A summary account must be given of a very high column which stands
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in the centre of the city to the north of the holy places facing the passersby.
It is remarkable how this column (which is situated in the place
where the dead youth came to life when the cross of the Lord was placed
upon him) fails to cast a shadow at midday during the Summer solstice,
when the sun reaches the centre of the heavens. When the solstice is
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passed, however (that is the 8th day before the kalends of July), after
an interval of three days, as the day gradually grows shorter it casts
a brief shadow at first, then as the days pass a longer one. And so this
column, which the sunlight surrounds on all sides blazing directly down
on it during the midday hours (when at the Summer solstice the sun
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stands in the centre of the heavens), proves Jerusalem to be situated at
the centre of the world. Hence the psalmist, because of the holy places
of the passion and resurrection, which are contained within Helia itself,
/ prophesying sings: ‘God our king before the ages hath wrought our
salvation in the centre of the earth’, that is Jerusalem, which is said to
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be in the centre of the earth and its navel.