The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

The invocation of Serapis is interesting because the Jerusalem coins of Hadrian, the next emperor, represent a temple with a statue which seems clearly to be that of Serapis as Jove. Serapis, though adored at Alexandria with Isis, was not an Egyptian god. He was worshipped by the Romans in the second century as a supreme deity, but his image was brought from Pontus by the first Ptolemy, in the third century B. C., to Alexandria, where was his most famous temple.[375] His statues and his busts on coins represent him as a bearded Jupiter sometimes accompanied by the infernal dog Cerberus; on his head appears the modius, or “measure,” which may perhaps mean that he was the god of measurement and retribution. The name is probably very ancient and even of Akkadian origin, Sar-api being “the king of the waves” or of the “depth.”[376] He thus answers to the ancient sea-god Ea, who was supreme in the depths and who also resembled Pluto, being the judge of the dead in the under-world. His original temple at Sinope was on the shore of the Black Sea. Nothing could more remarkably illustrate the substitution of pagan worship at Jerusalem for that of Jehovah than this remarkable text, and the site of the Temple was soon after consecrated to this Asiatic Jove.

ÆLIA CAPITOLINA

Much confusion as to the history of Jerusalem under Hadrian has been caused by following the later statements of Byzantine historians, and by the anachronisms of the Talmud, as also by a strange theory which attributes the stamping of certain coins to the time of the revolt at Bêther in 135 A. D. Jerome[377] says that “remains of the city existed even to the time of prince Hadrian throughout fifty years”—a statement which is evidently true since they remain still, but which does not suggest that any town had been built over the ruins till the time of this emperor. It was the policy of Trajan and of Hadrian to break up the nationality of the Jews, who were recovering from the catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem, and showed signs of determination to revive their ancient independence in regions where they were numerous, and had grown rich by trade. Hadrian acceded in 117 A. D., and may possibly have visited Palestine in 130 A. D. It was then probably that he conceived the idea of refounding Jerusalem as an ordinary Roman colonial city. Dion Cassius,[378] writing less than a century later, says of Hadrian that he “stirred up a war ... by founding a city at Jerusalem which he named Ælia Capitolina, and by setting up another temple to Jupiter on the site of the Lord’s Temple.” But it would seem more correct to say that the intention thus to paganise the Holy City was the immediate cause of the desperate revolt at Bêther. Renan[379] very truly remarks that “the really historic texts do not speak of a taking and destruction of Jerusalem” (at this time), “but by the way they read exclude such an event.” Eusebius, when following the contemporary account of the war by Ariston of Pella, says nothing at all about Jerusalem. Tertullian, Jerome, and Chrysostom, who believed in a siege of Jerusalem by Hadrian, are late authorities. References to the exclusion of the Jews from Jerusalem, to be found in the writings of Justin Martyr and Eusebius, may belong to the time after 135 A. D., and the prohibition of circumcision in 132 A. D. was quite sufficient to account for Jewish rebellion.

THE BÊTHER REVOLT

The story of this rebellion is overgrown with legend, and the Rabbinical references seem sometimes to confuse the events of the great siege by Titus with those of the war against Hadrian. Bêther was identified by Canon Williams at the present village Bittîr, six miles south-west of Jerusalem, and its proximity to the capital may have led to some confusion between the siege of this fortress and that of Jerusalem. The place is still a village[380] on a cliff, with a fine spring, and a Latin inscription, while the name “ruin of the Jew,” close by, may preserve some memory of the desperate struggle led by Bar Cocheba and Rabbi ’Aḳîbah. Jerusalem, on the other hand, according to Jerome,[381] “was razed and burned to the ground after fifty years, under Ælius Hadrianus, so that it even lost its former name.” The siege and capture of Bêther put an end to further attempts of the Jews to become free from Rome, especially because an age of toleration and good government followed. The Cyrenaic legion was probably used against them, which accounts for the text found in Rome speaking of the employment of Getulæ from Mauritania in this Jewish war, which took place when Lucius Quietus had been murdered, and replaced by Tineius Rufus as governor of Palestine. During its course the latter was superseded by Sextus Julius Severus, who was summoned as legate from Britain to put down this formidable revolt.[382]

In the Mishnah we read that on Ab 9 “Bêther was taken and the city was ploughed up.” Later commentators refer the latter statement to the time when “Turannus Rufus ploughed up Sion.” Jerome says that “the city Bethel [Bêther] being taken, ... the Temple was ignominiously ploughed, the people being oppressed by Titus Annius Rufus.” The Mishnah, again, speaks of the “wars of Vespasian and of Ḳîṭus” (Quietus), and apparently means by the latter the war of 135 A. D. There thus seems to be a confusion between the demolition of Jerusalem by Terennius (or Terentius) Rufus in 70 A. D., and the later war which began under Tineius Rufus,[383] and which had nothing to do with any ploughing up either of the Temple or of Sion. As regards the exclusion of the Jews from Jerusalem, it appears from Eusebius that after 135 A. D. they purchased the right to weep at the ruins of the temple, for “after the Jewish disturbance the place became inaccessible to Jews.” Justin Martyr, speaking to a Jew about Jerusalem, says “that it is guarded from you, that none should be in it; and it is death” to enter. Sulpicius Severus relates that a cohort of soldiers was placed as a guard, to forbid the entry of any Jew into the city. This edict seems to have fallen into disuse under the tolerant Antonines and in the third century, but it was renewed by Constantius II. after the revolt of the Jews in Galilee in 339 A. D.; and Jerome says, “Still you may see a sad crowd, a wretched people, who fail to gain pity, assemble and draw nigh. Decrepit women, old men in rags ... all weeping; and while tears drown their cheeks, while they raise their livid arms and tear their locks, the soldier comes and demands money to allow them to weep a little more.”[384] This pathetic account reminds us of scenes which may still be witnessed at Jerusalem, but none of these passages serve to show that it was an inhabited place, once more besieged and ruined by Hadrian, nor that it was ever occupied by the rebels of 135 A. D.

The leaders of the revolt were Bar Cocheba (Kôkeba), “the Son of the Star,” and Rabbi ’Aḳîbah, who believed this pretender to be the true Messiah, in spite of the warning of Rabbi Jehoḥanan, “’Aḳîbah, the grass will be growing between thy jaws before the Son of David comes.”[385] The rabbinical accounts of the Bêther war are late and legendary, and the “Son of the Star” is called in the Talmudic allusions “the son of falsehood”—Bar Kôzîba—probably as a term of contempt. The theory according to which he struck coins in Jerusalem demands notice, in connection with the history of the city, but it appears to be one of those learned fallacies which are very long in dying.[386]

COINS OF SIMON

Certain silver coins of “Eleazar the Priest,” marked (by the alphabetic characters used) as being of the Hasmonæan age, have been rashly attributed to Eleazar, who defended the Temple in 70 A. D. In at least one instance the coin is regarded as a forgery by both de Vogüé and de Saulcy, and this appears to apply to all the so-called “coins of the revolts.” The copper ones bear blundered imitations of genuine inscriptions from coins of Simon the Hasmonæan. They have been struck on much defaced Roman coins of Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, and Trajan, but more probably in the nineteenth century than in the second century. One such coin bears the name Simon, and is struck on a silver tetradrachm of Antioch attributed to Vespasian. It does not seem to have occurred to the scholars who suppose it to have been struck by Simon, son of Gioras, in 70 A. D., that as Vespasian had then only been emperor a few months, and as Jerusalem was besieged, it is quite impossible that an old coin of his reign could have been found in the city in the year of its fall. The forgery of Jewish coins is still common in Palestine, and the forgers did not foresee that the remains of the original legend on a coin would be read by the trained eye of some European specialist, while they thought that the worn surface of the coin would show its antiquity, but that its value would be much higher if it was regarded as being Jewish. The same observation applies to all the restruck copper coins, which have been variously attributed to Simon son of Gioras, to Simon son of Gamaliel, and to Bar Cocheba, who has been conjectured to have been also named Simon—of which there is no proof at all. The latter assumption was necessitated by the fact that some of the coins used by the forgers were as late as the reigns of Domitian and Trajan. It may, however, be remarked that if the Jews, in 135 A. D., struck any coins at all, the lettering is not likely to have been in the same characters used about 139 B. C., but would have been in those used at the time, that is to say, practically in square Hebrew. We may regard these coins, therefore, as forged imitations of those of Simon the Hasmonæan, and they have no bearing on the question whether Jerusalem had been rebuilt before 135 A. D. Appian[387] was a contemporary historian, but says nothing about any siege of Jerusalem, which city he tells us was “razed to the ground by Vespasian.” He adds, “And anew by Hadrian in my time”—the word “built” having perhaps dropped out, unless further demolitions were needed to clear the site for the new city.

FORGED COINS