The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

by H. C. Adams

At the same time, they were too intelligent not to be aware that Imperial Rome would endure neither opposition to her arms nor evasion of her claims. It must needs have been long evident to them, that the time must come, sooner or later, when they would have to make their choice between genuine allegiance to, or open rebellion against, the empire of the Cæsars. They were purposed, however, to defer it as long as they could. Requirements might be made, which they would rather perish than comply with; but until these were advanced, there was no need to anticipate them; and the mildness which always marked the Roman sway, when unopposed, its strict observance of justice in all its dealings with a conquered people,[9] and its toleration of their customs and prejudices, long delayed the terrible struggle which ensued at last.

The deposition of Archelaus, and the conversion of Judæa into a Roman province, brought about the first overt act of rebellion. Judas, called the ‘Galilæan,’ raised an insurrection, which was with difficulty put down. He took for his watchword the significant sentence, ‘We have no other master but God.’ The reasons already alleged, in all likelihood, restrained the more influential classes of the Jews from lending him the support he expected. He was crushed and put to death. But the spirit he evoked lived long after him, and Josephus attributes to it all the outbreaks which ensued, which culminated at last in the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews.[10]

Coponius, the first Roman governor, was allowed to take up his abode at Cæsarea without opposition. That city, rather than Jerusalem, was chosen as his seat of government probably out of consideration for the feelings of the Jews. He was succeeded after a short interval by Ambivius and Rufus. After him Valerius Gratus held the reins of power for nearly twelve years. Throughout their prefectures, and for some years afterwards, Judæa remained tranquil. But at Rome, the Jews, who under Augustus had been treated with great indulgence, were expelled from the city by his successor, Tiberius. This act is said to have been really due to the enmity of Sejanus, though the pretext alleged was their extortion of money from Fulvia, a noble matron. Four thousand Jews were forced to enter the army, the greater part of whom died of malaria, in the island of Sardinia. After Sejanus’s fall, the edict against the Jews was revoked.

To Gratus succeeded Pontius Pilatus, who held office for ten years. During the government of this procurator, another formidable insurrection occurred, or rather, series of insurrections, caused in the first instance by the removal of the Roman army, with its idolatrous standards, to Jerusalem. On this occasion there was a very general rising of the people; and if Pilatus had remained in power, hostilities with Rome might have broken out a generation previously to their actual occurrence. But after committing, with apparent impunity, several sanguinary massacres of Jews, whom his wanton disregard of their feelings had stirred up to insurrection, Pilatus was accused to Vitellius, the Prefect of Syria, by the Samaritans, of a similar outrage on them. Vitellius ordered him to Rome, to take his trial. There he was deposed, and sentenced to exile.

Some time afterwards Judæa was again converted, for a brief space, into a Jewish kingdom under Agrippa I., whose strange and terrible end is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Agrippa was the son of Aristobulus, and grandson of Herod the Great. He early attached himself to Caligula, and thereby aroused the suspicion of Tiberius, who threw him into prison. He would probably have been put to death, if the decease of the emperor had not rescued him from the danger. On his succession to the empire, Caligula gave him the tetrarchies formerly held by Lysanias and Philip, together with the title of King. But his reign was soon beset with trouble. The royal dignity bestowed on him roused the jealousy of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee. Accompanied by his wife, Herodias, he sailed to Rome, in the hope of ousting Agrippa, by charges of disloyalty, from the Imperial favour. But Agrippa retorted on Antipas with a counter-charge of treasonable correspondence with the Parthians; and the result was the banishment of Antipas, and the addition of his dominions to those already ruled by Agrippa. The latter was a rigid observer of the Mosaic law; and his murder of St. James and persecution of St. Peter were probably due to this, rather than to tyranny or cruelty. During his reign of seven years he seems to have done his best for his kingdom and country. He built the third wall round Jerusalem, and endeavoured to reconcile the contending factions, which were destroying the life of the nation.

It was a short time before his accession that the event occurred which roused the anger of the Jews to a higher pitch than had ever before been manifested; and had the outrage been pushed further, a civil war would have undoubtedly been the result. This was the attempt of the Emperor Caligula to erect his statue as that of ‘The Younger Jupiter,’ as he styled himself, in the most sacred part of the Jewish Temple.

The design seems to have been the result of a mere whim, conceived by the half-crazy emperor, and pertinaciously persisted in, when he learned (as he did from both the Jews themselves, and Petronius, the Procurator of Syria) that its execution would occasion among the worshippers of the God of the Hebrews unspeakable horror and alarm.[11] There can be no doubt that the impiety was intended. The statue had been ordered, if not completed; but the wise and generous procrastination of Petronius, the earnest representations of Agrippa, who was a favourite of the emperor, together with the death of the emperor himself, which followed almost immediately afterwards, averted the accomplishment of the design. The narrative of the transaction is valuable, because it shows that at that time the Jews were disposed to wise and moderate counsels, which contrast forcibly with their reckless violence a generation later. When the fatal intentions of Caligula were made known, the whole population, we are told, of all ranks and ages, from a vast distance round Jerusalem, crowded round the chair of the Roman procurator, declaring their determination to die rather than witness so fearful a profanation.[12] Their demeanour so deeply affected Petronius, that he thenceforth strove by every means in his power to avert the dreaded catastrophe; and, aided by circumstances and the intercession of Agrippa, he succeeded in his attempt. Caligula, however, could not forgive his disobedience, and it is said that the emperor’s death alone saved Petronius from the consequences of his anger.

Through the favour of Claudius, who now mounted the Imperial throne (and whose reign, notwithstanding one act of severity,[13] was favourable to the Jews), Agrippa succeeded to the whole of the dominions of his grandfather, Herod the Great, and held them for four years, when he died, A.D. 44, in the manner already referred to; and Judæa again became a Roman province, Cuspius Fadus being sent as governor.[14] During his rule, and that of his successor Tiberius Alexander, the peace of Palestine continued undisturbed, except by the outbreaks of one or two of the turbulent incendiaries, of which the land contained great numbers. These were easily put down. But during the procuratorship of Ventidius Cumanus, the animosity between the people and the Roman soldiers, which had long been smouldering, burst out into a flame. During one of the Jewish festivals, a soldier offered a gross insult to the ceremonial in progress, which roused the fury of the Jews against, not only the offender, but Cumanus himself. The latter, hearing the furious cries with which he was assailed, marched his whole force into the Antonia, and commenced an indiscriminate massacre, in which 20,000 perished. For this outrage and his subsequent conduct in a hostile encounter between the Jews and Samaritans, Cumanus was tried at Rome, and condemned to banishment.

He was succeeded by the profligate Felix, whose government was worse than that of any of his predecessors. It was, in fact, one long scene of cruelty and treachery. He allied himself with some of the bands of robbers now infesting Judæa, and by their aid murdered, in the very precincts of the Temple, Jonathan, the high priest, who had rebuked his vices. After eleven years of misrule, he was accused by the Jews in Cæsarea of the barbarous slaughter of some of their countrymen. He was tried at Rome, but escaped through the interest of his brother, Pallas. He was, however, a vigorous ruler, and put down the notorious Egyptian Jew, who, with 30,000 followers, had raised a formidable insurrection (Acts xxi. 38).

After his prefecture, and that of his more humane and upright successor Porcius Festus, the inveterate evils which afflicted the whole of Judæa continued to grow in violence and intensity. Banditti overspread the country, and carried on their lawless depredations almost with impunity. Impostors and fanatics started up on every side, and drew after them great multitudes, to whom they preached rebellion against their Roman governors as a religious duty. Riot and bloodshed, and armed encounters with the Roman soldiery, became matters of continual occurrence, which the authority of the procurator was unable to restrain. The evil was aggravated by the succession of the corrupt Albinus to the office vacated by the death of Festus; but it was not until he, in his turn, was superseded by the infamous Gessius Florus that the discontent of the unhappy Jews culminated in the rebellious outbreak which brought on their ruin.