Palaestina Secunda
Provincia Palaestina Secunda ἐπαρχία Δευτέρα Παλαιστίνης | |||||||||
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Province of the Muslim conquest of Syria | 636 | ||||||||
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Today part of | Israel Jordan Palestine Syria |
Palaestina Secunda or Palaestina II was a
History
Syria-Palaestina became organized under late Roman Empire as part of the
In the 5th and 6th centuries, Byzantines and their Christian
In 614, both Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda were conquered by a joint Sasanian-Jewish army. The leader of the Jewish rebels was Benjamin of Tiberias, a man of "immense wealth" according to Middle Age sources, and by Nehemiah ben Hushiel, a Jewish Exilarch. The event came as shock to the Christian society, as many of its churches were destroyed according to Christian sources of that period. After withdrawal of the Persian troops and the afterward surrender of the local Jewish rebels, the area was shortly reannexed into Byzantium in 628 CE.[2]
Byzantine control of the province was again and irreversibly lost in 636, with the
Demographics
Prior to the 6th century, the province of Palaestina Secunda largely included Jews, as well as a mixed Greek and Aramaic-speaking population, who were mostly practicing Christianity. The Jews had made Galilee and the Gaulanitis their center since the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt of the 2nd century;[1] and flourished through the 4th and 5th centuries, as Byzantine control of the area dimmed, providing a great deal of autonomy for local populations.
North-Eastern parts of the province were also inhabited by pagan
In the early 7th century, the province experienced a significant demographic collapse due to the consequences of the Byzantine-Persian war and the Jewish rebellion. Following the short-lived restoration of Byzantine rule, the Muslim armies caused the flight of a significant portion of the Christians to the north - into territories of northern Syria and Anatolia still ruled by the Byzantines.
Religion
Judaism
The province of Palaestina Secunda was a thriving center of Judaism through the 4th and 5th centuries, where the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled. The primary Jewish authority, the Sanhedrin, existed in Tiberias until the early 5th century, before being abolished by the Byzantine authorities. The last Nasi (president) of the Sanhedrin was Gamaliel VI, who died in 425. After his death, the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius did not allow for a successor, and in 429 terminated the patriarchate.
Christianity
The conversion of Constantine set in motion events that restored Palestine as a major theater in the development of the Christian church, as it had not been since 70. Only a few
Roman cult and paganism
Small minority of pagans - whether non-Christian Romans and Hellenists or Itureans had been populating the province during early Byzantine rule.
Economy
Modern scholars concur that Palaestina Secunda, and more specifically Galilee, produced and exported high quality olive oil in large numbers. Galilee was a long-standing oil producer for centuries, as already evidenced by Josephus in the first century CE. Rabbinic literature of the Byzantine era references Galilean olive oil as well as the olive oil made at Capernaum and Scythopolis. The Palestinian-Phoenician coast's general riches was mentioned in the Expositio Totius Mundi.[3]
See also
- Palestina Salutaris
- Coele-Syria
- Iudaea Province
References
- ^ a b c Lehmann, Clayton Miles (Summer 1998). "Palestine: History: 135–337: Syria Palaestina and the Tetrarchy". The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. University of South Dakota. Archived from the original on 2009-08-11. Retrieved 2014-08-24.
- ^ Greatrex-Lieu(2002), II, 196
- OCLC 316430311.