With the British Army in The Holy Land

by H. O. Lock

Of little importance, perhaps non-existent, in the days of the Patriarchs, and still in the hands of the Jebusites through the days of Joshua, the Judges, and Samuel, it first sprang into fame about a thousand years before Christ when it was captured by King David, who made it his capital. Solomon built his temple on Mount Moriah, and prayed to Jehovah that He would especially hear the prayers of His people when they prayed toward the city which He had chosen and the House which Solomon had built for His name. Then did this city become, and has ever since remained, the sacred city of the Jews.

With the advent of Christ, born within a few miles of its walls, Who here preached and healed, instituted His Holy Sacrament, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried and the third day rose again from the dead, Who here laid the foundations of the most beautiful religion that the world has ever seen, Jerusalem became and has ever since remained, the sacred city of the Christian.

And then, six hundred years later, came the rise of Islam. The great prophet Mahomet, in evolving his religion, based his teaching upon the principles of Judaism and Christianity, the prophets of which were to be honoured, including "the prophet David" and "the Prophet Christ." So, in accordance with the prayer of Solomon, and until the antagonism between Judaism and Islam led to the substitution of Mecca, it was towards Jerusalem that devout Moslems were required to turn when they prayed. From Mount Moriah did Mahomet, as his followers believe, miraculously ascend to heaven. And so did Jerusalem become, and has ever since remained, no less a sacred city of the Mahomedan.

Thus it will be seen that Jerusalem, the sacred city of three mighty religions, became the most holy city in the world, the poetical prototype of heaven.

Jerusalem, situate away on the hills and far from the main trading and military route, was of but little commercial or strategical importance. Yet we readily understand how its religious value caused it so often to become the goal and prize of contending creeds and armies. Sometimes the motive was religious antagonism, as with Antiochus Epiphanes and Titus; sometimes it was religious devotion, as with the Maccabees and Crusaders. Pitiful though it be, yet, throughout the ages, the City of the Prince of Peace has been associated with the most terrible scenes, the most savage excesses, in the whole dreadful drama of war.

Not once nor twice in the reigns of the Kings of Judah and Israel, did Jerusalem resound with the clash of arms. Although, after the fall of the northern kingdom, it was delivered by divine intervention from the invasion of Sennacherib, yet its submersion by the rising tide of Babylon could not long be averted. The evil day had only been postponed and, in 607 b.c., Jerusalem fell before Nebuchadnezzar, before that power which, like Turkey of yesterday, dominated the whole stretch of country from the Persian Gulf to the border of Egypt. Twenty years later, Jerusalem, with the Temple of Solomon, was destroyed, the city, palaces and temple being levelled in one, and the population were put to death or led away captive to Babylon.

When, some years later, the capital of the Babylonians was captured by the Persians and their empire annexed, the Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem. In the sixth and fifth centuries b.c. the temple and walls were rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah, and Jerusalem took a fresh lease of life as a Jewish city.

In the fourth century b.c., when Alexander the Great marched southwards through Syria to Egypt, securing the Mediterranean littoral before embarking on his expedition into Asia, overthrowing Tyre in his march and totally destroying Gaza, the Jews no doubt made their submission, and their city thus escaped destruction.

After the death of Alexander, Judæa did not escape the anarchy which ensued during the internecine warfare waged by his generals and successors. In 321 b.c., Ptolemy I, King of Egypt, advanced against Jerusalem, and, assaulting it on the Sabbath, the Jew's day of rest, met with no resistance. He is said to have carried away 100,000 captives, whom he settled in Alexandria and Cyrene. The founding of a Syro-Grecian kingdom in Northern Syria brought Judæa again into the unfortunate situation of a buffer state. Jerusalem seemed doomed to be among the prizes of an interminable warfare between the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucidæ of Syria and in turns vassal to each.

At the commencement of the second century b.c. Judæa passed into the hands of the Syrian King Antiochus the Great, who at once proceeded to ingratiate himself with the whole nation. It was not the tyranny of foreign sovereigns, but the unprincipled ambition of their own native rulers, that led to calamities little less dreadful than the Babylonian captivity. Jason, the High Priest, had been dispossessed by his brother Menelaus, by double dealing with the Syrian King, who at this time was Antiochus Epiphanes. A rumour of the King's death having reached Palestine in 170 b.c., Jason seized the opportunity and revolted against his brother Menelaus. But the rumour was false.