THE HOLY CITY[2]
It is beyond the scope of this book to attempt a detailed history of
Jerusalem. It cannot, however, fail to interest those readers who have
followed us thus far, if we glance at a few incidents in the history of
this sacred spot.
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.
"The intelligence of the insurrection, magnified into a deliberate
revolt of the whole nation, reached Antiochus. He marched without delay
against Jerusalem, put to death in three days' time 40,000 of the
inhabitants, and seized as many more to be sold as slaves. He entered
every court of the Temple, pillaged the treasury, and seized all the
sacred utensils. He then commanded a great sow to be sacrificed on the
altar of burnt offerings, part of the flesh to be boiled, and the liquor
from the unclean animal to be sprinkled over every part of the Temple;
and thus desecrated with the most odious defilement the sacred place
which the Jews had considered for centuries the one holy spot in all the
Universe."[3]
Two years afterwards, Antiochus determined to exterminate the Hebrew
race from the face of the earth. This produced the revolt of the Jews
under Mattathias, whose illustrious son, Judas Maccabæus, founded the
Maccabæan dynasty. By 128 B.C., the Jews, under John Hyrcanus, recovered
their complete independence, which they maintained until compelled to
acknowledge the dominion of Rome.
But the native rulers could not govern for long without dissension. Soon
were two more competitors, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, quarrelling about
the succession to the Jewish throne. The republic of Rome, having
trampled under foot the pride and strength of the great Asiatic
monarchies, assumed a right of interfering in the affairs of every
independent kingdom. The ambassadors of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus
appeared before Pompey, who was then in Syria and was at the zenith of
his power. After subjugating Arabia, Pompey, in 63 B.C., marched
directly into Judæa. Espousing the candidature of Hyrcanus, Pompey
marched against Jerusalem, within the walls of which he was admitted by
the party of Hyrcanus. Aristobulus and his supporters, with the
priesthood, withdrew to the Temple and prepared for an obstinate
defence. At the end of three months, and after great loss of life, the
Romans made themselves masters of the Temple. "The conduct of the Roman
General excited at once the horror and the admiration of the Jews. He
entered the Temple, and even penetrated and profaned with his heathen
presence the Holy of Holies. All the riches he left untouched, and the
Temple he commanded to be purified from the carnage of his soldiers."[4]
He stipulated the tribute which the country was to pay, demolished the
walls of the city, and nominated Hyrcanus to the priesthood, though
without the royal diadem. The magnanimity of Pompey, in respecting the
Treasures of the Temple, could not obliterate the deeper impression of
Jewish hatred excited by his profanation of the sacred precincts.
From this time forward Judæa becomes more and more under the shadow of
Rome. The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by Antipater, and later, the
Temple, which had become much dilapidated, was demolished, and rebuilt
in great magnificence by Herod the Great. He was the last King of Judæa
with any semblance of autonomy, and, in the year A.D. 6, Palestine was
annexed to the Roman Empire.
We pass over the incidents in the Life and death of our Lord, which, at
the time, could have but little affected current events, but which were
destined to influence so deeply the subsequent history, not merely of
Palestine but of the whole world. And we come to the cataclysm of which
Our Lord had been the sorrowful yet unerring Prophet.
Blinded by religious fanaticism, and convinced that God must fight upon
their side and give victory to His chosen people, be their conduct never
so cruel and their bearing never so arrogant, the Jewish race, though a
mere handful of men, offered war to the mistress of the world. With
little military organization or training, divided by factions and torn
asunder by internal dissensions, they yet dared to defy the mighty power
of Rome. They defeated the ill-starred expedition of Cestius Gallus, and
inflicted upon the Roman arms the most terrible disgrace they had ever
endured in the East. But the triumph was short-lived; a terrible revenge
was at hand. It was in this year, A.D. 70, that Titus laid siege to the
city. At the time, its population was swollen ten or twenty-fold by the
pilgrims attending the Passover. The reserves of food were destroyed in
faction fights even before the Romans arrived outside the city walls.
"Of all wretched and bloody sieges in the world's history, few, if any,
have been more wretched or more bloody than the siege of Jerusalem by
Titus. Fierce and bloody as was the fighting, the deaths from sickness
and famine were yet more terrible. Dead bodies were thrown out into the
valleys, where they lay rotting, a loathsome mass. The number of those
who died in the siege were estimated at 600,000. At night, miserable,
starving wretches would steal into the ravines to gather roots for food;
here they were pounced upon by ambushed Romans and crucified by hundreds
next morning in full view of the battlements."[5] Gradually the
assaulting Romans got possession of portions of the city, yet the
portions still uncaptured refused to surrender, their defenders still
hoping against hope for a divine intervention, as in the days of
Sennacherib. At length the city fell. The Romans, pouring in, began by
slaying indiscriminately. Tiring of butchery, they turned their thoughts
to plunder, but stood aghast at the houses filled with dead and
putrefying corpses. The Temple of Herod was burnt, the city was
desolate, while those whose miseries had not been relieved by death,
were carried away into yet more miserable slavery or to a death more
ignominious at Rome. As a Jewish city, Jerusalem had perished for ever.
Sixty years later, Jerusalem was rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian. He
resolved to suppress altogether the troublesome and turbulent Judaism.
The measures which he took caused the Jews to rise against him under
Barcochebas. This was the wildest and the most bloodthirsty of all the
Jewish revolts; but it was the last. Jerusalem having been recaptured,
Hadrian converted it into a Roman colony, forbade Jews to approach, and
built a temple of Jupiter on the site of the Temple.
It was when the Roman Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity, and his
mother Helena discovered the true Cross and the Holy Places, that
Jerusalem came again into prominence. Thereafter, churches and
monasteries sprung up throughout Palestine, which thus, for a time,
became thoroughly Christianized, under the Christian Emperors of Rome
and Byzantium. But the seventh century saw the fall of the Christian
ascendancy in Syria. In A.D. 614, the Persians, under Chosroes, swept
through the land, massacring the Christians wholesale, and destroying
most of their churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The
withdrawal of the Persians was followed by a brief return of Christian
ascendancy lasting but eight years, under the Emperor Heraclius. And
then, in 637, Jerusalem fell to the growing power of Islam. It was this
new religion, with a calendar only dating from A.D. 622, which was to
control the future destinies of the Holy City.
Islam arose at Mecca and Medina in barren and uninviting Arabia. When it
started on that expansion, whereby it overspread half of the known
world, Syria, from its situation, was naturally the first country to
tempt its restless and devoted Arab warriors. Within ten years of the
Hegira, or commencement of the Mahomedan era, we find the followers of
the Prophet already in Syria. The Byzantine army was overwhelmed at the
battle of the Yarmuk, and the Arabs laid siege to Jerusalem. The city
capitulated to Omar, who granted terms of comparative magnanimity. His
terms gave to the Christians security of person and property, safety of
their churches, and non-interference on the part of Mahomedans with
their religious exercises, houses or institutions. Upon the site of the
Temple, which had been systematically defiled by the Christians out of
abhorrence for the Jews, but which was honoured by the Moslems as the
spot from which Mahomed ascended to heaven, was now erected the Mosque
of Omar. This site became to the Mussulman, the most venerated spot in
Jerusalem, as was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the Christian.
When, in after years, pilgrimages to Mecca were temporarily interrupted,
devout Mahomedans made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem instead.
For the next few centuries Christian and Muslim lived together upon a
fairly workable basis of toleration. Massacres of Christians and
destruction of their churches occurred periodically, either in revenge
for Christian successes elsewhere, or in connexion with other Mussulman
disorders when mutual assassination was popular. But, on the whole,
pilgrims, who at this time swarmed from all over Europe to visit the
Holy Places at Jerusalem, were allowed to do so comparatively
unmolested--that is, they were probably not robbed more in Palestine
than in other professedly Christian countries through which they had to
pass along their road. Had the Arab Mussulman remained master of
Jerusalem, the Christians of Europe would probably have remained content
with the situation.
A change came in the year 1077. Jerusalem was then taken by the Turks,
who had conquered all Asia Minor and were already threatening the
Byzantine Empire in Europe. The treatment which the Christian pilgrims
now received at Jerusalem aroused intense indignation in Europe, chiefly
stimulated by the preaching of Peter the Hermit. Other motives there
were, such as the protection of the Byzantine Empire from the menaces of
the Turk, the desire of the Latin Church to prevail over the Byzantine,
and the temptations always offered in a holy war of loot upon earth and
salvation in heaven. Nevertheless, there undoubtedly spread, throughout
Western Europe, a mighty wave of religious enthusiasm which was sincere.
The first Crusade was mainly recruited in France. Great were the
vicissitudes through which the Crusaders passed on their pilgrimage
through Europe and Asia Minor, largely through quarrels with their
fellow-Christians before the Turks had even been encountered or their
country entered. Having defeated the Turks at Antioch, the army marched
south along the coast and at length reached and besieged Jerusalem. Of
the numbers that set out from Western Europe, probably not less than a
million, only a remnant of twenty thousand fighting men, with an equal
number of followers, had reached the Holy City. Though thus decimated
and war weary, the Crusaders were ecstatic with religious fervour; St.
George was said to have appeared to them clad in shining armour; the
Saracens gave way, and Jerusalem was taken by assault. The usual
massacre of the inhabitants followed, and estimates of the slain vary
from forty to a hundred thousand. In 1099 was established the Christian
kingdom of Jerusalem, the kingdom of the Crusaders, Latin in creed,
French in nationality, feudal in character and precarious in existence.
The state of affairs seems now rather to have resembled the relationship
which formerly existed between the Hebrews and the Philistines, or, even
more analogously, that between the Italian city-states of the Middle
Ages. Most of the cities of Palestine were gradually annexed by the
Christians, but some, notably Askalon, did not pass out of the hands of
the Saracens for many decades. Accordingly, wars became matters of
almost annual occurrence, and "never, during the whole eighty years of
its existence, was the kingdom of Jerusalem free from war and war's
alarms."[6] The bulk of the original Crusaders left alive soon returned
to their homes in Europe. There was little or no native Christian
population on which to draw, and the kingdom became dependent for the
support of its army, both as to men and money, on the pilgrims that
swarmed from Europe to Jerusalem; naval assistance was given by Genoese
and by Venetians, more, alas, from motives of commerce than of piety.
Religious enthusiasm had been capable of conquering and establishing
this kingdom, but it proved quite unequal to the tasks of sustenance or
protection. And so, after eighty years of romance and trouble, of love
and war, of lust and murder, often inflicted, more often endured, this
kingdom fell, because it had no sure foundation.
The decline and fall of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem forms a sordid
story of jealousy, and intrigue, of futile ambition and divided
counsels, of perjury and perfidy. The Crusaders intermarried with the
women of the country, and, except so far as it was constantly recruited
from Europe, the race rapidly degenerated. With no resources at their
back, except the charity of Europe, the Crusaders yet had dreams of
worldly aggrandisement, which included in their ken the whole of Egypt
and Syria. The Second Crusade of 1146-9 came, not to conquer, but to
support and defend this already tottering kingdom. It did that kingdom
more harm than good, for it drained Europe of its potential pilgrims,
anticipating and exhausting the natural flow of men and money on which
the kingdom had come to rely, and dissipated them on a futile attempt to
annex Damascus.
The Knights Templars, the feudal barons of the country, built castles
throughout the land, and lived at constant variance with the King and
central government. Every baron fought for his own land and for his own
aggrandisement. The kingdom of Jerusalem was fast tottering to its fall.
It was in 1187 that Saladin, having made himself master of Egypt and of
Damascus, attacked Tiberias, as a first step towards overthrowing the
kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders moved against him from Seffuriyeh.
It was July, and the Crusaders were absolutely without water; the
Saracens, with Lake Tiberias at their back, had abundance. The
Crusaders, suffering terribly from thirst, nevertheless attacked. The
result of the battle was a foregone conclusion. Here, at the Horns of
Hattin, the Mount of Beatitudes, was the Crusaders' army destroyed and
the power of the Christian completely crushed. Jerusalem itself, after a
short, fierce struggle, fell in the following October. The inhabitants
were not put to the sword. Huge ransoms were paid and the Christian
population allowed to disperse throughout Syria. Jerusalem had passed
again (it seemed as if for ever) into the hands of the Mahomedan.
"The news of the fall of Jerusalem was received in Europe with a thrill
of horror and indignation."[7] Thereupon set forth the Third Crusade,
that which is identified with Richard I of England. Travelling by sea,
these Crusaders avoided the horrible sufferings inevitable to the
crossing of Asia Minor. Acre was captured in 1190, by the Crusaders,
after a siege lasting for two years. Thence they marched southwards,
through Cæsarea to Jaffa, fighting on their way the great battle of
Assur, when Saladin was defeated. But Richard, instead of marching upon
Jerusalem, which lay in his grasp, vacillated and negotiated. At length
he decided to go up against Jerusalem. Some twenty miles from the city
he stopped. Again he vacillated. Dissensions broke out between the Duke
of Burgundy and King Richard. The design of besieging Jerusalem was
given up, and the army slowly and sadly returned to Jaffa. Thereupon, in
1192, a peace was concluded, whereby the sea coast, from Jaffa to Acre,
was ceded to the Franks, but Jerusalem still remained in the hands of
the Saracens.
There were several more Crusades. None of them (unless we except the
treaty of the excommunicated Frederick in 1229) ever reached Jerusalem.
Some of them never even reached Palestine, being shamefully diverted to
other purposes. Saddest of all was the Children's Crusade, when fifty
thousand poor misguided children followed the Cross (like the Pied Piper
of Hamelin) to slavery, dishonour, or death. But these form no part of
the history of Jerusalem.
In 1244, we find Christian and Saracen making common cause in Palestine
against the Kharezmians. These Mongols, who only appeared on the stage
of history for a brief period of four years, swept through the country,
captured Jerusalem, massacred all on whom they could lay hands, Moslem
and Christian alike, and destroyed such sacred relics as they could
find. Then, defeated by the Egyptians, they perished out of history as
suddenly as they had appeared.
In 1291, the Christians, by this time reduced to their last stronghold
of Acre, were finally expelled by the Moslems from Palestine--and that
was the end of the Crusades. Europe became reconciled to the fact that
the Kingdom of Christ is a Kingdom, not of the sword but of the soul.
And so, the watchword by which the Crusades were inspired now became the
consolation of their end--"Dieu le veut."
In 1400, Syria and Palestine fell under another Mongol invasion by
Timoor the Tartar (Tamerlane). In 1517, Palestine was annexed to the
Ottoman Empire under Selim I, of which Empire it has since formed an
integral part. At the close of the eighteenth century, Napoleon marched
through the country, defeating the Turks at Gaza and on the Plain of
Esdraelon, but was forced to withdraw. In 1832, Mohammad Ali, having
thrown off the Turkish yoke in Egypt, conquered Syria, but nine years
later, through the action of the European Powers, the country was
restored again to the Ottoman Porte.
In so far as any principles can be deduced from this history, they seem
to show that Jerusalem, situated as it is, could never become the
capital of a great Empire. On the other hand, this city, coveted by so
many races and creeds, must be safeguarded by the arms and resources of
some great Empire, or it can never remain at peace.
It may be of interest to close this résumé of the history of Jerusalem
by comparing the route taken by General Allenby with those taken by
previous soldiers in their conquests of Judæa. The routes taken by the
British have already been fully described. In only one known case, that
of the First Crusade, had Judæa been successfully invaded before by an
invader who had not previously made himself master of at least three of
her borders.[8] The attempt at a swift rush across one border made by
Cestius Gallus, ended in a failure, which was only wiped out four years
later after the Romans, under Vespasian and Titus, had first overrun
Galilee and Samaria and mastered the strongholds round the Judæan
borders. This was the policy followed, a thousand years later, by
Saladin.
The upland of Judæa has almost never been invaded from the barren
waterless south.[8] David, operating from Hebron, must have approached
Jerusalem from the south, but he was already in possession of the Judæan
plateau. The original attempt of the Israelites to enter the country
from the south was checked, and they subsequently crossed the Jordan and
entered Judæa through Jericho from the east. The Philistines must have
come up by the passes from the west. Sennacherib did not approach
Jerusalem himself, but it was whilst warring against Egypt at Lachish
(Tel el Hesi on the Maritime Plain) that he sent his arrogant message to
Jerusalem; and it was on the Plain that his victorious army, infected by
the plague from Egypt, melted away as by a miracle. Egypt was his
objective, not Judæa. Nebuchadnezzar may have invaded Judæa from the
north, but it is more probable that he also came up from the west, after
first making himself master of the Maritime Plain. Pompey was returning
from his expedition in Arabia when he invaded, so he entered from the
east, ascending the Judæan plateau by way of Jericho and Bethel. Herod
invaded from the north.
In the Christian era, Cestius Gallus made his disastrous expedition by
the Valley of Ajalon, Beth-horon and Gibeon. Titus, after the
surrounding country had been subjugated, moved his army up to Jerusalem
by Gophna (Jufna) and Bethel, and so through Bireh, from the north-west
and north. The Moslems, in 637, first captured Damascus; subsequently
they approached Jerusalem across the Jordan. The First Crusaders came
through Asia Minor and won a decisive victory at Antioch; thence they
came southward along the coast, through Ramleh, and up the Valley of
Ajalon, their advance through the mountains being unopposed. Saladin, by
the decisive battle of Hattin, near Tiberias, made himself master of the
surrounding country before closing in upon Jerusalem, which he
eventually did from Hebron (south), from Askalon (west), and from the
north. In the Third Crusade, Richard and his Crusaders came oversea to
Acre; after marching to Ramleh, they tried first to reach the Holy City
up the Valley of Ajalon, and afterwards by the Vale of Elah, the Wady es
Sunt, further to the south, but both attempts failed.
Many of the invading armies that have swept through Palestine have
confined themselves to the great inter-continental road along the
Maritime Plain, and have passed by Jerusalem, secure upon its plateau.
We have seen that this was so with Sennacherib. This was probably the
case with Alexander the Great, and was undoubtedly so with Napoleon. The
latter defeated the Turks at Gaza and again on the Plain of Esdraelon.
His objective was Syria, but he was foiled by the action of the British
in the siege of Acre. This distraction also prevented him from making
any attempt to reach Jerusalem.
Prior to the arrival of the British, it was seven centuries since a
Christian conqueror had set foot in Jerusalem. But there was now no
gloating of the Cross over the Crescent. On the contrary, guards of
Moslem troops from our Indian army were placed upon every building
sacred to Islam, while Christian guards were mounted over those sacred
to Christianity. Never before had Jerusalem fallen into the hands of
conquerors so zealous for the safety of its populace or so concerned for
the preservation of the city and all that it contained.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Much of the material in this Chapter is derived from
Milman's _History of the Jews_, W. Besant and E. H. Palmer's
_Jerusalem_, and George Adam Smith's _Historical Geography of the Holy
Land_, to which my acknowledgments are accordingly due.]
[Footnote 3: Milman.]
[Footnote 4: Milman.]
[Footnote 5: Milman.]
[Footnote 6: Besant & Palmer.]
[Footnote 7: Besant & Palmer.]
[Footnote 8: G. A. Smith.]