DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0234
218
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
enced as the spot where Stephen the Martyr was
stoned to death ; but even here one cannot go far
without finding the handiwork of the Lady Hel-
ena. A little to the left is the tomb of Joseph
and Mary. Descending a few steps to a large
marble door, opening to a subterraneous church,
excavated from the solid rock, and thence by a
flight of fifty marble steps, each twenty feet long,
we came to the floor of the chamber. On the
right, in a large recess, is the tomb of the Virgin,
having over it an altar, and over the altar a paint-
ing representing her deathbed, with the Son stand-
ing over her, to comfort her and receive her bles-
sing. This is an interesting domestic relation in
which, to exhibit a mother and her son ; but rather
inconsistent with the Bible account of the Virgin
Mother being present at the crucifixion of our
Lord. Indeed, it is a singular fact, that, with all
the pious homage which they pay to the Son of
God, adoring him as equal with the Father in
power and goodness, and worshipping the very
ground on which he is supposed to have trodden,
there is still among the Christians of the East a
constant tendency to look upon him as a man of
flesh. In a community like ours, governed by a
universal sentiment of the spiritual character of
our Saviour, it would be regarded as setting at
defiance the religious impressions of the people,,
even to- repeat what is talked of familiarly by
the people of the East; but, at the risk of incur-
ring this reproach, it is necessary, to illustrate
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
enced as the spot where Stephen the Martyr was
stoned to death ; but even here one cannot go far
without finding the handiwork of the Lady Hel-
ena. A little to the left is the tomb of Joseph
and Mary. Descending a few steps to a large
marble door, opening to a subterraneous church,
excavated from the solid rock, and thence by a
flight of fifty marble steps, each twenty feet long,
we came to the floor of the chamber. On the
right, in a large recess, is the tomb of the Virgin,
having over it an altar, and over the altar a paint-
ing representing her deathbed, with the Son stand-
ing over her, to comfort her and receive her bles-
sing. This is an interesting domestic relation in
which, to exhibit a mother and her son ; but rather
inconsistent with the Bible account of the Virgin
Mother being present at the crucifixion of our
Lord. Indeed, it is a singular fact, that, with all
the pious homage which they pay to the Son of
God, adoring him as equal with the Father in
power and goodness, and worshipping the very
ground on which he is supposed to have trodden,
there is still among the Christians of the East a
constant tendency to look upon him as a man of
flesh. In a community like ours, governed by a
universal sentiment of the spiritual character of
our Saviour, it would be regarded as setting at
defiance the religious impressions of the people,,
even to- repeat what is talked of familiarly by
the people of the East; but, at the risk of incur-
ring this reproach, it is necessary, to illustrate