to Bethany, and blessed them; and while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven.Yet Helena erected a church upon the Mount of Olives; and assuredly there could have been no tradition better accredited in respect to the Holy Sepulchre. Indeed, the fact that no pilgrimages were made to the latter, goes strongly to show that there was no tradition respecting it whatever.

We arrive at a similar, though less decided result, in following up another parallel tradition of the same kind. The Cave of the Nativity, so called, at Bethlehem, has been pointed out as the place where Jesus was born, by a tradition which reaches back at least to the middle of the second century. At that time Justin Martyr speaks distinctlyof the Saviours birth, as having occurred in a grotto near Bethlehem. In the third century, Origen adduces it as a matter of public notoriety, so that even the heathen regarded it as the birthplace of him whom the Christians adored. Eusebius also mentions it several years before the journey of Helena; and the latter consecrated the spot by erecting over it a church. In this instance, indeed, the language of Scripture is less decisive than in respect to the place of the ascension; and the evangelist simply relates that the Virgin brought forth her first-born son, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. But the circumstance of the Saviours being born in a cave would certainly have not