[I] [5] Jerusalem! Anyone who has read the books of history writers, even superficially, or who has listened with eager ears to the account of chroniclers, knows her as the capital of all Judea, a city neither ignoble nor unknown, so many times infinitely adorned with honours, so many times razed to the ground, and orphaned when her own children were led away into captivity, and enduring vicissitudes of fortune before the advent of the Saviour. There is none who does not know already that Christ when preaching wept over her, and prophesied her destruction, unless perhaps someone ignorant and shameless who senselessly treats the page of the gospel with contempt. How this came about will be clearly evident to anyone reading the deeds of Titus and Vespasian, the record of which that most eloquent man Josephus famously immortalised with his pen. That she has been rebuilt once more, and distinguished by Christian insignia, and honoured by very fine church buildings, those very buildings still declare, and the ramparts put up, by which the entire city is surrounded, bear witness. This city, because in the times of her own Christianity she obeyed her Christ less than was right and proper, was once again subjugated and subjected to an earthly king, and for this reason she gradually came to scorn fighting for the heavenly Commander.

[II] And so Jerusalem became tributary to the emir of Babylon for a long time, having left the way of her Christ with proud obstinacy. For this reason, the inhabitants of that same city who escaped death or captivity served heathen masters; and gentile foreigners lorded it over the native sons. Of course, God's holy temple was desecrated, and God's church became, disrespectfully, a meeting place of strangers. The house of prayer was made into a den of thieves, and mother Church was turned into a stepmother, and away from her own sons. To be sure, they allowed the church of the Holy Sepulchre to be served quite honourably by Paul: not because they cared much about the Christian religion, but because in this way they satisfied their own purposes and greed. Indeed, Christians arrived from far regions of the Earth for the sake of prayer, and they honoured that sanctuary with bountiful offerings.