But about him the Passover pilgrims, catching their first glimpse of
the Holy City, gave way to the storm of emotion that had gradually
gathered as they drew near to the threatened City of Delight.
It had moved him to look upon this most majestic fortification,
embattled and begirt for resistance against the most majestic nation
in the world. But he who came as a stranger could not feel within him
the tenderness of old love, the sanctity of old tradition, and the
desperation of kin in his blood as he gazed upon Jerusalem. Yonder was
a roof-garden; to him, no more than that. But the inspired Jews beside
him knew that in that place the sun of noon had shone upon Bathsheba,
the beautiful; and in that neighboring high place the heart of the
Singing King had melted; to the north was a stretch of monotonous
ground overgrown with a new suburb; but that was the camp of
Sennacherib, the Assyrian whom the Angel of the Lord smote and his
army of one hundred and four score and five thousand, before the
morning. Yonder were squalid streets, older than any others. But the
Kings had walked them; the Prophets had helped wear trenches in their
stones; the heroes and the strong-hearted women of the ancient days
had gone that way. No house but was holy with tradition; no street but
was sanctified by event. Small wonder, then, that these who came to
this Passover, the most momentous one since that calamity which had
occurred forty years ago on Golgotha, wept, cried aloud to Heaven;
became beatified and made prophecies; railed; anathematized
Jerusalem's enemies; assumed vows and were threatening. Julian of
Ephesus was shaken. He looked about him on the tempestuous host, then
touched his horse and rode down to the city.
On the Hill Scopus over which he approached an inferior number of
Romans were camped, and these had maintained a semblance of siege only
sufficiently effective to close all the gates on three sides. The Sun
Gate to the south of the city was therefore the most accessible point
of entry for the pilgrims. Following the people who had preceded him,
Julian approached this portal, left his horse with the stable-keeper
without and prepared to enter Jerusalem.
Collecting at the causeway of the Sun Gate the pilgrims came with such
impetus that the foremost were rushed struggling and protesting
through the tunnel under the wall and forced well into Jerusalem
before they could control their own motion. Once within, the host
spread out so that one looking at the immense space they instantly
covered wondered how so great a mass ever passed through the
circumscribed limits of a fifty-foot gate. At times stopping was
impossible. Again there were momentary lulls, as when the sea recoils
upon itself and is stilled for an instant. They who stood to watch,
wearied of days of such invasion, unconsciously wished that the
interval might endure till they could rest their number-wearied
brains. But, as if the stagnation were the result of congestion
somewhere without the walls, when the wave returned it came with
redoubled height and power and the Sun Gate would roar with the noise
of their entry.