Palestine and Israel by Meindert Dijkstra

Author:Meindert Dijkstra [Dijkstra, Meindert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781666748802
Publisher: Pickwick Publications
Published: 2023-08-28T19:40:37+00:00

Fig. 26: Jerusalem on the sixth-century mosaic map from St. George’s Church at Madaba (Jordan)

It is possible that his mother, Helena, visited Jerusalem in 326 and saw to it that construction was started, but it remains unclear whether the emperor himself ever visited it. Even so, he could well have had people look into where Jesus might have been buried. During the recent restoration of the aediculum, the actual burial chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it was determined that the marble tombstone from 1555 was placed above an older, broken marble slab with a cross, which had been placed there ca. 345. This at least confirms that the site in question had been designated as the tomb of Jesus since the time of Constantine and was revered as such.122

The new church over the rediscovered tomb would have been officially consecrated on September 13, 335. In the later liturgical tradition, this is also the date of the Holy Exaltation of the Cross and the related feast day, celebrated on September 14.123

The date’s proximity to the autumnal equinox does not seem to be without significance; it may be a remnant of an ancient Canaanite-Palestinian fertility cult in the region. We know for sure that the pilgrim from Bordeaux had already seen the church under construction (333), but it is unclear whether the rotunda above the sepulcher or aediculum, let alone the basilica and both atriums, were ready at that time. The construction of these churches would not be the greatest contribution by the emperor and his mother to the Palestinian church and to Christianity in general, however. The interest shown by the emperor did not merely increase the prestige of bishop of Jerusalem elsewhere in the region and within the Christian world. “It is no exaggeration to say that the greatest contribution that the church of Palestine and particularly that of Jerusalem made to the world church was in the area of liturgy.”124

The celebration of Holy Week throughout contemporary ecumenism has its roots in the Easter cycle of the Palestinian church of Jerusalem. All the important contemporary sources we have for this point to the shapers and eyewitnesses of that liturgy there: Macarius’ letter to the Armenians, Cyril’s Catecheses, and the accounts of pilgrims such as the nun Egeria and many others after her.

In the fourth and especially fifth centuries, many churches and monasteries were built with hospitia to accommodate the increasing number of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Eusebius wrote not only his famous church history, but also an onomasticum, an alphabetical catalogue of biblical places, to which he sometimes added brief commentaries on what was left to see. Jerome translated that into Latin, adding information about newly built churches in the holy places, especially in Jerusalem and its surroundings. The first pilgrims thus had access to a kind of vademecum or handbook, which in turn was soon followed by other itineraria or travel guides, such as the oldest Itinerarium Burdigalense (333) by the anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux and the unfortunately incomplete pilgrim’s account by the nun Egeria later in the fourth century.

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