Calvary

"Golgotha" redirects here. For other uses, see Golgotha (disambiguation). For other uses of the term "Calvary", see Calvary (disambiguation).

Template:Distinguish2 Calvary(Golgotha) is the English-language name given to the hill on which Jesus was crucified. The hill is described as outside Jerusalem, but its location is not certain. Calvariae Locus in Latin, Κρανιου Τοπος (Kraniou Topos) in Greek and Gûlgaltâ in Aramaic all mean 'place of [the] skull', referring to a hill or plateau containing a pile of skulls or to a geographic feature resembling a skull.

Romans typically crucified along roadways. The Bible tells us that many “passed by.” Matthew 27:39 The word “Calvary” comes into the English Bible only from the King James Version in Luke 23:33. The translators imported this word from the Latin Vulgate.

(Golgotha) is the English-language name given to the hill on which Jesus was crucified. The hill is described as outside Jerusalem, but its location is not certain. Calvariae Locus in Latin, Κρανιου Τοπος (Kraniou Topos) in Greek and Gûlgaltâ in Aramaic all mean 'place of [the] skull', referring to a hill or plateau containing a pile of skulls or to a geographic feature resembling a skull.

Romans typically crucified along roadways. The Bible tells us that many “passed by.” Matthew 27:39 The word “Calvary” comes into the English Bible only from the King James Version in Luke 23:33. The translators imported this word from the Latin Vulgate.

Calvary is mentioned in all four of the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion in the Christian canonical Gospels:

Matthew 27:33

And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). (ESV)

Mark 15:22

And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). (ESV)

Luke 23:33

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull. (ESV)

John 19:17

and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. (ESV)

Roman emperor Constantine the Great built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on what was thought to be the sepulchre of Jesus in 326 - 335, nearby the location of Calvary. According to Christian legend, the Tomb of Jesus and the True Cross were discovered by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine in 325. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is now within Jerusalem's Old City Walls, but it was beyond them at the time in question. The Jerusalem city walls were expanded by Herod Agrippa in 41-44 and only then enclosed the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Professor Sir Henry Chadwick (Dean Emeritus of Christ Church Oxford University) comments: "Hadrian's builders replanned the old city, incidentally confirming the bringing of the hill of Golgotha inside a new town wall (a fact implicit in a Good Friday sermon 'On the Pascha' by Melito bishop of Sardis about thirty years later). On this site, already venerated by Christians, Hadrian erected a shrine to Aphrodite (Chadwick, H., The Church in ancient Society. From Galilee to Gregory the Great. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003:21). Inside the church is a pile of rock about 5 m high, believed to be what now remains visible of Calvary. During restoration works and excavations inside the today's Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the years 1973-1978 it was found out that this place Calvary originally concerned with a quarry, in which white "Meleke limestone" was struck. A little hill could possibly have looked from the city like a skull. In 1986 a ring was found of 11.50 cm diameter, struck into the stone, which could have given to a wood trunk of up to 2.50 meters height. The church is accepted as the Tomb of Jesus by most historians and the little rock nowadays inside the present church as the location of Calvary. Pilgrim of Bordeaux is writing in 333: "There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built a basilica, that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty. On the left hand is the "little" hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified. About a stone's throw from thence is a vault (crypta) wherein his body was laid, and rose again on the third day. (Latin original: ... est monticulus golgotha, ubi dominus crucifixus est.), pages 593, 594)." See also: Eyewitness-reports about the location of Calvary: Pilgrim of Bordeaux (in 333), Eusebius (338), bishop Cyrillus (347), pilgrim Egeria (383), bishop Eucherius of Lyon (440), Breviarius de Hierosolyma (530), in German. Professor Dan Bahat, one of Israel's leading archaeologists and a senior lecturer at the Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, comments in 2007: "Six graves from the first century were found on the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That means, this place laid here outside of the city, without any doubt, and is the possible place for the tomb of Jesus."

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Site of Golgotha according to General Gordon, East Jerusalem near the Garden Tomb

After time spent in Palestine in 1882-83, Charles George Gordon suggested a different location for Calvary since it was not then known that the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was actually outside of the city walls at the time of the crucifixion. The Garden Tomb is to the north of the Holy Sepulchre, located outside of the modern Damascus Gate, in a place that was used for burial at least as early as the Byzantine period.^{[citation needed]} The Garden has an earthen cliff that contains two large sunken holes that people say to be the eyes of the skull. This might be linked to an ancient Christian tradition according to which the skull of Adam is buried at Golgotha.^{[citation needed]}

Other uses of the name

The name Calvary often refers to sculptures or pictures representing the scene of the crucifixion of Jesus, or a small wayside shrine incorporating such a picture. It also can be used to describe larger, more monument-like constructions, essentially artificial hills often built by devotees.

Churches in various Christian denominations have been named Calvary. The name is also sometimes given to cemeteries, especially those associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

Two Catholic religious orders have been dedicated to Mount Calvary.

References in popular culture

During the Season 2 finale of Atomic Betty, Paloma's mother is revealed to be a villainess named Golgotha
Many Extreme Metal bands have used the word "Golgotha" in song/album names, such as: Incantation, UR Group II, Dark Funeral, Summoning, Cradle of Filth, Casket Garden, Acid Bath, Rotting Christ, Embodyment, Katharsis, Demons & Wizards, etc.
Christian metal band With Blood Comes Cleansing also used the word Golgotha for an album name.
There was a computer game being developed entitled "Golgotha". However, the company developing it folded before its release. (For more information, see Golgotha (computer game)).
On Joe Satriani's 1987 album Surfing With The Alien, Track 6 is a short but haunting song entitled "Hill of the Skull".
In Stephen King's Dark Tower Series: at the end of The Gunslinger after catching the Man in Black Roland is brought to a Golgotha where he tells the gunslinger his fortune with tarot cards.
In Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk thriller Cryptonomicon, a hoard of well-hidden Japanese gold is buried deep within the jungles of the Philippines, in an underground crypt named "Golgotha." A nearby mountain is also named "Calvary."
In Sierra's PC strategy game Lords of Magic, the God of Death is called Golgoth, and his Dark Elf followers Golgothans. There is also a spell in the Death faith's arsenal called "Golgotha's Gift."
In the Broadway musical Les Misérables, the character Valjean sings in the song "One Day More" the following lyric: "One day more. Another day, another destiny, This neverending road to Calvary."
Wumpscut's 1997 album Embryodead features a song called "Golgotha," clearly referencing the Crucifixicion.
Allen Ginsberg's seminal poem 'Howl' references Golgotha twice: in the first part ('hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude') and final part ('I'm with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha')
In the Japanese comic series Golgo 13, the protagonist hitman Duke Togo is called by many by the name, Golgo Thirteen, which was coined by a prison inmate whom saw the Devil in the eyes of Golgo 13.
The Kevin Smith film Dogma (film) features "Golgathan shit demons". The reasoning behind this being that the Romans crucified many people on this mount and at the moment of death sometimes would expel their bowels onto the mound.
In the PC game Fallout 2 there is a large graveyard near the city of New Reno, named Golgotha, where a hidden cache of drugs and money can be found.
In the Play Station game Xenogears, the player's party is crucified at "Golgoda"; Because there are many religious references in the game, it is assumed that this is a mistranslated reference to "Golgotha.".
In chapter 3 of his auto-biography, "Living To Tell The Tale", Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes that spelling was his Calvary during his school years.
In Act 1, Scene 2 of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth and Banquo are said to "memorize another Golgotha."
In Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series: the homeworld of the Empire is named Golgotha.

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