Jerusalem

Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the site of its religious sanctuary (the Temple), and as such the ‘Holy City’. Archaeological evidence indicates that part of the site was inhabited as early as c.3000 BC. About 1000 BC the Jebusite stronghold known as ‘Zion’ was captured by David, who made Jerusalem the capital of the United Monarchy. Solomon built the Temple and enlarged the city. About 597 BC and again c.586 BC it was captured and devastated by Nebuchadnezzar, and many of its inhabitants were deported to Babylon. The return from the Exile was followed, after some years, by the rebuilding of the Temple in 520–515 BC (the ‘Second Temple’). After the Exile the Jews were an ecclesiastically governed State under the suzerainty of various foreign powers. There was a short dynasty of priest-kings at the end of the Maccabean wars, but after the conquest by Pompey in 63 BC the country was ruled, directly or indirectly, from Rome. The Jews rebelled in AD 66; Jerusalem was besieged for four years, and when it fell in 70, the city, including the Temple, was destroyed. It was refounded as a Gentile city under the name of Aelia Capitolina in 135.

The Christian history of the city begins with the short ministry of the Lord, culminating in His Crucifixion and Resurrection. The Apostles lived and taught in Jerusalem for some time after Pentecost and met in Jerusalem for the first Christian council (Acts 15; c. AD 49). It was not, however, until the visit of St Helena (c.326) and the beginning of the fashion of venerating holy places that Jerusalem became important as a Christian centre. The see, previously suffragan to Caesarea, was granted patriarchal dignity at the Council of Chalcedon (451), but it never attained the prestige of the other patriarchates. The Christian centre of the city is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The present city covers only part of that of NT times. The traditional sites of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre lie in an area outside the walls of the town of Herod the Great, but within those built by Herod Agrippa some 14 years after the Crucifixion, and are therefore within the present Old City.