The Evolution of Christian Holy Places

IN Chapter 3, we reviewed the religious demography of Palestine from the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt to the date that Constantine won the East in 324. We saw that pagans, Jews, and Samaritans lived in their own general regions where their own customs could be preserved, though there was some intermixture of populations in the large cities like Caesarea and Gaza. The archaeological and literary evidence would suggest that villages tended to be one thing or another: Jewish, Samaritan, pagan, even Christian. But as yet there is no instance of a rural community in which the religious pluralism of the cities can be ascertained. Christians were clearly a small part of the population and were found predominantly in cities.

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