Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

The Christian Byzantines transformed urban Palestine socially, religiously, economically and architecturally, and this particular period from the 4th to the early 7th century underscored the centrality of Christianity in Palestinian history. The fast spread of the new religion to all countries bordering Palestine made this period important for an additional reason:

it was the centre of a strong, confident and growing religion which was born in the country, and continued to consider Palestine as its spiritual centre even after placing the Catholic Church in the capital city of the Roman Empire.

The remnants of the architectural splendour of urban Palestine under the Byzantines can still be seen today. Byzantine Palestine also gave birth to Julian of Ascalon, a native of the ancient Palestinian coastal city, who became a renowned Palestinian architect and whose work on the growth and planning issues of the built environment and on construction and design rules in 6th century Palestine influenced Istanbul’s urban planning and endured for more than 1400 years; his work can still be relevant to modern environmental urban planning (Hakim 2001).

After the Christian Byzantines replaced the Romans, Palaestina and its major cities – Caesarea-Palaestina, Jerusalem, Gaza, Neapolis (Nablus), Scythopolis (Beisan), Tiberias and Beit Jibrin (Eleutheropolis) – experienced their greatest growth and prosperity in Antiquity. Throughout the early Christian and Byzantine period, the 4th to the 7th centuries AD, Palaestina remained the dominant and universally applied name for this region. The former Roman provinces of ‘Syria Palaestina’ were split by the Christian Byzantines, who also redrew the administrative regions of the country. Palaestina was reorganised into three subdivisions. The spread of Greek- and Aramaic-speaking Christianity in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East and Roman Provincia Arabia1 and the creation of greater Palestine in the 4th century AD further expanded the early Roman concept of Palestine and the designation employed by classical Greek writers such as Herodotus from the mid-5th century BC onwards. This greater Palestine consisted of Palaestina Prima (in the centre of the country), Palaestina Secunda (much of the Galilee) and Palaestina Salutaris (in the south and south-east).

The Christian Byzantines came up with a major reconfiguration of Palestine. Byzantium itself (renamed Constantinople and later Istanbul)

came to the fore upon becoming the imperial residence in the 4th century and the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire came to be known as the Byzantine Empire after 476 AD. The creation of greater Palestine and the official administrative reorganisation of expanded Palestine by the Eastern Roman Empire around 284–305 AD produced ‘Three Palestine’ provinces whose lingua franca was Greek. These three administrative provinces of Palestine lasted from the 4th to the early 7th centuries:

• Palaestina Prima (combining Philistia, Judaea and Samaria), extending from Rafah in the south to the bay of Haifa in the north, with Caesarea- Palaestina for its capital. In the 630s AD when the Arab Muslim armies took control of Palestine they initially kept Caesarea as the capital of the province of Jund Filastin (the official administrative centre of Palestine).

The capital was temporarily moved to Lydda, which was also the temporary capital of Suleiman ibn ‘Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Governor of Filastin (wali Filastin, ‘ والي فلسطين ’ ), until he built the new city of al-Ramla. Becoming Caliph in 715‒717, Suleiman ibn ‘Abd al-Malik permanently transferred the capital of Filastin to al-Ramla.

Al-Ramla, approximately 20 kilometres south-east of Jaffa, was located strategically on the highway of al-Sham-al-Fustat, Damascus‒old Cairo, the latter being the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule. Al-Ramla remained the administrative capital of the Arab Muslim province of Jund Filastin and an economic hub for the country for over three and a half centuries until the late 11th century.

• Palaestina Secunda (including most of the Galilee and the Golan Heights, parts of Peraea2 and some of the cities of the former Roman Decapolis of Eastern Palestine3), with Scythopolis (Beisan) for its capital.

• Palaestina Salutaris (created in the 4th century and later became known also as Palaestina Tertia) included the former Roman Provincia Arabia (Ward 2008), Idumaea, the Naqab/Negev, parts of Sinai, south-west of Transjordan, south of the Dead Sea and Arabia Petraea,4 whose Nabataean capital at the beginning of the 2nd century AD was Petra. It was split from Arabia Petraea in the 6th century AD (Shahin 2005: 8). Petra became the capital of Palaestina Salutaris Interestingly, the naming of the ‘Three Palestines’ (Prima, Secunda and Tertia) was inspired by classical and early Christian representation of ‘Three in One’. The most famous analogy of this Greco-Byzantine concept was the theological idea of Trinity which was settled and codified at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Crucially the ‘Three Palestines’ were not conceived as totally separate provinces. Politically, militarily, culturally and ecclesiastically they were conceived and evolved, managed and defended as ‘Three in One’ provinces of Palaestina. The ‘Three Palestines’ were closely linked in four different areas:

1. Politically, militarily and ecclesiastically they were dominated by Palaestina Prima. The capital of Byzantine Palestine and of Palaestina Prima was Caesarea-Palaestina, ‘Caesarea of Palestine’ (von Suchem 1971: 7, 111; 2013; Gilman et al. 1905). This city was also called ‘Caesarea by the Sea’, or Caesarea Maritima. Since the creation of Israel in 1948 historians in the West have tended to avoid referring to the historic name of the Palestinian city, Caesarea-Palaestina, and use only the name Caesarea Maritima. But, as we shall see below, the social memory of Caesarea-Palaestina has been preserved in ecclesiastical records and by both the Catholic and Palestinian Orthodox churches.

2. Culturally, they came under the influence of the two most important cultural centres in Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean: Caesarea- Palaestina5 (or Caesarea Maritima) and Gaza, which were both also located in Palaestina Prima.

3. Militarily and strategically they were commanded by Dux Palaestinae, the ‘military commander of Palestine’, whose headquarters were in Caesarea-Palaestina and who commanded all Palestine.

4. Ecclesiastically, from the mid-5th century onwards the ‘Three Palestines’ were united under one single independent all-Palestine Patriarchate of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) with officially recognised religious jurisdiction over the ‘Three Palestines’.

Of the three provinces of the country Palaestina Prima was the largest, most powerful economically and most developed culturally. Its bishops of Aelia Capitolina and Caesarea-Palaestina dominated the independent (autocephalous or ‘self-headed’) All Palaestina Church. The Notitia Dignitatum (‘the List of Offices’) is a unique early 5th century imperial chancery document that details the administrative organisation of the Byzantine Empire.

It notes that Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Salutaris were administered by a praeses,6 while Palaestina Prima was presided over by a governor who bore the high rank of proconsul (Ward 2008: 89‒90). This should not be confounded with the Dux Palaestinae, the ‘military commander of Palestine’, who was based in Caesarea-Palaestina and commanded the garrison of the ‘Three Palestines’ in the 5th and 6th centuries (Shahid 1995: 192‒193; Röhricht 1890: 7).7

Palaestina Prima lasted from 390 AD until the early 7th century. In 614, both Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda were conquered by the Persian Sassanids. The Byzantines lost control of the three Palestine provinces again and irreversibly in 636‒638 AD in the course of the Muslim conquest of Bilad al-Sham and Palestine. The urban structure of Palestine and Bilad al-Sham remained largely unscathed by the Sassanid and Islamic conquests (Walmsley 2000: 273) and the core of greater Palestine, or Provincia Palaestina, under the Byzantines – which combined Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Tertia (Salutaris) – became known as the province of Jund Filastin under Islam.