It
seems hard to imagine, but there was a time when Jerusalem was not Jerusalem.
Judaism and Christianity think that Jerusalem has always been there, as part of
the world in which God, first in the Old Testament and then in the New
Testament, played out the divine drama with his chosen people. Starting with
King David's capture of Jerusalem for his capital some 3000 years ago, that city
has been at the heart of the Holy Land. But for about 250 years, Jerusalem was a
pagan city, where Jews were not allowed even to walk and where Christianity was
unable to build a single church.
The
Roman Empire annexed Judea and its capital Jerusalem in 63 B.C., and ultimately
appointed Herod the Great to rule it for them. Upon Herod's death in 4 B.C., the
Romans decided to rule it directly, sending procurators from Rome to serve as
governors. These polytheistic procurators were ill-suited to rule a monotheistic
country, for they did not grasp its stricter approach to the divine world. They
preferred to keep Judea quiet, acquire as much money as they could, and then
return to Rome. Combine this approach with a military occupation, rather than a
civilian police force, and you have a recipe for disaster.
After
much provocation, the Jews revolted against their Roman overlords in 66 A.D.,
certain they would win their freedom. It did not happen that way. The Roman
legions captured Jerusalem and destroyed the city and its temple. Jews were
banned from living in Jerusalem and several decades later, after a second failed
revolt, they were banned from living anywhere in Judea and from even entering
Jerusalem.
But
by that time it was no longer even called Jerusalem. It was Aelia Capitolina.
The Emperor Hadrian refounded the ruined site as a new colony in 129. He called
it Aelia, which was his family name, and Capitolina after the god Jupiter, the
chief god of the Roman pantheon.
Quarrying
stones from the ruins, the Romans reconstructed the city, shifting it north so
that much of the Jewish city of the previous 1000 years was outside the walls.
In typical Roman fashion, they built a central, wide street called a "Cardo."
The Cardo was lined with shops and served as the city's main shopping and
gathering place, and in Jerusalem it split into two branches to follow the
contours of its hills.
Ignoring
the former temple area completely, the Romans built a forum, a large open
square, where the western Cardo met the gate outside where the legions camped.
On the north side, a temple to Jupiter, the city's patron deity, was
constructed. In this temple, he was accompanied by the goddess Aphrodite.
The
Romans even forgot the name Jerusalem. It is clear that by the 200s, the
region's Roman governors knew the city only by the name Aelia Capitolina and had
no knowledge that it was once called Jerusalem.
But the Jews and the Christians never forgot. When the Emperor Constantine became a Christian, Jerusalem and the Holy Land were among his main thoughts. Shortly after becoming the sole ruler in 324, he established the Christian church as his most favored religion. And, working through the new Bishop of Jerusalem, he rebuilt Jerusalem as the city of God. The bishop identified the Temple of Jupiter as covering the site where Jesus was crucified and buried, and so it was torn down and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was constructed in its place. Jerusalem became Jerusalem once again.