CHAPTER I: THE FALL OF JERUSALEM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. __________________________________________________________________

§ I. Destruction of the Holy City.

THIS period opens with a signal catastrophe, the consequences of which were most momentous to the Christian Church. Jerusalem, the Holy City, the religious center of Judaism, is reduced to ashes, and the Temple is but a smoking ruin. With it passes away the whole theocratic and priestly system of the old dispensation. Until this time the Church has been, so to speak, overshadowed by the Temple. Henceforward it has nothing more than a historic connection with Judaism, and a new era commences in its history.

The Jewish people, as we know, never consented to bow beneath the yoke of their conquerors. There was a natural antipathy between the two nations, founded, perhaps, on a certain obstinacy and invincible determination common to both. The Jews could not submit with the softness of the Asiatic, or the suppleness of the Greek, to foreign domination. They displayed as much perseverance in resistance as the Romans in conquest. Their patriotism assumed the character of fanaticism, from its connection with their religious views. Their beliefs, which had become identified with earthly hopes and closely bound up with national pride, so far from inspiring them with patience and resignation, fostered rebellion in their hearts. It must be acknowledged, also, that to them the Roman dominion appeared only in its most hateful aspects. They had a succession of governors who were veritable brigands; it seems that Judæa was regarded as a worthless province, and was given in prey to men laden with debts and vices, whose only object was to make a gain of a despised people. The Roman policy, usually so wise, and wont to deal considerately with the national faith and customs of a conquered people, was abandoned in the case of Judæa. Felix and Festus had indulged without restraint in all the caprices and violences of a tyrannic rule, and their successors had outdone even the abominations of their government. Albinus, who succeeded Festus, made shameless traffic of the administration of justice, selling impurity to the most notorious criminals. "There is no manner of evil unpracticed by him," [492] says Josephus. Gessius Florus surpassed even Albinus. "It seemed," says the same historian, "as though he had been sent as an executioner to put to death condemned criminals." [493] The nominal kingship of Herod Agrippa laid no kind of check on these acts of injustice. It was not possible that under such a rule peace should long be preserved. A circumstance, in itself unimportant, occasioned a terrible explosion, which had long been threatening and had already thrown out sparks in previous insurrections. The synagogue of the Jews at Cæsarea had been profaned by the Greeks of that city. Gessius Florus justified the act, and the Jews at Antioch and at Jerusalem immediately rose in a rebellion, which spread far and wide. It was stifled in the blood of thousands of Jews at Alexandria, at Damascus, and at Cæsarea. At Jerusalem the Roman garrison was massacred, and Eleazar, the son of the high priest, persuaded the Levites not to receive the offering of any stranger. This was to forbid the sacrifice for Cæsar, and such an act was equivalent to a declaration of war. [494] The rebellion was scarcely organized when Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, marched upon Jerusalem; but he failed to enter the city, and was compelled to make an ignominious retreat. This triumph stimulated the fanaticism of the Jews, and carried it to its culminating point. Thenceforward it was beyond all control. Rome could not tolerate such contempt of her power. She sent Vespasian, one of her best generals, with a large army to avenge the insult offered to the Roman eagles; and Galilee, after a sanguinary struggle, was subdued.

The death of Nero and the elevation of Vespasian to the throne gave the Jews a momentary respite; but the combat recommenced with augmented vigor, under the conduct of Titus, the son of the Emperor, (A. D. 68.) Jerusalem soon became the center of attack, and the siege of that city was laid by the most skillful general of the Roman armies. Thousands of Jews, who had assembled in the interval to celebrate the Passover, were shut up within the walls of the Holy City, and the presence of such numbers contributed to render the defense more difficult, and the final catastrophe more fearful.

Every feature of this siege attests it to be a judgment of God. It is not an ordinary event of history; all the attendant circumstances are marked by an aggravation of suffering and woe; men appear to be led by a mysterious hand, which urges them on to commit acts not within their original intention. They are the instruments of a chastisement as tremendous as was the crime to be visited. Even those who were its victims seem to have felt that it was so. The Jewish historian enumerates the omens by which the catastrophe had been foretold. Many of these are obviously the puerile fables and inventions of popular superstition; but that very superstition reveals a strange presentiment of coming woe. According to Josephus, the Levites officiating in the Temple at the Feast of Pentecost heard a voice, which cried, "Let us depart from this place." [495] Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace, a man named Jesus, the son of Ananias, a simple inhabitant of the country, was heard crying in the Temple, at the Feast of Tabernacles: "A voice sounds from the east, from the west, and from the four winds of heaven. This voice is against Jerusalem and the Temple; against husbands and wives; this voice is against the whole nation." They tried to silence him; he was scourged and variously ill-treated; but still the words burst from his lips, "Woe, woe, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem!" He never ceased his terrible denunciations till the war had broken out. In the siege he fell a victim, still uttering his melancholy cry of woe. [496]

The condition of the city at this time was indeed one of misery almost without a parallel. Pressed by foreign armies without, it was torn within by three hostile factions, each working for its own ends on popular fanaticism. It had first the faction of the Zealots, under the conduct of Eleazar, who, as their name imported, claimed to be the zealous defenders of the national cause, and under this pretext gave themselves up to all kinds of brigandage. [497] For a time this faction was strengthened by the Idumeans, whom Eleazar engaged to fight against the high priest Ananias; but these in the end separated from their allies, and turned against them. John of Giscala, who had fled to Jerusalem after the taking of his native city, and had at first joined the party of Eleazar, in his turn also organized a rival faction.

The unhappy city, closely encompassed by the legions of Titus, became the scene of the most frightful civil war. It was pillaged and sacked by its own sons. That which one faction spared, fell into the hands of another, and the contending parties agreed only in crime. "Such was the terror among the people," says Josephus, "that no one dare mourn for the dead or bury them. Tears must flow in secret, groans must be stifled, for such tokens of lamentation were visited with death. A little earth was hastily thrown over the corpses by night." [498] "O wretched city," adds the historian, "what cause of reproach hast thou against the Romans, who have but purged thee from thine abominations! Thou wast no more the city of God, and thou couldst never again be such, since thou wast become the tomb of thy slaughtered children."
[499] Josephus knew not that Jerusalem was expiating a yet darker crime, and that its soil, once sacred, had been stained by the blood of God.

To the horrors of civil war those of famine were soon added. The small store of food was quickly consumed by the brigands, who went from house to house, laying hands on all they found, and roughly treating those who had nothing to give, in order to make them betray the supposed place of concealment. On the roofs were to be seen women and children, wasted with want, and uttering heart-rending groans; the young people walked about the street pale and lifeless as specters, and constantly sinking to the ground from exhaustion. Deep silence settled over the city; night after night the dead were numbered by thousands, and all these sufferings were slight compared with the atrocities enacted by the brigands. [500]

Natural feeling seemed extinguished, and the spectacle-horrible even to the vilest criminals--was seen of a mother killing and eating her own child. The close of the drama was at hand. The city was almost completely invested by the Roman legions, who had erected an encompassing wall, and who, despite the fierce resistance of despair, daily gained ground. The outer city wall was broken down; the fortress Antonina, to the north of the Temple Mount, carried by assault. Both attack and defense were now concentrated on the Temple itself. At length the day came when the conquering eagles floated from the Most Holy Place, and the sacrifices and ceremonies of the ancient law were for ever done away. This was on August 10th, A. D. 70. The people had crowded together in thousands on the holy hill, on the delusive promise of a false prophet, that that very day a sign of salvation should be given in the Temple. [501] The carnage only ceased when the victors were weary of slaying.

The Temple, contrary to the orders of Titus, was destroyed by fire. A soldier threw into it a burning brand. He did the audacious deed unauthorized, and actuated, says Josephus, by some demoniacal impulse.
[502] We know that that impulse had a higher cause, and that this obscure soldier was the minister of the justice of God. In vain Titus gave orders for the fire to be extinguished; no one listened; on the contrary, every one pressed forward to feed the flames, and they spread with alarming rapidity. Even Roman soldiers, "moved to madness by the demon of war," [503] forgot their stern discipline. Who cannot see the hand of God in this strange accomplishment of a righteous retribution? The roaring of the flames mingled with the cries of the dying, and from the height of the temple hill and the magnitude of the conflagration, the whole city appeared wrapt in fire. The lamentations of the Jews, as they witnessed the burning of their temple, were loud and terrible beyond description, says Josephus. The cry was proportioned to the greatness of their grief. [504] In the miserable remnant of God's ancient people was thus fulfilled the mournful prophecy, which but a short time before they had treated as madness. The wailing of a city left desolate was the echo of the words, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" The prayer of the murderers of Christ was heard; his blood was upon them, upon their children, and upon the ruins of their temple. God himself had pronounced the final sentence of Judaism. [505]

According to Eusebius and Epiphanes, the Christians had left the Holy City at the commencement of the troubles, and retired to Pella, in Peroea. Some of them returned into the city after its sack, when the storm was past. [506] __________________________________________________________________

[492] Ouk e'stin de` e'ntina kakourgi'as ide'an pare'leipen. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," II, xiv, 1.

[493] Hosper epi` timori'a katakri'ton pemphthei`s de'mios.. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," II, xiv, 2.

[494] Touto de en tou pro`s Rhomai'ous pole'mou katabole'. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," II, xvii, 2.

[495] Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VII, v, 3.

[496] Ai, Ai. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VI, v, 3.

[497] Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," IV, xiii, 9.

[498] En de tosaute tou demou kataplexis hos medena tolmesai mete klaiein phaneros, mete th?ptein. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," V, iii, 3.

[499] Ti telikouton, ho tlemonestate polis, peponthas hupo Rhomaion, hoi sou ta emphulia muse perikatharountes eiselthon. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," V, i, 3.

[500] Batheia de ten polin perieiche sige kai nux thanatou gemousa, kai touton hoi lestai chalepoteroi. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," V, xii, 3.

[501] Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VI, xxv-xxx.

[502] Daimonio horme hules.
[503] Polemike tis horme labrotera.

[504] Tou pathous axia. Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VI, iv, 5.

[505] See Tacitus, "Historia," V, x, 14.

[506] Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," iii, 3; Epiphanes, "De ponderibus et mensuris," c. xviii. __________________________________________________________________

§ II. Consequences to the Church of the Destruction of the Temple.

The great truths maintained by St. Paul received emphatic sanction from this terrible event. God had cast into the balance the weight of his judgments. The destruction of Jerusalem was to have yet a further effect--it was to enlarge the views of the Christians as to the future of the Church, and to give indefinite expansion to the horizon of prophecy. They had until now been living in daily expectation of the end of the world, and the immediate return of Christ. In the prophetic picture drawn by the Master they had failed to apprehend the true perspective. They had recognized no distinction between the prophecies relating to the Holy City and those having reference to the final judgments of God; they had not grasped the idea that the condemnation about to fall on Jerusalem was a symbol of the judgments kept in store for the world. This confusion, so natural in the first period of the apostolic age, was no longer possible after Judaism had lost its religious center. It became then distinctly evident that a long future of conflict was before the Church. We have a striking proof of this enlargement of the views of prophecy as resulting from the fall of Jerusalem. Hegesippus relates that the Emperor Domitian, on questioning some Christians in Palestine, who were connected with the Saviour by ties of kindred, as to the kingdom of Christ and his return, received this reply: "His kingdom is not an earthly kingdom or of this world, but a heavenly and angelic kingdom, which will come in the fullness of the ages, when he shall return to judge the quick and the dead." [507] The second coming of Christ had then at this time ceased to be expected as immediate, and those whose hopes had been most set on its speedy realization had learned to defer indefinitely the appointed time.

This revelation, so clear and positive, of the prolongation of the period of struggling and suffering, combined with the destruction of the ancient form of worship, to which so many of the Christians still clung, tended to promote the more settled and permanent organization of the Church. In fact, from the year 70, there is a very marked advance toward a definite form of government and of worship. The Church now realizes its position as the true Israel of God, the religious society approved by him, which has taken the place of the theocracy; and it is thus led to organize institutions which shall permanently substitute those of the past. There was danger, however, lest in replacing these the Church should be led into imitating them. The necessity which was felt, after the destruction of the temple, of a fixed and clearly-defined organization, might lead to a resurrection of Judaism under a new form. The letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians gives sufficient evidence of the existence of such a tendency at the close of the first century. He says, "We ought to do all that the Lord has commanded us to do at the times appointed. He has commanded us to present offerings and to celebrate worship, not irregularly and irreverently, but at the times and seasons by him determined. He has revealed, by his most holy will; in what places and by what men the various acts of religious service can be acceptably performed. Special functions are ascribed to the high priest; a particular place is set apart for the priests, and the Levites have their distinct offices. Let each one of you then, my brethren, render honor to God, in his special order, with a good conscience, and without infringing the rule of his ministry. The sacrifices were not offered in all places, but at Jerusalem alone; and in Jerusalem, at the altars in the Temple. Take heed, my brethren, lest we who have been honored with a wider knowledge should bring upon ourselves severer chastisements by violating established rules." [508]

It would be absurd to infer from this passage that Clement, a disciple of St. Paul, holds the perpetuity of the Levitical worship, but we can clearly mark in it the tendency to transplant into the Church the precise organization of the old law, and to introduce the fixed order of Judaism. Evidently such notions can only have arisen after the destruction of the Temple. The Christians, accustomed to regard that as their religious center, were filled with a sort of alarm after its fall; they felt about for other props; they began to be afraid of the great freedom which, until then, had prevailed in the worship and government of the Church; and thus the event which was designed to set a seal on the spirituality of the new covenant helped, by a not unnatural perversion, to bring it back under the yoke of the old.

We cannot, however, admit, with an illustrious German divine, that in consequence of this great event a second Council was held at Jerusalem, at which the surviving Apostles met and authoritatively instituted the episcopate. A fact of such importance would not have escaped the ancient historians of the Church. The early Fathers would have made more than vague allusions to it. Besides, none of the passages adduced in support of this hypothesis are at all conclusive. Such an apostolical council appears to us inconceivable in the first century; it would suppose a wide modification of the very idea of the apostolate, and a radical revolution in then existing ecclesiastical institutions. [509]

Another consequence of the fall of Jerusalem was the tracing of a broad line of demarkation between Judæo-Christianity and the Church. [510] So long as the Temple was standing the Christians of Palestine might suppose that it was the will of God that they should continue to practice all the rites of Judaism, as decided by the Council at Jerusalem. This could no longer be the case when the Temple was overthrown. The enforced cessations of sacrifices is a momentous fact, which it has been vainly endeavored to explain away. [511] This event could not fail to produce a very deep impression on the more liberal section of the Church at Jerusalem, which still retained the tone of feeling imparted by James. This party recognized it as the decree of God, finally abrogating the old worship. Under the influence of Simon, the cousin of James, and a man probably of like spirit, these Jewish Christians were gradually brought into closer fellowship with those of Gentile origin. The hatred of the Jews, who were eager to fulminate excommunications against the Christians, and to put them under the ban of their synagogues so soon as these were reconstituted, contributed not a little to enlarge the spirit of the Christians of Palestine.
[512] In fact, a short time after the destruction of Jerusalem a new Sanhedrim was formed at Jabna, which endeavored to rally around it the remnants of the Jewish people. This Sanhedrim assumed the most hostile attitude toward the Christians, whom it called Mineans. The Rabbi Tarpho said, "The Gospels deserve to be burned; paganism is less dangerous than the Christian sects, for the former through ignorance does not receive the truths of Judaism, while the Christians know and yet reject. Salvation may be more readily found in the idol temples than in the assemblies of the Christians." The Jews were forbidden to eat with the Christians, and a form of excommunication against them was introduced by the Rabbi Gamaliel into the daily prayers. Its import was, that there was no hope for apostates. No gulf could be deeper than that by which the Church was thus divided from the synagogue.

In the commencement of the following century we find a flourishing Church, without any Judaistic tendencies, at Ælia-Capitolina, a Roman colony founded on the ruins of Jerusalem, to which, by a decree of the Emperor, no Jews were admissible. It is certain that a large number of Christians of Jewish origin were among its inhabitants, and that these associated without distinction with Gentiles by birth. There could be no stronger proof of the decay of Judæo-Christianity. [513] These same Christians were, as we shall presently show, sacrificed in large numbers by Bar Cocheba in the violent persecution which he instigated against the Church. We freely admit, however, that all were not equally enlightened. The existence in the second century of a Nazarite sect distinct from the Ebonites, and treated with tolerance by Justin Martyr, proves that a section of the Jews in Palestine, without breaking with the Church, still retained an exaggerated attachment to the ancient forms. [514] They could not be charged with any doctrinal error; they did not give formal expression to their views; but they refused to cast off the Mosaic yoke, even after God had himself broken it. The Church at Jerusalem contained within its bosom violent and fanatical men, who even before the siege of the Holy City had begun to fall away from it. These, far from being enlightened by that event, became yet more extravagant in their Judaizing notions. Previously, it might have been supposed that they adhered to the old worship rather from position than conviction; but from the year 70 they substituted for such a modified and transitional form of Judaism, one more decided and emphatic. Thus they became further and further alienated from apostolic doctrine, and in combination with the Jewish sects, especially with the Essenes, they constituted a distinct and avowed heresy. To this period, then, we, with Irenæus, trace the obscure commencement of Ebionitism, although the name is of later date. [515] __________________________________________________________________

[507] Ou kosmike men oud' epigeios epouranios de kai angelike tunchanei epi sunteleia tou haionos genesomene. Routh, "Reliquiæ Sacræ," i, 219; Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," ii, 32.

[508] Clement of Rome, "Ad Corinth.," 4.

[509] The hypothesis to which we allude was brought forward by Rothe ("Anfange," p. 311,) and supported by Thiersch, ("Apost. Zeit.," p. 275.) Rothe takes his ground on the following passage: Meta ten Iakobou martnrian kai ten autika genomenen halosin tes Hierousalem, logos katechei ton apostolon kai ton tou Kuriou matheton tous heiaeti to bio leipumenous epi pauta pantachothen sunelthein. "After the martyrdom of James and the taking of Jerusalem, it is said that the Apostles of the Lord, and his disciples who were yet alive, assembled together." According to Eusebius, the object of this assembly was the choice of a successor to James. Rothe maintains that the opportunity thus offered was embraced for the institution of the episcopate. But, without dwelling on the hypothetical character given by Eusebius himself to this statement, it affords no support to Rothe's idea. In fact, according to Eusebius, who is only the echo of Hegesippus, the foundation of the episcopate is to be traced back, not to Simon, but to James himself, of whom he speaks positively as a bishop. He cannot, then, have intended to speak of the foundation of the episcopate after the death of James. The second passage brought forward by Rothe is taken from the fragment of Irenæus edited by Pfaff. It is as follows: Hoi tais deuterais ton apostolon diataxesi parekolouthekotes isasi ton Kurion nean prosphoran en te kaine diatheke kathestekenai kata ton Malachian ton propheten . "Those who follow the second injunctions of the Apostles know that the Lord appointed a new sacrifice in the new covenant, according to the Prophet Malachi." Rothe supposes these second injunctions to proceed from the second Council at Jerusalem. But there is no evidence that these second injunctions are of a different date from the first; there is nothing more implied than a simple classification of the injunctions of the Apostles. In any case, the passage gives no indication of an episcopate. The third passage is taken from Clement of Rome. "The Apostles," we read in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, xliv, "knowing from the Lord Jesus Christ that there would be disputes in the Church as to the name of bishop, and, having a perfect prevision of the fact, appointed elders, and subsequently gave directions that when these died other tried men should succeed them." kai metaxu epinomen dedokasin hopos ean koimethosin diadexontai heteroi dedokimasmenoi andres ten leitourgian auton. Rothe lays stress on the word epinomen, which he translates testament, testamentary disposition, on the authority of a single passage in Hesychius, who assimilates epinomos to kleronomos He thus translates the passage from Clement: "The Apostles made this testamentary disposition, that when they (the Apostles) should be dead, other tried men should succeed to their office." To this we reply, the koimethosin does not relate to apostles, but to elders. The dispute at Corinth related not to the apostolic office, but to the office of elders, and it arose on the occasion of the death of the first elders appointed in that Church. Still further, the root of the word epinome is nomos, law. It is, therefore, much better translated, commandment, decision. We read in an old Latin translation, "Hanc formam tenentes." "Forma" is here the equivalent of decision or ordinance. It is not necessary to have recourse to the arbitrary correction of Bunsen, who substitutes epimonen for epinomen, ("Ignatius und seine Zeit.," p. 98,) and who regards it as the consecration for life to the office of elder. We translate the passage thus: "The Apostles determined that when the first elders should be dead others should succeed them." (See Ritschl, "Altcath. Kirche," pp. 424-429.)

[510] See, on this point, "Das apostolische und nachapostolische Zeitalter," by Lechler, of Stuttgart, pp. 436- 44; Ritschl, "Altcath.," 238-256.

[511] Schwegler, work quoted, pp. 192-308.
[512] Lechler, p. 440.

[513] Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, iv, 6; Ritschl, work quoted, page 247.

[514] Justin, "Dial. cum Tryph.," c. xlvii.

[515] Gegone he arche toutou meta Hierosolumon halosin. Irenæus, xxx, 2. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________