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The Jews, however, fared little better under his successor, Adrian. This emperor had been a witness of the atrocities perpetrated by the Jews during the insurrection in Cyprus; and he had probably some reason for anticipating a similar demonstration in Palestine. Scarcely fifty years had elapsed since that land had been reduced to the condition of a desert. But so irrepressible was the vigour of the Hebrew race, that the fields had been recultivated, the forests replanted, most of the cities rebuilt, and tenanted by large and thriving populations. It was obvious, if Jerusalem should rise from its ruins, and a new temple crown Mount Moriah, that a repetition of the war, which had cost Rome so much blood and treasure, would inevitably ensue. It is not known with any certainty what was the condition of Jerusalem at this time. When the city fell entirely into the hands of Titus, he ordered the whole of it to be destroyed, with the exception of the three stately towers of Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Psephinus, together with part of the western wall,--which was left as a shelter to the Roman camp, where about eight hundred legionaries were stationed, as a garrison, to preserve order in the neighbouring country. How long they remained there is uncertain. But no one seems to have interfered with such persons as chose to return to the deserted spot, and erect new homes out of the heaps of ruin that lay scattered round. What numbers may by this time have assembled on the site of the Holy City we are not told. But Adrian resolved to put a stop to the fancies which, not improbably, really were current among the Jews, by establishing a Roman colony on the spot, and building on Mount Moriah a temple of Jupiter.

It is likely that the faith of the Jewish people in the appearance of a promised Messiah was by this time a good deal shaken. So many impostors had appeared, and lured their thousands to destruction, that even the deeply seated belief in his speedy advent was not sufficient to induce them to admit the pretensions of any fresh aspirant without careful inquiry. But in the present instance there were two considerations, each of which had been enough by itself to remove all doubt or hesitation. The first is, what has been already mentioned, the flagrancy of the insult offered to Almighty God; which, in the judgment of the Jews, was certain to bring down signal and immediate judgment on its authors. The other was the fact that Barchochebas had been accepted as the veritable Messiah by Akiba, the greatest of their Rabbis, and chief of the schools at Bethor. Something should be said of both these men, who played so conspicuous a part at this crisis in Jewish history.

The numbers of those slain in the Jewish wars, as reported by Josephus, are as under.

At Caesarea 20,000 | At Mt. Gerizim 11,600 " Scythopolis 13,000 | " Jotapata 40,000 " Alexandria 50,000 | " Gamala 15,000 " Damascus 10,000 | " Gadara 15,000 " Ascalon 20,000 | " Jerusalem 1,100,000 " Joppa 15,000 |

At other places there were smaller totals, amounting altogether to upwards of 100,000, and making the entire sum of slain something less than a million and a half. But, as is elsewhere intimated , Josephus's statements must be received with caution. The large population found in Palestine in Adrian's reign is not easily reconcilable with it. Lightfoot's opinion seems the more probable one. Notwithstanding the great carnage, he says, 'Tantum abfuit gens a totali et consummat? deletione, ut undique adhuc restaret innumera multitudo, quae se pacate Romano nutui dedidisset, et pace sedibus suis quiete frueretur. Ita ut Templum et Metropolim quidem desiderares, verum terram habitatoribus repletam, compositum Synedrii, Synagogarum, Populi statum illico cerneres.'--Lightfoot, vol. xi. 468.

FOOTNOTES:

See note at end of chapter.

He is said at the same time to have issued a decree forbidding the Jews to circumcise their children.

A.D. 131-135.

THE REVOLT OF BARCHOCHEBAS.

Rabbi Akiba was a proselyte of Canaanitish descent, a herdsman in the employ of a wealthy man named Kalba-Sabua. His master's daughter fell in love with him, and they were married, though without the father's knowledge. When he learned the fact, he drove them from his house; and Akiba, at the age of forty, began the study of the law. He obtained great reputation in it, being accounted one of the chief authorities of that Rabbinical school of interpretation which upholds the absolute integrity of the received text, and teaches that every word, nay every letter of it, has its special and mystical meaning. After twelve years of study, when he had risen to considerable eminence, he paid a visit to Kalba-Sabua, followed by 12,000 disciples, who attended on his teaching. The old man continuing inflexible, Akiba returned to his studies for twelve years more, when he again appeared at his father-in-law's house, this time accompanied by 24,000 scholars. This evidence of the honour in which his son-in-law was held overcame Kalba-Sabua's resentment, and he bestowed a large portion of his riches upon him. At the time of the revolt from Adrian, Akiba was nearly 120 years old. He had been recently travelling in Northern Africa and Mesopotamia, where he had witnessed the zeal of his countrymen for the Hope of Israel; and he was resolved that he and his should not fall behind them in courage and devotion.

His first step, as we have seen, was to march with such forces as he could raise to Jerusalem; where he put a stop to the sacrilegious work which had been already commenced by Adrian's order. He then proceeded to the strong city of Bithor, or Bethor, which lay at no great distance from Jerusalem. Here he was publicly acknowledged by Akiba as the Messiah, and large numbers of Jews, not from Judaea only, but from other neighbouring countries, flocked in to his standard. The levies at his command are said to have amounted at one time to 200,000 men; a force with which the Roman troops in Judaea were wholly unable to cope. The whole country fell under his dominion, and the utmost zeal and loyalty were displayed in his service. The only persons throughout the whole of Palestine who stood aloof were the Christians; who, knowing that Jesus Christ was the true Deliverer of the Jewish people, could not acknowledge any other to be such. Barchochebas is said to have punished their defection, as he considered it, with the most savage cruelty, regarding them as rebels and traitors, more criminal than the Romans themselves.

Adrian, who could not for a long time be induced to believe that the Jews, after the terrible lesson which their fathers had learned of the consequences of rebellion against Rome, would again provoke a mortal quarrel, treated the outbreak as a matter of but small importance. But the tales that reached him, of large military stores being in the possession of the Jews, who had for a long time past been secretly collecting them; of their countrymen from Egypt and the East thronging to their standard; and even of multitudes of strangers to their faith and nation nevertheless joining them, in the hope of obtaining plunder, roused him at length to vigorous action. He sent a reinforcement of troops to Ticinius, or Tinnius, by some called Turnus Rufus, who commanded in Judaea, and recalled from Britain Julius Severus, the ablest officer of his time, to put down, what--it was now impossible to disguise--had become a dangerous rebellion.

The fate of the stern old Rabbi Akiba should not be passed over. He was treated with the utmost barbarity by Rufus, who seems to have been in command at the capture of the city. While under examination before the Roman tribunal, the hour of prayer came round, and Akiba, wholly disregarding the presence of his judge, and his own mortal peril, fell on his knees and calmly went through his usual devotions. Only a scanty pittance of water was allowed him in his dungeon; but though he was consumed with thirst, he applied the water to the customary ceremonial ablutions. He was sentenced to death, and executed with the most barbarous cruelty, some writers affirming that he was flayed alive, and afterwards slain, others that he was torn to pieces with iron combs.

Adrian now carried out his design, the commencement of which had been the immediate cause of the war, and built a heathen city on the site of ancient Jerusalem. This he called AElia Capitolina--AElia after his own name AElius, and Capitolina, because it was dedicated to the Capitoline Jupiter. It was built in the style prevalent among the Romans of that day; and was enclosed by a wall, which included Mount Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, but did not take in Mount Zion. In the execution of his plan he was careful to show all possible dishonour to the localities which the Jews and also the Christians regarded with veneration. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was erected on the site of the Temple itself; over the gate which looked towards Bethlehem, the city of David, a marble figure of a hog was set up; on Mount Calvary was placed a statue of Venus, the foulest of the heathen deities; and in the grotto at Bethlehem, where the Saviour was born, the worship of Adonis was established. Why Adrian should have been thus studious to profane these latter places, which, though they possessed special sanctity in the eyes of the Christians, had little or none in those of the Jews, does not appear. We can only suppose that the confusion between the Jews and the Christians, who for many generations were regarded as being merely a schismatical Jewish sect, misled the Roman emperor, even at this date and that he regarded Mount Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre as spots especially venerated by Jews. It is certain that no part of his anger was levelled against the Christians. He suffered them to settle within his newly erected city, and carry on their worship there without interruption. AElia became, not long afterwards, the seat of a Christian bishopric.

But to the Jews he extended no such grace. He issued two edicts; one renewing the order which forbade the circumcision of their children; the other interdicting them, on pain of instant death, from entering the newly-built city, or even approaching so near to it as to be able to discern with their eyes the sacred precincts. It would seem that this prohibition was subsequently relaxed, so far as one day in the year was concerned, the anniversary, namely, of the capture of the city in the war with Titus, and again, in that with Barchochebas; for it is a singular fact that the two events occurred in the same month and on the same day. On the recurrence of that day of misery and despair, they were allowed to pass the Roman sentinels, and gaze once more on the ruins of the past. Jerome has given a moving account of the scene, which, it would appear, he himself witnessed, two centuries afterwards--the crowd of dejected exiles, the sobs of the women, the agonized despair of the men, the jeers and scoffs of the bystanders, and the rude demands of the Roman soldiers for bribes of money, as the only condition on which they could be allowed to indulge their sorrow.

FOOTNOTES:

So, at least, say the Jewish biographers. But as they labour to assimilate him in all things to Moses, it is not unlikely that they have accommodated his age to their theories.

He is said to have resorted to the expedient, already practised by pretenders before him, of filling his mouth with lighted tow, and so appearing to vomit flame.

The Jews often confounded this man, who is the object of their special enmity, with the Terentius Rufus to whom Titus entrusted the final demolition of Jerusalem, and who is almost equally detested by them.

It is a doubtful point whether Jerusalem was one of the places so taken. It appears most probable that it was; and that the work of demolition, which had been begun by Titus, was completed by Adrian, and every trace of old Jerusalem destroyed.

There is evidence, however, that these successes were not obtained without severe reverses. The language of Adrian in his despatches to the Senate, in which he omits his usual assurance, that all is well with the army, is significant of this fact.

The Talmud affirms that his cheerful demeanour, while subjected to the most agonizing tortures, amazed his executioners, and that he told them, that having the love of God in his heart, he could not but rejoice.

August 9th. This was also the day of the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. One cannot but entertain suspicion of the accuracy of these statements.

Their exclusion from Jerusalem is mentioned by many writers earlier than Jerome--Justin Martyr, Eusebius, and Tertullian, amongst others.

A.D. 135-323.

THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPERORS FROM ADRIAN TO CONSTANTINE.

Deplorable as had been the condition of the Jews after the war with Titus, that of their descendants appeared to be still worse, when their struggle for independence was closed by the fall of Bethor. The devastation of their lands, and the destruction of their cities, could not have been worse than it was on the former occasion. But they were not then forbidden by their conquerors to return to their ancient homes, or practise the initiatory rite of their religion. To all appearance, the total extinction of the nation, by the absorption of its scattered members among the various communities to which they had fled for shelter, must inevitably ensue. Nevertheless, this did not occur. On the contrary, a period of nearly two hundred years now elapsed, during which they continued, undisturbed by Imperial severity or intestine commotion, to recruit their numbers and increase their wealth and influence in almost every portion of the Roman Empire. This appears to have been due in the first instance to the favour of Antoninus, who succeeded to the Imperial purple on the death of Adrian. A story is told of a miraculous cure of the Emperor's daughter by a Jew, in requital of which the edict forbidding circumcision was repealed. But the story rests on no trustworthy authority. The prohibition was renewed by Aurelius, when the Eastern Jews offended him by joining the standard of the rebel Avidius Cassius. But it was soon repealed, if it was ever acted on.

It is evident, however, that, notwithstanding the toleration extended to the Jews, they were closely watched, and little trust was reposed in their good faith. At Jamnia , where a great Rabbinical school had been established after the fall of Jerusalem, the jealousy of the Romans was roused by an imprudent speech made by the celebrated Simon Jochaides, the reputed author of the Book of Zohar, and the person by whom the cure of Antoninus's daughter is said to have been effected. On the occasion of some public debate, he denounced the rapacity and selfishness of the heathen rulers. For this expression of opinion he was condemned to death, which he only escaped by flight; and the school at Jamnia was suppressed. On another occasion the periodical sounding of the trumpet, in the month Tisri, was mistaken by the governor of the city for the signal of a general revolt.

In Rome itself--indeed, in all the great cities of the Empire--during the reigns of the emperors who succeeded Aurelius, up to the time of Constantine, the Jews were but little interfered with. This was owing partly to their long residence in the capital. The date of their first settlement there is unknown. It has been supposed to be coincident with Pompey's victories, which probably did bring a large number of Jewish slaves to Rome. Philo's testimony to this fact, and to their general emancipation by their purchasers, seems trustworthy enough. But it is certain that the Jews had spread far and wide among all nations before that date, and hence it is most unlikely that so great a commercial centre as Rome would be overlooked by them. Josephus says that 8,000 of them attended when Archelaus was received by Augustus; and though Claudius banished them, it was only temporarily. It is plain that there were great numbers there, when St. Paul was imprisoned at Rome. Juvenal, again, speaks of the mendicant hordes who profaned the grove of Egeria; and the testimony of Tacitus and Martial is to the same effect. The Jews were regarded with contemptuous dislike, but there was no inclination to persecute them. There was another reason, too, why they were treated with leniency. After Adrian's time, attention was directed to the Christians, as the professors of a faith distinct from, and alien to, Judaism. Thenceforth the Jews were regarded in a different light. As Christianity grew and spread throughout the empire, its converts came to be accounted the deadly enemies of the State; and the Jews, who disliked them as much as the heathen did, were naturally welcomed as allies against the common enemy. In any persecution of the 'New Superstition,' the Jews were ever ready to take their part; and their wealth, their numbers, and their zeal rendered their help valuable. The Pagan rulers felt but little inclination to inquire into the shortcomings and offences of such useful partisans.

The statement has already, been noticed, that the Sanhedrin escaped destruction during the war with Titus. Some of its members were slain, but the greater part were allowed--so it is averred--to depart from Jerusalem, and settle at Jamnia. Thence they removed to Sepphoris, and afterwards to Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, whence the President of the Sanhedrin came to be styled 'the Patriarch of Tiberias.' His authority was acknowledged by all Jews residing within the limits of the Roman Empire. How far obedience to him was voluntary, how far a matter of compulsion, it would not be very easy to determine. The Romans in all likelihood would be tolerant enough of the exercise of any such authority, which did not infringe their Imperial power--nay, would probably refer to it all matters relating to the peculiar usages of the Jews, in the same spirit in which Claudius Lysias wrote to Felix, and Gallio refused to listen to the Jewish disputants. The people on their part would readily submit themselves to the Patriarch of their own nation, if only in protest against the hated rule of the stranger. Hence, for many generations, Gamaliel and his successors wielded a wide and undisputed authority.

The Sanhedrin consisted of seventy-one members, who were chosen entirely for the moral excellence of their characters. No young or unmarried man, no alien, and no one who followed a disreputable calling, was eligible. With these exceptions, membership was open to all ranks and conditions of men.

To resume our narrative. At the accession of Septimius Severus, who attained the Imperial purple at the close of the struggle which ensued after the murder of Commodus, the Jews are said to have received harsh treatment at his hands; which may well occasion the reader surprise, as they almost everywhere joined his standard, as the rival of their bitter enemy, Niger. Yet it is certain that he re-enacted the old laws against proselytism, or entering the precincts of Jerusalem; and, if Eusebius is to be credited, he actually made war on the Jews, and a triumph was decreed him for his successes in the campaign. But even if this be true, his anger must soon have subsided; for during his reign they enjoyed a considerable share of his favour, for which writers hint that they had to pay heavily. It would appear again that they prospered under the rule of his depraved and barbarous son Caracalla. This Emperor is said in early life to have been warmly attached to a Jewish playmate, the only person for whom he seems ever to have felt any affection. A few years afterwards they had a still more extraordinary and discreditable patron in Heliogabalus, the very vilest, it may safely be affirmed, of all the Roman emperors. Actuated by the strange caprice which commonly swayed his actions, he adopted the Jewish customs of circumcision and abstinence from swine's flesh. It does not appear, however, that he bestowed any special marks of regard on the Jews, in consequence of the inclination he showed for their peculiar tenets. Their religion, in fact, was only one out of many from which he borrowed one observance or another; and if it is true that he was on the point of proclaiming himself to be the chief object of all religious worship, which all must render him on pain of death, his murder came only just in time to save them from a sharp persecution. Under his successor, Alexander Severus, they are thought to have experienced unusual kindness, because that prince had imbibed from his mother Mammaea a great prejudice in their favour. He did show some feeling of this kind, in that he set up the statue of Abraham in his private chapel, as one of those worthy of Divine honours.

But it should be borne in mind that this virtuous prince was after all a heathen, and had very vague and imperfect ideas about religion. He regarded all good men as equally worthy of honour, and his theology hardly extended further. In the shrine already referred to, he placed not only the statue of Abraham, but of Orpheus, Apollonius Tyaneus, and Jesus Christ! It is needless to say that the man who did this could have been no proselyte to Judaism , or to Christianity either.

A similar protection was extended to the Jews during the reign of Philip the Arabian--another sovereign about whom similar fancies are entertained by Jewish writers, and with no more reason, apparently, than in the other instances. The Christians also experienced the same merciful sway. But with the accession of Decius, A.D. 249, the persecution of the Christians, which had slumbered, with only some slight and partial renewals, since the time of Aurelius, broke out with greater violence than ever, and continued to rage, with rare intermissions, through the reigns of successive emperors, until the accession of Constantine. There is little or nothing to record respecting the Jews during this period, so far as those of the West are concerned, unless the war waged by one of the most powerful of the later occupants of the Imperial throne, Aurelian, with Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, may be thought to have some relation to Jewish affairs. This princess is said to have been a descendant of the Asmonaean family, or, at all events, of Jewish birth, and to have been brought up in the Jewish faith. Some go so far as to say she was a zealous professor of it. It is certain that she built splendid synagogues for the use of the Jews, and advanced them to the highest posts of dignity. The celebrated Paul of Samosata, who enjoyed her special favour, has been thought to have attempted to effect a reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism, insisting on the necessity of the rite of circumcision, and teaching that Jesus was, although a man, one in whom the Divine ????? dwelt. This, it is thought, may have had her approval. If such was really his design, it proved, as might have been expected, a total failure, both parties alike rejecting his teaching. After the fall of Zenobia, he was deprived of his office, and vanished into obscurity.

But in any case her history belongs more properly to that of the Eastern Jews, that large section of the Hebrew race which had spread far to the eastward of the great river, and who dwelt under the rule of the Patriarch, known by the title of the 'Prince of the Captivity.' It will be proper now to turn to their affairs.

FOOTNOTES:

According to others, it was the daughter of Aurelius who was healed. A deputation had been sent to protest against the severe edicts of Verus. The celebrated mystic, Simon ben Jochai, was the envoy, and he cast an evil spirit out of the Emperor's daughter. The Rabbins assert also that Antoninus received circumcision. But their testimony on this, as on many similar matters, cannot be relied on.

Thus it is mentioned that the Jews were more forward than the heathen in bringing faggots to burn the Christian martyr Polycarp--'as is their habit,' says the historian .

Origen affirms that the power of the patriarchs was little less than that of a king .

The Presidents of the Sanhedrin are said to have been--

It may be that it was not against the Jews, but the Samaritans, that Severus waged war, and that he temporarily confounded them with the Jews. The Romans continually made such mistakes.

Some of the Rabbins assert that Caracalla received circumcision, but with no more evidence in support of their statement than in the instance of Antoninus. There was, however, something unusual in the education of Caracalla. Tertullian says that he received a Christian education 'lacte Christiano educatus' . If so, he profited but little by it.

This seems to have been notorious, as the nickname of the 'Ruler of the Synagogue,' given him by the wits of the day, seems to indicate.

This extraordinary man was born at Tyana, in Cappadocia, a year or two before our Lord. Hierocles, A.D. 300, wrote a comparison between him and Jesus Christ, in which the main points of resemblance are his miraculous birth and power of working miracles, his attempt to reform the religion of the world, and the voice from heaven, which is said to have summoned him from earth. His history, written by Philostratus is overlaid with exaggeration and fable; but he is to be regarded rather as an enthusiast and a mystic than as an impostor. His fame was at its zenith in the time of Alexander Severus.

Zenobia has been claimed as an upholder of, if not a convert to, Christianity. She was probably an eclectic with no settled faith. Hence her patronage of Paul.

This notorious heresiarch was a native of Samosata, in Syria. He was made Bishop of Antioch A.D. 260; but his elevation seems to have turned his head. He thenceforth affected great state and splendour. Encouraged by the favour of Zenobia, he usurped great power in the Church. To gain her favour, it is said, he attempted the alleged compromise between Judaism and Christianity. A council was held A.D. 265, to consider his opinions, over which Firmilian presided, and by which he was condemned. He refused to obey the decree; but a second council was thereupon summoned, by which he was deposed, and its sentence was confirmed by Aurelian.

A.D. 323-363.

THE PRINCES OF THE CAPTIVITY.--MANES.--THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPERORS FROM CONSTANTINE TO JULIAN.

It is probable that the authority exercised by the Patriarchs of the East grew up after the abandonment by Adrian of his predecessor's conquests beyond the Euphrates. The power of the Parthian kings had been broken by the victories of Trajan; and in the remoter parts of their dominions they exercised but a feeble authority. Hence little opposition would be offered to the rule of the Jewish Patriarch--the less, because the respect and obedience rendered to him did not in any way trench on the allegiance due to the civil ruler.

But in the succeeding century the Prince of the Captivity recovered all, and more than all, the power exercised by his predecessors. Tales are related of his grandeur and magnificence, which it is difficult to credit, and the more so, because they do not seem to have diminished after the accession of the Persian kings, who might reasonably have been expected to be jealous of such subjects. The Patriarch was wont to be installed in his office with the greatest pomp. He was carried in a splendid procession, attended by the Rabbins, and preceded by trumpets, to the Synagogue, where he was formally admitted to his office, amid the prayers and blessings of the people. He then returned in like fashion to his palace, where he entertained his chief officers at a sumptuous banquet. He lived in the seclusion usual among Eastern potentates. But whenever he went abroad or entered a house he was received with every token of respect. He would sometimes, we are told, pay a visit to the king; when one of the royal chariots would be sent for his use--which, however, he would decline, remembering that, after all, he was an alien and a captive. But this studied humility was visible in nothing else. He was robed in the most splendid vestments, and preceded by a guard of fifty soldiers. The way was cleared before him, and all who met him saluted him with the profoundest respect. At the door of the palace he was met by the royal officers, who conducted him to the king's presence; where, after the first reverence had been paid, he was placed on the left hand of the throne, to confer with the sovereign on the affairs of the State.

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