C. 320 SOUTH HEBRON HILLS
Eusebius of Caesarea (260-339) published his Onomasticon. A geographic guide to 4th century Eretz Israel. In his description South Hebron he denotes 68 Jewish towns in the south of Hebron area making up 70% of the population. They included Eshtemoa " .. a large Jewish town of priests", and Yatta " a very large village of Jews". The number decreased following the Crusades and up to the Mamluk times there were about 26 settlements. All eventually disappeared with many inhabitants converting to Islam.
321 December 11, THE RHINE (Germany)
The first evidence of Jews along the Rhine was found in a letter from Emperor Constantine to the prefect of Cologne regarding special taxes. The synagogue originally thought to be dated to the 11th century is now believed by archeologist to have been built 200 years earlier.
325 COUNCIL OF NICEA (present Iznik Turkey)
Officially changed the date of Easter from that of Passover. It also forbade Jews to own Christian slaves or convert pagans to Judaism. (It should be stressed that neither this nor the consequent bans on Jews owning slaves had anything to do with the Church's attitude to slavery. It was solely a matter of not allowing the slaves to be owned by non-Christians.) This began a total separation between early Christianty (most of whose adherents were Jews) and Judaism.
|