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THE
HISTORY OF THE JEWS
_FROM THE WAR WITH ROME TO THE
PRESENT TIME_.
THE
HISTORY OF THE JEWS
_FROM THE WAR WITH ROME TO THE
PRESENT TIME_.
BY THE
REV. H. C. ADAMS, M.A.
VICAR OF OLD SHOREHAM.
_Author of ‘Wykehamica,’ ‘Schoolboy Honour,’ etc., etc._
London:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1887.
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE 3
PART I.
FROM THE DEPOSITION OF ARCHELAUS TO THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY.
CHAP. A.D.
I. 7-70. From the Revolt of Judas to the Siege of
Jerusalem 17
II. 71, 72. The Siege of Jerusalem by Titus 27
III. 72-131. The Jews under the Emperors Trajan and Adrian 37
IV. 131-135. The Revolt of Barchochebas 46
V. 135-323. The Jews under the Roman Emperors from Adrian
to Constantine 53
VI. 323-363. The Princes of the Captivity.—Manes.—The Jews
under the Roman Emperors from Constantine
to Julian 62
VII. 363-429. Jovian to Honorius.—Mutual Jealousies and
Outrages.—Suppression of the Patriarchate
of Tiberias 71
VIII. 429-622. Honorius to Heraclius.—Jewish Slave-holders.
—Justinian.—Chosroes 79
IX. 622-651. Mahomet.—Conquest of Arabia, Persia, Syria,
and Egypt 89
X. 622-740. The Jews in the Eastern Empire, in Spain,
in France 98
XI. 740-980. The Jews under the Caliphs in the East 106
XII. — The Jews of the Far East 114
XIII. 740-980. The Jews under Charlemagne 122
XIV. 980-1100. The Jews in Spain.—In England.—The Crusades 131
XV. 1100-1200. The Crusades.—Jews in France, Spain,
Germany, and Hungary 139
XVI. 1100-1200. The Jews in England.—Jewish Impostors 148
XVII. — Great Jewish Doctors.—Aben Ezra, Maimonides,
Benjamin of Tudela 156
XVIII. 1200-1300. The Jews in France and Germany 163
XIX. 1200-1300. The Jews in Spain 171
XX. 1200-1300. The Jews in England 179
PART II.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT
TIME.
XXI. 1300-1400. The Jews in France 189
XXII. 1300-1400. The Jews in Italy 196
XXIII. 1300-1400. The Jews in Germany, the Low Countries, etc. 203
XXIV. 1300-1400. The Jews in Spain 211
XXV. 1400-1500. The Jews in Germany and Italy 219
XXVI. 1400-1500. The Jews in Spain 227
XXVII. 1400-1500. The Jews in Spain (_continued_) 235
XXVIII. 1400-1500. The Jews in Portugal 243
XXIX. 1500-1600. The Jews in Italy 251
XXX. 1500-1600. The Jews in Portugal, Spain, and Holland 259
XXXI. 1500-1600. The Jews in Germany and Central Europe 267
XXXII. 1500-1600. The Jews in Asia and Africa 275
XXXIII. 1600-1700. The Jews in Germany and Central Europe 283
XXXIV. 1600-1700. The Jews in Holland.—Da Costa, Spinoza 291
XXXV. 1600-1700. The Jews in Spain, England, and Italy 300
XXXVI. 1600-1700. The Jews in the East.—Sabbathai Sevi 308
XXXVII. 1700-1800. The Jews in Spain, Italy, and France 316
XXXVIII. 1700-1800. The Jew’s in Germany and Central Europe 323
XXXIX. 1700-1800. The Jews in Poland: The Chasidim.—Frank.
—Mendelssohn 331
XL. 1700-1800. The Jews in England 339
XLI. 1800-1885. The Jews in England (_continued_) 348
XLII. 1800-1885. The Jews in France, Italy, and Germany 356
XLIII. 1800-1885. The Jews in other European Countries 364
XLIV. 1800-1885. The Jews in Africa, America, and Asia.
—Conclusion 372
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX
I. Statistics of Jewish Population 379
II. The Talmuds 385
III. The Targums, Massora, Cabbala, Sepher-Yetzira, and Zohar 392
IV. The Attempt, under Julian, to Rebuild the Temple 398
V. The Blood Accusations 403
PREFACE.
The reader will understand that this work does not profess to be
anything more than a popular history, with just so much reference
to Jewish learning and controversy as may be necessary to a due
comprehension of the facts related, and the character of the people
treated of. But such references will not, for various reasons, be
frequent. Of the vast accumulations of Jewish literature, the most
valuable portions are the Commentaries of their doctors on Scripture,
and their contributions to grammar, mathematics, and physical
science. With these, however, the writer of history has but little
concern. The abstruse and intricate speculations of the Rabbins,
the subtleties of the Cabbalists, the wild fancies—or what, at all
events, the sober Western intellect accounts such—of the Talmuds, the
Sepher-Yetzira, and the Zohar, might absorb whole years of study,
but would yield the historian only a barren return for the labour.
The poetry of the Hebrews is said to be plaintive and touching, but
too exclusively national to have interest for any but Jews. Their
ancient historians, again, overlay their narratives with exaggeration
and fable to such an extent that their statements cannot be received
without the greatest caution. It is mainly from writers belonging to
other races that we must derive our record of the strange and varied
fortunes of the people of Israel.
This must, of course, place them at some disadvantage. Yet there
is no history so full of striking incident and mournful pathos
as theirs, none which stirs such solemn questions, or imparts so
profound a wisdom to those who rightly study it. As an illustration
of the sad interest it awakens, the words of Leopold Zunz, one of
the greatest of modern Jews, may suffice. ‘If there are gradations
in suffering,’ he writes, ‘Israel has reached its highest acme. If
the long duration of sufferings, and the patience with which they are
borne, ennobles a people, then the Jews may defy the high-born of
any lands.’ In truth, again and again, in every succeeding century
of their annals, the evidences of a heroism which no persistence in
severity could bend, and no pressure of persecution could break,
engage the attention of the reader. Whatever may be his estimate of
the worth or the demerits of the Jews, their tragic story at least
commands his sympathy.
In these respects other nations, though they may not have rivalled,
at least resemble, them. But there are peculiarities in their history
which separate them from every other people on the earth. Foremost
among these is the question—Are we still to regard them, as our
fathers for so many generations regarded them, as lying under the
special curse of God, a perpetual monument of His anger? Was the
imprecation uttered before Pilate’s tribunal (St. Matt. xxvii. 25),
‘His blood be on us, and on our children!’ ratified, so to speak, by
Almighty God? Is the Lord’s blood still upon them? Is that the true
explanation of their past miseries and their present condition?
Let us consider what the guilt of the Jews, who slew the Lord, really
amounted to. They do not, I believe, themselves deny that they are
suffering under Divine displeasure, or that that displeasure has
been occasioned by their sin. On the contrary, they hold that it
is their sin that has delayed, and still delays, the coming of the
Messiah. But, far from thinking that sin to have been the murder of
Jesus Christ, they do not consider that their fathers were guilty in
that matter at all. Their law, so they contend, requires them to put
to death blasphemers and setters up of strange gods. The assertion
of Jesus, ‘I and My Father are one,’ say they, was both blasphemy
and the setting up of a strange god. They would only therefore have
obeyed a Divine command if they had put Him to death. But, they add,
it was not they, but the Romans, by whose sentence He died, for
declaring Himself King of the Jews. This, they say, is sufficiently
evident from the manner of His death by crucifixion, which was one
never inflicted by Jews, and by the inscription on the cross, ‘This
is the King of the Jews.’ It is extremely doubtful, they add, whether
their fathers possessed the power of putting Him to death, but at
all events they did not exercise it. The Jewish people, according to
their view, had nothing to do with the matter. Some of the multitude
may have imprecated the blood of Jesus on themselves and their
children; but if so, the curse could only come on those few persons
on whom it had been invoked. Jost and others even deny that the
Sanhedrim was ever legally convened, the meeting that condemned Jesus
and delated Him to Pilate being, as they hold, merely a tumultuary
assembly of the enemies of Christ.
It will, of course, be answered that to charge our Lord with
blasphemy and setting up of a strange god, is simply to beg the whole
question at issue between Jew and Christian. Indeed, considering that
the Hebrew Scriptures distinctly declare the Messiah to be God[1]
(Psa. xlv. 6; Isa. vii. 14; ix. 6, etc.), according to this view of
the matter, at whatever period He might come, it must be the duty
of the Jews to put Him to death, as soon as He declared His true
character. It might be asked—How were the Jews to know that Jesus
was really what He proclaimed Himself? Our answer is, that in the
fulfilment of prophecy in Him, in the exercise of His miraculous
powers, and the superhuman holiness of His teaching, they had
sufficient evidence that He was indeed the Christ. They had, in fact,
_the_ evidence of it which Divine wisdom accounted sufficient.
Again, it was doubtless by the order of a Roman magistrate that He
was crucified; and it may perhaps be true that during the Roman
Procuratorship the Sanhedrim had no power of pronouncing a capital
sentence.[2] But it was the Jews who carried our Lord before Pilate
and demanded His death. Far from being anxious to condemn Him, Pilate
was most reluctant to order the execution. It was only when the
dangerous insinuation of disloyalty to Cæsar was suggested that he
consented to their wishes. Who can doubt that the guilt was theirs?
Pilate might as well have put off the blame on the centurion who
commanded the quaternion at Calvary, or he on the three soldiers who
put in force the sentence. The statement again, that the Sanhedrim
was not convened, is in direct contradiction to that of St. Mark
(xv. 1). Nor does it appear that the Evangelist’s assertion was ever
called in question by contemporary writers.
There can be no reasonable doubt in the mind of any man who accepts
the Gospel narrative as a true—I do not here say an inspired—history,
that the Jews of that day were guilty of the blood of our Lord, and
that it was a deed of the most flagrant wickedness. But it remains
to be proved that they slew Him, knowing Him to be their Incarnate
God, and I think that would be found extremely difficult of
proof. If we are to be guided by Scripture in the matter, we shall
entertain a different opinion. St. Peter said to these very men,
not many weeks afterwards, ‘I wot that ye did it in ignorance,’ and
then called upon them ‘to repent, that their sin might be blotted
out.’[3] Our Lord also pleaded their ignorance of the nature of the
deed they were perpetrating, in their behalf.[4] Both these passages
are inconsistent with the idea of an abiding and inexorable curse.
Their guilt was like that of the Athenian people when they condemned
Socrates to death, or of that of the Florentines, when they similarly
murdered Savonarola, or again of the Romans, when they assassinated
Count Rossi—like theirs, though doubtless more aggravated. The sin of
rejecting the preachers of holiness, and silencing their voices in
their blood, is one of the worst of which a people can be guilty, and
must needs draw down the heavy wrath of the All Just; but surely not
on their descendants for all after ages.
As regards the other argument advanced, no doubt the slayers of
Socrates or Savonarola did not imprecate on themselves and their
children the consequences of their deed, as the Jews did. But what
then? The Jews at the crucifixion could have had no more power than
other men to cut themselves off from repentance, much less to cut
their children off from it. The blood of Christ can cleanse men
from _any_ sin. This, even if it were not the plain declaration of
Scripture, would be proved by St. Peter’s address to them, already
quoted. Even were this otherwise, what claim could these men have
had to represent the Jewish people? There were, as is shown
elsewhere,[5] probably some six or seven millions of Jews in the
world. Of these not one half, in all likelihood, had heard of our
Lord till after His death. Many never heard of Him for generations
afterwards. Of the two or three millions present in the Holy Land
when the crucifixion took place, not the thousandth part could have
heard Pilate’s protest, or the rejoinder of the crowd. On what
principle is this small section to be regarded as representing the
whole Jewish people, for whose words and acts it is to be held
accountable? When the Cordeliers, with their frantic blasphemies, in
the name of the French people disavowed God, doubtless they drew down
Divine anger on all concerned; but are we to believe that the guilt
of their impiety will rest on the French nation for ever? Such an
idea appears to me to be alien alike to the spirit of both natural
and revealed religion.
But it will, no doubt, be asked—How, then, is the strange and
exceptional condition of the Jews for so many centuries to be
accounted for? No careful student of God’s Word will have any
difficulty in answering this question. Great and enduring blessings
had been promised to Abraham, ‘the friend of God,’ and to his
posterity for his sake. These had been repeated to David, ‘the man
after God’s own heart,’ with an assurance of still greater mercies.
The faithfulness of God to His promises is a thing wholly independent
of lapse of time. To us, a promise given nearly 4,000 years ago may
seem a thing wholly obsolete; to Him it is as fresh and binding as
if it had been made yesterday. Therefore, although any other nation
but that which sprung from the loins of Abraham would have been
destroyed and rooted out for such a series of rebellious deeds as
that which culminated in the crucifixion of the Lord, the remembrance
of Abraham and David has prevented its entire destruction. We are
distinctly told that this was the case at other periods of their
history. When Jeroboam relapsed into idolatry, he and his whole race
were cut off root and branch. But when Solomon did the same, the
kingdom, though with reduced strength and splendour, was continued to
his posterity. When the kingdom of Israel offended beyond endurance,
it was scattered into all lands, and its nationality perished.
When that of Judah was equally guilty, its dispersion was only for
awhile, and then it was allowed to return and resume its national
existence. A remnant of the nation was preserved for Abraham’s sake,
that particular remnant, for the sake of David. Such, it is most
reasonable to conclude, is the true explanation of their marvellous
history for the last eighteen hundred years. Their protracted
existence in their present condition is indeed a miracle, but a
miracle, not of wrath, but of mercy. This they are themselves quick
to perceive.
But, as in the cases above alleged, the continuance of the sceptre
to Solomon’s descendants, and the restoration of Judah after the
Captivity, did not exempt them from the penalty of their subsequent
disobedience, so now the preservation of Israel through so many
centuries of danger and suffering, does not annul or modify the
consequences of their unbelief. Like all nations which come into
contact with Christianity, but do not accept Christ, they share the
benefits of His sacrifice, in the amended moral tone of the world,
which is the slow growth of His teaching; but they can only gain, or
to speak more correctly, regain, His favour, by taking Him as their
Lord and their God.[6] They cannot rightly be said to be living under
a curse, but they assuredly fail to obtain a blessing. But to this
they continue persistently blind.
This is the key to their history. This is the explanation of their
persistent isolation, their resolute endurance, their unconquerable
self-reliance. Descendants of the special favourites of Heaven,
fully persuaded that its favour has not been forfeited, but only
temporarily withdrawn, this high-spirited and gifted race has
ever felt that, supported by this conviction, it could, like ‘the
charity’ of St. Paul, hope and endure all things. Races that had
not sprung into existence when theirs had reached the highest point
of civilization and glory, might pretend to despise them: but, to
use the language which Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of the
bard, Cadwallon, they knew that the blood which flowed in the veins
of their persecutors, when compared with their own, ‘was but as the
puddle of the highway to the silver fountain.’[7]
Their history is sad and humiliating to read; and no less sad and
humiliating to them, than to those whose ancestors trampled upon and
persecuted them. It brings out into strong relief, not only the good,
but also the bad points of their national character. The stubborn
unbelief of generation after generation; the way in which business
ability, under the pressure of injustice, developed into craft, into
the power of heaping up wealth by usury, and relentless exaction of
the uttermost farthing; the slow processes by which the most manifest
characteristic of a Jew became that of the harsh and merciless
creditor;—these are the dark shadows upon a great national character,
and a national story of the deepest interest.
On the other hand, their history shows, as no other can, the
folly and wickedness of that most deadly, though sometimes most
fair-seeming, of all Satanic influences, religious persecution.
Our fathers were wont in those evil times to enlarge with horror
on the sin of the Jew in obstinately rejecting Christ. In the day
when account will be required of all, may it not be found that the
deadliest of their own sins was, that by their hideous travesty of
the Christian faith they shut out from the Jew the knowledge of the
reality?
For centuries the bitterest persecutions came from those who, while
robbing and ill-treating the Jews, because they charged them with
heaping ridicule upon Christianity and eagerly aiding its enemies,
were themselves ignorant of the first principles of the Gospel, and
devoted adherents of the Church of those times. As the Reformation of
the Church developed, and as the power of evangelical principles has
increased, the persecution of the Jew has ceased. More and more has
the Church everywhere realized the truth, that Christ died for the
Jew no less than for the Gentile, and that He can be better served
in this respect by the proclamation of His own loving message of
forgiveness, than by any attempts to usurp His function as Judge, or
to compel an outward submission, in which the heart has no part.
Israel has, indeed, a heavy account against the Anglo-Saxon race,
though, it may be, not so heavy as against the Goth, the Teuton,
and the Slav. There is some comfort in reflecting that we in this
century have done somewhat to reduce the balance that stands against
us. May our children learn the lesson of mercy and toleration in
all its fulness, and so make such reparation as is possible for the
mistakes and sins of our fathers!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Jew would doubtless deny this. I do not pursue the question
further, as this is not a work of controversial theology; and,
besides, the point has been made so clear by Christian divines that
there can be no need of any advocacy of mine. Let the reader who may
have any doubt on the subject consider Isa. xl. 10; xlv. 24; xlviii.
17; Jer. xxiii. 6; Hosea i. 7; Zech. ii. 10, 11; Malachi iii. 1,
where not the title Elohim only, but that of Jehovah, is given to the
Messiah.
[2] No question has been more disputed than whether the Sanhedrim,
during the rule of the Roman Procurators, possessed the power of
putting to death persons convicted of capital crimes. The statement
made, St. John xviii. 31, and the action of Albinus, who, A.D. 63,
deposed the High Priest Ananus, because the Sanhedrim had put St.
James to death without his sanction, seem conclusive that they could
not capitally punish persons _convicted of blasphemy_, unless under
the Procurator’s order. The case of St. Stephen, Acts viii., does
not disprove this; for that was evidently a tumultuary procedure,
no sentence having been pronounced. But the Sanhedrim certainly had
the power of capitally punishing _some_ offenders, as, for instance,
any Gentile passing beyond the barrier between the Temple Courts
(see Jos. _B.J._ vi. 2, 4), an offence closely resembling blasphemy.
Possibly they could inflict death for certain specified crimes, but
only for these. It would be quite consistent with the principle
of Roman government to allow the High Priests to punish capitally
persons convicted of grave moral offences, but not such as were only
guilty in matters relating ‘to their own superstitions,’ as they
would phrase it.
[3] Acts iii. 17.
[4] St. Luke xxiii. 34.
[5] See Appendix I.
[6] ‘Ye shall not see Me, until the time come when ye shall say,
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord’ (St. Luke xiii.
35)—that is, ‘ye shall not apprehend Me, and the blessings I come to
bring you, until you acknowledge Me as the true Messiah and Saviour
of the world.’ To ‘_see_’ the Lord is, in the New Testament phrase,
spiritually to discern and understand Him.
[7] _Betrothed_, chap. 31.
_PART I._
FROM THE DEPOSITION OF ARCHELAUS TO
THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 7-70.
FROM THE REVOLT OF JUDAS TO THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.
It is not proposed in these pages to deal with the history of the
Jews during the long period which intervened between the origin of
the nation in the family of Abraham[8] and their final revolt from
the Roman power. The records of those times are to be found in the
inspired volume, or in the narrative of Josephus; and we have no
further concern with them than to inquire how the various changes
in their fortunes—from bondage to freedom, and from freedom to
bondage, under lawgiver, judge and high priest, foreign tyrant and
native sovereign, contributed to the formation of their national
character—the most strongly marked, it may confidently be affirmed,
that ever distinguished any people.
The childhood of the Jewish nation was a hard and harsh one. They
grew up into national existence under alien rulers, who feared and
hated them, imposed on them intolerable burdens, and would have
destroyed them from off the face of the earth, but for the Divine
protection extended over them. Delivered by the same visible display
of Divine power from these tyrants, they were transported to a rich
and genial land, powerful and warlike nations being ejected to make
way for them. Their first national, and true, idea must needs have
been their special privileges as the favoured people of Heaven; but
to this they added the untrue persuasion that nothing could ever
forfeit them; and this rooted itself so deeply in their belief, that
all the experience of after generations was unable to destroy, or
even modify it. Their own participation in the sins of neighbouring
nations—those very sins which had drawn down Divine vengeance on
_them_—did not shake this confidence in their secure possession of
Almighty favour. Visited with sharp chastisement for disobedience,
they were for the moment alarmed and humbled; but they resumed their
old complacency the moment that deliverance from suffering was
vouchsafed. The woes of foreign subjugation, exile and captivity, so
far affected them, that they abandoned the idolatry which had been
the main cause of their miseries. But it did not abate their sense of
ascendency over all other races, and of their special and inalienable
possession of the favour of the Most High.
It was impossible, they believed, that they could be under the
dominion of any foreign people. They might seem to be so for a while,
but they were not really so. The fact that they were for seventy
years the vassals of the King of Babylon; for two hundred more the
dependants, to use a mild term, of the sovereigns of Persia; for
several generations afterwards at the mercy of one potentate or
another, who dealt with them as his caprice might dictate; that their
own Asmonæan kingdom was, in reality, but a dependency of Imperial
Rome, existing only so long as she chose to permit it—all this went
for nothing with them. Nay, even the reduction of Judæa to the
status of a Roman province, and the residence of a Roman procurator
in Judæa, did not prevent them from replying to our Lord that ‘they
were Abraham’s children, and had never been in bondage to any man.’
So long as it was possible, on any pretext however transparent, to
assert their independence, they persisted in doing so.
At the same time, they were too intelligent not to be aware that
Imperial Rome would endure neither opposition to her arms nor evasion
of her claims. It must needs have been long evident to them, that the
time must come, sooner or later, when they would have to make their
choice between genuine allegiance to, or open rebellion against,
the empire of the Cæsars. They were purposed, however, to defer it
as long as they could. Requirements might be made, which they would
rather perish than comply with; but until these were advanced, there
was no need to anticipate them; and the mildness which always marked
the Roman sway, when unopposed, its strict observance of justice in
all its dealings with a conquered people,[9] and its toleration of
their customs and prejudices, long delayed the terrible struggle
which ensued at last.
The deposition of Archelaus, and the conversion of Judæa into a
Roman province, brought about the first overt act of rebellion.
Judas, called the ‘Galilæan,’ raised an insurrection, which was
with difficulty put down. He took for his watchword the significant
sentence, ‘We have no other master but God.’ The reasons already
alleged, in all likelihood, restrained the more influential classes
of the Jews from lending him the support he expected. He was crushed
and put to death. But the spirit he evoked lived long after him,
and Josephus attributes to it all the outbreaks which ensued, which
culminated at last in the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion
of the Jews.[10]
Coponius, the first Roman governor, was allowed to take up his abode
at Cæsarea without opposition. That city, rather than Jerusalem, was
chosen as his seat of government probably out of consideration for
the feelings of the Jews. He was succeeded after a short interval by
Ambivius and Rufus. After him Valerius Gratus held the reins of power
for nearly twelve years. Throughout their prefectures, and for some
years afterwards, Judæa remained tranquil. But at Rome, the Jews, who
under Augustus had been treated with great indulgence, were expelled
from the city by his successor, Tiberius. This act is said to have
been really due to the enmity of Sejanus, though the pretext alleged
was their extortion of money from Fulvia, a noble matron. Four
thousand Jews were forced to enter the army, the greater part of whom
died of malaria, in the island of Sardinia. After Sejanus’s fall, the
edict against the Jews was revoked.
To Gratus succeeded Pontius Pilatus, who held office for ten years.
During the government of this procurator, another formidable
insurrection occurred, or rather, series of insurrections, caused
in the first instance by the removal of the Roman army, with its
idolatrous standards, to Jerusalem. On this occasion there was a very
general rising of the people; and if Pilatus had remained in power,
hostilities with Rome might have broken out a generation previously
to their actual occurrence. But after committing, with apparent
impunity, several sanguinary massacres of Jews, whom his wanton
disregard of their feelings had stirred up to insurrection, Pilatus
was accused to Vitellius, the Prefect of Syria, by the Samaritans, of
a similar outrage on them. Vitellius ordered him to Rome, to take his
trial. There he was deposed, and sentenced to exile.
Some time afterwards Judæa was again converted, for a brief space,
into a Jewish kingdom under Agrippa I., whose strange and terrible
end is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Agrippa was the son
of Aristobulus, and grandson of Herod the Great. He early attached
himself to Caligula, and thereby aroused the suspicion of Tiberius,
who threw him into prison. He would probably have been put to death,
if the decease of the emperor had not rescued him from the danger.
On his succession to the empire, Caligula gave him the tetrarchies
formerly held by Lysanias and Philip, together with the title of
King. But his reign was soon beset with trouble. The royal dignity
bestowed on him roused the jealousy of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of
Galilee. Accompanied by his wife, Herodias, he sailed to Rome, in the
hope of ousting Agrippa, by charges of disloyalty, from the Imperial
favour. But Agrippa retorted on Antipas with a counter-charge of
treasonable correspondence with the Parthians; and the result was
the banishment of Antipas, and the addition of his dominions to
those already ruled by Agrippa. The latter was a rigid observer of
the Mosaic law; and his murder of St. James and persecution of St.
Peter were probably due to this, rather than to tyranny or cruelty.
During his reign of seven years he seems to have done his best for
his kingdom and country. He built the third wall round Jerusalem,
and endeavoured to reconcile the contending factions, which were
destroying the life of the nation.
It was a short time before his accession that the event occurred
which roused the anger of the Jews to a higher pitch than had ever
before been manifested; and had the outrage been pushed further,
a civil war would have undoubtedly been the result. This was the
attempt of the Emperor Caligula to erect his statue as that of ‘The
Younger Jupiter,’ as he styled himself, in the most sacred part of
the Jewish Temple.
The design seems to have been the result of a mere whim, conceived
by the half-crazy emperor, and pertinaciously persisted in, when he
learned (as he did from both the Jews themselves, and Petronius,
the Procurator of Syria) that its execution would occasion among
the worshippers of the God of the Hebrews unspeakable horror and
alarm.[11] There can be no doubt that the impiety was intended.
The statue had been ordered, if not completed; but the wise and
generous procrastination of Petronius, the earnest representations
of Agrippa, who was a favourite of the emperor, together with the
death of the emperor himself, which followed almost immediately
afterwards, averted the accomplishment of the design. The narrative
of the transaction is valuable, because it shows that at that
time the Jews were disposed to wise and moderate counsels, which
contrast forcibly with their reckless violence a generation later.
When the fatal intentions of Caligula were made known, the whole
population, we are told, of all ranks and ages, from a vast distance
round Jerusalem, crowded round the chair of the Roman procurator,
declaring their determination to die rather than witness so fearful
a profanation.[12] Their demeanour so deeply affected Petronius,
that he thenceforth strove by every means in his power to avert the
dreaded catastrophe; and, aided by circumstances and the intercession
of Agrippa, he succeeded in his attempt. Caligula, however, could not
forgive his disobedience, and it is said that the emperor’s death
alone saved Petronius from the consequences of his anger.
Through the favour of Claudius, who now mounted the Imperial throne
(and whose reign, notwithstanding one act of severity,[13] was
favourable to the Jews), Agrippa succeeded to the whole of the
dominions of his grandfather, Herod the Great, and held them for four
years, when he died, A.D. 44, in the manner already referred to; and
Judæa again became a Roman province, Cuspius Fadus being sent as
governor.[14] During his rule, and that of his successor Tiberius
Alexander, the peace of Palestine continued undisturbed, except by
the outbreaks of one or two of the turbulent incendiaries, of which
the land contained great numbers. These were easily put down. But
during the procuratorship of Ventidius Cumanus, the animosity between
the people and the Roman soldiers, which had long been smouldering,
burst out into a flame. During one of the Jewish festivals, a soldier
offered a gross insult to the ceremonial in progress, which roused
the fury of the Jews against, not only the offender, but Cumanus
himself. The latter, hearing the furious cries with which he was
assailed, marched his whole force into the Antonia, and commenced
an indiscriminate massacre, in which 20,000 perished. For this
outrage and his subsequent conduct in a hostile encounter between
the Jews and Samaritans, Cumanus was tried at Rome, and condemned to
banishment.
He was succeeded by the profligate Felix, whose government was worse
than that of any of his predecessors. It was, in fact, one long scene
of cruelty and treachery. He allied himself with some of the bands of
robbers now infesting Judæa, and by their aid murdered, in the very
precincts of the Temple, Jonathan, the high priest, who had rebuked
his vices. After eleven years of misrule, he was accused by the Jews
in Cæsarea of the barbarous slaughter of some of their countrymen. He
was tried at Rome, but escaped through the interest of his brother,
Pallas. He was, however, a vigorous ruler, and put down the notorious
Egyptian Jew, who, with 30,000 followers, had raised a formidable
insurrection (Acts xxi. 38).
After his prefecture, and that of his more humane and upright
successor Porcius Festus, the inveterate evils which afflicted the
whole of Judæa continued to grow in violence and intensity. Banditti
overspread the country, and carried on their lawless depredations
almost with impunity. Impostors and fanatics started up on every
side, and drew after them great multitudes, to whom they preached
rebellion against their Roman governors as a religious duty. Riot
and bloodshed, and armed encounters with the Roman soldiery,
became matters of continual occurrence, which the authority of the
procurator was unable to restrain. The evil was aggravated by the
succession of the corrupt Albinus to the office vacated by the death
of Festus; but it was not until he, in his turn, was superseded by
the infamous Gessius Florus that the discontent of the unhappy Jews
culminated in the rebellious outbreak which brought on their ruin.
It can hardly be supposed that it was actually Florus’s object to
drive the Jews into rebellion; yet the course he pursued persistently
from the very commencement of his rule could have had no other
result. It was not merely that he took bribes from all men who
sought his favour or feared his anger. He leagued with robbers and
assassins, sharing their gains and countenancing their crimes. He
exacted large sums alike from public treasuries and private coffers,
on the flimsiest pretexts, and often on no pretext at all. He
inflamed the angry feelings, already dangerously excited, by every
possible insult and outrage which lawless power could exercise; and,
finally, having by pillage and butchery stirred up the infuriated
Jews to refuse obedience to an authority which appeared to exist only
for their destruction, he called in Cestius Gallus, the Prefect of
Syria, to lead the Roman forces under his command to put down the
sedition.
This officer, though a man of narrow views and mediocre ability,
was a Roman functionary, and, as such, would not act on _ex parte_
evidence. He sent a tribune named Neapolitanus to Jerusalem, to
inquire into the truth of Florus’s charges; and Agrippa,[15] who
was cognisant of what had passed, and was anxious to avert the ruin
that threatened his country, accompanied him to the Jewish capital.
Fully convinced of the truth of the charges against Florus, they
nevertheless hesitated to uphold his accusers, and endeavoured to
persuade the people to make submission to him. But they had been too
deeply incensed by Florus’s barbarities: and the seditious spirits
among them had gained too much ascendency to allow this advice to
prevail; notwithstanding that the upper classes of the citizens,
who were still desirous of avoiding war, declared in its favour.
They drove Neapolitanus and Agrippa, with insult, from the city, and
openly renounced allegiance to Rome.[16]
Shortly afterwards a new adventurer, Menahem, the son of Judas the
Gaulonite, appeared, and was gladly welcomed by the people. But he
soon provoked the jealousy of Eleazar, the leader of the Zealots, by
whom he was deposed and slain. Eleazar having gained complete mastery
in the city, proceeded to murder, with shameless treachery, the
Roman garrison, which had surrendered on condition of being spared.
Almost coincidently with this shocking deed, one of equal horror was
perpetrated at Cæsarea, where 20,000 Jews were slaughtered by the
Greek inhabitants. In this atmosphere of treachery and bloodshed
the whole nation appears to have gone mad. They were resolved,
apparently, that as every man’s hand was against them, so should
their hand be against every man. They took up arms, plundered several
of the Syrian cities, laying waste the whole country round them. The
Syrians retaliated with equal barbarity, everywhere slaying without
mercy their Jewish fellow-citizens. Neither Agrippa’s dominions nor
Egypt escaped the contagion. In the former, a feud between Varus, the
deputy, to whom Agrippa had committed the government of his kingdom
during his absence at Antioch, and Philip, the general of his army,
very nearly caused a civil war. At Antioch another quarrel between
the Jews and Greeks, relative to the right of the former to attend
public assemblies, led, first to a riot, and then to a general rising
of the Hebrew population. The governor, Tiberius Alexander—who was
by birth a Jew, and had some years previously been Procurator of
Judæa, afterwards holding a command in Titus’s army at the siege of
Jerusalem—sent for the principal men among the Jews, and exhorted
them to use their influence in quieting the disturbance. Failing in
this attempt, he ordered out the troops, and made an attack on the
Jews’ quarter, in which 50,000 persons were slain. Throughout the
whole of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, strife and bloodshed prevailed.
The advance of the Roman army was anxiously looked for by all who
retained their reason, as the only hope of putting an end to the
frantic anarchy wherewith the whole land was now overspread.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] It is an error, I think, to connect the name Hebrew with Heber,
or Eber, the great-grandson of Shem. Abraham was called the Hebrew,
or passer over, ὁ περάτης (Gen. xiv. 13, LXX.), because, in obedience
to Divine command, he ‘passed over’ the Euphrates, leaving his home
and people, to settle in a strange land. Heber was the progenitor,
not of the Hebrews only, but many other nations. The notion that
they were called after him, because at the dispersion of Babel he
retained and transmitted the primitive language of the world to one
only of his descendants, is a mere fancy. He may have been, and very
probably was called the ‘passer’ or ‘carrier away,’ because he was
the patriarch of the dispersion. But Abraham’s name was given to him
for a different reason, and altogether independently of Heber.
[9] In proof of this may be alleged the fact, that in the brief space
of sixty years no less than four Roman procurators were summoned
before the Imperial Tribunal to answer complaints brought against
them by the Jews; and two of them were punished by banishment for
life.
[10] Judas was born at Gamala, a city of Gaulonitis. He was a brave,
able, and eloquent man. Supported by Sadoc, an influential Pharisee,
he founded the party of the Gaulonites, who were the predecessors of
the Zealots and Assassins of later times. Though multitudes gathered
round his standard, he was not supported by the nation generally,
and the power of Rome was too great for him to contend with. He was
overpowered and put to death. He is referred to in Acts v. 37.
[11] It was not in Judæa only that these feelings were aroused. In
Alexandria, the proposal made by the Greeks, to place the emperor’s
statue in the Jewish Proseuchæ, provoked riots, in which much
property was wrecked, and terrible carnage took place. The Roman
governor, Flaccus Aquilius, for many years a wise and able ruler,
but who had grown reckless since the accession of Caligula, towards
whom he bore no good will, made no attempt to repress, but rather
encouraged, the outrages. He was so unwise as to openly insult the
emperor’s friend, Agrippa. He was arrested by order of Caligula, and
put to death with barbarous cruelty.
[12] The celebrated Philo came from Alexandria on this occasion to
plead the cause of his countrymen.
[13] Banishing the Jews from Rome A.D. 54. Acts xviii. 2; Suet.
Claud. 25.
[14] During his tenure of office, an impostor named Theudas, who
claimed to be a prophet, raised a formidable insurrection. But Fadus,
a man of action, arrested and executed him. He is mentioned in Acts
v. 36.
[15] This was Agrippa II., son of Agrippa I. It was before him that
St. Paul pleaded (Acts xxvi.). Suet. (_Vesp._ 4).
[16] According to Suetonius, Florus was slain by the Jews in a
tumultuous outbreak. Josephus has been thought to contradict him. But
his language may be interpreted so as to harmonize with Suetonius.