The Temple of Venus in Aelia Capitolina was a temple in Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), dedicated to the Goddess Venus. [1]
The temple was founded on the order of emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century AD. It was dedicated to Venus, who was the protective patron deity of the family of Hadrian as well as of the 10th Legion who occupied the area. [2]
In 324, the Christian Helena, mother of Constantine I was shown the site and the temple during her pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the persecution of Pagans. The temple was demolished and a grave and a hill was discovered, which was referred to as Golgata, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was inaugurated on the site of the former Venus temple in 335. [3]
Remains of a Roman buildning has been discovered underneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. [4]
Aelia Capitolina was a Roman colony founded during the Roman emperor Hadrian's visit to Judaea in 129/130 CE. It was founded on the ruins of Jerusalem, which had been almost totally razed after the siege of 70 CE. This act marked a significant transformation of the city from a Jewish metropolis to a small pagan settlement dedicated to the cult of Capitoline Jupiter.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church is also the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Some consider it the holiest site in Christianity and it has been an important pilgrimage site for Christians since the fourth century.
This is a timeline of major events in the history of Jerusalem; a city that had been fought over sixteen times in its history. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
Calvary or Golgotha was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, Jesus was crucified.
A cardo was a north–south street in ancient Roman cities and military camps as an integral component of city planning. The cardo maximus, or most often the cardo, was the main or central north–south-oriented street.
Syria Palaestina was the renamed Roman province formerly known as Judaea, following the Roman suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in what then became known as the Palestine region between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. The provincial capital was Caesarea Maritima. It forms part of timeline of the period in the region referred to as Roman Palestine.
The Bar Kokhba revolt was a large-scale armed rebellion initiated by the Jews of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba, against the Roman Empire in 132 CE. Lasting until 135 or early 136, it was the third and final escalation of the Jewish–Roman wars. Like the First Jewish–Roman War and the Second Jewish–Roman War, the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in a total Jewish defeat; Bar Kokhba himself was killed by Roman troops at Betar in 135 and the Jewish rebels who remained after his death were all killed or enslaved within the next year.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, also known as the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, is an autocephalous church within the wider communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Established in the mid-fifth century as one of the oldest patriarchates in Christendom, it is headquartered in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and led by the patriarch of Jerusalem, currently Theophilos III. The patriarchate's ecclesiastical jurisdiction includes roughly 200,000 to 500,000 Orthodox Christians across the Holy Land in Palestine, Jordan and Israel.
The Via Dolorosa is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem. It represents the path that Jesus took, forced by the Roman soldiers, on the way to his crucifixion. The winding route from the former Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—a distance of about 600 metres (2,000 ft)—is a celebrated place of Christian pilgrimage. The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions. It is today marked by 14 Stations of the Cross, nine of which are outside, in the streets, with the remaining five stations being currently inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Antonia Fortress was a citadel built by Herod the Great and named for Herod's patron Mark Antony, as a fortress whose chief function was to protect the Second Temple. It was built in Jerusalem at the eastern end of the Second Wall, at the north-western corner of the Temple Mount, and was connected to the Temple by porticoes.
Gabbatha is the name of a place in Jerusalem that is also referred to by the Greek name of Lithostrōtos. It is recorded in the gospels to be the place of the trial of Jesus before his crucifixion c. 30/33 AD. The site of the Church of Ecce Homo is traditionally thought to be its location, but archaeological investigation has proven this unlikely. Herod's Palace is a more likely location.
The Garden Tomb is an ancient rock-cut tomb in Jerusalem that functions as a site of Christian pilgrimage attracting hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, especially Evangelicals and other Protestants), as some Protestant Christians consider it to be the empty tomb from whence Jesus of Nazareth resurrected. This is in contrast to an older tradition that locates the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus at a site known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Jerusalem's role in first-century Christianity, during the ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Age, as recorded in the New Testament, gives it great importance, both culturally and religiously, in Christianity. Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.
The Muristan is a complex of streets and shops in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the location of the first Bimaristan of the Knights Hospitaller. The name Muristan is derived from the Persian word Bimārestān, meaning "hospital".
The Church of the Flagellation is a Roman Catholic church and Christian pilgrimage site located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, near St. Stephen's Gate. It is part a Franciscan monastery which also includes the Church of the Condemnation and Imposition of the Cross. The monastery stands at the traditional Second Station of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa.
The Convent of the Sisters of Zion is a Roman Catholic convent of the Congregation of Notre-Dame de Sion, located near the eastern end of the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem. The convent was built in 1857 by Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne. The site includes the Church of Ecce Homo, also known as the Basilica of Ecce Homo, named for Pontius Pilate's Ecce homo speech which is traditionally thought to have taken place on the pavement below the church.
The Chapel of Saint Helena is a 12th-century Armenian church in the lower level of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, constructed during the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Armenians call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator, after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.
The Damascus Gate is one of the main Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side and connects to a highway leading out to Nablus, which in the Hebrew Bible was called Shechem or Sichem, and from there, in times past, to the capital of Syria, Damascus; as such, its modern English name is the Damascus Gate, and its modern Hebrew name is Sha'ar Shkhem, meaning Shechem Gate, or in modern terms Nablus Gate. Of its historic Arabic names, Bāb al-Naṣr means "gate of victory", and the current one, Bāb al-ʿĀmūd, means "gate of the column". The latter, in use continuously since at least as early as the 10th century, preserves the memory of a Roman column towering over the square behind the gate and dating to the 2nd century AD.
During the Byzantine period, in the years between Constantine the Great's rise to power and the conquest of Jerusalem by the Rashidun Caliphate in 637, Jerusalem was under the control of the Byzantine Empire. The essential change in the character and status of the city, compared to the Roman period, was its transformation from a pagan city to a Christian city. The Byzantine rule developed the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina in Jerusalem, turning it into a central Christian city from a religious and administrative point of view and a world center for pilgrimage. At the end of the period, between the years 614–628, Jerusalem was conquered by the Sasanian Empire, but was later recaptured by Byzantine Christians in 629 CE. Jerusalem was captured by the Rashidun Caliphate in 637 CE as part of the Siege of Jerusalem (636–637).
The Cardo was a central north-south oriented thoroughfare in Jerusalem during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. Together with the east-west oriented Decumanus, it reflects typical Roman city planning. The term "Cardo" derives from the Latin word for "hinge," referring to role as the main north–south axis in Roman cities.