Sepulchre

“ The sepulchre, for long an object of such great veneration, will remain in the open, exposed to the sight of the heavens, the Sun and the Moon. The holy place will be converted into a stable for a herd large and small, and used for profane purposes. Oh, what a calamitous affliction will pregnant women bear at this time. ”

“ Slowly, haltingly, led by the dirge of priests, now in darkness, now lighted by the torches’ flare and intermittent beams from cottage doorways, groping at corners, stumbling in ill-paved by-ways, the mourners follow their God to his grave. The circuit of the town is done. All have taken their last look upon the dead. The sepulchre is reached—a vault beneath the church from which the funeral started. ”

“ The sepulchre has faithfully preserved what the memory of man has forgotten and what has been lost in scattered libraries. The tomb alone, opening its sombre lips, has replied to the questions of to-day; it knows what historians do not know ”

“ In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder—his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb—and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange mixture of tombs and trophies, these emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. ”

“ I can make thee a lamp of the sepulchre.”
“Content,” responded the Lamp. And the Magician made her one of those strange occult lamps which men find ever and anon when they unseal the tombs of ancient kings and wizards, sustaining without nutriment a perpetual flame. And he bore her to a sepulchre where a great king was lying embalmed and perfect in his golden raiment, and set her at the head of the corpse. And whether the poor fitful Firefly found at last rest in the grave, we may know when we come thither ourselves. ”

“ Hushed are the grandly speaking lips; Closed are the eyes in drear eclipse; And the sculptured limbs are deathly still, Responding not to the eager will, As we come Bearing the Century, cold and dumb! II.
Lo! we wait Knocking here at the sepulchre’s gate! Souls of the ages passed away, A mightier joins your ranks to-day; Open your doors and give him room, Buried Centuries, in your tomb! For calmly under this heavy pall Sleepeth the kingliest of ye all, While we wait At the sepulchre’s awful gate! [98] III.
Yet—pause here, Bending low o’er the narrow bier! ”

“ The ravages of death break in upon them; how great are the cares which are now lavished upon those whom they have lost! They bear the corpse into its cavernous sepulchre; some weapons, an amulet, and perhaps an urn, form the whole of the funeral furniture. A slab of stone prevents the inroad of wild beasts. ”

“ You may white-wash the sepulchre,—you may put upon it every adornment that fancy can suggest,—you may cover it over with all the flowers and evergreens that the garden or the fields can furnish, so that it will appear beautiful outwardly unto men. ”

“ And so the very spices the women prepare for the embalming are a silent but a fragrant testimony to the reality of the Resurrection. They show the drift of the disciples' thought, that when the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre it shut in to the darkness, and buried, all their hopes. The only Easter they knew, or even dreamed of, was that first and final Easter of the last day.
As soon as the restraint of the Sabbath was over, the women turned again to their labour of love, preparing the ointment and spices for the embalming, and coming with the early dawn to the sepulchre. ”

“ To come near to graves and tombs, especially in silence and solitude, has something in it frightful, much more was it so to those women, to find an angel at the sepulchre; but he soon makes them easy with the word, Fear not ye. ”

“ Few Masons realize that this Holy Sepulchre, or tomb, is in reality negation and crystallization - matter that has sealed within itself the Spirit of Life which must remain in darkness until the growth of each individual being gives it walls of glowing gold and changes its stones into windows. ”

“ We turn to the other grave, and there, as the stone is rolled away, and the rising sunshine of the Easter morning pours into it, we have a visible symbol of the life and immortality which Jesus Christ then brought to light by His Gospel. The buried grave speaks of the inscrutable mystery that wrapped the future: the open sepulchre proclaims the risen Lord of life, and the sunlight certainty of future blessedness which we owe to Him. Death is solitary no more, though it be lonely as far as human companionship is concerned ”

“ Mes ennemis ont écrasé ma tête; tous les lieux saints sont profanés: le saint sépulchre, si rempli d'éclat, est couvert d'opprobre; on adore le fils de la perdition et de l'enfer, là où naguères on adorait le fils de Dieu. ”

“ Those that have least of this earth find a grave in it. Abraham provided, not cities, as Cain and Nimrod, but a sepulchre, [1.] To be a constant memorandum of death to himself and his posterity, that he and they might learn to die daily. This sepulchre is said to be at the end of the field (v. 9) ; for, whatever our possessions are, there is a sepulchre at the end of them. ”

“ Yet, although for reasons already given, I have little doubt that this was the spot of our Saviour’s interment, the assertion that this is the sepulchre itself, wants confirmation; and the marble coffin or sarcophagus, I cannot regard as any thing more than a mere representation of the grave, or the place where the body was deposited; and for this it is by no means happily chosen. This may be the sepulchre, cut on the outside into the form of a little chapel ”

“ There is less mummery here than at Aix and some other places I have lately seen, with the exception of a few little Saviours in powdered wigs and gilt satin and muslin frocks, and a very singular figure as large as life, supposed to represent the deposition in the holy sepulchre, which was covered by a shroud of worsted gauze, studded over with enormous artificial flowers and tinsel like a Lady's court dress. ”

“ As far as my eye can tell, the distance between “Skull Hill” and this sepulchre is much the same as between Calvary and the sepulchre that tradition hallows. I send you a sketch that I made on the spot of Gordon’s “sepulchre,” to show you the universal plan of these burial-places. You will see three tombs (their lids are gone) in the inner chamber. At the Holy Sepulchre only Our Lord’s is preserved, tallying with the one I have marked with a cross ”

“ Then the King cried to his people that they should bring bars wherewith to loosen the doors of the sepulchre, and hasted with them to the place. But coming on their way to the body of Prince Polynices, they took it up, and washed it, and buried that which remained of it, and raised over the ashes a great mound of earth. And this being done, they drew near to the place of the sepulchre; and as they approached, the King heard within a very piteous voice, and knew it for the voice of his son. ”

“ However, his tomb is in a good state of preservation.
When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sepulchre itself is the first thing he desires to see, and really is almost the first thing he does see. The next thing he has a strong yearning to see is the spot where the Saviour was crucified. But this they exhibit last. It is the crowning glory of the place. ”

“ By the sea-coast there is a sepulchre of marble on which are engraved all manner of beasts and birds; an effigy is in the midst thereof, and all the writing is in ancient characters, which no one knows now. Men suppose that it is the sepulchre of a king who lived in early timesp.107 before the Deluge. ”

“ The place of the sepulchre is a wooden monument, made like a little house covered, having a hole in the wall, through which those that go thither for devotion usually put in their hand and take out some of the dust, which they put into water and give to sick cattle or men to drink, upon which they are presently eased of their infirmity and restored to health. ”

“ why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again! ”

“ And into this noisome sepulchre living men, women, and children went down to die; to pillow upon the rotten straw, the grave clothes vacated by preceding victims and festering with their fever. Here they lay as closely to each other as if crowded side by side on the bottom of one grave. Six persons had been found in this fetid sepulchre at one time, and with one only able to crawl to the door to ask for water. Removing a board from the entrance of this black hole of pestilence, we found it crammed with wan [8] victims of famine, ready and willing to perish. ”

“ See the wild waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very tombs now vanished like their dead! ”

“ Learning that at the distance of a mile or two to the north-west, on the same plain, there was a remarkable set of sepulchres, called the Sepulchre of the Judges, we concluded to visit them also. There are extensive beds of rock in this part of the plain, and in many places its upper surface is six, eight, and ten feet above the level of the soil. The rock is softer than that at the sepulchre of the kings, being of that soft, friable limestone, which, from the ease with which it is worked, is so much used in building. ”

“ But in Thy Resurrection Thou persuadest them concerning Thy Birth; since the womb was sealed, and the sepulchre closed up; being alike pure in the womb, and living in the sepulchre. [1] The womb and the sepulchre being sealed were witnesses unto Thee. ”

“ But I desire and command, that if the king, my lord, should choose a sepulchre in any church or monastery in any other part or place of these my kingdoms, my body be transported thither, and buried beside the body of his highness; so that the union we have enjoyed while living, and which, through the mercy of God, we hope our souls will experience in heaven, may be represented by our bodies in the earth. ”

“ The sepulchral fire here alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes, is frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre. ”

“ When they are thoroughly dried up, they put them into sepulchres which they make in their houses. In the other provinces, when a chief dies, they make a very deep sepulchre in the lofty parts of the mountains, and, after much lamentation, they put the body in it, wrapped in many rich cloths, with arms on one side and plenty of food on the other, great jars of wine, plumes, and gold ornaments. At his feet they bury some of his most beloved and beautiful women alive ”

“ Myself, my sepulchre, a moving grave; ”

“ Sepulchre shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death: to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow His grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. ”

“ It is obvious, in fact, that nothing has been disturbed, and that, not only have a simple slab of stone a few centimetres in thickness, and a thin covering of loose earth, sufficed to preserve intact the sepulchre itself, but also that outside the cave, the relics of the funeral repasts and the various implements and arms left by the human inhabitants have not been disturbed. ”

“ In their voracious stomachs lies the grave of the bravest soldier, unless very high birth or office, or very extraordinary affection in their attendants, procure them a more decent, though more uncommon fate, a sepulchre in a neighbouring church-yard. ”

“ Watching the Sepulchre.—In reply to "T.W.'s" Query in No. 20., I have witnessed at Florence the custom of dressing the sepulchre on the Thursday before Good Friday with the most beautiful flowers, many of which are reared especially for the purpose. The devout attend at the sepulchre, and make their prayers there throughout the day, the most profound silence being observed. The convents rival each other in the beauty of their decorations.
Do you think that the Churchwardens' entries in Fuller can refer to a similar custom? ”

“ The children of Heth answered, saying:
23:6. My lord, hear us, thou art a prince of God among us: bury thy dead in our principal sepulchres: and no man shall have power to hinder thee from burying thy dead in his sepulchre. ”

“ Coffin and Rope.—In the degree of Perfect Master they have shown you a grave, a coffin, and a "withe rope," to raise and deposit the body in a sepulchre, made in the form of a pyramid, in the top of which was a triangle, within which was the sacred name of the Eternal, and on the pavement were the two columns of Jachin and Boaz laid across.
Ivory Key.—By the "ivory key" you are to understand that you cannot open your heart with safety, but at proper times. By the corpse and grave is represented the state of man, before he had known the happiness of our order. ”

“ The suppedaneum, or support for the feet, is generally represented. It is frequently in the form of a globe, or of a chalice. The support for the body is never shown in art. Sometimes the sepulchre, with the angel and the two Marys, is seen in the background. ”

“ Every one must also believe the torment of the sepulchre, and that it is due, and right, and just, both upon the body and the sot., being according to the will of God. He shall also believe in the balance with two scales and a beam, that shall equal the extent of the heavens and the earth ”