Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/696

Rh 670 S E P S E P reading in the Hebrew text of the translators as compared with the Massoretic text. And for this we must not con- fine ourselves to one recension but use all recensions that our MSS. offer. For, though one recension may be better than another, none of them has been exempt from the influences under which the genuine Septuagint was brought into conformity with the received Hebrew text, and those influenced have affected each recension in a different way, and even differently in the different books. In this process, as indeed in all textual criticism, much of course must be dependent on individual judgment. But that it should be so appears to have been the design of pro- vidence, which has permitted the Old Testament text to reach us in a form that is often so corrupt as to sin against both the laws of logic and of grammar of rhetorical and poetical form. (j. WE.) SEPULCHRE, CANONS REGULAR OF THE HOLY, an order founded in 1114 by Arnold, patriarch of Jerusalem (or according to another account in 1099 by Godfrey of Bouillon), on the rule of St Augustine. It admitted women as well as men and soon spread rapidly over Europe. In the 17th century it received a new rule from Urban VIII. Shortly after this the canons became extinct ; but the canonesses are still to be found in France, Baden, and the Netherlands. They live a strictly monastic life and devote themselves mainly to the work of education. SEPULCHRE, KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY, an English military order which was said to date from the 12th century and which became extinct at the Reformation. A similar order, founded in France, lasted from the end of the 15th century till the time of the Revolution; it was resuscitated by Louis XVIII. in 1814, but again became extinct in 1830. SEPULCHRE, THE HOLY, the rock-cut tomb in which, after His crucifixion, the body of our Lord was placed. Few questions of topography have been debated with greater persistence or, in many cases, with greater bitter- ness than that of the site of this tomb. Only a brief sketch of the leading features of the controversy can be given here. The only information on the subject to be gained from the New Testament is that the tomb was in a garden " in the place where Christ was crucified" (John xix. 41), which again was "near the city" (John xix. 20) and "without the gate" (Heb. xiii. 12), and that the watch, proceeding from the sepulchre to the chief priest's, " came into the city" (Matt, xxviii. 11). The first requisite, therefore, of any locality professing to be that of the Sepulchre is that it should, at the date of the crucifixion, have been untkout the walls of Jerusalem. 1 The existing church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is admitted on afi hands to have occupied the same site for the last 800 years, is in the heart of the present town, 300 yards from the nearest point of the existing wall and in the immediate vicinity of the bazaars. Saewulf, 2 writ- ing in 1102, Hildebrand of Oldenburg 3 in 1211, and Jacobus de Vitriaco 4 in 1220, assert that up to the time of Hadrian the site was still without the circuit of the walls. Brocardus 5 in 1230 states that the modern walls included more in breadth than they did at the time of 1 The revised text of John xix. 20 reads on tyyvs fy TTJS w<5ews 6 riiros 6-n-ov trravpuOr) 6 ITJITOW ; but the best accredited reading is on ^yyte fy 6 r6irot TTJJ iriXewj. Mr Buckton, in Notes and Queries (2d series, ii. 97), argues that according to the latter reading Calvary must have been within the city. He would explain Heb. xiii. 12 as spoken " for the allegorical purpose of the writers " of the temple, but offers no explanation of Matt, xxviii. 11. 2 Itecueil de Voyages (Societe de Geog.), iv. 84, Paris, 1839. 3 Leo Allatius, Si^/iurra, p. 146, Cologne, 1653. 4 Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1079, Hanover, 1611. 6 Canisius, Thesaurus, iv. 17, 21, Antwerp, 1735. Christ, and that there were even some who refused to be- lieve that the present site was the true one. Ordericus 6 in 1320 and William de Baldensel 7 in 1336 corroborated Saewulf ; but Baldensel adds that the sepulchre then shown was no longer the one in which the body of Christ had been laid, for that had been cut out of the solid rock, while the other was formed out of stones cemented to- gether. Gretser 8 in 1598 and Quaeresimus 9 in 1616-25 refer to the objections started in their time by some whom the latter calls " misty Western heretics," and the difficulty was broadly enunciated by Monconys 10 in 1647. It was not, however, until 1741 that the site was openly declared to be false by Korte. 11 The attack of the latter writer was followed up in greater detail by Plessing 12 in 1789, and in England by Dr Edward Clarke 18 in 1810; but until the appearance of the Biblical Researches of Dr Robinson of New York in 1841 14 the attention of inquirers in England and America can hardly be said to have been seriously drawn to the subject. This elaborate work called forth energetic replies from Cardinal Newman 15 and Williams, 16 the latter of whom subsequently republished his work in two large volumes in 1849, which, to the up- holders of tradition, may be said to occupy the same position as those of the American author to its oppo- nents. Since that date the writers on both sides have been numerous; among them may be specially noted, as im- pugning the accuracy of tradition, Fergusson, Tobler, the author of an elaborate essay in the Museum of Classical Antiquities for 1853, Barclay, Bonar, Schwartz, Sandie, and Conder ; and on the other side Lord Nugent, Schutz, Krafft, Schaffter, De Saulcy, Abb6 Michon, Thrupp, De Vogue, Lewin, Pierotti, Caspari, and Sir Charles Warren. The main question on which the dispute has turned is the circuit of the walls at the time of Christ. The city at that date was surrounded by two walls. The first or oldest began, according to Josephus, " in the north, at the tower called Hippicus, and extended to what was termed the Xystus ; it then formed a junction with the council house, and terminated at the western colonnade of the temple." 17 By almost all the writers on either side this northern portion of the first wall is traced along the southern side of the depression, which extends from the central valley eastwards to the Jaffa gate. 18 From some point in that northern line of wall the second wall took its departure, and of it all we are told by Josephus is that " it had its beginning at the gate called Gennath, belonging to the first wall, and reached to the Antonia, encircling only the western quarter of the city." If this Gennath gate was near Hippicus, the line of the second wall, in order to exclude the present site, must be drawn along a route curiously unsuited, from the slope of the hill, for defensive purposes ; and that it was near Hippicus seems 6 Peregrinatores Medii jEvi quatuor, ed. Laurent, p. 149, Leipsic, 1864. 7 Canisius, Thesaurus, iv. 348-349. 8 De Cruce Christi, bk. i. chap. 17, Ingolstadt, 1598. 9 Terras Sanctsa Elucidalio, ii. 515, Antwerp, 1639. 10 Voyages, Paris, 1665-66, 4to, i. 307. 11 Reise nach dem gdobten Lande, Altona, 1741. 12 Ueber Golgotha und Christi Grab, Halle, 1789. 13 Travels, Cambridge, 1810-23. 14 London, 1841, afterwards re-issued with a supplemental journey in 1856. 15 " Essay on the Miracles recorded in Eccles. History," prefixed to translation of Fleury's Eccles. Hist, to end of 4th Century, Oxford, 1842. 16 The Holy City, London, 1845. 17 Bell. Jud., v. 4, 2. 18 Fergusson and Sandie place Hippicus at the north-western angle of the modern wall, and thus include the existing church of the sepul- chre within the first wall itself, but they have overlooked the assertion of the Jewish historian, that from the ravines which surrounded the latter it was almost impregnable. Bonar, while placing Hippicus some- where near the same spot, does not define the locality, and Schwartz seeks to identify it with " a high rocky hill north of the so-called Grotto of Jeremiah " and far beyond the northern limits of the modern city.