CALVARY
191
CALVARY
twenty houses in France, of which seven still exist.
The mother-house is at Orleans, three convents are
in Yondome, Angers, and La Capelle Marival, and in
1897 an orphanage and boarding-school were opened
for _;i rls of the Greek Rite on the Mount of Olives at
alem. The life is mixed. Father Joseph or-
dered that there should always be a nun meditating
the crucifix day and night. The nuns have
boarding-schools and take charge of deaf and dumb
girls, and the old and infirm. The habit is brown
with a black scapular.
Hkimbdchkk. Die Orden und Congregatianen der katholischen (Paderborn, 1907). Braunmuller in Kirchenlex., 11.358; Helyot, Dirt, des Ordrcs Reliairux (Paris, 1800); DE Feller, Bioomr' ' '< (Besancon, 1848), VI: Con-
stitutions d.< R. n, dull if •■ ./>' /•:< conori'ijation du Calvaire (Paris. 1635).
Francesca M. Steele.
Calvary, Mount, the place of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Namk. — Etymology <"/</ Use. — The word Calvary (Lat. Catvaria) means "a skull". Calvaria and the Gr. Kpaviov are equivalents for the original Golgotha (roXyofti or -8a) from the Heb. nbihi, Aram. XD^J^J. The ingenious conjecture that Golgotha may be a contraction for Gol Goatha and may accordingly have signified "mount of execution", and been re- lated to Goatha in Jer., xxi, .39, has found scarcely any supporters. The diminutive monticulus (little mount) was coupled with the name a. d. 333 by the " Pilgrim of Bordeaux". Towards the beginning of the fifth century Rufinus spoke of "the rock of Golgotha". Since the sixth century the usage has to designate Calvary as a mountain. The Gospel styles it merely a "place", (Matt, xxvii, 33; Mark w, 22; Luke, xxiii, 33; John, xix, 17).
n of tht \ ame. — The following theories have been advanced: — (1) Calvary may have been a place of public execution, and so named from the skulls strewn over it. The victims were perhaps aban- doned to become a prey to birds and beasts, as Jez- abel and Pharao's baker had been (IV K., ix, 35; Gen., xl, 19, 22). (2) Its name may have been de- rived from a cemetery that may have stood near. There is no reason for believing that Joseph's tomb, in which the body of Christ was laid, was an isolated one, especially since it was located in the district later on described by Josephus as containing the monument of the high-priest John. This hypothe- tic further advantage of explaining the thin- ness of the population in this quarter at so late a period as that of the siege of Jerusalem (Jos., Bell, jud., V, vi, 2). Moreover, each of the rival Calvaries lay is near a group of ancient Jewish tombs. (3) The name may have been occasioned by the physical contour of the place. St. Luke (loc. cit.) seems to hint at this by saying it was the place called "a skull" (Kpavlov). Moreover, Golgotha (root, ppj, "to roll"), which borrows its signification from the
rounded or rolling form of the skull, might also have been applied to a skull-shaped hillock. (4) There was a tradition current among the Jews that the skull of Adam, after having been confided by Noe to his son Scm, and by the latter to Melchisedech, was finallj deposited at the place railed, for that Golgotha. The Talmudists and the lathers
of the Church wire aware of this tradition, and it survives in the skulls and bones placed at the fool of the crucifix The Evangelists are not opposed to it, inasmuch as they speak of one and not of many skulls. (Luke. Mark, John, loc. cit.)
The curious origins of many Biblical names, the twofold and sometimes disagreeing explanations of- fered for them by the Sacred Writers (Gen., passim) should make us pause before accepting any of the above theories as correct. Each of them has its weak points: The first seems to be opposed to the Jew-
ish law, which prescribed that the crucified should be
buried before sundown (Deut., xxi, 23). Josephus
intimates that this enactment was scrupulously ob-
served (Bell, jud., IV, v. 2). The executions cited
in support of the opinion are too few, too remote,
and too isolated to have the force of proof. More-
over, in this supposition Calvary would have been
called more correctly a place "of skulls", but the
Evangelists nowhere use the plural. In the first
two theories no sufficient reason is assigned for se-
lecting the skull in preference to any other member
of the body, or the corpse itself, as a name-giver.
The third theory is plausible and more popular.
Yet it may not be urged a priori, as indicating a
requisite for a Calvary otherwise unauthenticated.
The Evangelists seem to have been more intent upon
giving an intelligible equivalent for the obscure
name, Golgotha, than upon vouching for its origin.
The fourth theory has been characterized as too ab-
surd, though it has many serious adherents. It was
not absurd to the uncritical Jew. It would not seem
absurd to untaught Christians. Yet it is among the
untaught that names arise spontaneously. Indeed
Christians embellished the legend, as we shall see.
Descriptive Data. — The New Testament. — The only explicit notices are that the Crucifixion took place outside the city (Heb., xiii, 12), but close to it; a newly-hewn tomb stood in a garden not far away (John, xix, 20, 41): the spot was probably near a frequented road, thus permitting the pass- ers-by to revile the supposed criminal. That the Cyrenian was coming from the country when he was forced into service seems to exclude only two of the roads entering Jerusalem, the one leading from Bethlehem and the one from Siloe (Matt., xxvii, 39; Mark, xv, 24, 29; Luke, xxiii, 26). Any other road entering Jerusalem might fulfil the condition. The incidents recorded along the sorrowful journey are so few that the distance from the prsetorium is left a matter of conjecture.
Early Medieval Narratives. — After the Apostolic Age no more is heard of Calvary until the fourth century. Under pagan rule an idol had been placed there, and had been later embraced within the same enclosure as the crypt of the Resurrection (Sozomen, Hist. Feci., II, 1,2). Eustachius, Constantine's archi- tect, separated it from the latter by hewing away a great mass of stone. It was St. Melania the Younger who first adorned Mount Calvary with a chapel (436).
The place is described as "a knoll of scanty size" (deficiens loci tumor — Eucherius. 427—440), appar- ently natural, and in the sixth century approached by steps. It was fifteen paces from the Holy Sepul- chre. It was encircled with silver railings and con- tained a cell in which the Cross was kept, and a great altar (Theodosius, 530). Two years after the ravages of the Persians (614), a large church replaced the ruined chapel (Arculfus, 680). From its roof a brazen wheel adorned with lamps was suspended over a silver cross that stood in tin- socket of Our Saviour's gibbet. This church was destroyed Hill), but was restored in 1048. The rock beneath is spoken of by Soewulf (1 102) as being "much cracked near the fosse of the Cross". In tin- traditions, Adam's burial and Abraham's sacrifice are repeatedly 1. 1. ated there.
By 1149 the Calvary chapel had been united by the crusaders with the surrounding oratories into a vast basilica. The part of the rock believed to have held the Cross is said to have been removed and lost in a shipwreck on the coasl of Syria while be- ing transported to Constantinople i ISO'.n. Another fragment is shown in the chapel of Longinus, one of many in the basilica.
Contemporary Sources. Wilson. Warren, Fraas, and other eminent topographers engaged in the in- terests of the English Ordnance Survey (1864-5),
