1 of 5

IN A.D. 325, JUST NINE MONTHS after Constantine became sole ruler of the whole Roman empire, Christian leaders came together for their first ever "global summit" – the Council of Nicaea. Their purpose was to debate and state more clearly their understanding of Jesus' identity. Of all the regions represented at that meeting, one province was set to be transformed by the onset of the Constantinian era more than any other—Palestine, the land of Jesus' birth.

Everything changed overnight. Christians in previous centuries ha"d expressed some interest in Jesus' homeland, and a few had even traveled there to see the sites described in the Gospels. Yet the land itself, still under pagan rulers, scarcely reflected the significance that Christians ascribed to it. After all, this was the land that had witnessed the Incarnation! Yet Christians were a small minority there, and the province remained something of a "backwater" within the wider empire.

Now, with a new emperor, there was an opportunity for a "new day. Within just two generations, Palestine was transformed. Christian visitors started arriving in vast numbers, and many stayed and established Christian communities in or around Jerusalem. They built numerous churches and developed a "pilgrimage trail" for those who wished to visit all the Gospel sites. They developed creative forms of worship that were adapted both to the place and to the season, something that would color the nature of Christian worship around the world to this day. Palestine was no longer (from an imperial point of view) a buffer–zone on the eastern border, but a vital—even central—part of the new empire. So began the "Byzantine" era in the Holy Land (so called because Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium, renamed Constantinople). It was a 300–year period of economic flourishing, population explosion, and relatively undisturbed harmony.

It is a fascinating page in Christian history filled with colorful characters. There were residents of Palestine like the scholarly Eusebius of Caesarea, whose Church History is our indispensable guide to all things prior to A.D. 300. Eusebius was the elderly "Archbishop" of Palestine in that crucial year of the Council of Nicaea. There was Cyril, the energetic bishop of Jerusalem from 348–387, who almost single–handedly developed the rich new liturgy. And there was Jerome, the slightly angular and awkward "Doctor" of the Latin Church who established a monastery in Bethlehem, where he spent his time translating the Hebrew Bible and other important commentaries into Latin (from 384 until his death in 420).

Then there were those who made brief visits but who left their mark on the land or bequeathed to us a written account of their visit. Queen Helena (Constantine's British mother) made a "royal visit" in 326. The "Bordeaux Pilgrim" visited in 333 and kept a travel diary. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, returned to Asia Minor frankly unimpressed with aspects of the pilgrimage trade and the lack of "holiness" in the supposed "holy sites" after his visit in the 380s. And the indomitable Egeria, a nun from Spain, spent three years in the East (384–387) and kept a very detailed account of her travels (including trekking on a mule around the Sinai desert!). From her account we get the "inside story" of what it might have been like to travel around Palestine 60 years after Constantine became emperor.

next page... |  1 of 5

share this page

RSS Feed   RSS Help