The Life of Jesus Written in Stone

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The fourth century saw the transformation of the architectural landscape of Roman Palestine, as major churches dedicated to different events in the life of Jesus arose throughout the region during the reigns of Emperor Constantine and his successors.^a The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, commemorating the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, was the first to be built. It was soon joined by two more monumental churches, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Eleona Church on the Mount of Olives. Several commemorative churches were founded also in the Galilee, such that by the end of the century, a Christian pilgrim could experience the story of the life of Jesus from the annunciation to the ascension by visiting monumentalized holy sites across the region. It was a kind of experiential gospel, written in stone rather than ink.¹

These early commemorative churches were, in many ways, architectural representations of key events in the Gospels. So, what sort of image of Jesus did these churches represent and what sort of early Christian identity did they construct? These monuments commemorated the significant events of the life of Jesus, a Jewish Galilean man who was strongly remembered by his followers as the Jewish messiah crucified by the Roman state. They were also built using the resources of the Roman imperial state and some were even constructed by direct order of the imperial family. Moreover, they were built under Constantine, when Christianity went from being a persecuted minority to not only a licit religion (with the Edict of Milan in 313) but also one that was patronized and even preferred by Constantine and most of his successors. All of this makes the life-of-Jesus churches particularly interesting as architectural artifacts of a significant historical period.

COURTESY FRANCESCA ROMANA STASOLLA, ARCHIVIO UNIVERSITÀ LA SAPIENZA

Beginning in 325, a series of three churches in the Jerusalem area were constructed by the order of Constantine and his mother, Helena. These were the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Nativity, which commemorated the birth of Jesus, and the Eleona, which commemorated Jesus’s teaching and ascension on the Mount of Olives. All three were constructed at locations that were probably already associated in local tradition with the narratives that they remember. This is by no means a guarantee of their historical authenticity as places where gospel events really took place, but it does imply continuity with and, more importantly, a massive visual transformation of places that were traditionally associated with Jesus prior to the age of Constantine.

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© DUMB ARTON OAKS, COINS AND SEALS COLLECTION, WASHINGTON, DC

Golgotha was apparently associated with a site in Aelia Capitolina (the Roman name of the colony founded during the reign of Hadrian on the site of Jerusalem) before the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For example, Golgotha is mentioned by Eusebius in his Onomasticon (74.19–21), a text dated to the late third or early fourth century. Similarly, the traditional cave associated with Jesus’s birthplace is clearly mentioned in Christian sources dating to the second and third centuries (Justin Martyr, Dialogue 78.5–6; Protevangelium of James 18:1, 19:16; Origen, Against Celsus 1.51), while the Mount of Olives—a well-known topographic feature—is directly named in the Gospels (Mark 13:3–37; Matthew 24:3–25:46) as the site of one of Jesus’s major discourses.

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was the first and grandest of the Constantinian commemorative churches. It was a large compound that was a great deal larger than the church standing in Jerusalem today, which is mostly a Crusader-period construction. The ancient church compound encompassed the traditional sites associated with both Jesus’s crucifixion (Golgotha) and his tomb.^b

Literary sources (e.g., Egeria’s Travels 30.1–3; Eucherius, Letter to Faustus 5–6) mention two separate structures that comprise the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: the Martyrium (Greek for “witness”) and the Anastasis (Greek for “resurrection”). The late fourth-century pilgrim Egeria, for example, describes a Sunday service during the Great Week moving from the Martyrium to the Anastasis.^c The Martyrium was a massive, ornate basilica. Its form and rich decoration, featuring gold coffers, marble of various colors, and other polished stone, are described in detail by Eusebius (Life of Constantine 3.34–39). The Martyrium was oriented from east to west by its semi-circular apse, which has been uncovered in archaeological excavations in the modern church. Eusebius describes the apse as “the very summit of the church,” with 12 impressive columns (one for each of the apostles) embellished with silver.

Just beyond the Martyrium to the west was an inner courtyard, where a rock spire was affixed with a decorative cross, representing Golgotha. The focus of this area, however, was the traditional tomb of Jesus, which was housed in a small aedicule. Recent excavations have shown that the commemorative structure of the tomb featured a circular marble base that was about 20 feet in diameter, a forecourt, and a deambulatory defined by 12 columns surrounding the base. The excavator, Francesca Romana Stasolla, suggests it was originally open to the air, as a water channel was discovered along the base. By the end of the fourth century, the tomb was enclosed with a monumental rotunda called the Anastasis.²

Both the basilica and the rotunda come from the world of Roman imperial architecture. Christian basilicas are derived from earlier Roman basilicas, which were civic meeting halls and commercial spaces. The monumental basilica of Maxentius and Constantine in Rome (completed in 312) is a good example of such a large public, imperial building and reminds us that the Roman basilical form was current in the age of Constantine and his successors. The use of the form for the Martyrium would have conveyed its nature as a public gathering place and an “official” building with the sort of imperial splendor that the form’s name and the building’s rich decoration signified. The apse was a signature architectural feature of basilicas, and the apse of the Martyrium was directed toward the courtyard of Golgotha and more specifically toward the tomb. The 12 columns in the apse, representing the apostles, thus pointed toward the place of the passion in general and to the empty tomb in particular, symbolically representing the apostolic witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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Stasolla has called the original monument at Jesus’s tomb a sacellum, which is a Roman-style shrine, usually open to the air, dedicated to a deity. It is also parallel, at least in concept if not form, to a heroum, a Greco-Roman shrine-monument built at the tombs of heroes. The original construction was soon renovated and replaced by the Anastasis rotunda. The form of the rotunda, particularly for a tomb-shrine, strongly reflects the architecture of Roman imperial mausolea, which were round monumental tombs that were both commemorative and key religious sites for the imperial cult.³ The use of this form for the Holy Sepulchre conveyed the idea of the kingship of Jesus. The fact that, unlike with imperial mausolea, Jesus’s remains were not actually in the Anastasis was an effective physical representation of the empty tomb of the gospel narrative and thus of the resurrection.

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There were, however, other things that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre represented. The layout of the church called to mind the biblical Jerusalem temples. The complex included both outer and inner courts. It progressed in sanctity and significance from the outer courtyard to the Martyrium to the inner courtyard and Golgotha (the symbolic place of sacrifice) and then finally the empty tomb, the inner sanctum into which only the presiding bishop, mimicking the biblical high priest, would enter during services (according to Egeria’s Travels 24.2). Moreover, the church itself was oriented facing the Temple Mount of Aelia Capitolina, presenting itself as a rival bearing judgment on the ruins of the “old” Jerusalem Temple. The significance of this was not lost on Eusebius, who proclaimed this church to be the “second and new Jerusalem spoken of in the predictions of the prophets” (Life of Constantine 3.33).⁴

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was not only a monument to Jesus; it was also very much a monument to Constantine. The construction of the church began in 325 on the occasion of Constantine’s bicennalia, the celebration of the first 20 years of his reign, and it was dedicated in connection to the occasion of Constantine’s tricennalia, the celebration of 30 years of his reign, in 335 (Life of Constantine 4.40). No other emperor since Augustus had reigned for 30 years, and Eusebius tells us that Constantine considered his tricennalia to be “a fit occasion” for the dedication of the Holy Sepulchre (Life of Constantine 4.40). In a letter ordering the construction of the church, Constantine writes that it was his own victory over his rival Licinius that allowed the tomb to be recovered (Life of Constantine 3.30). Thus, in Constantine’s view, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was a monument signifying both the power of the resurrected Jesus as well as his own greatness. For this reason, Constantine instructs the bishop of Jerusalem to make such arrangements that the church may not only surpass all other churches in beauty, but also that “the fairest structures in any city of the empire may be excelled” by it (Life of Constantine 3.31). The Holy Sepulchre thus represented a particular moment in the imperial Romanization of Christianity, a story told through its architecture and through the intertwining of the memories of Jesus, a man crucified by Roman authority, and Constantine, a Roman emperor.

The Holy Sepulchre was soon joined by the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem and the Eleona on the Mount of Olives, both of which have been archaeologically identified. Taking their cue from the Holy Sepulchre, these two sister churches also featured a basilica oriented toward an inner, centrally planned sacred area marking the spot of a traditional event in the life of Jesus. Both of these churches were constructed by Constantine together with Helena. According to Eusebius, Helena visited Syria Palestina (the Roman province of Palestine) in order to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and “consecrated to the God she adored two shrines, one by the cave of his birth, the other on the mountain of the Ascension,” to which Constantine added further “imperial decorations” (Life of Constantine 3.42–43).

Early Christian sources prior to the age of Constantine speak of a cave near Bethlehem that was regarded as the place where Jesus was born (Justin Martyr, Dialogue 78.5–6; Origen, Against Celsus 1.51; Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 3.2.97). The Church of the Nativity was constructed above that cave. The iteration of the church that stands in Bethlehem today mostly dates to the reign of Justinian I, who substantially rebuilt the church in the sixth century. Although Justinian’s Church of the Nativity was built on top of the original basilica and followed its general plan, the fourth-century church looked very different from what we see today.

The original church featured a massive triple entrance leading into a basilica that had a nave flanked by two aisles on each side, much like the Martyrium of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Portions of the basilica’s intricate mosaic pavement are still visible below the floor of the modern church. At the far end of the basilica, opposite the entrance, was something quite unusual: a round octagonal structure built over the cave that was remembered as the place where Jesus was born. In Roman architecture, such structures were often used to mark the final resting place of emperors and other important figures, such as the mausolea of Maximian, Galerian, and Diocletian, all of which date to the early fourth century. However, this polygonal building curiously marked a birth rather than a burial place.

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Fourth-century sources that discuss the Eleona Church point to two particularly important events in the life of Jesus that took place on the Mount of Olives: the ascension of Jesus (Luke 24:50–51; cf. Acts 1:6–12) and Jesus’s teaching on the mountain (Mark 13:3–37; Matthew 24:3–25:46). Eusebius tells us that Helena built a church “in memory of [Jesus’s] ascent to heaven” (Life of Constantine 3.43). Whatever the church was that Helena and Constantine built on the Mount of Olives, it was meant to commemorate the ascension. However, the Bordeaux pilgrim, writing around 333, says that Constantine ordered the construction of a basilica “where the Lord taught before his passion” (Travels 595).

The Eleona Church is a fairly standard basilica in comparison to its two siblings. It had a monumental triple entrance and a nave flanked by an aisle on either side. The basilica ended with a rounded apse constructed over a grotto, a cave that was likely regarded as the site where Jesus taught. Just a few hundred feet away, on the summit of the Mount of Olives, a round church was built at some point in the fourth century commemorating the site of Jesus’s ascension. The church’s precise date is debated, but it is reasonable to think that the Eleona and the Church of the Ascension together formed a single complex that primarily remembered the ascension but also included commemoration of Jesus’s teaching on the same mountain.

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The initial triad of the Holy Sepulchre, the Nativity, and the Mount of Olives encompassed the three major events of Jesus’s life mentioned in the Nicene Creed: the incarnation, the passion, and the ascension. Thus, they constructed a particular and specific presentation of Jesus: the Jesus of the Nicene Creed, which famously asserts that Jesus is “the Son of God, begotten of the Father” who is “very God of very God.” The creed was the product of the Council of Nicea, which was convened and attended by Constantine himself in 325, the same year work began on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Beyond Jerusalem, we know of several more churches built by Constantinian imperial order in the Galilee. Epiphanius of Salamis recounts the story of Joseph of Tiberias, elevated by Constantine to the rank of count (Panarion 30.4.1), who was given “permission by imperial rescript to build Christ’s churches in the Jewish towns and villages where no one had ever been able to found churches, since there were no Greeks, Samaritans or Christians among the population,” specifically at Tiberias, Sepphoris, Nazareth, and Capernaum (Panarion 30.11.9–10).

Much about these Galilean churches remains shrouded in mystery. The churches at Tiberias and Sepphoris have not been identified in the archaeological record. There is a cluster of relatively early commemorative churches near Capernaum, such as the fourth-century phase of the Church of the House of Peter,^d the Chapel of the Beatitudes, and the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha. Some scholars have suggested that one of them might have been built or renovated by Joseph, but no identification is certain. However, the earliest phase of the Church of the Annunciation at Nazareth, which was just a small cave-shrine marking the traditional site of Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, is usually dated to the fourth century and could have been the church at Nazareth built by Joseph, though this too remains uncertain. Still, the idea of life-of-Jesus monuments built by imperial order in the fourth century is an intriguing possibility. If some or all of Joseph’s churches were commemorative churches, then they would have filled out the narrative of Jesus’s life that they, together with the Jerusalem-area churches, told through their architecture.

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There is a measure of a Roman colonial project underlying the construction of these churches in the Galilee as well. Constantinian Jerusalem had become predominantly non-Jewish since its refounding as Aelia Capitolina by Hadrian in the second century. The churches allegedly founded by Joseph of Tiberias, however, were purposefully constructed in places that had primarily Jewish rather than Christian or Gentile populations. Capernaum may have had a community of Jewish followers of Jesus, but Epiphanius seems to ignore them. At any rate, these church-building efforts transparently aimed to establish a major Gentile Christian presence in Jewish communities, and they did so with the direct support of the emperor.

The early commemorative churches in Roman Palestine are fascinating examples of the reception and commemoration of the life of Jesus. The initial triad of commemorative churches in and around Jerusalem presented the faithful with the incarnate, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus Christ of the Nicene Creed. The addition of the Galilean churches at sites like Capernaum and Nazareth filled out the story of Jesus’s life, including his Galilean healing and teaching ministry. However, the commemorative churches should also be understood in light of their connections to the Roman imperial authorities. In particular, the Holy Sepulchre was a monument to both Jesus and Constantine. The fact that the emperor’s name is so attached to the Holy Sepulchre in ancient literature and in our own time shows just how effectively this was achieved.

During the fourth century, monumental churches arose across Roman Palestine to commemorate major events in the life of Jesus. Starting with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, these commemorative churches became stations on a pilgrim’s Holy Land itinerary to contemplate the tenets of the Christian faith—from the annunciation to the ascension. Exploring their architecture reveals common features designed to construct the identity and beliefs of early Christians.