The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

There is no allusion to any coins of Bar Cocheba in the Mishnah, and certain passages in the Aramaic commentaries which are supposed to support this theory seem to have been ill translated,[388] and belong to later ages. Thus in the Tosiphta (after 500 A. D.) a passage referring to “second tithes” appears to say that they are “not to be redeemed by coins of persecution [marud] not current, or not engraved. How is this to be understood? When they have false coins, even coins of Jerusalem, they must not redeem with them ... yet they might redeem with coins of former kings.”[389] This statement, at most, indicates the existence of forged Jewish coins in our sixth century. Again, in the Jerusalem Talmud—a little earlier—the passage on which the above is a comment runs: “Coins of persecution, or of a son of falsehood [Ben Kôzîba, that is, “a forger”], cannot be used for release. Depreciated coin, according to the decision of a case by Rabbi Ime, is to be thrown into the Salt Sea.”[390] A third passage, yet later, reads: “They durst not release with coins not current, as for instance false coins of Jerusalem, or of former kings.”[391] The last passage quoted by scholars is equally indefinite: “They wanted to retain denarii of Hadriana Turiyina, coins for Jerusalem.”[392] This passage might, however, have been in the mind of a later Jewish coiner when he used coins of Trajan. It does not clearly refer, any more than the other passages, to Bar Cocheba.

These questions have been noticed in some detail because they effect our conclusions as to the history of Jerusalem before the revolt of Bêther. Christian historians, writing two centuries later, believed in a second destruction of the city by Hadrian. Eusebius, though in one passage he speaks of Jerusalem as in ruins, yet in another says it was half destroyed by Titus and half by Hadrian. Jerome also says that Hadrian “threw down the walls.” They regarded this as a fulfilment of prophecy,[393] especially in connection with that of Daniel, and with the expectation of an approaching end of the world; but a modern student of the passages to which they allude would be more apt to conclude that the history had been misunderstood, and that the true facts did not accord with such interpretations of the prophets.

It is at least generally agreed that Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem in or after the year 135 A. D. The fear, mentioned by Dion Cassius as bringing on the war, that foreigners would dwell in the Holy City, and that strange gods would be there set up, was then justified. The emperor, who was very sarcastic about both Jewish and Christian religions, as we learn from a letter of his own, seems to have recognised the strength of the site, and to have regarded a modernised city as likely to dispel the ancient ideal of Israel, though that was for ever preserved by the “mourners of Zion.” Throughout the second century Roman cities continued to spring up in Palestine and Syria, each built complete at one time by some imperial command, as at Gerasa and Philadelphia, or later at Ba’albek and Palmyra. They were constructed on a definite plan, with a central street of pillars and surrounding city walls. The theatre, the civil basilica, the music hall, and the temples were near the main street and the forum; and the side-streets ran at right angles, while an arch of triumph commemorated the founder. At Jerusalem also this plan was adopted as far as the site and the huge blocks of Herod’s towers and Temple allowed, and some of the remains of Hadrian’s city are still traceable by aid of an ancient map.

(West)

THE MEDEBA MOSAIC.

Outline from Dr. Guthe’s facsimile.

HADRIAN’S WALLS

The map in question was discovered a few years ago at Medeba in Moab.[394] It is a fragment of a mosaic which was laid on the floor of the cathedral, representing Palestine as far north as Shechem, both east and west of Jordan, with the Sinaitic Desert and the Nile Delta. It was evidently constructed before the Moslem Conquest, and is supposed to date earlier than the building by Eudocia of a new wall at Jerusalem about 450 A. D. It shows the basilica of Constantine, which perished in 614 A. D., and all its inscriptions are in Byzantine Greek characters earlier than those in use in the Middle Ages. It is the most remarkable discovery of recent years as affecting the contemporary history of the Holy City, and, though many of the buildings shown are not earlier than the fourth century, it still indicates the plan of the Roman city as built by Hadrian. A street of pillars runs through the town from north to south, and of these two shafts still remain in a vault, west of the bazaar and east of the Holy Sepulchre Cathedral. A second pillared street, diverging on the east, represents the old Herodian street which ran parallel to the western rampart of the Temple enclosure; and at its south end steps seem to be represented, descending the Tyropœon towards Siloam; but the mosaic is unfortunately broken away in this part, and it is not very clear whether the south wall is drawn out of scale, and intended really to enclose the whole of the upper city hill (as Eudocia built it), or whether it is intended to run on the line of the present south wall, excluding the south part of the hill called Sion in and after the fourth century, and excluding Ophel. It is certain, however, that this must have been the line of Hadrian’s wall, since the earliest pilgrim[395] found part of Sion and the Pool of Siloam outside the wall, while the supposed palace of David on Sion—near the so-called “Tower of David”—was inside. The map is also interesting because it shows a great pillar—such as the Romans erected for a statue to stand on—in the middle of an open space just inside the North Gate. The present name of this gate (Bâb el ’Amûd, “gate of the pillar”) seems to preserve a tradition of this column, and the wall of Hadrian evidently ran on the line followed by the present wall on the north, though on the west it seems not to have included quite as much ground as at present north of the Jaffa Gate. This plan must be further considered in dealing with the Jerusalem of Constantine. Our pilgrim[396] seems to agree with the map, placing the Prætorium to the right of those who went from Sion out of the city by the Neapolis (or northern) Gate.

HADRIAN’S STATUE