The house of Caiaphas
and Pilate’s Prætorium (§ 41), and Mount Zion itself
(Cat. xvi. 18), on which they both stood are described by Cyril as
being in his time ruined and desolate. Eusebius (Dem. Ev.
VIII. 406), referring to the prophecy of Micah (iii.
12), repeated by Jeremiah
(xxvi. 18), that Zion shall be plowed as
a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, testifies that he had
seen with his own eyes the place being ploughed and sown by strangers,
and adds that in his own time the stones for both public and private
buildings were taken from the ruins. The Bordeaux Pilgrim (333
a.d.) says, “It is evident where the
house of Caiaphas the Priest was; and there is still the pillar at
which Christ was scourged:” this pillar is described by
Jerome (Ep. 86) as supporting the portico of the Church which by
his time had been built on the spot. Prudentius circ. 400
a.d.):—
“Impia blasphemi cecidit domus alta
Caiphae.…
Vinctus in his Dominus stetit ædibus atque
columnae
Annexus tergum dedit ut servile flagellis.
Perstat adhuc, templumque gerit veneranda
columna.”
(Benedictine Editor.)