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In 614, the armies of Chosroe II, king of the Sassanids, who had ruled the Persian Empire since the third century, entered Jerusalem, occupied the city, and captured the relic of the holy cross. For centuries the Sassanids and Romans had fought with each other for control of the vast area between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. But this was the first time the Persians had penetrated Palestine and taken, in the words of a Christian eyewitness, "that great city, the city of the Christians, Jerusalem, the city of Jesus Christ."

Nothing better shows the transformation of the land of Israel since A.D. 70 than the fact that when Jerusalem was captured by the Persians it was the Christians, not the Jews, who sang a lament over the Holy City. As the Sassanid forces made their way through the cities and towns of Palestine, a new wave of messianic fervor broke out among the Jews, who welcomed the invaders and offered them support. But by the seventh century, Christians throughout the Roman Empire identified with Jerusalem and its fate. When John the Almsgiver, patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt, heard that the Persians had ravaged the Holy City, "He sat down and made lament just as though he had been an inhabitant of the city." Jerusalem's fall reverberated across the Christian world.

Strategos, a monk of the monastery of Sabas, wrote an eyewitness account of the Persian invasion. He described the seizure of the holy cross, the capture and deportation of the patriarch Zachariah, and the sack of the city. He also related stories of valiant Christians who stood firm in the face of adversity, such as a deacon who saw his two daughters cut down by the Persians because they would not "worship fire." The Persians pillaged and killed women, children, and priests. "And the Jerusalem above wept over the Jerusalem below," Strategos wrote.

Strategos drew parallels between the destruction of Christian Jerusalem and the ancient Israelites being taken away by the Babylonians. As Zachariah and the other captives were led out of the city, Zachariah extended his hands toward the city and said as he wept, "Peace be with you, O Jerusalem, peace be with you, O Holy Land, peace on the whole land; Christ who chose you will deliver you."

Sophronius, who became patriarch of Jerusalem after Zachariah, composed another lament over Jerusalem. It begins,

Holy City of God,
Home of the most valiant saints,
Great Jerusalem,
What kind of lament should I offer you?
Children of the blessed Christians,
Come to mourn high-crested Jerusalem

For Sophronius, as for other Christians of his time, the earthly Jerusalem had taken on the qualities of the heavenly city. "Zion," Sophronius wrote, was "the radiant sun of the universe." These laments over Jerusalem sum up the beliefs and attitudes that had been developing for centuries. That "holy Jerusalem" would be "laid waste" brought to the surface feelings that few Christians fully understood.

The Sassanid occupation of Jerusalem was a temporary interruption of Christian rule. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius launched an unexpected counteroffensive through Armenia and northern Syria directed at Persia itself. Chosroe II had just died, and the Sassanids sued for peace. By the spring of 629, Heraclius reached Palestine, returning the most sacred relic of Christianity, the holy cross. In March of that year he entered Jerusalem in triumph.

Yet the victory, through real, was short-lived. In less than a decade, Muslim armies would be at the gates of the city.

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