Gethsemane: Oil-press, the name of an olive-yard at the foot of the Mount of
Olives, to which Jesus was wont to retire
(Luke 22:39) with his
disciples, and which is specially memorable as being the scene of his
agony
(Mark 14:32; John 18:1; Luke 22:44) The plot of ground pointed out as
Gethsemane is now surrounded by a wall, and is laid out as a modern
European flower-garden. It contains eight venerable olive-trees, the
age of which cannot, however, be determined. The exact site of
Gethsemane is still in question. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book)
says: "When I first came to Jerusalem, and for many years afterward,
this plot of ground was open to all whenever they chose to come and
meditate beneath its very old olivetrees. The Latins, however, have
within the last few years succeeded in gaining sole possession, and
have built a high wall around it. The Greeks have invented another
site a little to the north of it. My own impression is that both are
wrong. The position is too near the city, and so close to what must
have always been the great thoroughfare eastward, that our Lord would
scarcely have selected it for retirement on that dangerous and dismal
night. I am inclined to place the garden in the secluded vale
several hundred yards to the north-east of the present Gethsemane."
