A venerable tradition has fixed on this neighbourhood as the scene of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. A church dedicated to him stood, in the fifth century, near the knoll. There can be little doubt that the stoning of Stephen occurred at the place of public execution, and if we are right in supposing that place to be Calvary, then we have traditional reason for identifying the latter with the neighbourhood of the Heidhemîyeh knoll.
But a stronger confirmation remains to be noticed. I have before shown how valuable is tradition, when, by common consent, Jew and Christian point to the same spot. In this case also the Jewish tradition agrees with that above mentioned. Dr. Chaplin tells me that the Jews still point out the knoll by the name Beth has Sekilah, "the Place of Stoningâ (Domus lapidationis), and state it to be the ancient place of public execution which is mentioned in the Mishnah, and which was apparently well known at the time at which the tract Sanhedrim was written. Thus to "a green hill far away, beside a city wall,â we turn from the artificial rocks and marble slabs of the monkish Chapel of Calvary.
I wish I could bring before the reader's mind as vividly as it now rises in my memory, the appearance of this most interesting spot. The stony road comes out from the beautiful Damascus Gate, and runs beside the yellow cliff, in which are excavated caverns, perhaps once part of the great Cotton Grotto. Above the cliff, which is some thirty feet high, is the rounded knoll without any building on it, bare of trees, and in spring covered in part with scanty grass, while a great portion is occupied by a Moslem cemetery. To the north are olive-groves, to the west, beneath the knoll, is a garden, in which the remains of the Crusading Asnerie, or Hospice of the Templars, were found in 1875. From the knoll a view of the city, backed by the Moab hills, is obtained, and of the long white chalky ridge of Olivet dotted with olives. The place is bare and dusty, surrounded by stony ground and by heaps of rubbish, and exposed to the full glare of the summer sun. Such is the barren hillock which, by consent of Jewish and Christian tradition, is identified with the Place of Stoning, or of execution according to Jewish law.