ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Christian expansion of the city took place in several phases of varying intensity. It is noteworthy that the former area of the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount seems to have been neglected, demonstratively so, over the course of the entire Byzantine period. The starting point of a Christian building program in Jerusalem was set by the Constantinian dynasty beginning in 326 ce. The construction and institutionalization of the revered sites seem to have contributed to the rapid increase in the number of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. From the middle of the 4th century onwards, the concept of Jerusalem as the Holy City on earth emerged in the theological thinking of the local clergy. Characteristic of the concept of Jerusalem’s sacredness was also the interlacing of the real city and its buildings with eschatological ideas. In Jerusalem a locally fixed cult was developed and established that was linked to the actual or supposed places of salvation.
