The Via Dolorosa, or Way of Sorrow, is the traditional path Jesus took on the fateful journey to the Crucifixion at Calvary. Formalized only in the 16th century, it is nonetheless a route followed since the earliest times of Christianity.
The route winds its way from the site of the ancient Fortress of Antonia – in the courtyard of the present El Omarieh college, where Jesus was tried and condemned by Pontius Pilate – to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
I Jesus is Condemned.
The First of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross is to be found at the praetorium or court of law within the precinct of the Antonia Fortress, where Jesus was brought to trial before Pontius Pilate.
On one side of a beautiful Crusader courtyard nearby stands the Church of the Condemnation. It bears a unique painted sculpture that brings alive the scene of Pilate washing his hands of the guilt for Jesus’ death.
And so Pilate, … released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scoured him, to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium. Mark 15:15-16
II Jesus takes up the Cross.
Built on the ruins of a Crusader oratory across the same courtyard is the modest Chapel of the Flagellation. Its stained glass windows show Jesus bound and scoured.
On the ceiling is a crown of thorns, in memory of the event told of in the Gospels “And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, and began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews”, Mark 15:17-18.
Outside the chapel is the pavement where Jesus took up the cross he was to be crucified upon as a common criminal.
When the Via Dolorosa was established, the Ecce Homo Arch was thought to be the doorway of the Antonia Fortress through which Pilate brought Jesus before the crowds with the words, “Behold the Man” – Ecce Homo in Latin.
Now it is known to have been part of the triumphant triple-arched entrance to Emperor Hadrian’s Aelia Capitolina, raised in 135 AD. Part of the remaining is visible inside the Convent of the Sisters of Zion, where the Lithostrotos pavement can also be seen.
The Lithostrotos is a section of the original Roman pavement from the Antonia Fortress. Made up of large stone slabs, one of them is etched for a game of chance called the King’s Game. The Roman soldiers used this for gambling, or for dividing up the clothes of those condemned to die, “they parted his garments, casting lots upon them”, Mark 15:24.
*Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! John 19:5
This page is part of the book The Holy Land of Jesus
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