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VII.—The Genuineness of the Holy Sepulchre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

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The great aim of history is to hold up the mirror of the past; but this cannot be done without a knowledge of places as well as of persons. Topography not only illustrates, but also corrects, history: Josephus, for instance, speaks of Jerusalem as having contained occasionally 3,000,000 inhabitants; and in the Jewish War he raises up, by the magic stroke of his pen, countless hosts that never were born; but when we come to examine the localities, we see at once that his statements are preposterous, and that we must accept them at an enormous discount. If topography be so essential an ingredient to history, the more important the events, the more necessary the investigation of the places where the scenes were enacted. It is for this reason that so much attention has of late been directed to the topography of Judea, and of Jerusalem in particular. The inquiry as to the latter has perhaps excited the greater interest from the extreme difficulty with which it is attended. Our information, however, is so rapidly accumulating, that candid minds are now fast converging to a central point.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1867

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