Golgotha

“ His face became wrinkled and seemed to have shrunk, and a drop of cold perspiration was hanging on his nose, which had turned pale from his sufferings. Thus, swaying back and forth and groaning for pain, he met the first rays of the sun, which was destined to see Golgotha and the three crosses, and grow dim from horror and sorrow. ”

“ Not far from Golgotha was the garden and the tomb in which He had been buried, and from which He had risen.
He was about to leave the little group that He had made the founders of His Kingdom, and one of them ventured a question,
"Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel?" And the Lord replied,
"It is not for you to know the time and the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." ”

“ Not an inch of free space anywhere under this shadow of Golgotha: a [518] perpetual sway to and fro of the human tides, seething with sobs and quarrels; flowing into the planless maze of chapels and churches of all ages and architectures, that, perched on rocks or hewn into their mouldy darkness, magnificent with untold church-treasure—Armenian, Syrian, Coptic, Latin, Greek, Abyssinian—add the resonance of their special sanctities and the oppression of their individual glories of vestment and ceremonial to the surcharged atmosphere palpitant with exaltation and prayer and mystic bell-tinklings ”

“ Ordinarily, it was the custom to journey to Golgotha by the longest road in order that a large number of persons might view the condemned criminal, but on this day they went by the most direct route to the Damascus gate, which led out of the city to the north, and following this road, they soon arrived at Golgotha, the official crucifixion site of Jerusalem. Beyond Golgotha were the villas of the wealthy, and on the other side of the road were the tombs of many well-to-do Jews. ”

“ There where they lay together side by side among Alpine roses in full bloom—there on the crag's edge, watching the Swiss soldiery below combing the flanks of Mount Terrible for the perpetrators of that hellish murder at the shrine, these two people could see the Via Mala which had been the Via Crucis—the tragic Golgotha for that poor girl Helsa Kampf. ”

“ How much the great Tragedy that was here consummated signifies to the world! How the outgoing circles of spiritual life and love ever pulsate from this centre! No nation is too remote to be washed and beat upon by its outgoing waves, for a divine discontent never permits of stagnation!
Golgotha, or the hill of Calvary, was a peculiarly sacred place to the disciples, and they often resorted to its summit for converse and meditation.
As Saulus lingered, busy with the thoughts of the past and questions of the future, a man, apparently having the same purpose, came near. Lo, it was Barnabas! ”

“ Terrible disasters cover the aspect of all things from zenith to horizon. The physical darkness that accompanied the horrors of Golgotha is here anticipated, not indeed by any actual prophecy, but in idea.
But there is more than gloom. A mere cloud may lift, and discover everything unaltered by the passing shadow. The distress that has fallen on Jerusalem is not thus superficial and transient. She herself has suffered a fatal fall. The beauty of Israel has been cast down from heaven to earth. The language is now varied; instead of "the daughter of Zion" we have "the beauty of Israel." ”

“ I am as great a pagan as Alcibiades and Phidias.—I have never been to Golgotha to pluck the passion-flowers, and the deep stream that flows from the side of the Crucified One and forms a red girdle around the world has not bathed me in its waves;—my rebellious body refuses to recognize the supremacy of the soul, and my flesh does not understand why it should be mortified.—To me the earth is as fair as heaven, and I think that the correction of physical form is virtue. ”

“ He assumes ignorance, that He may instruct the ignorant; He is said to worship as a Jew, to the end that He may be worshipped as indeed the Son of God.”
And the rocks rent. First in Golgotha. Whence S. Cyril Hieros. says (Catech. xiii.) , “Up to this day Golgotha bears its witness, where on Christ’s account the rocks were rent.” And S. Lucian, too, giving a reason for His faith to the Governor, says, “With these, too, agree the very spot at Jerusalem, and the rock of Golgotha, which was burst asunder by the weight of the Cross.” Adrichomius (Descr. Jerus. num. 252) speaks more fully. ”

“ Ver. 33. And they came unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull. “Calvary” is the bare skull of a man; Golgotha means the same; so called from its roundness; from the root “gal” or “gabal,” to roll about. Some suppose that S. Matthew wrote in Greek and himself explained the Hebrew; others that the explanation was given by the Greek translator of the original Hebrew.
But why was the place so called? Some say because Adam was there buried, and redeemed, too, by Christ on the same spot by the Blood of the Cross, and restored to the life of grace. ”

“ He is the only mortal of whom it can be truthfully said that he influenced the world more by his death than by his life. Golgotha, the place of skulls, became for a great part of humanity, a new Sinai. ”

“ By some tacit compact, the guards who had annually brought their victims to be devoured had been unmolested, the vast wall of semi-human shapes withdrawing into the shelter of the surrounding forests while the Chinese were staked out in rows. Death, which would have been a mercy, had been denied them. It was living flesh that the Earth Giants craved. And here, on the spot known as Golgotha, the hideous sacrifice had been annually repeated. ”

“ On that dread day, when the cosmic injustice was perpetrated, and Jesus Christ was crucified in the midst of robbers on Golgotha, Ben-Tobith, a tradesman of Jerusalem, had been suffering since the early hours of the morning the agonies of an excruciating toothache. ”

“ Here’s to the nobility of their anguish when they come to learn we are no more; and the beauty of their faces when the divinity in their hearts tells the story upon their care-lined foreheads that they would climb the same weary Golgotha again—go through the same Gethsemane—bear the same cross—though they knew all along the end which it meant. ”

“ The Cross of Golgotha gathers together in one fact the whole cult of the Mysteries of antiquity. We find the cross first in the ancient cosmogonies. At the starting-point of Christianity it confronts us in an unique event which has supreme value for the whole of mankind. ”

“ If Israel's oppressors could do what was then in process of doing to the "Green Tree," who bore the leafage of freedom and truth and offered the priceless fruit of life eternal, what would the powers of evil not do to the withered branches and dried trunk of apostate Judaism?
Along the city streets, out through the portal of the massive wall, and thence to a place beyond but yet nigh unto Jerusalem, the cortege advanced. The destination was a spot called Golgotha, or Calvary, meaning "the place of a skull." ”

“ What a wonderful exhibition we have in the above interview of the spirit of Him who was suspended on the cross for our sins, for we read: "That when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots."
The fearful drama enacted on Golgotha excites our wonder when we behold the amazing love of Jesus, in thus praying for His persecutors. ”

“ The execution being over, the people slowly dispersed to their homes. Twilight settled down on Golgotha. A group of wailing women lingered for a while, then went their way. Against the sky stood forth the three crosses. On the uplifted face of Dysmas the moonlight showed the look of ineffable peace that had settled upon it. The face of the other robber was fallen upon his breast. In the midst Jesus looked upward, dead but triumphant! ”

“ The voice which shook Sinai is shaking Calvary. Heaven and hell are in conflict, and earth trembles at the shock of battle. The Prince of Life expires, and the sun puts on his robes of mourning. Gabriel! descend from heaven, and explain to us the wondrous emblem! As set the sun at noon on Golgotha, making preternatural night throughout the land of Palestine; so shall the empire of sin and death be darkened, and their light shall be quenched at meridian. As the Sun of Righteousness, rising from the night of the grave on the third morning, brings life and immortality to light ”

“ And when he had suffered great tribulation through hunger and thirst, he spoke unto Helena, saying, “Clear out the site of Golgotha.” And Helena commanded the Jews, and they cleared out the site of Golgotha. Now the Jews had taken counsel together, and had issued a decree that all the offal and filth, which each man cast forth from his house, should be thrown out on Golgotha, on the tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Nazarene - to Whom be praise! ”

“ And they bind the innocent Lamb, the incarnate Son of God, and lead Him away to Jerusalem; they mock and blaspheme Him, they scourge Him and crown His head with cruel thorns. Now He climbs the steep ascent of Mount Golgotha. With a heavy cross pressing upon His lacerated shoulders, the Man of Sorrows totters along. Having reached the summit, they tear off His clothes, throw Him down upon the cross, stretch His mangled limbs, drive huge nails through His hands and feet, and then set up the cross. Behold the charity of thy God! ”

“ Let no persecutor of the Jew lay the unction to his soul that he is justified by the tragedy of Golgotha; for he who persecutes in the name of religion is a spiritual barbarian, an intellectual savage. Let this same persecutor not make the mistake of supposing that the Jews are wholly responsible for the persecution that has been heaped upon them. Before he falls into the foolish blunder of such a supposition, let him ponder the testimony of several Gentile experts upon the subject. ”

“ The terror and the dreams are accomplished. Who will snatch the victory from the Iscariot’s hands? It is finished. Let all nations, as many as there be, flock to Golgotha and cry out with their millions of throats: Hosannah! Hosannah! let them pour out seas of blood and tears at its foot,—they will only find a shameful cross and a dead Jesus.
Calmly and coldly Judas scrutinizes the figure of the Dead, resting his glance an instant upon the cheek on which but the night before he had impressed his farewell kiss, and then deliberately walks away. ”

“ Behold a Son given to the dwellers of the tomb, and a spotless Lamb, the Lamb of God, is seen within that gloomy enclosure. When the hour came at which the ministers of the Divine Justice must seize upon the victim, I see them hurrying towards Gethsemane. There, in heaviness and sorrow of soul, praying more earnestly, the surety is seen bowed to the earth, and the heavy burden he had assumed is now weighing him down. Like a lamb, he is led towards Golgotha—the hill of skulls. There are mustered all the hosts of darkness, rejoicing in the hope of their speedy conquest over him. ”

“ Jahveh's vengeance on the Gentiles is transformed in the gospels into the contrary act of the self-oblation of Jesus; and whereas in Isaiah it is the wine of anger and vengeance that flows from the press, here it is the oil of healing and salvation that pours from the press (gath) over the peoples.
Like Gethsemane, Golgotha, “the place of skulls,” is another place that we cannot verify. It is possible that the name is connected with the pillars (golgoi) of the western-Asiatic mother of the gods, and points to an ancient Jebusitic centre of the cult of Adonis under the name Golgos. ”

“ Nothing of mine there, so I needs must climb to the Golgotha on the second floor, from which the Cross had disappeared, but which still bore traces of its victim's long crucifixion,—a pair of old bed-slippers still by the window, a sleeping-cap on the wall. Some cannot but leave so the things that have touched their dead.
One by one I found the "rough-dry" garments, here, there, in the hallway, in the garret, hanging or crumpled up among dozens of others. And all the while I hunted, the rain beat and the wind blew, and a low third sound kept mingling with them, rising from the lower floor. ”

“ Moreover another large church is built on the eastern side on the spot which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: from the ceiling of which is suspended by ropes a brazen wheel with lamps, and beneath it is a large silver cross fixed in the very place where stood the wooden cross on which the Saviour of the human race suffered. ”

“ Mary, Holy Cross, St. George, Golgotha, Bethlehem, Marcoreos, the Martyrs. The principal one is Lalibela. This Lalibela, they say, was a King in this same country for eighty years, and he was King before the one before mentioned who was named Abraham. This King ordered these edifices to be made. He does not lie in the church which bears his name, he lies in the church of Golgotha, which is the church of the fewest buildings here. It is in this manner: all excavated [123] in the stone itself, a hundred and twenty spans in length, and seventy-two spans in width. ”

“ And they took him out to put him to death on the cross.
15:21 And they made one, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, who was going by, coming from the country, go with them, so that he might take his cross.
15:22 And they took him to the place named Golgotha, which is, Dead Man's Head. ”