But with all its splendor, wealth, magnificence and culture, the kings and rulers of the Fourth Dynasty became corrupt, oppressive and tyrannical. The Common People, as they were called, revolted, and a revolution of fire and blood extinguished the dynasty, 3951 B. C.
Heedless of the immutable law that only in union is there strength, Egypt not only became corrupt and tyrannical, but divided into two kingdoms, who warred furiously against each other. Then it was that the nomadic hordes of Arabia and Syria saw their opportunity, and, swarming over the borders (2114 B. C.) and overflowing the valley of the Nile with a human flood a thousand-fold more destructive than the turbid inundation of that great river, they crushed the struggling legions like worms in the dust, and became the masters of the country.
They were the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, who stamped their rugged individuality on that wonderful land. They ruled for four centuries, forming the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth dynasties. Their last king was Apepi, who reigned sixty-one years, and is believed by many to have been the Pharaoh (“Pharaoh” was the general name for kings) in whose reign Joseph came into Egypt and was made governor over all the land.
The Shepherd Kings gradually succumbed to the civilization, culture, and manners of the Egyptians, and vanished from history by absorption among those people.
CHAPTER XXII. CHRISTIANITY.
Aside from the fact of its divine origin and inspired teachers, the doctrine of Christianity, the advent of the Messiah, was so opportune that, even had he not been the true Saviour, but taught as he did and as his disciples did, Christianity, by reason of the condition of the civilized world, would have made rapid and permanent progress among the “Common People.” Rome was at that time mistress of the world. Her empire extended over the whole of Western, and a large portion of Eastern civilization. Her conquering legions had carried their eagles to the utmost confines of the then civilized portion of the Western world.
The cultured Greek and the barbarous Briton, the learned Egyptian and the warlike Teuton, alike felt the Roman yoke. Palestine was a province of the great Roman Empire. Roman officials, Roman representatives, and Roman soldiers ruled the people of Palestine with a rod of iron. It had once been said that “to be a Roman citizen was to be a king.” While the Roman Republic had ceased to exist, and the Cæsars ruled in place of the old republican form of government, creating, as a result of a monarchy, a nobility, class distinction, and “caste,” still the traditions and the feelings of the Roman citizen remained with him. He was a king in comparison with the conquered people of the provinces which had been added to the Roman Empire.
The Romans were essentially warriors; cruel and oppressive, merciless and masterful, at every period of the existence of the Roman government, whether monarchical or republican. But under the Cæsars there had sprung up a privileged class, the nobility, who had accumulated vast wealth, surrounded themselves with an army of retainers and servants, through whom they imposed upon the “Common People” every kind of oppression imaginable.