Ecclesiastical Geography and Topography of the Christian World - Chapter IX

Chapter IX

Jerusalem holy city - to name the most important stages in the history of the city: Jewish, Roman, Christian, Muslim, Crusade, reconquest Jerusalem Muslim, British mandate, capital of Israel

The period of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099 1291)

On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders, who thus inaugurated the Kingdom of Jerusalem which lasted for almost 200 years. Until then all Christians in the Holy Land had been under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, but the Crusaders did not accept to be subjected to a religious Byzantine rite, a member of a Church separate from that of Rome after the Great Schism of the 1054 between East and West. Therefore, on 1 August 1099, the religious crusaders created the patriarchate of Jerusalem of the Latins and appointed the first titular Arnolfo di Roeux.

A Latin ecclesiastical hierarchy, of the Roman rite, was established: during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the Latin patriarchate was divided into four archdioceses, the head of which was the Archbishop of Tiro, the Archbishop of Caesarea, the archbishop of Nazareth and the archbishop of Petra; he had as direct suffragans the bishops of Lidda-Ramla, Bethlehem, Hebron and Gaza and the abbots of the Temple, Mount Sion and Mount of Olives. The Latin patriarch also controlled the Latin Quarter of the city of Jerusalem (the Holy Sepulchre and the immediate vicinity).

The city of Jerusalem

History of the city Jerusalem

The name of Jerusalem derives from the verb form yārāh («fondò») and from the name of the Semitic deity Shālēm. The city, already inhabited at the beginning of the historical period, is mentioned at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC in the Egyptian texts of execration. In David's time, the city had the Jebusites (around 1000 BC); it was conquered by Joab and David made it the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. In the centre of the acropolis of Sion, Solomon built a magnificent temple, destroyed in 587 by the Babylonians who sacked the city. Once the Jews returned to their homeland after the edict of Cyrus 538, they built the second temple and Nehemiah rebuilt the walls.

Temple of Solomon

In 331 BC it was occupied by Alexander the Great and then passed under the Ptolemies of Egypt (until 198) and under the Seleucids of Syria. But their attempts to Hellenise the city provoked the revolt of the Maccabees and the establishment of the dynasty of the Asmonei, which lasted until Jerusalem, in 63 BC, was conquered by Pompey.

Jerusalem in the time of Herod the Great

In 37 BC the Romans delivered the city to Herod who rebuilt it, redoing the whole temple. With Erode the whole city experienced great urban development. Under the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ was crucified on Golgotha. Religious unrest and discontent with the Roman administration caused two very serious revolts, that of 66-70, at the end of which Titus destroyed the temple, and that of Bar Kōkĕbā [Kochba] (132-35), which broke out when Hadrian wanted to rebuild Jerusalem as a Roman colony. Once the revolt was repressed and the city destroyed, Jerusalem was rebuilt and took the name of Aelia Capitolina.

                                         Temple of Herod the Great

 

Plan of Jerusalem 30 AD

Jerusalem - Aelia Capitolina      

                 

   

Aelia Capitolina, the Roman city rebuilt by Hadrian in 130-136, on the site of Jerusalem destroyed by Tito, it was much smaller than the previous one and only the northern areas seem to have had some development. The usual Roman plant was adopted and the division of the city into neighbourhoods. Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina was a substantially pagan city in its sanctuaries and cults; lost its character as a sacred city of Judaism. On the Temple Mount, a statue of Hadrian is placed. The sixteen pre-Constantan inscriptions found in the city are all in Latin, a sign of its link with the Latin world. By now it had become a small provincial town, which over time, also lost the memory of its old name. Jews were forbidden to reside in the city, while Christians rebuilt their community.

      Aelia Capitolina, reconstruction of the pagan temple, ca. 135

History of the city of Jerusalem after135 A.D

Eusebius of Caesarea (Ecclesiastical Historian) presents a long list of bishops of Jewish origin until the revolt of Kochba bar; after 135 A.D all the bishops were of ethnic-Christian origin. A strong development of the Christian city took place starting from Constantine with the construction of basilicas and the arrival of pilgrims to visit the "holy" places (the expression "holy land" was born in the 6th century). In the 4th century, its urban and religious aspects changed in a few years.

Conquered in 614 by the Persians of Chosroes II, Jerusalem was reconquered by the emperor Heraclius in 629. In 637 it surrendered to the caliph Omar; it then passed under the caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad. In 972 it was occupied by the Fatimid caliphs and in 1010 the caliph al-Ḥākim had the Holy Sepulchre destroyed. Having passed to the Seljuk Turks in 1076, it returned to the caliph of Egypt in 1098.

History of the city of Jerusalem: the period of the Crusades

Conquered by the Crusaders in 1099, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; after the Muslim reconquest (1187) by Saladin, Frederick II entered in 1229; occupied in 1239 by the Egyptians, it was temporarily returned to the Christians in 1243. The following year it became part of Muslim Egypt until 1517, when it was occupied by the Turkish sultan Selīm I.

The capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099

The Siege of Jerusalem in 1099

History of the city of Jerusalem: Contemporary age

Ottoman rule ended in 1917, with the English occupation of Palestine. The seat of the British administration during the mandate of the United Nations (1922-48), Jerusalem recorded a rapid increase in population and an increase in conflicts between Jewish immigrants, installed above all in the new western districts, and the Arab population (Muslim and Christian), prevalent in the old city.

 

Above: Jesus in Jerusalem; destruction of the Temple.

In the middle: Beheading of the Jews.

Below: The Crusaders who conquered the city washed away their offences in rivers of blood. Representation from around 1200.

 

Based on the partition plan of Palestine between an Arab and a Jewish state, approved (1947) by the General Assembly of the UN, the zone of Jerusalem (also including Bethlehem) was to constitute an enclave within the Arab state, subject to the international regime under the control of the United Nations, to safeguard the rights of Jews, Christians and Muslims, freedom of access and protection of the Holy Places of the three religions. The war of 1948-49 (during which the Jewish quarter of the old city was almost totally destroyed) led to the occupation of Jerusalem by Israeli (western) and Jordanian forces (the old city with the main Holy Places) and its consequent division of fact, sanctioned by the armistice between Tel Aviv and Amman (1949). Despite the reaffirmation by the UN (1948 and 1949) of the principle of the internationalization of Jerusalem and the approval of the relevant Statute (1950), Israel and Jordan proceeded with the annexation of their respective occupation zones and in 1950 Israel proclaimed Jerusalem its own capital (the Jordanian sector was formally annexed by Amman, with the rest of the West Bank).

After the war of June 1967, which extended Tel Aviv's control to the entire West Bank, Jerusalem was reunified under Israeli sovereignty and in 1980 the annexation was solemnly sanctioned by a 'fundamental law' which proclaimed Jerusalem as the 'united and indivisible' capital of the State of Israel; censoring this law, in 1980, the UN Security Council invited states to establish diplomatic representations in Israel in Tel Aviv. Despite repeated condemnation by both the General Assembly and the UN Security Council, the work of integration between the two parts of Jerusalem and of the latter in the national territory continued, in the following years, also through the intervention in the physical and demographic characteristics of the city (extension of the municipal area, urban transformations, Jewish settlements, etc.).

Jerusalem: Today

The expansion of Israel settlements in the city and around it has led to an impressive growth of the Israeli population in East Jerusalem, which has almost equalled the Palestinian population in the area and since 2002 has been virtually isolated from the West Bank by the construction of a barrier defensive security, aimed at hindering the violent Palestinian terrorist attacks on the civilian population of Jerusalem and other Israeli cities. Since the State of Palestine does not renounce to consider the city as its capital, the question of Jerusalem continues to be a subject of particular difficulty in attempts at peace.

Jerusalem as the doctrinal centre of primitive Christianity

The first Christian community begins its missionary activity from Jerusalem; for this reason, it is "the mother of all the Churches", but it is on the doctrinal and traditional level - the first place of honour, but not to the jurisdictional one. Only in the Council of Chalcedon (451), Bishop Juvenal obtained the title of patriarch over three provinces of Palestine: Caesarea, Scitopoli and Petra.

The Church of Jerusalem is chronologically the first Church; "James, the brother of Jesus" was his first bishop. The continuous Roman persecutions determined several interruptions in the life of this Church and the bishops, when they were able to exercise their office, were therefore subjected to the metropolitan of Caesarea. But with the 'Emperor Constantine, the city flourished again. The first ecumenical council (Nicaea, 325) recognized the primacy, in the facts already existing, in the order of the three dioceses of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, (Canon VI), which was followed by an honorary precedence in Jerusalem because of its central importance. in the history of Christianity (Canon VII) while remaining subject to the metropolitan of Caesarea. The fourth council of Chalcedon (451) (Canon XXIII) gave a territorial basis to those that in fact were already two patriarchates (Constantinople and Jerusalem) to the detriment of the territory of Antioch.

Patriarchate of Jerusalem 451

Authority of Jerusalem at the time of the Apostles

Paul considers his missionary activity as if it had departed from Jerusalem, which is not historically correct (see Gal 1: 15-18, Acts 9:19, 26: 19-20), but it is doctrinally so. He writes: " So from Jerusalem and surroundings to Illyria, I completed the preaching of the gospel of Christ" (Romans 15,19). The expression echoes the initial mission of Jesus' disciples: "From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth" (Lk 2: 47-49, Acts 1: 8, Jn 20: 17-23). In the passage of Paul to the Romans, Jerusalem is where the mission to all peoples was founded and is the symbol of the collegiate community. In his letters, Paul often refers to the community of Jerusalem to defend his call to the apostolate and to the legitimacy of his action and teaching. However, this is relevant, he insists that his ministry does not derive from the community of Jerusalem, but was constituted by God: “Paul, apostle not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead” (Galatians 1: 1); “Apostle by vocation, chosen to proclaim the Gospel of God” (Rom 1: 1). He does not need the legitimacy of the community and the "columns" of Jerusalem. However, until his death, the community of Jerusalem retains its prestige and its authority also for Paul. (To be Continued)

Fr. Nicholas Macedon OCD

Carmelite Priory, Oxford.            

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