The Roman Conquest of Jerusalem – A Historic Turning Point
Jerusalem, 70 CE: Roman troops conquered the city, crushed a Jewish revolt, and destroyed the Jewish Temple. What began as a military intervention marked a caesura that extended far beyond antiquity. “It was a genuine turning point for Judaism,” says historian Alexander Marx of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. At that point in time, a fundamental shift occurred: a movement that had been part of Judaism up to this point began to evolve into a distinct religion. Without the destruction of Jerusalem, or so Marx argues, early Christianity would likely have remained just one of many Jewish movements. It took this event to create the conditions for a new religious order to emerge.
This explains why, in the Middle Ages, the conquest of Jerusalem is not only remembered but repeatedly reinterpreted: as retribution, as a warning, or as a framework for interpreting one’s own present. The FWF-funded project “Medieval Reception of the Roman Conquest of Jerusalem” explores these interpretations and shows how a single event serves as a backdrop for religious, political, and social ideas and actions across centuries.
The historian Alexander Marx conducts research on medieval intellectual history and the culture of preaching, particularly in the context of the Crusades. His current work focuses on the reception of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in medieval texts and its significance for topics such as anti-Judaism and apocalyptic ideas.
An event as a framework for interpretation
The conquest of Jerusalem was an issue studied by the Church Fathers as early as the 4th century and it was widely commented on through the Late Middle Ages, well into the era of the Crusades and the medieval University of Paris. During this period, history was not primarily understood as a chronology of events, but as salvation history, i.e. as part of a divine plan. The meaning of this plan unfolds only through interpretation, primarily through the method of biblical exegesis.
In this context, the Roman conquest of Jerusalem became a central turning point. “In conjunction with the Passion of Christ,” it constituted “the dividing line between Judaism and Christianity” notes Marx. He makes reference to an interpretation that has been repeated over the centuries: the roughly 40 years between the crucifixion of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem are understood as a period of grace that God granted the Jews to mend their ways. The fact that this opportunity went unused is interpreted as divine punishment, “as retribution for the Crucifixion”, as Marx explains.
Throughout the Middle Ages, this interpretive framework was repeatedly applied to new contexts. The past became a backdrop for the present; events appeared as repetitions; Jerusalem was a recurring point of reference; and the Roman emperors were role models to be emulated. “Typological causalities” emerged that established connections between events far apart. One particularly striking example can be found in a sermon on the Third Crusade by the Augustinian canon Martin of León. As a rhetorical device, he repeatedly addressed his audience as Jews, even though he was clearly speaking to Christians. His implicit message: those who do not take appropriate action will lose their status as God’s chosen people. “If you do not go on a crusade now, the same thing will happen to you [as it did then].” The interpretation of the past becomes a political instrument here, intended to motivate people to take part in the crusade.
A central source for Marx is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who chronicled the Jewish War as a contemporary witness and was widely read in the Middle Ages. However, instead of adopting his account unchanged, medieval authors were selective on what they took over, omitting details or reinterpreting them, “because what Flavius Josephus writes does not always align with the Christian vision of history.” Hence, history is not a neutral tradition in this context, but a space open to interpretation.
In order to make these dynamics visible, the project uses a variety of sources: chronicles, sermons, biblical commentaries – often in manuscript form. Chronicles tend to be brief, while sermons and exegetical texts provide more details about what significance they attribute to an event. What matters in this context is not the individual text, but the great number of sources. “The dominant ideas of an era can be discerned in a large body of sources.” Sermons have a special role to play. They are “truly at the interface with society at large” and were designed to reach a wide audience, to instruct, and to motivate people to take various actions. Comparing different sources across genres and centuries thus becomes a method: “It is only through this contrast [between the individual writings] that I see something I would not otherwise see.”
How history can be read
The multitude of sources quickly created a need for systematic cataloging. In collaboration with the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), a database is being developed that serves as a central repository within the project. This “brings together for the first time around 2,500 sources, including some 500 unpublished text passages” says Alexander Marx. This approach reveals the connections between the sources, who copied from whom, and which textual traditions ran through the Middle Ages. “The result is something like ‘textual archaeology’, which, to my knowledge, does not yet exist in this form” says Marx.
The database also makes it possible to look beyond the specific subject matter to broader historical contexts. It touches on important topics such as anti-Judaism, the Crusades, and apocalyptic concepts. “I hope that the database can also be a useful tool for researchers in these fields” says Marx. His findings on Martin of León demonstrate how the Roman conquest of Jerusalem historically often served to frame anti-Jewish ideas. Ultimately, the project invites us to “challenge the broader narratives of the medieval era and examine more closely how such ways of thinking evolved over the long run.”
Accordingly, the Roman conquest of Jerusalem around 70 CE is not merely a historical event, but turns into a continuous process of interpretation across Western history. Engaging with it reveals how the past is continually redefined. But it also becomes obvious that research itself is not a static thing and that many unknown sources from the Middle Ages are still awaiting discovery. “There are always surprises”, says Alexander Marx, and with every new detail, our view of history shifts a little.
About the researcher
Alexander Marx is a historian at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). His research focuses on medieval intellectual history, the culture of preaching—particularly in connection with the mobilization of the Crusades—and religious interpretations of historical events. His current work focuses on the reception of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in medieval texts and its significance for topics such as anti-Judaism and apocalyptic ideas. The ESPRIT project “Medieval Reception of the Roman Conquest of Jerusalem” (2024–2027) is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) with 371,000 euros.
More about the project
- A key article on the project’s development analyzes, based on a sermon by Martin of León (c. 1130–1203), how the Roman conquest of Jerusalem is employed as a rhetorical and theological interpretive framework in the context of the Third Crusade (1187–1192).
- Another contribution examines how the theologian Rupert of Deutz (c. 1070–1129) uses the Roman conquest of Jerusalem to understand the First Crusade (1095–1099) and to situate it within the rationale of salvation history.
- The project page at the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) offers insights into the ongoing research project as well as the emerging database (with regular updates) on the medieval reception of the conquest of Jerusalem.
