The (Latin for 'Sorrowful Way', often translated as 'Way of Suffering'; ; ), sometimes known as the Via Crucis (Latin for 'Way of Cross'; ; ) is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem. It represents the path that Jesus took, forced by the Roman soldiers, on the way to his crucifixion. The winding route from the former Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—a distance of about —is a celebrated place of Christian pilgrimage. The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions.Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, The Holy Land, (2008), p. 37 Today, it is marked by 14 Stations of the Cross, nine of which are outside, in the streets, with the remaining five stations being currently inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
History
The is not one street, but a route consisting of segments of several streets. One of the main segments is the modern remnant of one of the two main east-west routes () through the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina, as built by Hadrian. Standard Roman city design places the main east-west road through the middle of the city, but the presence of the Temple Mount along much of the eastern side of the city required Hadrian's planners to add an extra east-west road at its north. In addition to the usual central north-south road (), which in Jerusalem headed straight up the western hill, a second major north-south road was added down the line of the Tyropoeon Valley; these two cardines converge near the Damascus Gate, close to the . If the had continued west in a straight line across the two routes, it would have formed a triangular block too narrow to construct standard buildings; the decumanus (now the ) west of the Cardo was constructed south of its eastern portion, creating the discontinuity in the road still present today.
The first reports of a pilgrimage route corresponding to the Biblical events date from the Byzantine era; during that time, a Holy Thursday procession started from the top of the Mount of Olives, stopped in Gethsemane, entered the Old City at the Lions' Gate, and followed approximately the current route to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre;Oxford Archaeological Guide: The Holy Land (paperback, 4th edition, 1998), pp. 34–36 however, there were no actual stops during the route along the itself. By the 8th century, however, the route went via the western hill instead; starting at Gethsemane, it continued to the alleged House of Caiaphas on Mount Zion, then to the Church of Hagia Sophia (viewed as the site of the Praetorium), and finally to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
After the split in the Catholic Church, Christians created two separate routes on the western hill and the eastern hill, with each group supporting the route which took pilgrims past the churches they controlled, one arguing that the Roman governor's mansion () was on Mount Zion (where they had churches), the other that it was near the Antonia Fortress (where they had churches).
What the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem called Jehoshaphat Street () was where present-day partly is. (Map on p. 479) (Today's extends westward from the western portion of that street.) Near the ruined Antonia Fortress and north of the Templum Domini precinct, Jehoshaphat Street led eastward to the Jehoshaphat Gate (near or at Lions' Gate on Lions' Gate Street), with the Valley of Jehoshaphat (near or in the Kidron Valley) beyond the gate.
In the 14th century, Pope Clement VI achieved some consistency in route with the bull , establishing the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, and charging the friars with "the guidance, instruction, and care of Latin pilgrims as well as with the guardianship, maintenance, defense and rituals of the Catholic shrines of the Holy Land".Wharton, Annabel Jane. Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. p. 109. Beginning around 1350, Franciscan friars conducted official tours of the Via Dolorosa, from the Holy Sepulchre to the House of Pilate—opposite the direction travelled by Jesus in the Bible. The route was not reversed until , when the Franciscans began to follow the events of Jesus's Passion chronologically—setting out from the House of Pilate and ending with the crucifixion at Golgotha.
From the onset of Franciscan administration, the development of the was intimately linked to devotional practices in Europe. The Friars Minor were ardent proponents of devotional meditation as a means to access and understand the Passion. The hours and guides they produced, such as (MVC), were widely circulated in Europe.
Necessarily, such devotional literature expanded on the terse accounts of the in the Bible; the period of time between just after Jesus's condemnation by Pilate and just before his crucifixion receives no more than a few verses in the canonical gospels. Throughout the 14th century, a number of events, marked by stations on the , emerged in devotional literature and on the physical site in Jerusalem.
The first stations to appear in pilgrimage accounts were the Encounter with Simon of Cyrene and the Daughters of Jerusalem. These were followed by a host of other, more or less ephemeral, stations, such as the House of Veronica, the House of Simon the Pharisee, the House of the Evil Rich Man Who Would Not Give Alms to the Poor, and the House of Herod. In his book, The Stations of the Cross, Herbert Thurston notes: "Whether we look to the sites which, according to the testimony of travelers, were held in honor in Jerusalem itself, or whether we look to the imitation pilgrimages which were carved in stone or set down in books for the devotion of the faithful at home, we must recognize that there was a complete want of any sort of uniformity in the enumeration of the Stations."
This negotiation of stations, between the European imagination and the physical site would continue for the next six centuries. Only in the 19th century was there general accord on the position of the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth stations. Ironically, archaeological discoveries in the 20th century now indicate that the early route of the on the Western hill was actually a more realistic path.
The equation of the present with the biblical route is based on the assumption that the was adjacent to the Antonia Fortress. However, like Philo, the late 1st-century writer Josephus testifies that the Roman governors of Roman Judaea, who governed from Caesarea Maritima on the coast, stayed in Herod's Palace while they were in Jerusalem, carried out their judgements on the pavement immediately outside it, and had those found guilty flogged there;Josephus, Jewish Wars, 2:14:8 Josephus indicates that Herod's Palace is on the western hill.Josephus, Jewish Wars, 5:2 In 2001, it was rediscovered under a corner of the Jaffa Gate citadel.See Hector Patmore's presentation of some of the issues on NBC News Jesus May Not Have Walked Jerusalem's Via Dolorosa: Scholars Furthermore, archeological reconstruction has shown that prior to Hadrian's 2nd-century alterations (see Aelia Capitolina), the area adjacent to the Antonia Fortress was a large open-air pool of water.
In 2009, Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson found the remains of a large paved courtyard south of the Jaffa Gate between two fortification walls, with an outer gate and an inner gate leading to a barracks. The courtyard contained a raised platform of around . A survey of the ruins of the , long thought to be the Roman barracks, indicated that it was no more than a watchtower. These findings together "correspond perfectly" with the route as described in the gospels and match details found in other ancient writings.
The route traced by Gibson begins in a parking lot in the Armenian Quarter, then passes the Ottoman walls of the Old City next to the Tower of David near the Jaffa Gate before turning towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The new research also indicates that the crucifixion site is around from the traditionally accepted site.Shimon Gibson: Final Days of Jesus Archaeologist: Jesus took a different path 4VF News April 10, 2009
However, there are at least two arguments in favor of the traditional route and for Antonia fortress as the place of judgement:
1. During the greatest pilgrimage feast, when hundreds of thousands came to the Temple, Pilate naturally had to be with his garrison next to the Temple mount as a potential focus of the uprising, and certainly the favorite place of religious and national zealots who wished independence from Rome.
2. According to Luke's Gospel (), Pilate found out that Christ was from Galilee, "and when he knew that he was of Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him unto Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem in these days" (23:7). Herod Antipas, who came for the holiday from Galilee to Jerusalem, disappointed and angry because of Jesus’ silence, "sent him back to Pilate" (23:11), who then "called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people" (23:13). It seems that Pilate was not in Herod's castle. If the trial had taken place in Herod's castle, he could have simply asked Herod to come to the courtroom, as he summoned the chief priests and the leaders.
The 14 stations The traditional route starts about inside (west of) the Lions' Gate (St. Stephen's Gate) in the Muslim Quarter, at the Umariya Elementary School, near the location of the former Antonia Fortress. Continuing from Lions' Gate Street, the route makes its way westward through the Old City to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter. The current enumeration is partly based on a circular devotional walk, organised by the Franciscans in the 14th century; their devotional route, heading east along the Via Dolorosa (the opposite direction to the usual westward pilgrimage), began and ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also passing through both Gethsemane and Mount Zion during its course.
Whereas the names of many roads in Jerusalem are translated into English, Hebrew, and Arabic for their signs, the name used in Hebrew is , transliterated. The Arabic name is the translation of 'way of pain' ( ).
The series of 14 stations currently commemorate the fourteen following episodes:
The place where Jesus was condemned to death; Jesus is made to bear his cross (Church of the Flagellation/Church of the Imposition of the Cross and Church of Ecce Homo); Jesus falls for the first time; Jesus meets his mother (Church of Our Lady of Sorrows); Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross (Chapel of Simon of Cyrene); Veronica wipes Jesus' face; Jesus falls for the second time; The women of Jerusalem weep over Jesus; Jesus falls for the third time; Jesus is stripped of his garments; Jesus is nailed to the cross; Jesus dies on the cross; Jesus is taken down from the cross; and Jesus is placed in the sepulchre.
Trial by Pilate: stations one and two