Saturday, March 22, 1997

Devotion, scholarship collide along the Via Dolorosa

By IRA RIFKIN

Religion News Service

UNDATED - Once again this Good Friday (March 28), Jerusalem's Via Dolorosa will swell with thousands of Christian pilgrims piously retracing the path tradition says Jesus took as he bore the cross on his way to crucifixion at Calvary.

Moving in small groups divided by nationality and language, the pilgrims will solemly walk the quarter-mile length of the Via Dolorosa as it winds through the Old City's Muslim Quarter toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Enclosed within the church's cavernous interior are the last five of the Via Dolorosa's 14 stops - the Stations of the Cross - that mark the events said to have transpired between Jesus' condemnation by the Roman ruler Pontius Pilate and the burial of his body following the crucifixion.

"The Via Dolorosa is a point of identification with the suffering of Jesus," said Don Rappe, an assistant professor of theology and Bible studies at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee. "It is at the core of the true significance of Easter."

For pilgrims, walking the Via Dolorosa is a highlight of Holy Week - the days between Palm Sunday and Easter that constitute the most solemn period of the Christian calendar. But is the Via Dolorosa really the path Jesus walked?

Not likely, say scholars.

Still, few pilgrims seem concerned the experts believe the Via Dolorosa has less to do with historical accuracy than with the expectations of Jerusalem's early European Christian pilgrims and the city's always contentious religious politics.

"The Via Dolorosa is about devotion, not scholarship," said the Rev. Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a professor of New Testament at Jerusalem's Ecole Biblique Archeologie Francaise.

"You're not going to find many guides talking about the Via Dolorosa's historical accuracy. That's not what pilgrims want. They've come to strengthen their faith. They don't want questions raised."

Protestants, other than those aligned with the Anglican Communion, which includes U.S. Episcopalians, have since the late 19th century generally held that a site known as the Garden Tomb located north of the Old City is the true place of Jesus' death and burial. Hence, they have their own doubts about the Via Dolorosa, which is a devotional walk largely for Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

But neither Catholic nor Anglican authorities take a position on the Via Dolorosa's historical validity.

"It's a matter of veneration, not a matter of doctrine," said Eugene Fischer, an ecumenical and interreligious affairs official with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

For Episcopalians and other Anglicans, the Via Dolorosa's value "is in the traditional aspect of the sites, not the necessity of historical accuracy, although most Anglicans do care about that as well," said the Rev. Clay Morris, the Episcopal Church's New York-based chief liturgical officer.

Scholars such as Murphy-O'Connor long have raised questions about the Via Dolorosa, generally agreeing the historical validity of most of the modern Via Dolorosa is not supported by the available evidence.

For today's pilgrims, the Via Dolorosa starts on the Old City's east side at Antonia Fortress, just north of the Temple Mount where the Jews' Second Temple stood during Jesus' day. It was at the Antonia Fortress, according to tradition, that Jesus was condemned by Pilate.

Writing in a recent edition of Bible Review magazine, however, Murphy-O'Connor, who is one of the world's leading authorities on the Via Dolorosa, rejected that traditional claim. More likely, said the Irish-born Dominican priest, Jesus was condemned on the western side of the Old City at a larger palace originally built by Herod the Great.

Murphy-O'Connor said it is "absurd" to assume Pilate would have lived in and ruled from the smaller and less prestigious Antonia Fortress, "which was no more than a military barracks." Moreover, said Murphy-O'Connor, occupying the previous ruler's palace was a common Roman practice to symbolize a transfer of power.

Murphy-O'Connor also cited the Gospel of John, which refers to a paved, elevated area where Pilate judged Jesus. Such a site, said Murphy-O'Connor, corresponds to Herod's former palace on the western, elevated side of biblical Jerusalem. Today, that area is the site of David's Tower, just inside Jaffa Gate, the main entrance to the Old City from west Jerusalem.

If that's the case, Murphy-O'Connor said in both his article and a recent interview, Jesus would not then have carried the cross through Jerusalem from east to west, the route of the present Via Dolorosa.

Rather, he said, Jesus' more likely path would have taken him northeast from Herod's palace to Calvary, then an abandoned quarry just outside the existing city wall.

The present day Church of the Holy Sepulchre now encases that ancient quarry where Jesus was crucified and buried, "giving historical credence," according to Murphy-O'Connor, to the Via Dolorosa's last five stops.

"The last five stations of the Via Dolorosa ... which are located within the church, have a valid claim to authenticity, even though the (modern) floor of the church is much higher than the floor of the quarry," he said.

The five stations inside the church, all mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, are the points at which Jesus is stripped of his garments, is nailed to the cross, dies, is taken down from the cross and is buried.

At the same time, Murphy-O'Connor said, the first nine stops - only four of which are mentioned in the New Testament - "cannot possibly be correct" if only because they are situated on the wrong side of Jerusalem.

Why then did the so-called western Via Dolorosa favored by Murphy-O'Connor and other scholars lose out in the popular Christian mind to the eastern route now venerated by tradition?

Murphy-O'Connor said the answer to that is "one of the minor mysteries of Jerusalem."

However, he believes that once again the expectations of European Christians may just have been too strong to overcome.

"The austerity of the western Via Dolorosa could not compete with the variety of gospel and legendary associations attached to the eastern Via Dolorosa," Murphy-O'Connor said.

In his interview, Murphy-O'Connor noted contemporary pilgrims cannot help but notice the path of the Via Dolorosa today crosses streets and passes buildings that post-date the biblical period. Still, he said, they generally do not dwell upon the implications that might have on the historical accuracy of the Via Dolorosa.

"They're just doing what they do in their churches at home, but in an original setting; being devotional to the Stations of the Cross," said Murphy-O'Connor.

For Don Rappe of Catholic-sponsored Mount Mary College, that's just fine.

"To even ask these historical questions is to assume a post-enlightenment, modern perspective," he said. "That's just not the thinking of a faith community or the faithful."