Chapter I.--THE JEWS TO THE TIME OF THE EMPEROR ADRIAN.

The history of those chosen by the Lord to be His peculiar people, has now been traced for more than two thousand years, from the Call of Abraham, B.C. 1921. For the two centuries immediately following that event, we have the history of Abraham's descendants, Isaac, Jacob or Israel, and the twelve sons of Israel, or Patriarchs, as they are called, from being the fathers of all the tribes of Israel. Israel and his sons and grand-children, to the number of sixty-six persons, went down, B.C. 1706, into Egypt, where Joseph then was, having been sold as a slave about twenty years before.

During the next 300 years, the descendants of Israel multiplied so wonderfully that, in B.C. 1491, 600,000 men, besides women and children, went out of Egypt under the guidance of Moses.

The giving of the Law, Ceremonial and Political, as well as Moral, established the chosen people of God, as a Church and Nation.

Forty years of wandering in the wilderness brought the Children of Israel to the eastern banks of the Jordan, B.C. 1451. The Bible then relates how, under the command of Joshua, the Jordan was crossed, and the heathen wonderfully driven out of the land, which the Lord had promised to give to Abraham and his descendants, for a possession.

For forty-six years, the Children of Israel were ruled by Joshua and the elders who outlived him. For the next 300 years, they were governed by Judges, raised up by the Almighty at different times, as they were needed. In B.C. 1095 the Children of Israel were bent upon having a king, and Saul was accordingly crowned, and reigned for forty years. During the next eighty years, the kingdom flourished under David and his son Solomon; the latter of whom built the glorious Temple, dedicated to the service of the Lord with much ceremony, B.C. 1004. It had taken eight years to build.

The division of the country into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, under Solomon's son Rehoboam, took place B.C. 975. One king succeeded another more or less quickly, until the sins of kings and people led to the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, B.C. 721; and to the burning of Jerusalem and of the Temple, B.C. 587, when Nebuchadnezzar carried the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah into a long captivity in Babylon. Some years before, in B.C. 606, this same Nebuchadnezzar had carried away many of the children of Judah; and from _this_ date the Captivity, which lasted seventy years, is reckoned to have begun. The seventy years expired in B.C. 536; and Cyrus, king of Medea and Persia, having conquered the Babylonian Empire, gave the children of Judah leave to go back into their own land, showing them much kindness upon the occasion. The Jews, as they were now called, returned in great numbers to Judæa; though many of them still, by their own choice, remained in the land where they had been born and bred.

The Jews who did return, had great difficulties to overcome; but at length they built a Second Temple, which was dedicated B.C. 515. Under the governance of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews served the Lord in the land of their fathers; but soon they again fell into grievous sin, though they were never more guilty of idolatry: that crime which principally caused their captivity. So far the Bible has given us the history of the people of God.

From other histories we learn, that Alexander the Great, who became king of Macedonia B.C. 336, conquered Persia and all the countries in any way dependent upon her: Judæa, of course, amongst the rest. The remarkable vision which made Alexander treat the Jews with kindness has been mentioned (iii. 425). After the death of this monarch, B.C. 323, Judæa became in some sort dependent upon Syria; and we have already seen how severely the Jews suffered during the next 153 years, from the wars and fightings going on continually between Syria and Egypt. The cruelty and oppression of the Syrian princes became intolerable; and, after Antiochus Epiphanes had taken Jerusalem, B.C. 170, the Lord in mercy raised up the family of Maccabæus, to deliver the Jews from his tyranny.

Under the Maccabæan princes, the Jews fought successfully against the enemies of their religion. Judæa gradually recovered from its desolation and misery, and again became prosperous; whilst the pure worship of the One True God was once more the established religion of the nation. But after the death of John Hyrcanus (iii. 481), B.C. 107, enemies without, and divisions and troubles amongst themselves, again filled Judæa with confusion.

In B.C. 63, Judæa became, like so many other countries, a province of Rome; and we have seen how the Romans appointed governors or kings, and even high priests also. The Government of Rome itself underwent a great change about this time: the Republic, or Commonwealth, which had lasted 479 years, from the Expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, B.C. 509, now came to an end, and Octavius Augustus Cæsar was chosen as the first Emperor, B.C. 27.

Octavius Augustus had ruled the vast dominions of Rome as Emperor for twenty-seven years, when that event took place, destined to affect in the most momentous manner all races and kindreds of men: even the Birth of Jesus Christ, the long-promised Messiah. When our blessed Lord was twenty-nine years old, that is, in A.D. 29, He began to teach publicly amongst the Jews. Octavius Augustus was no longer Emperor of Rome at this time; he had died when Jesus was fourteen years old, and had been succeeded by Tiberius.

Although a small number of the Jews owned and received Jesus Christ as the expected Messiah, He was rejected by the nation in general: and after His crucifixion, the Jews tried in every way to oppose His Apostles, and prevent the spreading of Christianity. We have read their punishment in the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and the dreadful sufferings which came upon the unhappy Jews, and forced them to scatter themselves through all lands, hoping to find safety--a hope too often disappointed, and that constantly through their own fault.

The history of the Jews has thus been traced to the close of the first century after the Birth of Christ, that is, to A.D. 100.

It will now be advisable to give a slight sketch of their history, from that date until the present time. Unhappily there are many thousand Jews who profess still to expect the promised Messiah; refusing to believe that Jesus of Nazareth, in Whom all the prophecies of their Scriptures have been so literally and exactly fulfilled, was indeed the Messiah, of Whom Moses and the prophets did write.

May the Lord take away their blindness, and bring them into the one fold, under the one Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

In spite of all that the Jews had suffered from their opposition to the Romans, they could not make up their minds to submit quietly to foreign rulers.

Trajan, who became Emperor quite at the close of the first century, treated them with great severity, and even forbade them to read the Law. In consequence, a rebellion broke out, A.D. 115, at Cyrene, in Africa, where the Jews had been settled for many years: it quickly spread over Libya into Alexandria: in the struggle, the country was plundered and ruined, whilst thousands of people were killed on both sides: but finally, after a great slaughter, the Romans got the better of the rebellious Jews. The next year, the Jews in Mesopotamia took up arms, and filled the country with terror. Trajan sent against them a famous general, who, after killing great numbers of the people, forced the rest to submit to the Roman power: the successful general was then made governor of Judæa, that he might keep the Jews still residing there, in submission. Soon afterwards, there was a still more dreadful insurrection in the isle of Cyprus, where the Jews massacred an incredible number of the inhabitants: a Roman general called Adrian, then went into Cyprus, and defeated the Jews after an obstinate battle. Trajan now published an order, that all Jews should leave the isle of Cyprus, and never return to it.

When Trajan died, A.D. 117, Adrian became Emperor; he forbade the Jews to circumcise their children, and sent strangers to settle in the land of Judæa, and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, which he meant to ornament in the Roman style, and call by some Roman name. These measures so enraged the Jews, that they again broke out into open rebellion: their leader was Coziba, one of the banditti who infested the country; and under his command, all kinds of violence were committed against the subjects of Rome. Coziba pretended that he himself was the person spoken of by Balaam, when he said, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel": and in consequence, he called himself Barchocheba, or "the son of a star." Even before this time, several impostors had pretended to be either the promised Messiah, or the Elias who was to prepare his way; but Coziba was the first whose pretensions led to any important consequences.

Coziba promised to deliver his countrymen from the power of Adrian, and to make them once more an independent and glorious nation: such a Messiah as this exactly suited the false ideas of the Jews, and they acknowledged Coziba to be the Christ, the Son of God. The Rabbi Akibha, chosen by the impostor to be his forerunner or messenger, publicly anointed him as the Messiah, the king of the Jews; placed a crown upon his head; coined money in his name; and collected for him a body of 20,000 disciples. By calling upon all the descendants of Abraham to help "the Hope of Israel," promised to their common forefather, an immense army was soon assembled at Bither, a town near Jerusalem, chosen by Coziba to be the capital of his new kingdom.

Adrian, not believing that after all they had gone through, the Jews could raise an army, thought little of this revolt at first; and when at length he did send against them a powerful army, it was totally defeated. The news of this misfortune caused great astonishment and dismay at Rome: and Julius Severus, one of the greatest generals of his time, was sent to put an end to this dangerous rebellion,-a matter which he found it difficult to accomplish; but at length, in an attack upon Bither, Coziba was killed; a dreadful slaughter of men, women, and children followed; and Akibha and his sons were put to a cruel death by the Roman conqueror.

The Jewish historians say, that between battle, famine, sickness, fire, and other calamities, the number of Jews that perished in this war was greater than the number of the Children of Israel who originally came out of Egypt: and they also declare, that their terrible sufferings under Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, were not so great as those inflicted upon them in the reign of Adrian. Both these statements are probably exaggerated; but they show that the misery of the unhappy Jews at this time, was most extreme.