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The Visual Atlas
Places, art and manuscripts across time. First era: the apostolic and early church, from Pentecost to the early fourth century.
Jerusalem
Acts begins here. Before this era ends the temple has burned, the city has a Roman name, and its church is led by gentiles.
- 31.77719
- 35.234978
The real question: which parts of the Jerusalem church's story are on record, and which are reports passed down? A family says they left town just before the flood because someone had a warning. Maybe the warning came first. Maybe it was told afterward to explain a move they made for other reasons. How much of Jerusalem's story is like that?
Acts sets the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost in Jerusalem, with devout Jews from every nation living in the city (Acts 2). After Stephen's death the church is scattered through Judea and Samaria, all except the apostles (Acts 8:1). Herod kills James the brother of John (Acts 12:1-2). The apostles and elders meet in the city over the gentile question (Acts 15). Josephus says Ananus, in the gap after Festus died and before Albinus arrived, brought James the brother of Jesus before a sanhedrin and had him stoned (Antiquities 20.9.1). Eusebius says the church left before the war for Pella in Perea (Church History 3.5.3). Josephus dates the burning of the temple to the second year of Vespasian (Wars 6.4.8). Eusebius says that under Hadrian the city was resettled, renamed Aelia, and its first bishop from the gentiles was Marcus (Church History 4.6.4).
Jerusalem is where the witness starts, then Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Pentecost (Acts 2). The scattering after Stephen (Acts 8:1). Saul comes back from Damascus and the disciples are afraid of him (Acts 9:26). James the brother of John is killed by Herod (Acts 12:1-2). The council over circumcision (Acts 15:1-29). Paul goes in to James with all the elders present (Acts 21:18).
Eusebius says the episcopal seat at Jerusalem was entrusted to James the brother of the Lord by the apostles (Church History 2.23.1). He gives two accounts of James's death, one from Clement and one from Hegesippus (2.23.3-18). After James, Symeon son of Clopas was chosen (3.11) and later suffered martyrdom, on the witness of Hegesippus (3.32). The church's flight to Pella is his (3.5.3), and so is the change of name to Aelia (4.6.4). Bishop Alexander founded a library at Aelia that Eusebius used for his history (6.20.1).
- https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/48cfad05-dc67-dfb1-6d8a-695b55334444/full/843,/0/default.jpg
- Bronze coin issued by King Agrippa of Judaea, dated 40 to 44, with a parasol on the front and three shafts of grain on the back. Eusebius heads his chapter on the death at Caesarea Agrippa, who was also called Herod, joining Acts 12 to Josephus. The museum record does not name the mint.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Coin Depicting a Parasol, 1920.2754, gift of William F. Dunham
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/142682
- Public domain (is_public_domain true in the Art Institute of Chicago API)
No biblical manuscript in the sources read here is tied to Jerusalem in this era. What Eusebius does tie to the city is a collection: letters of learned churchmen kept until his day in the library at Aelia that bishop Alexander founded, which he says he drew on (Church History 6.20.1). No surviving manuscript is identified with that library in these sources.
The two deaths of James do not match. Josephus has a trial before Ananus's sanhedrin and a stoning. Hegesippus, as Eusebius quotes him, has James thrown down from the temple, stoned, and finished with a fuller's club, then buried by the temple, with Vespasian's siege following at once (Church History 2.23.16-18). Eusebius prints both without settling them. The flight to Pella comes only from Eusebius, who says it followed a revelation; Acts ends before the war. The list of the twelve printed among the dubious and spurious pieces attributed to Hippolytus has Simon the Zealot as bishop of Jerusalem after James, dying at 120, and Matthias buried there. That is legend.
Not a history of the temple. The entry follows the church in the city, and the temple appears only where its fall touches that story.
- Acts 1:8
- Acts 2:1-41
- Acts 8:1
- Acts 9:26-30
- Acts 12:1-19
- Acts 15:1-29
- Acts 21:17-26
- Acts, checked in the King James Version
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston (Project Gutenberg ed.), 20.9.1
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, trans. Whiston (Project Gutenberg ed.), 6.4.8
- Eusebius, Church History, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 1 (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890), 2.23, 3.5, 3.11, 3.32, 4.6, 6.20
- Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the Twelve Apostles, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5, Appendix to the Works of Hippolytus Containing Dubious and Spurious Pieces
- Pleiades gazetteer, place 687928, Ierusalem/Hierosolyma/Col. Aelia Capitolina, representative point from places.csv in the Pleiades datasets release
- Art Institute of Chicago, object 142682, API record
