On Jerusalem

The investigations carried out in Jerusalem have shown us that this city was at first very small; it is believed that perhaps some 500 or 700 people lived there between the years 1700 and 1000 BCE, says Professor Hillel Geva of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the time of the reigns of King David and Solomon this population must have grown to 2,000, Prof. Geva thinks. Other professors think the population could have been around 4,500 or 5,000 in the same period. By the time of the Hasmoneans (150 to 50 BCE), Prof. Geva thinks the population rose to 8,000.

With the dynasty of Herod (between 50 BCE and 70 CE) the maximum was about 20,000. Other professors have estimated up to 75,000 people. With the arrival of Christianity, Jerusalem became a cosmopolitan city, filled by Christians, Jews and more people of other nations such as Armenians, Georgians or Copts, who wished to die in the Holy Land or make a pilgrimage. After the Bar Kokhba events, when the Jews were not allowed to live in Jerusalem, with the camp of the Roman soldiers the language spoken there was generally Greek, because it is believed that most of the soldiers of the camp were natives of Jerusalem who spoke Greek.

We know that when the priest prayed in Greek, the prayer was at once translated into Aramaic. This shows us that Aramaic in this period was still the language spoken in the city. In the 4th century, with the Emperor Constantine, who gave freedom to the Christians, and the Emperor Theodosius, who decided to make the Christian religion the official religion of the Roman Empire, many Jews began to convert to Christianity in order to survive peacefully in Jerusalem. With the invasion of the Persians in the 7th century CE, counting the dead and those taken prisoner by the Persians, it is reckoned that some 50,000 people lived in Jerusalem.

After the Roman Empire accepted the Christian religion as the religion of the state, many Latins went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. Some stayed, and the rest returned to their countries. Many of them were of the aristocracy or close to the reigning emperor. Some of these pilgrims also went to live in Bethlehem, where it is said Joshua, or Jesus, was born, and which was formerly part of Jerusalem. Others wished to live on the Mount of Olives, where they founded many monasteries. Like the Latins, many Romans who spoke Greek — it being their mother tongue, because they lived in today's Turkey or in Constantinople — went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage.

Among these Anatolians, two queens received great honour in Jerusalem. One of these queens was Helena, the mother of Constantine, who made the tiny town of Byzantium the capital of the Roman Empire. Helena arrived in Jerusalem in the year 327 CE and is said to have found, as a miracle, the Cross on which Jesus (Joshua) had been crucified 300 years earlier. It seems that this so historic cross is in the foundations of the column we call in Turkish 'Çemberlitaş', the first monument erected by the Emperor Constantine, which bore his statue in the form of Apollo on top of the column — a statue that fell in the 10th century after a very strong storm.

As many fires broke out around the square we call today 'Beyazıt', they put iron rings on the column so that it would not collapse. The other queen was Eudoxia, the wife of the Emperor Theodosius II, who was the son of Arcadius. To understand better: Arcadius was the son of the Emperor Theodosius I, who divided the Roman Empire in two. He had two sons. Honorius stayed in Rome and became emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Arcadius stayed in Constantinople and became emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, which much later would be called the 'Byzantine' empire. Eudoxia, a very beautiful girl, was a lady of honour who came from Athens.

She was very cultured because she had an academic education and instruction; she pleased Pulcheria greatly, the elder sister of Theodosius II, who decided to marry her brother to this girl. As she was accused of adultery she went to Jerusalem and stayed there. In the history of our own days, the mother of Prince Philip, the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II, Alice, who became a nun (a 'woman priest' — as in our culture we have no woman priest, I used the Spanish word), is buried in Jerusalem. Apart from Constantinople, pilgrims from Cappadocia in the centre of Turkey, from Konya, from Pontus in the Black Sea region, from Galatia in the region of Ankara, from Caesarea in the region of Kayseri, and from Armenia in eastern Turkey filled Jerusalem.

Today in Jerusalem there is a quarter called 'the Armenian Quarter', and it is believed that the Armenians have always lived in this quarter. Another quarter was the quarter of the Georgians. The Georgians spoke Greek but prayed in Georgian. Since the Emperor Hadrian gave the order not to let Jews enter Jerusalem after the year 70, we are not very sure that there was a Jewish quarter. But we know that on the three festivals of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot the Jew had to go up to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. This makes us think that there were always Jews who went to Jerusalem for these festivals, and even that they went there to commemorate the day of Tisha b'Av.

We also know that a small Jewish community existed on Mount Zion despite the prohibition. When the Emperor Julian came to power — the emperor they called 'the Apostate' because he did not accept Christianity and wanted to return to paganism — he allowed the Jews to rebuild the Beit ha-Mikdash. But he died before the work began. When Queen Eudoxia allowed the Jews to enter Jerusalem again, more than 100,000 Jews came for the festival of Sukkot in the year 440 CE. In the year 640, when the Sassanids (Persians) took Jerusalem, we know that many Jews helped the Sassanids in that war.

The era of the Crusades and the Seljuks deserves another article. With them began the rule of the Muslims, which with the Ottomans lasted until the end of the First World War. In 1948 half of Jerusalem became part of Israel. Today Jerusalem is the sole capital of that country. Source: Leah Di Segni, Yoram Tsafrir, Hershel Shanks