious amalgamation of
the old Seven Falls with the new system of stations has been retained by
the translator. Hence we have such headings as, “The 111th day, to the
place where JESUS turned to the women that bewailed Him. Here was the
sixth falling.”

[Illustration: _A PAGE OF THE FRENCH TRANSLATION (1566) OF PASCHA’S
“GHEESTELYCK PELGRIMAGIE”._ Note the indication of distance and the
indulgence, and also how “le troisieme tombement ou cheute” (i.e., the
Third Fall of the old system of Seven Falls) is identified with the
coming of Simon of Cyrene. See p. 88.]

On the whole it seems true to say that the selection of the Stations
owes much more to the pious ingenuity of devotional writers in Europe
than to the actual practice of Jerusalem itself. At Jerusalem the merit
of this exercise seems to have consisted rather in the good-will of
wishing to trace our LORD’S footsteps and in the fatigue and and
unpleasantness encountered on the way, than in any set devotions at
assigned halting-places. Aranda tells us how Mary fell to the ground on
meeting her Son. The stone she fell on was subsequently built into the
wall. The Christian pilgrims used to try to kiss it, but the Turks,
regarding it as idolatry, would not allow it, and constantly profaned
the stone.[98]

That no proper exercise of the Stations could have been performed
publicly in Jerusalem at the close of the sixteenth century appears very
clearly from the extremely interesting book of Zuallardo,[99] published
a year or two after that of Adrichomius. He prints at the end of this
work a copy of the prayers and hymns used by the pilgrims in visiting
the different sites, the which prayers agree closely with those
contained in a little treatise widely circulated in the middle ages and
printed in Venice in 1491.[100]

Thus we have the hymn proper to the spot “where St James the Less hid
himself during the time of the Passion,” the spot “where St Peter wept
bitterly”—a site which of late years has given rise to some rather
lively controversy between the representatives of different religious
orders in Jerusalem[101]—the spot “where the Jews attempted to carry off
the holy body of our Blessed Lady after her death,” “where the angels
brought the palm to our Blessed Lady,” “the grave of Lazarus,” “the spot
were CHRIST stood when Martha said, ‘LORD, if Thou hadst been here,’”
etc., “the spot where the Virgin Mother used to rest when she revisited
the holy sites,” “the spot before the Golden Gate where CHRIST foretold
the last Judgement,” “the place where Isaias was sawn in two,” “the pool
of Siloe,” and many others, all of them being places outside the city,
upon the Mount of Olives, or in Bethlehem, or at any rate in parts where
no great concourse of people was likely to be found. Now, for each of
these, even the most unimportant, there is assigned in Zuallardo a
special versicle and prayer; but for the scene of _Ecce Homo_, of the
Scourging, of the mocking before Herod or of the various incidents of
the journey to Calvary, though these are all sites of the very deepest
devotional interest, no provision of hymns and prayers is made. Noting
the absence of any recognition of those sites now so honoured, I was at
first inclined to conjecture that the printed edition of 1491 was
incomplete, and that some sheets had fallen out, but an examination of
Harleian MSS. 2333 and 3810 showed me that the omissions were not
peculiar to the printed text. Zuallardo’s fuller account explains the
reason:

“In Pilate’s house,” he remarks, “where our REDEEMER was scourged and
crowned with thorns and sentenced to death, at the _Ecce Homo_ Arch, and
in other spots where it is impossible to enter, an ‘Our Father’ and
‘Hail Mary’ are said as the pilgrims pass along.”[102]

Similarly in the descriptive part of his work Zuallardo remarks of the
different sites along the _Via Dolorosa_, which he is one of the first
to call by that name:

“Of all these holy places we had no more consolation than just to see
them as we passed on our way, since it is not permitted to make any halt
nor to pay veneration to them with uncovered head, nor to make any other
demonstration, nor to look at them fixedly, nor to write nor take any
notes in public.”

As long as this state of things prevailed it is obvious that the pious
exercises of the Way of the Cross could be performed far more devoutly
beside the artificial Stations of Nuremberg, or Louvain, or Rhodes, than
in Jerusalem itself. If any one individual can lay claim to the honour
of formulating our present devotion, that distinction seems to belong
more justly to the pious Flemish Carmelite, Jan Pascha, than to any
other person.

None the less, even Pascha seems to be dependent for his measurements
upon the data supplied him by Peter Sterckx (Petrus Potens) and carved
in stone at the base of the seven Stations which, as mentioned above,
were erected in Louvain in the first years of the sixteenth century. How
far it was Sterckx and how far it was Pascha who elaborated the whole
series of incidents repeated by Calentyn and Adrichomius, it is
impossible to determine. The one thing which may be affirmed with
certainty is that our present series of Stations of the Cross comes to
us, not from Jerusalem, but from Louvain.

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this rather remarkable history
is the way in which those who possessed an intimate knowledge of the
Holy Land and of the practice of the pilgrims allowed the inventions of
the Louvain Religious to spread uncontradicted. No doubt they felt that
such imaginary pilgrimages could only promote devotion to the Passion of
our LORD and serve the cause of piety. It was no business of theirs to
contradict what had been asserted by pious men who lived before their
time. The facts did not accord with the tradition of Jerusalem in their
own day, but they might conceivably be true and, at any rate, they had
no positive evidence to the contrary. Aranda, Bonifacius (represented by
Zuallardo), Quaresmius, Surius, Caccia and a host of others were
intimately acquainted with Jerusalem. Several of them had been for many
years the official custodians of the holy places. They were not
contemporaries, but they cover nearly the whole period from 1520 to
1680. They agree closely with each other, but are all ignorant of—and
for some points in absolute contradiction with—the statements of Pascha
and Adrichomius. None the less, the fictions of Adrichomius, who it
appears never visited the Holy Land, but compiled his map from
pre-existing accounts, have won the day simply by reason of the wide
diffusion of the volume which he published; and now, even in the Holy
City itself, the attempt has been made to bring local traditions into
accord with the practice of our modern Stations. But on this point it
will be necessary to speak more fully in the next chapter.

For the present, before passing further, it may be interesting to give
some illustration of the manner in which the Stations must often have
been made in early times even without the aid of sculptures or pillars.
The document from which I am about to quote seems to have been copied by
a certain Sister Barbara de Langhe, in a convent in Antwerp in the year
1664. It was probably transcribed from an original of much earlier date
and it is obvious that the idea of travelling the exact distance
traversed by our Blessed LORD must have been very prominently before the
mind of the framer. The distinction made between “the long way of the
cross”[103] and “the way of the cross proper,” or “the short way,” as it
is here called, is also particularly interesting in the light of the
similar distinction which we have just noticed in Pascha. Hardly less
noteworthy for our present purpose is the retention of the system of
Seven Falls at so late a date as 1664. Not to be tedious I omit the
prayers and quote only the directions or rubrics which accompany them.
The document begins thus:[104]

“Item. For those who wish to make the long way of the cross (_den
grooten Kruyswech_).

“They must begin in the Church, which shall represent the place where
CHRIST took His last supper with His Apostles; then they must go round
the garden six times and the seventh time must kneel at the last door
outside the cloister by the school, and there is the Garden of Olives.
The first prayer, ‘O LORD JESUS CHRIST,’ etc.

“Go now as far as the churchyard door to the Poor Clares’ wall, there
JESUS CHRIST is kissed by Judas. The second prayer, ‘O LORD,’ etc.

“Now make the round of the garden six times, and the seventh time kneel
down at the third door into the cloister (_pant_), and this will be the
house of Annas. The third prayer.”

Omitting for brevity’s sake, the journey to Caiphas, Pilate and Herod,
we take the next entry.

“Go now three times round [the garden], and in the fourth round you must
kneel at the first door of the cloister, and this may count as Pilate’s
house [_dat is tot Pilatus_, i.e., that is as far as Pilate].

“Here we begin the short way of the cross. The seventh prayer.

“Go now as far as the last door in the cloister, and this is the first
fall with the cross. The eighth prayer.

“Next go on as far as the churchyard door to the wall of the Poor Clares
and this is the second fall. The ninth prayer.”

No other incidents are specified except the Seven Falls, which are duly
measured out in order, but the corresponding prayers would probably show
that, as in Pascha’s book, four of these falls were identified with the
incidents of Mary, Simon, the Women and Veronica. Finally we have:

“Now go on to the last window of the workroom; this is the seventh fall.
The fourteenth prayer.

“Go on now to the last door in the cloister, and there CHRIST is
crucified. The fifteenth prayer.

“Then go on as far as the churchyard, and there say _Miserere_ and _De
profundis_ for the dear souls [_Sielkens_, a diminutive of endearment or
compassion], and then go to the door by the pump; there CHRIST is
buried, being laid in the sepulchre. The sixteenth prayer.

“Go now to the church, and offer your prayers Then it is finished.”

Footnote 82:

  The facts now stated in Appendix A go to show that the little book of
  Herr Bethlem was written earlier than this, though it may not have
  been printed so soon.

Footnote 83:

  “Die ganck die ons here JESUS ghinck wt Pilatus huse tot opten berch
  van Calvarien.” Printed by Henrick Lettersnider at Antwerp. It
  contains only six leaves. See Campbell, “Annales de la Typographie,”
  nn. 771-772.

Footnote 84:

  A manuscript copy of what is to all intents and purposes the same book
  is to be found among the Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum,
  no. 24937. See further in Appendix A, where the conjecture here made
  concerning the antiquity of the book will be found fully justified.

Footnote 85:

  His real name was perhaps Bartholomew. See Appendix A.

Footnote 86:

  “_Dit is een devote_ meditacie op die passie ons liefs heeren ende van
  plaetse tot plaetsen die _mate geset daer onse lieve heere voor ons
  gheleden heeft met die figueren, ende_ met schone oratien daer op
  dienende. Ende so dicke alsmen dit devotelick leest _so verdienentmen
  alle die aflaten so volcomelic als oftmen alle die heilige plaetsen_
  binnen Jerusalem lichamelick versochte. Ende een devote priester die
  _langhe tyt te Jerusalem heeft ghewoont, die heeft dit_ ghemeten ende
  beschreven.” By mi Willem Voorsterman, Antwerp, 1538. The title page
  is printed in short lines red and black in alternate pairs. I have
  underlined the red. There is a fine eagle for printer’s device on the
  back of the last leaf.

Footnote 87:

  See illustrations facing pp. 68, 112.

Footnote 88:

  Daun, “Adam Krafft und die Künstler seiner Zeit,” p. 72.

Footnote 89:

  “I am called the ghostly way [i.e., the way of the soul], well known
  in the Passion of CHRIST.... Wouldst thou exactly perform this
  pilgrimage, thou hast psalms set down for thee to say; hast thou a
  desire to visit the Holy Land, all that is there thou mayst find here
  at hand.”

Footnote 90:

  The triple group of the Judgement of our LORD will be found reproduced
  further on at p. 112.

Footnote 91:

  Jan Pascha is the form of the name which appears on the title page.
  But in the “Biographie Nationale de Belgique” he is called Jan van
  Paesschen. He was Prior of the Carmelites at Mechlin and renowned as a
  preacher. It is not true, as has sometimes been stated, that he was
  appointed Inquisitor by Charles V.

Footnote 92:

  “Hier beghint dat eerste ghebet vanden langhen Cruysganck.☩

  “Ende deser cruys ghebeden zynder alles tot vyfthien, die welcke goet
  ghelesen zijn ooc buyten tijts op sommighe vrij-dagen, oft op andere
  daghen voor groote saken” (P. Calentijn and Jan Pascha, “Een devote
  Maniere on gheestelyck Pelgrimagie te trecken,” Louvain, 1568, p. 93,
  2).

Footnote 93:

  The terms used in the French translation, which appeared in 1566, are
  noteworthy: “S’ensuyt la premiere oraison du chemin ou voyage de la
  Croix, et ce pour la premiere Station.”

Footnote 94:

  Pascha, “Pérégrination Spirituelle,” Louvain, 1566, fol. 143, recto
  and verso.

Footnote 95:

  Jan Pascha died about 1532. It is doubtful how far his editor, Peter
  Calentyn, may have modified his work in preparing it for the press in
  1563.

Footnote 96:

  The same thing seems already to have happened in the Louvain Stations
  erected by Peter Sterckx in 1505.

Footnote 97:

  “The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Hierusalem, contayning three hundred
  sixtie five dayes Jorney, wherein the devoute Person may meditate on
  sondrie points of his Redemption.” 16mo, without date or place.

Footnote 98:

  “Y con despecho muchas vezes la hallamos untada, y no de balsamo, asi
  acaece en todas las que basamos que estan en el campo o en la ciudad
  sin estar cubiertas, conviene a saber, sin edificio cerrado” (Aranda,
  fol. xxxiii, r^o).

Footnote 99:

  “Il devotissimo Viaggio di Gerusalemme,” Rome, 1587.

Footnote 100:

  “Peregrinaciones Terræ Sanctæ.” See Röhricht, “Bibliotheca,” p. 100; a
  copy of the Venice edition, “Infrascripte sunt peregrinaciones,” is in
  the British Museum. Röhricht considers that this collection must date
  from the end of the fourteenth century.

Footnote 101:

  See Coppens, “The Palace of Caiphas,” 1904.

Footnote 102:

  Zuallardo, p. 381.

Footnote 103:

  This is what is called in Quaresmius the _Via Captivitatis_ as
  distinguished from the _Via Crucis_.

Footnote 104:

  I am indebted to M. l’Abbé Van de Velde, Aumônier to the nuns of the
  English Convent at Bruges, for kindly bringing this document to my
  notice. The original belongs to Mgr Rembry, Vicar General of Bruges.




Chapter VI—The “Via Dolorosa” at Jerusalem from the Seventeenth Century
                           to the Present Day


Strange as it may appear that the pious musings of Brother Jan Pascha,
the Carmelite of Louvain, should have so entirely fashioned the
devotional practice of his fellow-Christians in the West, there is one
feature in the history of the Way of the Cross which must strike the
intelligent student as more remarkable still. The extraordinary
popularity of the work of Adrichomius, which embodies Pascha’s ideas and
data, suffices perhaps to explain the acceptance of his scheme of
Stations by those who were not familiar with the actual sites. But it is
more difficult to understand how the same arrangement came in the course
of a century or so to be adopted by the Franciscans of Jerusalem itself,
in spite of the flat contradiction offered to it upon so many points of
fact by a long succession of writers of the Order. These men had penned
their descriptions after years of residence in the Holy City and after
daily intercourse with their brethren there, who were the depositories
of traditions handed down from the time of St Louis. They were either
themselves the official custodians of the holy places, or at least the
duly authorized spokesmen of such custodians, and down to the end of the
seventeenth century the accounts which they gave did not vary in any
important particular. I am not contending, of course, that this
unanimity establishes in any way the authenticity of the sites which the
good Franciscans venerated. Such traditions cannot be traced back beyond
the Crusades, and in some cases were demonstrably erroneous, but in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the system was as confidently believed
in as if it had descended from the first ages of Christianity.
Consequently, as against this uniform Franciscan tradition, no other
description by casual pilgrims, no other ideal arrangement of Stations
had a moment’s claim to be considered. The pious pilgrims who travelled
so far to visit Jerusalem were hardly ever permitted to spend more than
a few days within the sacred precincts.[105] A hundred possibilities of
error beset their hurried impressions. At the best they could only
faithfully repeat for the benefit of friends in Europe what was told
them by their Franciscan guides of Mount Sion, while it must often have
happened that faulty or confused recollections of what they had seen and
heard introduced strange variations into their narratives. Hence no
testimony of irresponsible wayfarers like Martin Ketzel or Peter
Sterckx, however well-intentioned, can stand against the first-hand
witness of the friars who lived upon the spot; the more so that these
latter persisted for 200 years together in the same uniform tale, and
the books that they published were carefully revised by their brethren
at Jerusalem, and given to the world with all kinds of official
sanctions.

The list of the Franciscan descriptions of the holy places printed
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is a fairly long one, and
many of the volumes are not easily met with. Of one of the earliest,
Aranda’s “Verdadera Informacion” (1530), something has already been
said; and I propose to turn now to the traditions perpetuated in a group
of later works beginning with such official accounts as those of
Zuallardo (1587),[106] Bernardino Amico (1610) and Quaresmius (1639),
continued in Surius (1646), Antonio de Castillo (1656) and Caccia
(1694), and in some details surviving even as late as the “Peregrinus”
of Hietling (1712) and the “Patrimonio Seraphico” of Francisco Jesus
Maria (1724). The attitude taken up by some of these Franciscan writers
towards the work of Adrichomius is a very curious one. Bernardino Amico,
for example, whose book, owing to its careful drawings, is one of great
value,[107] does not hesitate to speak his mind freely. In his first
edition (1610) Adrichomius, if I mistake not, is not named, but Amico
comments severely upon the gross blunders contained in various maps and
plans of Jerusalem he had met with, and proceeds to express his surprise
at the audacity of certain writers on the Holy Land who scrupled not to
draw plans in minute detail of places they had never visited and of
which they understood nothing. If we had any doubt as to the particular
book which was most prominently in Amico’s mind when he used this
language, the doubt would be removed by the explicit references
contained in his second edition which appeared ten years later. There he
tells us roundly that the description given by Adrichomius of the _Ecce
Homo_ arch, for example, is altogether misleading and impossible.
Adrichomius, both in his verbal description and in his map, represents
it as a sort of portico or colonnade, made like a stone bridge with
narrow arches, looking out upon an open square and forming the ordinary
passage of communication between Pilate’s palace and the fortress of
Antonia. Now the buildings at that time identified as occupying the
sites of Pilate’s palace and the fortress of Antonia were well known.
The first lay eighty and the other 150 yards to the east of the _Ecce
Homo_ arch, which could not, therefore, have formed the ordinary passage
between the two. Hence Amico has no difficulty in showing that
Adrichomius’s account is based upon a wholly erroneous impression of the
relative position of the buildings, and that as regards the arch itself
Adrichomius most surely could never have set eyes upon it. It seems
indeed to be certain that this last-named writer, though accepted in
Europe as the most learned authority on the topography of Jerusalem, had
never visited the Holy Land. The clearness and precision of the
information he imparted were very welcome to his readers, but they were
simply due to the fact that he worked largely _a priori_ and was not
hampered by any inconvenient knowledge of the difficulties presented by
the actual sites. The most authoritative of all the Franciscan writers,
Quaresmius, Guardian of Mount Sion, whose book appeared in 1639,[108]
also makes explicit reference to Adrichomius. His criticism, whether
tempered by religious charity or overawed by the elaborate parade of
research which had been affected by the earlier writer, is in any case
singularly gentle. The following passage, which is one among several,
may serve as a specimen:

“Very diligently to be sure has Adrichomius set down the noteworthy
sites of the Way of the Cross with their distances, and also its entire
length. I do not venture to contradict him, since he wrote upon the
report of men who were eminent for piety and learning, who saw this Way
with their own eyes and paced it both in body and spirit. Nevertheless,
I think that it will not be foreign to my purpose nor unwelcome to the
reader if I append here some of the points observed by myself and
others, even if not perhaps with such extreme minuteness, although they
are different, yet not less true, especially since I repeatedly, if I
mistake not, when I was at Jerusalem paced the same road as those
pilgrims did. Hence I can pronounce a not incompetent judgement as to
its length from the evidence of my own senses and experience.”[109]

In spite of Adrichomius’s elaborate parade of references, it will be
obvious to any one who compares the two books that he has taken his
details about the _Via Dolorosa_ almost entirely from Pascha. We have
dozens of reports of travellers of the same epoch (e.g., Aranda’s), and
amongst these Pascha stands alone, contradicting all of them.
Quaresmius, in his charity, seems to have taken Adrichomius’s statement
about his authorities entirely at the writer’s own valuation.

With regard in particular to the question of measurements Quaresmius
estimates the distance from Pilate’s house to the Judicial Gate at 570
paces; while that other portion of the Way which lay beyond the Judicial
Gate, and consequently outside the old city, could not, he declared, be
followed in his day, since the gate was blocked up, but he calculates
that it was about 250 paces. The whole distance from Pilate’s house to
Calvary was, therefore, 820 paces.

This, it will be noticed, does not agree particularly well with
Adrichomius’s, or rather Pascha’s, estimate, which makes the total
distance from Pilate’s house to Calvary 3,050 feet, and the distance
from Pilate’s house to the Judicial Gate 1,741 feet.

To say the truth, if any one will take the trouble to compare the
separate items of Pascha’s measurement (given on pp. 84-85) with any
accurate map of the _Via Dolorosa_ (the plans on pp. 106-107 will serve
quite well for the purpose), he will probably come to the conclusion
that these distances, like other details of the pilgrimage, are purely
fanciful. How far the responsibility for them may rest with Jan Pascha
and how far with Peter Sterckx or the other travellers who set up the
Louvain Stations it does not seem easy to determine. But to take one
example, it follows from Pascha’s measurements that the distance from
Veronica’s house to the Judicial Gate was as great as the distance from
Veronica’s house to the _Ecce Homo_ Arch. Even allowing a certain
latitude for variations in the location of Veronica’s house this is
ludicrously impossible. The site now pointed out as that of Veronica’s
house is about sixty-three yards from the Judicial Gate, but it is
nearly 350 yards distant from the _Ecce Homo_ Arch. Even more
unfavourable to Pascha’s credit as an eyewitness of what he describes is
his impression, more than once recorded, that “Calvary” was a “high
mountain.” Thus he makes our LORD after His third fall, when close to
the place of crucifixion, rest a while and contemplate the “high
mountain” in front of Him.[110] From the spot nowadays pointed out as
the scene of the third fall (the ninth station) there is only an ascent
of some fifteen feet to the summit of the Rock of Calvary. Nevertheless
it was upon Pascha’s statements that Adrichomius beyond all doubt based
all his calculations,[111] adding to these unreliable materials new
blunders of his own, as, for example, when he makes Golgotha and the
Holy Sepulchre lie on the north side of the Judicial Gate instead of on
the south.[112] Pascha’s distances are borrowed by the later writer
without any modification, and to emphasize his sense of their accuracy
Adrichomius gives a measure in his text to show the exact length of the
foot used in these data.

But to come back to what more immediately concerns our present purpose,
it is particularly noteworthy that of Adrichomius’s three falls
Quaresmius says nothing and apparently knows nothing; that he assigns
the meeting with Simon of Cyrene and with the women of Jerusalem to what
is approximately one and the same spot in the cross-road leading to the
Damascus Gate; that he regards both these meetings as having taken place
before our SAVIOUR came to Veronica’s house and impressed His
countenance upon her veil; and that he calls attention to the fact that
Veronica’s house was not a corner house as depicted in the map of
Adrichomius. As the arrangement and wording of Quaresmius is a little
instructive, I may translate here the summary which he prefixes to his
chapter on the _Via Dolorosa_:

“The sixth pilgrimage is that of the WAY OF THE CROSS, or the WAY OF
SORROWS, in which are set forth and described eight sites in particular,
the which are piously venerated by those who traverse this same road.
The first site is the palace of Pilate the Governor; the second is that
of the Scourging of CHRIST; the third is the Palace of Herod; the fourth
is Pilate’s Arch, whereon CHRIST was shown to the people while Pilate
said: ‘Behold the man’; the fifth is the church, called the Swoon of our
Lady; the sixth is the cross-way where Simon of Cyrene was constrained
to carry our SAVIOUR’S cross and where JESUS was met by the weeping
women; the seventh is the house of Veronica, where this holy woman wiped
the face of CHRIST with her napkin; the eighth is the Judicial Gate.”

This, we must remember, is the official description given to the world
from Jerusalem itself between 1625 and 1639, just fifty years after
Adrichomius had published his map of the Stations, reproduced above.

What then was this _Via Dolorosa_ along which the pilgrims were
conducted by their Franciscan guides in the seventeenth century? So far
as regards the narrow roadway itself, it seems for that part of its
course which stretches from the _Ecce Homo_ Arch to the so-called
Judicial Gate to have consisted of exactly the same street or streets in
which the stations are pointed out to pilgrims at the present day.
Beyond the Judicial Gate, and up to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it
was admitted then as now that the path followed by our SAVIOUR had been
built over, and that owing to the intervening enclosures and houses,
detours have now to be made where JESUS CHRIST on His painful journey to
Calvary in all probability followed a straight course. But with regard
to the earlier portion of the Way of the Cross Quaresmius and his
contemporaries believed that it was possible to trace our SAVIOUR’S very
footsteps, and that though the houses which bordered the roadway might
have been destroyed and built up again, the direction and position of
the streets along which He passed had not been altered. Of the
improbability of this assumption a word may be said further on. For the
present it is sufficient to note that the view was universally held by
pilgrims in past ages, and that it is still accepted without discussion
by the majority of those who follow the Stations of the Cross as they
are now publicly made by the good Franciscans in Jerusalem on every
Friday afternoon. There can in any case be little doubt that the _Via
Dolorosa_ venerated at the present time is identical with that known to
Zuallardo and Quaresmius. Its general direction and also its change of
level can be sufficiently gathered from the rough map on p. 106.
Zuallardo’s plan, given opposite, while extremely interesting for its
witness to the Franciscan tradition, is unfortunately not very clear,
though intelligible after a little study.

[Illustration: _THE VIA DOLOROSA, ACCORDING TO ZUALLARDO, 1587._
Zuallardo has arranged his drawing in two sections, as it is reproduced
here, but the lower section is intended to be continuous with the upper
section, and in order to indicate this, the Church of our Lady’s Swoon
(K), which stands at the extremity of the upper section, is repeated by
him in the lower. A—Gate of St Stephen. B—Gate of the Court of the
Temple. C—The Temple, now the Mosque of Omar. D—Church of St Anne.
E—Pilate’s House. F—Scala Santa. G—Herod’s House. H—Pilate’s Arch (Ecce
Homo). K—Church of our Lady’s Swoon. L—Simon of Cyrene. M—Daughters of
Jerusalem. N—House of Dives. O—House of the Pharisee. P—House of
Veronica. Q—Judicial Gate. R—Mount Calvary.]

Taking the _Ecce Homo_ Arch and the Judicial Gate as two fixed points,
which are easily identifiable, the important fact to notice is that the
_Via Dolorosa_ does not, as Adrichomius incorrectly draws it, run
straight from one to the other, but that there is on the contrary a
sharp zigzag in the middle. For the first part of the course the _Via
Dolorosa_ is an ill-paved lane passing under the _Ecce Homo_ Arch
westwards and downhill for two hundred yards to the head of the Tyropœan
valley. Here the narrow lane debouches into a somewhat broader street,
one of the main thoroughfares of Jerusalem, which stretches, roughly
speaking, north and south and connects the Damascus Gate on the north
side with the centre of the city. The _Via Dolorosa_ then, on
encountering this more important thoroughfare, turns to the left and
follows its course southwards for about fifty yards, nearly as far as
the parti-coloured building raised upon an arch and astride of the road,
which tradition professes to identify as the house of the rich glutton.
Then the Way of Sorrows leaves the larger roadway once more and resumes
its former direction, almost due west, as a narrow lane up a steep hill,
coming out in front of the ruined archway known as the Judicial Gate.
Thus we have three sections: the first running west and downhill; the
second of about fifty yards running south and also slightly downhill;
and the third turning due west again uphill. It is in the elbow formed
by this middle section where there is a meeting of ways (_bivium_ or
_trivium_) that our SAVIOUR is believed to have encountered Simon of
Cyrene, who had just entered Jerusalem from his farm by the northern or
Damascus Gate. Upon this identification accounts, otherwise at variance,
are agreed. The brief description I have attempted will, no doubt, be
made intelligible enough by a reference to the plans on pp. 106-107. I
will only delay now to call attention to two points. First, the scene of
our Lady’s swoon upon meeting her divine Son was invariably assigned by
the Franciscan writers of the seventeenth century to what I have called
the first section, i.e., it was located in the lane running westward,
from the _Ecce Homo_ Arch, about midway between this and the point where
the lane strikes the main street. Secondly, the place of the colloquy
with the women of Jerusalem was not less invariably pointed out in the
second section, viz., the broader piece of roadway just referred to,
which runs south from the Damascus Gate. In view of the tradition which
now prevails in Jerusalem as to the sites of the fourth and eighth
stations of the Cross, the two particulars I have noticed seem of some
little interest.

[Illustration: _ROUGH PLAN OF THE VIA DOLOROSA IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY._ The crosses with Roman numerals in this and the two following
plans refer to the incidents commemorated by our modern Stations.
I—Condemnation. II—Receiving the Cross. III—First Fall. IV—The Blessed
Virgin Mary. V—Simon of Cyrene. VI—Veronica. VII—Second Fall. VIII—Women
of Jerusalem. In the seventeenth century these incidents were located as
indicated in the plan above. The Arabic numerals give the level above
the sea in feet.]

[Illustration: _ROUGH PLAN OF THE VIA DOLOROSA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY._ The III Station (the First Fall) is close to the
Ecce Homo Arch. The VIII Station (Women of Jerusalem) is beyond the
Judicial Gate.]

[Illustration: _ROUGH PLAN OF THE VIA DOLOROSA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
AND AT THE PRESENT DAY._ The III Station is now at the corner, and the
IV and V have been moved a corresponding distance nearer to Calvary.]

It would be tedious to attempt to discuss in detail the evidence of the
various witnesses to the Franciscan tradition. For the most part each of
them only re-echoes in substance what is said by his predecessors,
though in style and manner of treatment they are not wanting in
individuality. Perhaps as a sample of the rest we cannot do better than
turn to the description of Brother Bernardine Surius, who wrote
originally in Flemish about the year 1646, and afterwards had his book
translated into French. He had spent several years in Palestine, and had
been President of the Holy Sepulchre there, and his volume bristles with
every kind of authentication. Surius’s eight stations are not identical
with those of Quaresmius. He says nothing which is at variance with the
data of the earlier writer, but makes a slightly different selection in
the following order: (1) Pilate’s House, (2) _Ecce Homo_ Arch, (3) Our
Lady’s Swoon, (4) Simon of Cyrene, (5) Daughters of Jerusalem, (6) House
of the Pharisee, (7) Veronica, (8) Judicial Gate.[113]

The reader will not fail to note in this arrangement of the Stations
that Surius, like Quaresmius, is silent about the three falls, and that
he represents the meeting with the women of Jerusalem as preceding that
with Veronica. With regard to the contents of these eight chapters the
writer’s treatment is devotional as well as descriptive. He interpolates
pious reflections and points of meditation, but he gives at the same
time a precise account of the position of the different sites and of all
points of interest connected with them. The House of Pilate, Surius’s
first station, was then as now in the occupation of Turkish officials.
There is probably no shadow of reason for connecting this spacious
medieval structure with the residence of the Roman governor, but ever
since the Crusades tradition has located the Prætorium in this place.

We come next to the _Ecce Homo_ Arch. By special favour Surius had been
permitted to climb the twenty-six stone steps which led up to the
roofless and almost ruined chamber above the arch, and he had then been
able to examine the two oval windows, divided by a pillar about five
feet high, looking out upon the street (the _Via Dolorosa_) towards the
east. He avows his belief, and he adds that all the Christians of the
East believe likewise, that at one of these windows stood JESUS CHRIST
and at the other Pilate, not only at the solemn moment of the _Ecce
Homo_ (“Behold the Man”), but also when the populace were bidden to
choose between JESUS CHRIST and Barabbas. On the western side, and above
the crown of the arch, two white flag-stones have been built into the
wall. Medieval tradition declares that Pilate had stood on one of these
stones and our LORD on the other. Critical modern archæologists seem
inclined to recognize in these slabs two flag-stones of the paved
courtyard (_lithostrotos_) of Pilate’s Prætorium. Strange to say, Amico,
Surius and a number of other travellers of that epoch who had had
exceptional opportunities of observing them, averred very positively
that one of the stones, but not the other, bore traces of an inscription
in great Latin letters. Surius maintained that the words had been ECCE
HOMO, but that “of the eight letters contained in these two words only
five remain, EC.E .OM., the Turks having obliterated the
remainder.”[114] Earlier observers, however, seem to have dissented from
this view, and the majority assert that the words were Tol. To. (i.e.,
_Tolle, Tolle_).[115] Fra Niccolo da Poggibonsi, who noticed the
inscription in 1345, declared that it was written in Greek, Hebrew and
Latin letters, and that it would remain for ever.[116]

[Illustration: _THE ECCE HOMO ARCH._ _From the second edition of
Bernardino Amico’s “Piante et Immagini,” 1620_]

Be it said in passing that modern archæologists fully admit the _Ecce
Homo_ Arch to be a genuine relic of the Roman period, though it was not
necessarily standing in the time of our LORD. The more generally
accepted opinion seems to be that it was a triumphal arch erected in the
second century about the time of Hadrian, but it may, as the Franciscans
contend, have served as the entrance gate of the old fortress of the
Antonia. In any case there is no probability that it was ever used for
such a purpose as that of exhibiting a reputed criminal before the eyes
of the multitude.

[Illustration: _CHRIST AT PILATE’S HOUSE._ _Illustration from the
“Geystlich Strass,” Nuremberg, 1521_ Upon this threefold subject see p.
81. The first scene is the condemnation of our Saviour by Pilate,
represented as taking place on the top of an arch. The second is the
stripping off of His garments before putting on the purple robe. This
may possibly have been suggested by the curious statement in Heer
Bethlem’s book that of the two stones in the arch one was that on which
Christ stood to hear His Sentence, the other that on which He stood when
His garments were torn from Him. The third scene represents the going
forth with the cross.]

To say the truth, this latter part of the story must prove rather a
shock to out-and-out believers in Palestinian traditions, for by the
admission of the Franciscan custodians themselves the tale of our
SAVIOUR’S having been shown to the people from the top of the _Ecce
Homo_ Arch is entirely of modern growth.[117] As early as 1287 Philippus
Brusserius of Savona saw the two stones already built into the
arch,[118] and in the next century a legend grew up that upon these two
stones Pilate and our SAVIOUR had respectively stood or sat when the
former delivered judgement.[119] By a slight modification it was next
believed that those were the stones upon which they stood at the moment
of the _Ecce Homo_ (“Behold the Man!”). Rochechouart, a traveller of
1461, declared that the Empress St Helena had caused the stones to be
honourably set up in the arch; but the Franciscan, Anselm of Cracow,
1509, maintained that it was a Father Guardian of his own Order who had
had this done by permission of the Sultan. So far, however, it was
clearly understood that the stones had been transferred to the arch from
the pavement of the Prætorium.[120] But in the sixteenth century a
further development of the legend took place. It came to be believed
that the stones had always belonged to the arch, and that it was from
the central window of the chamber above the vaulting that our LORD was
shown to the people. This idea is clearly suggested in the engraving
from the “Geystlich Strass” of 1521, reproduced opposite, and it was
from about this date that the arch began to be generally known as the
arch of the _Ecce Homo_. For more than two hundred years not the
slightest doubt seems to have been felt that our LORD was really
exhibited to the people from this elevated spot. The upper portion of
the arch gradually fell into ruin. The chamber above the vault is
already shown roofless in Amico’s drawing, p. 110, probably made about
1590, but this may possibly have been its original state. The arched
double window on the east side with its dividing column still remained,
but in 1630, if we may trust Elzearius Horn, a treasurer of the Sultan
coming from Damascus thought that this graceful column might serve to
adorn a mosque which he was building. He sent men to take it down, but
in the operation the pillar fell upon the two workmen, breaking the arm
of one and the leg of the other.[121] One may legitimately have doubts
about the historical accuracy of this story, for when Father Horn goes
on to say that at the same time two flag-stones forming part of the
flooring of this upper chamber, the two stones upon which our SAVIOUR
and Pilate had stood, were built into the western external wall of the
arch, he certainly cannot be correct. We have already noticed that they
were seen in this position at a very much earlier date. Horn also states
that the upper portion of the arch was repaired by the Franciscan
Guardian, Father James de Luca, in 1725, though the drawing which he
gives of it shows the monument in a very dilapidated state, and was
probably made before the restoration. Other restorations have been
necessary since, and at present (see next page), the upper portion of
the structure seemingly preserves nothing of the original, either as to
form or material.

[Illustration: _THE ECCE HOMO ARCH, FROM THE WEST._ _From a recent
Photograph. See pp. 112, 113._]

The third station in Surius’s enumeration is the meeting of our LORD
with His blessed Mother. This spot he is careful to explain “is 120
paces from the arch westwards down the _Via Dolorosa_ at a point where
there is an old wall of big square stones facing the north.” It is,
consequently, on the left hand side of the road as one goes towards
Calvary, and some seventy or eighty yards short of the corner where the
lane turns into the main street. This, be it noticed, entirely agrees
with the descriptions of Amico, Zuallardo and Quaresmius. The old wall
of big square stones is stated by Surius to have been part of the
ancient chapel erected to commemorate our Lady’s Swoon at the meeting
with her divine Son. He adds that when the building was destroyed by the
Turks, the Franciscans managed to obtain possession of the block of
stone on which she was supposed to have stood and which was venerated in
that chapel. The relic was conveyed by them to Mount Sion.[122]

With regard to the exact spot of the meeting with our Lady, Aranda, in
1533, supplies other details which must convince all readers that in his
time it was pointed out in the first section of the _Via Dolorosa_. He
calls attention to the fact that the road sloped downwards to the place
where our Lady stood. Hence, although there was a great crowd about our
SAVIOUR, she could see Him quite well as He descended the incline.
Again, Aranda points out that it is but a short distance from the place
of the swoon to the corner of the main street, and he infers that the
anguish of seeing His Mother’s grief so worked upon our LORD that He
Himself fell fainting to the ground almost immediately afterwards. He
could only bear up until He had turned the corner and was presumably out
of her view. Here it was, consequently, at the same corner that the
executioners seized upon Simon of Cyrene and compelled him to help our
LORD to proceed.

In his next chapter Surius, supposing the pilgrim to be still
progressing westwards towards Calvary, deals with the incident of Simon
of Cyrene, which he counts as the fourth station. To quote his own
words: “Ninety-five paces further on [from the chapel of the Swoon] one
turns into the main street, which begins at the Damascus Gate on the
north and leads to the market place and to the gate of the temple known
as ‘Beautiful.’ This is the spot, according to Eastern tradition, where
CHRIST our LORD fell under the weight of the cross, and where the Jews,
fearing that He would not have the strength to reach Calvary, compelled
an old man coming in from his farm to help our SAVIOUR to carry His
heavy burden.” It is to be observed that the Jesuit, Père Nau, who made
his pilgrimage in 1674 in the train of the French ambassador, gives a
precisely similar account, and he adds that the place of our LORD’S fall
here at the corner of the main street is marked by a stone of
considerable size (_une assez grosse pierre_) which the pilgrims kiss
and venerate with much devotion, although it lies in the middle of the
road[123] and in full view of the infidels, who often reward their piety
with a volley of imprecations and abuse. Things must already have begun
to improve a little in Jerusalem when the Christian pilgrims ventured to
bestow marks of veneration upon such an object. It may perhaps be that
the presence of the French ambassador and his suite made them rather
bolder than usual.

[Illustration: _THE SITE OF THE FIRST FALL_ (_STATION III_). (_From a
photograph_) This spot at the corner of the lane was formerly regarded
as the place where Simon of Cyrene came to aid our Lord. The broken
column will easily be recognised.]

And now, if I may venture to anticipate a little what would otherwise
have to be said later, it is worth while to point out that we have here
an important clue to the genesis of the system of Stations which are
venerated along the _Via Dolorosa_ at the present day. For the last two
centuries the custodians of the holy places have adopted the arrangement
of Adrichomius with its three falls and other peculiarities, finding
probably that among their Franciscan brethren in Europe this form of the
exercise of the Way of the Cross had now won almost universal
acceptance. But to harmonize this new enumeration of the Stations with
the old traditions was not easy. It seems plain that a point of
departure presented itself at the corner of the main street where Surius
located his fourth station. Here was certainly the scene of a fall of
our SAVIOUR attested by ancient tradition. A large fragment of rock
marked the spot. This, therefore, must be the first in Adrichomius’s
series of three falls. And so at this spot, at the corner of the street
leading from the Damascus Gate, the third of our received series of
Stations, “Our SAVIOUR falls the first time,” is at present venerated.
The site is still marked by a fragment of rock, though it is now
described as a broken column of red marble half imbedded in the ground,
and it no longer lies—if any one ever meant to convey that it lay—in the
centre of the roadway. Thus Dom Geramb in his extremely interesting
letter, giving an account of the _Via Dolorosa_, written in 1832, states
that “at the end of the street, turning to the left near the Turkish
bath,[124] you come to a column of red marble prostrate and broken,
which, according to tradition, marks the spot where our SAVIOUR sank to
earth for the first time under the weight of the cross.” Earlier still
this column is spoken of by the Portuguese friar, Joao de Jesus Christo,
who visited Jerusalem before 1818.[125] The broken shaft is apparently
still there, and is shown in recent photographs. Indeed, it is quite
possible that this is the very stone of which Ludolf von Suchem (1350)
speaks in a rather confused passage in which he alludes to “the stone
whereon JESUS rested awhile when His strength failed Him on account of
His tortures and the weight of His cross, and there the Jews compelled
Simon of Cyrene to bear the cross after Him.”[126]

It will be noticed that earlier authorities like Ludolf all associate
this physical collapse of our Blessed LORD with the incident of Simon of
Cyrene. The real difficulty was created by Adrichomius’s arrangement,
which introduces the meeting with our Blessed Lady between the first
fall and the compulsory impressment of Simon. Once, however, that the
first fall was fixed at the corner of the main street, the other
stations had to be determined in their due order. The meeting with our
Lady was accordingly transferred from the old position in the lane to a
point further along the main street, while Simon of Cyrene’s advent had
to be assigned to a spot still lower down. These changes were rendered
somewhat easier by the fact that Adrichomius supposed the meeting with
the women of Jerusalem to have taken place outside the city beyond the
Judicial Gate. This, at any rate, as the sketch map on p. 107 will make
sufficiently clear, is the order in which the stations are now venerated
by those who piously follow their Franciscan guides along the _Via
Dolorosa_. Station III (the First Fall) is at the corner as we turn to
the left into the main street which runs south from the Damascus Gate.
Station IV (the meeting with Mary) is on the right hand forty yards
lower down. Station V (Simon of Cyrene) is twenty-five yards still
further on. It is located at the next corner, where the pilgrim turns
westward once more to climb up a narrow lane spanned by many arches and
leading to the Judicial Gate and Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In this
narrow lane half way up on the left hand is Station VI (Veronica). At
the Judicial Gate we have Station VII (the second Fall). Beyond this we
have to make detours, as has already been explained, in order to reach
the eminence of Calvary, now covered by the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. The eighth station (Women of Jerusalem) and the ninth (third
Fall) are venerated on our way, but it is admitted that we cannot now
draw near to the site which tradition seeks to identify with the second
of these incidents.

But let us return after this interruption to Surius, whom we left at his
fourth station, meditating on the incident of Simon of Cyrene. If I may
summarize his rather diffuse remarks, he continues in some such terms as
these:

Station the fifth. After this painful fall our LORD, goaded on by His
cruel tormentors, struggled to His feet, leaving the ground purpled with
His precious Blood. Then, after staggering forward another twenty-four
paces, seeing that some pious women were following Him wailing and
lamenting, our SAVIOUR turned to them and said: “Daughters of
Jerusalem,” etc.

The sixth station, according to Surius, is 125 paces from where JESUS
CHRIST spoke to the women. It is up a steep lane (_une ruelle
montagneuse_) running westward, and is the house of the Pharisee, where
St Mary Magdalene washed our SAVIOUR’S feet.

One hundred and five paces further on towards the Judicial Gate we come
to the house of Veronica, Surius’s seventh station. The original
building, he tells us, had fallen into ruin, but another had been built
in its place, the entrance to which is up a flight of four steps. It may
be noted that recent exploration has shown the existence of very ancient
remains in this spot. Herr von Schick believed them to be Jewish and
older than the time of our LORD.[127]

Finally, after travelling straight on for 128 paces more, we come to the
Judicial Gate, which is Surius’s eighth and last station. He does not
speak of any fall of our SAVIOUR at this point, but he and the
Franciscan writers of the same epoch imply that there may have been a
halt there, a moment’s breathing space, while the formal sentence passed
upon JESUS of Nazareth was read aloud and posted upon the column
standing hard by. Father Parviller (_c._ 1650) is responsible for the
further curious suggestion that our SAVIOUR prostrated Himself upon the
earth when the sentence was read, in testimony of His entire obedience
to the will of His heavenly Father. There can be little doubt that the
good friars who at the beginning of the eighteenth century sought to
conciliate their traditions with the system of Adrichomius would have
welcomed the idea that the fall at the gate of the city (the seventh
station, “JESUS falls a second time”) might be identified with the halt
caused by the reading and posting of the sentence. I must not, however,
omit to note that Burchard of Mount Sion, a very early traveller (_c._
1280), describes our LORD as sinking to earth at the city gate under the
weight of His cross. But if there was any tradition to that effect, it
seems to have been forgotten for centuries.[128] Père Nau, the Jesuit,
who so closely agrees with Surius in his descriptions, takes particular
notice of the pillar which stood by the Judicial Gate and which may
still be seen there at the present day. It is now enclosed in a tiny
chapel built on the spot and owned by the Franciscans. “When we reach
the top of the street,” says Nau, “a pillar may be observed under the
archway of an old ruined house. It is stated that upon this pillar was
posted the sentence of death which had been judicially passed upon our
SAVIOUR. Tradition will have it that by a special providence of God the
column has remained there undisturbed until modern times. I confess I
have some difficulty in crediting the fact.” It may be added that the
existence of some city gate—probably that known to Nehemias as the “Old
Gate”—in the immediate neighbourhood of the present “Judicial Gate” is
highly probable. In spite of the reluctance of English experts to admit
that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre occupies the site of Calvary—a
reluctance largely prompted, I venture to think, by an antipathy to
relics and Romanism—the evidence collected by Herr von Schick and others
affords reliable proof that the city wall in the time of our SAVIOUR ran
east and north of the traditional site of the crucifixion. Given the
wall, the configuration of the ground shows that there must almost
necessarily have been a gate at this point, and the remains still
standing may very possibly have belonged to it.

With the Judicial Gate Surius, like Quaresmius, ended his Way of the
Cross; and the Franciscans, who as an exercise of devotion used to
follow our SAVIOUR barefoot from Pilate’s Prætorium to this point, here
resumed their sandals. It is particularly curious that in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries we almost entirely lose sight of that “stone
with crosses” in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,[129]
which was supposed to mark the place of our LORD’S falling or resting
for the last time before He reached the actual site of the crucifixion.
Although it is shown most conspicuously in early engravings of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where pilgrims are represented as kneeling
to kiss it and to gain the indulgence attached to it, neither Quaresmius
nor Surius include it in their Way of Sorrows. What is more, the site
now indicated for the third fall (the ninth station) is not in the
courtyard of the Holy Sepulchre Church but at an inaccessible spot
within the Coptic monastery. Hence it would seem that the stone which
stirred such deep emotions in the hearts of Wey, Fabri, Breydenbach and
innumerable others is now entirely unhonoured.

We have thus come to the end of our pilgrimage along the _Via Dolorosa_
as that pilgrimage was made by the authorized Franciscan guides of the
seventeenth century. Beyond the Judicial Gate, as has been said, Surius
does not take us, though he tells us that he estimated the distance that
our SAVIOUR travelled to Calvary at 410 paces more. But the ground, he
says, has been so built over that it is useless to attempt to trace His
actual footsteps. So far as I have been able to investigate the matter,
there can be no doubt that in Jerusalem itself the tradition represented
by Quaresmius and Surius entirely held the field down to the closing
years of the seventeenth century. Almost the only trace of our modern
system of Stations that I have encountered on Eastern soil before this
date occurs, strange to say, in the narrative of a Protestant traveller,
George Sandys.[130] In his “Relation of a Journey begun in 1610” he
gives an account of Jerusalem, and tells us the way between Pilate’s
palace and Mount Calvary “is called the Dolorous Way, along which our
SAVIOUR was led to His Passion; in which they say, and show where, that
He thrice fell under the weight of His cross.” This may be simply an
echo of Adrichomius, whose book before this date had been translated
into English, or the traveller may identify these falls with other
incidents such as those of Simon of Cyrene and Veronica. What is certain
is that Sandys reproduces in his own book Zuallardo’s woodcut of the
_Via Dolorosa_ (given above p. 105), and then adds a description which
agrees in every respect with the old Franciscan tradition.

Other later descriptions by visitors, who like Sandys could hardly be
called pilgrims, might be quoted in the same sense. However, towards the
close of the seventeenth century it is plain that the influence of
Adrichomius began to make itself felt even in the East. An attempt seems
gradually to have been made to combine the devotional system now in the
ascendant with the old Franciscan traditions, and it is curious to watch
the successive stages by which this was brought about. Perhaps the first
sign may be detected in the vogue of Adrichomius’s map with its figured
stations. Fray Antonio de Castillo, O.F.M., who had spent seven years
continuously in an official position in the Holy Land, returning to
Spain, published a handsome volume at Madrid in 1656 called “El Devoto
Peregrino.”[131] In this, while he is entirely faithful to the older
traditions, and reproduces Zuallardo’s plan of the _Via Dolorosa_ in a
better form than the original, nevertheless he has also incorporated in
his volume two large folding sheets, one a copy of the map of Jerusalem
by Fra Bernardino Amico, the other a copy of that of Adrichomius. The
fact that the two plans in many important particulars contradict one
another does not seem to have troubled him. The same map of Adrichomius
is again reproduced with its stations in the highly official Franciscan
history, “Chronica de la Provincia de Syria,” by Juan de Calahorra, in
1684. It is, however, in such a book as that of the German friar
Hietling, who had been guardian of Bethlehem and who on his return to
Austria in 1713 published a folio on the Holy Land,[132] that we find
the first clear indications of the coming change. His book contains a
very rude and curious plan of the _Via Dolorosa_, evidently drafted by
himself, but leaving no room for ambiguity as to its divergence from the
older delineations.[133] Of the three separate falls of Adrichomius’s
system there is as yet no formal mention, but there are other features
which unmistakably show the influence which Adrichomius exercised.
First, the meeting with the women of Jerusalem has been placed after
that with Veronica, and the place of the encounter has been indicated as
in Adrichomius’s map at the point beyond the Judicial Gate. Secondly,
the episode of our Lady now appears in a double form. The meeting with
her Son (_occursus Virginis_) is still assigned to the old site in the
lane, midway between the _Ecce Homo_ Arch and the end. But the Swoon of
our Lady (_deliquium beatæ Virginis_) is now treated as a separate
incident, and located in the main street well round the corner. As we
have already seen, this last site has been eventually retained, and is
now honoured as that of the fourth station, presumably because it allows
the first fall of our LORD to be identified with the corner of the lane
and yet to precede, as in Adrichomius’s order, the meeting with the
Blessed Virgin. It would appear that at this period, i.e., during the
first fifty years of the eighteenth century, great confusion prevailed
in determining the stations of the _Via Dolorosa_. No two writers,
however ample their opportunities of acquainting themselves with the
Franciscan traditions of Jerusalem, will be found to agree exactly. In
the “Guida Fedele” of Brother Pietr’ Antonio di Venetia, O.F.M., we have
the complete system of Adrichomius with all its details.[134] Brother
Antonio do Sacramento, a Portuguese friar who spent a year or more in
the Holy Land in 1739-40, mentions four falls of which the second
coincides with the episode of Simon of Cyrene, but he seems nevertheless
to assign the meeting with our Blessed Lady to the original position in
the lane. This is also the case in the elaborate and careful drawings of
Father Elzearius Horn (_c._ 1740).[135] On the other hand Father Myller,
a Bohemian Servite, in 1735 says nothing of the falls, though he, like
several others, places the meeting with the women outside the Judicial
Gate.[136] Eventually the system of Adrichomius was somehow made to fit
in with the local traditions, and in the _Viage_ of Brother Joao de
Jesus Christo of 1818, already mentioned, we find the Stations of the
_Via Dolorosa_ given in the same order and at precisely the same points
along the road as are observed in the exercise of the Way of the Cross
officially conducted by the Franciscans of Jerusalem on Friday
afternoons at the present day. For some hundreds of years it has been
the custom of the friars to traverse the _Via Dolorosa_ for their
private devotion, walking barefoot, i.e. without their sandals. But it
is only within the last half century that it has been possible for a
group of pilgrims to make the Way of the Cross together in public under
the guidance of one of the religious. Father Horn, it is true, declared
that in ancient times the friars of Mount Sion used to make the Stations
on Fridays “in procession, though without the cross at their
head—_processionaliter absque tamen prævia cruce_”—and that this
practice continued until 1621, when the Turkish authorities stopped it;
but I have found no satisfactory confirmation of this assertion. Even as
late as 1832 Christian devotees were exposed to every kind of annoyance,
as the following passage from a letter of Dom Geramb will show:

“Nine of these stations are in the streets forming the _Via Dolorosa_,
so that the pilgrim is obliged to refrain from all external signs of
piety, if he would avoid the insults and outrages of which Turkish
fanaticism is not sparing. I have sometimes ventured to disregard
Mussulman prejudice, but I would not advise any one to imitate my
temerity. Along a road bordered exclusively by Turkish dwellings and
frequented by all classes of the population it is better to confine
oneself to inward prayer than to provoke outrage and blasphemy. One day,
before the house of St Veronica, I allowed some external mark of respect
to escape me, and instantly a vessel of water was flung over me from a
window. The wisest thing was to say nothing, and I passed on in
silence.”[137]

The same writer also tells us in another place of a broken column in the
roadway, which was believed to mark the position of the ninth station,
i.e., the third fall, not far from Calvary; but the Turks, when they
discovered this, took to heaping up filth against it, with the express
object of keeping the Christians at a distance.

At the present day, however, the spectacle of a group of Christians
praying at a street corner has become too familiar in Jerusalem to evoke
as a rule any demonstration of Moslem fanaticism. On Good Friday a great
procession of pilgrims, a score of whom support between them on their
shoulders a gigantic wooden cross, traverse unmolested the whole course
of the _Via Dolorosa_, pausing for a while at each station to recite
devotions in public, while, as already mentioned, the exercise of the
Stations takes place on a smaller scale on every Friday afternoon
throughout the year. Travellers have also noticed that by a sort of
irony of fate there may be witnessed within a few hours on these same
Friday evenings the weird spectacle of the lamentations of the Jews in
“the place of wailing.” There, against the wall of what was once the
glorious temple of Jerusalem, they mourn over the dispersion of their
race almost within earshot of the Christian Way of Sorrows.

[Illustration: _THE VIA DOLOROSA, NEAR VERONICA’S HOUSE._ _From a
drawing by W. Bartlett_, _c._ 1840.]

The question can hardly fail to suggest itself: What probability is
there that the _Via Dolorosa_ now venerated in Jerusalem really
represents the path trodden by our LORD’S sacred feet on His last
painful journey to Calvary? It is not quite easy to answer such a
question satisfactorily within moderate limits. What we have already
seen in the foregoing pages of the growth and fluctuation of tradition,
as well as the adaptability of these same traditions to new ideas when
any strong pressure from without renders compromise desirable, will have
prepared us to find that the popular and general acceptance of a belief
even for a long period together can afford no satisfactory guarantee
that the belief has solid foundation in fact. It is to archæological
considerations and the evidence of the earliest centuries that we must
turn for a solution rather than to any living voice, even though it
represent an uninterrupted succession of teachers stretching back to the
middle ages. It must be obvious that the first question to be decided is
the position of the Prætorium of the Roman governor and of the
Lithostrotos or paved courtyard of which the gospel tells us. No
reasonable doubt can be felt that our SAVIOUR will have been led from
the place of sentence to the place of execution by the shortest
available route. The _terminus ad quem_ we may assume to be determined
by the position of Constantine’s basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. Recent
scientific research has made clear the futility of the reasons for
seeking Golgotha in any other quarter than that assigned by tradition.
The one serious objection to the identification of the present Church of
the Holy Sepulchre with the scene of the crucifixion was the doubt—which
formerly seemed well founded—whether this site could possibly have stood
outside the wall of the city in the time of our LORD. Thanks to the
researches of the German archæological expert, the late Herr Conrad von
Schick, we may take it as satisfactorily proved that the course of the
city wall did not originally take in the ground now covered by
Constantine’s basilica, but nevertheless ran close up to it.[138] Hence
if our SAVIOUR was crucified upon the spot which Christians ever since
the beginning of the fourth century have venerated as the rock of
Calvary, He truly “suffered outside the gate,” as the Epistle to the
Hebrews says with emphasis,[139] while on the other hand the place was
so near one of the main entrances into the city that St John might well
insist that the title affixed to the cross could be read by multitudes
of wayfarers.[140]

But with regard to the _terminus a quo_ of the Way of Sorrows things are
by no means so clear. A Catholic professor has recently published a long
article in a leading theological review to prove that from the testimony
of Josephus it necessarily follows that the Prætorium of Pilate was
situated on Mount Sion.[141] If that be so, our LORD must have
approached Calvary from an entirely different quarter than that
indicated by the traditional _Via Dolorosa_. He must have descended to
the place of crucifixion from the south side, instead of toiling upwards
from the east. On the other hand, a distinguished Dominican, Father
Zanecchia, has been led by the description of early pilgrims to locate
the Prætorium deep in the Tyropœan Valley, which separates the east and
west hills, upon which Jerusalem is built. In this view he has been
followed by the Assumptionist professors of Notre Dame de France in
their recently published guide-book, “La Palestine, Guide Historique.”
If this theory were correct, it would be equally impossible to regard
the traditional _Via Dolorosa_ as the true path of our SAVIOUR to
Calvary. Let me hasten to explain that neither of these two hypotheses
regarding the location of the Prætorium appears to me satisfactory. The
first proceeds upon the assumption that the Christians of ancient
Jerusalem retained no memory of the sites of our LORD’S Passion, and
that the descriptions of early pilgrims are consequently worthless;
surely a needlessly violent and extreme position. The second view, on
the other hand, seems to exaggerate the inferences to be deduced from
the accounts of Antonius and the Bordeaux pilgrim, and to ignore the
equally valuable evidence obtainable from other quarters. I am inclined
therefore to associate myself with the criticisms which have been
directed against Padre Zanecchia’s theory by Frère Barnabé d’Alsace and
Dr Karl Mommert,[142] and to accept the solution of the last-named that
the Prætorium of Pilate stood near the head of the Tyropœan Valley, on
the ground at present occupied by the Armenian convent, where pilgrims
now venerate the fourth station of the cross. In a recent article in the
“Dublin Review” I have touched upon the reasons which have led me to
this conclusion, though for a fuller exposition I must refer to the
important work of Dr Karl Mommert, who discusses the subject in great
detail. It may be sufficient to say here that while the account of the
Bordeaux pilgrim (A.D. 333) is precise in locating the ruins of the
Prætorium in the valley below Mount Sion, and on the right hand of a man
who is travelling northward from Mount Sion to the Damascus Gate, the
archæological evidence testifies strongly to the existence of a paved
courtyard of the Roman period, which seems to have extended from the
_Ecce Homo_ Arch to the present Armenian convent at the head of the
Tyropœan Valley. This has long been identified with the Lithostrotos
spoken of by St John, called in Hebrew “Gabbatha.” Now we know that in
the fourth and fifth century a considerable basilica dedicated to the
Holy Wisdom (_Sancta Sophia_) was erected on the site of the Prætorium,
and that a stone, believed to be that on which our Blessed LORD stood to
be judged, was specially venerated there. I will content myself with
quoting the account which passes under the name of St Antoninus of
Piacenza, _c._ 570.

“We pray,” he says, “in the Prætorium where the LORD was tried, which is
now the basilica of Holy Wisdom. In the church itself is the seat upon
which Pilate sat when he tried our LORD. There is also a square stone
which used to stand in the midst of the Prætorium, upon which the
accused was placed during his trial, that he might be heard and seen by
all the people. Upon it our LORD was placed when He was tried by Pilate,
and there the marks of His feet still remain. The portrait which during
His lifetime was painted and placed in the Prætorium shows a beautiful
small delicate foot, a person of ordinary height, a handsome face, hair
inclined to curl, a beautiful hand with long fingers. And many are the
virtues of the stone on which He stood, for men take the measure of His
footprints, and bind them upon their bodies for various diseases, and
are healed. The stone itself is adorned with gold and silver.”[143]

Further, this veneration paid to the marks of our SAVIOUR’S footprints
in the Church of Holy Wisdom as the place where He stood to be judged is
attested to the beginning of the seventh century by St Sophronius,
Patriarch of Jerusalem.[144]

This basilica of the Holy Wisdom probably fell into ruin during the
early years of the Mohammedan occupation. No one has pretended to
identify it with any existing building. But in certain recent
explorations undertaken in the neighbourhood of the Armenian convent
traces of a Byzantine building have been found, and in particular a
mosaic representing the imprint of two small feet or rather shoes.
Without supposing that this was the actual stone, “ornamented with gold
and silver,” which was once honoured there, it seems extremely probable
that such a pattern as that of two footprints might have been largely
used in the decoration of the basilica of the Holy Wisdom, and that we
have struck here upon the traces of the church erected upon the site of
the ruined Prætorium. For the fuller exposition of the argument I must
refer the reader to the work of Dr Mommert, but I may note that this
result is in very fair agreement with the conclusions arrived at from
their different standpoints by such devoted students of Jerusalem
topography as M. Clermont Ganneau, Comte de Vogüé, Herr von Schick,
Professor Zaccaria and Père Lagrange. Finally, let me note that if Dr
Mommert’s hypothesis be accepted as, on the whole, the most probable
theory which has yet been advanced, the received traditions as to the
course of our SAVIOUR’S sad journey to Calvary have not been so very far
wrong. We may perhaps have to surrender the belief that He passed under
the _Ecce Homo_ Arch and down the lane in which the first three stations
are now shown, but His way must roughly have coincided with the rest of
the _Via Dolorosa_, and the general direction of the painful ascent must
have been that which we have always supposed.

That we can never hope to recover the actual path sanctified by contact
with His sacred feet must be plain from one very simple consideration.
The level of the soil in such a city as Jerusalem is constantly
changing; the hollows are continually being filled up, the elevations
are in some measure denuded. Near the Armenian convent, where we may
believe the true _Via Dolorosa_ to have begun, the rock is now fifty
feet below the surface. In our LORD’S time, as the evidence of
excavations prove, there was a far less depth of soil, and the little
slope of Calvary must have been by so many feet the steeper.

Before ending this chapter a word may be added on the imitations of the
_Via Dolorosa_ in the West.

It must not be assumed that the arrangement of Stations which meets us
in Adrichomius’s book and which was later popularized by St Leonard of
Port Maurice and other great Franciscan missionaries, was the only
system to win any measure of popular favour. On the contrary, the Way of
the Cross compiled by Father Adrian Parviller, S.J., seems in the last
half of the seventeenth, and in the first half of the eighteenth century
to have had a very great vogue. A large number of editions of the little
book were called for, and it was translated into almost every language.
For example, four different editions in Breton are to be found in the
library of the British Museum; while the English translation of Father
Parviller’s method was apparently printed and reprinted some time before
any other arrangement of the Stations of the Cross was known in this
country.

According to Father Parviller’s method the first station was the supper
chamber, the second the grotto of the garden of Olives, the third the
gate of the garden of Olives where JESUS was arrested, the fourth the
brook Cedron, into which, as they crossed it, our SAVIOUR was thrown
through the brutal violence of His captors. Then we have in due order
the houses of Annas, Caiphas and Herod, followed by the chamber of the
scourging and the Prætorium of Pilate. This brings us to the tenth
station, the titles of which and of those which follow, we may give more
exactly.

Station X. The _Ecce Homo_ Arch where our LORD was put into comparison
with Barabbas, and Barabbas preferred before Him.

Station XI. The spot where our Blessed Lady swooned away with sorrow at
the sight of her Son carrying His cross to Calvary.

Station XII. The cross-roads where our SAVIOUR fell under the weight of
His cross and was raised up and aided to carry it by Simon of Cyrene.

Station XIII. The place where the women and devout maidens of Jerusalem
lamented at the sight of our LORD.

Station XIV. The house of holy Veronica, who wiped with her kerchief the
face of our LORD, covered as it was with sweat, with blood and with
spittle.

Station XV. The Judicial Gate, where our SAVIOUR heard His sentence read
aloud.

Station XVI. Calvary, where our LORD was crucified between two thieves.

Station XVII. The Holy Sepulchre in which the dead Body of our SAVIOUR
was laid.

Station XVIII (the last). The Mount of Olives, whence our LORD, after
the Resurrection, ascended into heaven.

So far as I can ascertain, no general rule prevailed in the sixteenth or
even in the seventeenth century, as to the number, order or character of
the devotional Stations of the Way of the Cross, which were set up in
many religious houses, churchyards and other sacred enclosures. In the
English Augustinian convent at Bruges, which has occupied the site which
it occupies now ever since the early part of the seventeenth century,
traces are preserved of two interesting sets of Stations.[145] In both
cases the selection of subjects coincides as little with the
arrangements of Parviller or Quaresmius as it does with the set of
fourteen Stations which is alone familiar at the present day. Again
there are many examples of old sets of Stations in the public churches
of Germany, France and the Netherlands, sometimes within the building,
as at St Roch in Paris, but more frequently out of doors, the subjects
of which by no means agree with those now in vogue.

Footnote 105:

  Readers familiar with the life of St Ignatius Loyola will readily
  recall the summary way in which he was shipped back to Europe when he
  visited the Holy Land in 1523, and would fain have lingered in
  Jerusalem.

Footnote 106:

  Zuallardo was not himself a Franciscan, but his book is largely
  founded upon the work of Brother Bonifacius of Ragusa, O.F.M., who was
  custodian of the holy places and a high authority on the subject.

Footnote 107:

  The title of Amico’s work is “Trattato delle Piante et Immagini de’
  sacri Edifizi di Terra Santa.” The numerous plans and sketches which
  it contains seem to have been executed by Fra Antonio d’Angioli, who
  lived eight years in the Holy Land. See the first edition, 1610, p.
  20. In the second edition, 1620, an account of the _Via Dolorosa_ was
  added to the original text.

Footnote 108:

  “Historica, Theologica et Moralis Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio”; auctore
  Francisco Quaresmio, Ordinis Minorum Theologo, olim Terræ Sanctæ
  Præside, et Commissario Apostolico, 2 vols, folio (1639). In a printed
  notice at the end the author states that the work was begun in 1616,
  completed in 1625, that the printing commenced in 1634, and was
  completed in 1639. After his manuscript had been finished and
  censored, the author again returned to reside in the Holy Land, and
  was there able to compare the descriptions in his book with the actual
  sites, subjecting the whole to a thorough revision.

Footnote 109:

  Quaresmius, “Elucidatio,” vol. II, pp. 179 seq. The good Franciscan
  criticizes rather more severely Adrichomius’s identification of the
  _Ecce Homo_ arch with the Xystus described in Josephus. The Xystus, as
  Quaresmius shows, lay to the south-west of the Temple, while the arch
  is on the north side. See ib. pp. 206-208.

Footnote 110:

  “CHRIST aussi se reposa un peu icy regardant la haulte montagne
  pargrande anxiété et douleur” (Pérégrination, p. 148). “Ende hier was
  CHRISTUS wat rustende, ænsiende den hooghen berch met grooter
  benautheden” (Eeen devote maniere), etc., fol. 112 verso.

Footnote 111:

  The little work of the pilgrim priest, Heer Bethlem, mentioned above,
  pp. 77-79, is also cited by Adrichomius amongst his authorities.
  Bethlem agrees with Pascha in the extraordinary exaggeration of the
  distance from Simon to Veronica and from Veronica to the Judicial
  Gate, but while in Pascha the distance from Veronica to the Judicial
  Gate is almost double that from Simon to Veronica (336 paces to 191
  paces) Bethlem makes them almost identical (300 ells to 282 ells).
  Adrichomius makes no comment, but follows Pascha implicitly.

Footnote 112:

  Compare Adrichomius’s map, p. 87, with the sketches on pp. 106-107.

Footnote 113:

  Surius, Bernardin, O.F.M. (Recollect, Président du Saint Sepulcre et
  Commissaire de la Terre Saincte, des années 1644, 1645, 1646, 1647);
  “Le Pieux Pélerin,” Brussels, 1666, p. 440.

Footnote 114:

  Surius, “Le Pieux Pélerin,” p. 441, ed. 1666.

Footnote 115:

  So says Aramon in 1549. See Schefer and Cordier, “Recueil de Voyages,”
  vol. VIII, p. 120.

Footnote 116:

  Vol. I, p. 205, ed. Bacchi.

Footnote 117:

  See Père Barnabé d’Alsace, “Le Prétoire,” p. 53.

Footnote 118:

  Philippus says they were the stones our LORD rested upon when He was
  carrying the cross.—See “Oest. Vierteljahresschrift f. kat.
  Theologie,” 1872, p. 53.

Footnote 119:

  See C. G. Conrady, “Rheinische Pilgerschriften,” p. 121; and compare
  Wey’s account (1462) quoted above, p. 48.

Footnote 120:

  This is quite explicitly stated by M. Tschudi (1519) in his “Reyss und
  Bilgerfahrt zum heyligen Grab,” p. 222. He also, like Poggibonsi, saw
  an inscription on the arch “in Latin, Greek and Hebrew characters,”
  but he does not say that it was engraved on the two stones.

Footnote 121:

  Horn, “Ichnographia,” p. 125.

Footnote 122:

  If this is true, then the mosaic representing the print of two feet
  discovered of late years in the Armenian convent is not likely to have
  had anything to do with our Blessed Lady’s Swoon.

Footnote 123:

  Nau probably only means that the stone was conspicuous, not that it
  actually lay in the centre of the roadway.

Footnote 124:

  This property was subsequently bought by the Catholic Armenians, and
  is now the Armenian convent. When Geramb wrote, the bath was still
  standing.

Footnote 125:

  “Se encontra huma columna de marmore que mostra o lugar onde o
  Salvador cahio a primera vez.”—Joao de Jesus Christo, “Viage de hum
  Peregrino a Jerusalem,” 3rd ed. Lisboa, p. 187.

Footnote 126:

  “A great stone built into the wall at the corner where JESUS fell” is
  also mentioned at this spot, in connexion with Simon of Cyrene, by
  Duke Frederick II of Liegnitz in 1507. See “Zeitschrift d. deutsch.
  Palästina Verein,” 1878, p. 187.

Footnote 127:

  See Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, 1896, p. 214.

Footnote 128:

  Laurent, “Peregrinationes Quatuor,” p. 20; cf. ibid. p. 74.

Footnote 129:

  From Tschudi’s careful description, who saw the stone in 1519, it
  seems to have been very small—less than a foot square. According to
  him it was marked with only one cross, and was ten paces distant from
  the church (“Reyss,” p. 191).

Footnote 130:

  N. C. Radzivil, in his “Hierosol. Peregrinatio,” also speaks of the
  falls. But he, like Quaresmius (II, p. 209), may only be quoting
  Adrichomius.

Footnote 131:

  Antonio de Castillo, O.F.M., “El Devoto Peregrino, Viage de Tierra
  Santa.” The book contains the usual crowd of official approbations. A
  similar inconsistency is even more conspicuous in Father Gonzalez’s
  “Hierusalemse Reijse,” a work written in Flemish and published at
  Antwerp in 1673.

Footnote 132:

  “Peregrinus affectuose per Terram Sanctam et Jerusalem conductus,”
  auctore C. Hietling, Ord. Min. Strict. Observ. Reform., 1713.

Footnote 133:

  His plan in many details bears a curious resemblance to that of Father
  Elzearius Horn, O.F.M., recently published from a Vatican MS. by
  Father Golubovich. Hietling and Horn must probably have copied from
  some common source.

Footnote 134:

  “Guida Fedele alla Santa Città di Gerusalemme,” Venice, 1703.

Footnote 135:

  “Viagem Santa e Peregrinacao Devota,” Lisbon, 1748; Horn,
  “Ichnographiæ Locorum et Monumentorum Veterum Terræ Sanctæ,” Rome,
  1902.

Footnote 136:

  “Peregrinus in Jerusalem,” Vienna, 1735.

Footnote 137:

  Letter of Dom Geramb, written in 1832.

Footnote 138:

  An excellent summary of the question may be found in Herr von Schick’s
  paper in the “Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund”
  for April, 1893.

Footnote 139:

  Heb. xiii, 12.

Footnote 140:

  John xix, 20.

Footnote 141:

  The “Theologische Quartalschrift” of Tübingen, for April, 1905;
  article by Dr van Bebber on “Das Prætorium des Pilatus.”

Footnote 142:

  “Das Prätorium des Pilatus.” By Dr Karl Mommert. Haberland, Leipzig,
  1903.

Footnote 143:

  Antoninus, ed. Geyer, p. 206.

Footnote 144:

  See Migne, P.G. vol. LXVII, p. 3822.

Footnote 145:

  One consists of diamond-shaped stones—the series unfortunately is
  incomplete—erected originally in the garden. The tablets which survive
  bear the following numbers and inscriptions: (3) Our LORD before
  Caiphas; (5) Our LORD going to Herod; (7) Our LORD carrying His cross;
  (8) Our LORD’S first fall; (9) Our LORD meeting with His Blessed
  Mother; (10) Simon helps to carry our LORD’S cross; (11) Fall of our
  LORD; (15) Our LORD’S nailing to the cross; (16) Our LORD hanging on
  the cross. The other set are a series of pictures. They seem to have
  been painted in Rome for Lady Carrington and to have been sent by her
  to Lady Lucy Herbert, who was the Reverend Mother Prioress at Bruges
  in the first half of the eighteenth century. The subjects are the
  following: (1) The Last Supper; (2) The Agony in the Garden; (3) The
  Apprehension; (4) CHRIST before Caiphas; (5) CHRIST before Pilate; (6)
  The Ecce Homo; (7) The Scourging; (8) The Crowning with Thorns; (9)
  Veronica; (10) The Taking Down from the Cross; (11) The Burial; (12)
  The Resurrection.




           Chapter VII—The Devotional Aspect of the Stations


It must be evident from the contents of the preceding chapters that, so
far as concerns many details of the exercise of the Way of the Cross the
historical foundation of our present system of Stations is quite of the
slenderest. We have no sufficient warrant for the episode of Veronica,
none for the meeting with our Blessed Lady, none for the three falls,
while the order adopted for these various incidents does not depend even
upon the medieval traditions current in Jerusalem, but upon a work of
the imagination belonging to relatively modern times which first saw the
light in Flanders. To some readers this uncertainty may seem to involve
the unwelcome conclusion that the whole practice is tainted with
superstition, and that amid such turbid waters all reference to the
Passion of CHRIST as a pure fountain of devotion becomes singularly out
of place. This, however, will not, I think, be the inference drawn by
any one who takes a large and generous view of the subject. On the
contrary, the curiously complicated development of the Stations of the
Cross seems to the present writer to illustrate, in a conspicuous way,
the working of a law akin to that of the survival of the fittest, a law
which meets us, more often than might be expected, in this and many
similar matters of popular piety. If one particular set of Stations has
prevailed in preference to another, this, I conceive, is ultimately to
be attributed to the fact that the one appeals more strongly than the
other to the pious imagination or to the devotional needs and feelings
of the faithful at large. While we may recognize, in the most emphatic
way, the desirability of more rigorous scrutiny into the authenticity of
relics, indulgences, legends, patristic apocrypha and other such matters
of pious credulity, we have after all to remember that these things are
the aids and means of devotion, but not its final cause. Historical
research concerns itself with such matters, and the verdict of science
most certainly should be respected. But historical research is not
possible for the rank and file of Christian believers, nor even _ex
professo_ for the pastors of the Church. Provided that the large element
of uncertainty which enters into such matters be admitted, no great harm
can arise from the prevalence of any particular legend which, though
historically doubtful, is not in itself extravagant or disedifying. As
the celebrated Dominican, Père Lagrange, has admirably said when
speaking of the authenticity of certain of the holy places, venerated by
the faithful and enriched with indulgences:

“If Origen, Eusebius, St Jerome, Sozomen, are all mistaken, not merely
as to the precise situation of the house of Cleophas, but about the
identity of Emmaus Nicopolis with the Emmaus of the Gospels, how can we
expect a pilgrim prostrate in the dust at a street corner to hold for
certain that at this identical spot our SAVIOUR fell for the second or
the third time? We are told the pilgrims come to make the Stations of
the Cross, and that if they have not a blind confidence in the _hic_
(here) of the lay-brother who is taking them round, they lose all
devotion. Surely this is a poor compliment to pay them. The faithful
know very well that when the Church proposes some special mystery of our
LORD’S life for their veneration, the word _hodie_ (to-day) which is
used in the liturgy has only an approximate value. The pilgrims are no
more the slaves of the _hic_ than they are of the _hodie_. They are
happy to follow the footsteps of CHRIST, to make protestation of their
gratitude to the GOD made Man; to kiss the stone in token of their
humility and adoration; but their devotion will only be the more free
and spontaneous if it is not necessarily taken for a stolid act of faith
in the assertion of a topographical fact. If it were otherwise, we
should have to remind them that our SAVIOUR has taught us to adore the
Father in spirit and in truth.”[146]

Once the symbolical character of so many of our aids to devotion is
understood and allowed for, we can use them without danger as stepping
stones to a higher knowledge and a deeper love of the Source of all
grace. We venerate them for what they symbolize and for that which they
help to bring nearer to us, but we are comparatively indifferent at such
moments to questions of history or fact. It is sufficient for us that
they possess a certain relative truth. Dives and Lazarus may or may not
have been actual living persons, but when we are meditating upon the
lessons of our LORD’S parable, it does not occur to us to press the
inquiry whether it was founded upon an incident that had actually
occurred.

It has just been said that we have probably arrived at our present
series of fourteen Stations by a sort of process of the survival of the
fittest. Without attempting any rigorous proof of such a proposition, it
is at least easy to see that some of the incidents which are from an
historical point of view most open to question, are also, devotionally
speaking, among the most helpful to piety. Take, for example, the sixth
station, the episode of St Veronica. Few of our LORD’S sufferings on His
toilsome journey to Calvary have suggested more beautiful thoughts to
those who have commented on the Stations than this parable of loving
charity. This is how the episode has moved the devout fancy of Cardinal
Newman. It will be remembered that the meeting with our Blessed Lady and
the call of Simon of Cyrene are the Stations which immediately precede.
Of Veronica Cardinal Newman writes thus:

“The relief which a Mother’s tenderness secured is not yet all she did.
Her prayers sent Veronica as well as Simon—Simon to do a man’s work,
Veronica to do the part of a woman. The devout servant of JESUS did what
she could. As Magdalen had poured the ointment at the feast, so Veronica
now offered Him this napkin in His passion. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘would I
could do more! Why have I not the strength of Simon, to take part in the
burden of the cross?’ But only men can serve the great High Priest, now
that he is celebrating the solemn act of sacrifice. O JESUS, let us one
and all minister to Thee according to our places and powers. And as Thou
didst accept from Thy followers refreshment in Thy hour of trial, so
give to us the support of Thy grace when we are hard pressed by our
foe.”[147]

To that great sufferer and lover of the poor, Henri Perreyve, the same
Station suggests a quite different train of thought, but one not less
beautiful. I take the following passage from a recently published
Anglican translation:

“I adore Thee, LORD, as I behold the holy Veronica wiping with a linen
cloth Thy sacred face bathed in sweat, in tears and in blood. She is not
deceived by Thy wan bruised face, Thy weary step, Thy soiled garments.
It does not astonish her that Thou now dost realize the vision of the
completed sorrow which afflicted the eyes of Isaiah, that Thou art the
man of sorrows acquainted with grief, wounded and bruised, whom the
prophet confessed that he did not recognize. The love of Veronica is not
mistaken in Thee, to her Thou art always JESUS. Nothing stops her,
neither the dense crowd through which she must break, nor the noise of
the people, nor the presence of the guard, nor the disdainful glances of
the Pharisees, nor the stately progress of the public procession, nor
the prancing of the horses, neither false shame nor the fear of death.
She does not hesitate, she runs and touches Thee, and tenderly wipes Thy
face, her hands trembling the while with holy fear; all was impossible,
but she has dared all, she has accomplished all.

[Illustration: _THE VIA DOLOROSA, NEAR VERONICA’S HOUSE, LOOKING
DOWNHILL._ _From a recent Photograph._]

“O Master, in this scene Thou art the perfect type of all humanity, poor
and suffering; and Veronica is the type of charity. While Thou art
dragging after Thee Thy cross, little resembling the perfect Man, but
rather, as the psalmist dares to say, ‘a worm and no man,’ Thou bearest
in Thy person all the poor; but on the other hand, the least of the poor
who suffer hunger and cold in our great cities bears Thy image, O JESUS,
and recalls the practical teaching of thy gospel. As there is in the
Holy Eucharist Thy real presence, so also there is another real presence
of Thee in the persons of the poor, and therefore Thou hast said plainly
that what is done to the meanest of them is done unto Thyself.

“More happy than Veronica, whose trembling hand touched Thee but once,
Christian charity is able, every day and every moment to dry Thy tears,
to wipe the sweat from Thy brow, the brow of Thy poor. Who will teach us
to love Thy poor sufficiently, who will teach us to regard their
sorrows, to worship them as the sacrament of Thy passion? Who will teach
us always to see beneath their features, disfigured though they may be
by physical and moral misery, the features of JESUS? Who will give us
the spirit of Veronica, her unquenchable hope, her irresistible courage,
her conviction that she will succeed, and the degree of love which we
need to accomplish all that we have undertaken? Thou only, O divine
Master, canst kindle in our souls those flames of love, which would fain
devour all the evils of the earth, and will not die down in Thy Church
while there yet remains one sorrow in the world.”[148]

Veronica as a personage—she must be distinguished from her napkin, often
also called by the name Veronica (in English _Vernicle_)—was not a very
familiar character in the devotional literature of the middle ages. Her
house was not shown in Jerusalem before the fourteenth century at
earliest,[149] and it is not generally spoken of by pilgrims before
1435. Hence, in the York mystery plays, though we find the incident of
the napkin and the miraculous portrait, it is not Veronica, but one of
the three Marys who presents the napkin to our LORD.

But the beautiful symbolism of the episode itself did not fail to
impress the imaginations of our pre-Reformation forefathers. The _Salve
sancta facies nostri Redemptoris_ was one of the most popular of
medieval hymns, and when Veronica does appear in medieval drama, we may
detect, if I mistake not, a very tender note in the few brief words
assigned to her. Thus in the Coventry mysteries dating from the early
fifteenth century, we read:

           _Veronica._ “Ah! ye synful pepyl! Why fare thus?
             For sweat and blod He may not see!
           Alas! Holy prophete, CHRYST JHESUS!
             Careful (i.e., full of care) is myn heart for Thee.”

And she wipeth His face with her kerchy.

                JHESUS. “Veronica, thy wiping doth me ease;
                  My face is clene, that was black to see.
                I shall them kepe from alle mysese
                  That lokyn on thy kerchy and remember me.”

Again there is undoubtedly something which makes a special appeal to
man’s weak and sin-laden heart, both in the conception of the fall of
JESUS under His cross and in the circumstance of its triple repetition.
“Who is it,” asks St Leonard of Port Maurice, “that has thus again
stricken down the LORD of heaven and earth? It is I, I who have heaped
sin upon sin, who have added torment to torment.” Or, if I may again
quote the beautiful language of Cardinal Newman:

“Yes, it is as I feared; JESUS, the strong and mighty LORD, has found
for the moment our sins stronger than Himself. He falls—yet He bore the
load for a while; He tottered, but He bore up and walked onwards. What,
then, made Him give way? I say, I repeat, it is an intimation and a
memory to thee, O my soul, of thy falling back into mortal sin. I
repented of the sins of my youth and went on well for a time, but at
length a new temptation came when I was off my guard, and I suddenly
fell away. Then all my good habits seemed to go at once; they were like
a garment which is stripped off, so quickly and utterly did grace depart
from me. And at that moment I looked at my LORD, and, lo! He had fallen
down, and I covered my face with my hands and remained in a state of
great confusion.”

It is difficult to quote translations after such perfect English as
this, but in turning again to the Stations of the saintly Henri Perreyve
I will venture this time to cite with modifications the text of an older
English version of Catholic origin:

_Jesus falls beneath the weight of the Cross._

“I adore Thee, LORD JESUS, falling beneath the weight of the cross. Thou
didst erewhile receive it with the steadfast courage of love for Thy
creature man. In that courage the sad procession set out. But as the
Victim advances the anguish of the sacrifice increases. That cross which
at first seemed supportable has become an overwhelming burden. O Master!
Thy strength hath failed Thee, Thou hast fallen prostrate by the
wayside.

“And so also is it with human sorrows in this world, when they follow
one upon the other, accumulating force with time. Such stricken souls
may often be seen strong and courageous at first, yet they are at last
crushed to earth by the ever-growing weight of their desolation. It is a
beloved child that has been taken, but two remained; death comes again
and takes a second, and then the other. It is too much, all strength
fails, the cross is too heavy; it is no longer that cross of yesterday,
which was still endurable. No, it seems a mountain, a very world of woe.
The soul gives up the struggle and itself sinks to earth amid the ruin
of all that it has loved. Poor tortured soul! when thou hast rallied
from that swoon of pain, there is nothing of which I would talk to thee
save of the fall of JESUS—JESUS sinking beneath His cross. Look upon
Him, I pray thee, look upon Him while I hold my peace. He alone can
speak life-giving words capable of raising thy soul from that worst of
all agonies, despair.

“O eternal Word! O Son of GOD! consubstantial with Him in the plenitude
of Thy eternal generation, inseparable from that divine nature, one with
the FATHER and the HOLY GHOST, distinct only in Person, I thank Thee
that, assuming our humanity, Thou wert willing also to fathom the
uttermost depths of our weakness. Thou couldst have saved the world
without that excess of humiliation, but Thou couldst not without it have
consoled us by Thy example in the hour of crushing agony and desolation.
For that we needed a SAVIOUR who had known like ourselves the weight of
a cross beyond His strength, who could teach us through his own
infirmity not to fall into utter contempt of ourselves in those moments
of supreme discouragement. My REDEEMER, Thy mysterious fall reconciles
me to my own weakness. That fall did not hinder Thy sacrifice; it did
not prevent Thee from reaching the summit of Calvary. Thou didst stagger
to Thy feet and continue to go forward.

“O JESUS, when my strength fails, when the cross becomes too heavy, when
I fall, do Thou raise me up, and with the support of Thy divine hand
enable me to follow Thee along that road of daily difficulties and
sorrow in which Christian virtue is put to its hardest test.”

The reader, I trust, will not be wearied by this series of quotations.
It seems to me that they illustrate well the rich vein of spontaneous
and devout reflection which the subjects of the Stations open up to
reverent minds. Neither need we suppose that it is only men of the
intellectual standing of Newman and Perreyve who can find food for
thought in such meditations. Here, for instance, is a little prayer
which appears originally in Pascha’s “Spiritual Pilgrimage,” and which
has been summarized by the seventeenth-century English translator “R.
H.” in the following form. It deals with the incident which Pascha
called the fifth station, but which is now the second of our
series—“JESUS is made to carry the cross:”

“O most noble KINGE and valiant Standard Bearer, who for the love of me
didst permit the heavier burthen of the crosse to be laid upon Thy
shoulders, which were full sore with stripes, and therewithal all the
sins of the world, offering the same by Thy death upon the aultar of the
crosse to Thy heavenly FATHER, I beseech Thee to help me to carrie my
crosse that I may willingly sustaine the same and to serve Thee
according to my vocation. Amen.”

“O noble King and valiant Standard Bearer” is surely a memorable phrase,
rich with subtle memories of the _Vexilla Regis_ and yet within the
comprehension of the simplest and the rudest. So is the same writer’s
description of our LORD “walking between two thieves as the Captain of
them” when He presents Himself to the view of His Blessed Mother, or
again the suggestion that His sacred Body was “stretched like a string
upon the cross, Thy veins and sinews being so broken therewithal that
Thy precious Blood issued forth like fountains of water.”

Of course the ideal attitude of the faithful soul when engaged upon the
exercise of the Way of the Cross is that of the actual pilgrim who has
journeyed over land and sea to pay homage to the scenes of our SAVIOUR’S
passion and bitter death. What deep feelings were aroused in the
pilgrims of old, upon their coming within the precincts of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre has already been illustrated incidentally by our
quotations from Fabri and other early writers. But there is no lack of
such testimonies. Neither can we have the least doubt that these
pilgrims were just as simple and sincere in the account which they gave
of their emotions of piety as they were in their frank comments about
matters which were more mundane. It is precisely this quality of
unmistakable candour in Fabri which makes his narrative so
extraordinarily attractive. Moreover, his diffuseness shows that he has
written entirely at his ease. He talks to us with exactly the same
freedom with which he would have gossiped with some old schoolfellow and
fellow religious in his convent at Ulm, thoroughly enjoying both his own
story and the perfect comprehension of his listeners. Perhaps nothing in
all Fabri’s wanderings tells us more of the ardent spirit of the old
pilgrims than the passage in which he describes himself as unable, when
nearing the coast of Palestine, to eat or rest or converse, but as
seated all day long in the bows of the vessel straining his eyes to
catch the first glimpse of that blessed shore. However, it will be more
to our purpose if I quote the account which he gives, first of all of
the rock of Calvary and then of the Holy Sepulchre. And before we come
to these longer extracts it will be well to preface his remarks by two
shorter passages, one descriptive of the feelings of another pilgrim, a
good Augustinian friar, who came to the Holy Sepulchre 150 years before
Fabri, the other taken from Fabri’s own account of the starting of the
procession within the sacred edifice. And, first, this is how Brother
James of Verona describes his sensations of awe when after many months
of weary pilgrimage he was at last permitted to cross the threshold of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:

“Upon Monday, August 7, in the year of our LORD, 1335, the Sepulchre of
our SAVIOUR was thrown open to me and my companion and to two strangers;
there were but four of us in all. It was the third hour, and the door
was immediately shut again. And as I entered, sinner though I be, the
LORD JESUS CHRIST wounded my heart, and the ardour of a most burning
love possessed me, so that while sober, as regards food and drink, I was
intoxicated with a certain heavenly sweetness. I fell prostrate upon the
earth, reminding myself that I was unworthy in the presence of so
priceless a sanctuary to look upon it with my eyes, to draw near with my
feet, to touch it with my hands, or to traverse it with my body.
Nevertheless, trusting in the divine Goodness, seeing that it was said
by the prophet David: _Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini_ (approach Him,
and be enlightened), I did draw near, I looked, I touched and I wrote
down what I had seen.”[150]

Fabri, when he visited the Holy Sepulchre, was one of a much larger
party. We have already learned the substance of the instructions
delivered to the pilgrims by the Father Guardian of Mount Sion. After
the summary which he gives of that discourse, Fabri proceeds as follows:

“Having thus received the rules by which we were to be guided while in
the holy temple, we each of us went to the merchants, and every one
bought candles of the whitest of wax, great or small, ornamented or
plain, as he pleased. There was no lack of vainglory even in this, for
some had candles curiously twisted and decorated with gilding and
painting, which they carried with ostentation, and looked with scorn
upon those who carried plain candles, blaming them for close-fistedness.
Some bought many candles, which they lighted in the Chapel of the Holy
Sepulchre and then extinguished, and afterwards took them home with them
to their own country, where they made their wives hold them lighted when
they were in childbed, that they might be delivered without danger, for
they say that these candles are useful for that purpose.

“Now, while we were busied about buying our candles, the brethren with
the Father Guardian were arraying themselves, putting on their sacred
vestments, which they had brought with them from Mount Sion, to make a
solemn procession round all the holy places in the same order, wherein
they had made that on Mount Sion, as has been told before.

“So when we were all standing in order with our lights burning, the
precentor at the head of the procession began in a loud and cheerful
voice to sing the _Salve Regina_, which we all took up, and chanting
this hymn we came in procession to the chapel of the glorious Virgin
Mary, to the altar in front of the chapel.”

The details of the passing of the pilgrims from shrine to shrine are a
great deal too diffusely narrated to be quoted here. Let us come,
however, to what our pilgrim tells us of their visit to what he calls:
“The most Holy Mount of Calvary, whereon the LORD JESUS hung upon the
cross.”

“After we had finished all that was to be done in the holy cave, we
presently came up again and re-entered the church through the door. As
we resumed our procession the precentor began in a loud voice to sing
the hymn, _Vexilla regis prodeunt_, etc. Singing this we came to the way
up to the most holy Mount of Calvary, up which we went by eighteen stone
steps from the church below it. Above we entered a light, beauteous
chapel, adorned with polished, variegated marble, and wherein there hung
many lighted lamps. In it stood three altars, adorned with paintings
done in mosaic work. This chapel is built of vaulted work, supported by
a marble column in the midst of the building. On the other side of the
vault are paintings of David and Solomon, David with the text, _Qui
edebat panes meos, magnificavit super me_,[151] etc., and Solomon with
the text, _Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum_,[152] and a picture of the
sacrifice of Isaac. This chapel is built above the Mount of Calvary.
When we were all come into it, and now before our eyes was displayed
that wondrous stone, that desirable rock, with its admirable
socket-hole, wherein the most holy cross bearing the crucified One was
inserted—when we beheld these things, scared and bewildered at their
exceeding great holiness, we fell down upon our faces on the earth, and
one heard no longer psalmody, but lamentation; no longer the singing of
hymns, but wailings and groans. No one was there who could withhold
himself from tears and cries; for who could have so hard a heart that it
would not be rent in that place, where he beheld before his eyes the
hardest rock to have been rent? Who would not even weep aloud in the
place where CHRIST our GOD cried with a loud voice as He hung upon the
cross; where likewise He prayed for those who had crucified Him,
promised paradise to the thief, commended His deeply sorrowing Mother to
the care of John, and drank the vinegar mingled with gall; where He said
that all was finished, yielded up His spirit into the hands of His
Father, and breathed His last; where the soldier pierced His side with
his lance, and there came forth blood and water? Lo, devout pilgrim, it
was here that Abel was slain by his brother,[153] and Isaac was bound
for sacrifice by his father, the brazen serpent was set up by Moses, the
paschal lamb was slain according to the law, GOD was slain by man, JESUS
was crucified in the flesh, thy King was hung upon the cross, thy LORD
was condemned to death, the meek and holy and innocent was drenched with
blood, offering Himself both as priest and as victim. These thoughts and
others of a like nature occurred to our minds at this most solemn place,
and we remained for a long time bowed to the earth in prayer. When we
had finished our prayer, we went one after another to the holy rock,
which projects above the floor, and each one as best he could, crawled
to the socket-hole of the cross, kissed the place with exceeding
devotion, and placed his face, eyes and mouth over the socket-hole, from
whence in very truth there breathes forth an exceeding sweet scent,
whereby men are visibly refreshed. We put our arms and our hands into
the hole down to the very bottom; and by these acts we gained plenary
indulgences.

“On the left hand side of the socket-hole is a great rent in the rock,
from the top to the bottom, which is believed to have been made at
CHRIST’S death. We went up to this rent one after another, and kissed
it, putting our heads into it and as much of our bodies as we could.
Moreover, on either side of the holy socket there are two other sockets,
in which the crosses of the two thieves, Dysmas and Gresmas, who were
crucified together with JESUS, were placed; but these sockets cannot be
seen, because upon them stand low pillars, upon whose heads there are
iron spikes, upon which wax candles and lights are stuck, so that these
pillars are, as it were, candlesticks. Howbeit, we kissed the pillar
which stood at the right hand of the cross.”

Fabri tells us that the whole body of pilgrims remained on Calvary
“giving themselves up to prayer and devotion,” for more than an hour.
Afterwards, following the course of the passion, they visited the stone
of unction and some other shrines. But the climax of this solemn
procession was the coming to the Holy Sepulchre. Obviously the joy of
that supreme moment was still vividly present to his mind when he wrote
his account: He heads this section: _How the pilgrims came into the most
Holy Sepulchre of the_ LORD JESUS.

“Rouse up yourselves now, my lords and brother pilgrims, arise and hurry
onward with a swifter pace, but come not save in a cheerful mood. Lay
aside all sorrow, wipe away the tears from your eyes, refrain from
lamentations, and all together sing that sweet Easter song, Alleluia;
for after the gloomy Jewish Sabbaths a genial light has shined forth
upon the world from the squalid and darksome sepulchre which we are
about to enter; for the world has received far brighter light from
thence than from the glimmering bodies in the firmament. Come then with
joy and praise, look upon the place where the LORD was laid, and behold
the end of your pilgrimage. So hereupon the precentor in a pleasant and
cheerful voice began the paschal hymn, _Ad cænam agni providi_, etc.,
and we walked on in procession chanting it, and came to the most
precious sepulchre of the LORD JESUS, before which we rang out our
Easter hymns with many an Alleluia, with as great, or it may be with
even greater joy than if we had reached happy Easter day after a sad and
toilsome Lent. For as on Mount Calvary we pitied our LORD CHRIST, and
shed tears, so here we rejoiced with our REDEEMER, and offered to Him
sweet tears of joy and lively songs, and rightly so; for JESUS, our
SAVIOUR, after His tears and sorrow, after His mockings and scourgings,
after His cups of vinegar and gall, after His torture and wounds upon
the cross, after His terrible death itself, after His piteous burial,
after He had descended into the everlasting shades of hell, after He had
broken the iron bars, after He had bound the prince of darkness, and set
free all the chosen patriarchs, rose glorious and triumphant from this
tomb we now behold. From this darksome cave there shone forth so bright
a light, there darted forth so brilliant a ray, there gleamed such snowy
whiteness, there appeared such blessed peace, there came forth such
happiness, there breathed forth such salvation as made the earth, sea
and sky to rejoice together. In this sepulchre, in this tiny hut did the
eagle renew its youth, the lion roused up its cub, the phœnix renewed
its life, Jonah came forth unharmed from the whale’s belly, the
candlestick was clad with gold, the tabernacle of David which had fallen
down was set up again, the sun shone forth after being behind a cloud,
the grain of wheat which had fallen into the earth and died had
quickened, the stag again put forth his horns, Samson bore away the
gates and broke through his guards, Joseph was brought forth from
prison, shaved, gaily dressed, and made Lord of Egypt. The sackcloth of
CHRIST JESUS was cut away; He was clothed with gladness, and besides all
this, our toilsome pilgrimage, our weary wanderings are here ended and
brought to rest. Here, then, I pray you, let us lay aside our pious
plaints of sorrow, our clouds of grief, and let us draw a quiet breath
in happiness: let us who have followed our REDEEMER to His tomb with
sorrow now take part in the joy of His glorious resurrection. Come,
then, gather yourselves together, knights and kindly pilgrims, enter the
most holy sepulchre and see with your eyes, feel with your hands, touch
with your mouth the place where the LORD lay. So we joyously went in,
one after another, into the most precious sepulchre of the LORD JESUS,
kissed the most holy bier, and received entire and most plenary
indulgences for all sins. We were indeed filled with an especial joy
here, greater than what we felt at the other holy places. Thus St
Bernard, in the second chapter of his sermon to the Knights Templars,
says that the sepulchre hath as it were the pre-eminence among the holy
and desirable places, and that something more of devotion is felt at the
place where He lay at rest than at those where He moved about in life.
Thus, too, the remembrance of His death excites our piety more than that
of His life: I suppose because His death was cruel, while His life was
pleasant by comparison, and because our human weakness is more attracted
by the repose of sleeping than the toil of living among men, more by the
safety of death than by righteousness of life. The life of CHRIST is to
me a rule by which to live, His death is my redemption from death. Here
we received spiritual refreshment and indulgences, and passed out with
joyous thanksgiving, and thus our procession came to an end one hour
before midnight.”

As a counterpart to this vivid description of an actual visit to the
Holy Sepulchre, I venture to turn to the meditation which Perreyve
suggests for those who, in making the Stations of the Cross, would
contemplate the Sepulchre in spirit. He takes up and develops an idea
which is already suggested by Fabri, that of the grain of wheat falling
to the ground. No one of Perreyve’s reflections on the Stations is more
beautiful than this.

[Illustration: _THE ENTOMBMENT._ _From the “Geystlich Strass,”
Nuremberg, 1521._ Even at this early date the Pieta and the Sepulchre
were included in the exercise of the Stations of the Cross. See p. 186.]

_The Sepulchre._

“I adore Thee, Lord Jesus, whilst faithful, loving hands bear away Thy
sacred body and lay it in the Sepulchre, of which they close the
entrance with a great stone. I adore Thee during the silence of that
stupendous night, in which the author of all life seemed bound in the
chains of death. The Pharisees, alarmed by the memory of Thy prophecies,
cause the stone-closed entrance of Thy tomb to be sealed; guards watch
before it; Thy disciples are dispersed; all around is wrapped in
silence. It seems as if death had gained the victory, and finally
asserted its empire.

“Yet speak, O Master, and tell me what lesson I ought to learn from that
last act of Thy Passion.”

JESUS CHRIST: “My child, you must not see in My tomb a mystery of death,
but a mystery of life. Let not My lips now so silent, My body so
motionless, My heart so chill and pulseless deceive you; it is not death
which triumphs, it is life which withdraws itself for a moment but which
will soon rise again to roll away the stone for ever.

“Remember, My child, the parable I one day spoke to My disciples:
‘Unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, itself
remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’[154]
Think of what a grain of wheat is in the hands of him who sows. The
grain at first is hard, shut up in itself, unproductive. Then if the
hand of the sower cast it into the furrow, it disappears into the earth,
and it remains hidden, covered as with a shroud. Next follows death. The
seed is dissolved by rain, by the ardent rays of the sun, by the very
action of its tomb; it dies, but immediately all-conquering life springs
from the confines of its utter annihilation. Nothing can resist it now,
neither stones, nor darkness, nor the winding-sheet that wraps it round,
nor the tomb within which it lies; it grows, it climbs, it pierces the
earth, and looking fearlessly out upon the sun, it pushes its way
upwards, bearing in its bosom an entire harvest. Now this triumphant
death of the grain of wheat is the symbol of My death, and of the
spiritual death of all My children. It faithfully portrays the
transformation of souls, who once for all learn to die with Me, and to
await in My sepulchre their hour of resurrection. Happy the soul which
realizes that it is only awaiting the moment of release. For you, My
child, to whom I have confided My secrets, surely you understand now
what it all means.

“‘My sepulchre,’ I have said. Shall I tell you what it is? It is all
that hides the Christian from the world and from himself. It is all that
humbles you, my child, all that opposes your wishes, defeats your best
efforts, checks every generous impulse, reduces your will to impotence,
seems to drag you down to nothingness, and to render you unheeded and
useless in this world. It may be bodily infirmity, that great
contradiction of nature, which twenty times a day breaks down your will;
it may be the unintelligent malice of men who do not understand your
generous projects, and take pleasure in putting a thousand obstacles in
the way of their fulfilment. It must be in any case the cumulative
effect of the weakness, the difficulties, the misunderstandings, the
misery in yourself and in others, which so often cast a dull and heavy
pall over your life and leave you without heart for the struggle. This
is your sepulchre. Enter it, My child, enter it as I entered the tomb,
in the spirit of obedience to the will of My Father, in the spirit of
faith, and, above all, of indomitable hope. Accept sickness,
contradiction—that obstacle which all that is worth anything is sure to
encounter—accept at My feet the full bitterness of that hour in which
everything seems to prove that life is over for you, that you will never
again achieve anything among men. Enter, then, as the grain of wheat,
into the bosom of the earth, enter into the depths of humiliation, of
abandonment, of self-renunciation. Enter fearlessly, for, again I say,
this is your sepulchre.

“But in what do you suppose that all these trappings of death are after
all to end? What was it that I was meditating in my tomb—the triumph of
death or its defeat? Was not that tomb the cradle of all life? Look well
into the depths of My sepulchre, My child, and faith will teach you to
see therein the germ of all that lives and endures. I tell you, in all
truth, that everything is there which was afterwards to come—My
resurrection, the inspiration of My Apostles, their courage, which from
that day never faltered; the fortitude of My martyrs, the purity of My
virgins, the daring of My apologists, the learning of My doctors, the
authority of My pontiffs, the strength of My confessors, the light of
all Christian ages, all the progress of humanity even to your own days.
All these things lie in germ beneath the shroud which covers Me. That
great river of life, of strength, of virtue, of immortality wells up
from that tiny spring. Do you not see, then, My child, that there is
nothing in all the world so full of living promise as My sepulchre?”

And here we may leave this fruitful theme of the devotional
suggestiveness of the Stations of the Cross. No exercise by which our
LORD’S Passion is honoured is likely to be more practically helpful than
this, precisely because of the wide range of thought which it admits and
of its contact upon so many sides with the needs and interests of our
daily life.

Footnote 146:

  Père Lagrange, O.P., in the “Revue Biblique,” 1903, p. 461.

Footnote 147:

  Newman, “Meditations and Devotions,” p. 198.

Footnote 148:

  Perreyve, “Stations of the Cross,” translated by the Rev. E. Day.

Footnote 149:

  The Proœmium to the pilgrimage of James of Verona (1335) contains a
  mention of “locus ubi CHRISTUS dedit Veronicam, id est faciem.” The
  Proœmium may be a later interpolation, but it is older than 1420. See
  “Revue de l’Orient Latin,” III, p. 163.

Footnote 150:

  James de Verona, “Liber Peregrinationis,” in the “Rev. de l’Orient
  Latin,” III, p. 183.

Footnote 151:

  Ps. xli, 9.

Footnote 152:

  Prov. ix, 1.

Footnote 153:

  It might seem that Fabri was speaking metaphorically, and that he only
  meant that here was the accomplishment of all these types; but from
  another passage it is clear that he believed that Abel was slain,
  Isaac offered, etc., in this very spot.

Footnote 154:

  John xii, 24.




               Chapter VIII—The Stations in Modern Times


It is not the purpose of this little volume to provide devotional aids
for performing the exercise of the Way of the Cross, neither is it meant
to be a manual of information for those who are interested in the
minutiæ of ecclesiastical legislation on the subject. Of such books
there is already an abundant supply,[155] and the aim of this essay is
to throw light upon certain historical questions which have hitherto
failed to attract particular attention. But before taking leave of the
whole subject it seems desirable to say a few words about the
developments of the devotion during the last two centuries, and it is
impossible to do this without touching at least briefly upon the obscure
and delicate question of the indulgences of the holy places.

If in making the Way of the Cross Catholics have come in modern times to
follow one almost uniform system throughout the world, the cause of the
uniformity is not far to seek. Even apart from the strong appeal which
our present arrangement of fourteen Stations seems to have made to the
devotional sense of the faithful, the question of indulgences must
undoubtedly have had much to say to the rapid disappearance of all rival
methods. According to the terms of the concessions made by various popes
at the instance of Friars Minor of the Observance during the last two
hundred years the grant of indulgences is, practically speaking, limited
to that form of the exercise which we use to-day, the form which was
gradually adopted in the West by the sons of St Francis, and which has
been placed by the Holy See under their special charge and direction.
That the Franciscan Order may justly claim to hold a quite exceptional
position with regard to this devotion no one will be tempted to dispute.
Ever since the thirteenth century these devoted religious have been the
official custodians of the holy places. They have borne the heat and
burden of the day during periods of great hardship, danger and
humiliation. They have remained faithful at their posts, never faltering
in their work of love, and no tongue can tell the countless services
they have rendered to successive generations of pilgrims who, thronging
from all parts of the world to this barbarous and hostile land, have
found themselves almost entirely dependent upon their good offices.

But while in this way the great work of the veneration and maintenance
of the holy places owes almost everything to the sons of St Francis, it
would not seem that down to the close of the seventeenth century we can
connect them with any definite system of honouring the Way of the Cross
in western lands. In Antwerp, as we have already seen (p. 69), they
favoured an arrangement of seven stations; at Jerusalem itself they
counted eight; on the Sacro Monte di Varallo Blessed Bernardino Caimi,
O.F.M., arranged for the erection of more than a score of chapels
leading up to Calvary.[156] Hence, although before the days of that
great apostolic preacher St Leonard of Port Maurice, the Way of the
Cross had become a practice of devotion which was almost distinctive of
the Franciscan missionaries in Italy and was much relied upon by them,
the scheme of Stations was not of their own creation. There can be no
doubt that, consciously or unconsciously, they had merely borrowed the
arrangement set out by Adrichomius and invented by Pascha, adapting the
exercise for popular use by the recitation of a few simple prayers at
each halting place and by the singing of hymns as the congregation moved
from one to another. It is only with the closing years of the
seventeenth century that we begin to meet with a certain number of papal
briefs directly connecting the Franciscans of the Observance with the
exercise of the Way of the Cross. These were granted at the instance of
the General of the Order, and they were the prelude of an important
movement which was soon to follow. It would take us a great deal too far
to attempt to enter into the exact provisions of these early papal
documents. The question all turned upon the possibility of communicating
to those who took part in the exercise of the Stations in Europe or
elsewhere the extraordinarily rich indulgences which were believed to
attach to the veneration of the actual halting places in the _Via
Dolorosa_ in Jerusalem. It is sufficient to say that this communication
of privileges was first accepted in principle by Popes Innocent XI and
XII, and that after being limited at first to those who were under the
jurisdiction of the Franciscan General, either as members of the Order
or as tertiaries, etc., it was gradually extended to those who visited
the sets of Stations erected in Franciscan churches, and finally was
placed within the reach of all the faithful who complied with certain
conditions in any church, providing that the fourteen Stations had been
canonically erected there by some priest duly empowered, either as
himself a member of the Order of Friars Minor[157] or as the appointed
delegate of their Father General.

Curiously enough it had been boldly asserted, as far back as the close
of the fifteenth century, that those who travelled to Jerusalem in
spirit only, might gain all the indulgences offered to the pilgrims who
venerated the holy places by their bodily presence. There was certainly
at that time no papal authority for any such belief, but the statement
is clearly made upon the title page of the little book of Heer Bethlem
mentioned above (see p. 79, note),[158] and is developed in the
following passage of Bethlem’s Introduction:

[Illustration: _TITLE PAGE (reduced) OF THE FRENCH EDITION OF PASCHA’S
“GHEESTELYCK PELGRIMAGIE”._ This book includes the mention of the usual
indulgences to be gained at the Holy Places (see the facsimile, p. 78)
though it does not, like Bethlem’s little manual, proclaim them on its
title-page.]

“This is the indulgence of the holy city of Calvary, which indulgence
everyone can gain who follows the painful and heavy way of the
cross-bearing of the naked, bleeding JESUS, and thinks with pity on the
bitter Passion in his inmost heart. This is not so to be understood as
if those only gained it who are in Jerusalem or who travel there, but
all persons in what place soever they are, if in their inmost heart they
turn to GOD and meditate with attention and compassion on those holy
places where this took place—as much as humanly they can—may gain this
indulgence from the mercy of GOD as often as they themselves wish, and
also as entirely as if they were in the city of Jerusalem and visited
bodily all these holy places. Still those who travel thither with great
labour and expense will, without doubt, be heard by our dear LORD
according to the greatness of their labours and their devotions. But
those who cannot come there bodily, and who with the powers of their
soul meditate on those holy places and salute them with compassion,
after the manner hereafter described, to such as these the indulgence of
the holy city of Jerusalem and of Calvary shall be as fully granted as
if they had been present there in person; because the holy popes have
given us this out of the worthy merits of the bleeding, crucified JESUS
CHRIST, our dear LORD, by His holy Wounds and precious Blood poured out,
in the same way as the indulgence of Rome is given us to be gained in
all churches. Thus those pastors give us power to lessen penalties and
remit guilt. This [indulgence] is found true and has been proved, and
all Christian men should constantly gain it, that their cold hearts may
be inflamed by the hot Blood of JESUS CHRIST as He suffered His bitter
Passion so willingly for us.”[159]

Of the fact that the indulgences of the holy places have now been
validly communicated, and are available for those who piously make the
Way of the Cross in any church in which it has been properly erected,
there can be no doubt whatever. What is not quite so clear is the
precise nature of the spiritual treasures which have been thus placed
within the reach of all the faithful. From the fourteenth century
onwards the numberless accounts which have been preserved to us of the
pilgrimage to the Holy Land make particular mention of the large
indulgences which were there to be gained upon the simple condition of
praying at each of the various shrines to which they were attached. It
would even seem that at an early date compendious lists of these holy
places, both in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine, naming each shrine
and the indulgence attached to it, were in regular use and passed from
hand to hand. We have, moreover, much evidence to show that the pilgrims
made a practice of copying out these lists and bringing them back with
them to Europe, where they too often served the writer, instead of notes
of a more personal and trustworthy character, to draw up an account of
his visit to the holy places after his return. The items mentioned in
this list and the character of the indulgences attached to them often
vary considerably; though in saying that the indulgences vary, I do not
mean that, as so often happened with devotional shrines in the West,
fantastic figures and terms of years were quoted at haphazard. Only two
types of indulgence commonly appear—the plenary, which was usually
called an indulgence _a pœna et culpa_ (remission of penalty and
guilt),[160] and the partial, which was always in these cases an
indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines (or lents). The reader
is informed in many of these relations that where a cross is marked (☩)
a plenary indulgence is to be understood; where some other symbol is
used or nothing is said, an indulgence of seven years should be assumed.
At the same time, if we compare the narratives of different pilgrims, we
find a great many discrepancies. The shrine which according to one
witness enjoys a plenary indulgence, according to another is only to be
credited with an indulgence of seven years, and in the opinion of yet a
third is not indulgenced at all.[161] The general impression derived
from these varying statements is not very favourable either to the
authenticity of the grants or to the seriousness of the effort to keep
an accurate record of them.

There is, however, one point upon which we find that the writers who
mention the matter at all, were, practically speaking, unanimous. They
maintained that the indulgences attached to the holy places were of the
most venerable antiquity. It was Pope St Silvester, they asserted, who
granted them at the prayer of the Emperor Constantine and his mother St
Helen. Thus, to take an example almost at random, Ogier d’Anglure, in
1395, distinctly asserts[162] that the said indulgences were granted at
the prayer of St Helen and of “Saint” Constantine her son. Or to quote
the still more formal assertion of Nompar de Caumont in 1419:

“CI ENSUIVENT les pérégrinations, endulgences et pardonances de peine et
de coulpe de toute la terre sainte, que je, NOPER, SEIGNEUR DE CAUMONT,
DE CHASTEAU NUEF, DE CHASTEAU CULLIER ET DE BERBEGUIÈRES, ay ensuités
par la grace Nostre Seigneur; lesquelles endulgences furent concedées de
saint Silvestre, papa, à la requeste de l’empereur Constantin et de
sainte Hellene, sa mere, et furent escriptes en la cipté de Jherusalem
le xiiie jour du mois de juillet, l’an mil ccccxix.” Which is to say, in
modern English:

“Here follow the pilgrimages, indulgences and pardons from penalty and
guilt, of all the Holy Land, the which I, Noper, Lord of Caumont of
Chasteau Nuef, of Chasteau Cullier and of Berbeguières, have duly
accomplished by the grace of our LORD. And the said indulgences were
granted by St Silvester, Pope, at the request of the Emperor Constantine
and of St Helen his mother, and they were written down [by me] in the
City of Jerusalem the thirteenth day of the month of July in the year
one thousand four hundred and nineteen.”[163]

No doubt it may very reasonably be objected that these are statements
made by irresponsible private pilgrims, laymen who would naturally in
those days have accepted without questioning any pious legend that was
current among their contemporaries. But, if this be so, we can only
attach the more importance to the deliberate utterances of the official
custodians of the holy places. Now among these a certain Brother
Francesco Suriano holds an exceptional position. He was twice over
guardian of Mount Sion (i.e., Superior of all the Franciscan communities
in Palestine) and Commissary Apostolic, and he was evidently a man of
scholarly tastes, who gave himself to research, as research was
understood in those days. Now, in his book, which he calls distinctly
“Indulgentie de Terra Sancta,” he says, with all the deliberation of a
man who has taken some pains to investigate the point, that all the
indulgences of the Holy Land, with the exception of three, were granted
by St Silvester. The other three indulgences, which he specifies, had
been granted only a few years before by Pope Sixtus IV,[164] and the
document containing them was still preserved in their archives at
Jerusalem. But the Bull of Pope Silvester, adds Fra Suriano with much
_naïveté_—he had evidently hunted for it—is not any longer to be found
there. Moreover, in another revision of his work, Suriano himself
propounds the objection that the institution of plenary indulgences was
more recent than the time of St Silvester, for the Portiuncula
indulgence of St Francis had been, he declares, the earliest example of
such a concession. To this difficulty he finds nothing better to say
than that Pope Silvester no doubt granted the indulgences in the form
which was customary in his own day. The matter, I may add, is discussed
with the same seriousness by Quaresmius, in the most careful and
authoritative of all the books ever produced by the Franciscan
custodians of the holy places. Quaresmius unhesitatingly accepts the
tradition referred to, and is at pains to refute the objections which
had been made against the possibility of St Silvester having granted
such indulgences as early as A.D. 335.

Now, the modern reader will not require to be told that the supposition
of St Silvester having granted indulgences in the time of Constantine is
absolutely inadmissible and impossible. If no better authority than that
of St Silvester can be found for these indulgences, they are
unquestionably spurious. Moreover, so far as regards the middle ages, it
is hard to understand why no record should be found at Mount Sion if the
grants had really been made by any later pope. By the end of the
fifteenth century, for example, it was generally stated that there was
an indulgence at the house of Veronica. But the numerous early pilgrims,
while mentioning other sites, say nothing of this one. Veronica’s house
had only been known for one hundred years at most, and if any indulgence
had been attached to it, the grant must have been made in quite recent
times. Yet, when Suriano wrote in 1485, no documents were preserved and
no memory existed of any such separate concession for Veronica’s house.
What is more, we find that in the numerous extant narratives of
pilgrimages earlier than about 1345 there is not the least mention of
_any_ indulgence attaching to the holy places.[165] Such detailed
accounts as those of Wilbrand de Oldenburg (1212), Burchard (1283),
Ricoldus (1294), Philippus Brusserius (_c._ 1287), Simon FitzSimon
(1322), Marino Sanuto (1321), or Lodulf Sudheim (1348) may be searched
in vain for the slightest trace of any belief to that effect.[166] It is
hard to resist the conviction that the whole complexus of these vague,
fluctuating and indefinite indulgences was apocryphal.

Now this, of course, is rather a startling conclusion, for it would
follow from it that the pilgrims who at the cost of infinite hardship,
danger and expense made their way over sea and land to pay honour to the
scenes of our LORD’S earthly life were deceived and disappointed in
their hope of generous recompense from the spiritual treasury of the
Church. Perhaps we may reasonably hold that in the case of an error so
widespread and so inculpable “the Church supplied,” and that the well
meaning pilgrims were not defrauded of their expectations. But the
element of doubt must in any case remain.

With regard to the indulgences of the holy places at a later period, and
with regard consequently to the indulgences now communicated to those
who make the Stations, matters stand upon a somewhat different footing.
It seems to have occurred to Brother Boniface of Ragusa, who was the
guardian of Mount Sion in the middle of the sixteenth century, that a
grant of indulgences attributed to Pope Silvester was not perhaps the
safest form of title-deed upon which these privileges of the Church
could be based, and he accordingly applied to Pope Pius IV for a
confirmation. This was granted in a Bull dated July 17, 1561, a copy of
which in Quaresmius’s time was preserved at Jerusalem among the archives
of the Franciscan Custodians of the Holy Places. The Bull of
confirmation is in many respects a most remarkable document. It does not
specify the indulgences which were to be confirmed, but it states that
they were said to have first been conceded by Pope St Silvester and that
they were enumerated upon a certain “tabella” in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem. When Quaresmius wrote, not much more than fifty
years later, he, though himself the successor of Brother Boniface in the
office of guardian of Mount Sion, was quite in the dark as to what this
“tabella” might be. He knew of nothing of the sort preserved in the Holy
Sepulchre Church, but he conjectures that the Bull must refer to a copy
of that widely circulated list of the shrines and their indulgences to
which we have made reference above. That Pius IV should have confirmed a
list of indulgences which professed to emanate from St Silvester but
were quite indeterminate in their nature does not seem a very
satisfactory proceeding. Neither is the case improved by the clause in
the Bull to the effect that the indulgences “are conceded anew in the
same manner and form in which they were originally granted.” At the same
time the terms of the document leave no doubt that Pius IV intended to
remedy all defects and to make a new grant in case the former concession
was invalid. How far this Bull of confirmation can be treated as of
undoubted force and authority I must leave to more learned theologians
to determine. Without in the least questioning the genuineness of the
instrument itself, it seems to me to offer certain weak points to an
opponent who might be disposed to argue that the Bull was void, owing to
the irregular form in which it had been drafted.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the document is the manifest
intention of the framer to tie the hands of succeeding pontiffs. Apart
from the ordinary _non obstantibus_ clauses familiar in such concessions
and the equally familiar formula that the privilege conceded is to
“endure for ever,” the Pope seems distinctly to contemplate the case of
some subsequent enactment which might revoke his grant. “We declare
these present letters,” he says, “to be in no wise included under any
dispositions to a contrary effect which may emanate on occasion from us
and from the Roman Pontiffs our successors, but seeing the remoteness of
these holy places and their sanctity, we declare these present letters
to be always excepted from any such dispositions, and as often as they
shall be issued so often shall these letters of ours be restored to
their primitive and most vigorous state ... and shall be granted and be
held to be granted anew.” Let us hasten to admit that the text of the
Bull by no means reads so simply and straightforwardly as I have
rendered it. There are several intervening clauses which I have omitted,
and of one of these I can make no sense whatever. The tenses also as
printed by Quaresmius are quite untranslatable. But, in spite of this
the general meaning seems plainly to be what I have stated. All things
considered, it is probable that we ought to lay stress upon the words
_attenta locorum distantia et religione_, and to conclude that this
portion of the document is intended to protect the holy places from any
ill-considered general clause in some future papal constitution revoking
such concessions. It was no doubt meant that the indulgences attached to
the holy places should remain in force until there had been time to
represent the matter, and to obtain a final decision upon this special
point direct from the Holy See. Whether such provision for the automatic
reviviscence of privileges, in case a subsequent pontiff should attempt
to abrogate them, was _ultra vires concedentis_, and whether a
concession _ultra vires_ invalidates the whole document in which it is
contained, I leave for canonists to determine.

It should also perhaps be noticed here that when Clement XII, in 1731,
issued his instructions for making the Way of the Cross in public, the
following regulation was included among the rest:

“No announcement should be made either from the pulpit or otherwise, and
still less by any written placard set up in the chapels or attached to
the Stations, to publish in definite numbers the amount of the
indulgences which may be gained by performing the Stations. It has often
been discovered that either by inadvertence or by error, or by confusion
between one devotion and another, the true character of the indulgences
has been wrongly represented. Consequently it will be sufficient to say
that whoever meditates on the Passion of our LORD during these holy
exercises, by the concession of the sovereign Pontiffs, will gain the
same indulgences as if he had personally visited the Stations of the
Cross in Jerusalem.”

In his treatise on the Way of the Cross, St Leonard of Port Maurice, at
whose instance this instruction of Clement XII had been issued, declares
that the regulation just quoted had been made for very wise reasons; for
the catalogues which contained authentic details of these indulgences of
Jerusalem had been destroyed by fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in the time of St Pius V (1566-1572). Be it said in passing that there
seems to be no record of any such fire. Quaresmius, who was the superior
of the Franciscans in Jerusalem a little more than fifty years
afterwards and who was anxious to explain the disappearance of the
_tabulæ_, makes no mention of a conflagration in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. On the contrary we know that the building remained intact
from the middle ages to the great fire of 1808. Again it is remarkable
that Suriano (_c._ 1495), who was equally guardian of Mount Sion, makes
no mention of any “authentic” catalogue of indulgences, although he has
every reason to touch upon the subject in the various redactions of his
“Indulgentie de Terra Santa.” Supposing, with Quaresmius and Ferraris,
that the lost _tabulæ_ were simply a copy of one of the old medieval
lists of which we have spoken, we may note that for Quaresmius, who had
such a list before him, the Stations of the Cross from the Prætorium to
the Holy Sepulchre apparently included six plenary and five partial
indulgences. The guide books at the present day indicate six plenary and
eight partial indulgences. But the variations in the estimates of the
indulgences attaching to the _Via Crucis_ had best be studied in the
tabular statement of the data given by various authorities both before
and after the Bull of Pius IV, which will be found in the Appendix. In
any case these indulgences are extremely moderate when compared with
those alleged to belong to the Stations at Rome.

We have already said that the greatest development of the Way of the
Cross as a popular devotion dates back to the time of St Leonard of Port
Maurice, O.F.M. (he died in 1751), being due partly to the immense zeal
with which he propagated this practice of piety, partly to the favour
which he enjoyed with Popes Clement XII and Benedict XIV. It was the
latter Pontiff who, in 1750, erected the Stations of the Cross in the
Coliseum, the great ruined amphitheatre of ancient Rome, and there the
exercise used to be conducted processionally every Friday afternoon down
to the time of the Italian occupation. Under the influence mainly of the
Franciscan Fathers of the Observance, the devotion of the Stations
spread rapidly from Italy throughout Europe, in the same form,
practically speaking, in which it is familiar to us at the present day.
In England it does not appear to have become at all generally known
before about 1845, and we may probably attribute its introduction to the
devotional revival which took place among English Catholics about that
date, under the influence of such men as Dr Gentili, Father Ignatius
Spencer and other representatives of a more ultramontane tradition. None
the less a booklet upon the Way of the Cross, which was published in
Rome in 1834 and was indulgenced by Pope Gregory XVI for private
recitation with the same indulgences as if the exercise were performed
in a church, was translated into English and issued about 1835 from the
Propaganda Press. It seems to have been intended for use in all
English-speaking countries, and I have seen a copy printed at Sydney,
Australia, in 1840.

Of the conditions regulating the practice of the Stations of the Cross
at the present day I may be content to say only a very few words. All
the larger modern treatises on indulgences, for example those of
Beringer and Mocchegiani, afford the fullest information upon every
question that is likely to arise. For the proper performance of the
exercise and the gaining of the indulgences it is in the first place
necessary that the Stations should be properly erected. This involves
the obtaining of the permission of the bishop and the parish priest, and
the blessing of the Stations on the spot, according to a specially
appointed form, by a Franciscan or some other priest duly empowered for
the purpose. The sculptures or pictures need not be blessed, but the
crosses which are fastened to them must. These crosses are bound to be
of wood, and it is to them that the blessing attaches. In other words,
the pictures or sculptures may be replaced as long as the crosses
remain. The Stations must be fourteen in number, and should be separated
the one from the other by some little interval, while the subjects
depicted upon them are not optional, but must be those mentioned in the
papal constitutions. Lest any scruple or popular deception should arise
from some flaw in the observance of these conditions in the past, the
Holy See has several times issued decrees declaring all the sets of
Stations, which up to a certain date had been exposed in churches for
the veneration of the faithful, validly erected and duly indulgenced,
thus supplying for any accidental defect.[167]

With regard to the exercise itself three things only are required: first
meditation on the Passion of CHRIST; secondly, the moving from station
to station; thirdly, that the whole fourteen stations should be visited
continuously, that is to say, without any notable interruption.

Supposing the state of grace on the part of the person performing the
exercise, the indulgences may be fully gained by the devout observance
of these three conditions. Moreover, according to the more probable
opinion they may be gained _toties quoties_, i.e., as many times in the
day as the exercise is repeated. No recitation of a specified number of
“Our Fathers” or “Hail Marys” is prescribed as of obligation; neither is
it necessary to meditate upon the subject of each successive station as
it is visited in order. Meditation on the Passion in general is
sufficient. With regard to the moving from place to place recent decrees
have approved the practice of the congregation remaining in their seats
when the exercise is being publicly made in a crowded church. Some
little external indication that the procession is being mentally
followed, as the priest and acolytes pass from one station to another,
is all that is recommended.

In practice it is customary when the exercise is performed in public to
follow the prayers now to be found in almost every prayerbook. The
officially approved “Manual of Prayers for Congregational Use” embodies
a concise form of the devotion translated from the Italian of St
Alphonsus Liguori. In passing from station to station a strophe of the
_Stabat Mater_ is usually sung.

Finally, it should be noticed that for the benefit of invalids,
prisoners and others who are unable to obtain access to the stations in
a public church, Fathers of the Franciscan Order have power to
communicate the stational indulgence to crucifixes for private use. To
gain the indulgence it is only necessary to hold the crucifix in the
hand and to say twenty Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glorias with
contrition and devotion. For those who are too ill to make this physical
effort the conditions may be rendered less onerous.

Footnote 155:

  I may refer in particular to the long essay or series of essays upon
  the Way of the Cross to be found in the eighth volume of the collected
  works of Mgr Barbier de Montault, pp. 14-271.

Footnote 156:

  At present there seem to be some forty-four chapels in all.

Footnote 157:

  These powers were originally committed to the Franciscan Observantines
  alone. They have been subsequently extended to the Recollect and
  Capuchin branches of the Order.

Footnote 158:

  As to Bethlem’s book, see further in Appendix A. The great popularity
  of this little treatise both in France and the Netherlands must have
  made the idea of the communication of indulgences very familiar. It is
  for this reason perhaps that the indulgences are also inserted in
  Pascha’s “Spiritual Pilgrimage.” See facsimile at page 88 above.

Footnote 159:

  The indulgences specified by Bethlem are more ample than those found
  in the ordinary lists, and include, for instance, one of thirty-three
  thousand years attached to the House of Veronica.

Footnote 160:

  I may perhaps be allowed to refer the reader to what I have written on
  this subject in the “Dublin Review,” January, 1900, and in “The Holy
  Year of Jubilee” (Sands and Co.), pp. 324-349.

Footnote 161:

  For example, the place where our LORD met His blessed Mother is stated
  by Fabri (1483) and Suriano (1495) to possess a plenary indulgence. By
  N. de Martoni (1394), by Wey (1465), and by Quaresmius (1625) only a
  partial indulgence of seven years is mentioned. Others like Sigoli
  (1384) omit it altogether. Again, Suriano, Martoni and Wey assign a
  seven years’ indulgence to the stone which marked the last Fall.
  Sigoli and Fabri speak of a plenary; Quaresmius omits it. See the
  tabular statement in the Appendix.

Footnote 162:

  Ogier d’Anglure, ed. Bonnardot, p. 13.

Footnote 163:

  “Voyage d’Oultremer de Nompar de Caumont,” ed. La Grange, p. 59; Cf.
  Röhricht, “Bibliotheca,” p. 101.

Footnote 164:

  This was a grant of a plenary indulgence for the chapel of St Helen in
  the church of the Holy Sepulchre, for that of St Thomas on Mount Sion,
  and that of St Mary Magdalen at Bethany.

Footnote 165:

  Niccolò da Poggibonsi (1346) is the earliest pilgrim I know who gives
  a detailed account of the indulgences of the holy places.

Footnote 166:

  This is the more noteworthy when we find pilgrims to Rome at a much
  earlier date than this making the most elaborate calculations of the
  indulgences they gained. See, e.g., Giraldus Cambrensis in his
  “Speculum Ecclesiæ” (_c._ 1200).

Footnote 167:

  The last decree of this kind seems to have been issued in 1896.




                Appendix A—Heer Bethlem’s “Overwegingen”


A clue which I have only been able to follow up since the foregoing
pages were in type leads to the conclusion that in some of its aspects
the practice of making spiritual pilgrimages to the Holy Land is rather
older than I had supposed. The substance of the little book of Heer
Bethlem referred to on pp. 77-79, must undoubtedly have been compiled in
the fifteenth century. Besides the British Museum Manuscript (Ad. 24937)
another MS. copy of the same tractate exists at Göttingen (MS. Theol.
295, i)[168] and a fragment of the same is contained in MS. 406 of the
Pauline Library at Münster.[169] Now as in each case the manuscripts are
described by competent authority as belonging to the fifteenth century,
it would be unreasonable to doubt that Heer Bethlem’s little work must
be somewhat older than say the year 1490. On the other hand, as Pope
Sixtus IV is mentioned, it must be more recent than the year 1471. The
proper title seems to be “Overwegingen op het Lijden des Heeren voor
degenen, die in den Geest de heilige Plaatsen willen bezoeken”
(Considerations upon the Passion of our Lord for those who wish to visit
the Holy Places in spirit). Although the considerations began as far
back as the Last Supper, it is strictly a book of the Stations of the
Cross; the distances from place to place are given, the indulgences
announced and special prayers assigned. Here we find for the first time
the reception of the cross mentioned as a separate station, and here
also a fall is distinctly alluded to in connexion with the Judicial
Gate. These points at least have seemingly been borrowed by Pascha from
Bethlem’s little book. The book was printed in 1518, 1520, 1536 and
1561. It has also been transcribed and reprinted in modern times in the
“Bijdragen voor de Geschiedendis van het Bisdom van Haarlem,” by C. J.
Gonnet, vol. XI, p. 324.

This Appendix was itself in type when at the very last moment I have
found it possible to push the enquiry a stage further. The little tract
ascribed to Heer Bethlem must undoubtedly have had a wide circulation.
Tiny as it is, and in consequence exceptionally liable to be thrown
aside and destroyed, we have already accounted for four Dutch editions.
And now it appears that it must have been popular in France as well, for
I have discovered two printed French translations in the library of the
British Museum.[170] The first may be dated conjecturally 1550, and was
published by Jacques Kerver at Paris with this title: “Devote Meditation
sur la Mort et Passion de nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ et de place en
place ou nostre Sauveur a souffert pour nous, avec les oraisons a ce
proprices. Et disent quelques uns qu’autant de fois qu’on les dict
devotement, on gaigne tous les pardons aussi pleinement comme si on
visitoit corporellement toutes les sainctes places en Hierusalem.” In
this version a good deal of matter—mostly French verse—has been
interpolated. The second translation keeps closer to the original. It
seems to have been printed about 1570 by Guillaume Merlin at Paris. The
title runs thus: “Sensuyt une devote meditation sur la Mort et Passion
de nostre Sauveur et Redempteur Jesus Christ, avec les mesures mises de
place en place ou nostre Seigneur a souffert pour nous.”

Among the introductory remarks we read: “Item un honorable homme
d’eglise, nommé Sire Barthelemy, qui a demouré long temps en la terre de
promission en la cité de Hierusalem a descript ce livre devot. Et il a
mesuré bien etroictement et descript toutes les places sainctes ou
nostre benoist sauveur et redempteur a souffert pour nous.” The author,
therefore, according to this translator, was called Bartholomew. Whether
“Bethlem” was a legitimate form of this name, or whether it was due to
some error, I am not sufficiently acquainted with Flemish to determine.
But there seems in any case reason to suppose that _Bethlem_ was not the
original form. About the year 1475 a tiny volume was printed at “Aesii”
(i.e., Jesi in the Marches of Ancona), which professed to give the
indulgences of the Holy Land and which were written by a certain
BARTHOLOMEW, Canon of Pola in Istria. Now I believe, from various minor
indications too long to detail, that this Bartholomew is no other than
our Bethlem. From a copy of this rare little treatise preserved in the
Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris we learn that the title begins: “Queste
sono le perdonanzze de terra sancta in ierusalem, lequelle scrise prete
bartolome, chanonicho de puole, el quale ando a vixitare lo sancto
sepulchro,” etc. The printer was Frederick de Comitibus. See Pellechet,
“Catalogue des Incunables,” vol. I.

Footnote 168:

  See “Verzeichniss der Handschriften im Preussischen Staate,”
  Göttingen, vol. II, p. 477.

Footnote 169:

  See J. Ständer, “Chirographorum Catalogus,” p. 92.

Footnote 170:

  I do not think it would be extravagant to suppose that for one edition
  which has survived of such a book, five or six have left no trace of
  their existence.




                   Appendix B.—TABLE _of_ INDULGENCES


 Name                 I  II III IV V  VI VII VIII IX  X  XI XII XIII XIV

 N. da Poggibonsi     +  _  _   _  _  _  _   +1   +   _  _  ☦   ☦2   ☦
 (1346)

 James of Verona(3)   +  _  _   _  +  +  _   _    ☦   _  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (c. 1375)

 Simone Sigoli (1384) +  _  _   _  _  _  _   _    ☦4  +5 _  ☦   ☦    ☦

 N. de Martoni (1394) _  _  _   +  _  _  _   +6   +   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦

 d’ Anglure (1395)    +  _  _   +  +  _  _   +8   _   _  ☦  ☦   _    ☦

 Nompar de Caumont    ☦  _  _   +  +9 _  _   _    +   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (1418)

 Georg Pfintzing      ☦  _  _   +  +9 _  _   _    +   _  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (1436)

 Wey (1458)           ☦  _  _   +  +  +  _   +    +   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦

 Bethlem (? 1475)     ☦  +  ☦   ☦  +  +  ☦   _    _   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦

 Voyage de la Sainte  _  _  _   +  +9 _  _   _    +   _  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 Cité (1480)

 Felix Fabri (1483)   ☦  _  _   ☦  ☦  +  _   +    ☦12 +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦

 Francesco Suriano    ☦  _  _   ☦  +  +  _   _    +   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (1490)

 Claes van Dusen(13)  ☦  _  _   +  +  ☦  _   +    _   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (1495)

 Philip van Hagen     +  _  ☦   +  +  +  _   +    _   +  _  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (1523)

 Quaresmius (1624)    ☦  _  _   +  +  +  _   _    _   +  ☦  ☦   ☦    ☦

 Pietr’ Antonio       ☦  _  _   +  +  +  _   _    _   _  ☦  ☦   ☦    ☦
 (1700)

 Antonio do           ☦  _  +   +  +  +  +   +    +   ☦  ☦  ☦   ☦    ☦
 Sacramento (1748)

 Liévin (1876)        ☦  ☦  +   +  +  +  +   +    +   +  ☦  ☦   ☦    ☦

               Name                 E.H. Phar. Dives J.G.

               N. da Poggibonsi     _    +     _     _
               (1346)

               James of Verona (c.  _    +     +     _
               1375)

               Simone Sigoli (1384) _    +     _     _

               N. de Martoni (1394) _    _     _     +7

               d’ Anglure (1395)    _    _     _     _

               Nompar de Caumont    +10  _     +     _
               (1418)

               Georg Pfintzing      _    +     _     _
               (1436)

               Wey (1458)           ☦11  _     _     ☦

               Bethlem (? 1475)     +    _     _     _

               Voyage de la Sainte  ☦    _     _     +
               Cité (1480)

               Felix Fabri (1483)   +    +     +     _

               Francesco Suriano    +    ☦     +     _
               (1490)

               Claes van Dusen(13)  +    +     +     _
               (1495)

               Philip van Hagen     _    +     +     _
               (1523)

               Quaresmius (1624)    ☦    +     _     +

               Pietr’ Antonio       ☦    _     _     +
               (1700)

               Antonio do           ☦    ☦     _     _
               Sacramento (1748)

               Liévin (1876)        ☦    _     _     _

I—Pilate. II—Cross. III—First Fall. IV—Mary. V—Simon. VI—Veronica.
VII—Second Fall. VIII—Women. IX—Third Fall. X—Stripping. XI—Nailing.
XII—Crucifixion. XIII—Pieta. XIV—Sepulchre. E.H.—Ecce Homo Arch.
Phar.—Pharisee. Dives—Dives. J.G.—Judicial Gate.

+: Plenary Indulgence.

☦: Indulgence of Seven Years and Seven Lents.

_Notes to Appendix B—Table of Indulgences_

 1. Poggibonsi supposes the meetings with Mary, the women of Jerusalem
    and Simon to have all taken place at same spot.
 2. I take the indulgences attached to the Stone of Unction as the
    equivalent of an indulgence for the thirteenth station.
 3. These indulgences are marked in the _Proœmium_ to James of Verona’s
    journey. This is almost certainly a later interpolation. The journey
    itself took place in 1335.
 4. “Where Simon came to help Him,” says Sigoli. He means where Simon
    ceased to help Him.
 5. I take the place of the casting of lots as the equivalent of the
    stripping.
 6. He says “the three Marys,” but he means the women.
 7. This might perhaps be counted as an indulgence for the seventh
    station.
 8. Here CHRIST took the cross from Simon again.
 9. Nompar and others suppose that CHRIST met Simon and the women at the
    same spot.
10. The two stones on which CHRIST rested.
11. Wey mentions, “porta civitatis per quam JESUS fuit ductus ad
    mortem”; it is not clear whether he refers to the Judicial Gate or
    the _Ecce Homo_ Arch.
12. This assigning a plenary indulgence to the stone in the courtyard is
    no accidental oversight, but the statement is twice repeated at
    length.
13. Claes van Dusen made eleven successive pilgrimages to Jerusalem in
    eleven successive years.




         Appendix C—Relative Antiquity of the Various Stations


In “La Palestine, Guide Historique,” by the Assumptionist Professors of
Notre Dame de Sion a list is given of the Stations with the dates of
their earliest appearance in the narratives of pilgrims to the Holy
Land. As my conclusions differ in many respects from those there
enunciated, a few notes may be added upon this subject.

I. The Prætorium seems perhaps to be first quite unmistakably assigned
to the site which has now become traditional by Riccoldo (1296), and
this, as I judge, for the thoroughly sound and scientific reason that
the Prætorium must have lain within the city wall, and consequently
could not have been situated on Mount Sion. They accordingly located it
where there were signs of the existence of a paved courtyard
(_lithostrotos_) near the _Ecce Homo_ Arch.

II. The receiving of the cross is first indicated as a special object of
devotion by Bethlem, _c._ 1475. See above, p. 78.

III. The idea of the first of a series of falls, as distinct from the
fall at the corner where the station of Simon of Cyrene used to be
indicated, is also clearly traceable to Bethlem. He and other
contemporaries suppose that this first fall took place upon the steps of
the Scala Santa outside Pilate’s Prætorium.

IV and V. The meetings with our Lady and with Simon of Cyrene seem first
to be plainly commemorated in Riccoldo 1296.

VI. Veronica’s house first appears amongst the holy places of Jerusalem
in the Proœmium of James of Verona. This pilgrimage was made in 1335,
but the Proœmium must be a later addition. It is, however, in any case
older than 1420.

VII. A fall at the gate of the city is very clearly indicated in the
preface to Burchard, 1283. Possibly it was from this source that Bethlem
(? 1475) came to speak of “a heavy fall” at the Judicial Gate.

VIII. The meeting with the women of Jerusalem is mentioned by most
pilgrims of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, though they
consider that it is closely associated with the coming of Simon of
Cyrene. Our LORD spoke to the women as soon as He was relieved of the
weight of the cross and was in consequence able to raise His head.

IX. Verona (1335) and Poggibonsi (1346) speak of the stone in the
courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, upon which our SAVIOUR
fell, or, as other accounts say, rested for a while when climbing the
steep of Calvary.

X, XI, XII. These stations are made prominent as separate incidents by
Pascha (?_c._ 1539). The stripping appears among the seven Falls before
1500. See pp. 65, 72 and 73.

XIII and XIV. It can by no means be said, as in “La Palestine, Guide
Historique,” that the thirteenth and fourteenth stations were only added
to the Way of the Cross in the eighteenth century at the earliest. Both
these episodes are separately commemorated and illustrated by pictures
in the “Geystlich Strass,” 1521. See illustration above at p. 154.




 ● Transcriber’s Notes:
    ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
    ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the psalms in which they are
      referenced.



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