Here in this marvelous land, which formed a bridge between the two oldest civilizations of the world, the men lived to whom God committed the task of writing most of the Bible. This was the earthly home of the Son of God. Even before the Hebrews came into it, many had crossed this bridge and some had paused long upon it. Living here they had left the remains of their homes, their cities, and their civilizations. Archæology is now recovering these. After the time of Christ various races and civilizations continued to pass over the bridge. Their remains buried those left by earlier men. The story of the recovery of these earlier remains is, accordingly, not only of great interest, but often of great value to the reader of the Bible. =2. Early Exploration.=--The misfortunes which overtook Judæa in the years 70 and 132-135 A. D., in consequence of the Jewish rebellions against Rome, led to the paganizing of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews from Judæa. At this period Christianity was a struggling and a persecuted religion, too busy working its way to take an active interest in the land of its birth. When Constantine early in the fourth century made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, all this was changed. Both Constantine and his mother, Helena, took the deepest interest in identifying the holy places in Jerusalem, and a stream of pilgrims began at once to visit the land. The earliest of these to leave us an account of his travels was a pilgrim from Bordeaux who visited Palestine in 333 A. D. As he was anxious to see the principal places hallowed by the bodily presence of Christ and the heroes of Scripture, he visited places in different parts of the country. He was followed by many others. The stream has been almost continuous down to the present time. As the aim of these travelers was devotional and they possessed little scholarly training or critical faculty, their works are of secondary value to the modern student. They did, however, prevent that loss of knowledge of the country to which Babylonia was subjected for so many centuries. _Place Names._--At the very beginning of this period Eusebius of Cæsarea, a contemporary of Constantine, compiled a list of the place names of Palestine which are mentioned in the Bible. The names were arranged in alphabetical order, the events for which the places are celebrated were given, in many instances identifications with places existing in the fourth century were proposed, and the distances from other well-known places mentioned. In the next century this work was translated into Latin by Jerome, who lived many years at Bethlehem and traveled extensively in Palestine, and who died in 420 A. D. It is called the _Onomasticon_.