JERUSALEM

In 1859, the famous German scientist, author of the works “History of the

City of Rome in the Middle Ages” and “History of the City of Athens in the

Middle Ages” Ferdinand Gregorovius wrote: “Three cities shine in the history of

mankind with a splendor of world significance; Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. All

three cities in the process of world life are contributing and mutually influencing

factors of human culture. Jerusalem, the main city of a small Jewish people, not at

all powerful, was the center of that mysterious monotheistic state from which

Christianity emerged, and thus it is the metropolis of world religion. Long after its

fall, it again receives a world-historical significance, along with Rome and in

connection with it. In ancient times, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, the Jewish

people were scattered across the face of the earth, the meaning of the holy city

passed to Christian Rome; but in the eleventh century Jerusalem rises again, and in

the period of the crusades is the goal of the aspirations of the Christian pilgrims

and the subject of the great popular struggle between Europe and Asia. And only

then the history of Jerusalem ends with the ideas of which it was a symbol. "