ich extends between the walls and
the two valleys of Kedron and Hinnom,[2] a rather uninteresting
region, and made still worse by the objectionable circumstances
arising from the neighborhood of a great city. It is difficult to
identify Golgotha as the precise place which, since Constantine, has
been venerated by entire Christendom.[3] This place is too much in the
interior of the city, and we are led to believe that, in the time of
Jesus, it was comprised within the circuit of the walls.[4]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 33; Mark xv. 22; John xix. 20; _Heb._ xiii.
12.]

[Footnote 2: Golgotha, in fact, seems not entirely unconnected with
the hill of Gareb and the locality of Goath, mentioned in Jeremiah
xxxi. 39. Now, these two places appear to have been at the northwest
of the city. I should incline to fix the place where Jesus was
crucified near the extreme corner which the existing wall makes toward
the west, or perhaps upon the mounds which command the valley of
Hinnom, above _Birket-Mamilla_.]

[Footnote 3: The proofs by which it has been attempted to establish
that the Holy Sepulchre has been displaced since Constantine are not
very strong.]

[Footnote 4: M. de Voguee has discovered, about 83 yards to the east of
the traditional site of Calvary, a fragment of a Jewish wall analogous
to that of Hebron, which, if it belongs to the inclosure of the time
of Jesus, would leave the above-mentioned site outside the city. The
existence of a sepulchral cave (that which is called "Tomb of Joseph
of Arimathea"), under the wall of the cupola of the Holy Sepulchre,
would also lead to the supposition that this place was outside the
walls. Two historical considerations, one of which is rather strong,
may, moreover, be invoked in favor of the tradition. The first is,
that it would be singular if those, who, under Constantine, sought to
determine the topography of the Gospels, had not hesitated in the
presence of the objection which results from _John_ xix. 20, and from
_Heb._ xiii. 12. Why, being free to choose, should they have wantonly
exposed themselves to so grave a difficulty? The second consideration
is, that they might have had to guide them, in the time of
Constantine, the remains of an edifice, the temple of Venus on
Golgotha, erected by Adrian. We are, then, at times led to believe
that the work of the devout topographers of the time of Constantine
was earnest and sincere, that they sought for indications, and that,
t