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Calvary.
Calvary, where Jesus Christ was crucified, takes its name from the Latin word calvaria (skull). This name is linked to a Jewish tradition reported by the Fathers. Noah is said to have put Adam’s skeleton in the ark at the time of the flood and later handed it over to his son Shem, who buried the bones on Calvary near Jerusalem. The cross where Jesus Christ died stood over these bones and the Savior’s blood gushed out through a crevice on the skull of the first man. This tradition led to the construction of the «Adam’s Chapel» on this site. This also explains why a skull is sometimes found at the foot of the cross.
Dr. Emmanuel Veit.
The famous Viennese preacher, Emmanuel Veit, who was also a physician and poet, was Jewish by birth. As his father often read the Bible, the young man knew many passages by heart. After finishing his philosophy degree, Veit studied law at the University of Prague, and out of curiosity sometimes took courses in theology. One day he heard several Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. Back at his father’s house, the student began to search for the texts quoted by the professor from Prague. But the father, fearing that his son would become a Christian, tore up the pages containing these passages. When Emmanuel saw that some of the sheets were missing and some passages had been made illegible, he asked his father why. For all answer, he received a slap. But Veit studied the Bible even more intensely and became convinced of the truth of Christianity. As principal of the veterinary school he studied theology at the University of Vienna and was ordained a priest in 1821. Ten years later, he was a preacher at the Vienna Cathedral, where he acquired an extraordinary influence both through his lectures and his numerous writings.
The conviction that the prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ led Emmanuel Veit and many other Jews to Christianity.
