ABSTRACT
The Roman Empire recognized the importance of Palestine to its control of the eastern Mediterranean; with the emergence of Christian hegemony in the fourth century, religion gave the West’s ambition to possess Jerusalem a new dimension. Jerusalem was known in the Early Christian West through texts – the Bible, histories by authors, such as Pliny and Josephus, and contemporary treatises and epistles like those of St. Jerome. John, bishop of Jerusalem, gave Melania the Elder, a pious aristocrat and generous donor to the church, a piece of the True Cross. The text illuminates the remarkable capacities of a particle of the True Cross to render Jerusalem present in the West through the contemplation of contemporary ritual in the Holy City. Nevertheless, Catholic Christian engagement with Jerusalem persisted and Protestant interest in the Holy Land emerged.
