New Book Challenges Via Dolorosa: Scholar Reconstructs Jerusalem’s Early Pilgrim Route
(REVIEW) Every Friday afternoon, Franciscan monks lead a procession zigzagging along the photogenic Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem’s Old City to Golgotha (Skull Hill). According to tradition, the route comprises the path of sorrows along which Jesus dragged a cross to the Roman execution grounds. There he was gruesomely crucified.
Today’s route begins at the site of the Antonia Fortress, where Jesus was supposedly tried before the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. It ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where he was nailed to the cross, died, and had his remains ritually washed in accordance with Judaism’s burial practices. He was then interred in a never-used rock-hewn tomb belonging to his follower Joseph of Arimathea. Christians believe Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, three days after his execution.
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Scholars and theologians have long dismissed this east-to-west route along the cobblestoned alleys of Old Jerusalem as a pious fraud formalized by the Franciscans eight centuries ago to facilitate pilgrimages. Indeed, the Via Crucis, with its now-standard 14 Stations of the Cross, was only finalized in the 18th century. Some station locations continued to shift into the 19th century.
Rodney Aist’s newly published volume, “Walking the Jerusalem Circuit: In the Footsteps of Pilgrims Before the Crusades” (Cascade Books), traces the footsteps of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem for nearly a millennium before the Crusades. The Circuit, some four km (2.5 miles) long, included 16 stations. Aist, the course director at the venerable St. George’s College in Jerusalem, documents each of them, weaving together the relevant Hebrew Bible and New Testament passages, corresponding pilgrim texts, historic information about the Roman, Byzantine, Muslim and Crusader archaeology, and thoughts for reflection.
He bases his scholarship on four texts from the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods: Sophronius, a Greek-speaking monk who served as the patriarch of the holy city before the genocidal Persian conquest in 614; “The Armenian Guide,” a brief guide book composed c.630 that was used by actual pilgrims who walked the sites; Willibald, a Latin text dictated by an Anglo-Saxon pilgrim in the 720s, some 90 years after the Muslim conquest in 638; and Bernard, a French pilgrim writing in Latin who describes Jerusalem in 870.
While the four texts never mention a standardized route, they all begin at the Holy Sepulcher’s complex of chapels, and proceed south and then east to Mount Zion and Gethsemane before ascending the Mount of Olives.
Since the pilgrims avoided the site of Herod’s ruined Temple and later the Dome of the Rock built atop Mount Moriah, they had to make a detour: either to the north stopping at the now long destroyed Nea Church, the pool of Bethesda, and Mary’s birthplace; or to the south visiting Aceldama, the pool of Siloam, and the tombs of the Jehoshaphat Valley. Over the centuries, as the circuit developed, the northern route prevailed since it had easier topographical pathways and more significant sites.
Pilgrims would complete the ever-evolving Circuit in a single day. Time permitting, they would subsequently visit the secondary sites. Jerusalem’s resident monks served as tour guides, leading language-specific or multilingual tours on a near-daily basis.
Several of the Circuit’s sites and monuments no longer exist. Post-Byzantine pilgrims encountered a column associated with Mary’s funeral. According to Christian tradition, after her death on Mount Zion, the apostles carried her corpse to a tomb at Gethsemane. The procession was interrupted by a Jew called Jephonias, who tried to steal her body. But his hands became glued to Mary’s bier; an angel appeared with a sword and lopped off his hands.
The confrontation ended with Jephonias’s conversion to Christianity. A column was erected in the 7th century outside the Eastern Gate, where pilgrims would stop before continuing to Mary’s tomb in the Jehoshaphat Valley – from which she ascended to Heaven.
Another site lost in time was the Nea, destroyed by the Persians in 614. While pilgrims today take a bus to the top of the Mount of Olives and then descend the steep slope, the Circuit led them up 800 steps to the crest of the hill. There they prayed at the final two stops – the Eleona and the Church of the Ascension. The former, one of Constantine’s original churches, was built over a small cave where Jesus instructed his disciples about the end of time.
Since the Crusades, the site has commemorated the Lord’s Prayer. The latter, an open-air shrine centered around Jesus’ last footprints before his ascent, marked the end of the Circuit. There, pilgrims would face the breathtaking view of Jerusalem and contemplate the promise of Jesus’ return.
“‘Walking the Jerusalem Circuit’ brings together Bible, history and tradition as a living experience through the streets and shrines of Jerusalem, while offering a virtual journey for distant readers,” said Aist at the book’s launch at Jerusalem’s W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. “The book resources the revival of the pilgrim circuit, but does so as a modern exercise that appeals to a historic practice rather than the re-creation of a medieval experience. But do the walk as you wish, and commemorate each station however you choose. From revisiting the material to simply enjoying the walk.”
Gil Zohar was born in Toronto and moved to Jerusalem in 1982. He is a journalist writing for The Jerusalem Post, Segula magazine and other publications. He’s also a professional tour guide who likes to weave together the Holy Land’s multiple narratives.