Olive

Olive, MOUNT OF, called also MOUNT OLIVET, a limestone ridge, lying north and south on the east side of Jerusalem (q.v.), from which it is separated only by the narrow Valley of Jehosaphat. It is called by the modern Arabs Jebel-al-Tôr, and takes its familiar name from a magnificent grove of olive-trees which once stood on its western flank, but has now in great part disappeared. The road to Mount Olivet is through St Stephen's Gate. Immediately beyond, at the foot of the bridge over the brook Kedron, lies the Garden of Gethsemane; and the road here parts into two branches, northwards to Galilee, and eastwards to Jericho. The ridge rises in three principal summits, that to the north being 361 feet above Jerusalem (2725 above the sea), the central summit, crowned with a village (Olivet proper), 286, and the third summit on the south 46 feet. David fled from Absalom by way of the Mount of Olives, which was also the scene of the idolatrous worship established by Solomon. The northern peak is the supposed scene of the appearance of the angels to the disciples after the resurrection, and is remarkable in Jewish history as the place on which Titus formed his encampment in the expedition against the fated city of Jerusalem. But it is around the central peak, which is the Mount of Olives properly so called, that all the most sacred associations of Christian history converge. On the summit stands the Church of the Ascension, on the site of a church built by St Helena; and near it are shown the various places where, according to tradition, our Lord wept over Jerusalem, where the apostles composed the apostles' creed, where our Lord taught them the Lord's Prayer, &c. Near the Church of the Ascension is a mosque and the tomb of a Mohammedan saint.