Jerusalem in Christianity

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For broader coverage of this topic, see Religious significance of Jerusalem.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.[1]
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    Apostolic Age, as recorded in the New Testament, gives it great importance, both culturally and religiously, in Christianity.[2] Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.[3][4]

    New Testament

    According to the

    ascension, and his prophecy to return.[citation needed
    ]

    The Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles show James the Just, the brother of Jesus, as a leader of the early Jerusalem church. The fourth-century church fathers

    Jewish Christians had been warned to flee to Pella in the region of the Decapolis across the Jordan River.[5] After the destruction of Jerusalem, they came back to the city. James and his successors were the focus of Jewish Christians until the destruction of the city by Emperor Hadrian
    in 135.

    The Cenacle on Mount Zion, claimed to be the location of the Last Supper and Pentecost. Bargil Pixner[6] claims the original Church of the Apostles is located under the current structure.

    Church of All Nations on the Mount of Olives. Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate may have taken place at the Antonia Fortress, to the north of the Temple area. Popularly, the exterior pavement where the trial was conducted is beneath the Convent of the Sisters of Zion. Other Christians believe that Pilate tried Jesus at Herod's Palace on Mount Zion
    .

    The

    Garden Tomb is a popular pilgrimage site near the Damascus Gate. It was suggested by Charles George Gordon that this site, rather than the Holy Sepulchre, is the true place of Golgotha.[citation needed
    ]

    Jerusalem historian Dan Mazar reported in a series of articles in the Jerusalem Christian Review on the archaeological discoveries made at this location by his grandfather, Professor Benjamin Mazar, which included the 1st-century stairs of ascent, where Jesus and his disciples preached, as well as the mikvaot used by both Jewish and Christian pilgrims.[citation needed] Much of this area was also uncovered by the excavations conducted by the elder Mazar.

    Early Christianity

    Basilica of the Agony near the Mount of Olives
    .
    Main entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
    See also:
    Constantine I and Christianity, and East–West Schism

    The exclusion of Jews from the new city of

    Caesarea and, ultimately, the Patriarchs of Antioch
    .

    The general significance of Jerusalem to Christians outside the

    Helena, endowed Jerusalem with churches and shrines, making it the foremost centre of Christian pilgrimage. Helena is remembered as the patron saint of archaeologists and (according to the church historian Socrates of Constantinople[7]) claimed to have found (with the assistance of bishop Macarius of Jerusalem) the True Cross, after removing a temple to Venus that had been built over the site. Jerusalem received special recognition in Canon VII of Nicaea in 325, without yet becoming a metropolitan see.[8]

    The traditional founding date for the

    Christian holy places in the Holy Land) is 313 which corresponds with the date of the Edict of Milan
    which legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire.

    The

    Roman church never accepted the Pentarchy and instead claimed primacy. On the other hand, the ancient notion of the primacy of the Church of Jerusalem was preserved in several texts, like the early medieval list known as the Limits of the Five Patriarchates (Greek
    : Γνώσις και επίγνωσις των πατριαρχών θρόνων).

    Medieval traditions

    Muslim conquest of the Levant

    See also: Muslim conquest of the Levant

    In 638,

    Caliph Umar's Muslim forces. The Muslim authorities in Jerusalem were not kind to their Christian subjects, forcing them to live a life of "discrimination, servitude, and humiliation".[9]

    First Crusade

    The mistreatment of Christians would only worsen as the armies of the

    Eastern Christian Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos
    , there is no evidence for any conspiracy.

    On 15 July 1099, the army of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem. Most of the city's population was killed, with the exception of

    Latin Patriarch, all under the authority of the Pope. The city's first Latin ruler, Godfrey of Bouillon, was elected in 1099.[12] Out of humility and deference to Jesus, he refused to be called king in a city where he thought only Jesus had the right to be called king; he would only call himself Jerusalem's protector. Throughout his short reign as protector, Godfrey struggled to increase the population of Jerusalem until his death in 1100. In 1100 he was succeeded by his brother Baldwin I who, unlike Godfrey, was willing to take the title of King of Jerusalem. With Jerusalem's population dwindling Baldwin I, as early as 1115, offered the Christians of Transjordan a section of Jerusalem. These Christians were often the target of Muslim aggression and therefore promptly accepted Baldwin's proposal.[13] In 1187, when Saladin
    captured the city, the Holy Sepulchre and many other churches were returned to the care of Eastern Christians.

    Early modern and modern

    From the 17th to the 19th century, various Catholic European nations petitioned the

    Status Quo, and is still the basis for the complex protocol of the shrine. The Status Quo was upheld by the British Mandate and Jordan
    .

    After the

    Armenians, Copts and Syriac Orthodox
    .

    Jerusalem as an allegory for the Church

    See also: Supersessionism

    In Christianity, Jerusalem is sometimes interpreted as an allegory or

    heavenly Jerusalem instead of the literal and historical city of Jerusalem. This view is notably advocated in Augustine of Hippos's The City of God, a popular 5th-century philosophical opus that was written during the decline of the Roman Empire
    .

    See also

    References

    1. ISBN 9781107036567
      .
    2. Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Divine Saviour have rendered Jerusalem -- which was already glorious -- the most celebrated city in all the world. The enthusiasm with which, after the Day of Pentecost, thousands of Jews declared themselves disciples of Jesus Christ provoked a violent persecution of Christians, in which the deacon Stephen
      was the first martyr (Acts 6: 8–15)."
    3. ISBN 9781107036567
      .
    4. doi:10.2478/ress-2021-0020
      .
    5. ^ On the flight to Pella, see: Bourgel, Jonathan, "The Jewish Christians' Move from Jerusalem as a pragmatic choice", in: Dan JAFFÉ (ed), Studies in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity, (Leyden: Brill, 2010), p. 107-138.
    6. ^ a b Bargil Pixner, The Church of the Apostles found on Mount Zion, Biblical Archaeology Review 16.3 May/June 1990 [1] Archived 2018-03-09 at the Wayback Machine
    7. ^ Socrates' Church History at CCEL.org: Book I, Chapter XVII: The Emperor’s Mother Helena having come to Jerusalem, searches for and finds the Cross of Christ, and builds a Church.
    8. ^ Schaff's Seven Ecumenical Councils: First Nicaea: Canon VII: "Since custom and ancient tradition have prevailed that the Bishop of Aelia [i.e., Jerusalem] should be honoured, let him, saving its due dignity to the Metropolis, have the next place of honour."; "It is very hard to determine just what was the "precedence" granted to the Bishop of Aelia, nor is it clear which is the metropolis referred to in the last clause. Most writers, including Hefele, Balsamon, Aristenus and Beveridge consider it to be Cæsarea; while Zonaras thinks Jerusalem to be intended, a view recently adopted and defended by Fuchs; others again suppose it is Antioch that is referred to."
    9. ^ Prawer, Joshua. "The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem," Speculum 27.4 (1952): 491.
    10. ^ Prawer, Joshua. "The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem," Speculum 27.4 (1952): 492.
    11. ^ Prawer, Joshua. "The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem," Speculum 27.4 (1952): 493.
    12. ^ Riley-Smith, Jonathan. "The Motives of the Earliest Crusaders and the Settlement of Latin Palestine." The English Historical Review 98.398 (1983): 724.
    13. ^ Prawer, Joshua. "The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem," Speculum 27.4 (1952): 496.
    14. ^ The imagery of the heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-22:5) in Neotestamentica, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1988), pp. 65-86
    15. ^ Lawrence Hull Stookey, The Gothic Cathedral as the Heavenly Jerusalem: Liturgical and Theological Sources, Gesta, Vol. 8, p. 35

    External links

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