The identification of all the sites in Jerusalem and the
rest of Palestine now traditionally associated with the figure commonly known
in English as Jesus Christ dates back to the latter half of the second decade
of the 4th century CE.
In 326 CE, devout Christian Flavia Julia Helena, mother of Imperator
Caesar Flavius
Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus, showed up in
the province of Syria Palaestina looking for tourist traps at which to enhance
her own holiness simply by osmosis.
Specifically, sites that were guaranteed one hundred percent absolutely beyond
the shadow of a doubt true places associated with first century Galilean prophet
and convicted terrorist Isho Nasraya bar Maryam.
The capital of
Syria Palaestina was a big city on the coast of the Mediterranean called
Caesarea Maritima. It had earlier been
the capital of Judaea after Judaea became a Roman province. Its bishop, the metropolitan of the province,
was an ambitious cleric named Eusebius Pamphili who was now faced with quite a
problem. The entire city of Jerusalem
had been utterly destroyed by the armies of Titus Flavius Vespasianus after its
fall in 70 CE, so there was nothing left at all from that time.
Eusebius, being a
good Christian, however, was not one to let a little thing like factual truth
get in the way, so he came up with substitutes, which he guaranteed were one
hundred percent absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt true places associated
with Iesus Christus, or as Greek-speakers called him, Iesous Christos.
Greek-speakers
originally called him Iesous Chrestos (instead of Iesous Christos), but that’s
another story entirely. The early Greek
Christians also called him Iesous Nazaraois, a direct translation of his actual
name, Isho Nasraya, which means ‘Jesus the Nazorean’ rather than ‘Jesus of
Nazareth’. Which makes sense given that the
town of Nazareth did not exist in early first century CE Galilaea.
But getting back on
topic, Eusebius’ fraudulent fibs were hardly the first case of Good Christian
Bitches using alternative facts to perpetrate what is too often euphemistically
referred to as pious fraud, but it is one of the more enduring.
Great Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE)
The current favored
name of this conflict is the First Jewish-Roman War, but since there were already
numerous prior uprisings of Jews and Galileans against Rome since 63 BCE, it’s
not really accurate.
The roots of the
conflict lay in anti-taxation protests by the Jews (strictly, residents of
Judaea) in general and attacks on Roman citizens by the Zealots (1st century
Taliban) and the Sicarii (1st century Al Qaida). Gessius Florus, procurator of Iudaea,
responded by sacking the Temple treasury and taking 19 talents, then raiding
the city of Jerusalem and arresting many of the Jewish leaders in the city.
The response was a
massive popular uprising supported by the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the
Essenes, the Zealots, and the Sicarii that swept Roman forces from the bulk of
Judaea.
The provisional
government established when Florus’ forces were gone was dominated by the
Sadducees and the Pharisees, but it only lasted until 68 CE, when the Galilean
Zealots arrived to assist the Judaean Zealots in taking control. After that, the city became divided amongst
several factions, which greatly aided the Romans in crushing the revolt.
Joseph ben
Mattathias, later Titus Flavius Josephus, had been captured in Galilee in 67 CE
and held prisoner until 68 CE. He
served as an interpreter between the besieging Romans and the besieged Jews,
Idumeans, and Galileans during the six-month siege of Jerusalem. During the capture of the city, the Temple
burned. The last part of the city to
fall was the Upper City on Mount Zion, which ended in a conflagration that
destroyed the whole section including the Praetorium and Herod’s Palace.
After the final end
of the fighting, Titus forced the prisoners to dismantle their city, leaving
only the city’s western wall and the three surviving towers of Herod’s palace. Special attention was paid to dismantling the
entire temple compound because when the temple burned much of the gold in its
treasury melted and fell through crack in the stonework. Even the walls surrounding Mount Moriah were
torn down.
From then until 122
CE, the only occupants of the former city were those of the cohort of Legio X
Fretensis at the camp on Mount Zion, where the Upper City used to be, and Gareb
Hill to its west, where the praetorium and Herod’s palace formerly stood.
Colonia Aelia Capitolina
(122-135)
In 122, Imperator
Caesar Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus established a colonia for
retired Roman soldiers north of the garrison encampment of the cohort of Legio
X Fretensis at the site of the former city.
The camp lay on Mount Zion, host of the former Upper City, and Gareb
Hill, former host of Herod the Great’s palace that became the praetorium. The colonia lay to the immediate north, and east
of that to take in the area north of the Mount Moriah.
In this new city,
named for his family, there were several temples, shrines, and sacred pools for
its pagan residents. Most prominently,
there was a Temple of Jupiter Capitolanus on Mount Moriah, probably oriented
north-south rather than east-west and including the sites and possibly actual
structures of the later Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque. Since in this form Jupiter was a member of
the Capitoline Triad, the temple or temple complex would have also included
shrines to both Juno Capitolana and Minerva Capitolana.
In addition to the
temple/temple complex on Mount Moriah, two statues stood at its western edge,
one undoubtedly representing Hadrian and the other either of his male lover
Antinous or of his adopted son and successor Antoninous Pius. The whole complex was enclosed with a wall
reconstructed according to Roman specifications and engineering practice.
North of the
northeast corner of the Mount Moriah complex, Hadrian built a temple of the
syncretistic god Serapis in the shadow of Fortress Antonia. This replaced the shrine of Asclepius at the
site built by Herod Agrippa I, King of the Jews 41-44 CE. The Asclepius shrine had stood adjacent to
the Asclepion, or healing pool of Asclepius, built around 20 CE. The Serapaeum almost certainly included
shrines to Asclepius and Hygieia, and its complex included the Asclepion plus a
pool of Serapis and one of the goddess Fortuna, whom the Greeks called Tyche.
To the west of
Fortress Antonia Hadrian built a temple to Venus Heliopolitana atop a hill of
flaky rock next to a quarry. From the
temple, an underground tunnel led to a grotto where the goddess was also
worshipped, one shared with the god Asclepius.
Outside the lower entrance to the grotto at its west lay a courtyard and
garden guarded by a statue of Jupiter Heliopolitanus.
West and south of
there on Gareb Hill, to the west and north of Mount Zion, stood a Temple of
Saturn Africanus, tutelary god of Africa known to its Punic inhabitants as Baal
Hammon then popular among soldiers of the Imperium Romanum. Elsewhere in the legionary encampment and the
colonia were shrines or temples of Mercury, Mars, Neptune, the Dioscuri (Castor
& Pollux), and Bacchus. At the Pool
of Siloam, formerly attached to the Jewish temple complex and playing a huge
part in rites at Sukkot, now stood the Shrine of the Four Nymphs.
A cave in the
western foot of the Mount of Olives may have served as a Mithraeum. A cave in nearby Bethlehem certainly was, as
well as being considered the birthplace of Mithras, a function is had earlier
served for the cult of Adonis and before that for the cult of Tammuz.
Paganism elsewhere in
Palestina
After the Bar
Kokhba War, Hadrian consolidated Iudaea (including Idumaea) with Samaraea, Galilaea,
Peraea, and Paralia (Philistia) as Syria Palestina. As a designation for the southern Levant, the
name Palestina went back to the fifth century BCE, originating with Jews of the
Diaspora and attested to by the Greek historian Heroditus.
Before the war, Hadrian
had renamed the capital of Galilaea from Autocratoris (built on the ruins of
Sepphoris) to Diocaesarea and rebuilt its temple into one honoring both Jupiter
and himself along with Fortuna. He also
refurbished the Temple of Zeus in Tiberias and built another to himself there. In Scythopolis, leading city of the
Decapolis, stood temples to Zeus Akraios and Dionysos since at least the
early 1st century CE.
In the capital of
Caesarea Martima (at which the Colonia Prima Flavia Augusta Caesariensis
had been established by Vespasian),
Hadrian built a Temple of Mithras (Mithraeum) and another that was dedicated to
himself as divine emperor. These were in
addition to the ones that built by Herod I to Augustus and to Roma, the tutelary
goddess of the city of Rome, something the king of the Jews also did in the
city of Sebaste (formerly Samaria).
In Samaraea,
Hadrian refurbished the Temple of Augustus in Sebaste, built a Temple of Kore,
and converted the Temple of Serapis and Isis into a Temple of Demeter and
Persephone.
Replacing the
village of Mabartha near the former Shechem (about 2 km distant), the
earlier emperor Vespasian had established Flavia Neapolis Samareias, which
hosted temples to Zeus Olympios, Artemis, Serapis, and Asclepius. Hadrian
built a Temple of Zeus Hypsistos on top of Mt. Gezirim, which the Samaritans
fully accepted as representing their own god.
Hypsistos in Greek
means ‘Most High’ (like Elyon in Hebrew), and the epithet was then being used
by several local Gentile cults worshipping a single monotheistic (or at least
monolatrous) deity, most commonly as Zeus Hypsistos, Theos Hypsistos (equated
with the former), Theos Hypsistos Pantokrator, or sometimes just Hypsistos or
even jsut Pantokrator. In fact, many of
these Gentiles explicitly equated their deity with that of the Jews and
Samaritans.
These examples of
pagan prayer and praise in Palestine were hardly the only examples, just the
most prominent.
Enter Saint Helena
Mount Zion and
Gareb Hill remained an encampment for the cohort of Legio X Fretensis until the
latter was transferred out of the province and the city opened for unrestricted
settlement in 289, which is the same year Jews were finally allowed to return.
The year after the
inaugural Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, accompanied by massive riots and
street brawls between the Athanasians and the Arians, Helena mother of
Constantine the Great and devout convert to Christianity visited Jerusalem and
Palestine primarily to located the places especially associated with Iesus
Christus, as she probably knew him.
Eusebius, Bishop of
Caesarea and therefore Metropolitan of Palestine, was more than happy to
help. Accordingly, the hill upon which
the Temple of Venus Heliopolitana sat became the hill of Golgotha. The grotto below it, where both Venus and
Asclepius were worshipped, became the Holy Sepulchre. The shrine of Mercury became the Cenaculum or
Upper Room. The birth cave of Mithras in
Bethlehem became the manager of the Nativity of Christ.
Meanwhile, the
Asclepion east of Fortress Antonia became the Pool of Bethesda. Like the site so named in the Gospel of
St. John, the pool of the Asclepion, or at least its surrounding portico,
does have five sides. These five sides
represent the daughters of Asclepius:
Panacea, Hygieia, Iaso, Aceso, and Aglaea.
That really is how
all the sites now identified with Isho Nasraya bar Maryam, aka Iesous Chrestos
or Jesus Christ, came so to be.
A Muslim interlude
Despite the
Churchification of the city and the province in which it lay, the former
remained officially Aelia for the remainder of its time in the Imperium
Romanum/Basilea Rhomain, just as the former
Iudaea-Idumaea-Samaraea-Peraea-Galilaea-Paralaea remained Syria Palestina. Even following its capture by invading Muslim
forces in 638, it remained Aelia as Iliya for another two centuries. In the 9th century the new name Al Quds began
appearing.
About ten years
after the Ecumenical Council of First Nicaea, Constantine dedicated a basilica
called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which took in both the grotto and the
alleged hill of Golgotha. Upon learning
that the Easter Vigil rites of Christians included the mixture of two liquids whose
combination produced fire and was fraudulently touted as a miracle by the
church’s clergy, an enraged Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the
basilica then extended his wrath to a number of other Christian sites in
Palestine and Egypt.
The Christians of
the West, who still considered themselves Romans, responded rather bizarrely to
the destruction with mass expulsions of the Jews in their lands.
Enter the Ari
Despite being one
of the most brilliant Kabbalists to ever live, Isaac Luria was not nearly as
accurate when it came to history, or more specifically archaeology. For it was from him that the notion arose
that the western wall of the former Roman temple compound was the western wall
of the compound of Herod’s Temple. He
cleary had either badly misread the historical writings of Josephus or not read
them at all, or he considered a little bit of pious fraud harmless. That is why for centuries generation after
generation of Jews have bowed and prayed at a wall dedicated to Jupiter
Capitolinus.
Foundation Stone
Also known as the
Pierced Stone, this is the Rock under the Dome on Mount Moriah (Har ha-Bayith to
Jews and Haram esh-Sharif to Muslims).
The anonymous
Bordeaux Pilgrim who visited Aelia in 334 CE reported that Jews visiting the
city mourned at the Pierced Stone near two equestrian statues, which at the
time was believed to mark the former site of the Holy of Holies in Herod’s
temple.
The Rock has
several mythical meanings for Jews and Muslims alike, the one which the two
groups share being that of the Rock being the stone where Abraham nearly murdered
his own son Isaac to please a bloodthirsty version of Yahuweh/Adonai/Allah.
According to the
Jewish Talmud, the Rock is also the site where God formed Adam and where Adam,
Cain and Abel, Noah, and David offered sacrifices. According to the Muslim Hadith, the Rock is
also the spot from which the prophet Muhammad began his Night Journey.
ADDENDUM: Temple Mount? Or
Fortress Antonia?
There is a growing and very credible body of historical
opinion that the massive stone enclosure atop Mount Moriah was not the base of
Herod’s temple compound but the base of the Fortress Antonia built by Herod the
Great. They cite Byzantine (a 16th
century neologism; they called themselves Romans) pilgrims referring to the
structure as the Praetorium and point out the dearth of material from Mount
Zion, former home of the Upper City and traditional location of the encampment
for the cohort garrison of Legio X Fretensis.
Many of these sources also cite contemporary reports of the
Church of Hagia Sophia (literally, Holy Wisdom) at what was believed to be
Gabbatha, where Isho Nasraya was sentenced to death by praefectus Pontius
Pilatus. That Gabbatha is the same now
held by Muslims to be the Rock under the Dome.
This church was said to be octagonal, which lends credence to the idea
that it was the foundation of the current Dome of the Rock.
According to these same pilgrims, there was another church
on top of the Praetorium, the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, which may or may
not have been the basis for Al Aqsa Mosque.
In this scenario, Herod’s temple, and that of the Capitoline
Triad which came after, stood on the height known as Ophel, or the City of
David. On that same hill, archaeologists
have uncovered (and now opened to the public) a Canaanite fortress dated to
1800 BCE, when Urusalim was at its height.
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