Jerusalem

Jerusalem. (1) Historical.—In the earliest existing records of this place it is known as “Jebus.” At that time it was a stronghold, and was held by its original inhabitants until long after the conquest of the country under Joshua. Before the name Jerusalem was finally settled, there was a transition period when both names were used, the one to explain the other. (Josh, xv. 8; Judg. xix. 10; 1 Chron. xi. 4.) Fora full discussion of the meaning of the name, recourse must be had to the lexicons and larger dictionaries: while the question is not beyond dispute scholars are, however, pretty well agreed that it is composed of two Hebrew words, signifying foundation of peace, or, possibly, of security. The name “Holy City,” as applied to it, is used several times in both the Old and New Testaments, an interesting fact when we consider that the name given to Jerusalem at present by the Arabic-speaking world is El-Kuds, The Holy. A similar example is found in the designation of Hebron, which the Arabs call “El Khulil,” I'he Friend, reference being made to Abraham, who was called “The friend of God.” Its conquest under David is recorded in 2 Sam. v., after which time he made it his royal residence, where he reigned thirty-three years, having reigned seven years and a half in Hebron. During the reigns of David and Solomon it rose to the position which it has ever since maintained as one of the most celebrated cities in the world.

Extensive preparations for building were made by David, but it was left for his son to carry out his designs, and Solomon’s Palace, the House of the Forest of Lebanon, his Court House, his House for Pharaoh’s Daughter, and especially his Temple, were most noteworthy among the new structures which adorned the capital of his empire. (1 Kings vii.) After the division of the kingdom, which followed at no great interval the death of Solomon, Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah and the residence of its many kings. Its wide reputation for wealth and beauty made it a tempting object of conquest to foreign potentates, and in the fifth year of Rehoboam, b. c. 945, the first great calamity of the kind overtook it in its capture by Shishak, king of Egypt, who stripped it of all its treasures. (1 Kings xiv.) Scarcely two generations later, B. c. 887, Jehoash, king of Israel, captured it, robbed it of its gold, silver, and sacred vessels, and threw down four hundred cubits of its wall. (2 Kings xiv.) Uzziah, who like Solomon was a great builder, repaired the damages which the city sustained in his father’s reign, and added towers and other means of defence. The fortifications were still further strengthened by Hezekiah about B. c. 710, when the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, was approaching Jerusalem. (2 Chron. xxvi; xxxii.) Hezekiah did much, also, toward providing the inhabitants with wholesome water. Only a few years elapsed, however, before an Assyrian army was again at its gates. The city was taken, and its king, Manasseh, carried to Babylon. After a time he was released, and returned to Jerusalem whose gates, walls, and towers were strengthened by him. (2 Chron. xxxiii.) In the days of Jehoiakim, about b. c. 600, the city was again captured and plundered, but this time by Nebuchadnezzar, events which were repeated during the reign of his son Jehoiachin. Owing to the revolt of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldean army appeared again before the walls, and after a siege protracted to a period of one year, five months, and seven days, characterized both by heroic deeds and terrible suffering, the place was captured, and the temple itself, after the vicissitudes of four and a quarter centuries, was entirely destroyed. This national disaster made such an impression upon the Jews, that it has ever since been commemorated by them on the tenth of the month Ab, corresponding to a part of July and August. For a long period the city lay in ruins, till Cyrus, about B. c. 536, gave permission for its rebuilding and likewise for the rebuilding of the temple. The chief care of Zerubbabel, leader of the first company returning from Babylon, was the erection of the temple. Nearly a century later, b. c. 445, by direction of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah came back, and to him belongs the honor of rebuilding the walls and towers of the holy city. (Ezra iii.-vii.; Neh. i.-vi.)

The long interval between the time of Nehemiah and that of Pompey (nearly four centuries) was full of sad events for Jerusalem, interspersed here and there with a gleam of prosperity and joy. In b. c. 320 Alexander the Great visited the city and entered the temple. During the years following that date it was many times taken and retaken, pillaged, its temple robbed, its inhabitants slain by thousands, in the bloody wars between the kings of Syria and those of Egypt. The worst form of desecration took place under Antiochus Epiphanes (he died in b. c. 164), who introduced the Greek style of dress, and established a gymnasium in which heathen sports were taught to the Hebrew youth, in order to turn them away from their national faith. To help crush out the Jewish religion, he even set up an idol on the holy altar, and caused offerings to be made to a pagan deity. The period of independence which was enjoyed under the Maccabees witnessed the expiring glories of Jerusalem as the capital of a strictly Jewish nation. Concerning the commotions and upheavals of those ten centuries, it was nothing less than miraculous that the first temple should have stood so long, or that the second temple was not demolished by some invading foe, or by the fanaticism engendered by internal strife.

Herod the Great, as king of Judea, became master of the city in b. c. 37, and the next marked change in its political history our Lord and his disciples looked with wonder, and which he prophesied should be utterly thrown down. (Matt. xxiv. 1; Mark xiii. 1; Luke xxi. 5.) Titus would have preserved the temple, even after the greater portion of the city had been laid in ruins, but the fanaticism of the Jews made such an act impossible. In this memoThe Mount of Olives appears on the right, crowned by the Church of the Ascension. From a photograph. was its conquest by Titus in a. d. 70. The famous towers, Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne, his two palaces, and the rebuilding of the temple on a larger and grander scale than either of its predecessors had been, were Herod’s most important additions to Jerusalem. It was upon the “goodly stones” of this third Temple that rable siege four legions (5th, 10th, 12th, and 15th), besides a large body of auxiliaries, were engaged, and the great engines of the Romans, and their military skill as well, were severely taxed before the massive walls were finally leveled. The Emperor Hadrian, in A. D. 130. rebuilt the walls and erected a city called .Elia Capitolina—a name confirmed by the coins of that period—uponthis ancient site, butater-rible rebellion against Rome soon followed, and after that had been suppressed, the Jews were forbidden to set foot within the walls of their holy city—theirs, indeed, no longer. It remained in the hands of the pagans and Christians till A. D. 614, when while between these were three others, the largest “the Tyropoeon,” running directly through the city from north to south. These valleys all trend from northwest to southeast. The branch which passed down near the present St. Stephen’s Gate is scarcely perceptible, and only excavations have established its existence and great

From a photograph. it was captured by the Persians, but was soon after restored. In A. D. 637 the followers of Mohammed appeared before the walls, to whom the city yielded, and in whose hands it has remained until the present day, with the exception of nearly one hundred years (a. d. 1100-1187), while the Crusaders were in power.

(2) At the present time.—The first view of the city is generally disappointing to the visitor, but if he is a devout person this feeling soon passes away, and he becomes deeply interested in a site where so many thrilling events in sacred history have transpired. Jerusalem is surrounded by a wall from forty to sixty feet in height, which was built by Sultan Suleiman, “the Magnificent” (1520-1566), about A. D. 1542.

The material is by no means uniform, many parts showing that stones of different periods, some of them very ancient, were used in its construction. The extent of this wall is less than three miles, and its outline is very irregular, owing to the fact that Jerusalem stands on a cluster of hills separated by intervening valleys. On the east of the city is the valley of Jehoshaphat, and on the west and south that of Hinnom, depth. The one leading from the Jaffa Gate is nearly obliterated, and the Tyropoeon has been filled to a depth varying from twenty feet at the Damascus Gate to ninety feet at the southwest corner of the temple area. Jerusalem has been destroyed so many times that the city of David and that of Christ’s time are buried under an accumulation of debris almost incredible in its depth.

The hill to the west and southwest is Zion, north of that is Akra, and the eastern portion is best described as a prolonged hill divided into sections, of which the centre is Mount Moriah, Ophel being to the south, and Bezetha to the north of it. These five elevations are usually spoken of as five distinct hills, Zion and Moriah being the most conspicuous, Moriah being 2, 440, Zion 2, 540, and the northwest corner of the city 2, 580 feet above the level of the Mediterranean.

The city has four gates, the Jaffa Gate on the west, the Damascus Gate on the north, St. Stephen’s Gate on the east, and Zion Gate on the south. No account is here made of gates that have long been closed, nor is the Dung Gate, in the lower part of the Tyropoeon valley, included, for it was necessary to build in this manner for purposes of defence: the phrase in Psa. cxxii. 3, “a city that is compact together,” is a most significant one. Sanitary matters in the city are in the worst possible condition, and during the rainy season indescribable filth abounds.

Following the most reliable sources (no absolute data being obtainable), the present population is not far from 45, 000; Christians of all sects, 8, 000; Mohammedans, 12, 000; and the rest Jews. Between 1881-1884 several thousand Jews went to Jerusalem to reside, but soon after that the number dwindled to almost nothing, owing to objections to their coming that were raised by the Turkish authorities. There is little wealth in Jerusalem; the houses are poor, many of them squalid, the city is poor, and a large proportion of the inhabitants live in a condition of abject poverty.

THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY

SEPULCHRE. From a photograph. the reason that a person can scarcely pass through it on horseback, and it is used only by a few water-carriers and peasant women who bring vegetables to the town. All these gates bear different names among the' Arabs, but those are now given by which they are best known among Christians. The northeastern portion of the city is known as the Mohammedan quarter, the southern the Jewish, and all the western portion the Christian; the Armenians occupying the southern part, or Mount Zion, the Greeks and Latins the northern part, including the holy sepulchre, and the sections lying to the north and west of it. Like most Oriental cities the streets of Jerusalem are very narrow, winding, dingy, many of them being mere lanes in which two loaded animals can scarcely pass each other. In ancient times

The Greek and Latin convents own a large amount of property and they do much for their own poor, and the Jews likewise are aided, many of them being thus kept from actual starvation by funds (“Haluka,” distribution or present) sent thither by their brethren in the different countries of Europe.

Clustering immediately around the city are many points and objects of interest, among which are the Garden of Gethsemane on the east side of the valley of Jehoshaphat, which cannot be far from the place to which Christ went on the night of his betrayal; below that, the tomb of Absalom, a curious structure whose age has never been determined; the tomb of Jehoshaphat; the grotto of St. James (many sepulchral chambers); and the tomb of Zacharias; also the Virgin’s Fountain; Enrogel or Job’s Well; and in the mouth of the Tyropoeon Valley the Pool of Siloam; west of the city are the so-called “Upper and Lower Pools of Gihon,” and north of it are found the Grotto of Jeremiah, the hill above which has now become famous as the probable site of the crucifixion of our Lord, and still north of that the Tombs of the Kings, where exists a large, flat, circular stone which can be rolled back and forth before the entrance of the tomb, and may well illustrate the “stone at the door of the sepulchre” of the gospel narratives.

Within the city, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which has been destroyed and rebuilt several times during its history, occupies the site where Constantine erected a church, the spot having been selected by the Empress Helena. The building has two great domes over the Latin and Greek sections respectively, which are conspicuous objects from many points. Tradition, which is discarded by most modern scholars, makes this the site of the crucifixion and burial of our Lord. The Mosque of Omar, “Dome of the Rock,” octagonal inform, one of the finest remains of Arabic architecture in the East, and the Mosque el-Aksa, stand on the temple area, which embraces not far from thirty-six acres. Beneath the dome of Omar, which rises to the height of nearly one hundred feet, the native rock appears, over which the altar in the Jewish temple was built. A large part of the southeastern section of this vast platform is supported on massive pillars, and the cavernous region thus formed is known as “Solomon’s Stables.” It is probable, however, that this is Herodian work. The supporting wall of this area is, on the west side, exposed, and here is the famous wailing-place of the Jews, where, on their feaSt days and always on Friday, a strange group of men and women may be seen, kiss-

JEWS’ WAILING-PLACE, ing the stones and chanting their lamentations over the downfall of their ancient city.

Very few of the multitude of traditional sites in the city are worthy of a moment’s consideration. The excavations made during the past twenty-five years, and the investigations of scholars have settled some important points in its topography, such as the place where the Jewish altar stood, from which the exact position of the Holy of Holies is determined; the site of the Castle of Antonia where Paul was confined; the bridge spanning the Tyropoeon and leading from the temple area to Mount Zion, and the termini of the “second wall,” without which Christ was crucified.

Before i860 it was not safe to reside outside the walls of Jerusalem; but since that date, particularly within the past ten years, buildings have multiplied, so that to the west and north there has sprung up a new city. Here are schools, hospitals, and consular residences, many stores and shops, and numbers of private dwellings. In view of the, poverty of Jerusalem, this growth is unaccountable; but it is explained by the fact that most of it was accomplished by foreign money. Rents are high, and the safest way of investing money is in buildings. Several hundred travelers from all parts of the world visit Jerusalem every year, and, in addition, 10, 000 or 15, 000 pilgrims. These, aside from the Mohammedan pilgrims, come chiefly from Catholic countries—nearly one-half the number being from Russia. The great Latin, Greek, and Armenian establishments have pilgrim houses that would accommodate a small army; and in these vast apartments the pilgrims are sure of a comfortable sleeping-place free of cost, they themselves providing their own food. At Easter—and especially when the Latin and Greek Easters occur at the same time—the city is packed with strangers, and the crowded streets present, in the variety of costumes and languages, a notable and impressive scene.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem obtain their water supply chiefly from cisterns, the only other sources being the Virgin’s Fountain, the Pool of Siloam, and Job’s Well. The aqueduct, which formerly brought water to the temple from Solomon’s Pools, near Bethlehem, has been neglected by the authorities so that it is of little or no use. The Pool of Hezekiah, within the city, is seldom dry, but the water in it can never be used for drinking purposes.

Lepers have not for many years past been allowed within the city. In the valley south of the city there is a leper house, where they find shelter; and in the German

colony a hospital for them has been established, supported chiefly by the Moravians, where they receive medical treatment and the kindest attention. No law compels them to enter the hospital, and many prefer the ancient custom of sitting by the wayside and begging. The form of leprosy known in Jerusalem is not contagious.