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 The city
of Jerusalem itself, where Jesus' Passion took place, is a likely place
to look. What makes our search difficult, however, is the almost complete
devastation the city suffered in the Roman siege that leveled most of
its walls and buildings during the Jewish revolt in 70 A.D.. With brutal
thoroughness, the legions of the Roman general Titus destroyed the city,
killing or enslaving its inhabitants. Some of the fiercest fighting
took place around the traditional place of Calvary. The city was completely
rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian in the late second century.
After the
Roman period, Persian, Moslem, and Crusader armies swept through the
Holy Land, destroying or rebuilding on the sacred sites. For almost
two thousand years, the land has suffered more than its share of wars,
earthquakes and other natural disasters. The city is hardly a place
one expects to find many traces of the past. Yet traces remain.
Illustration:
Relief
on Arch of Titus in Rome
The seven branch lamp stand and other treasures from the temple at Jerusalem
are carried in triumph by Titus's legions.
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Jerusalem Rebuilt by Hadrian
After a second
Jewish revolt in 135 A.D. the Emperor Hadrian sought to obliterate all
trace of the ancient city by completely rebuilding Jerusalem as a Roman
city, using the plan followed by Roman builders for constructing a colony.
The plan resulted in a city smaller in size than before, which can still
be seen in the street-plan of present-day Jerusalem. Renaming it "Aelia
Capitolina", Hadrian repopulated his new city with foreign colonists
and prohibited Jews from entering the city under pain of death. Statues
of Roman gods and goddesses replaced sacred Jewish sites. Little remained,
at least visibly, of Jerusalem's Jewish past except the desolate foundation
of the temple. Illustration: stones
from destruction of Temple uncovered in the excavations of 1967
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The  Jewish-Christian
Community
Even
so, there is some evidence that a small Jewish-Christian community continued
to meet on Mount Sion in the southern outskirts of the city, though
its activities were restricted. They cherished certain sites associated
with the memory of Jesus: a cave at Bethlehem marking his birth, a cave
near the summit of Mount of Olives marking his last teachings to his
disciples and his ascension, and the site of his death and resurrection
which they placed alongside the forum in Hadrian's new city, where the
Romans had raised a statue of Venus. Their traditions, which we can
categorize as pre-Constantinian (before 313 A.D.), provided the basis
for later Christian identification of some key sites. Illustration:
Palm
Sunday Pilgrims approaching Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives
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Constantine's Jerusalem
The face
of Jerusalem
dramatically changed when the Emperor Constantine began a era of toleration
and favor toward the Christian church in 313 A.D. Constantine initially
built three basilicas on the ancient Christian locations pointed out
by tradition: Calvary, the Mount of Olives and Bethlehem. As Christians
flocked to the Holy City these locations became the principal sites
of liturgical life for Jerusalem's growing Christian church, which soon
influenced Christian liturgical practices and devotion throughout the
world.
Illustration:
The Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, built by Constantine,
from the 6th century mosaic map of Madaba.
From the
4th to the 7th century, the Holy Land became a Christian land, a land
of pilgrims, a great visual bible. Almost 500 Christian churches and
shrines were built, many over places thought to commemorate incidents
in the Old or New Testaments. One must recognize, however, that many
sites were chosen overzealously. Scholars like St. Jerome (+ 420), who
took up permanent residence near the holy places in order to study the
scriptures in detail and practice the Christian life, complained about
the tendency of the "monstratores", the guides, to multiply places and
relics so that the multitude of eager pilgrims who craved to touch and
see he places mentioned in the bible could be satisfied.
In great
detail, the gospel stories acquired a concrete setting. As early as
333 A.D. an anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux in Gaul was shown on the
Mount of Olives "a vineyard where there is the rock where Judas Iscariot
betrayed Christ and the palm-tree from which the children took branches
and strewed them in Christ's path, the rock on which Christ was laid
to prepare for burial."
Among the
remains of Jerusalem's long history, then, are cult sites like these,
still to be seen and held in veneration. They are places of prayer hallowed
by a long tradition of devotion, but with only a tenuous connection
to the historical site and event. For original historical value one
generally looks for sites based on Pre-Constantinian traditions (before
313 B.C.) rather than on traditions from the Byzantine or medieval periods.
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The Church of the Holy Sepulcher
The present
church stands on the site of an earlier church constructed in 335 A.D.
by the Emperor Constantine who, relying on ancient Christian traditions,
built it over the tomb of Jesus. Pilgrimage to the site was so instantly
popular that St.John Chrysostom (+407) remarked "The whole world runs
to see a tomb that has no body."
Fire, earthquake,
and numerous structural changes have damaged the present church which
replaced the Constantinian church destroyed in 1009 A.D. Beneath its
dome is the traditional location of the tomb of Christ. Underneath the
church's smaller dome is the traditional site of Calvary.
Illustration: Church
of the Holy Sepulcher, as rendered in a woodcut frontispiece by Hamilton
Aide in Jerusalem, the Holy City, 1892.
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Next: The Jerusalem Temple
In Search of the Passion of Jesus:
Index | Bibliography
The Passion of Jesus Christ:
General Site Index
Gospel Narratives and Commentary by Donald Senior, C.P.
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