The Old City

The Revelation to John, which concludes the New Testament, ends with a vision in chapter 21 of the new Jerusalem descending from heaven, surrounded by a great wall with twelve gates, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.   

The Old City of Jerusalem today is surrounded by a great wall, but there are only eight gates into the city. During the past week I’ve been staying near the Jaffa Gate, which is on the west side of the Old City, in the Annex of the Gloria Hotel. As the name of the hotel suggests, it is located in the Christian Quarter of the city, in the northwest section, where most of the Christian residents of Jerusalem live, except for the Armenians.

The Armenian Quarter, which contains a large monastery and other properties owned by the Armenian Church, begins just below the Jaffa Gate and occupies the southwest corner of the Old City of Jerusalem. Although Armenians are a very small percentage of the Christians in the world, their presence in the Old City is surprisingly prominent. Armenian Christians were among the earliest pilgrims to come to Jerusalem, because Armenia became a Christian nation at the beginning of the fourth century, before Constantine was converted and before the Council of Nicea decided what books should be in the New Testament. The Armenians continue to be prominent in the Old City, because after Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187 and expelled all the Western Christians who supported the invaders, he allowed the Armenians to remain. 

The Jewish Quarter of the Old City is located in the southeast corner, east of the Armenian Quarter and next to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, which Jews understand to be the biblical Mount Moriah. (This area, which includes the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, is known to Muslims as the Haram Al-Sharif). The Jewish Quarter is smaller that the Armenian section, although Jewish Israelis own many properties now in both the Christian and Muslim sectors of the city. Excavations in this quarter after the Israelis seized control of it during the 1967 war reveal the main shopping street from the Byzantine era (fourth-sixth centuries), and also the remains of a house destroyed in 70 CE by Roman armies putting down the Jewish revolt that began four years earlier.

The Muslim Quarter in the northeast part of the Old City surrounds most of the Haram Al-Sharif (which Jews and Christians today call Temple Mount) on the west and north sides. Muslim and Christian Quarters meet on the north side of Jerusalem at the Damascus Gate, which is named for the old road that led from the gate to Damascus. There are many Christian churches within the Muslim Quarter, and this is where the Via Dolorosa (the Stations of the Cross) leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is just inside the Christian Quarter, close to the western edge of the Muslim Quarter.

These four quarters of the walled city appear on modern maps, but within the city there are no signs that designate these areas, and life within the city flows between the quarters. There are six churches in the Muslim Quarter, and non-Armenian churches in the Armenian Quarter. Christian and Muslim lay people dress much the same, and most Christians as well as Muslims living in the Old City speak Arabic. Visiting Christians from America, upon entering the city through the Lion’s Gate on the east side and walking west along the Via Dolorosa, would not be aware that they were in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, unless they looked at their map.

The Jewish Quarter, however, is more distinct. It is newer, because much of it was built after Muslim housing in this area was destroyed during the 1967 war. Moreover, the ancient main Byzantine road from south to north, which bisects the city, clearly divides the Jewish Quarter from the Armenian Quarter. In addition, the area around the Western Wall of the Temple Mount is filled with Jews wearing distinctive clothing, and the Jews in this quarter are speaking Hebrew rather than Arabic.

Those entering the city through the Lion’s Gate pass the pools that John 5:1-13 mentions in relating a healing miracle, which church tradition attributes to Jesus. The road leading from the Lion’s Gate goes down into the Kidron Valley, and then up the other side to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. On the eastern side of the Mount of Olives there is a spectacular view looking west over the Old City. Most visitors are surprised by the size of the Temple Mount and the prominence of the Muslim buildings on it (the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, which were originally constructed around 700 CE).

The present city is much larger than the city that David conquered in the tenth century BCE and made the capital of Israel, and the land where that ancient city was located is now outside the city walls to the southeast. Solomon, the son of David who succeeded him as King of Israel, extended the city north and built the first temple on the site where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque are now located. Assyrian invaders in the eighth century BCE enlarged the city to the west, but the Babylonian invasion two centuries later left most of the city in ruins. Two versions of this story are related in the Bible in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, and also in the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles.

Fifty years later, in 539 BCE, the Persians defeated the Babylonians and allowed the Judean leaders exiled in Babylon to return to Jerusalem. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Bible concern this restoration of Jerusalem. But the city wasn’t enlarged until, near the end of the second century BCE, the Maccabees led a revolt against Greek rule (which began when Alexander the Great conquered the area in the latter part of the fourth century BCE).

When Rome put down the Jewish revolt that was launched in 66 CE, most of the walls of the city were razed. After the Jews revolted again in 132 CE, the Romans completed the destruction of the city in 135, leaving only the southwest corner as a garrison. Two centuries later, when Roman legions left the city, a wall roughly where the present walls are was constructed to protect the city’s inhabitants.

Muslims took control of the city in 637 and ruled it until the city fell to Crusaders in 1099. In 1187 Muslim armies led by Saladin defeated the Crusaders and regained control of Jerusalem, and in the middle of the sixteenth century Suliman the Magnificent tore down the old walls of Jerusalem and built the walls that exist today.

In Suliman’s Jerusalem there were six gates into the city. The gate to the West, now known as Jaffa Gate, was called Bab el-Khalil, which means "the Gate of the Friend," because the road from the gate leading South goes to the city of Hebron, a name derived from "Abraham." Contemporary Muslims continue to use this name for the gate. But today this road takes a traveler to the Israeli checkpoint outside Bethlehem, where only a few vehicles are allowed through. Taxis and buses traveling from Jerusalem unload their passengers on the Israeli side of the checkpoint. Once people are permitted to cross on foot, Palestinian taxis and buses are available on the other side to travel into Bethlehem or on to Hebron.

The Damascus Gate on the north side of the Old City dates back to the rule of Herod Agrippa (41-44 CE) under the Romans, and was rebuilt by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 135 CE as the main entrance to the city, which he purged of Jews and renamed Aelia Capitolina. Today the Damascus Gate opens into a bustling Palestinian market, where there are Palestinian buses traveling to most places in East Jerusalem. The old road to Damascus now leads to Ramallah, but traveling to Ramallah is often difficult and time consuming, because the Israeli checkpoint between the cities is congested and frequently closed without warning.

The Zion Gate, which is on the South side of the Armenian Quarter, leads to Mount Zion, and is known in Arabic as Bab Nabi Daud, "the Gate of the Prophet David," because legend locates David’s tomb on Mount Zion. The Zion Gate now leads to an area outside the Old City that has several major Christian churches, but is increasingly a Jewish residential community.

The Dung Gate exits south from the plaza in front of the Western Wall, in what is now the Jewish Quarter. Its name indicates the ancient use of the area outside the gate.

Herod’s Gate, which exits the city on the northwest side from the Muslim Quarter, was originally named Bab ez-Zahr by the ruling Muslims, which means "the Flowered Gate." But around the end of the sixteenth century a house just inside the gate was rumored to have been the palace of Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee during the time of Jesus (see Luke 23:7-12). So the Gate was renamed. Like the Damascus Gate, today it opens into the heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Suliman called the east Gate of the city Bab el-Ghor, meaning "the Jordan Gate," because the road led to Jericho and the Jordan River. An earlier gate at the same place had been called St. Stephen’s Gate, and Christians have continued to use this name. The current Jewish name, the Lion’s Gate, is derived from the carved lions on each side of the entrance, which represent the emblems of the Mamluk sultan Baybars (1260-1277).

Today the steep road descending from the Lion’s Gate continues south through the Kidron Valley and then up through the hills to Abu Dis, which used to be a thriving small town on the eastern road to Bethlehem. But now this road runs directly into a section of the Separation Barrier that the Israeli government is building. Moreover, here the Separation Barrier is a high wall made of concrete slabs, which completely blocks and closes the road that once led down the main street of Abu Dis.

In addition to these six gates built by Suliman, a contemporary map of the Old City identifies two other gates. The Golden Gate in the east wall of the Temple Mount was probably built by the Umayyad Muslim caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705) as part of his reconstruction of the Temple Mount area. When the Crusaders controlled the city the Golden Gate was used only twice a year, on Palm Sunday and on the Catholic feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. After Saladin defeated the Crusaders and regained control of the city, this gate was closed.

The eighth gate on a contemporary map is New Gate, which is located north of Jaffa Gate on the northwest side of the Christian Quarter. It was opened in 1887 by the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II to allow easier access from the northwest suburbs, which were growing in population.

The Latin Patriarchate has a guesthouse, called the Knight’s Palace, just inside the New Gate, and this is where I was involved last week in orientation meetings for my participation in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program sponsored by the World Council of Churches. Paintings and a suit of armor in the Knight’s Palace (as well as the name of the guesthouse!) remind the visitor of the "heroic faith" of the Crusaders, which is remembered and celebrated here by many Christians. The winding alley between New Gate and Jaffa Gate, named Bab Al Jadid at New Gate, becomes St. Peter and then Latin Patriarchate, as it leads from the Latin Patriarchate headquarters to Omar Ibn el-Khatab Square, in front of the Jaffa Gate.

This brief review of the Old City reminds us of the long and often tragic history of the city of peace, which is the meaning of the word "Jerusalem." And the Arabic names remind us that Muslims ruled this city from the middle of the seventh century to the beginning of the twentieth century, when the British took control during World War I, with the exception of the period when Crusaders were in charge (1099-1187). It should not be surprising, therefore, that the Arab peoples of this land, who are now called Palestinians, think of it as their home.

Moreover, the walls of the city, the names of its gates and streets, the prominence of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and legends of caliphs and sultans, all remind Palestinians of the glorious reign of their Muslim ancestors over eleven of the past thirteen centuries.

With hope for a just peace in Jerusalem…

Bob Traer, 20 February 2005

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are my own and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

In writing this account I have drawn on two excellent books: The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, OP, fourth edition (Oxford University Press, 1998), and Palestine with Jerusalem: The Bradt Travel Guide by Henry Stedman (UK: Bradt Publications, 2000).