Rabbinic Judaism and Roman Rule

TIMELINE 5

Timeline 5 of 26

Rabbinic Judaism and Roman Rule

135 to 500

After Bar Kokhba, Jewish life gathers around the sages. The Mishnah and the Talmuds are written, and in the fourth century Roman rule becomes Byzantine Christian rule.

JEWISH LIFE IN THE LAND

135 Hadrian bars the Jews from Jerusalem. After the Bar Kokhba revolt fails, Jerusalem becomes Aelia Capitolina and Judea is renamed Syria Palaestina.

c. 140 The surviving sages reconvene at Usha in the Galilee and rebuild the Sanhedrin.

c. 200 The Mishnah is compiled. Rabbi Judah the Prince writes down the oral law in the Galilee.

c. 220 Beth Shearim becomes the burial place of Rabbi Judah the Prince and the sages.

c. 250 Rabbi Yohanan heads the academy of Tiberias, whose teachings fill the Jerusalem Talmud.

351 The revolt against Gallus. Jews in the Galilee rise against Roman rule. Sepphoris, Tiberias and Lod are damaged as it is put down.

c. 359 Hillel II publishes a fixed Hebrew calendar, according to tradition.

363 Julian plans to rebuild the Temple. The emperor allows work to begin in Jerusalem. It stops within weeks, after a fire, an earthquake and his death in battle.

c. 375 The Hammat Tiberias synagogue is laid with its zodiac mosaic.

c. 400 The Jerusalem Talmud is completed. It is finished in the Galilee and builds on the Mishnah.

c. 425 The patriarchate ends. Rome stops recognizing the Jewish patriarch in Tiberias, the head of the Jews for centuries.

438 Empress Eudocia allows Jews to pray at the Temple Mount on the festivals.

c. 500 The Babylonian Talmud is completed. The sages of Babylonia finish the work that becomes the core of Jewish law.

RULERS OF THE LAND

212 Caracalla grants Roman citizenship to all free men of the empire, Jews among them.

270 Queen Zenobia of Palmyra seizes the eastern provinces until Rome retakes them in 272.

313 Rome tolerates Christianity. Constantine ends the persecution of Christians. Jerusalem soon becomes a center of Christian pilgrimage.

324 Constantine takes the eastern empire, and the land comes under a Christian emperor.

c. 326 Empress Helena visits the Holy Land, and churches rise at Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives.

330 Constantinople becomes the capital of the empire.

c. 335 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem.

380 Theodosius makes Christianity the religion of the empire.

395 The empire splits in two, and the land is ruled from Constantinople.

438 The Theodosian Code bars Jews from public office.

451 The Council of Chalcedon makes Jerusalem a patriarchate of the Church.

476 Rome falls in the West. Byzantium rules on in the East.