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Following the Second
Jewish Revolt (CE 132-135), led by
Simon bar-Kochba, the Roman emperor
Hadrian (emperor 117-138) designated the site of Jerusalem a Roman
polis
called Aelia Capitolina and banished Jews from the city. According to
Michael Avi-Yonah the decree read:
It is forbidden for all circumcised persons to enter or
stay within the territory of Aelia Capitolina; any person contravening this
prohibition shall be put to death. (Avi-Yonah
1976:50�51.)
Roman
enforcement of this prohibition continued through the fourth century. The city was without walls, protected by a light garrison of the
Tenth Legion, during the Late Roman
Period (132–324) (Geva 1997: 45,
72). The detachment at Jerusalem, which apparently encamped all over the
city�s western hill, was responsible to keep Jews from returning to the
city.
 The
urban plan of Aelia Capitolina was that of a typical Roman town
wherein main thoroughfares crisscrossed the urban grid lengthwise and
widthwise. The Madaba
Map depiction of sixth-century Jerusalem, pictured above, has the
Cardo Maximus, the
town�s main street, beginning at the northern gate, today's Damascus Gate,
and traversing the city in a straight line from north to south to
Nea
Church.
The original thoroughfare, flanked by rows of columns and shops, was
about 73 feet wide (roughly the equivalent of a present-day six lane
highway). The Hadrianic Cardo Maximus of Aelia terminated somewhere in the
area of the present David Street.
In the mid-sixth century, the Byzantine emperor Justinian built
the Nea Church on the southern side of Mt. Sion. Part of that effort
included extending, in a distinctive Byzantine style, the Cardo Maximus
south to reach Nea Church (Geva 1997:43,
46).
Almost nothing is known about Christianity, whether Judeo-Christian
or orthodox Gentile, in Aelia Capitolina
from CE 70 until the third century. Nearly all of what is known is through the
orthodox eyes of Eusebius of Caesarea.
Third-century Aelia was home to pagans, Gentile
Christians, and Judeo-Christians, with
Jews still forbidden to enter Jerusalem.
The Jews, according to Karen Armstrong, began to renew their
contact with the city early in the third century under a Roman relaxation of
rules enforcement. She held that by the middle of the third century Jews had
Roman permission to go to the Mount of Olives to mourn the Temple from afar.
Later they secured leave to mourn on the 9th of Ab, the anniversary date of the
Temple�s destruction, upon the Temple Mount itself (Armstrong
1996:169-170 cf. Avi-Yonah
1976:80-81, Wilkin
1993:106).
Eusebius attributed the
founding of the library of Aelia, an institution of the city rather than purely
an ecclesiastical library, to orthodox Jerusalem bishop Alexander (bishop,
212-251) although Aelia�s pagan population was in the majority. Eusebius used
the library and Julius Africanus may have done so as well (Eusebius
Ecclesiastical History 6.20.1; Williamson
1965:198; Veillefond
1970:288-91; Murphy-O�Connor
1994:300-301).
Eusebius recorded that he used the library, with its extensive
archives, to write his The Ecclesiastical History He said: "Now
there flourished at that time many learned churchmen, and the letters which they
penned to one another are still extant and easily accessible. They have been
preserved to our day in the library at Aelia, equipped by Alexander, then ruling
the church there; from which also we have been able ourselves to gather together
the material for our present work" (Eusebius
Ecclesiastical History 6.20.1; Oulton
1986:65; Boyle
1955:241). "The ability of the diocese of Aelia to fund a
library," contended Murphy-O�Connor, "and its interest in so doing,
betray the strength of the church in the colony" at that time (Murphy-O�Connor
1994:301 cf., Vincent and
Abel 1922:896�902).
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