The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

This monument has four chambers, reached from an outer court by a small door with a rolling stone still before it. There is also a fifth chamber below, having a secret entrance, and reached by a flight of steps. The tomb was explored by M. de Saulcy, who made very remarkable discoveries in it, showing that it was still in use after 79 A. D., for all the coins were of the reign of Titus. Izates, however, had a large family, and some of his children came to Jerusalem when the throne of Adiabene descended to his brother Monobasus. Cinerary urns, lamps, glass bottles for unguents, others of alabaster, gold ornaments, chains, and fibulæ were found, as well as osteophagi like those in other tombs near Jerusalem, ornamented with incised geometrical patterns. But the most important find was an unopened sarcophagus, with a partly legible Aramaic text of two lines, having eight letters in each. When the cover was removed, a skeleton was seen with the hands crossed in front; it crumbled away immediately, leaving only the gold threads which once adorned the winding sheet. But the text (in Aramaic letters very like the Palmyrene forms) appears clearly to begin with the name ’Elen malkatha, for “Helena the queen,” and thus serves to identify the monument as being actually that of the royal family of Adiabene.[329]

The “Caverns of the Kings” seem to be clearly those which still exist under the cliff east of the Damascus Gate. They have been used at some time as a quarry, but the unfinished stones now remaining in them are not of very great dimensions. M. Clermont-Ganneau, however, found a rough sketch of a cherub carved on the wall, and as this appears to be in the old Phœnician or Babylonian style, it indicates considerable antiquity for the caverns. There is also a rock fosse with scarps at and east of this place, defending the present north wall of the city, which runs apparently on the line of Agrippa’s wall to a corner tower, and then turning southwards joins the east wall of the Ḥaram. It is generally agreed that this was the line of Agrippa’s wall on the north-east and east,[330] but some writers suppose that the modern north wall represents the farthest extension of Jerusalem in Agrippa’s time throughout its course, and they have placed Psephinus at the mediæval “Tancred’s Tower,” within the north-west angle of the present city. This tower, however, does not suit the description by Josephus, since it is neither octagonal nor has it an extensive view. The masonry, even of the oldest part, is of the twelfth century, and the foundations of an older wall between this tower and the Damascus Gate have also been proved to be the work of the Crusaders. If we follow the description of Josephus, Psephinus must have been farther to the north-west, and outside the present wall. The Women’s Towers must also have been about 300 yards farther north than the Damascus Gate, if they were only 3 furlongs from the tomb of Helena; and the broad fosse, south of the “House of Stoning,” defines the approximate line of Agrippa’s wall as running from a block of rock west of the north road where there was an angle, and thence south-east, and then east over the Caverns of the Kings.

As regards any remains of this wall, large stones, with well-dressed faces and drafts after the Herodian style, have been found in several places towards the north-west outside Jerusalem, and these may have belonged to Agrippa’s wall; but it is very doubtful if any of them are in their original positions. One group, excavated by Sir Charles Wilson in 1864, forms the side of a tank, and the stones have evidently been re-used—probably farther north than the line of the wall to which they originally belonged. In 1838 there were remains of a wall, and foundations which Dr. Robinson describes as those of a “large tower,” extending north-west, beyond the modern city, towards the Russian cathedral, which was not then built. He describes “large hewn blocks of stone,” and regards this line as having “belonged very distinctly to the third wall.” This was still to be seen in 1847, and Herr Konrad Schick, who saw the remains, speaks of a “strong wall,” but unfortunately they have now entirely disappeared. Such remains are not to be found towards the north-east outside the present north wall, which seems clearly to have been here built on the old line.[331]

AGRIPPA

In the time of Agrippa Jerusalem therefore extended over about 300 acres, and—judging from the density of population in the modern city—it must have had about 30,000 inhabitants. The old city, bounded by the “second wall,” occupied only 200 acres, and it does not seem likely that the town would have become half as large again in the short interval of ten years which elapsed between the Crucifixion and the accession of Agrippa, especially as these were not particularly prosperous years. Thus, though the “second wall” was the northern limit of the fortress in the time of our Lord, it is probable that Bezetha had already been built over, and that the houses extended on the flat ground outside the rampart, on the north-west, even before the date of the Crucifixion. This would involve the abandonment of the traditional site of Calvary as not being outside the city, but we have already seen that this site in all probability lay even within the second wall.

The wall of Agrippa appears to have been still unfinished when its building was stopped by Claudius, and in 70 A. D. Titus found it incomplete[332] towards the north-west. Josephus says, “The first fortification was lower, and the second did not join it; the builders neglecting to build the wall strong where the new city was not much inhabited.” He is speaking of the west part of the wall, though on the east as well there seems to have been no very formidable rampart north of Antonia. The death of Agrippa I., in 44 A. D., marks the beginning of Jewish troubles, and no later builder attempted to strengthen Jerusalem farther on the north.

Events hurried on to the final catastrophe during the quarter of a century that now followed,[333] and the narratives of Josephus are full of allusions to the city and to its topography. The Christians at Jerusalem were persecuted by Agrippa just before his death. James the Less was killed by the sword, and Peter was imprisoned.[334] Cuspius Fadus, the eighth procurator, was then appointed by Claudius, and he took away again from the priests the custody of the high-priest’s vestments, which were kept in Antonia. In 49 A. D., under Ventidius Cumanus, Roman soldiers insulted the Temple at the Feast of Passover. A riot followed, and a massacre turned the feast into mourning and defiled the Holy House with blood. In 52 A. D. Felix replaced Cumanus, and the discontent of the Jews increased under his rule when Nero became emperor two years later. Of Felix, who married Drusilla, sister of Agrippa II., Tacitus says that “he exercised all kind of barbarity and extravagance, as if he had royal authority with the disposition of a slave.” “He had been a good while ago set over Judæa, and thought he might be guilty of all sorts of wickedness with impunity,” relying on the power of his brother Pallas at Rome. Cumanus was then ruling Galilee, and Felix, “by the use of unseasonable remedies, blew up the coals of sedition into a flame, and was imitated by his partner in the government, Ventidius Cumanus.”[335]

JAMES THE GREAT

A short respite of four years, under Porcius Festus and Albinus (60 to 64 A. D.), preceded the fatal selection of Gessius Florus, the last procurator. During this time the Temple was finished,[336] and Agrippa II. rebuilt the Hasmonæan palace. This gave great offence to the priests, because it had a view of the inner Temple; and they built a screen on the cloister wall which Festus ordered them to remove. Agrippa had been given authority over the Temple by Claudius, and refused to expend its treasure on a projected rebuilding of the eastern cloister, though he did not object to the paving of the city. Under Albinus,[337] James the “brother of Jesus who was called Christ” was stoned to death by an illegal order of the Sanhedrin, according to the famous passage in Josephus, and Agrippa was obliged to depose the high-priest Ananus, because of the wrath of Albinus, whose consent had not been given to this third execution at the “House of Stoning.” It was probably after this persecution, about 64 A. D., that the surviving disciples left Jerusalem. James the Great was alive at Jerusalem in 58 A. D., so that there is no difficulty as to his martyrdom about 62 A. D. But it is remarkable that, on the occasion of Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem, Peter is not mentioned, though he was still one of the “pillars” in 52 A. D. He had perhaps died in the interval, and the belief in his later martyrdom at Rome is not supported by any statement in the New Testament. The diminished band of the Apostles withdrew before the time of the great revolt, and found peace at the little village of Pella beyond Jordan, escaping the miseries of the final siege, the “beginning of sorrows” when false Messiahs, such as Eleazar and the Egyptian prophet, appeared, and when there were “wars and rumours of wars” throughout Palestine. Within the time of the first generation they saw the end of their world. “For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”[338]

The Roman world was not likely to prosper under an emperor like Nero, who would not trouble himself with its more serious affairs, and Gessius Florus was a bad procurator under an evil master. Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria,[339] in vain attempted to restore order when he visited Jerusalem, and received the appeal of the Jews against their tyrant, who was accused of appropriating the sacred treasures. Florus entered Jerusalem in wrath, and allowed his soldiers to pillage the upper market. He is said to have crucified many Jews, and to have ordered a massacre, in spite of the entreaties of Berenice, while a procession of priests preceded by harpers and singers strove to pacify the insurgents. The Romans drove the mob with clubs to the Bezetha quarter, but failed to gain entry into Antonia, and Florus withdrew to the citadel of the upper city. The Jews appear to have barricaded the approach to the Temple by cutting down the cloisters on the north. The citizens, supported by Berenice, appealed to Cestius, and Florus retreated to Cæsarea.