The problem assumed the form of a controversy as to the principle

on which piety was rewarded--this controversy taking the place of

the great contest between Israel and the heathen. Were the wicked

right in saying that there was no God, i.e., that He did not rule

and judge on earth? Did He in truth dwell behind the clouds, and

did He not care about the doings of men? In that case piety

would be an illusion. Piety cannot maintain itself if God makes

no difference between the godly and the wicked, and has nothing

more to say to the one than to the other; for piety is not

content to stretch out its hands to the empty air, it must meet an

arm descending from heaven. It must have a reward, not for the

sake of the reward, but in order to be sure of its own reality, in

order to know that there is a communion of God with men and a road

which leads to it. The usual form of this reward is the

forgiveness of sins; that is the true motive of the fear of God.

That is to say, as long as it is well with him, the godly man does

not doubt, and so does not require any unmistakable evidence by

which he may be justified and assured of the favour of God. But

misfortune and pain destroy this certainty. They are accusers

of sin, God's warnings and corrections. Now is the time to hold

fast the faith that God leads the godly to repentance, and

destroys the wicked, that He forgives the sin of the former, but

punishes and avenges that of the latter. But this faith involves a

hope of living to see better things; the justification of which

the good man is sure must at last be attested by an objective

judgment of God before the whole world, and the godly delivered

from his sufferings. Hence the constant anxiety and restlessness

of his conscience; the judgment passed upon him is ultimately

to be gathered from the external world, and he can never be sure

how it is to turn out. And a principle is also at stake the whole

time, namely, the question whether godliness or ungodliness is

right in its fundamental conviction. Each individual case at once

affects the generality, the sufferings of one godly person touch

all the godly. When he recovers and is saved, they triumph; when

he succumbs, or seems to succumb, to death, they are cast down,

unless in this case they should change their minds about him and hold

him to be a hypocrite whom God has judged and unmasked. In the same

way, they are all hurt at the prosperity of an ungodly man, and

rejoice together at his fall, not from jealousy or pleasure in

misfortune for its own sake, but because in the one case their

faith is overturned, while in the other it is confirmed.

The tortures incident to this curious oscillation between believing

and seeing are set forth in the most trenchant way in the Book of

Job. Job, placed in an agonizing situation, condemned without hope

to the death of sinners, and yet conscious of his godliness,

demands vengeance for his blood unjustly shed. But the

vengeance is to be executed on God, and in such a case who can be

the avenger? There is no one but God Himself, and thus the

striking thought arises, that God will be the champion against God

of his innocence, after having first murdered it. From the God of

the present he appeals to the God of the future; but the identity

between these two is yet maintained, and even now the God who slays

him is the sole witness of his innocence, in which the world and

his friends have ceased to believe. God must be this now if He is to

avenge him in the future. An inner antinomy is in this way

impersonated; the view of the friends is one of which the sufferer

himself cannot divest himself; hence the conflict in his soul.

But, supported by the unconquerable power of his good conscience,

he struggles till he frees himself from the delusion; he believes

more firmly in the direct testimony of his conscience than in the

evidence of facts and the world's judgment about him, and against

the dreadful God of reality, the righteous God of faith

victoriously asserts Himself.

Job in the end reaches the conclusion that he cannot understand

God's ways. This is a negative expression of the position that he

holds fast, in spite of all, to himself and to God; that is to

say, that not outward experience, but inner feeling, is to

decide. This inner feeling of the union of God with the godly

meets us also in some of the Psalms, where, in spite of depression

arising from untoward circumstances, it maintains itself as a

reality which cannot be shaken, which temptations and doubts even

tend to strengthen. It was a momentous step when the soul in its

relations to God ventured to take its stand upon itself, to trust

itself. This was an indirect product of prophecy, but one of not

less importance than its direct product, the law. The prophets

declared the revelation of God, which had authority for all, but

along with this they had their own personal experience, and the

subjective truth of which they thus became aware proved a more

powerful solvent and emancipator than the objective one which formed

the subject of their revelation. They preached the law to deaf ears,

and laboured in vain to convert the people. But if their labour had

produced no outward result, it had an inner result for them.

Rejected by the people, they clung the more closely to Jehovah,

in the conviction that the defeated cause was favoured by Him,

that He was with them and not with the people. Especially with

Jeremiah did prophecy, which is designed primarily to act on

others, transform itself into an inner converse with the Deity,

which lifted him above all the annoyances of his life. In this

relation, however, there was nothing distinctively prophetical,

just because it was a matter of the inner life alone, and was

sufficient for itself; it was just the essence of the life of

religion that the prophets thus brought to view and helped to

declare itself. The experience of Jeremiah propagated itself and

became the experience of religious Israel. This was the power by

which Israel was enabled to rise again after every fall; the good

conscience towards God, the profound sentiment of union with Him,

proved able to defy all the blows of outward fortune. In this

strength the servant, despised and slain, triumphed over the world;

the broken and contrite heart was clothed and set on high with the

life and power of the Almighty God. This divine spirit of

assurance rises to its boldest expression in the 73rd Psalm:

"Nevertheless I am continually with Thee;

Thou holdest me by my right hand;

Thou guidest me with Thy counsel,

and drawest me after Thee by the hand.

If I have Thee, I desire not heaven nor earth;

if my flesh and my heart fail,

Thou, God, art for ever the strength of my heart, and my portion."

The life surrendered is here found again in a higher life, without

any expression of hope of a hereafter. In the Book of Job we do

indeed find a trace of this hope, in the form that even after the

death of the martyr, God may still find opportunity to justify

him and pronounce him innocent; yet this idea is only touched on

as a distant possibility, and is at once dropped. Certainly the

position of that man is a grand one who can cast into the scale

against death and devil his inner certainty of union with God--

so grand indeed that we must in honesty be ashamed to repeat those

words of the 73d Psalm. But the point of view is too high.

The danger was imminent of falling from it down into the dust

and seeking comfort and support in the first earthly experience

that might offer, or, on the other hand, sinking into despair.

Subjective feeling was not enough of itself to outbid the

contradictions of nature; the feeling must take an objective form,

a world other than this one, answering the demands of morality,

must build itself up to form a contrast to the world actually

existing. The merit of laying the foundations for this

religious metaphysic which the time called for belongs, if not to

the Pharisees themselves, at least to the circles from which they

immediately proceeded. The main features of that metaphysic first

appear in the Book of Daniel, where we find a doctrine of the last

things. We have already spoken of the transition from the old

prophecy to apocalypse. With the destruction of the nation and

the cessation of historical life, hope was released from all

obligation to conform to historical conditions; it no longer set

up an aim to which even the present might aspire, but ran riot

after an ideal, at the advent of which the historical development

would be suddenly broken off. To be pious was all the Jews could

do at the time; but it caused them bitter regret that they had no

part in the government of the world, and in thought they anticipated

the fulfilment of their wishes. These they raised to an ever-higher

pitch in proportion as their antagonism to the heathen became more

pronounced, and as the world became more hostile to them and they

to the world. As the heathen empires stood in the way of the

universal dominion of Israel, the whole of them together were

regarded as one power, and this world-empire was then set over

against the kingdom of God, i.e., of Israel. The kingdom of God

was entirely future; the fulfilling of the law did not prepare the

way for it, but was only a statutory condition for its coming,

not related to it inwardly as cause to effect. History was suddenly

to come to a stop and cease. The Jews counted the days to the

judgment; the judgment was the act by which God would at once realise

all their wishes. The view thus taken of the world's history was a

very comprehensive one and well worked out from its principle, yet

of an entirely negative character; the further the world's history

went wilfully away from its goal, the nearer did it unintentionally

approach its goal. In this view, moreover, the earth always continued

to be the place of hope; the kingdom of God was brought by the judgment

into earthly history; it was on earth that the ideal was to be

realised. A step further, and the struggle of the dualism of the

earth was preluded in the skies by the angels, as the representatives

of the different powers and nations. In this struggle a place was

assigned to Satan; at first he was merely the accuser whom God Himself

had appointed, and in this character he drew attention to the sins

of the Jews before God's judgment-seat, and thereby delayed the judicial

sentence in their favour; but ultimately (though this took place late,

and is not met with in the Book of Daniel) he came to be the independent

leader of the power opposed to God, God's cause being identified

with that of the Jews. But as this prelude of the struggle took

place in heaven, its result was also anticipated. The kingdom of

God is on earth a thing of the future, but even now it is preserved

in heaven with all its treasures, one day to descend from there to

the earth. Heaven is the place where the good things of the future

are kept, which are not and yet must be; that is its original and

true signification. But the most important question came at last

to be, how individuals were to have part in the glory of the

future? How was it with the martyrs who had died in the

expectation of the kingdom of God, before it came? The doctrine of

the _zakuth_ was formed: if their merit was not of service to

themselves, it was yet of service to others. But this was a

solution with which individualism could not rest content. And what

of the ungodly? Were they to escape from wrath because they

died before the day of judgment? It was necessary that the

departed also should be allowed to take some part in the coming

retribution. Thus there arose--it is remarkable how late and how

slowly--the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, that the

kingdom of God might not be of service only to those who happened

to be alive at the judgment. Yet at first this doctrine was only

used to explain particularly striking cases. The Book of Daniel

says nothing of a general resurrection, but speaks in fact only of

a resurrection of the martyrs and a punishment of the wicked after

death. With all this the resurrection is not the entrance to a

life above the earth but to a second earthly life, to a world in

which it is no longer the heathen but the Jews who bear rule and

take the lead. Of a general judgment at the last day, or of heaven

and hell in the Christian sense, the Jews know nothing, though

these ideas might so easily have suggested themselves to them.

It is not easy to find points of view from which to pronounce on

the character of Judaism. It is a system, but a practical system,

which can scarcely be set forth in relation to one leading

thought, as it is an irregular product of history. It lives on the

stores of the past, but is not simply the total of what had been

previously acquired; it is full of new impulses, and has an

entirely different physiognomy from that of Hebrew antiquity,

so much so that it is hard even to catch a likeness. Judaism is

everywhere historically comprehensible, and yet it is a mass of

antinomies. We are struck with the free flight of thought and the

deep inwardness of feeling which are found in some passages in the

Wisdom and in the Psalms; but, on the other hand, we meet with a

pedantic asceticism which is far from lovely, and with pious

wishes the greediness of which is ill-concealed; and these

unedifying features are the dominant ones of the system.

Monotheism is worked out to its furthest consequences, and at the

same time is enlisted in the service of the narrowest selfishness;

Israel participates in the sovereignty of the One God. The

Creator of heaven and earth becomes the manager of a petty scheme

of salvation; the living God descends from His throne to make way

for the law. The law thrusts itself in everywhere; it commands

and blocks up the access to heaven; it regulates and sets limits

to the understanding of the divine working on earth. As far as it

can, it takes the soul out of religion and spoils morality. It

demands a service of God, which, though revealed, may yet with truth

be called a self-chosen and unnatural one, the sense and use of which

are apparent neither to the understanding nor the heart. The labour

is done for the sake of the exercise; it does no one any good, and

rejoices neither God nor man. It has no inner aim after which it

spontaneously strives and which it hopes to attain by itself, but

only an outward one, namely, the reward attached to it, which

might as well be attached to other and possibly even more curious

conditions. The ideal is a negative one, to keep one's self from

sin, not a positive one, to do good upon the earth; the morality

is one which scarcely requires for its exercise the existence of

fellow-creatures. Now pious exercises can dam up life and hold it

in bounds, they may conquer from it more and more ground, and at

last turn it into one great Sabbath, but they cannot penetrate it

at the root. The occupation of the hands and the desire of the

heart fall asunder. What the hands are doing has nothing in common

with the earth, and bears no reference to earthly objects; but

with the Jews the result of this is that their hope assumes a more

worldly complexion. There is no connection between the Good One

and goodness. There are exceptions, but they disappear in the

system.

The Gospel develops hidden impulses of the Old Testament, but it is

a protest against the ruling tendency of Judaism. Jesus understands

monotheism in a different way from his contemporaries. They think

in connection with it of the folly of the heathen and their great

happiness in calling the true God their own; He thinks of the claims,

not to be disputed or avoided, which the Creator makes on the creature.

He feels the reality of God dominating the whole of life, He breathes

in the fear of the Judge who requires an account for every idle word,

and has power to destroy body and soul in hell. "No man can serve two

masters; ye cannot serve God and Mammon; where your treasure is, there

will your heart be also." This monotheism is not to be satisfied with

stipulated services, how many and great soever; it demands the whole

man, it renders doubleness of heart and hypocrisy impossible. Jesus

casts ridicule on the works of the law, the washing of hands and

vessels, the tithing of mint and cummin, the abstinence even from

doing good on the Sabbath. Against unfruitful self-sanctification

He sets up another principle of morality, that of the service of one's

neighbour. He rejects that lofty kind of goodness, which says to father

and mother, If I dedicate what I might give to you, that will be best

even for you yourselves; He contends for the weightier matters in the

law, for the common morality which sees its aim in the furtherance of

the well-being of others, and which commends itself at once to the

heart of every one. Just this natural morality of self-surrender

does He call the law of God; that supernatural morality which thinks

to outbid this, He calls the commandment of men. Thus religion

ceases to be an art which the Rabbis and Pharisees understand better

than the unlearned people which know nothing of the law. The

arrogance of the school fares ill at the hands of Jesus; He will

know nothing of the partisanship of piety or of the separateness

of the godly; He condemns the practice of judging a man's value

before God. Holiness shrinks from contact with sinners, but He

helps the world of misery and sin; and there is no commandment

on which He insists more than that of forgiving others their debts

as one hopes for forgiveness himself from heaven. He is most

distinctly opposed to Judaism in His view of the kingdom of heaven,

not as merely the future reward of the worker, but as the present

goal of effort, it being the supreme duty of man to help it to

realise itself on earth, from the individual outwards. Love is

the means, and the community of love the end.

Self-denial is the chief demand of the Gospel; it means the same

thing as that repentance which must precede entrance into the

kingdom of God. The will thereby breaks away from the chain of

its own acts, and makes an absolutely new beginning not conditioned

by the past. The causal nexus which admits of being traced comes

here to an end, and the mutual action, which cannot be analysed,

between God and the soul begins. Miracle does not require to be

understood, only to be believed, in order to take place. With men

it is impossible, but with God it is possible. Jesus not only

affirmed this, but proved it in His own person. The impression of

His personality convinced the disciples of the fact of the

forgiveness of their sins and of their second birth, and gave them

courage to believe in a new divine life and to live it. He had in

fact lost His life and saved it; He could do as he would. He had

escaped the limits of the race and the pains of self-seeking

nature; He had found freedom and personality in God, who alone is

master of Himself, and lifts those up to Himself who seek after

Him.

Jesus works in the world and for the world, but with His faith He

stands above the world and outside it. He can sacrifice Himself

for the world because He asks nothing from the world, but has

attained in retirement with God to equanimity and peace of soul.

And further, the entirely supra-mundane position, at which Jesus

finds courage and love to take an interest in the world, does not

lead Him to anything strained or unnatural. He trusts God's

Providence, and resigns Himself to His will, He takes up the

attitude of a child towards Him, and loves best to call Him the

Heavenly Father. The expression is simple, but the thing

signified is new. He first knows Himself, not in emotion but in

sober quietness, to be God's child; before Him no one ever felt

himself to be so, or called himself so. He is the first-born of

the Father, yet, according to His own view, a first-born among

many brethren. For He stands in this relation to God not because

His nature is unique, but because He is man; He uses always and

emphatically this general name of the race to designate His own

person. In finding the way to God for Himself He has opened it to

all; along with the nature of God He has at the same time

discovered in Himself the nature of man.

Eternity extends into the present with Him, even on earth He lives

in the midst of the kingdom of God; even the judgment He sees

inwardly accomplished here below in the soul of man. Yet He is

far from holding the opinion that he who loves God aright does not

desire that God should love him in return. He teaches men to bear

the cross, but he does not teach that the cross is sweet and that

sickness is sound. A coming reconciliation between believing and

seeing, between morality and nature, everywhere forms the

background of His view of the world; even if He could have done

without it for His own person, yet it is a thing He takes for

granted, as it is an objective demand of righteousness. So much is

certain; for the rest the eschatology of the New Testament is so

thoroughly saturated with the Jewish ideas of the disciples, that

it is difficult to know what of it is genuine.

Jesus was so full of new and positive ideas that He did not feel

any need for breaking old idols, so free that no constraint could

depress Him, so unconquerable that even under the load of the

greatest accumulations of rubbish He could still breathe. This

ought ye to do, He said, and not to leave the other undone; He did

not seek to take away one iota, but only to fulfil. He never

thought of leaving the Jewish community. The Church is not His

work, but an inheritance from Judaism to Christianity. Under the

Persian domination the Jews built up an unpolitical community on

the basis of religion. The Christians found themselves in a

position with regard to the Roman Empire precisely similar to that

which the Jews had occupied with regard to the Persian; and so

they also founded, after the Jewish pattern, in the midst of the

state which was foreign and hostile to them, and in which they

could not feel themselves at home, a religious community as

their true fatherland. The state is always the presupposition of

the Church; but it was at first, in the case both of the Jewish

and of the Christian Church, a foreign state. The original meaning

of the Church thus disappeared when it no longer stood over against

the heathen world-power, it having become possible for the

Christians also to possess a natural fatherland in the nation.

In this way it became much more difficult to define accurately the

spheres of the state and the Church respectively, regarding the

Church as an organisation, not as an invisible community of the

faithful. The distinction of religious and secular is a variable

one; every formation of a religious community is a step towards

the secularisation of religion; the religion of the heart alone

remains an inward thing. The tasks of the two competing

organisations are not radically different in their nature; on the

one side it may be said that had not the Christian religion found

civil order already in existence, had it come, like Islam, in

contact with the anarchy of Arabia instead of the Empire of Rome

it must have founded not the Church, but the state; on the other

side it is well known that the state has everywhere entered into

possession of fields first reclaimed to cultivation by the Church.

Now we must acknowledge that the nation is more certainly created

by God than the Church, and that God works more powerfully in the

history of the nations than in Church history. The Church, at

first a substitute for the nation which was wanting, is affected by

the same evils incident to an artificial cultivation as meet us in

Judaism. We cannot create for ourselves our sphere of life and

action; better that it should be a natural one, given by God.

And yet it would be unjust to deny the permanent advantages of

the differentiation of the two. The Church will always be able

to work in advance for the state of the future. The present state

unfortunately is in many respects only nothing more than a barrier

to chaos; if the Church has still a task, it is that of preparing

an inner unity of practical conviction, and awakening a sentiment,

first in small circles, that we belong to each other.

Whether she is to succeed in this task is certainly the question.

The religious individualism of the Gospel is, and must remain for

all time, the true salt of the earth. The certainty that neither

death nor life can separate us from the love of God drives out that

fear which is opposed to love; an entirely supra-mundane faith

lends courage for resultless self-sacrifice and resigned obedience

on earth. We must succeed: _sursum corda_!

12. THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD.

Palestine fell into Alexander's possession in 332; after his death

it had an ample share of the troubles arising out of the partition

of his inheritance. In 320 it was seized by Ptolemy I., who on a

Sabbath-day took Jerusalem; but in 3I5 he had to give way before

Antigonus. Even before the battle of Ipsus, however, he recovered

possession once more, and for a century thereafter Southern Syria

continued to belong to the Egyptian crown, although the Seleucidae

more than once sought to wrench it away.

In the priestly dynasty during the period of the Ptolemies, Onias

I. ben Jaddua was succeeded by his son Simon I., after whom

again came first his brothers Eleazar and Manasseh, and next his

son Onias II.; the last-named was in his turn followed by his son

Simon II., whose praises are sung by the son of Sirach (xlix. 14-16).

At the side of the high priest stood the gerusia of the town of

Jerusalem, as a council of state, including the higher ranks of the

priesthood. The new sovereign power was at once stronger and

juster than the Persian,--at least under the earlier Ptolemies;

the power of the national government increased; to it was

intrusted the business of raising the tribute.

As a consequence of the revolutionary changes which had taken

place in the conditions of the whole East, the Jewish dispersion

(diaspora) began vigorously to spread. It dated its beginning

indeed from an earlier period,--from the time when the Jews had lost

their land and kingdom, but yet, thanks to their religion, could

not part with their nationality. They did not by any means all

return from Babylon; perhaps the majority permanently settled

abroad. The successors of Alexander (diadochi) fully appreciated

this international element, and used it as a link between their

barbarian and Hellenic populations. Everywhere they encouraged

the settlement of Jews,--in Asia Minor, in Syria, and especially

in Egypt. Alongside of the Palestinian there arose a Hellenistic

Judaism which had its metropolis in Alexandria. Here, under

Ptolemy I. and II., the Torah had already been translated into

Greek, and around this sprung up a Jewish-Greek literature which

soon became very extensive. At the court and in the army of the

Ptolemies many Jews rose to prominent positions; everywhere they

received the preference over, and everywhere they in consequence

earned the hatred of, the indigenous population.

After the death of Ptolemy IV. (205) Antiochus III. attained the

object towards which he and his predecessors had long been vainly

striving; after a war protracted with varying success through

several years, he succeeded at last in incorporating Palestine with

the kingdom of the Seleucidae. The Jews took his side, less perhaps

because they had become disgusted with the really sadly

degenerate Egyptian rule, than because they had foreseen the issue

of the contest, and preferred to attach themselves voluntarily to

the winning side. In grateful acknowledgment, Antiochus

confirmed and enlarged certain privileges of the "holy camp,"

i.e., of Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities, xii. 3, 3). It soon,

however, became manifest that the Jews had made but a poor bargain

in this exchange. Three years after his defeat at Magnesia,

Antiochus III. died (187), leaving to his son Seleucus IV. an immense

burden of debt, which he had incurred by his unprosperous Roman

war. Seleucus, in his straits, could not afford to be over-scrupulous

in appropriating money where it was to be found: he did not need to

be twice told that the wealth of the temple at Jerusalem was out of

all proportion to the expenses of the sacrificial service. The

sacred treasure accordingly made the narrowest possible escape

from being plundered; Heliodorus, who had been charged by the

king to seize it, was deterred at the last moment by a heavenly

vision. But the Jews derived no permanent advantage from this.

It was a priest of rank, Simon by name, who had called the

attention of the king to the temple treasure; his motive had been

spite against the high priest Onias III., the son and successor of

Simon II. The circumstance is one indication of a melancholy

process of disintegration that was at that time going on within the

hierocracy. The high-priesthood, although there were exceptional

cases, such as that of Simon II., was regarded less as a sacred

office than as a profitable princedom; within the ranks of the

priestly nobility arose envious and jealous factions; personal

advancement was sought by means of the favour of the overlord, who

had something to say in the making of appointments. A collateral

branch of the ruling family, that of the children of Tobias, had by

means of the ill-gotten wealth of Joseph ben Tobias attained to a

position of ascendancy, and competed in point of power with the

high priest himself. It appears that the above-mentioned Simon,

and his still more scandalous brother AIenelaus, also belonged to

the Tobiadae, and, relying upon the support of their powerful party

(Josephus, Antiquities, xii. 5, 1), cherished the purpose of securing

the high-priesthood by the aid of the Syrian king.

The failure of the mission of Heliodorus was attributed by Simon

to a piece of trickery on the part of Onias the high priest, who

accordingly found himself called upon to make his own

justification at court and to expose the intrigues of his

adversary. Meanwhile Seleucus IV. died of poison (175), and

Antiochus IV. Epiphanes did not confirm Onias in his dignity,

but detained him in Antioch, while he made over the office to his

brother Jason, who had offered a higher rent. Possibly the

Tobiadae also had something to do with this arrangement; at all

events, Menelaus was at the outset the right hand of the new high

priest. To secure still further the favour of the king, Jason held

himself out to be an enlightened friend of the Greeks, and begged

for leave to found in Jerusalem a gymnasium and an ephebeum, and to

be allowed to sell to the inhabitants there the rights of citizenship

in Antioch,--a request which was readily granted.

The malady which had long been incubating now reached its acute

phase. Just in proportion as Hellenism showed itself friendly did

it present elements of danger to Judaism. From the periphery it

slowly advanced towards the centre, from the diaspora to

Jerusalem, from mere matters of external fashion to matters of the

most profound conviction. /1/ Especially did the upper and cultivated

-- Footnote

1. The Hellenising fashion is amusingly exemplified in the Grecising

of the Jewish names; e.g., Alcimus = Eljakim, Jason = Jesus, Joshua;

Menelaus = Menahem.

-- Footnote

classes of society begin to feel ashamed, in presence of the

refined Greeks, of their Jewish singularity, and to do all in

their power to tone it down and conceal it. In this the priestly

nobility made itself conspicuous as the most secular section of

the community, and it was the high priest who took the initiative

in measures which aimed at a complete Hellenising of the Jews. He

outdid every one else in paganism. Once he sent a considerable

present for offerings to the Syrian Hercules on the occasion of his

festival; but his messenger, ashamed to apply the money to such

a purpose, set it apart for the construction of royal ships of war.

The friendship shown by Jason for the Greek king and for all that

was Hellenic did not prevent Antiochus IV. from setting pecuniary

considerations before all others. Menelaus, intrusted with the

mission of conveying to Antioch the annual Jewish tribute, availed

himself of the opportunity to promote his own personal interests

by offering a higher sum for the high-priesthood, and having

otherwise ingratiated himself with the king, gained his object

(171). But though nominated, he did not find it quite easy to

obtain possession of the post. The Tobiadae took his side, but the

body of the people stuck to Jason, who was compelled to give way

only when Syrian troops had been brought upon the scene. Menelaus

had immediately, however, to encounter another difficulty, for he

could not at once pay the amount of tribute which he had promised.

He helped himself so far indeed by robbing the temple, but this

landed him in new embarrassments. Onias III., who was living out

of employment at Antioch, threatened to make compromising revelations

to the king; he was, however, opportunely assassinated.

The rage of the people against the priestly temple-plunderer now

broke out in a rising against a certain Lysimachus, who at the

instance of the absent Menelaus had made further inroads upon the

sacred treasury. The Jews' defence before the king (at Tyre) on

account of this uproar resolved itself into a grievous complaint

against the conduct of Menelaus. His case was a bad one, but money

again helped him out of his straits, and the extreme penalty of the

law fell upon his accusers.

The feelings of the Jews with reference to this wolfish shepherd

may easily be imagined. Nothing but fear of Antiochus held them

in check. Then a report gained currency that the king had

perished in an expedition against Egypt (170); and Jason, who

meanwhile had found refuge in Ammanitis, availed himself of the

prevailing current of feeling to resume his authority with the

help of one thousand men. He was not able, however, to hold the

position long, partly because he showed an unwise vindictiveness

against his enemies, partly (and chiefly) because the rumour of

the death of Antiochus turned out to be false. The king was

already, in fact, close at hand on his return from Egypt, full of

anger at an insurrection which he regarded as having been directed

against himself. He inflicted severe and bloody chastisement

upon Jerusalem, carried off the treasures of the temple, and

restored Menelaus, placing Syrian officials at his side. Jason

fled from place to place, and ultimately died in misery at

Lacedaemon.

The deepest despondency prevailed in Judaea; but its cup of

sorrow was not yet full. Antiochus, probably soon after his last

Egyptian expedition (168), sent Apollonius with an army against

Jerusalem. He fell upon the unsuspecting city, disarmed the

inhabitants and demolished the walls, but on the other hand

fortified Acra, and garrisoned it strongly, so as to make it a

standing menace to the whole country. Having thus made his

preparations, he proceeded to carry out his main instructions.

All that was religiously distinctive of Judaism was to be removed;

such was the will of the king. The Mosaic cultus was abolished,

Sabbath observance and the rite of circumcision prohibited, all

copies of the Torah confiscated and burnt. In the desecrated and

partially-destroyed temple pagan ceremonies were performed, and

upon the great altar of burnt-offering a small altar to Jupiter

Capitolinus was erected, on which the first offering was made on

25th Kislev 168. In the country towns also heathen altars were

erected, and the Jews compelled, on pain of death, publicly to

adore the false gods and to eat swine's flesh that had been

sacrificed to idols.

The princes and grandees of the Jews had represented to Antiochus

that the people were ripe for Hellenisation; and inasmuch as,

apart from this, to reduce to uniformity the extremely motley

constituents of his kingdom was a scheme that lay near his heart,

he was very willing to believe them. That the very opposite was

the case must of course have become quite evident very soon; but

the resistance of the Jews taking the form of rebellious risings

against his creatures, he fell upon the hopeless plan of

coercion,--hopeless, for he could attain his end only by making

all Judaea one vast graveyard. There existed indeed a pagan party;

the Syrian garrison of Acra was partly composed of Jews who sold

themselves to be the executioners of their countrymen. Fear also

influenced many to deny their convictions; but the majority

adhered firmly to the religion of their fathers. Jerusalem,

the centre of the process of Hellenisation, was abandoned by its

inhabitants, who made their escape to Egypt, or hid themselves in

the country, in deserts and caves. The scribes in especial held

fast by the law; and they were joined by the party of the

Asidaeans (i.e., pious ones).

13. THE HASMONAEANS.

At first there was no thought of meeting violence with violence;

as the Book of Daniel shows, people consoled themselves with

thoughts of the immediate intervention of God which would occur in

due time. Quite casually, without either plan or concert, a

warlike opposition arose. There was a certain priest Mattathias,

of the family of the Hasmonaeans, a man far advanced in life,

whose home was in Modein, a little country town to the west of

Jerusalem. Hither also the Syrian soldiers came to put the

population to a positive proof of their change of faith; they

insisted upon Mattathias leading the way. But he was steadfast in

his refusal; and, when another Jew addressed himself before his

eyes to the work of making the heathen offering, he killed him and

the Syrian officer as well, and destroyed the altar. Thereupon he

fled to the hill country, accompanied by his sons (Johannes Gaddi,

Simon Thassi, Judas Maccabaeus, Eleazar Auaran, Jonathan Apphus)

and other followers. But he resolved to defend himself to the

last, and not to act as some other fugitives had done, who about

the same time had allowed themselves to be surrounded and butchered

on a Sabbath-day without lifting a finger. Thus he became the head

of a band which defended the ancestral religion with the sword.

They traversed the country, demolished the altars of the false gods,

circumcised the children, and persecuted the heathen and heathenishly

disposed. The sect of the Asidaeans also intrusted itself to their

warlike protection (1Maccabees ii. 42).

Mattathias soon died and left his leadership to Judas Maccabaeus,

by whom the struggle was carried on in the first instance after

the old fashion; soon, however, it assumed larger dimensions, when

regular armies were sent out against the insurgents. First

Apollonius, the governor of Judaea, took the field; but he was

defeated and fell in battle. Next came Seron, governor of

Ccelesyria, who also was routed near Bethhoron (I66). Upon this

Lysias, the regent to whom Antiochus IV., who was busied in the far

east, had intrusted the government of Syria and the charge of his

son, Antiochus Philopator, a minor, sent a strong force under the

command of three generals. Approaching from the west, it was their

design to advance separately upon Jerusalem, but Judas anticipated

their plan and compelled them to quit the field (166). The regent

now felt himself called on to interpose in person. Invading Judaea

from the south, he encountered the Jews at Bethsur, who, however,

offered an opposition that was not easily overcome; he was

prevented from resorting to the last measures by the intelligence

which reached him of the death of the king in Elymais (165).

The withdrawal of Lysias secured the fulfilment of the desires of

the defenders of the faith in so far as it now enabled them to

restore the Jerusalem worship to its previous condition. They

lost no time in setting about the accomplishment of this. They

were not successful indeed in wresting Acra from the possession of

the Syrians, but they so occupied the garrison as to prevent it

from interfering with the work of restoration. On 25th Kislev 165,

the very day on which, three years before, "the abomination of

desolation" had been inaugurated, the first sacrifice was offered

on the new altar, and in commemoration of this the feast of the

dedication was thenceforth celebrated.

As it was easy to see that danger still impended, the temple was

put into a state of defence, as also was the town of Bethsur, where

Lysias had been checked. But the favourable moment presented by

the change of sovereign was made use of for still bolder attempts.

Scattered over the whole of Southern Syria there were a number of

Jewish localities on which the heathens now proceeded to wreak

their vengeance.

For the purpose of rescuing these oppressed co-religionists, and of

bringing them in safety to Judaea, the Maccabees made a series of

excursions, extending in some cases as far as to Lebanon and

Damascus. Lysias had his hands otherwise fully occupied, and

perhaps did not feel much disposed to continue the fight on behalf

of the cultus of Jupiter Capitolinus. Daily gaining in boldness,

the Jews now took in hand also to lay regular siege to Acra. Then

at last Lysias yielded to the pressure of Syrian and Jewish

deputations and determined to take serious steps (162). With a

large force he entered Judaea, again from the south, and laid siege

to Bethsur. Judas vainly attempted the relief of the fortress;

he sustained near Bethzachariah a defeat in which his brother Eleazar

perished. Bethsur was unable to hold out, being short of provisions

on account of the sabbatic year. The Syrians advanced next to Jerusalem

and besieged the temple; it also was insufficiently provisioned, and

would soon have been compelled to surrender, had not Lysias been again

called away at the critical moment by other exigencies. A certain

Philip was endeavouring to oust him from the regency; as it was

necessary for him to have his hands free in dealing with this new

enemy, he closed a treaty with the temple garrison and the people at

large, in accordance with which at once the political subjection

and the religious freedom of the Jews were to be maintained; Thus

the situation as it had existed before Antiochus IV. was restored.

Only no attempt was made to replace Menelaus as high priest and

ethnarch; this post was to be filled by Alcimus.

The concessions thus made by Lysias were inevitable; and even

King Demetrius I., son of Seleucus IV., who towards the end of 162

ascended the throne and caused both Lysias and his ward to be put

to death, had no thought of interfering with their religious

freedom. But the Maccabees desired something more than the _status

quo ante_; after having done their duty they were disinclined to

retire in favour of Alcimus, whose sole claim lay in his descent

from the old heathenishly-disposed high-priestly family. Alcimus

was compelled to invoke the assistance of the king, who caused him

to be installed by Bacchides. He was at once recognised by the

scribes and Asidaeans, for whom, with religious liberty, everything

they wished had been secured; the claims to supremacy made by

the Hasmonaeans were of no consequence to them. Doubtless the

masses also would ultimately have quietly accepted Alcimus, who of

course refrained from interference with either law or worship, had

he not abused the momentary power he derived from the presence of

Bacchides to take a foolish revenge. But the consequence of his

action was that, as soon as Bacchides had turned his back, Alcimus

was compelled to follow him. For the purpose of restoring him a

Syrian army once more invaded Judaea under Nicanor (I60), but

first at Kapharsalama and afterwards at Bethhoron was defeated by

Judas, and almost annihilated in the subsequent flight, Nicanor

himself being among the slain (13th Adar = Nicanor's day). Judas

was now at the acme of his prosperity; about this time he concluded

his (profitless) treaty with the Romans. But disaster was impending.

In the month of Nisan, barely a month after the defeat of Nicanor,

a new Syrian army under Bacchides entered Judaea from the north;

near Elasa, southward from Jerusalem, a decisive battle was fought

which was lost by Judas, and in which he himself fell.

The religious war properly so called had already been brought

once for all to an end by the convention of Lysias. If the

struggle continued to be carried on, it was not for the faith but

for the supremacy,--less in the interests of the community than in

those of the Hasmonaeans. After the death of Judas the secular

character which the conflict had assumed ever since 162 continually

became more conspicuous. Jonathan Apphus fought for his house, and

in doing so used thoroughly worldly means. The high-priesthood,

i.e., the ethnarchy, was the goal of his ambition. So long as

Alcimus lived, it was far from his reach. Confined to the rocky

fastnesses beside the Dead Sea, he had nothing for it but,

surrounded by his faithful followers, to wait for better times.

But on the death of Alcimus (159) the Syrians refrained from

appointing a successor, to obviate the necessity of always having

to protect him with military force. During the interregnum of

seven years which followed, Jonathan again came more and more to

the front, so that at last Bacchides concluded an armistice with

him on the basis of the _status quo_ (1Maccabees ix. 13). From his

residence at Michmash Jonathan now exercised a _de facto_ authority

over the entire nation.

When accordingly Alexander Balas, a reputed son of Antiochus IV.,

rose against Demetrius, both rivals exerted themselves to secure

the alliance of Jonathan, who did not fail to benefit by their

competition. First of all, Demetrius formally recognised him as

prince of Judah; in consequence of this he removed to Jerusalem,

and expelled the heathen and heathenishly disposed, who continued

to maintain a footing only in Acra and Bethsur. Next Alexander

Balas conferred on him the title of "high priest of the nation

and friend of the king;" in gratitude for which Jonathan went

over to his side (152). He remained loya], although Demetrius

now made larger offers; he was justified by the event, for

Demetrius I. had the worst of it and was slain (150). The

victorious Balas heaped honours upon Jonathan, who maintained

his fidelity, and fought successfully in his interests when

in I47 Demetrius II., the son of Demetrius I., challenged a

conflict. The high priest was unable indeed to prevent the

downfall of Alexander in 145; but Demetrius II., won by presents,

far from showing any hostility, confirmed him in his position

in consideration of a tribute of 300 talents.

Jonathan was grateful to the king, as he showed by going with 3000

men to his aid against the insurgent Antiochenes. But when the

latter drew back from his promise to withdraw the garrison from

Acra, he went over to the side of Trypho, who had set up a son of

Alexander Balas (Antiochus) as a rival. In the war which he now

waged as Seleucid-strategus against Demetrius he succeeded in

subduing almost the whole of Palestine. Meanwhile his brother

Simon remained behind in Judaea, mastered the fortress of Bethsur,

and resumed with great energy the siege of Acra. All this was

done in the names of Antiochus and Trypho, but really of course in

the interests of the Jews themselves. There were concluded also

treaties with the Romans and Lacedaemonians, certainly not to

the advantage of the Syrians.

Trypho sought now to get rid of the man whom he himself had made

so powerful. He treacherously seized and imprisoned Jonathan in

Ptolemais, and meditated an attack upon the leaderless country.

But on the frontier Simon, the last remaining son of Mattathias,

met him in force. All Trypho's efforts to break through proved

futile; after skirting all Judaea from west to south, without

being able to get clear of Simon, he at last withdrew to Peraea

without having accomplished anything. On the person of Jonathan,

whom he caused to be executed, he vented the spleen he felt on the

discovery that the cause for which that prince had fought was able

to gain the victory even when deprived of his help. Simon, in

point of fact, was Jonathan's equal as a soldier and his superior

as a ruler. He secured his frontier by means of fortresses, made

himself master of Acra (141), and understood how to enable the

people in time of peace to reap the advantages that result from

successful war; agriculture, industry, and commerce (from the

haven of Joppa) began to flourish vigorously. In grateful

recognition of his services the high-priesthood and the ethnarchy

were bestowed upon him as hereditary possessions by a solemn

assembly of the people, "until a trustworthy prophet should

arise."

Nominally the Seleucidae still continued to possess the

suzerainty. Simon naturally had detached himself from Trypho

and turned to Demetrius II., who confirmed him in his position,

remitted all arrears of tribute, and waived his rights for the

future (142). The friendship of Demetrius II. and of his

successor Antiochus Sidetes with Simon, however, lasted only as

long as Trypho still remained in the way. But, he once removed,

Sidetes altered his policy. He demanded of Simon the surrender of

Joppa, Gazara, and other towns, besides the citadel of Jerusalem,

as well as payment of all tribute resting due. The refusal of

these demands led to war, which in its earlier stages was carried

on with success, but the scales were turned after the murder of

Simon, when Sidetes in person took the field against John Hyrcanus,

Simon's son and successor. Jerusalem capitulated; in the

negotiations for peace the surrender of all the external

possessions of the Jews was insisted upon; the suzerainty of the

Syrians became once more a reality (I35). But in 130 the powerful

Antiochus Sidetes fell in an expedition against the Parthians, and

the complications anew arising in reference to the succession to

the Syrian throne placed Hyrcanus in a position to recover what he

had lost and to make new acquisitions. He subjugated Samaria

and Idumaea, compelling the inhabitants of the latter to accept

circumcision. Like his predecessors, he too sought to secure the

favour of the Romans, but derived no greater benefit from the

effort than they had done. After a prosperous reign of thirty

years he died in 105. By Josephus he is represented as a pattern

of all that a pious prince ought to be; by the rabbins as

representing a splendid high-priesthood. The darkness of the

succeeding age lent a brighter colour to his image.

The external splendour of the Hasmonaean kingdom did not at once

die away,--the downfall of the Seleucidae, which was its negative

condition, being also a slow affair. Judah Aristobulus, the son

of Hyrcanus, who reigned for only one year, was the first to

assume the Greek title of royalty; Ituraea was subdued by him,

and circumcision forced upon the inhabitants. His brother Jonathan

(Jannaeus) Alexander (104-79), in a series of continual wars,

which were never very prosperous, never-theless succeeded in adding

the whole coast of Philistia (Gaza) as well as a great portion of

Peraea to his hereditary dominions. /1/

-- Footnote

1. A number of half-independent towns and communes lay as tempting

subjects of dispute between the Seleucidae, the Nabathaeans or

Arabs of Petra, and the Jews. The background was occupied by the

Parthians and the Romans.

-- Footnote

But the external enlargement of the structure was secured at the cost

of its internal consistency.

From the time when Jonathan, the son of Mattathias, began to carry

on the struggle no longer for the cause of God but for his own

interests, the scribes and the Asidaeans, as we have seen, had

withdrawn themselves from the party of the Maccabees There can

be no doubt that from their legal standpoint they were perfectly

right in contenting themselves, as they did, with the attainment

of religious liberty, and in accepting Alcimus. The Hasmonaeans

had no hereditary right to the high-priesthood, and their

politics, which aimed at the establishment of a national monarchy,

were contrary to the whole spirit and essence of the second

theocracy. The presupposition of that theocracy was foreign

domination; in no other way could its sacred--i.e., clerical--

character be maintained. God and the law could not but be

forced into the background if a warlike kingdom, retaining indeed

the forms of a hierocracy, but really violating its spirit at

every point, should ever grow out of a mere pious community.

Above all, how could the scribes hope to retain their importance

if temple and synagogue were cast into the shade by politics and

clash of arms? But under the first great Hasmonaeans the

zealots for the law were unable to force their way to the front;

the enthusiasm of the people was too strong for them; they had

nothing for it but to keep themselves out of the current and refuse

to be swept along by it. Even under Hyrcanus, however, they

gained more prominence, and under Jannaeus their influence upon

popular opinion was paramount. For under the last-named the

secularisation of the hierocracy no longer presented any

attractive aspects; it was wholly repellent. It was looked upon

as a revolting anomaly that the king, who was usually in the

field with his army, should once and again assume the sacred mantle

in order to perform the sacrifice on some high festival, and that

his officers, profane persons as they were, should at the same

time be holders of the highest spiritual offices. The danger which

in all this threatened "the idea of Judaism" could not in these

circumstances escape the observation of even the common people; for

this idea was God and the law, not any earthly fatherland. The

masses accordingly ranged themselves with ever-growing unanimity

on the side of the Pharisees (i.e., the party of the scribes) as

against the Sadducees (i.e., the Hasmonaean party). /1/

-- Footnote

1. PRW# means "separated," and refers perhaps to the attitude of

isolation taken by the zealots for the law during the interval

between 162 and 105. CDWQY (*SADDOUKAIOS) comes from CDWQ (*SADDOUK,

LXX.) the ancestor of the higher priesthood of Jerusalem (1Kings ii.

35; 1Samuel ii. 35; Ezekiel xliv. 15), and designates the

governing nobility. The original character of the opposition, as

it appeared under Jannaeus, changed entirely with the lapse of

time, on account of the Sadducees' gradual loss of political

power, till they fell at last to the condition of a sort of "fronde."

-- Footnote

On one occasion, when Alexander Jannaeus had returned to Jerusalem

at the feast of tabernacles, and was standing in his priestly

vestments before the altar to sacrifice, he was pelted by the

assembled crowd of worshippers with citrons from the green branches

they carried. By the cruelty with which he punished this insult

he excited the populace to the highest pitch, and, when he lost

his army in the disaster of Gadara, rebellion broke out. The

Pharisees summoned the Syrian king Demetrius Eucaerus; Jannaeus

was worsted and fled into the desert. But as he wandered in

helplessness there, the patriotism of the people and sympathy for

the heir of the Maccabees suddenly awoke; nature proved itself

stronger than that consistency which in the cause of the Divine

honour had not shrunk from treason. The insurgents for the most

part went over to the side of the fugitive king; the others he

ultimately overpowered after a struggle which lasted through

several years, Demetrius having withdrawn his intervention. The

vengeance which he took on the Pharisees was a bloody one; their

only escape was by voluntary exile. Thenceforward he had peace

so far as they were concerned. His last years were occupied with

the reacquisition of the conquests which he had been compelled to

yield to the Arabs during the civil war. He died in the field

at the siege of Ragaba in Peraea (79).

Under Queen Salome, his widow, matters were as if they had been

specially arranged for the satisfaction of the Pharisees. The

high-priesthood passed to Salome's son, Hyrcanus II.; she herself

was only queen. In the management of external affairs her

authority was absolute (Antiquities, xiii. 16, 6); in home policy

she permitted the scribes to wield a paramount influence. The

common assertion, indeed, that the synedrium was at that time

practically composed of scribes, is inconsistent with the known

facts of the case; the synedrium at that time was a political

and not a scholastic authority. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Kuenen, "Over de Samenstelling van het Sanhedrin," in

Proceedings of Royal Netherl. Acad., 1866.

-- Footnote

In its origin it was the municipal council of Jerusalem (so also

the councils of provincial towns are called synedria, Mark xiii. 9),

but its authority extended over the entire Jewish community;

alongside of the elders of the city the ruling priests were those

who had the greatest number of seats and votes. John Hyrcanus

appears to have been the first to introduce some scribes into its

composition; it is possible that Salome may have increased their

number, but even so this high court was far from being changed into

a college of scribes like that at Jamnia. If the domination of the

Pharisees at this time is spoken of, the expression cannot be

understood as meaning that they already held all the public

offices, but only at most that the holders of those offices found

it necessary to administer and to judge in their spirit and

according to their fundamental principles.

The party of the Sadducees (consisting of the old Hasmonaean

officers and officials, who were of priestly family indeed, but

attached only slight importance to their priestly functions) at

length lost all patience. Led by Aristobulus, the second son of

Jannaeus, the leaders of the party came to the palace, and begged

the queen to dismiss them from the court and to send them into the

provinces. There they were successful in securing possession of

several fortresses /2/ in preparation for insurrection, a favourable

-- Footnote

2. Alexandrium, Coreae, and similar citadels, which were at that

time of great importance for Palestine and Syria.

-- Footnote

opportunity for which they were watching. Such an opportunity

occurred, it seemed to Aristobulus, as his mother lay on her

death-bed. The commandants of the fortresses were at his orders,

and by their assistance an army also, with which he accordingly

advanced upon Jerusalem, and, on the death of Salome, made himself

master of the situation (69). Hyrcanus was compelled to resign

office. With this event the good understanding between the civil

government and the Pharisees came to an end; the old antagonisms

became active once more, and now began to operate for the advantage

of a third party, the Idumaean Antipater, Hyrcanus's confidential

friend. After the latter, aided by Antipater, had at length with

great difficulty got himself into a position for asserting his

rights against Aristobulus, the Pharisees could not do otherwise

than rank themselves upon his side, and the masses joined them

against the usurper. With the help of the Nabataean monarch the

effort to restore the elder brother to the supreme authority would

doubtless have succeeded had not the Romans procured relief for

Aristobulus, besieged as he was in Jerusalem (65), though without

thereby recognising his claims. Pompey continued to delay a decision

on the controversy in 64 also when the rival claimants presented

themselves before him at Damascus; he wished first to have the

Nabataeans disposed of, and to have free access to them through

Judaea. This hesitation roused the suspicions of Aristobulus;

still he did not venture to take decisive action upon them. He

closed the passes (to Mount Ephraim) against the Romans, but

afterwards gave them up; he prepared Jerusalem for war, and then

went in person to the Roman camp at Jericho, where he promised

to open the gates of the city and also to pay a sum of money.

But the Roman ambassadors found the gates barred, and had to

return empty-handed. Aristobulus thereupon was arrested, and

siege was laid to Jerusalem. The party of Hyrcanus, as soon

as it had gained the upper hand, surrendered the town; but the

supporters of Aristobulus took their stand in the temple, and

defended it obstinately. In June 63 the place was carried by

storm; Pompey personally inspected the Holy of Holies, but

otherwise spared the religious feelings of the Jews. But he

caused the chief promoters of the war to be executed, and carried

Aristobulus and his family into captivity. He abolished the

kingship, but restored the high-priestly dignity to Hyrcanus.

The territory was materially reduced in area, and made tributary

to the Romans; the city was occupied by a Roman garrison.

14. HEROD AND THE ROMANS.

Henceforward Roman intervention forms a constant disturbing factor

in Jewish history. The struggle between the Pharisees and the

Sadducees continued indeed to be carried on, but only because the

momentum of their old feud was not yet exhausted. The Pharisees in

a sense had been victorious. While the two brothers were pleading

their rival claims before Pompey, ambassadors from the Pharisees

had made their appearance in Damascus to petition for the abolition

of the kingship; this object had now to some extent been gained.

Less ambiguous than the victory of the Pharisees was the fall of

the Sadducees, who in losing the sovereignty of the Jewish state

lost all real importance. But the intervention of the foreign

element exercised its most powerful influence upon the temper of

the lower classes. Though in times of peace the masses still

continued to accept the guidance of the rabbins, their patriotism

instantly burst into flame as soon as a pretender to the throne,

belonging to the family of Aristobulus, appeared in Palestine.

During the decennia which immediately followed, Jewish history

was practically absorbed in vain attempts to restore the old

Hasmonaean kingdom. Insurrections of steadily increasing

dimensions were made in favour of Aristobulus, the representative

of the national cause. For Hyrcanus was not regarded as a

Hasmonaean at all, but merely as the creature of Antipater and the

Romans. First, in the year 57, Alexander the son of Aristobulus

broke into rebellion, then in 56 Aristobulus himself and his son

Antigonus, and in 55 Alexander again. Antipater was never able to

hold his own; Roman intervention was in every case necessary.

The division of the Hasmonaean state into five "aristocracies" by

Gabinius had no effect in diminishing the feeling of national unity

cherished by the Jews of Palestine. Once again, after the battle

of Carrhae, a rising took place, which Cassius speedily repressed.

In 49 the great Roman civil war broke out; Caesar instigated

Aristobulus against Antipater, who in common with the whole East

had espoused the cause of Pompey. But Aristobulus was poisoned by

the opposite party while yet in Italy, and about the same time his

son Alexander was also put to death at Antioch; thus the danger

to Antipater passed away. After the battle of Pharsalus he went

over to Caesar's side, and soon after rendered him an important

service by helping him out of his difficulties at Alexandria. By

this means he earned the good-will of Caesar towards the whole body

of the Jews and secured for himself (or Hyrcanus) a great extension

of power and of territory. The five "synedria" or "aristocracies"

of Gabinius were superseded, the most important conquest of the

Hasmonaeans restored, the walls of Jerusalem, which Pompey had razed,

rebuilt.

However indisputable the advantages conferred by the rule of

Antipater, the Jews could not forget that the Idumaean, in name

of Hyrcanus, the rightful heir of the Hasmonaeans, was in truth

setting up an authority of his own. The Sadducaean aristocracy

in particular, which formerly in the synedrium had shared the

supreme power with the high priest, endeavoured to restore

reality once more to the nominal ascendancy which still continued

to be attributed to the ethnarch and the synedrium. "When the

authorities (hoi 'en telei) of the Jews saw how the power of

Antipater and his sons was growing, their disposition towards him

became hostile" (Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 9, 3). They were

specially jealous of the youthful Herod, to whom Galilee had been

entrusted by his father. On account of the arbitrary execution

of a robber chief Ezechias, who perhaps had originally been a

Hasmonaean partisan, they summoned him before the synedrium,

under the impression that it was not yet too late to remind him

that he was after all but a servant. But the defiant demeanour

of the culprit, and a threatening missive which at the same time

arrived from Sextus Caesar demanding his acquittal, rendered his

judges speechless, nor did they regain their courage until they

had heard the stinging reproaches of Sameas the scribe. Yet the

aged Hyrcanus, who did not comprehend the danger that was

threatening himself, postponed judgment upon Herod, and gave him

opportunity to withdraw. Having been appointed strategus of

Coelesyria by Sextus Caesar in the meanwhile he soon afterwards

appeared before Jerusalem at the head of an army, and the

authorities were compelled to address themselves in a conciliatory

manner to his father and to Phasael his brother in order to secure

his withdrawal.

The attempt to crush the serpent which had thus effected a lodgment

in the Hasmonaean house came too late. The result of it simply

was that the Herodians had now the advantage of being able to

distinguish between Hyrcanus and his "evil counsellors." From that

moment the downfall of the Sadducaean notables was certain. It was

of no avail to them that after the battle of Philippi (42) they

accused Herod and Phasael (Antipater having been murdered in 43)

before Antony of having been helpful in every possible way to

Cassius; Antony declared himself in the most decisive manner for

the two brothers. In their despair--for properly speaking they

were not national fanatics but only egoistic politicians--they

ultimately made common cause with Antigonus the son of

Aristobulus, and threw themselves into the arms of the Parthians,

perceiving the interests of the Romans and of Herod to be

inseparable (40). Fortune at first seemed to have declared in

favour of the pretender. The masses unanimously took his side;

Phasael committed suicide in prison; with a single blow Herod was

stripped of all his following and made a helpless fugitive. He

took refuge in Rome, however, where he was named king of Judaea

by the senate, and after a somewhat protracted war he finally,

with the help of the legions of Sosius, made himself master of

Jerusalem (37). The captive Antigonus was beheaded at Antioch.

King Herod began his reign by reorganising the synedrium; he

ordered the execution of forty-five of its noblest members, his

most zealous opponents. These were the Sadducaean notables who

long had headed the struggle against the Idumaean interlopers.

Having thus made away with the leaders of the Jerusalem

aristocracy, he directed his efforts to the business of corrupting

the rest. He appointed to the most important posts obscure

individuals, of priestly descent, from Babylon and Alexandria,

and thus replaced with creatures of his own the old aristocracy.

Nor did he rest content with this; in order to preclude the

possibility of any independent authority ever arising alongside

of his own, he abolished the life-tenure of the high-priestly

office, and brought it completely under the control of the secular

power. By this means he succeeded in relegating the Sadducees to

utter insignificance. They were driven out of their native

sphere--the political--into the region of theoretical and

ecclesiastical discussion, where they continued, but on quite

unequal terms, their old dispute with the Pharisees.

It was during the period of Herod's activity that the Pharisees,

strictly speaking, enjoyed their greatest prosperity (Sameas and

Abtalion, Hillel and Shammai); in the synedrium they became so

numerous as almost to equal the priests and elders. Quite

consistently with their principles they had abstained from

taking any part in the life and death struggle for the existence

of the national state. Their leaders had even counselled the

fanatical defenders of Jerusalem to open the gates to the enemy;

for this service they were treated with the highest honour by Herod.

He made it part of his general policy to favour the Pharisees

(as also the sect of the Essenes, insignificant though it was),

it being his purpose to restrict the national life again within

those purely ecclesiastical channels of activity which it had

abandoned since the Maccabaean wars. However reckless his conduct

in other respects, he was always scrupulously careful to avoid

wounding religious susceptibilities (Antiquities, xiv. 16, 3).

But although the Pharisees might be quite pleased that the

high-priesthood and the kingship were no longer united in one

and the same person, and that interest in the law again overshadowed

interest in politics, the populace for their part could never

forgive Herod for overthrowing the old dynasty. That he himself,

at least in religious profession, was a Jew did not improve his

position, but rather made it worse. It was not easy for him to

stifle the national feeling after it had once been revived among

the Jews; they could not forget the recent past, and objected to

being thrust back into the time when foreign domination was endured

by them as a matter of course. The Romans were regarded in quite

a different light from that in which the Persians and the Greeks

had been viewed, and Herod was only the client of the Romans.

His greatest danger seemed to arise from the still surviving

members of the Hasmonaean family, to whom, as is easily

understood, the national hopes clung. In the course of the earlier

years of his reign he removed every one of them from his path,

beginning with his youthful brother-in-law Aristobulus (35), after

whom came his old patron Hyrcanus II. (30), then Mariamne his wife

(29), and finally his stepmother Alexandra (28), the daughter of

Hyrcanus and the widow of Alexander Aristobuli. Subsequently,

in 25, he caused Costobarus and the sons of Babas to be executed.

While thus occupied with domestic affairs, Herod had constant

trouble also in his external relations, and each new phase in his

political position immediately made itself felt at home. In the

first instance he had much to suffer from Cleopatra, who would

willingly have seen Palestine reduced under Egyptian domination

once more, and who actually succeeded in inducing Antony to take

from Herod several fair and valuable provinces of his realm. Next,

his whole position was imperilled by the result of the battle of

Actium; he had once more ranged himself upon the wrong side. But

his tact did not fail him in winning Octavianus, as before it had

made Antony his friend. In fact he reaped nothing but advantage

from the great overturn which took place in Roman affairs; it

rid him of Cleopatra, a dangerous enemy, and gave him in the new

imperator a much better master than before.

During the following years he had leisure to carry out those

splendid works of peace by which it was his aim to ingratiate

himself with the emperor. He founded cities and harbours

(Antipatris, Caesarea), constructed roads, theatres, and temples,

and subsidised far beyond his frontier all works of public utility.

He taxed the Jews heavily, but in compensation promoted their

material interests with energy and discretion, and built for them,

from 20 or 19 B.C. onwards, the temple at Jerusalem. To gain their

sympathies he well knew to be impossible. Apart from the Roman

legions at his back his authority had its main support in his

fortresses and in his system of espionage.

But just as the acme of his splendour had been reached, he himself

became the instrument of a terrible vengeance for the crimes by

which his previous years had been stained; as executioner of all

the Hasmonaeans, he was now constrained to be the executioner of

his own children also. His suspicious temper had been aroused

against his now grown-up sons by Mariamne, whose claims through

their mother to the throne were superior to his own; his brother

Pheroras and his sister Salome made it their special business to

fan his jealousy into flame. To show the two somewhat arrogant

youths that the succession was not so absolutely secure in their

favour as they were supposing, the father summoned to his court

Antipater, the exiled son of a former marriage. Antipater, under

the mask of friendship, immediately began to carry on infamous

intrigues against his half brothers, in which Pheroras and Salome

unconsciously played into his hands. For years he persevered

alike in favouring and unfavouring circumstances with his part,

until at last, by the machinations of a Lacedemonian, Eurycles,

who had been bribed, Herod was induced to condemn the sons of

Mariamne at Berytus, and cause them to be strangled (Samaria, 7-6

B.C.). Not long afterwards a difference between Antipater and

Salome led to the exposure of the former. Herod was compelled

to drain the cup to the dregs; he was not spared the knowledge

that he had murdered his children without a cause. His remorse

threw him into a serious illness, in which his strong constitution

wrestled long with death. While he lay at Jericho near his end

he gave orders for the execution of Antipater also; and to embitter

the joy of the Jews at his removal he caused their elders to be

shut up together in the hippodrome at Jericho with the injunction

to butcher them as soon as he breathed his last, that so there

might be sorrow throughout the land. The latter order, however,

was not carried out.

His death (4 B.C.) gave the signal for an insurrection of small

beginnings which gradually spread until it ultimately infected

all the people; it was repressed by Varus with great cruelty.

Meanwhile Herod's connexions were at Rome disputing about the

inheritance. The deceased king (who was survived by several

children of various marriages) had made a will, which was

substantially confirmed by Augustus. By it his son Philip

received the northern portion of the territory on the east

of the Jordan along with the district of Paneas (Caesarea

Philippi); his thirty-seven years' reign over this region was

happy. Another son, Herod Antipas, obtained Galilee and Peraea;

he beautified his domains with architectural works (Sepphoris,

Tiberias; Livias, Machaerus), and succeeded by his fox-like

policy in ingratiating himself with the emperors, particularly

with Tiberius, for that very cause, however, becoming odious to

the Roman provincial officials. The principal heir was Archelaus,

to whom Idumaea, Judaea, and Samaritis were allotted; Augustus at

first refused him the title of king. Archelaus had experienced

the greatest difficulty in carrying through his claims before

the emperor in face of the manifold oppositions of his enemies;

the vengeance which he wreaked upon his subjects was so severe

that in 6 A,D. a Jewish and Samaritan embassy besought the emperor

for his deposition. Augustus assented, banishing Archelaus to

Vienne, and putting in his place a Roman procurator. Thenceforward

Judaea continued under procurators, with the exception of a brief

interval (41-44 A.D.), during which Herod Agrippa I. united under

his sway all the dominions of his grandfather. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Agrippa was the grandson of Mariamne through Aristobulus.

Caligula, whose friendship he had secured in Rome, bestowed upon

him in 37 the dominions of Philip with the title of king, and

afterwards the tetrarchy of Antipas, whom he deposed and banished

to Lugdunum (39). Claudius added the possessions of Archelaus.

But the kingdom was again taken away from his son Agrippa II.

(44), who, however, after the death of his uncle, Herod of Chalcis,

obtained that principality for which at a later period (52) the

tetrarchy of Philip was substituted. His sister Berenice is known

as the mistress of Titus; another sister, Drusilla, was the wife

of the procurator Felix. The descendants of Mariamne through

Alexander held for some time an Armenian principality.

-- Footnote

The termination of the vassal kingship resulted in manifest

advantage to the Sadducees. The high priest and synedrium again

acquired political importance; they were the responsible

representatives of the nation in presence of the suzerain power,

and conceived themselves to be in some sort lords of land and

people (John xi. 48). For the Pharisees the new state of affairs

appears to have been less satisfactory. That the Romans were

much less oppressive to the Jews than the rulers of the house of

Herod was a consideration of less importance to them than the

fact that the heathen first unintentionally and then deliberately

were guilty of the rudest outrages upon the law, outrages against

which those sly half-Jews had well understood how to be on their

guard. It was among the lower ranks of the people, however, that

hatred to the Romans had its proper seat. On the basis of the views

and tendencies which had long prevailed there, a new party was now

formed, that of the Zealots, which did not, like the Pharisees, aim

merely at the fulfilment of all righteousness, i.e., of the law,

and leave everything else in the hands of God, but was determined

to take an active part in bringing about the realisation of the

kingdom of God (Josephus, Antiquities, xviii. 1, 1).

As the transition to the new order of things was going on, the

census of Quirinius took place (6-7 A.D.); it occasioned an

immense excitement, which, however, was successfully allayed.

On the withdrawal of Quirinius, Coponius remained behind as

procurator of Judaea; he was followed, under Augustus, by Marcus

Ambivius and Annius Rufus; under Tiberius, by Valerius Gratus

(15-26 A.D.) and Pontius Pilatus (26-36 A.D.); under Caligula,

by Marcellus (36-37) and Marullus (37-41 A.D.). The procurators

were subordinate to the imperial legati of Syria; they resided

in Caesarea, and visited Jerusalem on special occasions only.

They had command of the military, and their chief business was

the maintenance of the peace and the care of the revenue. They

interested themselves in affairs of religion only in so far as

these had a political side; the temple citadel Antonia was constantly

garrisoned with a cohort. The administration of justice appears

to have been left to a very considerable extent in the hands of

the synedrium, but it was not allowed to give effect to any capital

sentence. At the head of the native authorities stood at this time

not so much the actual high priest as the college of the chief priests.

The actual office of high priest had lost its political importance

in consequence of the frequency with which its holders were changed;

thus, for example, Annas had more influence than Caiaphas.

The principle of interfering as little as possible with the

religious liberty of the Jews was rudely assailed by the Emperor

Caius, who like a second Antiochus, after various minor vexations,

gave orders that his image should be set up in the temple of

Jerusalem as in others elsewhere. It was entirely through the

courage and tact of the Syrian governor P. Petronius that the

execution of these orders was temporarily postponed until the

emperor was induced by Agrippa I. to withdraw them. Caius soon

afterwards died, and under the rule of Agrippa I., to whom the

government of the entire kingdom of his grandfather was committed

by Claudius, the Jews enjoyed much prosperity; in every respect

the king was all they could wish. This very prosperity seems,

however, to have caused them fresh danger. For it made them feel

the government by procurators, which was resumed after the death

of Agrippa I., to be particularly hard to bear, whatever the

individual characters of these might be. They were Cuspius Fadus

(from 44, under whom Theudas), Tiberius Alexander (the Romanised

nephew of Philo, till 48), Cumanus (48-52, under whom the volcano

already began to give dangerous signs of activity), and Felix

(52-60). Felix, who has the honour to be pilloried in the pages of

Tacitus, contrived to make the dispeace permanent. The influence

of the two older parties, both of which were equally interested in

the maintenance of the existing order, and in that interest were

being drawn nearer to each other, diminished day by day. The

masses broke loose completely from the authority of the scribes;

the ruling nobility adapted itself better to the times; under the

circumstances which then prevailed, it is not surprising that

they became thoroughly secular and did not shrink from the

employment of directly immoral means for the attainment of their

ends. The Zealots became the dominant party. It was a combination

of noble and base elements; superstitious enthusiasts (Acts xxi.

38) and political assassins, the so-called sicarii, were conjoined

with honest but fanatical patriots. Felix favoured the sicarii in

order that he might utilise them; against the others his hostility

raged with indiscriminating cruelty, yet without being able to

check them. The anarchy which he left behind him as a legacy was

beyond the control of his able successor Porcius Festus (60-62),

and the last two procurators, Albinus (62-64) and Gessius Florus,

acted as if it had been their special business to encourage and

promote it. All the bonds of social order were dissolved; no

property was secure; the assassins alone prospered, and the

procurators went shares with them in the profits.

It was inevitable that deep resentment against the Romans should

be felt in every honest heart. At last it found expression.

During his visit to Jerusalem in May 66 Florus laid hands upon the

temple treasure; the Jews allowed themselves to go so far as to

make a joke about it, which he avenged by giving over a portion of

the city to be plundered, and crucifying a number of the

inhabitants. He next insisted upon their kissing the rod, ordering

that a body of troops which was approaching should be met and

welcomed. At the persuasion of their leaders the Jews forced

themselves even to this; but a constant succession of fresh

insults and cruelties followed, till patience was quite exhausted

at last, and in a violent street fight the Romans were so handled

that the procurator withdrew from the town, leaving only the

cohort in Antonia. Once again was an attempt at pacification made

by Agrippa II., who hastened from Alexandria with this purpose,

but the Jews could not bring themselves to make submission to

Gessius Florus. It so happened that at this juncture the fortress

of Masada on the Dead Sea fell into the hands of the Zealots; the

courage of the party of action rose, and at the instance of the

hot-headed Eleazar the son of Ananias, a man, still young, of

highest priestly family, the sacrifice on behalf of the emperor

was discontinued, ie., revolt was declared. But the native

authorities continued opposed to a war. At their request King

Agrippa sent soldiers to Jerusalem; at first they appeared to

have some effect, but ultimately they were glad to make their

escape in safety from the city. The cohort in Antonia was in like

manner unable to hold its own; freedom was given it to withdraw;

but, contrary to the terms of capitulation, it was put to the

sword. The war party now signalised its triumph over all elements

of opposition from within by the murder of the high priest

Ananias.

A triumph was gained also over the outer foe. The Syrian legate,

Cestius Gallus, appeared before Jerusalem in the autumn of 66, but

after a short period raised the siege; his deliberate withdrawal

was changed into a precipitate flight in an attack made by the

Jews at Bethhoron. The revolt now spread irresistibly through

all ranks and classes of the population, and the aristocracy found

it expedient itself to assume the leadership. An autonomous

government was organised, with the noblest members of the community

at its head; of these the most important was the high priest

Ananus.

Meanwhile Nero entrusted the conduct of the Jewish war to Vespasian,

his best general. In the spring of 67 he began his task in

Galilee, where the historian Josephus had command of the

insurgents. The Jews entirely distrusted him and he them; in a

short time the Romans were masters of Galilee, only a few strong

places holding out against them. Josephus was besieged in

Jotapata, and taken prisoner; the other places also were unable to

hold out long. Such of the champions of freedom in Galilee as

escaped betook themselves to Jerusalem; amongst these was the

Zealot leader John of Giscala. There they told the story of their

misfortunes, of which they laid the blame upon Josephus, and upon

the aristocratic government as having no heart for the common cause

and having treachery for their motto. The Zealots now openly aimed

at the overthrow of the existing government, but Ananus bravely

withstood them, and pressed so hard on them that they summoned

the Idumaeans into the city to their aid. These honourable fanatics

indeed withdrew again as soon as they had discovered that they were

being used for sinister designs; but in the meanwhile they had

accomplished the work of the Zealots. The old magistracy of

Jerusalem was destroyed, Ananus with the heads of the aristocracy

and very many other respectable citizens put to death. The radicals,

for the most part not natives of the city, came into power; John

of Giscala at their head tyrannized over the inhabitants.

While these events were taking place in Jerusalem, Vespasian had

subdued the whole country, with the exception of one or two

fortresses. But as he was setting about the siege of the capital,

tidings arrived of the death of Nero, and the offensive was

discontinued. For almost two years (June 68 to April 70), with

a short break, war was suspended. When Vespasian at the end of

this period became emperor, he entrusted to Titus the task of

reducing Jerusalem. There in the interval the internal struggle

had been going on, even after the radicals had gained the mastery.

As a counterpoise to John of Giscala the citizens had received

the guerilla captain Simon bar Giora into the city; the two were

now at feud with each other, but were alike in their rapacity

towards the citizens. John occupied the temple, Simon the upper

city Iying over against it on the west. For a short time a third

entered into competition with the two rivals, a certain Eleazar

who had separated from John and established himself in the inner

temple. But just as Titus was beginning the siege (Easter, 70)

John contrived to get rid of this interloper.

Titus attacked from the north. After the lower city had fallen

into his hands, he raised banks with a view to the storm of the

temple and the upper city. But the defenders, who were now united

in a common cause, taught him by their vigorous resistance that

his object was not to be so quickly gained. He therefore

determined to reduce them by famine, and for this end completely

surrounded the city with a strong wall. In the beginning of July

he renewed the attack, which he directed in the first instance

against the temple. The tower of Antonia fell on the 5th, but the

temple continued to beheld notwithstanding; until the I7th the

daily sacrifice continued to be offered. The Romans succeeded in

gaining the outer court in August only. To drive them out, the

Jews in the night of August 10-11 made a sortie, but were

compelled to retire, the enemy forcing their way behind them into

the inner court. A legionary flung a firebrand into an annexe of

the temple, and soon the whole structure was in flames. A terrible

slaughter of the defenders ensued, but John with a determined band

succeeded in cutting his way out, and by means of the bridge over

the Tyropceon valley made his escape into the upper city.

No attack had as yet been directed against this quarter; but

famine was working terrible ravages among the crowded population.

Those in command, however, refused to capitulate unless freedom to

withdraw along with their wives and children were granted. These

terms being withheld, a storm, after the usual preparations on the

part of the Romans, took place. The resistance was feeble; the

strong towers were hardly defended at all; Simon bar Giora and

John of Giscala now thought only of their personal safety. In the

unprotected city the Roman soldiers spread fire and slaughter

unchecked (September 7, 70).

Of those who survived also some were put to death; the rest were

sold or carried off to the mines and amphitheatres. The city was

levelled with the ground; the tenth legion was left behind in

charge. Titus took with him to Rome for his triumphal procession

Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala, along with seven hundred other

prisoners, also the sacred booty taken from the temple, the

candlestick, the golden table, and a copy of the Torah. He was

slightly premature with his triumph; for some time elapsed, and

more than one bloody battle was necessary before the rebellion

was completely stifled. It did not come wholly to an end until

the fall of Masada (April 73).

I5. THE RABBINS.

Even now Palestine continued for a while to be the centre of Jewish

life, but only in order to prepare the way for its transition

into thoroughly cosmopolitan forms. The development of thought

sustained no break on account of the sad events which had taken

place, but was only directed once more in a consistent manner

towards these objects which had been set before it from the time of

the Babylonian exile. On the ruins of the city and of the temple

the Pharisaic Judaism which rests upon the law and the school

celebrated its triumph. National fanaticism indeed was not yet

extinguished, but it burnt itself completely out in the vigorous

insurrection led by Simeon bar Koziba (Bar Cochebas, 132-135).

That a conspicuous rabbin, Akiba, should have taken part in it,

and have recognised in Simeon the Messiah, was an inconsistency

on his part which redounds to his honour.

Inasmuch as the power of the rabbins did not depend upon the

political or hierarchical forms of the old commonwealth, it

survived the fall of the latter. Out of what hitherto had been a

purely moral influence something of an official position now

grew. They formed themselves into a college which regarded

itself as a continuation of the old synedrium, and which carried

forward its name. At first its seat was at Jamnia, but it soon

removed to Galilee, and remained longest at Tiberias. The

presidency was hereditary in the family of Hillel, with the last

descendants of whom the court itself came to an end. /1/

-- Footnote

1. The following is the genealogy of the first Nasi:--Gamaliel ben

Simeon (Josephus, Vita, 38) ben Gamaliel (Acts v. 34, xxii. 3) ben

simeon ben Hillel. The name Gamaliel was that which occurred most

frequently among the patriarchs; see Codex Theod. xvi. 8, 22.

-- Footnote

The respect in which the synedrial president was held rapidly

increased; like Christian patriarchs under Mahometan rule, he was

also recognised by the imperial government as the municipal head

of the Jews of Palestine, and bore the secular title of the old

high priests (nasi, ethnarch, patriarch). Under him the Palestinian

Jews continued to form a kind of state within a state until the 5th

century. From the non-Palestinian Jews he received offerings of

money. (Compare Gothofredus on Codex Theod., xvi. 8, "De Judaeis;"

and Morinus, Exer. Bibl., ii. exerc. 3, 4).

The task of the rabbins was so to reorganise Judaism under the new

circumstances that it could continue to assert its distinctive

character. What of external consistency had been lost through the

extinction of the ancient commonwealth required to be compensated

for by an inner centralisation proportionately stronger. The

separation from everything heathenish became more pronounced than

before; the use of the Greek language was of necessity still

permitted, but at least the Septuagint was set aside by Aquila

(Cod. Justinian., Nov. 146) inasmuch as it had now become the

Christian Bible. For to this period also belongs the definitive

separation between the synagogue and the church; henceforward

Christianity could no longer figure as a Jewish sect.

Intensified exclusiveness was accompanied by increased internal

stringency. What at an earlier period had still remained to some

extent fluid now became rigidly fixed; for example, an authentic

text of the canon was now established, and at the same time the

distinction between canon and apocrypha sharply drawn. The old

tendency of the scribes to leave as little as possible free to the

individual conscience, but to bring everything within the scope of

positive ordinance, now celebrated its greatest triumphs. It was

only an apparent movement in the direction of liberty, if

regulations which had become quite impossible were now modified or

cancelled. The most influential of the rabbins were indeed the

least solicitous about the maintenance of what was old, and had no

hesitation in introducing numerous and thoroughgoing innovations;

but the conservatives R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and R. Ishmael ben

Elisha were in truth more liberal-minded than the leaders of the

party of progress, notably than R. Akiba. Even the Ultramontanes

have never hesitated at departures from the usage of the ancient

and mediaeval church; and the Pharisaic rabbins were guided in

their innovations by liberal principles no more than they.

The object of the new determinations was simply to widen the

domain of the law in a consistent manner, to bring the individual

entirely under the iron rule of system. But the Jewish

communities gave willing obedience to the hierarchy of the

rabbins; Judaism had to be maintained, cost what it might. That

the means employed were well adapted to the purpose of maintaining

the Jews as a firmly compacted religious community even after all

bonds of nationality had fallen away cannot be doubted. But

whether the attainment of this purpose by incredible exertion was

a real blessing to themselves and the world may very well be

disputed.

One consequence of the process of intellectual isolation and of the

effort to shape everything in accordance with hard and fast rules

and doctrines was the systematisation and codification of juristic

and ritual tradition, a work with which a beginning was made in the

century following the destruction of Jerusalem. Towards the end

of the 2nd century the Pharisaic doctrine of Hillel as it had been

further matured by Akiba was codified and elevated to the position

of statute law by the patriarch Rabban Judah the Holy (Mishna). /1/

-- Footnote

1. The Mishna succeeded almost, but not quite, in completely doing

away with all conflicting tendencies. At first the heterodox

tradition of that time was also committed to writing (R. Ishmael

ben Elisha) and so handed down,--in various forms (col]ection of

the Baraithas, that is, of old precepts which had not been received

into the Mishna, in the Tosephtha). Nor did the active opposition

altogether die out even at a later period; under favouring

circumstances it awoke to new life in Karaism, the founder of which,

Anan ben David, lived in Babylonia in the middle of the 8th century.

-- Footnote

But this was only the first stage in the process of systematising

and fixing tradition. The Mishna became itself the object of

rabbinical comment and supplement; the Tannaim, whose work was

registered in the Mathnetha (Mishna, DEUTERWSIS = doctrine), were

followed by the Amoraim, whose work in turn took permanent shape

in the Gemara (= doctrine). The Palestinian Gemara was reduced

to writing in perhaps the 4th or 5th century; unfortunately it

has been preserved to us only in part, but appears to have reached

the Middle Ages in a perfect state (compare Schiller-Szinessy in

the Academy, 1878, p. 170 seq.). Even thus the process which

issued in the production of the Talmud was not yet completed;

the Babylonian Amoraim carried it forward for some time longer,

until at last at the rise of Islam the Babylonian Gemara was

also written down.

In the sth century Palestine ceased to be the centre of Judaism.

Several circumstances conspired to bring this about. The position

of the Jews in the Roman Empire had changed for the worse with the

elevation of Christianity to be the religion of the state; the

large autonomy which until then they had enjoyed in Palestine

was now restricted; above all, the family of the Patriarchs,

which had come to form a veritable dynasty, became extinct. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Compare Gothofredus on Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 29, ad voc. "post

excessum patriarcharum."

-- Footnote

But this did not make an end of what may be called the Jewish

church-state; henceforward it had its home in Babylonia. From the

period of the exile, a numerous and coherent body of Jews had

continued to subsist there; the Parthians and Sassanidae granted

them self-government; at their head was a native prince (Resh

Galutha,--can be clearly traced from 2nd century A.D. onwards)

who, when the Palestinian patriarchate came to an end, was left

without a rival. This remarkable relic of a Jewish commonwealth

continued to exist until the time of the Abassides. /2/

-- Footnote

2. See Noeldeke, Tabari; 68, 118, and Kremer, Culturgeschichte des

Orients unter den Chalifen, i. 188, ii. 176.

-- Footnote

Even as early as the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. certain

rabbins, at their head Abba Areka (Rab), had migrated from Palestine

and founded a settlement for learning in the law in Babylonia.

The schools there (at Pumbeditha, Sora, Nahardea) prospered greatly,

vied with those of Palestine, and continued to exist after the

cessation of the latter, when the patriarchate became extinct; thus

they had the last word in the settlement of doctrine.

Alongside of the settlement of tradition went another task, that

of fixing the letters of the consonantal text of the Bible (by the

Massora), its vowel pronunciation (by the punctuation), and its

translation into the Aramaic vernacular (Targum). Here also the

Babylonians came after the Palestinians, yet of this sort of

erudition Palestine continued to be the headquarters even after the

5th century.

With this task--that of attaining to the greatest possible

conformity to the letter and of continuing therein--the inner

development of Jewish thought came to an end. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Compare F. Weber, System der altsynagagalen palaestinischen

Theologie, Leipsic, 1880.

-- Footnote

The later Hebrew literature, which does not fall to be considered

here, contributed very few new elements; in so far as an intellectual

life existed at all among the Jews of the Middle Ages, it was not

a growth of native soil but proceeded from the Mahometan or Latin

culture of individuals. The Kabbala at most, and even it hardly

with justice, can be regarded as having been a genuine product of

Judaism. It originated in Palestine, and subsequently flourished

chiefly in the later Middle Ages in Spain, and, like all other

methodised nonsense, had strong attractions for Christian scholars.

16. THE JEWISH DISPERSION.

Something still remains to be said with reference to the diaspora.

We have seen how it began; in spite of Josephus (Antiquities,

xi. 5, 2), it is to be carried back not to the Assyrian but merely

to the Babylonian captivity; it was not composed of Israelites,

but solely of citizens of the southern kingdom. It received its

greatest impulse from Alexander, and then afterwards from Caesar.

In the Graeco-Roman period Jerusalem at the time of the great

festival presented the appearance of a veritable Babel (Acts ii.

9-11); with the Jews themselves were mingled the proselytes (Acts

ii. 11), for even already that religion was gaining considerable

conquests among the heathen; as King Agrippa I. writes to the

Emperor Caius (Philo, Legat. ad Gaium, sec. 36),

"Jerusalem is the metropolis not only of Judaea but of very many

lands, on account of the colonies which on various occasions

('epi xairwn) it has sent out into the adjoining countries of Egypt,

Phoenicia, Syria, and Coelesyria, and into the more remote Pamphylia,

Cilicia, the greater part of Asia Minor as far as to Bithynia and

the remotest parts of Pontus; likewise into Europe--Thessaly,

Boeotia, Macedonia, AEtolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, most parts

(and these the fairest) of the Peloponnesus. Nor are the Jewish

settlements confined to the mainland only; they are found also in

the more important islands, Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. I do not insist

on the countries beyond the Euphrates, for with few exceptions all

of them, Babylon and the fertile regions around it, have Jewish

inhabitants."

In the west of Europe also they were not wanting; many thousands

of them lived in Rome. In those cities where they were at all

numerous they, during the imperial period, formed separate

communities; Josephus has preserved a great variety of documents

in which the Roman authorities recognise their rights and liberties

(especially as regards the Sabbath rest and the observance of

festivals). Of greatest importance was the community in Alexandria;

according to Philo a million of Jews had their residence there under

an ethnarch for whom a gerusia was afterwards substituted by Augustus

(In Flac., secs. 6, 10). The extent to which this diaspora was

helpful in the diffusion of Christianity, the manner in which the

mission of the apostles everywhere attached itself to the synagogues

and proseuchai, is well known from the New Testament. That the

Christians of the 1st cenentury had much to suffer along with the Jews

is also a familiar fact. For at this period, in other respects

more favourable to them than any other had previously been, the

Jews had occasionally to endure persecution. The emperors, taking

umbrage at their intrusiveness, more than once banished them from

Rome (Acts xviii. 2). The good will of the native population they

never secured; they were most hated in Egypt and Syria, where they

were strongest. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Compare Schuerer, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte (1874), sec. 31.

The place taken by the Jewish element in the world of that time

is brilliantly set forth by Mommsen in his History of Rome (book

v. chapter ii.; English translation iv. p. 538 seq., 1866):--

"How numerous even in Rome the Jewish population was already before

Caesar's time, and how closely at the same time the Jews even then

kept together as fellow-countrymen, is shown by the remark of an

author of this period, that it was dangerous for a governor to offend

the Jews in his province, because he might then certainly reckon on

being hissed after his return, by the populace of the capital.

Even at this time the predominant business of the Jews was trade....

At this period too we encounter the peculiar antipathy of the

Occidentals touards this so thoroughly Oriental race and their

foreign opinions and customs. This Judaism, although not the most

pleasing feature in the nowhere pleasing picture of the mixture of

nations which then prevailed, was, nevertheless, an historical

element developing itself in the natural course of things,...

which Caesar just like his predecessor Alexander fostered as far

as possible....They did not, of course, contemplate placing the

Jewish nationality on an equal footing with the Hellenic or

Italo-Hellenic. But the Jew who has not, like the Occidental,

received the Pandora's gift of political organisation, and stands

substantially in a relation of indifference to the state, who,

moreover, is as reluctant to give up the essence of his national

idiosyncrasy as he is ready to clothe it with any nationality at

pleasure and to adapt himself up to a certain degree to foreign

habits--the Jew was, for this very reason, as it were, made for

a state which was to be built on the ruins of a hundred living

polities, and to be endowed with a somewhat abstract and, from

the outset, weakened nationality. In the ancient world also Judaism

was an effective leaven of cosmopolitanism and of national

decomposition."

-- Footnote

The position of the Jews in the Roman Empire was naturally not

improved by the great risings under Nero, Trajan (in Cyrene,

Cyprus, Mesopotamia), and Hadrian. The East strictly so called,

became more and more their proper home. The Christianization of

the empire helped still further in a very special way to detach

them from the Western world. /1/

-- Footnote

1. For a brief time only were they again favoured by Julian the

Apostate; compare Gibbon, chapter xxiii.

-- Footnote

They sided with the Persians against the Byzantines; in the year

614 they were even put in possession of Jerusalem by Chosroes,

but were not long able to hold their own against Heraclius. /2/

-- Footnote

2. Gibbon, chapter xlvi.

-- Footnote

With Islam also they found themselves in greater sympathy than with

Christianity, although they were cruelly treated by Mahomet in Arabia,

and driven by Omar out of the Hejaz, and notwithstanding the facts

that they were as matter of course excluded from citizenship, and

that they were held by Moslems as a whole in greater contempt than

the Christians. They throve especially well on what may be called

the bridge between East and West, in Mauretania and Spain, where they

were the intellectual intermediaries between the Arab and the Latin

culture. In the Sephardim and Ashkenazim the distinction between the

subtler Oriental and the more conservative Western Jews has maintained

itself in Europe also. From the 8th century onwards Judaism put

forth a remarkable side shoot in the Khazars on the Volga; if

legend Is to he believed, but little was required at one time to

have induced the Russians to accept the Jewish rather than the

Christian faith.

In the West the equal civil rights which Caracalla had conferred on

all free inhabitants of the empire came to an end, so far as the

Jews were concerned, in the time of Constantine. The state then

became the secular arm of the church, and took action, though with

less severity, against Jews just as against heretics and pagans.

As early as the year 315, Constantine made conversion from

Christianity to Judaism a penal offence, and prohibited Jews, on

pain of death, from circumcising their Christian slaves. These

laws were re-enacted and made more severe by Constantius, who

attached the penalty of death to marriages between Jews and

Christians. Theodosius I. and Honorius, indeed, by strictly

prohibiting the destruction of synagogues, and by maintaining the

old regulation that a Jew was not to be summoned before a court of

justice on a Sabbath-day, put a check upon the militant zeal of the

Church, by which even Chrysostom, for example, allowed himself to

be carried away at Antioch. But Honorius rendered them ineligible

for civil or military service, leaving open to them only the bar

and the decurionate, the latter being a _privilegiium odiosum_.

Their liberty to try cases by their own law was curtailed; the cases

between Jews and Christians were to be tried by Christian judges

only. Theodosius II. prohibited them from building new synagogues,

and anew enforced their disability for all state employments. Most

hostile of all was the orthodox Justinian, who, however, was still

more severe against Pagans and Samaritans. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Cod. Theod., xvi. 8: "De Judaeis, Coelicolis, et Samaritanis;"

Cod. Just., i. 9: "De Judaeis et Coelicolis." With regard to

these coelicolae, see Gothofredus on Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 9, and

also J. Bernays, "Ueber die Gottesfuerchtigen bei Juvenal," in

the Comm. Philol in hon. Th. Mommsen, 1877, p. 163.

-- Footnote

He harassed the Jews with a law enjoining them to observe Easter on

the same day as the Christians, a law which it was of course found

impossible to carry out. /2/

-- Footnote

2. Gibbon, chapter xlvii.

-- Footnote

In the Germanic states which arose upon the ruins of the Roman

empire, the Jews did not fare badly on the whole. It was only

in cases where the state was dominated by the Catholic Church, as,

for example; among the Spanish Visigoths, that they were cruelly

oppressed; among the Arian Ostrogoths, on the other hand, they

had nothing to complain of. One thing in their favour was the

Germanic principle that the law to be applied depended not on the

land but on the nationality, as now in the East Europeans are

judged by the consuls according to the law of their respective

nations. The autonomy of the Jewish communities, which had been

curtailed by the later emperors, was now enlarged once more under

the laxer political and legal conditions. The Jews fared

remarkably well under the Frankish monarchy; the Carolingians helped

them in every possible way, making no account of the complaints of

the bishops. They were allowed to hold property in land, but

showed no eagerness for it; leaving agriculture to the Germans, they

devoted them selves to trade. The market was completely in their

hands; as a specially lucrative branch of commerce they still

carried on the traffic in slaves, which had engaged them even in

ancient times. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Agobardus Lugdunensis, Die Insolentia Judaeorum, De Judaicis

superstitionibus. Agobard was no superstitious fanatic, but one

of the weightiest and most enlightened ecclesiastics of the Middle

Ages.

-- Footnote

Meanwhile the Church was not remiss in seeking constantly repeated

re-enactments of the old imperial laws, in the framing of which she

had had paramount influence, and which she now incorporated with

her own canon law. /2/

-- Footnote

2. Compare Decret. i., dist. 45, c. 3; Decr. ii., caus. 23,

qaest. 8, c. 9, caus. 28, qu. 1, c. 10-12; Decr. iii., de

consecr., dist. 4, c. 93; Decretal. Greg. 5, 6 ("De Judaeis,

Sarracenis, et eorum servis"), 5, 19, 18; Extrav. commun 5, 2.

-- Footnote

Gradually she succeeded in attaining her object. In the later Middle

Ages the position of the Jews in the Christian society deteriorated.

Intercourse with them was shunned; their isolation from being

voluntary became compulsory; from the I3th century onwards they were

obliged to wear, as a distinctive mark (more necessary in the East

than in the West), a round or square yellow badge on their breast. /3/

-- Footnote

3. Compare Du Cange, s. v. "Judaei;" also Reuter, Gesch. d.

Aufklaerung im Mittelalter, i. 154 seq. In spite of all the legal

restrictions laid upon them, the Jews still continued to have great

influence with the princes, and more especially with the popes, of

the Middle Ages.

-- Footnote

The difference of religion elicited a well-marked religious hate with

oft-repeated deadly outbreaks, especially during the period of the

crusades, and afterwards when the Black Death was raging (1348-50).

Practical consequences like these the Church of course did not

countenance; the popes set themselves against persecutions of

the Jews, /4/

-- Footnote

4. Decr. ii. 23, 8, 9. Alexander II. omnibus episeopis Hispaniae:

Dispar...est Judaeorum et Sarracenorum eausa; in illos enim, qui

Christianos persequuntur et ex urbibus et propriis sedibus pellunt,

juste pugnatur, hi vero ubique servire parati sunt.

-- Footnote

but with imperfect success. The popular aversion rested by no means

exclusively on religious considerations; worldly motives were also

present. The Jews of that period had in a still higher degree

than now the control of financial affairs in their hands; and they

used it without scruple. The Church herself had unintentionally

given them a monopoly of the money market, by forbidding

Christians to take interest. /5/

-- Footnote

5. Decretal. Greg. v. 19, 18. Innocent III. in name of the

Lateran Council: Quanto amplius Christiana religio ab exactione

compescitur usurarum, tanto gravisu super his Judaeorum perfidia

insolescit, ita quod brevi tempore Christianorum exhauriunt

facultates. Volentes igitur in hac parse prospicere Christianis,

ne a Judaeis immaniter aggraventur, synodali decreto statuimus, ut,

si de caetero quocunque praetextu Judaaei a Christianis graves

immoderatasve usuras extorserint, Christianorum eis participium

subtrahatur, donec de immoderato gravamine satisfecerint competenter....

Principibus autem injungimus, ut propter hoc non sint Christianis

infesti, sed potius a tanto gravamine studeant cohibere Judaeos.

-- Footnote

In this way the Jews became rich indeed, but at the same time made

themselves still more repugnant to the Christian population than

they previously were by reason of their religion.

Having, according to the later mediaeval system, no rights in the

Christian state, the Jews were tolerated only in those territories

where the sovereign in the exercise of free favour accorded them

protection. This protection was granted them in many quarters,

but never for nothing; numerous and various taxes, which could be

raised or changed in a perfectly arbitrary way, were exacted in

exchange. But in countries where the feeling of nationality

attained to a vigorous development, the spirit of toleration was

speedily exhausted; the Jews were expelled by the act of the

state. England was the first kingdom in which this occurred

(1290); France followed in 1395, Spain and Portugal in 1492 and

1495. In this way it came about that the Holy Roman Empire--

Germany, Italy, and adjoining districts--became the chief abode of

the Jews. /1/ In the anarchy which here prevailed they could best

-- Footnote

1. The Polish Jews are German Jews who migrated in the Middle Ages

to Poland, but have maintained to the present day their German

speech, a mediaeval South-Frankish dialect, of course greatly

corrupted. In Russian "German" and "Jew" mean the same thing.

-- Footnote

maintain their separate attitude, and if they were expelled from

one locality they readily found refuge in some other. The

emperor had indeed the right of extirpating them altogether (with

the exception of a small number to be left as a memorial); but,

in the first place, he had in various ways given up this right to

the states of the empire, and, moreover, his pecuniary resources

were so small that he could not afford to want the tax which the

Jews as his "servi camerae" paid him for protecting their persons

and property. In spite of many savage persecutions the Jews

maintained their ground, especially in those parts of Germany

where the political confusion was greatest. They even succeeded

in maintaining a kind of autonomy by means of an arrangement in

virtue of which civil processes which they had against each other

were decided by their own rabbins in accordance with the law of

the Talmud. /2/

-- Footnote

2. Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschl. waehr. d. Mittelalt.,

Brunsw., 1866.

-- Footnote

The Jews, through their having on the one hand separated theselves,

and on the other hand been excluded on religious grounds

from the Gentiles, gained an internal solidarity and solidity

which has hitherto enabled them to survive all the attacks of time.

The hostility of the Middle Ages involved them in no danger; the

greatest peril has been brought upon them by modern times, along

with permission and increasing inducements to abandon their

separate position. It is worth while to recall on this point the

opinion of Spinoza, who was well able to form a competent judgment

(Tract. Theol. polit., c. 4, ad fin.):--

"That the Jews have maintained themselves so long in spite of their

dispersed and disorganised condition is not at all to be wondered at,

when it is considered how they separated themselves from all other

nationalities in such a way as to bring upon themselves the hatred

of all, and that not only by external rites contrary to those of

other nations, but also by the sign of circumcision, which they

maintain most religiously. Experience shows that their

conservation is due in a great degree to the very hatred which

they have incurred. When the king of Spain compelled the Jews

either to accept the national religion or to go into banishment,

very many of them accepted the Roman Catholic faith, and in

virtue of this received all the privileges of Spanish subjects, and

were declared eligible for every honour; the consequence was that

a process of absorption began immediately, and in a short time

neither trace nor memory of them survived. Quite different was

the history of those whom the king of Portugal compelled to accept

the creed of his nation; although converted, they continued to

live apart from the rest of their fellow-subjects, having been

declared unfit for any dignity. So great importance do I attach

to the sign of circumcision also in this connection, that I am

persuaded that it is sufficient by itself to maintain the separate

existence of the nation for ever."

The persistency of the race may of course prove a harder thing to

overcome than Spinoza has supposed; but nevertheless he will be

found to have spoken truly in declaring that the so-called

emancipation of the Jews must inevitably lead to the extinction

of Judaism wherever the process is extended beyond the political

to the social sphere. For the accomplishment of this centuries

may be required.