As regards the origin of the name of Calvary, I here give all I know.  I beheld the mountain which bears this name as it was in the time of the Prophet Eliseus.  It was not the same then as at the time of our Lord’s Crucifixion, but was a hill, with many walls and caverns, resembling tombs, upon it.  I saw the Prophet Eliseus descend into these caverns, I cannot say whether in reality or only in a vision, and I saw him take out a skull from a stone sepulchre in which bones were resting.  Someone who was by his side —­I think an angel—­ said to him, ’This is the skull of Adam.’  The prophet was desirous to take it away, but his companion forbade him.  I saw upon the skull some few hairs of a fair colour.

I learned also that the prophet having related what had happened to him, the spot received the name of Calvary.  Finally, I saw that the Cross of Jesus was placed vertically over the skull of Adam.  I was informed that this spot was the exact centre of the earth; and at the same time I was shown the numbers and measures proper to every country, but I have forgotten them, individually as well as in general.  Yet I have seen this centre from above, and as it were from a bird’s-eye view.  In that way a person sees far more clearly than on a map all the different countries, mountains, deserts, seas, rivers, towns, and even the smallest places, whether distant or near at hand.

CHAPTER LV.

The Cross and the Winepress.

As I was meditating upon these words or thoughts of Jesus when hanging on the Cross:  ’I am pressed like wine placed here under the press for the first time; my blood must continue to flow until water comes, but wine shall no more be made here,’ an explanation was given me by means of another vision relating to Calvary.

I saw this rocky country at a period anterior to the Deluge; it was then less wild and less barren than it afterwards became, and was laid out in vineyards and fields.  I saw there the Patriarch Japhet, a majestic dark-complexioned old man, surrounded by immense flocks and herds and a numerous posterity:  his children as well as himself had dwellings excavated in the ground, and covered with turf roofs, on which herbs and flowers were growing.  There were vines all around, and a new method of making wine was being tried on Calvary, in the presence of Japhet.  I saw also the ancient method of preparing wine, but I can give only the following description of it.  At first men were satisfied with only eating the grapes; then they pressed them with pestles in hollow stones, and finally in large wooden trenches.  Upon this occasion a new wine-press, resembling the holy Cross in shape, had been devised; it consisted of the hollow trunk of a tree placed upright, with a bag of grapes suspended over it.  Upon this bag there was fastened a pestle, surmounted by a weight; and on both sides of the trunk were arms joined to the bag, through