for the first time felt the necessity for concord, as Eleazar from the
summit of the Temple, John from the porticoes of the outer court, and
Simon from the heights of Sion watched the Roman camps forming thus so
near the walls. Making terms with each other, they agreed to make an
attack at the same moment. Their followers, rushing suddenly forth along
the valley of Jehoshaphat, fell with violence on the 10th legion,
encamped at the foot of the Mount of Olives, and working there unarmed
at the entrenchments. The soldiers fell back, many being killed.
Witnessing their peril, Titus, with picked troops, fell on the flank of
the Jews and drove them into the city with great loss.
The Roman commander now carefully pushed forward his approaches,
leveling the whole plain of Scopos to the outward wall and destroying
all the beautiful gardens with their fountains and water-courses, and
the army took up a position all along the northern and the western wall,
the footmen being drawn up in seven lines, with the horsemen in three
lines behind, and the archers between. Jerusalem was fortified by three
walls. These were not one within the other, for each defended one of the
quarters into which the city was divided.
The first, or outermost, encompassed Bezetha, the next protected the
citadel of the Antonia and the northern front of the Temple, and the
third, or old, and innermost wall was that of Sion. Many towers, 35 feet
high and 35 feet broad, each surmounted with lofty chambers and with
great tanks for rain water, guarded the whole circuit of the walls, 90
being in the first wall, 14 in the second, and 60 in the third. The
whole circuit of the city was about 33 stadia (four miles). From their
pent-houses of wicker the Romans, with great toil day and night,
discharged arrows and stones, which slew many of the citizens.
At three different places the battering rams began their thundering
work, and at length a corner tower came down, yet the walls stood firm,
for there was no breach. Suddenly the besieged sallied forth and set
fire to the engines. Titus came up with his horsemen and slew twelve
Jews with his own hands. One was taken prisoner and was crucified before
the walls as an example, being the first so executed during the siege.
The Jews now retreated to the second wall, abandoning the defence of
Bezetha, which the Romans entered. Titus instantly ordered the second
wall to be attacked, and for five days the conflict raged more fiercely
than ever. The Jews were entirely reckless of their own lives,
sacrificing themselves readily if they could kill their foes. On the
fifth day they retreated from the second wall, and Titus entered that
part of the lower city which was within it with I,000 picked men.
But, being desirous of winning the people, he ordered that no houses
should be set on fire and no massacres should be committed. The
seditious, however, slew everyone who spoke of peace, and furiously
assailed the Romans. Some fought from the walls, others from the houses,
and such confusion prevailed that the Romans retired; then the Jews,
elated, manned the breach, making a wall of their own bodies.
Thus the fight continued for three days, till Titus a second time
entered the wall. He threw down all the northern part and strongly
garrisoned the towers on the south. The strong heights of Sion, the
citadel of the Antonia, and the fortified Temple still held out Titus,
eager to save so magnificent a place, resolved to refrain for a few days
from the attack, in order that the minds of the besieged might be
affected by their woes, and that the slow results of famine might
operate. He reviewed his army in full armour, and they received their
pay in view of the city, the battlements being thronged by spectators
during this splendid defiling, who looked on in terror and dismay. Then
Titus sent Josephus to address them and to persuade them to yield, but
the Zealots reviled him and hurled darts at him; but many began to
desert, Titus permitted them to come in unmolested. John and Simon in
their anger watched every outlet and executed any whom they suspected of
designing to follow.
The famine increased, and the misery of the weaker was aggravated by
seeing the stronger obtaining food. All natural affection was
extinguished, husbands and wives, parents and children snatching the
last morsel from each other. Many wretched men were caught by the Romans
prowling in the ravines by night to pick up food, and these were
scourged, tortured, and crucified. In the morning sometimes 500 of these
victims were seen on crosses before the walls. This was done to terrify
the rest, and it went on till there was not wood enough for crosses.
Terrible crimes were committed in the city. The aged high-priest,
Matthias, was accused of holding communication with the enemy. Three of
his sons were killed in his presence, and he was executed in sight of
the Romans, together with sixteen other members of the sanhedrin, and
the parents of Josephus were thrown into prison. The famine grew so
woeful that a woman devoured the body of her own child. At length, after
fierce fighting, the Antonia was scaled, and Titus ordered its
demolition.
Titus now promised that the Temple should be spared if the defenders
would come forth and fight in any other place, but John and the Zealots
refused to surrender it. For several days the outer cloisters and outer
court were attacked with rams, but the immense and compact stones
resisted the blows. As many soldiers were slain in seeking to storm the
cloisters, Titus ordered the gates to be set on fire. A soldier flung a
blazing brand into a gilded door on the north side of the chambers. The
Jews, with cries of grief and rage, grasped their swords and rushed to
take revenge on their enemies or perish in the ruins.
The slaughter was continued while the fire raged. Soon no part was left
but a small portion of the outer cloisters. Titus next spent eighteen
days in preparations for the attack on the upper city, which was then
speedily captured. And now the Romans were not disposed to display any
mercy, night alone putting an end to the carnage. During the whole of
this siege of Jerusalem, 1,100,000 were slain, and the prisoners
numbered 97,000.
* * * * *
HENRY MILMAN, D.D.
History of the Jews
Henry Hart Milman, D.D., was born in London on February 10,
1791, died on September 24, 1868, and was buried in St. Paul's
Cathedral, of which for the last nineteen years of his life he
was Dean. He was the youngest son of Sir Francis Milman,
physician to George III, and was educated at Greenwich, Eton
and Oxford. Although as a scholarly poet he had a considerable
reputation, his literary fame rests chiefly on his fine
historical works, of which fifteen volumes appeared, including
the "History of the Jews," the "History of Christianity to the
Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire," and the "History
of Latin Christianity to the Pontificate of Nicholas V." The
appearance of the "History of the Jews" in 1830 caused no
small consternation among the orthodox, but among the Jews
themselves it was exceptionally well received. Dean Milman
wrote several hymns, including "Ride on, ride on in majesty,"
"When our heads are bowed in woe." Although this history
carries the Jewish race down to modern times, it is included
in the section of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS treating of
ancient history, as it is the history of an ancient race, not
of a definite country.
_I.--Dissolution of the Jewish States_
By the destruction of Jerusalem and of the fortified cities of Machærus
and Masada, which had held out after it, the political existence of the
Jewish nation was annihilated; it was never again recognised as one of
the states or kingdoms of the world. We have now to trace a despised and
obscure race in almost every region of the world. We are called back,
indeed, for a short time to Palestine, to relate new scenes of revolt,
ruin, and persecution. Not long after the dissolution of the Jewish
state it revived again in appearance, under the form of two separate
communities--one under a sovereignty purely spiritual, the other partly
spiritual and partly temporal, but each, comprehending all the Jewish
families in the two great divisions of the world. At the head of the
Jews on this side of the Euphrates appeared the Patriarch of the West;
the chief of the Mesopotamian communities, assumed the striking but more
temporal title of Resch-Glutha, or Prince of the Captivity.
That Judaism should have thus survived is one of the most marvellous of
historic phenomena. But, for the most part, the populous cities beyond
the Jordan, the dominions of Agrippa, and Samaria escaped the
devastation; and, according to tradition, the sanhedrin was spared in
the general wreck.
After a brief interval of peace for the Jews scattered through the world
during the reign of Nerva, their settlements in Babylonia, Egypt,
Cyrene, and Judea broke out in rebellion against the intolerant
religious policy of the otherwise sagacious and upright Trajan. Great
atrocities were committed by revolting Jews in Egypt, and the
retaliation was terrible. It is said that 220,000 Jews fell before the
remorseless vengeance of their enemies. The flame spread to Cyprus,
where it was quenched by Hadrian, afterwards emperor. He expelled the
Jews from the island. When Hadrian ascended the throne, in 117 A.D., he
issued an edict which was tantamount to the total suppression of
Judaism, for it interdicted circumcision, the reading of the law, and
the observance of the Sabbath.
At this momentous juncture, when universal dismay prevailed, it was
announced that the Messiah had appeared. He had come in power and glory.
His name fulfilled the prophecy of Balaam. Barcochab, the Son of the
Star, was that star which was to "arise out of Jacob." Wonders attended
on his person; he breathed flames from his mouth which, no doubt, would
burn up the strength of the proud oppressor, and wither the armies of
the tyrannical Hadrian. Above all, Akiba, the greatest of the rabbins,
the living oracle of divine truth, espoused the claims of the new
Messiah; he was called the standard-bearer of the Son of the Star. Of
him also wondrous stories were told. The first expedition of Barcochab
was to the ruins of Jerusalem, where a rude town had sprung up. Here he
openly assumed the title of king. But he and his followers avoided a
battle in the open field. On the arrival of the famous Julius Severus to
take command of the Roman forces, the rebel Jews were in possession of
fifty of the strongest castles and nearly a thousand villages. Severus
attacked the strongholds in detail, reducing them by famine, and
gradually brought the war to a close.
Over half a million Jews perished during the struggle, and the whole of
Judea was a desert in which wolves and hyenas howled through the streets
of the desolate cities. Hadrian established a new city on the site of
Jerusalem, which he called Ælia Capitolina, and peopled with a colony of
foreigners. An edict was issued prohibiting any Jew from entering the
new city on pain of death, and the more effectually to enforce the
edict, the image of a swine was placed over the gate leading to
Bethlehem.
_II.--Judaism and Christianity_
For the fourth time the Jewish people seemed on the brink of
extermination. Nebuchadrezzar, Antiochus, Titus, and Hadrian had
successively exerted their utmost power to extinguish their existence as
a separate people. Yet 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 separate and regularly
organised communities--one under the Patriarch of Tiberias,
comprehending all of Isrælitish descent who inhabited the Roman Empire;
the other under the Prince of the Captivity, to whom all the eastern
Jews paid allegiance. By the mild temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews
were restored to their ancient privileges. Though still forbidden to
enter Jerusalem, they were permitted to acquire the freedom of Rome, to
establish many settlements in Italy, and to enjoy municipal honours.
This gentle treatment assuaged the stern temper of the race. Awakened
from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behaviour of
peaceable and industrious subjects. The worship of the synagogue became
the great bond of racial union, and through centuries held the scattered
nation in the closest uniformity.
The middle of the third century beheld all Isræl incorporated into
their two communities, under their patriarch and their caliphate. The
Resch-Glutha, or Prince of the Captivity, lived in all the state and
splendour of an oriental potentate, far outshining in his pomp his rival
sovereign in Tiberias. The most celebrated of the rabbinical sovereigns
was Jehuda, sometimes called the nasi or patriarch. His life was of such
spotless purity that he was named the Holy. He was the author of a new
constitution for the Jewish people, for he embodied in the celebrated
Mischna all the authorised traditions of the schools and courts, and all
the authorised interpretations of the Mosaic law. Both in the East and
the West the Jews maintained their seclusion from the rest of the world.
The great work called the Talmud, formed of the Mischna and the Gemara
(or compilation of comments), was composed during a period of thirty
years of profound peace for the masters of the Babylonian schools, under
Persian rule. This remains a monumental token of learning and industry
of the eastern Jewish rabbins of the third and fourth centuries.
The formal establishment of Christianity by Constantine the Great, in
the early part of the fourth century, might have led to Jewish
apprehension lest the Synagogue should be eclipsed by the splendour of
its triumphant rival, the Christian Church; but the Rabbinical authority
had raised an insurmountable barrier around the Synagogue. And,
unhappily, the Church had lost its most effective means of
conversion--its miraculous powers, its simple doctrine, and the
blameless lives of its believers. Constantine enacted severe laws
against the Jews, which seem in great part to have been occasioned by
their own fiery zeal. But, still earlier than these enactments, Spain
had given the signal for hostility towards the Jews. A decree was passed
at the Council of Elvira prohibiting Jewish and Christian farmers and
peasants from mingling together at harvest home and other festivals.
In Egypt, during the reign of Constantius, who succeeded his father
Constantine, the hot-headed Jews of Alexandria provoked the enactment by
that emperor of yet severer laws, by mingling themselves in the factions
of Arians and Athanasians, which distracted that restless city. They
joined with the pagans on the side of the Arian bishop, and committed
frightful excesses. An insurrection in Judea, which terminated in the
destruction of Dio Cæsarea, gave further pretext for exaction and
oppression. But the apostasy of the emperor for a time revived the hopes
of the race, especially when he issued his memorable edict decreeing the
rebuilding of the Temple on Mount Moriah, and the restoration of the
Jewish worship in its original splendour.
The whole Jewish world was now in commotion. Julian entrusted the
execution of the project to his favourite, Alypius, while he advanced
with his ill-fated army to the East. The Jews crowded from the most
distant quarters to assist in the work. But terrible disappointment
ensued. Fire destroyed the work, and various catastrophes frustrated the
enterprise, and the death of Julian rendered it hopeless.
The irruption of the Northern Barbarians during the latter half of the
fourth to about the end of the fifth century so completely disorganised
the whole frame of society that the condition of its humblest members
could not but be powerfully influenced thereby. The Jews were widely
dispersed in all those countries on which the storm fell--in Belgium,
the Rhine districts, Germany, where it was civilised, Gaul, Italy, and
Spain. Not only did the Jews in their scattered colonies engage actively
in mercantile pursuits, but one great branch of commerce fell chiefly
into their hands--the internal slave-trade of Europe.
The Church beheld this evil with grief and indignation, and popes issued
rescripts and interdicts. Fierce hostility grew up between Church and
Synagogue. The Church had not then the power--it may be hoped it had not
the will--to persecute. It was fully occupied with the task of seeking
to impart to the fierce conquerors--the Vandals; Goths, and other
Barbarians--the humanising and civilising knowledge of Christianity.
A great enemy arose in the person of the Emperor Justinian, who was
provoked by savage conflicts between the Jews and the Samaritans to
issue severe enactments against both, which led to the fall of the
patriarchate. In the East, under the rule during the same period of the
Persian king, Chosroes the Just, or Nushirvan, who began his reign in
531 A.D., the position was not more favourable for the Jews of
Babylonia.
_III.--The Golden Age of Judaism_
During the conflict between Persian and Roman emperors a power was
rapidly growing up in the secret deserts of Arabia which was to erect
its throne on the ruins of both. The Jews were the first opponents and
the first victims of Mohammed. At least a hundred and twenty years
before Christ, Jewish settlers had built castles in Sabæa and
established an independent kingdom, known as Homeritis, which was
subdued by an Arab chieftain and came to an end. But the Jews were still
powerful in the Arabian peninsula. Mohammed designed to range all the
tribes under his banner; but his overtures were scorned, and he ordered
a massacre of all who refused to accept the Koran.
On one day 700 Jews were slain in Medina while the Prophet looked on
without emotion. But the persecution of the Jews by the Mohammedans was
confined to Arabia, for under the empire of the caliphs they suffered no
further oppression than the payment of tribute. Spain had maintained its
odious distinction in the West, and it is not surprising that the
suffering Jews by active intrigue materially assisted the triumphant
invasion of the country by the Saracens. And in France the Jews became
numerous and wealthy, and traded with great success.
We enter on a period which may be described as the Golden Age of the
modern Jews. The religious persecutions of this race by the Mohammedans
were confined within the borders of Arabia. The Prophet was content with
enforcing uniformity of worship within the sacred peninsula which gave
him birth. The holy cities of Medina and Mecca were not to be profaned
by the unclean footstep of the unbeliever. His immediate successors rose
from stern fanatics to ambitious conquerors. Whoever would submit to the
dominion of the caliph might easily evade the recognition of the
Prophet's title. The Jews had reason to rejoice in the change of
masters. An Islamite sovereign would not be more oppressive than a
Byzantine on the throne of Constantinople or a Persian on the throne of
Ctesiphon. In every respect the Jew rose in the social scale under his
Mohammedan rulers. Provided he demeaned himself peaceably, and paid his
tribute, he might go to the synagogue rather than to the mosque.
In the time of Omar, the second caliph, the coinage, already a trust of
great importance, had been committed to the care of a Jew. And the Jews
acted as intermediate agents in the interworking of European
civilisation, its knowledge, arts, and sciences, into the oriental mind,
and in raising the barbarian conquerors from the chieftains of wild,
marauding tribes into magnificent and enlightened sovereigns. The caliph
readily acknowledged as his vassal the Prince of the Captivity, who
maintained his state as representative of the Jewish community. And in
the West, during the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, the treatment of
Jews became much more liberal than before. Their superior intelligence
and education, in a period when nobles and kings, and even the clergy,
could not always write their names, pointed them out for offices of
trust. They were the physicians, the ministers of finance, to monarchs.
They even became ambassadors. The Golden Age of the Jews endured in
increasing prosperity during the reign of Louis the Débonnaire, or the
Pious, at whose court they were so powerful that their interest was
solicited by the presents of kings. In the reign of Charles the Bald,
the Jews maintained their high estate, but dark signs of the approaching
Age of Iron began to lower around.
_IV.--The Iron Age of Judaism_
Our Iron Age commences in the East, where it witnessed the extinction of
the Princes of the Captivity by the ignominious death of the last
sovereign, the downfall of the schools, and the dispersion of the
community, which from that period remained an abject and degraded part
of the population. During the ninth and tenth centuries the Caliphate
fell into weakness and confusion, and split up into several kingdoms
under conflicting sovereigns, and at the same time Judaism in the East
was distracted by continual disputes between the Princes of the
Captivity and the masters of the schools. The tribunals of the civil and
temporal powers of the Eastern Jewish community were in perpetual
collision, so that this singular state was weakened internally by its
own dissensions.
When a violent and rapacious caliph, Ahmed Kader, ascended the throne,
he cast a jealous look on the powers of his vassal sovereign, and,
without pretext, he seized Scherira, the prince of the community, now a
hundred years old, imprisoned him and his son Hai, and confiscated their
wealth. Hai escaped to resume his office and to transmit its honours and
its dangers to Hezekiah, who was elected chief of the community, but
after a reign of two years was arrested with all his family by order of
the caliph Abdallah Kaim ben Marillah (A.D. 1036). The schools were
closed. Many of the learned fled to Spain, where the revulsion under the
Almohades had not yet taken place; all were dispersed. Among the rest
two of the sons of the unfortunate Prince of the Captivity effected
their escape to Spain, while the last of the House of David who reigned
over the Jews of the Dispersion in Babylonia perished on the scaffold.
The Jewish communities in Palestine suffered a slower but more complete
dissolution. Benjamin of Tudela in the compilation of his travels in the
twelfth century gives a humiliating account of the few brethren who
still clung, in dire poverty and meanness, to their native land. In Tyre
he found 400 Jews, mostly glass-blowers. There were in Jerusalem only
200, almost all dyers of wool. Ascalon contained 153 Jews; Tiberias, the
seat of learning, and of the kingly patriarchate, but fifty. In the
Byzantine Empire the number of Jews had greatly diminished.
We pursue our dark progress to the West, where we find all orders
gradually arrayed in fierce and implacable animosity against the race of
Isræl. Every passion was in arms against them. In that singular
structure, the feudal system, which rose like a pyramid from the
villeins, or slaves attached to the soil, to the monarch who crowned the
edifice, the, Jews alone found no proper place. In France and England
they were the actual property of the king, and there was nowhere any
tribunal to which they could appeal.
The Jew, often acquiring wealth in commerce, might become valuable
property of some feudatory lord. He was granted away, he was named in a
marriage settlement, he was pawned, he was sold, he was stolen. Even
Churchmen of the highest rank did not disdain such lucrative property.
Louis, King of Provence, granted to the Archbishop of Aries all the
possessions which his predecessors have held of former kings, including
the Jews. Philip the Fair bought of his brother, Charles of Valois, all
the Jews of his dominions and lordships.