The Friary at Flagellation
"The inward parts had the largeness and form of a palace, it being parted
into all kinds of rooms and other conveniences, such as courts, and places
for bathing, and broad spaces for camp; insomuch that, by having all
conveniences that cities wanted, it might seem to be composed of several
cities, but by its magnificence it seemed a palace; and as the entire structure
resembled that of a tower, it contained also four other distinct towers at its
four corners; whereof the others were but 50 cubits high; whereas that
which lay upon the south-east corner was 70 cubits high that from thence the
whole temple might be viewed; but on the corner where it joined to the two
cloisters of the temple, it had passages down to them both, through which
the guard (for there always lay in this tower a Roman legion) went several
ways among the cloisters with their arms, on the Jewish festivals, in order to
watch the peeple, that they might not there attempt to make any innovations"
(Josephus Flavius, Jewish Wars).
To the North of the Temple esplanade of Jerusalem, where today the Christians
commence their Way of the Cross, there are various ruins amongst which the
famous arch of the "Ecce Homo" (behold the man), the pavement popularly called
the "Lithostrotos", an underground pool and various other minor structures.
These ruins are to be found to the North of the Via Dolorosa Road, both in the
Franciscan property where the two medieval chapels of Flagellation and
Condemnation stand together with the imposing building of the Studium Biblicum
Franciscanum and mainly in the adjacent property of the Sisters of Sion. On
the other hand, to the South of the same road there is a Moslem school where no
excavations have been carried out yet.
As these ruins lie in the area where according to Josephus Flavius (Jewish Wars
V, 238 and Jewish Antiquities) Herod the Great built the Antonia Tower, the
scholars have asked two main questions: are there any structures in the said
area which belonged to the Antonia Tower? The Praetorium where Jesus was
judged, flogged and condemned to death is to be located in the Antonia Tower or
elsewhere?
The Antonia Tower
Up to thirty years ago many scholars, following the authority of the Dominican
Fr. Vincent, held that the stone-slabbed pavement preserved in the property of
the Sisters of Sion and in that of the Franciscans, was the internal courtyard
of the Antonia Tower and thus it was indicated as the famous Lithostrotos of
Pilate where Jesus was condemned to death. Today this theory does not find any
support from any archaeologist. Already in 1958 the Franciscan Fr. Bellarmino
Bagatti tried to demonstrate that this pavement was more likely a square
adjacent to the triumphal arch (popularly known as the Ecce Homo Arch). The
said square is to be dated to the second Century AD and not to the times of
Jesus. The Dominican Fr. Benoit propagated and diffused Fr. Bagatti's
conclusions dismantling all the theories and conclusions of Fr. Vincent. Even
the scholar Blomme, although presenting a disputable hypothesis that the Ecce
Homo Arch was not a triumphal arch of the second century, but a gate of the
first century, implicitly upsets more radically the reconstruction of Fr.
Vincent because in the hypothesis of Blomme the area would have been spanned by
a defensive wall of the city and so this would not be the place where to look
for the remains of the Antonia Tower and particularly for its internal
courtyard.
Without entering into much detail, the history of the area can be summed up
thus:
1. The Antonia Tower, destroyed by Titus in the siege of 70 AD, is not to be
identified with the ruins to the north of the Via Dolorosa (in the property of
the Franciscans and the Sisters of Sion) but more to the south.
2. The beginning of the modern road, today called Via Dolorosa, follows most
probably the artificial ditch with which Herod separated the northern side of
the Antonia from the rest of the Bezeta hill. Similarly the spur on which the
Antonia was built is to be found to the south of the same street, in the area
of the Moslem school from where the Way of the Cross commences every Friday.
3. The big pool at the Sisters of Sion is to be identified with the pool of
Struthion where the romans built the rampart in their preparations to attack
the Antonia Tower to the South, in the direction of the Temple. This was
initially an open-air pool and the rocky banks were flanked by a plastered
stairway, at least on one side. In a second period this pool was divided, as
it is seen today, by two lenghtwise arc-vaults supported by two big central
pillars. For chronological purposes it is interesting to note how the water
channel that went from the pool to the Temple was made unusable by the boundary
wall of the Herodian temple.
4. In the second century AD, in reconstructing the completely destroyed city,
Emperor Hadrian placed here a big public stone-paved road, more than seven
metres wide. This he laid on the herodian vallum lay-out which now was no more
necessary. This probably is the East-West road reproduced in the Madaba Map and
whose stone slabs had been found in recent works both under the Via Dolorosa
and in the Franciscan property.
5. The road built by emperor Hadrian was endowed with a triumphal arch (the
so called Ecce Homo Arch) which opened into a stone-paved square which pavement
has been preserved to this day (the so popular Lithostrotos). It is to be
noted that this pavement partially surmounted also the underlying, now covered,
pool of Struthion.
6.
Remains of two small churches and various basins date to the middle-ages.
The Praetorium
Let us now face the second problem: where was the Praetorium of Pilate located?
The Gospels do not help us to locate the Praetorium where Jesus was flogged and
condemned to death. Luke is the most laconic and does not even mention the
word Praetorium. He only says that the Jews "took him to Pilate" (Lk 23,1).
The most detailed account is that of John who in chapters 18 and 19 repeatedly
speaks of the Praetorium and adds also the terms Gabbatha and Lithostrotos (Jo
19,13). From the whole picture it seems that the term Praetorium indicates the
palace where Pilate retired to interrogate Jesus. To the contrary, the
Lithostrotos is an open-space located outside the Praetorium (note the
continuous use of the verbs "enter" and "come out" in the account of John): it
is there that Pilate pass his judgement and proclaims the death sentence.
Fr. Benoit, way back in the fifties, already showed that in roman practice the
Praetorium was the residence of the "Praetor" and not an ordinary place where
the "Praetor" (or the procurator) exercised justice. In a second moment he
attained from the literary sources to affirm that the roman procurators, when
they came to Jerusalem from Caesarea, used to reside at the royal palace which
Herod the great had built on the western hill, thus a distinct palace from the
Antonia tower which is located on the Eastern hill of the city. Benoit thus
concluded that Jesus was flogged and condemned to death in the upper city, in
the area of the big still visible Herodian tower, popularly known as David's
Tower (next to Jaffa Gate) and not in the Antonia Tower. As corollary one has
to say that according to this theory Jesus had to "go down" to Calvary and not
"go up" because the Herodian Palace on the upper city was the high spot of the
western hill.
The theory of Fr. Benoit has a defect: it does not keep in mind the tradition
of the pilgrims who, starting from the fourth century localise the place of the
judgement of Jesus not in the upper city, but at a spot in the central valley
of Jerusalem, called Tyropeon. This point happens to be between the place where
the Via Dolorosa starts and the Western Wall. The same pilgrims insist that
from that spot, facing North, you had Calvary to your left (to the West) and
from here one had to go up to the place of crucifixion. Fr. Bagatti, in
reproducing the texts of these pilgrims, warns against the ease with which
certain scholars discard these ancient traditions.
(©) text by Stanislao Loffreda ofm - SBF Jerusalem (tr. J. Abela)
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