[Illustration: ‘Adonijah no longer saw in the person of Lucia Claudia
the beautiful and beloved object of his secret affections,
but an idolatrous heathen priestess.’]
A D O N I J A H,
A TALE OF THE JEWISH DISPERSION.
BY
MISS JANE MARGARET STRICKLAND.
“Oh weep for those who wept by Babel’s stream,
Whose shrines are desolate—whose land a dream
Weep for the harp of Judah’s broken shell,
Mourn where their God hath dwelt—the godless dwell.”
BYRON.
“Hebrew, come forth! dread not the light of day,
Dread not the insulter’s cry.
The arch that rose o’er thy captivity,
No more shall turn thee from thy destined way.”
SOTHEBY.
L O N D O N :
S I M P K I N, M A R S H A L L, A N D C O.
IPSWICH: J. M. BURTON AND CO.
P R E F A C E.
The period included in the reigns of Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and
Vespasian, was remarkable for two memorable events in the annals of
ecclesiastical history; the first persecution of the Christian Church by
the sixth Roman sovereign, and the dissolution of the Jewish polity by
Titus.
The destruction of Jerusalem was stupendous, not only as an act of
divine wrath, but as being the proximate cause of the dispersion of a
whole nation, upon which a long series of sorrow, spoliation, and
oppression lighted, in consequence of the curse the Jews had invoked,
when in reply to the remonstrances of Pilate they had cried out, “His
blood be upon us and our children.” The church below, represented in
Scripture as a type of the heavenly Jerusalem above, and having its seat
then in the doomed city, was not to continue there, lest the native Jews
composing it should gather round them a people of their own nation, in a
place destined to remain desolate till the time when the dispersed of
Israel should be converted, and rebuild their city and temple. The city
bearing the ancient name of Jerusalem does not indeed occupy the same
site, being built round the sacred spot where the garden once stood, in
which a mortal sepulchre received the lifeless form of the Saviour of
the world.
But happier times seem dawning on the dispersed of Judea. Our own days
have seen the foundations of a Jewish Christian church laid in
Jerusalem; our Queen Victoria and the King of Prussia united to commence
a work of love, thereby fulfilling in part the promise made to the Jews
of old, “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing
mothers.” To those readers who feel interested in the dispersed of
Israel and Judea, these pages may afford, perhaps, information on an
important subject as well as amusement.
REYDON HALL,
_March, 1856_.
A D O N I J A H.
CHAPTER I.
“But woe to hill, and woe to vale,
Against them shall go forth a wail!
And woe to bridegroom, and to bride,
For death shall on the whirlwind ride!
And woe to thee, resplendent shrine,
The sword is out for thee and thine!”
CROLY.
The splendid regnal talents undoubtedly possessed by the Emperor Nero,
and the great architectural genius he displayed in rebuilding his
capital, had not atoned in the eyes of the Romans for the flagitiousness
of his character.
His public munificence to the people, whom a mighty conflagration had
rendered homeless, met with no gratitude, because he was believed to be
the author of the calamity which had levelled the ancient city with the
dust. This sweeping charge has no real historical foundation; and
perhaps if the Emperor had not profited by the general misfortune, such
a wild conjecture would never have been recorded nor believed.
His appropriation of a large part of the ground-plot, whereon to found
his Golden House and its stately parks and gardens, gave to the vague
report colour and stability; therefore Nero, finding no assertion of his
could disprove the imputation, resolved to fix it upon a class little
known and less regarded—a people composed of all ranks and nations, yet
united by a peculiar faith in one brotherhood of love. Nero was no
stranger to the vital doctrines of Christianity; he had heard St. Paul,
when the mighty Apostle of the Gentiles had stood before his
tribunal,—to which circumstance allusion has been made by himself in
the Second Epistle to Timothy, “And I was delivered out of the lion’s
mouth.”[1] Since that momentous period the heart of Nero had become hard
and inaccessible to mercy; for the conversion of his favourite mistress
and his cup-bearer by St. Paul had awakened his undying hatred against
the Christian religion and its teachers.[2]
His terrible persecution had shocked a people accustomed to spectacles
of horror. “Humanity relented”, remarks Tacitus, “in favour of the
Christians,”—an expression which does not, however, imply that
Christianity was tolerated, but that its professors were no longer
sought for to load the cross or feed the flames.
The Church at this period, thinned in Rome by the martyrdoms of the
fearful Saturnalia the Emperor had kept in his imperial gardens some
years before, was scattered abroad or hidden in the Arenaria, its
existence being only known by isolated cases brought before the
tribunals of Helius and his infamous colleague Tigellinus for judgment.
Its influence, however apparently limited, was not unfelt; for in the
midst of the blindness of Atheism and idolatry the light shone out,
though surrounded by darkness—darkness that might be felt. The
prophecies were fast accomplishing which the Divine Head of the Church
had spoken respecting the Jews; for the inexpiable war had begun, and
the sword of the Gentile was mowing down the thousands of Israel.
During his progress through Greece, the sight of the Isthmus of Corinth
inspired Nero with the gigantic idea of cutting a barrier through, which
occasioned an impediment to commerce, and rendered the navigation
difficult and dangerous to the mariner.[3] This undertaking has been
left incomplete—a vast work to be effected perhaps in modern times, in
which science has achieved wonders never before accomplished by mere
human labour.
The prejudices the Romans cherished against the man who had degraded the
sovereign by singing on the stage, made a project so grand and useful
appear a mad and ridiculous design. Nero, bending all his natural energy
to this object, either did not care for, or remained ignorant of, the
opinion of his subjects. He despatched letters to the prefect of Rome
for labourers to be supplied from the public prisons, and Corbulo and
Vespasian, his lieutenants in Armenia and Judea, received his imperial
orders for the instant transmission to Corinth of the captives they had
taken in the Parthian and Jewish wars.
The plan of cutting through the Isthmus was not, however, popular with
the people it was intended to benefit; for the Corinthians ventured to
remind the Emperor that Demetrius Poliorcetes, Julius Cæsar, and
Caligula had in succession made the attempt, but had fallen by the sword
soon after the work had commenced.
To a man of genius, ambitious of distinction, and possessed of the
resources of a vast empire, these objections appeared of little moment,
and Nero deemed his star too fortunate to set, like that of those
princes, untimely in blood. He was not only animated by the hope of
bequeathing a vast work of great public utility to posterity, but
revelled in the pleasurable idea of gratifying his vanity by exhibiting
himself before a vast concourse in the amiable light of a benefactor to
Greece, Asia, and indeed to the whole world.
It was seldom Nero appeared in the appropriate costume of a Roman
Emperor, the use of the imperial mantle of Tyrian purple and golden
laurel being strictly confined by him to state occasions. A loose robe,
dishevelled ringlets, and bare feet suited his notions of comfort, and
ordinarily composed his attire; but the occasion seemed to demand more
attention to outward appearance than he generally thought proper to
bestow. He resumed, with the imperial costume, an elegance natural to
him, and would have successfully represented the majesty of the greatest
throne of the universe, if he had not resolved to display the sweetness
of his voice to the vast multitude during the imposing ceremonial of
opening the trench intended to divide the Isthmus. Arrayed in purple,
the golden laurel-wreath of the Cæsars encircling his unwarlike brow, he
advanced towards the shore, singing a hymn in praise of the marine
deities, holding in his hand the gold pickaxe with which he designed to
break the virgin ground. Amidst the lengthened plaudits of a vast
multitude, Nero struck the first stroke into the earth, and raising a
basket of sand upon his imperial shoulder looked proudly round him as if
to claim a second burst of applause from flattering Greeks and
degenerate Romans.
The clapping of hands and loud acclamations his admonitory glance
demanded rent the air, and were echoed back from the surrounding
mountains, to hail the exertions of the master of the world. Even the
unhappy workmen, instructed by their taskmasters, swelled with their
voices and fingers the flattering plaudit. One voice alone was mute; for
Adonijah, a captive Hebrew, was new to slavery and despised the
effeminate tyrant whom the chances of war had made the arbiter of his
destiny. The ears of Nero, ringing with the adulatory huzza, perceived
not the omission, but his quick restless eye caught for an instant among
the crowd of workmen the scornful smile that curled the proud lip of the
Jew; then lost his features in the dense mass of labourers surrounding
him, whose hands were intended to complete what his imperial ones had
begun. Yet, though swallowed up in those living waves, the form, the
noble outline, of Adonijah dwelt in the memory of Nero; for never had he
beheld hatred, scorn, and despair united with such manly and heroic
beauty.
Who was this unknown slave who disdained the Emperor of Rome? Nero
frowned as he internally asked the question; the self-abhorrent feeling
that often made him a burden to himself was stealing over him, even in
the face of this triumphant day, when the well-timed flattery of Julius
Claudius, a young patrician who stood high in his favour, dispelled the
gathering cloud on the imperial brow, and restored Nero to himself. The
example of Julius was followed by the court; and the sovereign,
forgetting the cause of his disquiet, left Adonijah to breathe a foreign
air and to mingle the bitter bread of captivity with weeping.
Jerusalem, that holy city, over whose coming miseries the Lord of life
had wept, was now “encompassed round with” the “armies” of the Gentile.
The time of her desolation was at hand, and “the cup of the Lord’s fury”
like a torrent was overflowing the land. The very heavens showed fearful
signs of her approaching doom, for nightly a blazing star, resembling a
sword, hung over the devoted city, while the cry of “Woe, woe to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem!” rang through every street. Yet her fanatic
tribes still confidently expected the coming of the Messiah, still
obstinately contested every foot of their beloved land.
Never had Rome, since she first flew her conquering eagles, encountered
a foe so fiercely determined to be free. Bent upon exterminating the
Roman name, the Jew, whenever he gained a transitory advantage, left no
foe to breathe. From the hour in which he conquered Cestius Gallus and
his legions he never sheathed the sword, but obstinately maintained the
contest till the prophecies were fulfilled, and “Zion became a heap of
desolation.”
The time of the dispersion of the tribes of Israel was then about to be
accomplished; and the recent victories of Vespasian had given the first
fruits of the glory and beauty of the Holy Land into the enemy’s hand.
Among these Adonijah was numbered, for he had been taken in arms at
Jotapata;[4] but, unlike its obsequious governor Josephus, disdained to
receive favour or pay servile homage to the conquering Roman general.
He had, during the siege, more than once scornfully rejected the
overtures of Vespasian, who vainly tried to seduce him from his duty.
Nay, more, when an apostate Jew without the walls, once numbered among
his chosen friends, dared, at the bidding of the victor, to tamper with
his honour, a javelin, flung with so true an aim that it reached the
traitor’s heart and pinned him to the ground, was the only answer the
bold young leader deigned to give to the infamous suggestion.
Something like enthusiasm warmed the cold bosom of Vespasian when
informed of the tragical fate of his messenger, and a desire to converse
with the heroic stripling whose fidelity was so incorruptible made him
command his soldiers, when about to storm the city, to take him alive—a
solitary exception of mercy to the general order of the day.
Adonijah, throughout the carnage of that dreadful assault, vainly sought
the sole reward that Jewish valour might then claim—a warrior’s grave.
His parents, his kindred, his faithful friends, all perished with
Jotapata, while he was delivered alive and unwounded into Vespasian’s
hands. Bold, haughty, zealous of the law—a Pharisee in sect, and
despising all other nations—to be taken captive by the Gentile
conqueror was bitterer than death to Adonijah, who, like Job, “cursed
his day” and fiercely resented his preservation.
Vespasian, who hoped to make his captive a means to gain over his
countrymen, commanded Josephus, the late governor of the conquered city,
to visit and induce him by his eloquence and learning to favour his
views.
Adonijah received his old commander with lively affection and devoted
respect. All that man could do had been done by Josephus, and his young
partisan shed tears while he pressed him to his bosom; but when his
revered chief spake of submission to the Roman yoke, and hinted things
still less consistent with the duty of a patriot, he turned away with
indignation, sorrow, and contempt, nor would he again listen to the man
who had ceased to love his country.
Then Vespasian himself, accompanied by his son Titus, condescended to
visit his captive, but he too found him alike insensible to threats or
promises. He charged his prisoner with ingratitude.
“Ingratitude!” scornfully reiterated the Hebrew. “You have left nothing
breathing to claim near kindred with Adonijah. The last sound that smote
mine ear as your people were leading me away a fettered captive, was the
cry of my virgin sister. A Roman ruffian’s hand was twisted in her
consecrated locks, his sword was glittering over her devoted head; I
heard her cry, but could not save her from his fury. O Tamar! O my
sister! Would to God I had died for thee, my sister! Such are the deeds,
vindictive Roman, for which thou claimest my gratitude: but know, I hate
existence, and loathe thee for prolonging mine.”
Incensed by the boldness of this language, Vespasian included his
intractable prisoner in the number of those captives[5] required by Nero
to carry into effect his projected scheme of cutting through the Isthmus
of Corinth.
Bitterer than death, bitterer even than slavery, were the feelings that
wrung the bosom of the exile as he turned a last look upon the land of
his nativity. All he loved had perished there by the sword, yet he did
not, he could not regret them, while he felt the chains of the Gentile
around his impatient limbs. They were free—they would rise again and
inherit the paradise of the faithful—while he must wither in slavery.
No soft emotion for any fair virgin of his people shared the indignant
feelings of his heart at this moment, though patriotism claimed not all
his burning regret; for ungratified revenge, that ought at least to have
had a Roman for its object, occasioned a part of his present grief.
Born of the house and lineage of David, Adonijah gloried in his proud
descent, “though the sceptre had departed from Judah,” and the base
Idumean line reigned on the throne of her ancient kings. Ithamar, a
young leader in the Jewish war, boasting the same advantages, rivalled
him in arms, and from a rival became his enemy. Both were obstinately
bent on delivering their country from a foreign yoke, and for that end
would have shed their blood drop by drop—would have done anything but
give up their animosity.
It is difficult to define from what cause this unnatural hatred and
rivalry sprang up. Perhaps it derived its source from religious
differences, Adonijah being a strict Pharisee, Ithamar a Sadducee, and
both were bigoted to the peculiar doctrines of their several sects.
Their individual hatred, however, bore a more decided character than
that they cherished against Rome. Those who are acquainted with the
dreadful records of the last days of Jerusalem will not be surprised at
the ill-feeling here described as existing between Adonijah and Ithamar.
The moral justice of the Pharisee of that day was comprised in the
well-known maxim, “Thou shalt love thy friend, and hate thine enemy;” an
axiom adopted by the rival Sadducee in the same spirit, and acted upon
with equal fidelity. A perfect unanimity in this one respect existing
between the disciples of these differing sects.
The idea that Ithamar would rejoice in his degradation was like fire to
the proud heart of Adonijah, who shook his chained hands in impotent
despair as the mortifying thought intruded upon him. Must he then die
unrevenged, and be led into captivity, while Ithamar enjoyed freedom? He
wrapped his face in his mantle, and sank into a state of sullen gloom,
whose darkness no beam of hope could penetrate. Yet, in the true spirit
of the Pharisee, even while longing to gratify revenge—the worst
passion that can defile the human heart—he considered himself a perfect
follower of the holy law of God.
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[1] Hegesippus, the earliest ecclesiastical historian,—quoted by
Eusebius,—establishes the fact that an interval of years elapsed
between the first and second appearance of St. Paul before the imperial
tribunal.
[2] The reader will find this curious fact in the works of Clemens
Alexandrinus and Chrysostom. It is quoted also by Doddridge.
[3] See Appendix, Note I.
[4] See Appendix, Note II.
[5] See Appendix, Note III.