History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

From this time, according to tradition, the visible signs of divine mercy ceased to appear in the Temple. Like some cankerous affection, this demoralization of princes and high priests extended ever more and more to the classes closest to them, producing evils which are depicted in dark colors by the pen of a contemporary. Since the penal laws were administered in the name of the emperor, and were placed under the control of the governors, the judiciary became dependent upon the Romans and the wealthy and influential classes. Selfishness, bribery, calumny, and cowardice, according to the painter of the manners and morality of that period, were ever increasing. "They throw off," he bitterly exclaims, "the yoke of heaven, and place themselves under the yoke of men; their judgments are false and their actions perverse. The vain and thoughtless are made great, while the nobler citizens are despised." Frivolity in the women and licentiousness in the men were so completely the order of the day that the most eminent teacher of morality of that time, Jochanan ben Zaccai, found himself obliged to abolish the ritual hitherto used in cases of suspicion of adultery. With deep sorrow, the nobler-minded Judæans lamented a state of things in which outward forms of worship stood higher than morality, and the defiling of the Temple caused more scandal and wrath than an act of murder. In the lower classes, crime of another but of a not less alarming nature appeared. The frequent insurrections which had been stimulated and fomented by the Zealots since Rome had arrogantly treated Judæa like a conquered province, had given rise to bands of free troops, which roved wildly about the country, confounding liberty with licentiousness, and trampling upon both customs and laws. They crowded the caves and hollows which abound in the rocky mountains of Judæa, and from those retreats made frequent irruptions to gratify their love of unbridled liberty. Some bands of Zealots, led by Eleazar ben Dinai and Alexander, were incited by feelings of patriotism to deeds of cruelty. They had sworn destruction and death to the Romans, and they included among the latter all those who consorted with them; they would not recognize them as Judæans, and deemed it no crime to plunder and destroy them. The degenerate friends of Rome were, according to their views, and the oaths they had taken, mere outlaws, and the Zealots kept their oath only too well. They attacked the nobles as often as they fell in their way, ravaged their possessions and did them as much harm as lay in their power. If there was any wrong to be avenged upon the enemy of their country, they were the first to lend their sword in defense of their outraged nationality.

Another band of Zealots, grown wild and savage, forgot the original aim of liberating their country, and turned their attacks upon the foes of the latter into profit for themselves. They were called Sicarii, from the short dagger "sica," which they wore concealed under their cloaks, and with which, either openly or insidiously, they struck and killed their enemies. The Sicarii belonged to the very refuse of the Zealots. Later they acknowledged the grandsons of Judas of Galilee, Menahem and Eleazar ben Jair, as their leaders, but at the commencement of this epoch they were under no discipline whatever. They wandered about the country without any defined object, lending their assistance to those who either offered them a reward or an opportunity for satisfying their thirst for revenge. Armed with daggers, they wandered among the various groups that thronged the colonnade of the Temple during the festivals, and unperceived, struck down those they had marked out as their victims. These murders were committed with such extraordinary rapidity and skill, that for a long time the assassins remained undiscovered, but all the greater were the dread and horror excited by those dark, mysterious deeds. Murders became so frequent that Jochanan ben Zaccai and the teachers of the Law found it necessary to abrogate the sin-offering for the shedding of innocent blood, as too many animals would have been slaughtered for the human victims. It may have been about this time that the Great Synhedrion, which witnessed with intense grief the constant increase of lawlessness and immorality, gave up its functions and transferred its place of meeting from the Hewn-stone Hall to the Commercial Hall in Bethany, an act which seemed to imply its dissolution.

To stem, if possible, the confusion and disorder which existed, the noblest citizens combined, and keeping aloof from conflicts and strifes, sought to further by all means in their power the spiritual advancement of Judaism. To keep the Law intact was their self-imposed, sacred task. In Jochanan ben Zaccai they found a fitting representative. He was considered, next to the president of the Synhedrion, Simon ben Gamaliel (and perhaps even before him), as the greatest teacher of that time. On account of his deep knowledge of the Law and of the worth and dignity of his character, Jochanan ben Zaccai was made vice-president of the Synhedrion. That position gave him the power to cancel such laws as could not be enforced in that stormy period. His chief office, however, was that of teacher. In the cool shade cast by the Temple walls, he sat, encircled by his disciples, to whom he delivered the laws that were to be observed, and expounded the Scriptures.

Besides the spirit of anarchy there was another source of discord and misery. As the existing situation became more and more sad and hopeless, the longing in the hearts of faithful believers for the expected deliverer who was to bring peace to Judæa became more and more intense. Messianic hopes were rifer among the people now than they had been even during the time of the first Roman governors; and these hopes stirred up enthusiasts who proclaimed themselves to be prophets and Messiahs, and who inspired belief and obtained followers. Freedom from the yoke of Rome was the one great aim of all these enthusiasts. What the disciples of Judas attempted to bring about by force of arms, the disciples of Theudas hoped to accomplish without fighting, having recourse only to signs and miracles. A Judæan from Egypt calling himself a prophet, found no less than three, or according to another account, four thousand followers. These he summoned to the Mount of Olives, and there promised to overthrow the walls of Jerusalem with the breath of his mouth and to defeat the Roman soldiers. He was not the only one who, carried away by the fervor of desire, prophesied the approach of better times. And well may those enthusiasts have found acceptance among the people. A nation that had enjoyed so rich a past and looked forward even to a more glorious future, might allow itself to be lulled into forgetfulness of the dismal present by pictures of freedom and happiness. These visions and prophecies, harmless enough in themselves, derived a sad importance from the bitter and savage animosity with which they inspired the Roman governors. If the people, jealous of any interference with their religion, looked upon the slightest offense to it as an attack upon Judaism itself, and made the governors, the emperor, and the Roman state responsible for the delinquency, the imperial officials in Judæa were not less susceptible, for they treated the most trivial agitation among the people as an insult to the majesty of Rome and the emperor, and punished with equal severity the innocent and the guilty. Vain was the favor shown to the Judæan nation by the emperors Claudius and Nero—the procurator constantly over-stepped the limit of his authority, and urged on by greed and the love of power, acted the part of tyrant. Judæa had the misfortune to be almost always governed by depraved creatures, who owed their position to the reckless favorites who ruled at court. They rivaled one another in acts of wickedness and cruelty, thus ever increasing the discontent and provoking the wrath of the people. Cumanus, who succeeded Tiberius Alexander (about 48–52), was the first of five such avaricious and bloodthirsty procurators. He governed only the provinces of Judæa and Samaria, Claudius having bestowed the command of the province of Galilee on Felix, the brother of his favorite, Pallas. Cumanus and Felix became deadly foes.

It was the governor of Judæa who first excited the resentment of the people. Jealous suspicion of any great concourse of people assembled in the Temple, a suspicion which, since the revolt at the time of the census, had become traditional among the Roman governors, induced Cumanus, at the time of the Passover, to place an armed cohort in the colonnade of the Temple to watch the throngs which gathered there during that festival. On that occasion a soldier, with the recklessness often exhibited by the inferior Roman troops, made an offensive gesture towards the sanctuary, which the people interpreted as an insult to their Temple. Carried away by indignation and anger, they threw stones at the soldiers and abused the governor. A tumult ensued, which threatened to become a serious sedition. Cumanus ordered fresh troops to advance and take possession of the fortress of Antonia, and assuming a menacing aspect, alarmed the people assembled round the Temple, who now hastened to escape from his reach. In their anxiety to get away, the crowds pressed fearfully through the various places of exit, and it is believed that more than ten or indeed twenty thousand persons were suffocated or trampled to death.

A similar occasion might have led to a like disastrous result, had not Cumanus prudently complied with the wishes of the people. On the highway, not far from Bethoron, a band of Sicarii having fallen upon and robbed a servant of the emperor, Cumanus resolved that all the neighboring villages should suffer bitterly for the act of violence committed in their vicinity. One of the Roman soldiers, infuriated by an attack upon a fellow-countryman, got possession of a Book of the Law, tore it in pieces and threw the fragments into the fire. Here was a new cause for angry excitement and wrathful reproaches in the desecration of what they held most sacred. Countless bands flocked to Cumanus at Cæsarea, crying out against the blasphemer. Much rather, they exclaimed, would they suffer the worst fate themselves than see their Holy Scriptures profaned; and in tones of fury they called for the death of the guilty man. The governor yielded this time to the counsel of his friends, and ordered the soldier to be executed in the presence of those whose religious feelings he had outraged.

Another occurrence took a more serious form and led to strife and bloodshed. Some Galilæans who were on their way to a festival at Jerusalem, passed through Samaria, and whilst in the town of Ginæa, on the southeastern end of the plain of Jezreel, they were murdered in a fray with the hostile Samaritans. Was this only an accidental mischance, or the result of the burning hatred which existed between the Judæans and the Samaritans? In either case the representatives of Galilee were justified in demanding vengeance at the hands of the governor upon the murderers. But Cumanus treated the affair with contemptuous indifference, and thus obliged the Judæans to deal with the matter themselves. The leaders of the Zealots, Eleazer ben Dinai and Alexander, incited both by the Galilæans and their governor, Felix, took the matter into their own hands, entered with their troops the province of Acrabatene, inhabited by Samaritans, and pitilessly destroyed and killed all within their reach. The Samaritans appealed to Cumanus for redress for this attack upon their province, and he gave them permission to take up arms, sending at the same time Roman troops to assist them in a fearful massacre.

This proof, as they considered it, of the partisanship of the emperor's officials roused the anger of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to such a degree that, spurred on among others by Dortus, a man of some position, they were on the point of attacking the troops of Cumanus, which would doubtless have seriously increased the gravity of the situation, and might have hastened the final catastrophe by twenty years. The principal inhabitants of Jerusalem, however, alarmed at the possible consequences of an outbreak against the Roman arms, strove to prevent so dangerous an act, and, clothed in deep mourning, implored the irritated multitude to pause and think of the future. At their prayer the people laid down their arms. But neither the Judæans nor the Samaritans were really pacified, and still smarting under the wrongs mutually received, they sent deputies to the Syrian governor, Umidius Quadratus, accusing each other, and asking him to investigate the whole dispute. To effect that object, Quadratus visited Samaria; but he was not an impartial judge, and many of the captive Judæans were doomed to perish on the cross. It was only after those executions had taken place that he formed a tribunal of justice, and summoned both parties to appear before it. In the meantime, however, Felix having taken the part of the Galilæans against the Samaritans, such entanglements ensued that Quadratus would not venture to adjudicate between the disputants, and ordered them to send deputies to Rome to obtain the decision of the emperor. Among the Judæan envoys were Jonathan, the former high priest, and Anan, the governor of the Temple. Cumanus was also obliged to leave his post in order to appear at Rome and justify himself there.

All the intricate court intrigues were brought into play by this trial, which took on a more serious aspect from the fact that the governor himself was one of the accused. The emperor caused a tribunal to be formed, but the verdict was given not by himself, but by his depraved wife, the notorious Agrippina, who was the paramour of Pallas, the brother of Felix. It had been arranged between the Judæan deputies and Pallas that after sentence was pronounced against Cumanus, the emperor should be asked to name Felix governor of Judæa in his stead. The verdict given in favor of the Judæans could not be considered an impartial one, and was not in itself a proof that the Samaritans had been the aggressors. Many of them were pronounced guilty and executed, and Cumanus was sent into banishment. At the same time, probably also through the intercession of the empress, a kingdom in the northeast of Judæa was bestowed upon Agrippa; it consisted of that part of the country which had once belonged to Philip's tetrarchy, Batanæa, Gaulanitis, Auranitis, Trachonitis, as well as Paneas and Abilene. On Judæa proper Rome kept a firm grasp, and would never allow a native prince, however much he might be under Roman influence and control, to exercise in that domain any regal prerogatives.

Felix, whose appointment had been sought of the emperor by the former high priest, Jonathan, succeeded Cumanus as governor of Judæa. He married Drusilla, King Agrippa II's beautiful sister, who thereupon went over to paganism. During his long administration, Felix surpassed all his predecessors in arrogance and audacity. He gave himself up entirely to the acquisition of riches and the satisfaction of his appetites. He continued to exercise his evil power even after the death of Claudius (54). For although the young emperor, Nero, or his mother, Agrippina, was as favorable to the house of Herod as Claudius had been, and had given Agrippa four considerable towns with their surrounding districts as well as the important city of Tiberias near Tarichea in Galilee, Judæa was allowed to remain under the iron rule of its cruel governor. Felix pretended to attack only the seditious mutineers; but the fact of his consorting with the wild Sicarii showed how little truth there was in that assumption. Numerous, indeed, must have been the victims who suffered death at his hands under the plea that they were the enemies of Rome, for even the former high priest, Jonathan, at whose request the emperor had given Felix his appointment, now bitterly reproached him for his misdeeds. Exasperated by his boldness the governor caused him to be assassinated, employing the Sicarii to seize and murder him in the broad light of day. Ishmael II, of the house of Phabi, was named high priest by Agrippa in about the year 59. It was during his pontificate that the family of the high priest gained such power in the state that, aided by a strong rabble, they were able to compel the landowners to pay them all the tithes, thus robbing the lower priests of their incomes and causing many of them to perish from want.