Eleutheropolis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eleutheropolis ("city of the free") was the Greek name of a Roman city in Palestine (modern Israel), some 53 km southwest of Jerusalem. Its remains still straddle the ancient road to Gaza. Though no secure identification can be made with any site in the Hebrew Bible, the site— already rendered as Baitogabra in Ptolemy's Geography— was called Beit Guvrin and Bet Gubrin in the Talmud.^[1] Edward Robinson identifies the depopulated Arab village of Beit Jibrin.

In the Jewish War (AD 68), Vespasian— still a general— slaughtered or enslaved the inhabitants of Betaris, according to Josephus:

when he had seized upon two villages, which were in the very midst of Idumea, Betaris, and Caphartobas, he slew above ten thousand of the people, and carried into captivity above a thousand, and drove away the rest of the multitude, and placed no small part of his own forces in them, who overran and laid waste the whole mountainous country.^[2]

The settlement was demolished once again in Bar Kokhba's revolt, 132–135.

In 200, Septimius Severus, on his Syrian journey changed its name to Eleutheropolis, and the refounded city, marking its founding era as January 1, 200 on its coins and inscriptions^[3] soon became one of the most important of Roman Palestine. Seven routes met at Eleutheropolis ^[4], and Eusebius in his Onomasticon adopted the Roman milestones that employed Eleutheropolis as a central point from which the distances of other towns were measured^[5]

The city was a "City of Excellence" in the fourth century^[6] and a Christian bishopric with the largest territory in Palestine: its first known bishop is Macrinus, who attended the Council of Nicaea in 325.

Epiphanius, the bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, was born at Eleutheropolis; at Ad nearby he established a monastery which is often mentioned in the polemics of Jerome with Rufinus and John, Bishop of Jerusalem.

At Eleutheropolis, according to the hagiographies fifty soldiers of the garrison of Gaza who had refused to deny Christ were beheaded in 638: later a church was built in their honor. ^[7] In 796 the city was again destroyed in civil warfare.

In 1134, under Fulco of Anjou, king of Jerusalem, the Knights of St John, to whose care it was committed, restored the Byzantine church nearby at Sandahanna, the ancient Maresha. The citadel was taken in 1187 by Saladin, recaptured in 1191 by Richard Lion Heart, destroyed in 1264 by Sultan Bibars, and rebuilt in 1551 by the Ottoman Turks.

In the early twentieth century the medieval fortress still stood, with remains of the walls, ruins of a cloister, and of a medieval church. The site has been excavated, including the remarkable grottoes that astonished Jerome.

Eleutheropolis remains a titular see in the Roman Catholic Church [1].

[edit] See also

• Edward Robinson: Biblical researches in Palestine, 1838-52. A journal of travels in the year 1838. (1856) p. 57ff: Eleutheropolis
• Bayt Jibrin

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Amos Kloner, 1999. "The City of Eleutheropolis": in The Madaba Map Centenary 1897-1997, (Jerusalem) pp 244-246. Eleutheropolis in the late Roman and Byzantine period
• Archaeological World: Eleutheropolis
• Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911, s.v. "Eleutheropolis,"
• Catholic Encyclopedia 1908, s.v. "Eleutheropolis"
• Jewish Encyclopedia: "Eleutheropolis"
• pictures of Eleutheropolis
• Early pictures of mosaics at Eleutheropolis, many now in Istanbul:
• Mosaic of warrior, (approximately 1900 to 1926)
• Mosaic of tethered horse, (approximately 1900 to 1926)
• Another view of mosaic floor, (approximately 1900 to 1926)
• Mosaic of Greek inscription, (approximately 1900 to 1926)
• Mosaic of maiden with fruit, (approximately 1900 to 1926)
• Mosaic of maiden with fruit, (approximately 1900 to 1926)