Jerusalem: The Biography

Eudocia was a protector of pagans and Jews because she had been pagan herself. The striking daughter of an Athenian sophist, educated in rhetoric and literature, she came to Constantinople to appeal to the emperor after her brothers stole her inheritance. Theodosius II was a malleable boy, ruled by his pious and graceless sister, Pulcheria. She introduced Eudocia to her brother, who was instantly smitten and married her. Pulcheria dominated her brother’s government, intensifying the persecution of the Jews, who were now excluded from the army and public life, and condemned to be second-class citizens. In 425, Theodosius ordered the execution of Gamaliel VI, the last Jewish patriarch, to punish him for building more synagogues, and abolished the office for ever. Gradually, Eudocia became powerful and Theodosius promoted her to Augusta, equal in rank to his sister. A coloured stone inlay of her in a Constantinople church shows her regal style, black hair, slim elegance and delicate nose.

In Jerusalem, the Jews, facing intensifying repression from Constantinople, begged Eudocia for more access to the Holy City, and she agreed that they could openly visit the Temple Mount for their chief festivals. This was wonderful news, and the Jews declared that they should all ‘hasten to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles for our kingdom will be established’.

However, Jewish joy disgusted that other visitor to Jerusalem, Barsoma of Nisibis, a Syrian monk who was one of the new breed of militant monastic leaders. During the fourth century, certain ascetics started to react against the worldly values of society and the splendour of the clerical hierarchs and founded monasteries in the desert in order to return to the values of the earliest Christians. The hermits – from the Greek word for ‘wilderness’ – believed it was not enough to know the right formula for Christ’s nature, it was also necessary to live righteously, so they existed in hair-shirted, celibate simplicity in the deserts of Egypt and Syria.^*

Their self-flagellating feats of ostentatious holiness were celebrated, their biographies were written (the first hagiographies), their hermitages were visited and their discomforts became sources of wonder. The two St Simeons lived for decades, thirty feet up, atop columns and were known as the stylites (from stylos meaning ‘column’). One stylite, Daniel, was asked how he defecated: drily, like a sheep, he replied. Indeed, Jerome thought they were more interested in filth than in holiness. But these monks were far from peaceful. Jerusalem, which was now surrounded by new monasteries and contained many of its own, was at the mercy of these squadrons of street-fighting fanatics.

Barsoma, who was said to be so holy that he never sat or lay down, was offended by the survival of Jewish and Samaritan ‘idolators’ and determined to cleanse Palaestina of them. He and his monks killed Jews and burned synagogues. The emperor banned the violence for reasons of order, but Barsoma ignored him. Now, in Jerusalem, Barsoma’s coenobite shock-troopers, armed with swords and clubs under monks’ robes, ambushed the Jews on the Temple Mount, stoning and killing many of them, tossing their bodies into water cisterns and courtyards. The Jews fought back, arrested eighteen attackers and handed them over to the Byzantine governor who charged them with murder. ‘These brigands in the respectable habits of monks’ were brought to Eudocia, the pilgrim empress. They were guilty of murder but when they implicated Barsoma, he spread rumours that noble Christians were to be burned alive. The mob turned in Barsoma’s favour, especially when he cited a timely earthquake as a sign of divine approval.

If the empress planned to execute Christians, Barsoma’s followers cried, then ‘we will burn the empress and all those with her’. Barsoma terrorized officials into testifying that the Jewish victims had no wounds: they had died of natural causes. Another earthquake added to the widespread fear. The city was slipping out of control. Eudocia had little choice but to acquiesce. ‘Five hundred groups’ of paramilitary monks patrolled the streets and Barsoma announced that ‘The Cross has triumphed’, a cry repeated across the city ‘like the roar of a wave’ as his followers anointed him with expensive perfumes, and the murderers were freed.

Despite this violence, Eudocia cherished Jerusalem, commissioning an array of newchurches, and she returned to Constantinople laden with newrelics. But her sister-in-law Pulcheria was plotting to destroy her.

EUDOCIA: EMPRESS OF JERUSALEM