5. Modern History. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans did not cause the site to be utterly forsaken, although for a long period little is heard of it.
(1) Adrian. For fifty years the city lay in ut ter ruin; then it was rebuilt in part by Adrian and again filled with Jews, who were permitted to re turn from many lands. The idolatrous monarch placed a marble statue of a hog over the gate fac ing Bethlehem,anderected also a temple to Jupiter. Later the Jews regained command of the city, and unable to endure the idea of their holy city being occupied by foreigners, and that strange gods should be set up within it, broke out into open rebellion under the notorious Barchochebas, who claimed to be the Messiah. His success was at first very great; but he was crushed before the tremendous power of the Romans. so soon as it could be brought to bear upon him; and a war scarcely inferior in horror to that under Vespasian and Titus was, like it, brought to a close by the capture of Jerusalem, of which the Jews had obtained possession. This was in A. D. 135, from which period the final dispersion of the Jews has been often dated.
(2) A Roman Colony. The Romans then finished the city according to their first intention. It was made a Roman colony, inhabited wholly by foreigners, the Jews being forbidden to ap proach it on pain of death; a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected on Mount Moriah, and the old name of Jerusalem was sought to be sup planted by that of iElia Capitolina, conferred upon it in honor of the emperor, fElius Adrianus, and Jupiter Capitolinus. This name was applied till the time of Constantine, and passed to the Mo hammedans, by whom it was long retained; and it was not till after they recovered the city from the Crusaders that it became generally known among them by the name of El-Khuds—the holy —which it still bears.
(3) Constantine. From the rebuilding by Adrian the history of Jerusalem is almost a blank till the time of Constantine, when its his tory, as a place of extreme solicitude and interest to the Christian church. properly begins. Pilgrimages to the Holy City now became com mon and popular. Such a pilgrimage %vas under taken in A. D. 326 by the emperor's mother Helena, then in the eightieth year of her age. who
built churches on the alleged site of the nativity at' Bethlehem. and of the resurrection on the Mount of Olives. This example may probably have excited her son to the discovery of the site of the holy sepulcher, and to the erection of a church thereon. He removed the temple of Venus, with which, in studied insult, the site had been encumbered. The holy sepulcher was then purified, and a magnificent church was, by his order, built over and around the sacred spot. This temple %vas completed and dedicated with great solemnity in A. D. 335. There is no doubt that the spot thus singled out is the same which has ever since been regarded as the place in which Christ was entombed ; but the correctness of the identification then made has been of late years much disputed. By Constantine the edict excluding the Jews from the city of their fathers' sepulchers was so far repealed that they %vere allo%ved to enter it once a year to wail over the desolation of 'the holy and beautiful house,' in which their fathers worshiped God.
(4) Julian the Apostate. When the nephew of Constantine, the Emperor Julian, abandoned Christianity for the old Paganism, he endeavored, as a matter of policy, to conciliate the Jews. He allowed them free access to the city, and permitted them to rebuild their temple. They accordingly began to lay the foundations in A. D. 362; but the speedy death of the emperor probably oc casioned that abandonment of the attempt, which contemporary 1,vriters ascribe to supernatural hindrances. The edicts seem then to have been renewed which excluded the Jews from the city, except on the day of annual wailing.
(5) Pilgrimages. In the following centuries the roads to Zion were thronged with pilgrims from all parts of Christendom. After much strug gle of conflicting dignities Jerusalem was, in A. D. 451, declared a patriarchate by the council of Chalcedon. In the next century it found a second Constamine in Justinian, who ascended the throne A. D. 527. He repaired and enriched the former structures, and built upon Mount Moriah a mag nificent church to the Virgin, as a memorial of the persecution of Jesus in the temple.