The city destroyed by Titus was rebuilt by Hadrian, but only as a heathen and Roman city, under the name .zElia Capitolina, with a temple of Jupiter; not as the capital of the Jewish race, who were forbidden, under pain of death, to visit it. Con stantine, under the inspiration of his mother, Helena, took measures to consecrate and perpetuate its Christian memories by ascertaining the sites of the various events in the Passion of our Lord, and erecting on them churches and other suitable memorials of those scenes of the redemption of the world, which thenceforward became an object pious veneration to pilgrims from every part of the church. On the contrary, Julian the apostate, with the design, according to the contemporary Christian account, of falsi fying the prediction of our Lord, that "not one stone should be left upon another," encouraged and assisted the Jews to return and rebuild their ancient capital, an enter prise which, as the same writers—supported, in most respects, by the pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 1)—was frustrated by an earthquake or eruption, which the Christians ascribe to divine interposition.
Jerusalem again fell under foreign domination in 614, when it was stormed by the Persian king, Chosroes II. It was restored to the emperor Ileraclius in 628; but in 637 it fell into the hands of tlrEl caliph Omar, and in 1077 passed under the Turkman domi nation. During this long period the practice of pilgrimages to Jerusalem was never entirely interrupted. In consideration of a tribute paid by each Christian visitor, a con temptuous permission was accorded for the purpose; but the cruelties practiced on the pilgrims by the Turks being reported iu the west, and especially by the fiery enthusiast, Peter the Hermit, aroused the piety and chivalry of Europe, and led to that extraor dinary succession of holy wars which, for a time, restored the tomb of our Lord and the city to Christian hands. On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem was taken by assault. and was declared the capital of a Christian kingdom. Through a rapid succession of undistinguished names, with the exception of the first, the celebrated Godfrey of Bouil lon. the new sovereignty was precariously maintained until 1187, when it fell once more before the arms of the great Saladin, since which time—if we except the brief and empty pageant in which Frederick II., emperor of Germany, having assumed the title by a collusive treaty with the sultan, entered into Jerusalem in March, 1229—the city can hardly be said to have known other than rulers. It was retaken by the sultan of Damascus in 1239; and although it was given up, in 1241, to the Knights Hospital ers, they were driven out in the year 1244 by the Chorasmian Turks, by whom the ascendency of the crescent was finally established. It was captured from the Saracens by the Mamelukes in 1382, but recovered in 1517 by the sultan Selim. whose son, the celebrated Soliman, built the wall which at present incloses the city. Jerusalem is now the seat of a pasha, with the ordinary powers of a Turkish viceroy.
It remains to describe the present condition of the city. It is situated in 31° 46' 43" n. lat., 35° 13' e. long., on an elevation of 2,000 ft. above the level of the Mediterranean, from the nearest point of which it is distant 29 m. east. In its present shape it i< an irregular square, and is still surrounded by the embattled wall, about 2-1 m. in eh en 111 ference, erected by the sultan Soliman. The modern inclosure, however, is far from coinciding with that of the Jewish period. In addition to the changes produced by the rebuilding of the city under Hadrian, by which the greater part of the region anciently called the new city was excluded, the stream of population in the Christian period having flowed towards the holy places, the modern city has extended considerably towards the west. The four hills on which the ancient city stood are inclosed within the modern precincts; but the portion of the old city which lay n. of Bezetha is now excluded, and the valleys between the hills having been filled up by accumulation of ruins, hut little inequality of surface is now observable. The streets arc narrow, unpaved, and irregular, and the houses gloomy and unsymmetrical; although, owing to its striking position, especially when viewed from the e., and to the number of minarets and domes which rise above the level of the fiat-roofed houses, the general appearance of the city, seen from without. is picturesque and pleasing. There are seven gates, of which the principal are the Jaffa gate, the Damascus gate, the Stephen's gate, and the Zion gate. If lines be drawn between these four gates, the city will be divided into four
parts, which almost coincide with the four quarters into which the population—Chris tian, Armenian, Jewish, and Moslem—is divided; the Christians occupying the n.w. the Armenians the s.w., the Jewish the s.e., and the Mohammedans the n.e. portions oi the space within the wall. Of the population—which is about 18,000-5,000 are Moham medans; 8,000 or 9,000 are Jews, and the rest are Christians of the various rites. To all alike the city is the seat of many sacred associations. The Jews have seven small and mean synagogues. The Mohammedans, since the days of the first occupation, have held possession of the site of the temple of Solomon, on which the so-called mosque of Omar now stands; and the pasha's seraiyah, or official residence, occupies the site of the tower Antonia. The church of the Holy Sepulcher (see HOLY P.:,..kcEs), with its inclosure, which is occupied by all the Christian communities in common, has been already described. The Latins possess, for their own the church of St. Savior; it is attached to the Franciscan convent, in which Europeans of all denominations receive ready hospitality. In like manner, the Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, and Abys sinians have convents or hospitals appropriated to their several communions. That of the Armenians, on Mt. Zion, is said to be one of the richest in the east; and the same com munion possess another convent on the reputed site of the house of Caiaphas. The street leading from the eastern or Stephen's gate to the Holy Sepulcher is called the Via Dolorosa, and is believed to follow the route of our Lord's sorrowful procession from the hall of judgment to Mt. Calvary. In other parts of the city or its immediate environs are shown the reputed sites of the Mount of Olives, the tomb of the Virgin, the pool of Bethesda, the potter's field, and the sites of almost all the events of the Passion of our Lord or of scenes connected therewith. The authenticity of these sites has been the sub ject of considerable controversy in later times. (See HOLY PLACES). Beyond its religious associations the modern city possesses few advantages. It is entirely without com merce; and its only branches of industry are the manufactures of soap and of Jerusalem . mare, viz., chaplets, crucifixes, heads, crosses, etc., made of mother:of- pearl or wood, and sold to the pilgrims, who number from 6,000 to 8,000 annually. Considerable quantities of these articles are also exported to Spain, Italy, and France. The beads are either berries or are manufactured either front date- stones or from a species of hard wood called Mecca fruit. For the use of the Mohammedan 'pilgrims—for whom the mosque of Omar is only inferior in sacredness to Mecca and Medina—there is a con siderable manufacture of amulets of black stone, reputed to lie a protection against the plague.
In ecclesiastical history Jerusalem has not filled the space which might at first sight be expected. When the city was rebuilt after its destruction under Titus, the new city, /Elia, was so inconsiderable as a Christian community that it became a suffragan see of the metropolitan of Cmsarea. The council uf Nice recognized a precedency of honor; but it was not till the council of Chalcedon that the church of Jerusalem was raised to the rank of a patriarchate, with jurisdiction over all the bishops of Palestine. Jerusalem, however, ranked last among the eastern patriarchates. In common with the other eastern churches, Jerusalem followed in the train of Constantinople in its seces sion from the west. The patriarch of Jerusalem was a party to the decree of union in the council of Florence; but his flock soon fell back into schism; and although the titu lar rank of patriarch of Jerusalem has been maintained in Rome. the church remained under the care of the Franciscan community, and the Latin patriarch had never resided in Jerusalem, until the accession of the present pope, Pins IX., by whom the duty of residence was re-established. In the year 1841 the governments of England and Prussia united for the establishment of a Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem, the appointment to which rests alternately with England and with Prussia.—See Robinson's Biblical Researches; Stanley's A'inai and Palestine; Williams's Holy City; Richardson's Travels along the Mediterranean; Ritter's Erdkande; Sepp's Forschungea eines Teutschen _Nelsen den; on the Patriarchate—Le Quien's Oriens Christianus; Mosheim's Church Ilistary ; and iu regard to recent exploration, Captain Warren's Underground Jerusalem.