In Jewish writings the references to what must have been a matter of prime importance to all Jews are vague and confused. The punishment of the Mesopotamian Jews by Lusius Quietus[[366]] is mentioned, but beyond that we have only much later statements, in which a deal of legend-making has been imbedded. The “day of Trajan,” which appears as a festival day, is connected by a persistent tradition with the permission to rebuild the temple, alleged to have been given by that emperor. The Roman and Greek writers know nothing of this, and in Jewish tradition likewise the permission is represented as abortive, and the “day of Trajan” ceased, according to another story, to be observed when the martyrs Papius and Lollianus were executed.[[367]]
However, it must be noted that for Palestine in particular details are lacking. Indeed we might well believe that Palestine itself took no part in it whatever. The expedition of Quietus to Mesopotamia may have been an ordinary military expedition against the Parthians’ territory, with whom the Romans had been then at war. There is evidence that the Jews of Parthia were almost autonomous, and a foray into the section which they happened to control would not be considered as anything more than an attack on other Parthian dominions. The Mesopotamian provinces of Parthia were then under the theoretical rule of Rome, but the precarious character of the conquest was apparent to everyone, so that the first act of the conqueror’s successor, Hadrian, was to abandon both Mesopotamia and Armenia. The revolt of the Mesopotamian Jews was, in consequence, a somewhat different thing from that of the Jews in Cyprus or Cyrene.
Perhaps the difficulties in Cyprus, Cyrene, and Egypt are to be considered nothing more than magnified race riots, which, however, assumed the dimensions of a real war, and demanded systematic military operations to suppress them. But the friction between the Jews and Greeks of Salamis or Alexandria could scarcely have resulted in such serious outbreaks, if the conditions that led to the revolt of 68 C.E. were not still operative. The fall of the temple did not paralyze the Jewish propaganda. We find it as vigorous afterward as before. The Messianic hopes, which were one form of the prevailing spiritual unrest, had not died out in the East among Jews or non-Jews.[[368]] The calamity of the empire, which the death of Nero seemed to bring with it, did not after all take place.
Our sources represent the era begun by Vespasian, except for a few years of Domitian’s reign, as one of general and increasing felicity. These sources, however, are in the highest degree suspect, and while the period between Vespasian and Marcus Aurelius represents an undoubted rise in administrative and legal development, they represent a deterioration in the economic condition due to the gathering pressure of the huge state machinery itself. The increase of the more degraded forms of superstition marks the spiritual destitution of the time.
The Jewish communities in Cyprus, Egypt, and Cyrene consisted largely of craftsmen and small merchants. Perhaps among them were a number of former Palestinian rebels, sold as slaves in the neighboring markets, and since ransomed. The conditions, the active Messianic hope, the presence of former soldiers, were themselves provocative of riot, and the outbreaks in the places indicated are scarcely surprising. We hear only of those that became formidable insurrections. It is possible that slighter ones have failed wholly to be recorded.
But during the reign of Hadrian there broke out an unmistakable insurrection in Palestine, which more clearly than its predecessors showed the motive force of these movements. In 131 C.E. a certain Simeon bar Kosiba led his people again to war on the all-overwhelming power of the empire. The occasion for the revolt is variously given, but that it was in the eyes of those that fought in it vastly more than an attempt to shake off a foreign yoke is shown by the Messiahship to which Simeon openly laid claim, and for which he had the invaluable support of the head of the Palestinian schools, the eloquent and passionate Akiba.[[369]]
Dio[[370]] states that the immediate instigation of the revolt was the building on the ruins of Jerusalem the new city and temple that were to be the official home of the colony of Aelia Capitolina, a community founded by Hadrian and composed perhaps of native Syrians, since it did not possess the ius Italicum, the full rights of citizenship.[[371]] This statement is much more probable than that of Eusebius, which reverses the order of events, and makes the founding of the Colonia Aelia Capitolina a consequence and not the cause of the revolt.[[372]]
The rebellion of 68 had enormously depopulated Judea. Those that were left had neither the power nor the inclination to try conclusions with the legionaries again, and, as we have seen, remained passive when closely related communities rose in arms. But the hopes they nourished, no doubt systematically fostered by the powerful communities in Mesopotamia and the Parthian lords of the latter, were none the less real for their suppression. The erection of Aelia was the signal. Just as the desecration of the temple by Epiphanes was the last measure of oppression, which brought upon the king the vengeance of Heaven, so this second desecration, the dedication of the holy hill to one of the elillim, one of the Abominations of the heathen, roused the frenzy of the people that witnessed it to such a pitch that the chances of success could no longer be considered. At the same time, assurances of ultimate help from Parthia were perhaps not lacking. Among those who streamed to aid the rebellious Jews were doubtless many of Rome’s hereditary enemies, since of other rebellions within the empire at that time we have no evidence.
The Jewish tradition speaks of a systematic and cruel persecution instituted by Hadrian. The details mentioned are very much like the remembered incidents of the persecution by Epiphanes. We must keep in mind that every one of the statements connected with this persecution is late, and is in so far of dubious historical value.[[373]] As a matter of fact the character of Hadrian makes the reality of the persecution in the highest degree improbable. No doubt the revolt was punished with ruthless severity, and for the permanent prohibition against the entrance of a Jew into Aelia Capitolina there is excellent evidence;[[374]] but to attempt to root out Judaism as Antiochus had done is something that simply cannot be credited to Hadrian, if only for the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews did not dwell in Palestine at all, and all the alleged persecutions of Hadrian are localized only in Palestine. In Hadrian’s letter of 134 C.E., to his brother-in-law Servianus, the Jews of Egypt are referred to in a manner quite irreconcilable with the theory that Judaism was then a proscribed religion.[[375]]
In this connection we may mention a decree which, according to Jewish tradition, constituted one of the most deeply resented of Hadrian’s persecutions—the prohibition of circumcision. Here again the late biographer of Hadrian, Spartianus, makes this edict precede and not follow the war; but the reliability of the Historia Augusta, of which Spartianus’ biography is part, is not very high. We have the Historia Augusta, if it is not wholly a fabrication of the fourth century, only in a recension of that time, so that its testimony on such a detail is practically valueless.[[376]]