Christianizing, Dechristianizing, and Rechristianizing Jerusalem

Around the year 130 CE, the emperor Hadrian traveled to Judaea and founded the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina on the site of the destroyed Jerusalem. He built a temple to Jupiter where the Jewish Temple had stood, an act that may have contributed to the outbreak of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE), in the wake of which Jews were removed from Jerusalem and its environs (see The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Its Aftermath, 132–135 CE). Thus, from the second century CE on, Jerusalem was Aelia Capitolina, a Roman colony dedicated to the god Jupiter.

Increasing Christianization of the Roman Empire in the early fourth century CE brought with it a new appreciation of the land associated with the life of Jesus. The alleged discovery of Jesus’ tomb and burial place by Constantine’s mother, Helen, spurred a new Christian attachment to the physical spaces of Palestine. It also coincided with early Byzantine imperial policy, which initiated and funded Christian building projects meant to displace Jewish and other non-Christian forms of religion and culture from Jerusalem. Christian piety and Byzantine political goals proceeded in close proximity. This is the context in which Constantine’s construction efforts, described by Eusebius, ought to be understood.

Within decades, though, Emperor Julian “the Apostate” rejected Christianity and sought to return the Roman Empire to its former paganism. Julian’s support for rebuilding the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was an element of his anti-Christian agenda, or, in the words of the historian Socrates Scholasticus, “another effort to molest the Christians.” According to the accounts of this undertaking, its ultimate failure was a clear indication that it was contrary to the divine will.

In the sixth century CE, a “third great wave” of Byzantine construction in Palestine was associated with the emperor Justinian (r. 527–565 CE), as described by his court historian, Procopius of Caesarea.