However much we are offended by the defacing of walls and public monuments in twentieth century society, the instinct to 'leave one's mark' is strong. The Catecombs of Rome, the walls of Pompeii, Christ's last resting place and in fact most ancient places, including the mines in Sinai where Egyptian Pharoahs used forced labour to dig out the silver in the second millenium BC, are dotted with graffiti.
Charcoal drawing of a boat with oars drawn by a Christian pilgrim of the third century in the grotto of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Below are the words, "Lord we have gone" - "Domine, ivimus".
WHEN thousands of Christian visitors from around the world gather to celebrate Easter or Christmas in Jerusalem many of them may want to leave behind some sign that they have been here. In doing so, they will be following a tradition as old as Christian pilgrimage itself. Graffiti in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre offer vivid testimony to the persistent desire of the faithful to leave indelible reminders of their visits to one of the holiest of Christian Shrines.
The earliest example of pictorial piety in the church built around the site where Jesus is believed to have died and risen, dates back as far as the third or fourth century A.D. It is a small charcoal drawing of a boat, with oars, and below it are written the Latin words Domine ivimus - "Lord, we have gone." Scholars refer these words to the opening lines of the l22nd Psalm, in which the Psalmist says, "I rejoiced when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord'."
Because the inscription is in Latin, scholars believe that the person responsible for the drawing was among the first pilgrims to visit the holy site from somewhere in Western Europe, where Latin was spoken. He arrived, as he indicates, by boat.
The ancient graffiti is found in a small chamber in the bedrock below the cavernous basilica. Archaeologists believe it was placed there even before the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was commissioned by St Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, in the early fourth century.
Israel Lipel, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Interreligious Relations and Research, points out that the wall on which the drawing was made was originally part of a Roman temple to a Pagan Goddess. "Since the painting obviously took some time to make," he explains, "it could hardly have been done under the noses of Roman guards while Christianity was still outlawed in the Roman Empire."
By the same token, once the building of the Church was completed, in the year 335, it is unlikely that guards would have allowed simple pilgrims such graphic freedom of expression. By this reasoning it would appear that the little boat was drawn some time before the year 335, but after the year 312, when the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great adopted Christianity as the official religion of his empire.
At that time, pilgrimage to Jerusalem had not yet become an accepted Christian practice. "Although Christianity is the only religion which was actually founded in the Holy Land," Israel Lipel explains, "it quickly moved away to other parts of the world. The early Church held that its followers should seek Jerusalem only in the spiritual sense, not in the physical."
The fruit of private interpretation
"God has given me to understand the mischief we have done by our haste in breaking with the Pope. The people say to us: I know enough of the Gospel. I can read it for myself. I have no need of you."
Wolfgang Kopfel [1478-1541] an early Protestant writer, in a letter to Farel, Minister of Geneva.
With the completion of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, however, pilgrimage came into its own. Christians from the entire civilized world began to visit the sites where Jesus had been born, lived and died. Even as the Church splintered into various denominations and Jerusalem was repeatedly ravaged by wars and earthquakes, the Holy Land remained a focal point of Christian faith.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre which pilgrims today seek out within the walls of Jerusalem's Old City was built by the crusaders in the l2th century, following the destruction of the original during the Moslem conquest of the city. Like the first pilgrims, the Crusaders also left lasting reminders of their visits etched into the walls of the shrine. The passageway leading to the chamber containing what is believed to be Golgotha - the Place of the Skull, where Jesus was crucified - is lined with thousands of crosses carved there by the Crusaders.
For modern visitors equipped with magic markers instead of chisels, special graffiti panels have been set up in one of the many chapels contained within the labyrinthine church. Here visitors can, and do, express their faith in whatever way they see fit. Some restrict themselves to merely inscribing their names. Others add the name of their native country. From SenegaI to Argentina, from Finland to Australia, from Romania to the Philippines and on to the United States, no continent is left out. Less modest scribes range their comments from the pop to the propitiatory, from "Jesus Christ Superstar' to Pense à moi, Seigneur - "Think of me, Lord." In Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Spanish and every other language known to Christendom the modern-day faithful join the first pilgrims to Jerusalem in proclaiming to the world that they, too, have "gone to the house of the Lord."
About the author:
Dr David Schuster served the Dubbo community as an anaesthetist for 40 years. As well as an involved member of the local Dubbo community, Dr Schuster is a member of the Order of Malta in Australia, contributing to Order’s annual Coats for the Homeless program. Dr Schuster is also a member of the Order of Australia.
This article first appeared under the title 'Pilgrim Graffiti' in Annals Australasia, issue 5, July 1987. Reproduced with permission of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Australia.