The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1152 page)

(
c.
342–420).
Church
father
. A native of Italy, he set out for Palestine in
c.
374 and spent four or five years as a hermit. Later (382–5) as secretary to Pope Damasus he successfully preached
asceticism
in Rome. He eventually settled in Bethlehem in 386, where he devoted the rest of his life to study. Jerome's greatest scholarly achievement was the translation of most of the Bible into Latin (see
VULGATE
). He also advocated the Church's acceptance of the Heb.
canon
of the Old Testament, excluding the
Apocrypha
. He is often represented with a lion at his feet. This goes back to the legend that Jerome helped a lion by removing a thorn from its foot. The lion subsequently assisted Jerome, e.g. by recovering a stolen ass. Feast day, 30 Sept.

 
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Judaism
The capital of the State of
Israel
. Jerusalem was captured by King
David
from the Jebusites (see 2 Samuel 5) and became his capital. It was the site of
Solomon's
Temple
and the royal palace, and remained the seat of the Davidic kings during the period of the monarchy. The city was captured and largely destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. The city was rebuilt in the Persian period. Now began the brilliant imagination of Jerusalem, containing virtually all beauty, the site of all important events from Creation to End. The Temple was reconstructed and remained the centre of social and religious life under the
high priest
and was greatly enlarged by
Herod the Great
. The Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 CE, however, led to a prolonged siege of the city and its eventual destruction. Of the Temple only the western wall (
wailing wall
) remained. When the State of Israel was created in 1948, Jerusalem was partitioned. In 1967 Israeli forces captured the Arab quarter and the united city was declared the capital of the State of Israel. See also
ZION
.
Christianity
The Christian history of the city is associated with Jesus’ short ministry there and with his death and resurrection. The Jewish church there flourished at least until the war against Rome of 66–70 CE. The see of Jerusalem did not return to importance until the 4th cent. with the building of churches by
Constantine
and the new fashion of pilgrimage to the Holy Places. The Christian centre of Jerusalem is the Church of the Resurrection, commonly known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Islam
Jerusalem is not mentioned by name in the
Qur’
n
, but 17. 5–7 is clearly referring to the two destructions of Jerusalem. On that basis, 17. 1 ties the Night Journey (
isra
’) and the Ascent (al-
Mi‘r
j
) to Jerusalem as the place of their occurrence. Originally the
qibla
(direction of prayer) was toward Jerusalem, only later being changed to
Mecca
. Jerusalem thus becomes in Islam third in holiness to Mecca and
Mad
na
. Known originally as Iliya (i.e. Aelia) Mad
na Bayt al-Maqdis, it became known from the 4th cent. AH as al-Quds, the Holy. Two major buildings were erected on the Temple Mount, al-Masjid al-Aqsa, ‘the furthest mosque’ referred to (in anticipation) in s
ra 17; and Qubbat as-Sakhrah, the
Dome of the Rock
(piously, but unhistorically, also called ‘the Mosque of ‘Umar’).

 
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A
council
of the Orthodox church, convened by
Dositheus
, patriarch of Jerusalem, in 1672 to reject Cyril
Lucar's
sympathy with some aspects of
Calvinism
. It emphasized church and sacraments, and with the Synod of Jassy (1642) it resembled the reaction to the Reformation of Tridentine Catholicism.

 
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