It can hardly be supposed that it was actually Florus’s object to drive the Jews into rebellion; yet the course he pursued persistently from the very commencement of his rule could have had no other result. It was not merely that he took bribes from all men who sought his favour or feared his anger. He leagued with robbers and assassins, sharing their gains and countenancing their crimes. He exacted large sums alike from public treasuries and private coffers, on the flimsiest pretexts, and often on no pretext at all. He inflamed the angry feelings, already dangerously excited, by every possible insult and outrage which lawless power could exercise; and, finally, having by pillage and butchery stirred up the infuriated Jews to refuse obedience to an authority which appeared to exist only for their destruction, he called in Cestius Gallus, the Prefect of Syria, to lead the Roman forces under his command to put down the sedition.
This officer, though a man of narrow views and mediocre ability, was a Roman functionary, and, as such, would not act on ex parte evidence. He sent a tribune named Neapolitanus to Jerusalem, to inquire into the truth of Florus’s charges; and Agrippa,[15] who was cognisant of what had passed, and was anxious to avert the ruin that threatened his country, accompanied him to the Jewish capital. Fully convinced of the truth of the charges against Florus, they nevertheless hesitated to uphold his accusers, and endeavoured to persuade the people to make submission to him. But they had been too deeply incensed by Florus’s barbarities: and the seditious spirits among them had gained too much ascendency to allow this advice to prevail; notwithstanding that the upper classes of the citizens, who were still desirous of avoiding war, declared in its favour. They drove Neapolitanus and Agrippa, with insult, from the city, and openly renounced allegiance to Rome.[16]
Shortly afterwards a new adventurer, Menahem, the son of Judas the Gaulonite, appeared, and was gladly welcomed by the people. But he soon provoked the jealousy of Eleazar, the leader of the Zealots, by whom he was deposed and slain. Eleazar having gained complete mastery in the city, proceeded to murder, with shameless treachery, the Roman garrison, which had surrendered on condition of being spared. Almost coincidently with this shocking deed, one of equal horror was perpetrated at Cæsarea, where 20,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Greek inhabitants. In this atmosphere of treachery and bloodshed the whole nation appears to have gone mad. They were resolved, apparently, that as every man’s hand was against them, so should their hand be against every man. They took up arms, plundered several of the Syrian cities, laying waste the whole country round them. The Syrians retaliated with equal barbarity, everywhere slaying without mercy their Jewish fellow-citizens. Neither Agrippa’s dominions nor Egypt escaped the contagion. In the former, a feud between Varus, the deputy, to whom Agrippa had committed the government of his kingdom during his absence at Antioch, and Philip, the general of his army, very nearly caused a civil war. At Antioch another quarrel between the Jews and Greeks, relative to the right of the former to attend public assemblies, led, first to a riot, and then to a general rising of the Hebrew population. The governor, Tiberius Alexander—who was by birth a Jew, and had some years previously been Procurator of Judæa, afterwards holding a command in Titus’s army at the siege of Jerusalem—sent for the principal men among the Jews, and exhorted them to use their influence in quieting the disturbance. Failing in this attempt, he ordered out the troops, and made an attack on the Jews’ quarter, in which 50,000 persons were slain. Throughout the whole of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, strife and bloodshed prevailed. The advance of the Roman army was anxiously looked for by all who retained their reason, as the only hope of putting an end to the frantic anarchy wherewith the whole land was now overspread.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] It is an error, I think, to connect the name Hebrew with Heber, or Eber, the great-grandson of Shem. Abraham was called the Hebrew, or passer over, ὁ περάτης (Gen. xiv. 13, LXX.), because, in obedience to Divine command, he ‘passed over’ the Euphrates, leaving his home and people, to settle in a strange land. Heber was the progenitor, not of the Hebrews only, but many other nations. The notion that they were called after him, because at the dispersion of Babel he retained and transmitted the primitive language of the world to one only of his descendants, is a mere fancy. He may have been, and very probably was called the ‘passer’ or ‘carrier away,’ because he was the patriarch of the dispersion. But Abraham’s name was given to him for a different reason, and altogether independently of Heber.
[9] In proof of this may be alleged the fact, that in the brief space of sixty years no less than four Roman procurators were summoned before the Imperial Tribunal to answer complaints brought against them by the Jews; and two of them were punished by banishment for life.
[10] Judas was born at Gamala, a city of Gaulonitis. He was a brave, able, and eloquent man. Supported by Sadoc, an influential Pharisee, he founded the party of the Gaulonites, who were the predecessors of the Zealots and Assassins of later times. Though multitudes gathered round his standard, he was not supported by the nation generally, and the power of Rome was too great for him to contend with. He was overpowered and put to death. He is referred to in Acts v. 37.
[11] It was not in Judæa only that these feelings were aroused. In Alexandria, the proposal made by the Greeks, to place the emperor’s statue in the Jewish Proseuchæ, provoked riots, in which much property was wrecked, and terrible carnage took place. The Roman governor, Flaccus Aquilius, for many years a wise and able ruler, but who had grown reckless since the accession of Caligula, towards whom he bore no good will, made no attempt to repress, but rather encouraged, the outrages. He was so unwise as to openly insult the emperor’s friend, Agrippa. He was arrested by order of Caligula, and put to death with barbarous cruelty.
[12] The celebrated Philo came from Alexandria on this occasion to plead the cause of his countrymen.
[13] Banishing the Jews from Rome A.D. 54. Acts xviii. 2; Suet. Claud. 25.