PART III The Explanation

This study dealt with the testing of Bargil Pixner�s theory that the Mother of All Churches, which he calls the Church of the Apostles, can still be found on the southwestern hill of Jerusalem. Pixner�s basic argument is that the structure venerated as the traditional tomb of David on Mt. Sion is not the real tomb of David but actually a Roman-period Judeo-Christian synagogue. This synagogue, according to Pixner, later became known as the Church of the Apostles.

The methodology employed in this study consisted of testing ten research hypotheses, derived from the argument developed by Pixner, against both literary and archaeological evidence. This study involved the acquisition, analysis, and presentation of archaeological and documentary data. Based on the data, this investigator rejected four of the ten research hypotheses which  necessitated a significantly modified explanation of this site.

By the end of the Crusader Period, the site of the ancient synagogue on Mt. Sion had experienced only two occupancies. The first occupancy was by its Judeo-Christian builders initially as The Small Church of God and then as the expanded Holy Church of God. The second occupancy was by their orthodox successors. At first the orthodox simply occupied the Holy Church of God often referring to it as the �Upper Church� or simply �Sion.� They erected, however, a small octagonal memorial directly in front of it. On the building of the Basilica of Hagia Sion, the ancient synagogue served as a side-chapel. Lastly, the ancient synagogue became a part of the Crusader Church of St. Mary of Mt. Sion.

The Small Church of God (CE 73?�200?)

The mother Church of God at Jerusalem, the seat of Judeo-Christianity, was the center of operations for the whole church in the pre-70 CE period. The apostle James, a brother of Jesus of Nazareth, served as its overseer. His successor was his cousin, Simeon, the son of Cleophas. During this Judeo-Christian Period (CE 30-70), the cultural heritage of Christendom was predominantly Jewish. Judeo-Christians referred to their fellowship as the Church of God understanding it to be the company elect of God and determined by God to be the center and crystallization-point of eschatological Israel.

By CE 70, the phenomenon of backing away from Jewish lifeways had slowed in the Jewish homeland due to cultural restraints but had accelerated in the Hellenistic Dispersion. Social intercourse and intermarriage among believers in the Hellenistic Dispersion integrated Jews and Greeks into a common cultural fold. This led to the rise of two distinct Judeo-Christian communities divided by cultural heritage and language�the Hebrews (Palestinians of Jewish ethnicity) and the Hellenists (non-Palestinians born in the Hellenistic Diaspora of mixed ethnicity).

As the first Christian generation of Peter, Paul, John, James, and their second generation successors passed away, rising heresy within Judeo-Christianity challenged its doctrines and threatened its very existence. The mother congregation at Jerusalem no longer served as the focal point of the greater church but functioned more as a regional center for Hebrew-speaking Judeo-Christians known locally by Jewish outsiders as Nazarenes. Nearly wholly devoid of any centralized form of leadership or ecclesiastical authority, Christianity throughout the Roman world became increasingly divided in faith and praxis.

Nevertheless, a significant Judeo-Christian population existed at Jerusalem until the time of the Simon Bar-Kochba rebellion. There is no reason to doubt that a line of Judeo-Christian bishops continued to serve the local Judeo-Christian community well into the fourth century. In Judeo-Christian thinking, the Church of God had succeeded the literal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the people of God. The promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had passed from the physical nation to the possession of spiritual Israel. The death of the Messiah had permanently and conclusively closed the Mosaic Covenant. In this context, Judeo-Christians built their small synagogue on Mt. Sion.

The original structure, a relatively small Church of God, was a Judeo-Christian synagogue dating to the interim period between the two Jewish wars with the Romans (CE 70�130) and likely to the late first century. Before the war with Rome broke out in CE 66, the Jerusalem Judeo-Christian community migrated from the city to Pella and other places of refuge. Segments of this community, those who would have constructed the small Church of God on Mount Sion as their synagogue, presumably returned following the cessation of hostilities. Roman emperor Hadrian observed this Judeo-Christian synagogue on Mt. Sion, referred to by his guides as a small Church of God, on his ca. CE 130 visit to Jerusalem. The architectural proportions of their synagogue were ostensibly those of the Solomonic Temple with the height one-half the sum of the length and width. There is reason to believe, therefore, that the Judeo-Christian builders chose to include symbolic elements into their synagogue.

The interior hall of the original synagogue occupied about 54.9 sq. meters, and its western wall was slightly further to the east than the present-day Mameluke wall. This presumed original wall mirroring the dimensions of the east wall from the midpoint of the apse would lie 5.23 meters from the east wall. This would have made the original hall 5.23 meters in width and 10.50 meters in length. The external dimensions of the original building would have been 7.56 meters wide and 15.0 meters long. Based on the highest known ashlar, in situ, the height of the original building could not have been less than 11.0 meters from the original floor, meaning that the original building was of sufficient height to have a 7.74 meters ceiling in the hall and another 3.26 meters for a flat roof. The thickness of the walls, from 1.3 meters on the south and east and 2.8 meters on the north, and the large stones in the lower courses suggest that the ancient building, in its initial use, served as a public building of some height. A synagogue of this height and character would require thick walls to support the weight and to provide adequate support for the roof.

With access from the courtyard, and a parapet as a protection against accident, the flat roof provided a place for congregational observance of the full meal as an element of the Christian Passover. The site the builders chose for the synagogue was on the highest hill of Jerusalem, towering over the former Second Temple site, in an open field where all could behold their synagogue. In an effort to acquire vicarious sacrality, builders apparently utilized actual building materials from the demolished Second Temple and constructed their synagogue in Temple proportions. These acts were consistent with the symbolism inherent in Judeo-Christian culture. In their understanding, the New Covenant and its Law of Christ replaced the Old Covenant and its Law of Moses while retaining some elements of the Old in the New. This endeavor to physically incorporate the Second Temple�s being into their synagogue legitimated its status through the physical and symbolic appropriation of Temple attributes. In the apocryphal Odes of Solomon, the fourth ode appears to be a late first-century condemnation of the builders of the Judeo-Christian synagogue on Mt. Sion by the Ebionites. They criticized the builders for removing ashlars from the demolished Second Temple, with the intent of transferring some of its symbolic elements, for construction of their synagogue.

The ancient walls of the small synagogue consisted of worked limestone in a secondary use. The builders used ashlars with chipped corners laid in irregular courses. These ashlars, however, are absent any distinctive markings or stylistic features that would limit this secondary use to 1st�3rd century construction. Their broken corners infer that the origin of the ashlars was as salvage from a variety of buildings destroyed by the Romans in the course and aftermath of the First Jewish Revolt. The former city of Jerusalem served as a rock quarry for centuries. Its destroyed public buildings and monumental homes were a source of large ashlars.

The north wall had an apse with a high niche 1.92 meters above the original floor. This would be consistent with its functioning as a storage spot for rolls of Scripture. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, was in standard use among Jews throughout the Hellenistic world and was the translation most quoted in the New Testament by the apostles and early church writers. As the preferred language throughout the Hellenistic world, the koine Greek became the language of the Christian complement to the Hebrew Scriptures known as the New Testament. Greek was the language used by the occupants of the synagogue in its first use, as only Greek graffiti with Christian symbolism were found. This occurrence infers its occupants were not traditional Jews but Judeo-Christians fluent in the Greek Language.

With respect to the Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the orientation of the synagogue niche is neither with the Anastasis nor the Martyrdom. Indeed, as its builders had a clear line of sight to the place the orthodox later claimed was the location of �Jesus� sepulcher,� they obviously chose not to so orient the niche. The actual orientation significantly differs from those based upon the Anastasis and the Martyrdom sites. The Anastasis lies 11� counterclockwise from the niche orientation. The Martyrdom lies 8� counterclockwise from the orientation of the niche. In this context, the data do not support a connection between the site of the synagogue and the site of the Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The synagogue niche is not an orienting-niche with respect to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher site (neither with the Anastasis nor the Martyrdom). Moreover, existing synagogues from the first century do not attest to niche orientation, and the historical evidence does not attest to the authenticity of the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as that of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher lies on the site of the former Capitoline Temple of Jupiter and the Temple OF Venus. In CE 325, the Temple of Venus (or Aphrodite shrine), venerated by pagan priests and devotees, was a venue for temple prostitution and pagan orgiastic rites. The orthodox saw these temples as signs of intolerance and a symbol of pagan oppression of Christians whether Gentile or Judeo-Christian. Emperor Constantine I, persuaded by Jerusalem bishop Macarius, ordered demolition of the Temple of Venus, the erection of a church on the site to commemorate Jesus Resurrection, and a search for Jesus� tomb. It is doubtful that Macarius or Constantine ever expected to find any tomb beneath the temples, let alone the tomb of Jesus. The bishop�s apparent motive was the elimination of these venues to damage the Jerusalem pagan cult, advance orthodoxy, and his own power and influence.

There is no literary or archaeological evidence suggesting that during the Apostolic Period the tomb of Jesus itself held any special significance nor that it ever served as a cult center of some kind for the apostolic church. Early Judeo-Christians, as participants in Jewish culture, abhorred idolatry and did not venerate places as sacred. Constantine�s decisions were political. For him the tomb of Jesus, authentic or not, would strengthen Greco-Roman Christianity by providing a needed physical symbol for orthodox Christianity and, thereby, advance the security and stability of the empire. Authenticity was not an issue. The literature of the ancient church does not attest to any so-called tradition that would place Jesus� tomb at the Temple of Venus site. On the contrary, the literature suggests that Constantine�s defense of the authenticity of the tomb as that of Jesus was that God revealed this fact to him in a vision. The emperor did not elaborate in spite of Eusebius� efforts to get him to do so. The idea that a Judeo-Christian tradition led orthodox leaders to the tomb site is a centuries later invention and exercise in retrospective theology in an attempt to prove a proposition that is otherwise wanting.

A more practical basis for the orientation of the synagogue and its niche is the illumination of its interior by sunlight. The walls of the Judeo-Christian synagogue were over a meter thick on the south and east and presumably so on the west. The niche occupied nearly one-half of the north wall (2.48 meters out of 5.23 meters) and a window could not have effectively admitted sunlight from the north. A building with external dimensions of 7.56 meters in width and 15.0 meters in length would have most of its exterior light admitted from the east. Because of such thick walls, the windows would have to be placed fairly high and be of adequate width. Two windows on the east wall would catch the rays of the sun in the midday, and a window in the south and west walls would pick up some light later in the day. This was how its builders laid out the synagogue.

Jerusalem�s western hill, the location of the ancient synagogue, is now known as Mt. Sion. The Sion of today, however, is neither that of King David�s time nor of Jesus� day. In King David�s time Zion was the City of David located on the eastern hill. In Jesus� day Zion referred to the Temple precincts. The earliest historical reference to the western hill as Zion, in its Judeo-Christian new Israel of God sense, is found in the apocryphal Life of the Prophets dating to the end of the first century CE. In Christian circles, the name Sion designated the western hill throughout the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods.

There is a persistent tradition that the Last Supper occurred at the site of the ancient synagogue. Judeo-Christians observed the Christian Passover on Nisan 14 in the manner introduced by Jesus on the evening before his execution. Judeo-Christians continued to practice the full meal as part of their Christian Passover. The synagogue roof provided the congregation with both space for the ritual and with continued Upper Room symbolism. This practice apparently gave rise to Greco-Roman Christian beliefs that this facility was the actual venue of the Last Supper�which it was not. The ceremony would have continued in this synagogue throughout the period of Judeo-Christian occupancy. About CE 230, Origin visited various places of early Christian history to learn, by inquiry, of the footsteps of Jesus and his disciples. Of necessity this included a visit to the Judeo-Christian synagogue on Mt. Sion. There he saw the upper part of the building used for Christian Passover observance and identified Jerusalem�s western hill as the venue of the Last Supper.

While Jesus of Nazareth was not an Essene, the Last Supper, also known as the first Christian Passover, likely occurred within the Essene compound on Mt. Sion. Jesus instructed Peter and John to enter Jerusalem, presumably through the Gate of the Essenes, and to look there for a man carrying a pitcher of water (Luke 22:8-10, Mark 14:13). This occurred at evening, the dawn of a new day, on Nisan 14. They were to follow the man to his destination and there to inquire of the housemaster about the guest room where Jesus was to eat the Passover with his disciples. In this ancient culture, the carrying of water in jars to homes was the chore of children and women. However, an Essene man, typically a celibate monastic, would carry water as a chore since an Essene conclave would have been absent children and women. The two made preparations, and when it was nightfall, Jesus and his other disciples arrived and they observed the Last Supper in this Upper Room.

Contrary to later tradition, this guest room was not in the home of Mary who was the mother of gospel writer John Mark. Mary possessed a first-floor room large enough for many people to assemble at a convenient location, evidently in the Upper City, with an entrance-way separating the main house from the street presumably by means of a courtyard. This suggests she was a woman of means. Apparently a widow, Mary was among the earliest disciples. Her house was relatively close to the place of Peter�s imprisonment pursuant to the order of Herod Agrippa I. The Romans destroyed her house in the course of the First Jewish Revolt and its actual site is unknown. Mary�s obvious hospitality and the apparent design of her large house does not rule out the Twelve staying at her house while they awaited the first Christian Pentecost. It is highly likely that this was the case as it appears to have been in the Upper City and close to the places of the confinement of Jesus and Peter. The Upper Room accounts in Luke 22:8�10 and Mark 14:13, however, do not harmonize with the house of Mary account in Acts 12:12�17.

The notion of Jesus� followers meeting on the Pentecost of Acts 2 in the same �Upper Room� where Jesus had instituted the Christian Passover is by necessity a myth. The facts, as given in Acts 1�2, make it physically impossible for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth to have occurred in even an extremely large residential upper room in Herodian Jerusalem. Neither the upper room of Acts 1:13 nor the Upper Room of Luke 22:8�10 and Mark 14:13 could have been the venue for the descent of the Holy Spirit. They were simply too small. The apostles and their followers appear to have assembled on the Temple Mount in the Royal Stoa or one of the large halls in the Temple Court available for public religious meetings. On the Day of Pentecost, very early in the morning, all were seated in a building for Holy Day services. The Temple Court, a single structure about one quarter of a mile in circumference, was a massive complex with hundreds of rooms. The Royal Stoa, the colonnade at the southern wall, construed as an unenclosed building is the likely venue for the event. Its exposed access would allow for people in the building to be easily seen and heard from outside the colonnade. The apostles were immediately accessible to thousands of Jews and proselytes gathered for the festival in a massive public facility. This site lends itself to the context of the events set forth in Acts 2 while the Upper Room simply does not.

There is some question relating to continuing Judeo-Christian access to Aelia Capitolina. While the sanctity of human life was a historic component in Jewish teaching, the Judeo-Christian Church of God went further by rejecting any resort to violence against human beings. This required the rejection of the use of war and violence by its members. Throughout the Apostolic Age, Judeo-Christians were pacifists. They took no part in war. This led to difficulty in the CE 66-70 and CE 132-135 Jewish attempts to become free of Roman rule. By refusing to take part in these revolts, Judeo-Christians appeared as loyalists to the Romans. The Romans apparently rewarded Judeo-Christians with continuing access to Aelia Capitolina following the Bar Kochba Revolt but denied Jews access to the city under the pain of death. Hence, the Roman decree denying access to Jerusalem applied to Jews but not to Judeo-Christians.

The Holy Church of God (CE 200?�415)

The St. Pudentiana mosaic, a late fourth-century mosaic in the apse of the Basilica of St. Pudentiana in Rome, portrays Christian holy sites in Jerusalem ca. CE 400. The mosaic shows a later expansion of the ancient synagogue to the west perhaps more than double its original size. The later building, as shown in the St. Pudentiana mosaic, appears to have incorporated the whole original courtyard into its expansion. This larger synagogue is the building that Eusebius referred to as the Holy Church of God.
By CE 300, Gentiles predominated Christendom. While Gentiles may not have become the majority in Christendom until the third century, it appears more likely that the Gentile Christian population overtook Judeo-Christians early in the second century, overshadowed them in the third century, and then swamped them in the fourth. At the dawn of the fourth century, Christians made up about 10%, or 6 million, of the empire�s population and Jews about 2% or 3 million. Orthodox Christianity, whose mission by CE 325 included the eradication of all other forms of Christianity, sought to become the exclusive religion. The orthodox distanced themselves from the Judeo-Christian Churches of God and all Jewish Christian sects.

These Greco-Roman Christians, known as Byzantines, considered themselves orthodox and those who did not adhere to their peculiar belief system as heterodox. The orthodox held the precepts and doctrines of Judeo-Christianity in contempt. Such rhetoric notwithstanding, it was the Nicene resolution of the Quartodeciman controversy and collateral issues, e.g., Sabbath observance and the like, that severed the two communities. The Nicenes viewed Judeo-Christians as heterodox and anathematized them because they refused to adopt the Nicene decrees. They excluded Judeo-Christians from membership in their Great Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Judeo-Christians argued that the orthodox bishops and their synods lacked the authority from God to change the customs and traditions of the New Testament as set forth by the apostles. In their view, these customs and traditions were unchangeable. Outlawing observance of the Christian Passover on Nisan 14 and compelling a Lord�s-day Pascal celebration were considered by Judeo-Christians as non-scriptural ultra vires acts. Judeo-Christians, in a primitive Protestant way, held that the Scriptures were the standards in such matters. The orthodox bishops believed that, in councilor decisions, they had the authority to change doctrine. For the orthodox, the Nazarenes, that is the Judeo-Christians of Jerusalem in particular and of Palestine in general, were not Christians.

The decisions made in the fourth century orthodox Church Councils to quash the practice of Judeo-Christian customs and the de facto invasion of Judea by the orthodox led to cultural conflict. Monks and nuns arrived in Judea by the thousands seeking holy sites to build churches, to establish monuments, to find artifacts and relics, to be closer to the land where Jesus dwelt, and to bring about the unity of the faith. Aided and abetted by this influx of orthodox religious supporters, Jerusalem�s orthodox bishops sought to dispossess the Judeo-Christians and become the only Christians of Jerusalem.

The bishops of orthodox Greco-Romans became ensconced at the Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulcher with its dedication in CE 335. At that time the Judeo-Christians held control of the Holy Church of God on Mt. Sion. The Judeo-Christians, shunned by the orthodox as heretics because they refused to submit to the doctrinal decisions of the Council of Nicea, walled-up their compound to isolate themselves from their Gentile adversaries. The Pilgrim of Bordeaux, in CE 333, entered this walled compound through a gate in its southern wall which he called the �Wall of Sion.� There he saw the Holy Church of God which he referred to as a synagogue.

The synagogue on Mt. Sion remained in the possession of the Judeo-Christians until authorities seized it under an imperial decree issued by Theodosius I on July 30, 381. The decree ended the First Council of Constantinople and formalized it decisions. Control of the Holy Church of God on Sion was given to the orthodox Byzantines. Following its annexation, bishop Cyril of Jerusalem saw to its full absorption into Greco-Roman Christianity. The traditions associated with the Holy Church of God, which the orthodox believed to be the mother of all churches, came with it. Their act of forcing out the Judeo-Christians and taking control of this ancient Judeo-Christian synagogue ended, more or less, the strife in Jerusalem.

While Judeo-Christians lost their religious freedom in Judea and possession of their Holy Church of the God, the Judeo-Christians of Galilee continued to resist the orthodox for another century. By the end of the fifth century, however, Judeo-Christianity appears to have vanished without a trace. Some Judeo-Christians presumably escaped the stifling Antaean embrace of the orthodox by moving on to regions outside the Roman empire. Others remained in spite of the efforts of the orthodox to strip them of their churches and to criminalize their observance of the sabbath, annual sabbaths, and the Christian Passover on Nisan 14. Eventually many, if not most, of these Christians of Jewish ethnicity became so much like their Gentile neighbors that they appear to have lost any distinctive identity. As the orthodox assimilated Judeo-Christians, their numbers dwindled. Unable to recover and regroup from the relentless orthodox onslaught, they seem to have disbursed and blended into the Gentile populations of the empire. From time to time, however, later orthodox writers acknowledge occasional eruptions of people observing the sabbath, annual sabbaths, and the Christian Passover on Nisan 14. This they condemned as Judaizing. This suggests that to some extent various Judeo-Christians simply hid themselves from orthodox tyranny.

On taking possession of the Holy Church of God on Sion Emperor Theodosius I built an octagonal memorial church in front of it. This octagonal served as a type of portico, vestibule, or foyer. The placement of the Octagonal Theodosian Memorial, consistent with its depiction in the St. Pudentiana Mosaic, was directly in front of the entry to the Judeo-Christian synagogue on the west. The only view consistent with the St. Pudentiana mosaic requires the memorial to be immediately to the west of the synagogue not to the north of it. The line of sight from the ancient Judeo-Christian synagogue to Pater Noster Church, the site of the Eleona, shows this relationship. The result is the depiction in the mosaic wherein the three buildings appeared as a unit to the artisans who created the St. Pudentiana mosaic. The Theodosian Octagonal Memorial was complete in CE 382. The almost immediate construction of the Theodosian Memorial suggests not only the Emperor�s direct involvement in the ejection of the Judeo-Christians from the Holy Church of God but his largess in the building of the memorial as well.

The Side Chapel (CE 415�1009)

The construction of the Basilica of Hagia Sion (the Church of Holy Sion) was completed in CE 414 during the time of Jerusalem bishop John II. The ancient synagogue (the former Holy Church of God also called the Upper Church or simply Sion) became a side chapel to the new basilica. Rather than being attached to the basilica, the synagogue was adjacent to it but rotated away from the basilica�s southern wall at an angle of 21� � 1�. The Madaba Mosaic Map depiction of sixth-century Jerusalem, preserved in the floor of the Greek Orthodox Basilica of St. George at Madaba in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, shows the ancient Judeo-Christian synagogue and the Basilica of Hagia Sion. The mosaic shows the synagogue from the southwest rotated away from the southern wall of the basilica at an angle of 27� � 1�. There is a single entrance but no windows on the west wall. The entry into the building is through a fairly large doorway. This is not the appearance of the ancient synagogue in the St. Pudentiana mosaic where the line of sight is from the northwest. The St. Pudentiana mosaic shows the ancient synagogue before its renovation as a sacrarium to house the supposed remains of the first Christian martyr St. Stephen.

John II had the octagon razed as part of the process of readying the old synagogue for the bones of St. Stephen and the planning of an enlarged entry. The ancient synagogue became the repository for the body of St. Stephen in CE 415. This led to some renovation to the west wall in an effort to accommodate pilgrims. With the placement of the octagon to the west of the synagogue, there was no physical necessity for its demolition to provide space for the later construction of the Basilica of Hagia Sion. Its removal, however, brought a focus upon the old synagogue as the sacrarium of St. Stephen and upon the Basilica of Hagia Sion as the de facto mother of all churches.

Jacob Pinkerfeld, in his examination of the remains of the ancient synagogue, found a Byzantine floor (colored mosaic floor with geometric designs characteristic of the Late Roman or early Byzantine Period) at 0.6 meters below the present day floor. This finding is significant in that it is consistent with renovation of the old Judeo-Christian synagogue, ca. CE 415, as the repository of the bones of St. Stephen. After removal of the relics ca. CE 439, such renovations were unnecessary as the building served a minor function as a side chapel.

Arculf was a Frankish bishop and pilgrim who visited Palestine and spent nine months in Jerusalem. He related his experiences to Adomnan the Abbot of Iona (679�704). Adomnan wrote down the account of the pilgrimage including ground plans of the churches he copied from Arculf�s wax tablets. Arculf, who referred to the church on Mt. Sion as a �great basilica,� had made a wax drawing of the Basilica of Hagia Sion. A comparison of the Hagia Sion basilica as shown in the Madaba mosaic with the sketch made by Arculf shows the buildings in a similar architectural footprint. This suggests they depict the same building. The absence on Arculf�s drawing of the significant remaining walls of the Judeo-Christian synagogue, yet in situ, implies the two buildings were separate facilities. The Hagia Sion depiction in the Madaba mosaic and in Arculf�s drawing defines the ratio of length to width of the basilica footprint.

The Crusader Church of St. Mary of Mt. Sion (CE1110?�1219)

In CE 1099, the Crusaders took Jerusalem and set about to restore its Christian holy sites. On Mt. Sion, they found the ruins of the Basilica of Hagia Sion and the ancient synagogue. On the south part of the ruins of the basilica, they built a new church. They named their church St. Mary of Mt. Sion in memory of the traditions that Mary had lived on Mt. Sion after the resurrection of her son and that it was the place of her death.

The Crusaders made the ancient synagogue part of their Church of St. Mary of Sion. By literally incorporating the synagogue into their new church. Above the remaining walls of the synagogue, the Crusaders built a second floor which became known as the �Cenacle� or �Coenaculum� which was symbolic of the Upper Room where Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Last Supper. The name �Cenacle� or �Coenaculum� for this site has remained to the present day. Today, the first floor of the building, incorporating the partial remains of the ancient synagogue, is still known as the traditional location of David's Tomb (the pseudo-tomb not the actual tomb) memorialized by a small synagogue. The ancient synagogue became known as the Tomb of David due to a fortuitous event.

When the Crusaders undertook repair of the ancient synagogue, probably about CE 1167, one of the old walls crumbled revealing a cave. A travel account, written in Hebrew by a Spanish Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, recorded the details as passed on to him. According to Tudela, the cave contained a golden crown and a scepter. This incident gave credence to the popularization of the myth that the Tomb of David was on the western hill. Some scholars believe this cave was the remains of a pre-70 CE synagogue.

The interment of the Davidic line of kings from David through Ahaz was within the city of David on Jerusalem�s eastern hill. Herod the Great partially looted the tomb of David but, on becoming fearful of his act, built a propitiatory monument made of white stone at the mouth of David�s sepulcher. The last person reported to know the actual location of the tomb of David was Rabbi Akiva. His testimony places the tomb on the eastern part of the eastern hill. From there the impurity of the graves flowed out of the city of David into the Kidron River. In the Late Roman period, the Judeo-Christian synagogue was not known as the Tomb of David nor was the western hill understood to be the location of the tomb of David. During the Byzantine Period, Bethlehem was understood to be the site of the tomb of David. In the tenth century, a Christian tradition developed that erroneously placed David's tomb on the western hill.

The Crusaders departed Jerusalem in CE 1187 following their defeat at the Horns of Hattin near Tiberias. They left the Church of St. Mary of Mt. Sion in the charge of Syrian Christians. When Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187, the Church of St. Mary of Mt. Sion was one of the few churches that escaped destruction or conversion into a mosque. In CE 1219, the Syrian Christians abandoned the facility when pursuant to the order of the Ayubic sultan of Damascus, Malek el Muadden, the entire complex on Mt. Sion suffered further destruction. Later, in CE 1244, Khwarismians destroyed the facility completely. Christian pilgrims of the 13th and 14th centuries lamented in their journals, that the �mother of all churches� and the Cenacle were in disrepair. The Syrian Christians transferred the traditions of Mt. Sion to the church of St. Mark near the Armenian quarter of the Old City.

The Tomb of David (CE 1219�present)

In Jerusalem today, just outside the Zion Gate of the old city near the crest of Mount Sion, the partial remains of the Holy Church of God, the mother of all the Churches of God, are to be found in the small synagogue known as the Tomb of David. Even though this synagogue is now in the possession of religious Jews, who venerate it as the traditional site of King David�s tomb, it remains a perpetual monument to the Judeo-Christians of the ancient Church�the first Christians.