The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-06-16
JERUSALEM IN HISTORY.

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years.
The position of Jerusalem, which
made it easily defensible, enabled it
to hold out against the Hebrew in
vaders for 400 years after they had
struck their first blow in the conquest
OF Canaan by the taking of Jericho.
Although the tribe of Judah had taken
a part of the city in B. c. 1913, it
was not until 1044 B. c. that King
David took possession of the citadel
and made it his residence.
The treasures of gold and silver ac-
cumulated by Solomon and his sue
cessors seem to have been a great
temptation to the predatory nations by
which Palestine was surrounded, and
the division of the kingdom Of Israel
during the reign of Rehoboam rem
dered the Kingdom Of Judah an easy
victim. In $40 B. c., only five years
after the death of Solomon, Shishak,
king of Egypt, raided the city and
carried away the treasures of the tenn
ple In SS4 the Philistines and Arabs
plundered the city and took away the
wives and children of Jehoran the
king, leaving him only one SON.
But more powerful enemy men
aced Jerusalem from the east. In 700
b. c. Sennacherib, king Of Assyria,
after chastising the Phoenician city of
Sidon, turned his attention to HeZe
kiah, king of Judah, and ravaged the
country, but was bought off by ran
som of 500 talents of silver and 80
talents of gold. AS soon as SIENNA
cherib had left the country, Hezeldah
revolted, and Sennacherib returned
with a large army and commenced a
regular siege. While the Assyrian
army was encamped against Jerusa-
lem 49,, 600 of its soldiers died in one
night by a pestilence or some other
manifestation of divine power, and
Sennecherib fed to Nineveh, where he
was afterwards slain by his own sons.
In the next reign, that of Manasseh
(B. c. 600, the Assyrians returned,
and carried the king a prisoner to
Babylon, but he was replaced on his
throne after a short Imprisonment.
After a succession of raids from
Egypt on the one side and from AS
syria and Babylon on the other, Jeru-
salem suffered the first of it's great
sieges at the hands of Nebuchadnez-
Ear, king of Babylon. This siege last
ed three years, and the city was at
last reduced by famine. The king
and the remnant Of his army attempt
ed to escape, but were captured and
taken, with all the principal people,
to Babylon, after the temple and
other important buildings had been
burned. This took place in 5S6 B. c..
Later, in $50 B. c., there was a final
deportation, which left the country lit
orally uninhabited
The book of Ezra and Nehemiah
record the first Zionist movement, in
which the exiles returned to Jerusa-
lem After the empire of the East
had passed from the Persians to the
Greeks, Ptolemy Softer, one of Alex
ander's successors, captured the city
in 800 B. c. on Sabbath day, when
the Jews would not fight, and carried
a great number of the inhabitants into
Egypt.
In 10 B. c. Antiochus Epiphanes
plundered the city and RACED its walls
to punish the people for an uprising
against high priest of his appoint
ment and attempted to abolish the
observance of the Jewish law This
led to the revolt of the Maccabees,
who succeeded in driving the Gentiles
out of the city in 1913 B. c., and in
143 B. G.. set up in Judea an independ-
ent state, ruled by the law of Moses.
This lasted until 63 B. C. when the
Roman general Pompey captured the
city on a Jewish fast-day, when the
inhabitants were mourning the con-
quest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnez-
gar; and thus commenced the Roman
rule.
The greatest calamity that fell upon
Jerusalem since the capture by Ne
buchadnezzar was it's destruction by
the Romans under Titus, who sup
pressed an instruction by razing the
city to the ground, leaving hardly a
trace to show where it had been.
Jerusalem was later made a Roman
colony, under the name of Aeia Capt.
tolina, by which it was known until
the time of Constantine.
The Arabians under Mohammed
had already conquered Egypt and
Syria when the Caliph Omar appeared
before Jerusalem, and after a long
siege it surrendered in the year 637,
and he built the Mosque of Omar on
the site of the temple of Solomon.
In 1913 the Turks, who had been
converted to Mohammedanism invad-
ed the territory of the Caliphs, and
took possession of Jerusalem, where
they outdid the Arabs in cruelty, if
not in fanaticism; and the barbarities
committed by them on native Chris.
tians and European pilgrims supplied
the provocation to the first Crusade.
BY the time Godfrey de Bouillon led
the Christians to Jerusalem on June
AZ, 1899, the city had again changed
hands, the Egyptian Caliphs having
driven the Turks beyond the Ell
pirates. After siege oil forty days
the city was taken BIZ storm, and the