In his Vita Constantini, Eusebius of Caesarea (+339) recounts how the first Christian emperor, moved by his mother Saint Helena, ordered the construction of three churches over three sacred caves where the Christians of Jerusalem preserved the memory of Jesus Christ’s birth, death and Resurrection, and Ascension to Heaven. Thus were the earliest basilicas of the Holy Land erected: the Basilica of the Nativity, over a cave on the outskirts of Bethlehem where Christians kept the manger in which the Redeemer was born (cf. Origen); the Basilica of the Resurrection (Anastasis), which in the West we call the Holy Sepulcher; and, finally, at the summit of the Mount of Olives, a church called Eleona (“the olives”) over the cave where, according to tradition, Jesus gave his final instructions to his disciples before ascending to heaven
The existence of a cave prior to the construction of the churches of the Nativity and the Holy Sepulcher is logical. As early as the 2nd century, Saint Justin of Neapolis (Nablus, in Samaria) affirms that Jesus was born in a cave. As for Jesus’ tomb, we know from the Gospels that it was carved into the rock, making it an artificial cave. Constantine ordered the rock around it to be cleared so that it would stand out within a monumental rotunda
But where did we get this not very intuitive idea according to which Jesus ascended to heaven from a cave?
Today, the visitor who enters the Pater Noster Church, located almost at the summit of the Mount of Olives, comes to commemorate Jesus’ teachings on prayer, particularly the gift of the Our Father. This episode is not connected to the Ascension. According to Matthew, it took place in Galilee (Mt 6:9-13), after the proclamation of the Beatitudes. The Gospel of Luke (Lk 11:1-5), however, places it after the well-known passage of Martha and Mary. We know that these two lived with their brother Lazarus in Bethany, a village situated on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives (cf. Lk 10:38-42). For this reason, the tradition that Jesus taught Our Father at what is now the Pater Noster Church of the Eleona, took root.
What happened, then, to the primary tradition associated with this church, that of the Ascension of the Lord?
It is possible that, a few years after its dedication, the Basilica of the Ascension was destroyed or severely damaged by the earthquake of 363, to such an extent that ecclesiastical authorities chose to rebuild it a short distance away, at the very summit of the Mount of Olives. In the early 380s, the pilgrim Egeria described the liturgical procession on the first Sunday after Easter, which—apparently—commemorated the Ascension of the Lord:
“On the Sunday of the octave of Easter, immediately after the sixth hour, all the people go up to Eleona with the bishop. First, they sit for a while in the church which is there, and hymns and antiphons suitable to the day and to the place are said; prayers suitable to the day and to the place are likewise made. Then they go up to the Imbomon with hymns, and the same things are done there as in the former place. (Egeria’s Travels, trans. John Wilkinson, Aris & Phillips, 1999, XL, §1, p. 160).
From this description, two points can be discerned: 1) the Constantinian Basilica Eleona has been rebuilt, as the clergy and people “sit” in it to pray hymns and antiphons; 2) there is another place called Imbomon (literally the “ridge of a hill”) where the procession continues. Apparently, there was no church built there at that time.
We can conclude that this was a process of transferring tradition. When, a few years later, Princess Poimenia had a church built on this site, the tradition of the Ascension of the Lord was definitively transferred there.
It was a martyrium, that is, a memorial church. Like the rotunda of the Anastasis, its round structure allowed processions to circle around the holy site: a piece of rock that preserved, according to ancient testimonies, the last footprints of Jesus on earth
Paulinus of Nola recounts that no one could ever build anything over this sacred ground:
“In the basilica that commemorates the Ascension is the place from which [Jesus] was taken up to heaven in a cloud (…). It is said that this one place—and no other—was sanctified by the divine footprints to such an extent that it has never been covered with marble or any pavement. (Paulinus of Nola, Letter 31 “To Sulpicius Severus”, trans. P. G. Walsh, Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola, vol. 2, Ancient Christian Writers 36, Newman Press, 1967, p. 126, CSEL 29).
By Henri Gourinard
