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[48] 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.
His power appeared to be everywhere firmly established; yet in
the ensuing generation it was assailed, and in a great measure
superseded, by the interference of his Western rival, the Patriarch
of Tiberias. Simeon, son of Gamaliel II., called ‘the Just,’ was a
man of ambitious and restless character. Believing that Jerusalem
was the true centre of Jewish unity, and that his Patriarchate was,
in reality, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, he argued that he ought
to exercise undivided sway over the whole of the Jewish community,
and regarded his brother of Babylon as a usurper. He sent a delegate
to him, accordingly, who was instructed to approach him with all
possible deference; but as soon as he had made good his position,
to throw off the mask, and demand his submission. His scheme took
effect: the delegate was kindly received, and admitted to the
confidence of his entertainers; when he suddenly changed his tone,
and sharply censuring some of the prince’s acts, required, in the
name of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, that they should be rescinded. A
scene of angry resistance followed. But the name of Jerusalem had too
strong a hold on the heart of every Jew to allow of any successful
opposition. The Babylonian potentate was obliged to succumb, and
until the Patriarchate of Tiberias ceased to exist continued to hold
a place subordinate to his rival.
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,[49] 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.
It seems that intercourse with the Persians, who were fire
worshippers,[50] and at least as bigoted in their religious opinions
as the Jews, did not bring about enmity and persecution. Yet many of
the Jewish practices must have been highly offensive to them. Thus
the Jews have always interred their dead, and that practice is an
abomination in the eyes of the Ghebirs. Again, there were certain
occasions when no lights were permitted to be kindled except in the
Fire Temples;[51] and the Jews were, in consequence, obliged to
extinguish their household fires. We should naturally have expected
that some at least among the Jews would refuse compliance, and so
bring themselves into collision with the law. But we do not hear of
any disputes of this kind[52] until the time of Sapor, who, at the
outset of his reign, had shown the Jews great favour. But having
embarked one day in a controversy with the Rabbins on the subject
of the burial of the dead, he required that they should produce some
passage out of their Scriptures in which interment in the earth was
ordered. The doctors, unable to do this, gave some evasive answer;
which so incensed him that he began a fierce persecution. Sapor,
however, died A.D. 272, and we do not hear that the persecution was
continued.
This is also the era of the notorious Mani, or Manes, who founded
the sect which caused such widespread strife and division in the
Christian Church. He is said by some to have held many conferences
with Jewish doctors during Sapor’s reign, and to have urged upon them
that the acts attributed to their God in the Old Testament, such as
the extirpation of the nations of Canaan, were inconsistent with
the Divine attribute of mercy. He was, in fact, according to Mani’s
teaching, the God of Darkness; from whom they ought to turn, to
worship the God of Light. It is needless to say that the Jews utterly
rejected his teaching. Through their influence, he lost the favour of
Sapor, and was banished from his dominions.[53]
Turning again to the West, we now come to the era of Constantine,
when the pagan idolatry was abolished by law, and the religion of
Christ publicly recognised. It is obvious that this was a matter
which gravely affected the Jews no less than the heathen. They were
as much opposed to the newly authorized faith as any pagans could
have been—far more so, in fact, because they had a profound belief
in, and an earnest zeal for, their own creed, which was altogether
wanting in the instance of the heathen. It would seem that the Roman
Emperor contemplated making the religion of Christ the religion of
the world; in which case he must insist on its adoption by the Jews,
as well as by all the other subjects of the Roman empire. Whether
the idea of compulsory conversion was ever entertained must remain
doubtful. But it is tolerably clear that Constantine did hope for, if
he did not anticipate, their adoption of his own faith. Conferences
with Jewish doctors were held in his presence, at which the
disputants on both sides not only upheld their cause by argument, but
endeavoured to prove its truth by resort to miracles. If Constantine
hoped anything from trials like these,[54] in which anything that
appeared to be preternatural was claimed on the one side as having
been effected by the finger of God, and denounced on the other as due
to the agency of Satan—he was certainly disappointed; and to this
failure perhaps may be imputed the severe laws against the Jews,
some of which he certainly decreed. Thus he issued an edict that any
Jew who imperilled the life of a Christian should be burned alive;
he forbade proselytizing by the Jews on the severest penalties; he
prohibited Jews from having Christian slaves. In one of his Acts
he styles the Jews ‘the most hateful of all people.’ On the other
hand, he has been unjustly charged with acts of positive cruelty
towards them, which would have soiled the lustre of his name, if they
had been really committed. It is said, for instance, that having
heard that large numbers of them had assembled for the purpose of
rebuilding Jerusalem, he ordered their ears to be cut off, and
themselves banished,[55] and again that he required them to accept
baptism, whether they would or not, and to eat swine’s flesh on
Easter Day.[56] But these charges refute themselves. Jerusalem was
a large and noble city in his day, and it is absurd to talk of the
Jews having wished to rebuild it. Nor among all his edicts, preserved
in the Theodosian Code, is there a word about cutting off ears or
compulsory eating of pork.
During this reign the Jews in Persia are accused of having stirred up
a sanguinary persecution against the Christians. The latter had, for
a long time past, been making their way into Sapor’s dominions, to
the great vexation of the Jews. But when at last they had succeeded
in converting to their faith Ustazades, one of Sapor’s chief
officers, the irritation of the Jews rose to so great a height that
they persuaded Sapor to put down the growing evil by the severest
measures. A long and bloody persecution ensued, in which Simeon,
Bishop of Ctesiphon, suffered martyrdom, the newly built churches
were destroyed, and every trace of Christianity obliterated.
Constans, the son of Constantine, who succeeded to the throne A.D.
353, far from relaxing any of the severities laid on the Jews by
his father, proceeded to greater lengths against them. Provoked by
an insurrection they had raised in Judæa, he re-enacted the laws
of Adrian and his father—adding to them that any Jew who married a
Christian, who circumcised, or even kept, any Christian slave, should
be put to death. He also greatly increased the heavy taxes with which
they were already loaded.
It is no wonder that the accession of Julian—who, immediately after
his assumption of the purple, publicly declared his abnegation of
Christianity—should have been hailed by the Jews, as well as the
pagans, as the dawn of a new day of freedom and prosperity to them.
They hastened to present him with an address, representing, among
other grievances, the great wrong done them in their exclusion from
Jerusalem, the scene of the ancient glories of their race, the
never-forgotten home of their ancestors, though the heathen were
permitted to dwell there without molestation. While the most sacred
sites were hidden by Christian churches, and devoted to Christian
worship, the spot where their own beloved Temple had once stood lay
desolate, and they were not even permitted to approach and gaze
upon its ruins. Julian replied even more favourably than they could
have hoped. He addressed the Jewish patriarch as ‘his brother;’ he
inveighed against the unmerited severity with which they had been
treated; he remitted the imposts of which they complained; annulled
the decree by which they had been forbidden to enter Jerusalem;
and finally gave them permission to rebuild the Temple on Mount
Moriah, promising them every help in the execution of the work, and
appointing one of his own favourite officers, Alypius, to superintend
it.
His motives for this extraordinary step are not difficult to
conjecture. He had not the slightest inclination to Judaism, being
a devoted follower of the ancient creed of Greece and Rome, as held
by the sages, whom he had made his study. But he wished, in the
first place, to repair the injustice of past years; in the second,
to conciliate the Jews, whose help might be of the greatest service
to him in his Persian expedition; and in the third, to confute and
establish the falsehood of Christianity. It was well known that the
universal belief among the Christians was, that the voice of prophecy
had declared that the Jewish Temple should never be rebuilt;[57] at
all events, never until the Jewish people had accepted Jesus Christ
as their God. If then he could prove that their belief was untrue on
one point, why might it not be untrue on all?
It is needless to say that this unexpected grace filled the whole
Jewish world with wonder and delight. Funds for providing the
required materials poured in, in abundance; thousands offered
themselves as labourers; men of the highest position and wealth, even
delicately nurtured ladies, were seen digging up the ground with
pickaxes made of gold and silver, or carrying away the earth in
silken handkerchiefs. The work advanced with great rapidity, till it
was suddenly interrupted by flames bursting forth from the ground,
accompanied by earthquakes, which repeatedly injured or destroyed
the labourers engaged in the undertaking, and ultimately compelled
them to desist from it.[58] Other strange circumstances are said to
have accompanied this occurrence. Fiery crosses filled the air, and
were seen on the dresses of the fugitives, as they escaped from the
dangerous precincts. Some of the latter, who fled to the shelter of
a neighbouring church, found the doors closed by some unseen power
against them.
Doubtless much that has been related must be regarded as idle tales,
the result of panic or exaggeration. But to suppose the whole
occurrence to be simply attributable to natural causes appears
impossible. This, however, is a matter requiring careful and minute
inquiry. The reader will find a full examination of it in Appendix IV.
Not long afterwards (on the 26th of June, 363) the death of Julian,
in battle with the Persians, put a period—not only to any renewal of
this particular undertaking—but to the hopes in which the Jews had
indulged, of Imperial favour especially bestowed on them. So ended
the last recorded attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple.
NOTE TO CHAPTER VI. ON THE RELIGION OF THE MAGI.
The origin of this religious belief is lost in the darkness of
antiquity. The Magi existed, a body highly honoured, long before
the time of Zerdusht or Zoroaster, who lived B.C. 589. He seems to
have remodelled and formulated the ancient doctrine. According to
his teaching, there are two independent ruling powers, Ormuzd and
Ahriman, the principles of good and evil, symbolized by light and
darkness.[59] Ormuzd created man good and happy. Ahriman marred his
happiness by the introduction of evil. The strife between these two
is to continue, until the victory is finally gained by Ormuzd.
Their religious rites are of a very simple character. They had
originally neither temples, altars, nor statues, though later on,
fire temples were built. They adored fire, light, and the sun, as
the emblems of purity and beneficence. But, in the first instance
at all events, they did not regard these as independent deities;
though afterwards, following the rule of all false religions, they
offered worship to the symbols themselves, instead of the principles
symbolized. They exposed their dead to be devoured by vultures,
considering it an abomination to bury them in the earth. They still
exist, a numerous people, in India, under the name of Parsees,
a name derived from Pars, said to be the ancient designation of
Persia. By some it is affirmed that Zoroaster maintained the
existence of a third deity, superior to the other two.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Josephus, who wrote as late as Trajan’s reign, evidently knows
nothing of them.
[49] The Parthian kingdom, after a long decline, may be said to have
died out, A.D. 230.
[50] See note at the end of the chapter.
[51] Such is Jost’s statement (ii. 141). He adds that the Jews obeyed
the edict, but very unwillingly.
[52] Nothing more, that is, than discontented murmurs. It is related
that when Abba bar Huna lay sick at Pumbeditha, and Rabbi Jehuda was
attending him, a Magian came into the room and carried off the light:
whereupon the Rabbi prayed that the people might pass under the
dominion of the Romans again, rather than endure such ignominy.
[53] The date of Mani’s birth seems uncertain. The time when he
attracted notice was circ. 272. He returned to the Persian Court
circ. 278, when Hormisdas, or some say Varanes, caused him to be
flayed alive, for failing to cure the king’s son; but Beausobre
discredits this story.
[54] To quote an example of these. A disputation was held between
the Rabbins and the Christians, headed by Pope Sylvester. The Jews
brought in an ox, and one of their miracle-mongers whispered the name
of God in its ear, whereupon it instantly fell dead. But Sylvester,
no-way discomposed, ordered the ox, in the name of Jesus Christ, to
return to life. Upon which, we are told, it got up and began feeding!
[55] Chrysost. _Or. in Jud._ He seems to have confounded Constantine
with Adrian.
[56] Eutych. vol. i. 466.
[57] Probably founded on Daniel ix. 26, 27. But that prophecy is
obscure, and susceptible of a different interpretation. Even if the
Temple had been rebuilt, every one of our Lord’s prophecies would
still have been fulfilled. (See Appendix iv.)
[58] Cyril, it should be remarked, says nothing of these miracles,
which are reported by Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret.
[59] Comp. Isa. xlv. 6, 7, where the idea is directly confuted.