This development of Judaism was eminently to the mind of the rulers; and Herod did much to encourage it. More and more it became identified with the synagogue, in which the Law was expounded: more and more it became a matter for the individual and his private life. This was so even in Palestine—the land which the Jews hoped to possess—and in Jerusalem itself, the holy city, in which the Temple stood. Herod had put down Jewish rebels and Herod appointed the high priests. In his appointments he was careful to avoid or to suppress any person who, being popular, might legitimize a rebellion by heading it. The Pharisees, who regarded his rule as an inevitable penalty for the sins of the people, he encouraged. Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas his disciple were in special honour with him, Josephus says, when he re-entered Jerusalem and put to death the leaders of the faction of Antigonus. How well their teaching served his purpose is shown by the sayings of two rabbis who, if not identical with these Pharisees, belong to their period and their party. Shemaiah said, “Love work and hate lordship and make not thyself known to the government.” Abtalion said, “Ye wise, be guarded in your words: perchance ye may incur the debt of exile.” Precepts such as these could hardly fall to effect some modification of the reckless zeal of the Galileans in the pupils of the synagogue. Many if not all of the professed rabbis had travelled outside Palestine: some were even members of the dispersion, like Hillel the Babylonian, who with Shammai forms the second of the pairs. Through them the experience of the dispersion was brought to bear upon the Palestinian Jews. Herod’s nominees were not the men to extend the prestige of the high-priesthood at the expense of these rabbis: even in Jerusalem the synagogue became of more importance than the Temple. Hillel also inculcated the duty of making converts to Judaism. He said, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them nigh to the Law.” But even he reckoned the books of Daniel and Esther as canonical, and these were dangerous food for men who did not realize the full power of Rome.
So long as Herod lived there was no insurrection. Formally he was an orthodox Jew and set his face against intermarriage with the uncircumcised. He was also ready and able to protect the Jews of the dispersion. But that ability was largely due to his whole-hearted Hellenism, which was shown by the Greek cities which he founded in Palestine and the buildings he erected in Jerusalem. In its material embodiments Greek civilization became as much a part of Jewish life in Palestine as it was in Alexandria or Antioch; and herein the rabbis could not follow him.
When all the Jewish people swore to be loyal to Caesar and the king’s policy, the Pharisees—above 6000—refused to swear. The king imposed a fine upon them, and the wife of Pheroras—Herod’s brother—paid it on their behalf. In return for her kindness, being entrusted with foreknowledge by the visitation of God, they prophesied that God had decreed an end of rule for Herod and his line and that the sovereignty devolved upon her and Pheroras and their children.
From the sequel it appears that the prophecy was uttered by one Pharisee only, and that it was in no way endorsed by the party. When it came to the ears of the king he slew the most responsible of the Pharisees and every member of his household who accepted what the Pharisee said. An explanation of this unwarrantable generalization may be found in the fact that the incident is derived from a source which was unfavourable to the Pharisees: they are described as a Jewish section of men who pretend to set great store by the exactitude of the ancestral tradition and the laws in which the deity delights—as dominant over women-folk—and as sudden and quick in quarrel.
Towards the end of Herod’s life two rabbis attempted to uphold by physical force the cardinal dogma of Judaism, which prohibited the use of images. Their action is intelligible enough. Herod was stricken with an incurable disease. He had sinned against the Law; and at last God had punished him. At last the law-abiding Jews might and must assert the majesty of the outraged Law. The most conspicuous of the many symbols and signs of his transgression was the golden eagle which he had placed over the great gate of the Temple; its destruction was the obvious means to adopt for the quickening and assertion of Jewish principles.
By their labours in the education of the youth of the nation, these rabbis, Judas and Matthias, had endeared themselves to the populace and had gained influence over their disciples. A report that Herod was dead co-operated with their exhortations to send the iconoclasts to their appointed work. And so they went to earn the rewards of their practical piety from the Law. If they died, death was inevitable, the rabbis said, and no better death would they ever find. Moreover, their children and kindred would benefit by the good name and fame belonging to those who died for the Law. Such is the account which Josephus gives in the Antiquities; in the Jewish War he represents the rabbis and their disciples as looking forward to greater happiness for themselves after such a death. But Herod was not dead yet, and the instigators and the agents of this sacrilege were burned alive.
32. The Settlement of Augustus.—On the death of Herod in 4 B.C. Archelaus kept open house for mourners as the Jewish custom, which reduced many Jews to beggary, prescribed. The people petitioned for the punishment of those who were responsible for the execution of Matthias and his associates and for the removal of the high priest. Archelaus temporized; the loyalty of the people no longer constituted a valid title to the throne; his succession must first be sanctioned by Augustus. Before he departed to Rome on this errand, which was itself an insult to the nation, there were riots in Jerusalem at the Passover which he needed all his soldiery to put down. When he presented himself before the emperor—apart from rival claimants of his own family—there was an embassy from the Jewish people who prayed to be rid of a monarchy and rulers such as Herod. As part of the Roman province of Syria and under its governors they would prove that they were not really disaffected and rebellious. During the absence of Archelaus, who would—the Jews feared—prove his legitimacy by emulating his father’s ferocity, and to whom their ambassadors preferred Antipas, the Jews of Palestine gave the lie to their protestations of loyalty and peaceableness. At the Passover the pilgrims attacked the Roman troops. After hard fighting the procurator, whose cruelty provoked the attack, captured the Temple and robbed the treasury. On this the insurgents were joined by some of Herod’s army and besieged the Romans in Herod’s palace. Elsewhere the occasion tempted many to play at being king—Judas, son of Hezekiah, in Galilee; Simon, one of the king’s slaves, in Peraea. Most notable of all perhaps was the shepherd Athronges, who assumed the pomp of royalty and employed his four brothers as captains and satraps in the war which he waged upon Romans and king’s men alike—not even Jews escaped him unless they brought him contributions. Order was restored by Varus the governor of Syria in a campaign which Josephus describes as the most important war between that of Pompey and that of Vespasian.
At length Augustus summoned the representatives of the nation and Nicholaus of Damascus, who spoke for Archelaus, to plead before him in the temple of Apollo. Augustus apportioned Herod’s dominions among his sons in accordance with the provisions of his latest will. Archelaus received the lion’s share: for ten years he was ethnarch of Idumaea, Judaea and Samaria, with a yearly revenue of 600 talents. Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, with a revenue of 200 talents. Philip, who had been left in charge of Palestine pending the decision and had won the respect of Varus, became tetrarch of Batanaea, Trachonitis and Auranitis, with 100 talents. His subjects included only a sprinkling of Jews. Up to his death (A.D. 34) he did nothing to forfeit the favour of Rome. His coins bore the heads of Augustus and Tiberius, and his government was worthy of the best Roman traditions—he succeeded where proconsuls had failed. His capital was Caesarea Philippi, where Pan had been worshipped from ancient times, and where Augustus had a temple built by Herod the Great.
33. Archelaus.—Augustus had counselled Archelaus to deal gently with his subjects. But there was an outstanding feud between him and them; and his first act as ethnarch was to remove the high priest on the ground of his sympathy with the rebels. In violation of the Law he married a brother’s widow, who had already borne children, and in general he showed himself so fierce and tyrannical that the Jews joined with the Samaritans to accuse him before the emperor. Archelaus was summoned to Rome and banished to Gaul; his territory was entrusted to a series of procurators (A.D. 6-41), among whom was an apostate Jew, but none with any pretension even to a semi-legitimate authority. Each procurator represented not David but Caesar. The Sanhedrin had its police and powers to safeguard the Jewish religion; but the procurator had the appointment of the high priests, and no capital sentence could be executed without his sanction.
34. The Procurators.—So the Jews of Judaea obtained the settlement for which they had pleaded at the death of Herod; and some of them began to regret it at once. The first procurator Coponius was accompanied by P. Sulpicius Quirinius, legate of Syria, who came to organize the new Roman province. As a necessary preliminary a census (A.D. 6-7) was taken after the Roman method, which did not conform to the Jewish Law. The people were affronted, but for the most part acquiesced, under the influence of Joazar the high priest. But Judas the Galilean, with a Pharisee named Sadduc (Sadduk), endeavoured to incite them to rebellion in the name of religion. The result of this alliance between a revolutionary and a Pharisee was the formation of the party of Zealots, whose influence—according to Josephus—brought about the great revolt and so led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. So far as this influence extended, the Jewish community was threatened with the danger of suicide, and the distinction drawn by Josephus between the Pharisees and the Zealots is a valid one. Not all Pharisees were prepared to take such action, in order that Israel might “tread on the neck of the eagle” (as is said in The Assumption of Moses). So long as the Law was not deliberately outraged and so long as the worship was established, most of the religious leaders of the Jews were content to wait.