Gethsemane

Gethsemane (Hebr. for “oil-press”), the place to which Jesus and His disciples withdrew on the eve of the Crucifixion. It was evidently an enclosed piece of ground, a plantation rather than a garden in our sense of the word. It lay east of the Kidron and on the lower slope of the mount of Olives, at the foot of which is the traditional site dating from the 4th century and now possessed by the Franciscans. The Grotto of the Agony, a few hundred yards farther north, is an ancient cave-cistern, now a Latin sanctuary. (See further Jerusalem.)