Part 629

The oppression of the Jewish nation under the Roman governors who ruled Judæa directly, after the death of the first Herod Agrippa (A. D. 44), may not have been heavier in reality than it had been while the dependent and Romanized tyranny of the Herodian kings prevailed, but it proved to be more irritating and exasperating. "The burden, harshly shifted, was felt to be more galling. The priests and nobles murmured, intrigued, conspired; the rabble, bolder or more impatient, broke out into sedition, and followed every chief who offered to lead them to victory and independence. … It was only indeed under extraordinary provocation that the populace of the Jewish capital, who were generally controlled by the superior prudence of their chiefs, broke into violence in the streets. … But the ruder independence of the Galileans was not so easily kept in check. Their tract of heath and mountain was always then, as it has since always been, in a state of partial insurrection. … For their coercion [at Jerusalem] the Romans had invented a peculiar machinery. To Agrippa, the tetrarch [the second Herod Agrippa], … they had given the title of King of the Sacrifices, in virtue of which he was suffered to reside in the palace at Jerusalem, and retain certain functions, fitted to impose on the imagination of the more ardent votaries of Jewish nationality. The palace of the Herods overlooked the Temple, and from its upper rooms the king could observe all that passed in that mart of business and intrigue. Placed, however, as a spy in this watch-tower, he was regarded by the Zealots, the faction of independence, as a foe to be baffled rather than a chief to be respected and honoured. They raised the walls of their sanctuary to shut out his view, and this, among other causes of discontent between the factions in the city, ripened to an enmity. … And now was introduced into the divisions of this unhappy people a new feature of atrocity. The Zealots sought to terrify the more prudent or time-serving by an organized system of private assassination. Their 'Sicarii,' or men of the dagger, are recognised in the records of the times as a secret agency, by which the most impatient of the patriots calculated on exterminating the chief supporters of the foreign government. … Hitherto the Romans, from policy rather than respect, had omitted to occupy Jerusalem with a military force. They were now invited and implored by the chiefs of the priesthood and nobility, and Florus [the Roman governor] sent a detachment to seize the city and protect the lives of his adherents. This was the point to which the Zealots themselves had wished to lead him."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 59._

A furious battle in the streets of Jerusalem occurred on the entrance of the Roman troops. The latter gained possession of the citadel, with the upper city, but, after seven days of fighting, were forced to capitulate, and were ruthlessly put to the sword, in violation of sworn pledges. "On that very day and hour, while the Jews were plunging their daggers in the hearts of the Romans, a great and terrible slaughter of their own people was going on in Cæsarea, where the Syrians and Greeks had risen upon the Jews, and massacred 20,000 of them in a single day. And in every Syrian city the same madness and hatred seized the people, and the Jews were ruthlessly slaughtered in all. No more provocation was needed; no more was possible. … The heads of the people began the war with gloomy forebodings; the common masses with the wildest enthusiasm, which became the mere intoxication of success when they drove back Cestius from the walls of the city, on the very eve of his anticipated victory—for Cestius [præfect of Syria] hastened southwards with an army of 20,000 men, and besieged the city. The people, divided amongst themselves, were on the point of opening the gates to the Romans, when, to the surprise of everybody, Cestius suddenly broke up his camp and began to retreat. Why he did so, no one ever knew. … The retreat became a flight, and Cestius brought back his army with a quarter of its numbers killed. … Vespasian was sent hastily with a force of three legions, besides the cohorts of auxiliaries. … Of the first campaign, that in Galilee, our limits will not allow us to write. … {1922} The months passed on, and yet the Romans did not appear before the walls of the city. This meantime was a prey to internal evils, which when read appear almost incredible. … The events at Rome which elevated Vespasian to the throne were the principal reasons that the siege of Jerusalem was not actually commenced till the early summer of the year 70, when, in April, Titus began his march from Cæsarea. … The city, meanwhile, had been continuing those civil dissensions which hastened its ruin. John [of Gischala], Simon Bar Gioras, and Eleazar, each at the head of his own faction, made the streets run with blood. John, whose followers numbered 6,000, held the Lower, New, and Middle City; Simon, at the head of 10,000 Jews and 5,000 Idumeans, had the strong post of the Upper City, with a portion of the third wall; Eleazar, with 2,000 zealots, more fanatic than the rest, had barricaded himself within the Temple itself. … In the sallies which John and Simon made upon each other all the buildings in this part of the town were destroyed or set on fire, and all their corn burned; so that famine had actually begun before the commencement of the siege."

_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin, chapters 1-2._

The awful but fascinating story of the siege, as told by Josephus and repeated by many writers since, is familiar to most readers and will not be given here. It was prolonged from April until the 7th of September, A. D. 70, when the Romans forced their way into the upper city. "They spread through the streets, slaying and burning as they went. In many houses where they expected rich plunder, they found nothing but heaps of putrid bodies, whole families who had died of hunger; they retreated from the loathsome sight and insufferable stench. But they were not moved to mercy towards the living; in some places the flames were actually retarded or quenched with streams of blood; night alone put an end to the carnage. … The city was ordered to be razed, excepting the three towers, which were left as standing monuments of the victory. … During the whole siege the number killed [according to Josephus] was 1,100,000, that of prisoners 97,000. In fact, the population not of Jerusalem alone, but that of the adjacent districts—many who had taken refuge in the city, more who had assembled for the feast of unleavened bread—had been shut up by the sudden formation of the siege." Of those who survived to the end and were spared, when the Roman soldiers had tired of slaughter, "all above seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in the public theatres, and in combats against wild beasts. Twelve thousand died of hunger. … Thus fell, and forever, the metropolis of the Jewish state. … Of all the stately city—the populous streets, the palaces of the Jewish kings, the fortresses of her warriors, the Temple of her God—not a ruin remained, except the tall towers of Phasaelis, Mariamne, and Hippicus, and part of the western wall, which was left as a defence for the Roman camp."

_H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 16._

ALSO IN: _H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 7._

_Josephus, The Jewish War._

_A. J. Church, Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem._

_I. M. Wise, History of the Hebrew Second Commonwealth, 7th period._

JEWS: A. D. 70-133. After the war with Rome. The state of the surviving people.

"It might have been expected that, from the character of the great war with Rome, the people, as well as the state of the Jews, would have fallen into utter dissolution, or, at least, verged rapidly towards total extermination. Besides the loss of nearly a million and a half of lives during the war, the markets of the Roman empire were glutted with Jewish slaves. … Yet still this inexhaustible race revived before long to offer new candidates for its inalienable inheritance of detestation and misery. Of the state of Palestine, indeed, immediately after the war, we have little accurate information. It is uncertain how far the enormous loss of life, and the numbers carried into captivity drained the country of the Jewish population; or how far the rescript of Vespasian, which offered the whole landed property of the province for sale, introduced a foreign race into the possession of the soil. The immense numbers engaged in the rebellion during the reign of Hadrian imply, either that the country was not nearly exhausted, or that the reproduction in this still fertile region was extremely rapid. In fact, it must be remembered that … the ravage of war was, after all, by no means universal in the province. Galilee, Judæa, and great part of Idumæa were wasted, and probably much depopulated; but, excepting a few towns which made resistance, the populous regions and wealthy cities beyond the Jordan escaped the devastation. The dominions of King Agrippa were, for the most part, respected. Samaria submitted without resistance, as did most of the cities on the sea-coast. … The Jews, though looked upon with contempt as well as detestation, were yet regarded, during the reign of Vespasian and his immediate successors, with jealous watchfulness. A garrison of 800 men occupied the ruins of Jerusalem, to prevent the reconstruction of the city by the fond and religious zeal of its former inhabitants. … Still, … it is impossible, unless communities were suffered to be formed, and the whole race enjoyed comparative security, that the nation could have appeared in the formidable attitude of resistance which it assumed in the time of Hadrian."

_H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 18 (volume 2)._

JEWS: A. D. 116. The rising in Trajan's reign.

"Not quite fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year 116, the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean rose against the imperial government. The rising, although undertaken by the Diaspora, was of a purely national character in its chief seats, Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, directed to the expulsion of the Romans as of the Hellenes, and, apparently, to the establishment of a separate Jewish state. It ramified even into Asiatic territory, and seized Mesopotamia and Palestine itself. When the insurgents were victorious they conducted the war with the same exasperation as the Sicarii in Jerusalem; they killed those whom they seized. … In Cyrene 220,000, in Cyprus even 240,000 men are said to have been thus put to death by them. On the other hand, in Alexandria, which does not appear itself to have fallen into the hands of the Jews, the besieged Hellenes slew whatever Jews were then in the city. The immediate cause of the rising is not clear. … To all appearance it was an outbreak of religious exasperation of the Jews, which had been growing in secret like a volcano since the destruction of the temple. … {1923} The insurgents were nowhere able to offer resistance to the compact troops, … and similar punishments were inflicted on this Diaspora as previously on the Jews of Palestine. That Trajan annihilated the Jews in Alexandria, as Appian says, is hardly all incorrect, although perhaps a too blunt expression for what took place."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 11 (The Provinces, volume 2)._

See, also, CYPRUS, A. D. 117.

JEWS: A. D. 130-134. The rising in Hadrian's reign.

The Emperor Hadrian, when his tour through the Empire brought him to Palestine, A. D. 130, resolved to erect the destroyed holy city of the Jews as a Roman colony with a Roman name, and to divest it altogether of the character which made it sacred in the eyes of the Jews. He forbade their sojourn in the new city, and exasperated them still more by showing favor, it is said, to the Christian sect. By this and by other measures a fresh revolt was provoked, A. D. 132, incited by the priest Eleazar and led by the bandit-chief Barcochebas, or Bar-Kok-heba ('Son of the Star'). The cruel struggle, redeemed by no humanity on either side, continued for three years, and was ended only when hundreds of thousands of Jews had been slain. "The dispersion of the unhappy race, particularly in the West, was now complete and final. The sacred soil of Jerusalem was occupied by a Roman colony, which received the name of Ælia Capitolina, with reference to the emperor who founded it [Publius Ælius Hadrianus] and to the supreme God of the pagan mythology, installed on the desecrated summits of Zion and Moriah."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 65._

"The whole body of the Jews at home and abroad was agitated by the movement and supported more or less openly the insurgents on the Jordan; even Jerusalem fell into their hands, and the governor of Syria and indeed the emperor Hadrian appeared on the scene of conflict. … As in the war under Vespasian no pitched battle took place, but one place after another cost time and blood, till at length after a three years' warfare the last castle of the insurgents, the strong Bether, not far from Jerusalem, was stormed by the Romans. The numbers handed down to us in good accounts of 50 fortresses taken, 985 villages occupied, 580,000 that fell, are not incredible, since the war was waged with inexorable cruelty, and the male population was probably everywhere put to death. In consequence of this rising the very name of the vanquished people was set aside; the province was thenceforth termed, not as formerly Judaea, but by the old name of Herodotus, Syria of the Philistines, or Syria Palaestina. The land remained desolate; the new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did not prosper. The Jews were prohibited under penalty of death from ever setting foot in Jerusalem."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 11 (The Provinces, volume 2)._

JEWS: A. D. 200-400. The Nation without a country. Its two governments.

"In less than sixty years after the war under Hadrian, before the close of the second century after Christ, the Jews present the extraordinary spectacle of two regular and organized communities: one under a sort of spiritual head, the Patriarch of Tiberias, comprehending all of Israelitish descent who inhabited the Roman empire; the other under the Prince of the Captivity, to whom all the eastern [Babylonian] Jews paid their allegiance. … Unfortunately it is among the most difficult parts of Jewish history to trace the growth of the patriarchal authority established in Tiberias, and its recognition by the whole scattered body of the nation, who, with disinterested zeal, and I do not scruple to add, a noble attachment to the race of Israel, became voluntary subjects and tributaries to their spiritual sovereign, and united with one mind and one heart to establish their community on a settled basis. It is a singular spectacle to behold a nation dispersed in every region of the world, without a murmur or repugnance, submitting to the regulations, and taxing themselves to support the greatness, of a supremacy which rested solely on public opinion, and had no temporal power whatever to enforce its decrees. It was not long before the Rabbins, who had been hunted down with unrelenting cruelty, began to creep forth from their places of concealment. The death of Hadrian, in a few years after the termination of the war, and the accession of the mild Antoninus, gave them courage, not merely to make their public appearance, but openly to reëstablish their schools and synagogues. … The Rabbinical dominion gradually rose to greater power; the schools flourished; perhaps in this interval the great Synagogue or Sanhedrin had its other migrations, … and finally to Tiberias, where it fixed its pontifical throne and maintained its supremacy for several centuries. Tiberias, it may be remembered, was a town built by Herod Antipas, over an ancient cemetery, and therefore abominated by the more scrupulous Jews, as a dwelling of uncleanness. But the Rabbins soon obviated this objection. Simon Ben Jochai, by his cabalistic art, discovered the exact spot where the burial-place had been; this was marked off, and the rest of the city declared, on the same unerring authority, to be clean. Here, then, in this noble city, on the shore of the sea of Galilee, the Jewish pontiff fixed his throne; the Sanhedrin, if it had not, as the Jews pretend, existed during all the reverses of the nation, was formally reëstablished. Simon, the son and heir of Gamaliel, was acknowledged as the Patriarch of the Jews, and Nasi or President of the Sanhedrin. … In every region of the West, in every province of the Roman empire, the Jews of all ranks and classes submitted, with the utmost readiness, to the sway of their Spiritual Potentate. His mandates were obeyed, his legates received with honour, his supplies levied without difficulty, in Rome, in Spain, in Africa. … In the mean time the rival throne in Babylonia, that of the Prince of the Captivity, was rapidly rising to the state and dignity which perhaps did not attain its perfect height till under the Persian monarchs. There seems to have been some acknowledged hereditary claim in R. Hona, who now appears as the Prince of the Captivity, as if his descent from the House of David had been recognized by the willing credulity of his brethren. … The Court of the Resch-Glutha [Prince of the Captivity] is described as … splendid; in imitation of his Persian master, he had his officers, counsellors, and cupbearers. Rabbins were appointed as satraps over the different communities. This state, it is probable, was maintained by a tribute raised from the body of the people, and substituted for that which, in ancient times, was paid for the Temple in Jerusalem. … Whether the authority of the Prince of the Captivity extended beyond Babylonia and the adjacent districts is uncertain."

_H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 19 (volume 2)._

{1924}

JEWS: A. D. 415. Driven from Alexandria by Cyril.

See ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 413-415.

JEWS: 5-6th Centuries. Early Jewish settlements in Europe. Arian toleration and Catholic persecution.