PALESTINE 



713 



Galilee. He who takes the trouble to examine the 

 large map of the Palestine Exploration Fund and 

 to compare with it the statements made by 

 Josephus will be astonished at the overwhelming 

 evidence of a vast population and of exuberant 

 fertility. Nowhere else in the country are there so 

 many ruins of ancient towns ; on every hill-top in 

 a country which is a succession of hills is a Khurbet 

 or ruin ; springs abound ; there are the traces of 

 ancient terraces on the hillsides, extensive heaps of 

 pottery, ancient cemeteries, broken oil-presses, 

 group* of rock-hewn cisterns ; proofs on all sides 

 of the ancient prosperity. 



This period of prosperity, encouraged by the 

 Roman rulers, was destroyed by the madness of 

 the Jews themselves. It vanished with the cam- 

 paign of Vespasian and with the destruction of the 

 temple by Titus. Even these rude lessons failed 

 to quell the fiery spirit of the people. A second 

 time they rose in revolt, not only in Judtea, but also 

 in Egypt, Cvrene, Babylonia, Cyprus, and Meso- 

 potamia. They were subdued. Hut again, when 

 Hadrian endeavoured to suppress altogether this 

 turbulent Judaism, there followed a rising, the 

 wildest, the most blood-thirsty of all the Jewish 

 revolt-.. It was led by Bar-Cochba (q.v.), 'Son 

 of the Star,' the pretended Messiah, whose pre- 

 tensions were recognised by Akiba (q.v.) himself, 

 mii->t learned of all the Jewish doctors. The re- 

 bellion was followed by a siege of Jerusalem, con- 

 cerning which history is almost silent. It was 

 probably marked by all the horrors which belong 

 to the siege by Titus. The last stand was made 

 at the fortress of Bether, when Bar-Cochba with 

 an immense number of his followers was slain. 



Then for a period Jerusalem vanishes from liis- 

 tory. It is JElia Capituliiia; a temple of Jupiter 

 was erected on the site of Herod's temple ; no Jew 

 was allowed to ajmear even within sight of the 

 Holy City. Outside, for the next hundred years, 

 though persecutions raged, the progress of Christi- 

 anitv was rapid and continuous ; pilgrimages began 

 to the holy places, and as a natural consequence 



Mosqne of Omar, Jerusalem. 



more holy places were discovered every day. After 

 the conversion of Constantino, the finding of the 

 Ciu-s, and the building of the church of the Holy 

 Sepulchre, the history of Palestine becomes for 

 three hundred years ecclesiastical. The country 

 vuis all the time a battlefield, but the weapon* 

 were tongues and pens, and the missiles were 

 words and arguments. Ariiis, I'elagius, and other 

 persons of curious and questioning disposition kept 



the Holy Land in a continual state of unquiet. 

 The Samaritans gave trouble from time to time 

 by murdering Christians ; they were quieted in the 

 usual manner, ' by punishment.' All Syria became 

 a nest of monasteries, nunneries, and hermitages. 

 In order to build their monasteries the old syna- 

 gogues, the old fortresses, were destroyed and their 

 stones used again. In every cave was a recluse ; 

 on every hillside lived a hermit ; some erected lofty 

 pillars and lived upon the top for all to see ; the 

 discovery of relics, holy bones, and holy places 

 went on without interruption. Day and night, it 

 is said, the air resounded with litanies. In a word, 

 the land was given over to monks, for whom the 

 country-people the descendants of the Perizzites 

 and the Amorites tilled the fertile soil, grew the 

 corn, pressed the oil, and made the wine. 



Then King Chosroes, the Persian, marched into 

 Syria (614 A. D.). The Jews, who had been quiet, 

 but were neither dead nor converted, raised their 

 heads in hope and gladly joined his victorious army. 

 What the Persians did in the country itself may be 

 guessed from the fact that in Jerusalem alone they 

 massacred 90,000 Christians (the number may be 

 taken as indicating a gigantic slaughter) and 

 destroyed the whole of the buildings. When 

 they retreated they left behind them along the 

 broad track of their march ruined churches and 

 monasteries destroyed by hundreds, with thousands 

 of dead Christians to rejoice the eyes of the Jews 

 who followed in the train. Fifteen years later 

 Heraclius reconquered the province of Syria. The 

 ruined churches were partly restored, the monas- 

 teries partly rebuilt. But for six years only, for 

 then followed an enemy worse than Chosroes, 

 because, though the Pei-sian destroyed, he went 

 away. The new-comer came to stay. In the year 

 836 A.D. the calif Omar with his Moslems took 

 Jerusalem and proceeded to reduce the whole of the 

 country, which indeed offered no resistance. After 

 three hundred years of the ecclesiastics followed 

 four hundred years of the Moslems. Jew and 

 Christian were alike tolerated ; the latter with a 

 little less contempt than the 

 former. Early in this period the 

 Dome of the Kock ( ' Mosque of 

 Omar'), the most beautiful build- 

 ing in the world, was erected for 

 Abd el Melek by Byzantine archi- 

 tects. The church of the Holy 

 Sepulchre, or the group of churches 

 bearing that collective name, was 

 completed and beautified. We 

 hear nothing more, however, of the 

 monks. They disappeared at the 

 first approach of the Moham- 

 medans, and were no more seen. 

 Except for the invasion, in 1244, 

 by tne Chorasmians (or Khariz- 

 mians; see KHIVA), then fol- 

 lowed a period of peace for the 

 country. It was also a period of 

 continual pilgrimages. Men from 

 all parts of western Europe visited 

 the country, and knelt weeping at 

 the places which had seen the 

 Bufferings of the Lord. And year 

 by year while men related how 

 these places where miracles were 

 wrought daily were in the hands of the infidels, 

 who cursed and reviled the Christian pilgrims, the 

 indignation grew until the world was ripe for the 

 Crusades. 



The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem began in the 

 year 1099, and lasted less than a hundred years, 

 except in name. But it took two hundred years 

 before the Christians were finally driven from the 

 coast of Syria, and longer than that before the 



