The Mount of Olives, like every piece of real estate in or near Jerusalem, particularly the walled-in Old City, is layered with historical, political, and theological significance. The Mount, situated to the northeast across the Kidron Valley, rises several hundred feet above the Old City, the biblical Mount Zion, and is within easy walking distance. From there, the view of the valley and of Jerusalem is panoramic and evocative. It takes in not only modern Jerusalem, with its hotels and high rises, but the Old City’s medieval walls, mosques, churches, and what remains of the fabled Temple.
An enormous Jewish cemetery, ancient but still used, spreads over most of the southern slope and into the valley. It looks like an ugly gash, slashed out of the otherwise placid brown landscape. Here, among an estimated one hundred fifty thousand graves, are said to be the tombs of the prophets Hosea, Zechariah, and Malachi, and of King David’s renegade son, Absalom. Jewish tradition has it that on the last day, when full justice is revealed, the resurrection of the dead will commence here (the symbolic Valley of Jehoshaphat), to be inaugurated by the prophet Ezekiel sounding the shofar. With the covenant fulfilled, the face of the earth will be renewed.
According to the prophecy of Zechariah, the Mount will be split in two, from east to west, signifying the final return of Yahweh and all his saints, and the Holy City will be transformed. In the vision of Ezekiel, it was on the Mount of Olives that the Glory of God rested when it departed the Temple. When the Glory returns (Zec 14:8), all the peoples will come to the purified city to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and to give God praise.
After the Arab conquest of 637, the Mount of Olives became the center of Jewish worship for those Jews still allowed to remain in Jerusalem. The most poignant of all Mount of Olives rituals was the lamentation over the destruction of the Temple, the Holy of Holies-its ruins in full view across the valley, desecrated and expropriated.
At the base of the Mount of Olives today is the Orthodox church of the Dormition of the Virgin; silent and dark, buried in a cave, it is discreet and prayerful. A little farther south is the more modern Basilica of the Nations, the traditional site of Gethsemane. A half-dozen ancient olive trees in the patio of the basilica are treated as witnesses to the night of Jesus’ agony. Further up the mount is a magnificent Russian monastery in the extravagant Muscovite style, its onion domes glistening. Beyond that, about halfway up the mount, is the Franciscan church of Dominus Flevit (The Lord Wept), with a stirring view of Mount Zion and the ancient city. Higher still and across the way is the Church of the Pater Noster, with the Lord’s Prayer reproduced in a variety of languages-many I had never heard of. Near the summit is a more recent construction, a Mormon university where concerts are offered periodically. On the summit itself, an ancient church that once marked the site of Jesus’ Ascension is now a mosque. A newer Church of the Ascension constructed by German Lutherans, a hotel, and some Catholic religious houses are nearby. Seen in season from Mount Zion across the valley, this part of the mount appears orderly, green, and almost rural. In Jewish tradition, the olive branch the dove brought Noah after the flood came from here.
In contrast, there is practically no vegetation on the southern slope where the cemetery lies. The sun beats down mercilessly on the trash and the dirt, rocks, and toppled tombstones that litter the place. The locals say it has been a burial ground forever, the cemetery of Jerusalem, desecrated a thousand times over. In recent decades Jordanians used the tombstones for military construction and for latrines.
The cemetery is the sole Jewish presence immediately discernible on the mountain today, and it seems a somewhat humiliated one. The city that looked down on it from above, to which the tribes of Israel went up rejoicing, was razed by the Romans. Today it is surrounded by Turkish walls and crowned with churches, mosques, and the glistening dome of the Muslims’ Noble Sanctuary. Only the city’s ancient Jewish Quarter and the Wailing Wall link it unmistakably to its Davidic past.
Standing in the valley, I can’t but wonder how a pious Jew feels as he or she gazes on this violated graveyard, veritably screaming for the resurrection of the dead. Is there any consolation in the fact that the Christian and Muslim intruders consider themselves, in their own way, descendants of Abraham? That they would not have existed had it not been for the promises made to their father in the faith? That even for them, salvation comes from the Jews? Does that offer reassurance?
The humiliation of the Cenacle, located across the Kidron on Mount Zion itself, is more discreet. The traditional site of the Last Supper, of Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearance in the upper room, and of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is honored by some Jews as the burial place of King David. Unlike most Christian sites in the Old City, the historicity of the Cenacle is fairly well attested to. Bishop Epiphanius (310-403), a native of Palestine, relying on second-century documents, stated that “Hadrian...found the city entirely razed to the ground and the Temple destroyed and trampled upon with the exception of some houses and a certain small church of the Christians which had been constructed in that place in which the disciples, after the Savior was taken up into heaven from the Mount of Olives, betaking themselves, mounted to the Cenacle.”
The early Christian community that had taken refuge in Pella, a city of the Decapolis beyond the northern border of Israel, in AD 66 (before the first Jewish revolt against the Romans) would certainly have returned to the place from which the first community had arisen, and which was the traditional “seat” of St. James, the first “bishop” of Jerusalem. As the site of the institution of the Eucharist and also the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Cenacle would be the mother of all Christian churches. In fact a church built around the Cenacle came to be called simply the Church on Mount Zion. Somehow, the Cenacle seems to have physically survived the vicissitudes of the many occupations. The Crusaders discovered a two-story chapel there in which an upper room was associated with the events of Pentecost and the lower room with the washing of the feet and the appearance of the risen Christ. The church was destroyed, but the upper room still stands.
The fate of the lower room seems truly bizarre. It is said that around 1167, following the collapse of a wall, some tombs, richly decorated, were found and identified as those of David and Solomon. This claim seems dubious, because more ancient sources locate David’s tomb elsewhere. In fact, the site is commonly called “the false tomb of King David.” Still, the Crusaders erected a cenotaph there. Today, it is covered with a velvet cloth embroidered with verses from the psalms. Since Muslims also venerate the memory of David, the Turks eventually declared the place a Muslim sanctuary. In 1523, that status was extended to the upper room and access to it was forbidden to Christians.
Today, each space has its separate entrance. Jews and Christians are now admitted to the lower room, which is dominated by the cenotaph surrounded by candles. The impression is that of a closed-casket wake in progress. This lower room has an intriguing niche that, in a synagogue, would normally be the place where the Torah is kept. But instead of facing the site of the Temple, as would be customary, the niche looks toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This has been taken as an indication that the room was used by a Judeo-Christian community in Jerusalem.
The upper room remains divided in two: the room of the Last Supper and the ancient chapel of the Holy Spirit. When I visited several years ago, the chapel of the Holy Spirit was closed. It is normally considered off-limits to non-Muslims, though it is not an active mosque. What can be seen, the room of the Last Supper, is an empty space with Arabic motifs on its columns and walls. Here a niche indicates the direction of Mecca. For centuries Christians were barred from the Cenacle except on Holy Thursday and Pentecost, when Franciscan friars were allowed to pray there on the condition that no liturgy be celebrated. It was only at the end of the last century that the upper room was partially reopened for Christians to visit. When Pope John Paul II made his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2000, he was allowed to celebrate the Eucharist in the upper room-the first and only time in more than four hundred years.
Although the Jewish cemetery in the valley below has been desecrated repeatedly, the Cenacle has been demeaned almost by default. Visitors can’t get in to see the whole thing, and what they are allowed to view seems a dilapidated room that could be found almost anywhere in the ancient Middle East. Still, for Christians, this is the place where the church was born. To me, the despoliation of the Kidron cemetery and the emptiness of the Cenacle proclaim not only the powerlessness of God, but a love that prefers humiliation to imposition. Out of the silence of ruins, God’s voice can be heard in a remarkable way.
Aquinas, in his commentary on the Beatitudes, contemplates Jesus washing the feet of his disciples-and is amazed. It is as if God were making of us his gods, and his vulnerability is a scandal. In curious and sad ways, the Cenacle and the cemetery beneath the Mount of Olive seem to make a mockery of God’s promises. Both challenge us, at the levels of faith and hope, to believe and trust in a God whose name cannot be uttered.
As I gazed around the Cenacle, disappointed and not knowing what to think, I noticed a pigeon in the niche that indicates the direction of Mecca. It was only much later that I thought to ask what the difference is between a pigeon and a dove. I was told that both are of the same family-and are hardly distinguishable.
