� 21. From The Destruction Of Jerusalem To The Overthrow Of Bar-Cochba

§ 21. FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM TO THE OVERTHROW OF BAR-COCHBA
1. THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN PALESTINE FROM VESPASIAN TO HADRIAN
THE separation of Judea from the province of Syria, which had been resolved upon at the time when Vespasian was sent thither (see above, vol. i. p. 369), continued in force also after the conclusion of the war. Judea—and indeed under that very name—formed from this time forth an independent province.[1346] Since it had as a garrison only one legion, the legio X. Fretensis (see above, p. 248), alongside of which were only auxiliary troops (see above, p. 56), the commander of that legion was at the same time governor of the province. It appears that, as a rule, the position was held by men of praetorian rank. It was only at a later period that the province came to be administered by men of consular rank, probably after the time of Hadrian, since even then the legio VI. Ferrata was stationed in Judea, and the governor was not of an order superior to the commander of a legion.[1347]
[1346] The name Judaea occurs, e.g., on the military diploma of A.D. 86 (Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. p. 857, Dipl. xiv.), on the inscription of Julius Severus (Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 2830), on the coin which celebrates Hadrian’s visit to Judea (adventui Aug. Judaeae, in Madden, Coins of the Jews, 1881, p. 231), on the inscription of an otherwise unknown “proc(urator) Aug(usti) provincia(e) Jud(aeae) v(ices) a(gens) l(egati)” in Corpus Inscr. Lat. iii. n. 5776, and elsewhere. At a later date, somewhere after Hadrian, the prevailing designation is Syria Palaestina, which occurs even as early as in Herodotus (see Division II. vol. ii. p. 193. Yet even then the name Judea had not altogether passed out of use. The geographer Ptolemy sets both alongside of each other (Ptolemy, v. 16.1). Compare Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i 2 Aufl. 1881, p. 421, note 2; P. von Rohden, De Palaestina et Arabia provinciis Romanis qúaestiones selectae, 1885, pp. 1-3.
[1347] Proofs of what is said above are given by von Rohden, De Palaestina et Arabia provinciis Romanis, p. 30 sq. On an inscription found recently in Jerusalem, dating from the time of Caracalla, one M. Junius Maximus “leg(atus) Augg. (i.e. duorum Augustorum) leg(ionis) X. Fr(etensis)” is mentioned. Seeing that he is designated as leg. Augg., Zangemeister had assumed on his first examination of the inscription (Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, x. 1887, pp. 49-53) that this commander of the legion was also governor. But he has himself rightly, in his appendix to that article (Zeitschrift, xi. 138), correctly observed that in that case the designation pro praetore would not have been wanting. The person referred to was therefore only commander of the legion.
From the series of governors only certain names are now known to us.[1348] The first of these who exercised their functions during the war of A.D. 70-73 have already been briefly referred to:—
[1348] Compare the collection of passages in: Kuhn, Die städtische und bürgerliche Verfassung des Röm. Reichs, ii. 184 f.; Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. 2 Aufl. p. 419 f.; von Rohden, De Palaestina et Arabia provinciis Romanis, 1885, pp. 36-42; Liebenam, Forschungen zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des röm. Kaiserreichs, Bd. i. 1888, pp. 239-244.—Grätz, “Die römischen Legaten in Judäa unter Domitian und Trajan und ihre Beziehung zu Juden und Christen” (Monatsschr. für Gesch. und Wissensch. des Judenth. 1885, pp. 17-34), gives only rabbinical legends.
1. Sex. Vettulenus Cerialis, who at the siege of Jerusalem commanded the fifth legion (see above, p. 236). He remained after the departure of Titus as commander of the garrison troops, that is, of the tenth legion and of the detachments joined with it, and gave them over to Lucilius Bassus (Wars of the Jews, vii. 6. 1). His full name is given in an inscription (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, t. x. n. 4862).
2. Lucilius Bassus, who took the strongholds of Herodium and Machärus (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, vii. 6. 1-6). He died as governor (Wars of the Jews, vii. 8. 1). The procurator serving under him, L. Laberius (not Λιβέροις) Maximus (Wars of the Jews, vii. 6. 6), is also mentioned in the Acts of the Arval priesthood: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, t. vi. n. 2059, and in the military diploma of A.D. 83 (Ephemeris epigraphica, v. p. 612 sq.). According to the latter authority, he was the governor of Egypt.
3. L. Flavius Silva, the conqueror of Masada (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, vii. 8-9). He was consul in A.D. 81. His full name is given as L. Flavius Silva Nonius Bassus in the Acta Arvalium, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, t. vi. n. 2059. Compare Henzen, Acta Arvalium Index, p. 186.
4. M. Salvidenus, about A.D. 80, is witnessed to by a Palestinian coin of Titus, with the superscription ΕΠΙ Μ. ΣΑΛΟΥΙΔΗΝ(ΟΥ), Madden, Coins of the Jews, p. 218. He is certainly identical with the M. Salvidenus, who, according to a coin of Domitian, was proconsul of Bithynia (Mionnet, Supplement, v. p. 2).
5. Cn. Pompeius Longinus, A.D. 86. In a military diploma of Domitian of A.D. 86 the veterans of two alae and four cohorts are referred to “qui … sunt in Judaea sub Cn. Pompeio Longino” (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, iii. p. 857, Dipl. xiv.). We have no other information with reference to these governors of Judea.—From some statements of the diploma Henzen thought himself justified in drawing the conclusion, that at that time warlike operations were being carried on in Judea. The premises, however, do not by any means sustain such a conclusion.[1349]
[1349] Henzen, Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande, xiii. 1848, pp. 34-37. He is followed by: Darmesteter, Revue des études juives, i. 1880, pp. 37-41; Schiller, Geschickte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 532. Against this view: Rohden, De Palaestina et Arabia, p. 38 (in accordance with a communication from Mommsen).—Henzen’s reasons are: (1) The cohors I. Augustana Lusitanorum, mentioned on the diploma, was shortly before stationed in Pannonia. It must therefore have been sent for from thence in order to strengthen the garrison of Judea. (2) The veterans, according to the diploma, received indeed the rank of citizens, but not a full discharge (honesta missio). It was therefore thought that they might still be needed. The latter argument is not decisive, and the cohors I. Augusta Lusitanorum mentioned on the inscription, is demonstrably different from the cohors I. Lusitanorum settled in Pannonia in A.D. 85.
6. Atticus, about A.D. 107. In two fragments of Hegesippus, which are quoted by Eusebius, it is reported that Simeon, said to be the second bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, died a martyr’s death “under the Emperor Trajan and the governor Atticus” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iii. 32. 3: ἐπὶ Τραϊανοῦ Καίσαρος καὶ ὑπατικοῦ Ἀττικοῦ; iii. 32. 6: ἐπὶ Ἀττικοῦ τοῦ ὑπατικοῦ). In the Chronicle of Eusebius this event is placed in the tenth year of Trajan, A.D. 107 (Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. p. 162 sq.); in the Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, i. 471, in the consulship of Candidus and Quadratus, A.D. 105. Neither of these statements, indeed, has the value of traditional testimonies, least of all the statement in the Chronicon Paschale, which has only the authority of Eusebius. Our Atticus is supposed to be identical with the similarly named father of Herod Atticus. The designation of ὑπατικός is remarkable, since other governors of Judea had held this office before their consulship.—Compare generally: Waddington, Fastes des provinces asiatiques, p. 192 sq.; Dittenberger, Hermes, xiii. 1878, pp. 67-89.
7. Pompeius Falco, about A.D. 107 and onwards. The inscription in Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, t. x. n. 6321, gives the cursus honorum of this man, who is known from the letters of the younger Pliny. According to this document he was also “leg(atus) Aug(usti) pr(o) pr(aetore) provinc(iae) [Judaeae] et leg(ionis) X. Fret(ensis).” The supplied word Judaeae is warranted here by the fact that the command of the tenth legion was attached to the governorship. According to Pliny, Epist. vii. 22, this governorship dates probably from A.D. 107 to A.D. 110, for in the letter written about that time Pliny commends a friend to Falco for the place of a tribune. But this, according to the other date of the cursus honorum, could only have happened during the period of his governorship of Judea.—The epistles addressed by Pliny to Pompeius Falco are Pliny, Epist. i. 23, iv. 27, vii. 22, ix. 15. Compare generally: Mommsen, Hermes, iii. 1869, p. 51; Pliny, Epist. ed. Keil, p. 422 (Index by Mommsen); Waddington, Fastes des provinces asiatiques, pp. 202-204; Rohden, p. 39; Liebenam, Forschungen, i. 94 ff.; Petersen and Luschan, Reisen in Lykien (1889), p. 123.
8. Tiberianus, about A.D. 114.—In Joannes Malalas, ed. Dindorf, p. 273, the express language of a writing is quoted, which Tiberianus, the governor of Palaestina prima, addressed to Trajan during his stay in Antioch, A.D. 114 (ἐν τῷ δὲ διατρίβειν τὸν αὐτὸν Τραϊανὸν Βασιλέα ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ τῆς Συρίας βουλευόμενον τὰ περὶ τοῦ πολέμου ἐμήνυσεν αὐτὸν Τιβεριανός, ἡγεμὼν τοῦ Παλαιστίνων ἔθνους, ταῦτα). In it Tiberianus calls the attention of the emperor to the fact that the Christians in a foolish manner deliver themselves up to martyrdom, and desires directions as to how he should proceed. In reply Trajan commanded him and all other magistrates throughout the whole empire to suspend the persecutions. This same story is told in a somewhat different way by John of Antioch (in Müller, Fragmenta hist. graec. iv. 580, n. 111). The statement of the latter is literally reproduced by Suidas in his Lexicon, s.v. Τραϊανός. Both stories, which are in thorough agreement on all essential points, are in respect of contents highly suspicious. Even the partition of Palestine into Palaestina prima and secunda did not take place before the end of the fourth century. Against the historicity of the narrative, see Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte, i. 1, 4 Aufl. p. 129; Overbeck, Studien zur Geschichte der alten Kirche, i. 122; Görres, Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1878, p. 38 f.; Keim, Rom und das Christenthum, 1881, p. 526 f. In favour of it: Wieseler, Die Christenverfolgungen der Caesaren, 1878, p. 126 ff. The stories of Malalas and John of Antioch in this and in many other instances have so much that is common, that evidently the one must have borrowed from the other. Since both probably wrote about the beginning of the seventh century, it is a question to whom the priority belongs. The style of the particular passage before us speaks in favour of the view now prevalent, that Malalas was the older, for Malalas communicates the letter of Tiberianus in the very words of the writer, whereas John of Antioch only describes its contents.[1350]
[1350] Compare: C. Müller, Fragmenta Hist. Graec. iv. 536, in favour of the priority of John of Antioch.—Gutschmid, Grenzboten, 22 Jahrg. 1863, 1 Semester, 1 Bd. p. 345 f., in favour of the priority of Malalas.—Mommsen, Hermes, vi. 1872, pp. 323-383; Nicolai, Griech. Literaturgeschichte, iii. 56 f., 96 f.; Stokes in Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography, iii. 787 sq.; Gelzer, Julius Africanus, i. 74, 228 ff., ii. 129, in favour of the priority of Malalas; Sotiriadis, “Zur Kritik des Johannes von Antiocha,” in Jahrbücher für class. Philol., 16 Supplementbd. 1888, pp. 1-126, especially pp. 68-83, going back again to the idea that John of Antioch is the older.
9. Lusius Quietus, about A.D. 117.—This distinguished general, after he had put down the outbreak of the Jews in Mesopotamia, was appointed governor of Judea (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2. 5: Ἰουδαίας ἡγεμὼν ὑπὸ τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος ἀνεδείχθη. Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164; in Greek, in Syncellus, ed. Dindorf, i. 657, at the 18th year of Trajan [2131 Abr.]: ἡγεμὼν τῆς Ἰουδαίας διὰ τοῦτο καθίσταται). Dio Cassius merely says that he administered the government of Palestine after his consulship of A.D. 115 (Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32: ὑπατεῦσαι τῆς τε Παλαιστίνης ἄρξαι). That Trajan sent to Palestine a consular legate, not merely one of praetorian rank, was occasioned by the peculiarly difficult condition of affairs at that time.—By Hadrian, Lusius Quietus was recalled (Spartian. vita Hadriana, c. 5: “Lusium Quietum … exarmavit”), and soon thereafter put to death (ibid. c. 7; Dio Cassius, lxix. 2).—Compare generally: Borghesi, Oeuvres, i. 500 sq.
10. Tineius Rufus, A.D. 132.—When the revolution of Barcochba broke out, one Rufus was governor of Judea (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6. 1: Ῥοῦφος ἐπάρχων τῆς Ἰουδαίας). In the Chronicle of Eusebius he is called Tineiua Rufus (Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 166 sq. ad. ann. Abr. 2148; in Greek, in Syncellus, ed. Dindorf, i. 660: ἡγεῖτο δὲ τῆς Ἰουδαίας Τίννιος Ῥοῦφος; in Latin, in Jerome: “tenente provinciam Tinnio Rufo”). In Jerome on Daniel c. 9, s. fin. ed. Vallarsi, v. 695: Timo Rufo; on Zechariah viii. 16 sqq. ed. Vallarsi, vi. 852: T. Annio Rufo (so the earlier editions; the reading Turannio Rufo is only a conjecture of Vallarsi). Undoubtedly the correct form is Tineius Rufus, as is proved by Borghesi. For one Q. Tineius Rufus, who was consul under Commodus, is referred to on several inscriptions. He may have been son or grandson of one Rufus. See Borghesi, Oeuvres, iii. 62-64, viii. 189 sq.; Renan, L’église chrétienne, p. 192 sq.; and also Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, t. vi. n. 1978.
In order to suppress the rebellion, Publicius Marcellus, who up to that time had been governor of Syria, was also sent into Judea (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecorum, n. 4033=Archäolog.-epigr. Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich-Ungarn Jahrg. ix. 1885, p. 118: ἡνίκα Πουβλκιος Μάρκελλος διὰ τὴν κίνησιν τὴν Ἰουδαϊκὴν μεταβεβήκει ἀπὸ Συρίας; the same statement also is found in Corpus Inscript. Graec. n. 4034). This strengthening of the fighting forces in Judea is also referred to by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. iv. 6. 1: στρατιωτικῆς αὐτῷ συμμαχίας ὑπὸ βασιλέως πεμφθείσης. Compare Chronicon ad. ann. Abr. 2148).
11. Julius Severus, A.D. 135.—The suppression of the Jewish revolution was thoroughly completed only by Julius Severus, who was sent to Judea from Britain, where he had been up to that time governor (Dio Cassius, lxix. 13). The cursus honorum of this man is given in the inscription, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum, t. iii. n. 2830, where the higher offices are enumerated in the following order: “leg(ato) pr(o) pr(aetore) imp(eratoris) Traiani Hadriani Aug(usti) provinciae Daciae, cos. leg. pr. pr. provinciae Moesiae inferioris, leg. pr. pr. provinciae Brittaniae, leg. pr. pr. provinciae Judeae, leg. pr. pr. provinciae Suriae.” This therefore confirms the statement of Dio Cassius that he came from Britain to Judea. On the other hand, the statement of Dio Cassius, or rather that of his unskilful epitomizer Xiphilinus, that after the conclusion of the Jewish revolt he was made governor of Bithynia (Dio Cassius, lxix. 14), is the result of a confusion between him and another Severus. Our Julius Severus, who was consul in A.D. 127, was called Sextus Julius Severus (Corpus Inscript. Lat. iii. p. 874, Dipl. xxxi.), but the governor of Bithynia was Τι. Σεουῆρος (Corpus Inscript. Graec. n. 4033 and 4034), or, according to a more recent copy of one of these inscriptions, Π. Σεουῆρος (Archäolog.-epigr. Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich-Ungarn, ix. 118=Corpus Inscript. Graec. n. 4033). Compare, Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. 2 Aufl. 1881, p. 353; Rohden, p. 42.[1351]
[1351] In the list of governors of Judea we also find one Cl(audius) Pater(nus) Clement(ianus), who, according to an inscription (Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 5776), was “proc(urator) Aug(usti) provincia(e) Jud(aeae) v(ices) a(gens) l(egati),” therefore procurator or administrator in place of the deceased or recalled governor. The date of this inscription, however, is altogether unknown. For from the circumstance that the province is named, not Syria Palästina, but Judea, it cannot with certainty be concluded that the inscription is earlier than the time of Hadrian, as Rohden, p. 41, thinks he may conclude.—Just as little explanation is obtained from the rabbinical legends about a Roman ἡγεμών, who is said to have proposed captious questions to Jochanan ben Saccai, at the end of the first century after Christ For the corrupt condition of the text makes it impossible even to determine his name with certainty. He is called, jer. Sanhedrin 196 (Cracow edition), אגנטוס, Agnitos (Egnatius?), 19 c. Antoninus, and at 19a, Antigonus. In other places we also find other forms. The Hegemon Agnitos (אגניטוס הגמון) who, according to Sifre on Deut. § 351, is said to have put a similar question to Gamaliel II. in the beginning of the second century after Christ, is certainly the same Agnitos. See generally: Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 316 sq.; Levy, Neuhebraïsches Wörterbuch, i. 104b, 108a (“art.” אנגטוס and אנטונינוס); Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, i. 1884, p. 39 f.=Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft der Judenthums, 1882, p. 159 f.; Gratz, Monatsschrift, 1885, p. 17 ff.
The residence of the imperial governor, as in earlier times that of the procurators had also been, was not Jerusalem, but Caesarea, the important coast town built by Herod the Great.[1352] It was formed by Vespasian into a Roman colony, and bore the official name col(onia) prima Fl(avia) Aug(usta) Caesarensis or Caesarea.[1353] Jerusalem had been so completely razed to the ground “that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”[1354] It was first of all only a Roman camp, in which, if not the whole of the tenth legion, yet at least the chief portion of it, had its headquarters, together with its baggage and followers.[1355]
[1352] After Flavius Silva had conquered Masada he went back again to Caesarea (Wars of the Jews, vii. 10. 1).—Tacitus also describes Caesarea as Judaeae caput (Tacitus, Hist. ii. 78).
[1353] For further particulars, see Div. II. vol. i. p. 84.
[1354] Josephus, Wars of the Jews, vii. 1. 1: τὸν δʼ ἄλλον ἅπαντα τῆς πόλεως πεοίβολον οὕτως ὲξωμάλισαν οἱ κατασκάπτοντες ὡς μηδὲ πώποτʼ οἰκηθῆναι πίστιν ἄν ἔτι παρασχεῖν τοῖς προσελθοῦσι.
[1355] Compare the details as given by Gregorovius, Sitzungsberichte der philosoph.-philol. und hist. Classe der Münchener Akademie, 1883, p. 477 ff.
In regard to the other changes made upon the organization of the Palestinian city communities we have only scattered notices. To what extent Vespasian held the country as a private possession cannot be very clearly understood from the indefinite statements of Josephus (see above, p. 253). His private possessions seem to have extended not merely to the town domains of Jerusalem, but to all Judea—that term being understood in its proper and more restricted sense (πᾶσαν γῆν τῶν Ἰουδαίων). The only new town which Vespasian here founded was the military colony of Emmaus (see above, p. 253). In Samaria, Flavia Neapolis, which rapidly grew and flourished, was then founded. For that its founding belongs to the time of Vespasian is proved not only by its name and by the reference in Pliny, but also by the era of the city, the starting-point of which is to be reckoned about A.D. 72.[1356] It lay upon the site of a place which was previously called Mabortha or Mamortha, in the immediate vicinity of Shechem, so that it soon came to be identified with Shechem.[1357] In the later days of the empire it was one of the most important cities of Palestine.[1358] The inhabitants were wholly or predominantly pagan, as their modes of worship witnessed to by coins prove. Upon not a few of these coins, later than the time of Hadrian, Gerizim is represented, and on its top a temple which was dedicated, according to Damascius, to Ζεὺς ὕψιστος.[1359] The festive games of Neapolis during the second century, and certainly even at a later date, were regarded as amongst the most important in Palestine.[1360]—The founding of Capitolias in Decapolis belongs to the time of Nerva or Trajan; its era begins in A.D. 97 or 98.[1361] Hadrian founded Aelia on the site of Jerusalem, the history of which is given below in the account of the war. Other new foundings of Palestinian cities belong to a period later than that of which we treat, such as that of Diocaesarea=Sepphoris (known under its new name from the time of Antonius Pius, see Div. II. vol. i. p. 136), Diospolis=Lydda, Eleutheropolis (both under Septimius Severus),[1362] Nicopolis=Emmaus (under Heliogabulus).
[1356] The full name in Justin Martyr’s Apology, i. c. 1: ἀπὸ Φλαουΐας Νέας πολεως τῆς Συρίας Παλαιστίνης. Similarly: Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 12. So, too, on the coins. On the coins and on the era, see Noris, Annus et epochae Syromacedonum, v. 5. 2 (ed. Lips. pp. 537-552); Eckhel, Doctr. Num. iii. 433-438; Mionnet, Description de médailles, v. 499-511, Supplem. viii. 344-355; De Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, pp. 244-274. pl. xii.-xiv.
[1357] Josephus, Wars of the Jews, iv. 8. 1: παρὰ τὴν Νεάπολιν καλουμένην, Μαβορθὰ δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων.—Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 13. 69: Neapolis quod antea Mamortha dicebatur.—Eusebius, Onomasticon, ed. Lagarde, p. 290: Συχὲμ ἡ καὶ Σίκιμα ἢ καὶ Σαλήμ· πόλις Ἰακὼβ νῦν ἔρημος· δείκνυται δὲ ὁ τόπος ἐν προαστείοις Νέας πόλεως. Ibid. p. 274, s.v. Λουζά· παρακειμένη Συχὲμ ἀπὸ θʹ σημείου Νέας πόλεως; instead of which Jerome gives in his text more correctly: in tertio lapide Neapoleos; Epiphanius, Haer. 72. 23: ἐν Σικίμοις τουτέστιν ἐν τῇ Νεαπόλει. So, too, Haer. 80. 1.—Jerome, “Peregr. Paulae,” in Tobler, Palaestinae descriptiones, p. 23 (=Jerome, Opp. ed. Vallarsi, i. 703): “Sichem, non ut plerique errantes legunt Sichar, quae nunc Neapolis appellatur.”—Compare generally: Reland, Palaestina, pp. 1004-1010; Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, iii. 95-136; Williams in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ii. 411, 412; Ritter, Erdkunde, xvi. 637-658; Kühn, Die städtische und bürgerliche Verfassung des röm. Reichs, ii. 56, 355, 356, 364; Sepp, Jerusalem, 2 Aufl. ii. 37-66; Guérin, Samarie, i. 390-424; Baedeker-Socin, Palästina, p. 342 ff.; The Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs by Conder and Kitchener, ii. 203-210, and Sheet xi. of the large English Map.—The articles on Shechem in the Bible dictionaries of Smith, Kitto, and Fairbairn; and “Sichem” in those of Winer, Schenkel, and Riehm.
[1358] By Septimius Severus it was deprived of the jus civitatis (Spartian. vita Severi, c. 9), but the same emperor at a later period again restored to it that privilege (Spartian. vita Severi, c. 14: “Palaestinis poenam remisit quam ob causam Nigri meruerant”). Under Philip the Arabian, according to the evidence of the coins, it was made into a Roman colony. Ammianus Marcellnus designates it as one of the greatest of the cities of Palestine (Ammian. xiv. 8. 11).
[1359]a On the numerous extant coins, from Domitian down to the middle of the third century, we meet with Serapis, Apollo, the Ephesian Diana, and other deities. In regard to the temple on Gerizim, see “Damascius” in Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 242, ed. Bekker, p. 345b): ἐν ᾦ Διὸς ὑψίστου ἁγιώτατον ἱερόν. Renan, L’église chrétienne, p. 222. On the earlier and later history of the worship on Gerizim, see Eckhel, Docr. Num. iii. 434.—The flourishing condition of Hellenistic culture and religion in Neapolia is also proved by a marble basis of a tripod recently found there. On the relief of this marble are represented the battles of the gods and the heroes, especially of Theseus and Hercules. According to an inscription discovered there, the tripod, probably also the marble basis, had been brought by the founder from Athens. See Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, vi. 230 f., vii. 136 f.
[1360]b See the inscription of the time of Marcus Aurelius in Le Bas and Waddington, Inscriptions, t. iii. 2, n. 1620b, communicated literally and in full in Div. II. vol. i. p. 24.
[1361] Eckhel, Doer. Num. iii. 328 sq.—For the literature on Capitolias, which possibly may be identical with Raphana, see Div. II. vol. i. p. 106.—Capitolias is mentioned in Ptolemy, v. 16. 22; Itinerarium Antonini, ed. Wesseling, pp. 196 sq., 198; Tabula Peuting. Hieroclis Synecdem. ed. Wesseling, p. 720; Geogr. Ravennas, ed. Finder et Parthey, p. 84; Acts of Councils in Le Quien, Oriens christianus, iii. 715 sq.; Orelli, Inscr. Lat. n. 941=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 210; ibid. t. x. n. 532; Ephemeris epigraphica, t. iv. p. 331 (D II.), t. v. pp. 211-398; coins from Marcus Aurelius down to Macrinus.—Many (e.g. Kuhn, Die städtische und bürgerliche Verfassung, u. 372) erroneously refer to our Capitolias the notice of the jurist Paulus in Digest. 1. 15. 8. 7: similes his Capitulenses esse videntur, i.e. like Caesarea, which, as a colony, had not the full jus Italicum. Capitolias was, according to the coins, αὐτόνομος, and therefore not a Roman colony. Paulus means Aelia Capitolina, that is, Jerusalem, M the parallel passage in Ulpian (Digest, 1. 15. 1. 6) proves: “In Palestina duae fuerunt coloniae, Caesariensis et Aelia Capitolina, sed neutra jus Italicum habet.” The correct view is given in Noris, Annus et epochae Syromacedonum, iii. 9. 4, ed. Lips. 326; Deyling, Observationes sacrae, v. 475; but Deyling erroneously names Noris as maintaining the contrary opinion.
[1362] Stark, Gaza und die philistäisohe Küste, p. 553.
The destruction of Jerusalem brought about a violent revolution in the inner life of the Jewish people. No longer a Sanhedrim and no longer a sacrificial service,—the loss of those two great institutions was of itself sufficient to produce a profound change in the conditions of Jewish life. But it has first of all to be established that the sacrificial service actually did cease.[1363] Not only the Epistle to the Hebrews, the date of the composition of which is uncertain, but also Clement of Rome and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, who undoubtedly wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, speak as if in their time the Jewish sacrificial worship was still maintained.[1364] And Josephus also expresses himself quite to the same effect. Not only where he describes the Jewish sacrificial worship in accordance with the Old Testament,[1365] but also where he apparently speaks of the customs and practices of his own time, he employs the present tense.[1366] It is indeed the fact that when speaking of the sacrifices for the Roman people and for the Roman emperor he makes use of this mode of expression, although this was purely a later custom, and was not a prescription of the Old Testament.[1367] Besides this, we have also scattered allusions in the rabbinical literature, which seem to indicate the continuance of the sacrificial service after A.D. 70.[1368] It is not to be wondered at that many on the basis of such material should have maintained the continuance of the sacrificial worship. In itself this was quite a possible thing. In an interesting passage in the Mishna,[1369] R. Joshua testifies: “I have heard that one ought to present sacrifice even if there be no temple; that one should eat that which is sanctified [on this see Division II. vol. i. p. 236], even though there be no wall around the court; that one may eat what is holy in a lower degree [see on this Division II. vol. i. p. 240] and the second tithe, even if there should be no wall around Jerusalem; for the first consecration has sanctified, not only for its own time, but for all future time.” It was not therefore in utter opposition to the views of the Rabbis that men should continue after the destruction of the temple to offer sacrifices in holy places. But as a matter of fact this was not done. In the enumeration of the unfortunate days of Israel it is distinctly said that on 17th Thammuz the daily sacrifice was abolished (בָּטַל הַתָּמִיד),[1370] while there is nowhere any reference made to its restoration, In the description of the Passover in the Mishna, the enumeration of the dishes that had to be set upon the table is concluded with the remark: “During the time that the temple was standing the Paseover offering also was served.[1371] This implies that after the destruction of the temple it was no longer offered. In speaking of the legal enactments for determining the new moon it is said: “So long as the temple remained standing those who had seen the new moon were allowed to violate the Sabbath by going to Jerusalem, in order to testify thereto, for the sake of the observance of the sacrifice on the festival of the new moon.”[1372] The harmonious testimony of those passages of the Mishna is confirmed by others in the Babylonian Talmud of a character yet more direct, if that were possible, which assume even in regard to the times of Rabban Jochanan ben Saccai, Rabban Gamaliel II. and R Ishmael, i.e. the first decade after the destruction of the temple, that the whole sacrificial worship had ceased.[1373] Finally, Justin also appears as a witness on behalf of this view. He says to his opponent Trypho: “God never appointed the Passover to be offered except in the place where His name was to be called upon, knowing that after the passion of Christ the days would come, when even Jerusalem would be given over to our enemies, and all sacrifices should cease.”[1374] And in another passage Trypho himself says in answer to Justin’s question as to whether it was not then still possible to observe all the commands of Moses: “By no means, for we know well that it is not allowable to slay the paschal lamb nor the goats for the Day of Atonement, nor generally to present any of the other offerings in any other place”[1375]—If, then, Christian writers and Josephus, even long after the destruction of the temple, still speak of the presenting of sacrifices in the present tense, they only describe thereby what is still allowable, but a right that was no longer actually exercised. Precisely the same view is presented in the Mishna from the first page to the last, for all institutions that are legally correct are described as existing customs, even although their observance owing to the circumstances of the time was impossible.[1376]
[1363] Compare the careful demonstration in Friedmann and Gräts, “Die angebliche Fortdauer des jüdischen Opfercultus nach der Zerstörung de zweiten Tempels” (Theol. Jahrbücher, 1848, pp. 338-371).—Against them: Friedenthal in Fürst’s Literaturblatt des Orients, 1849, col. 328-322.—Against him again: Friedmann in Literaturblatt, 401, 433, 465, 534, 548.—In reply: Friedenthal, Literaturblatt, 492, 524, 573, 702.—Derenbourg. Historie de la Palestine, pp. 480-483.
[1364] Clemens Romanus, c. 41; Epist. ad Diognetum, c. 3.
[1365] Josephus, Antiq. iii. 9-10.
[1366] Josephus, Treatise against Apion, ii. 23.
[1367] Josephus, Treatise against Apion, ii. 6, s. fin.: “facimus autem pro eis continua eacrificia; et non solum quotidianis diebus ex impensa communi omnium Judaeorum talia celebramus, verum.… solis imperatoribus hunc honorem praecipuum pariter exhiberuus.”
[1368] The most deserving of attention is Pesachim vii. 2, where the question is discussed whether one should roast the paschal lamb on a gridiron. “R. Zadok said: Once Rabban Gamaliel spoke to his slave Tabi: Go and roast us the paschal lamb on the gridiron.” Since a slave Tabi is elsewhere named as servant of Gamaliel the second, about A.D. 90-110 (Berachoth ii. 7; Succa ii. 1), it would seem that this later Gamaliel is the one intended in this place.
[1369] Edujoth viii. 6.
[1370] Taanith iv. 6. Compare what is said above, p. 242.
[1371] Pesachim x. 3.
[1372] Rosh hashana i. 4.
[1373] Rosh hashana 31b, Pesachim 72b, Sebachim 60b, in Friedmann and Giätz, Theol. Jahrbücher, 1848, p. 349 ff.
[1374] Justin, Dialogus cum Trypho, c. 40: εἰδὼς ὅτι ἐλεύσονται ἡμέραι μετὰ τὸ παθεῖν τὸν Χριστόν, ὅτε καὶ ὁ τόπος τῆς Ἱερουσαλὴμ τοῖς ἑχθροῖς ὑμῶν παραδοθήσεται καὶ παύσονται ἅπασαι ἁπλῶς προσφοραι γινομεναι.
[1375] Justin, Dialogus cum Trypho, c. 46: Οὐ· γνωρίζομεν γὰρ ὅτι, ὡς ἔφης, οὔτε πρόβατον τοῦ πάσχα ἀλλαχόσε θύειν δυνατὸν οὔτε τοὺς τῇ νηστείᾳ κελευσθέντας προσφέρεσθαι χιμάρους οὔτε τὰς ἄλλας ἁπλῶς ἁπάσας προσφοράς.
[1376] In the statement about Gamaliel and his slave Tabi it is indeed Gamaliel I. that is intended, and the name of Tabi has crept in by mistake. It may, however, be conjectured that Tabi as a youth had served the grandfather and as an old man the grandson (so Derenbourg), or that the name Tabi had come to be hereditary in the family of the slave just as Gamaliel in the family of the master (so Friedmann and Grätz).
Two facts, therefore, of the highest importance and most widely influential are well established: the abolition of the Sanhedrim and the cessation of the sacrificial worship.[1377] In the Sanhedrim there had been embodied the last remnant of the political independence of Judaism, and consequently also the last remnant of the power of the Sadducean nobles. The influence of the Sadducean nobility even since the times of Alexandra had been waning before the advancing strength of the Pharisees. They still managed, however, to exert a very considerable influence so long as the Sanhedrim continued to exist. For the jurisdiction of that aristocratic senate of Judea was down to the time of the procurators pretty extensive, and at its head stood the Sadducean high priest. With the destruction of Jerusalem this Jewish council was immediately brought to an end; the Roman provincial constitution was enforced in a stricter form. With the disappearance of the Sanhedrim, Sadduceanism also disappears from history.—The overthrow of the city, however, led also to the suppression of the sacrificial worship, and therewith the gradual recession of the priesthood from public life. This was only carried out by degrees. It could not for a long time be believed that the disastrous circumstances in which the people were placed were to continue. It seemed to be only a question of the time when the priests should be able again to resume their services. Naturally, all dues were exacted after as well as before the catastrophe. Only the taxes which had been contributed directly for the maintenance of the temple and of the public sacrifices were declared by the Rabbins to be suspended. The contribution devoted to the personal support of the priests continued after as Well as before a duty according to the law, and where there were priests, were given over directly to them.[1378] But notwithstanding all this, the priesthood, now that it could no longer perform its service, lost its importance. It was a memorial of a past age, which indeed, as time went on, sank more and more into obscurity and decay.
[1377] On the suppression of the Sanhedrim, see also Sota ix. 11, quoted literally in Div. II. vol. i. p. 173.
[1378] Shekalim viii. 8: “The Shekalim or tax of two drachmas and the Bikkurim or first-fruits of the produce of the fields were presented only while the temple stood, but the tithe of the grain and the tithe of the cattle and the first-born were presented all the same, whether the temple stood or not.”—These three imposts are here mentioned only by way of example as the most important. There remained in force, e.g. also the Teruma (Bikkurim ii. 3) and the tax of the three pieces of the slaughtered victims, namely, the right fore-leg, the cheeks, and the stomach (Chullin x. 1). Further details on all these imposts are given in Div. II. vol. i. pp. 230-236.—The priest’s due of the right shoulder is witnessed to as a custom of his time by the Emperor Julian in Cyrill. adv. Julian, p. 306 A: καὶ τὸν δεξιὁν ὦμον διδόασιν ἀπαρχὰς τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν, where it is not to be a trans lated as by Neumann (Kaiser Julians Bücher gegen die Christen, 1880, p. 30) “the right shoulder,” but “the right fore-leg,” for it reste not upon Leviticus 7:32, but upon Deuteronomy 18:3. Compare also Friedmann and Grätz, Theol. Jahrbücher, 1848, p. 369 ff.
The Pharisees and the Rabbis now entered into the heritage of the Sadducees and priests. They had an admirable preparation for entering upon this heritage. During two centuries they had been making steady progress toward dominant power. And now for a time they entered upon the enjoyment of absolute sovereignty. The overthrow of Jerusalem means nothing more or less than the passing over of the people to Pharisaism and the Rabbis; for the factors which had hitherto stood in opposition to these had now sunk into utter insignificance.
After the overthrow of Jerusalem, Jamnia (Jabne) seems in a special way to have become a centre of literary activity. There, during the first decade after the destruction of the temple, wrought Rabban Jochanan ben Saccai, and, at the end of the first and beginning of the second century, Rabban Gamaliel II., gathering around them a whole band of scholars. The most celebrated of the contemporaries of Gamaliel were R. Josua ben Chananja and R. Elieser ben Hyrcanus, the latter of whom had his residence at Lydda. Younger contemporaries and pupils of these men were R. Ishmael, R. Akiba, and R. Tarphon. See in regard to all these scholars and their contemporaries, Div. II. vol. i. pp. 366-379.
By these men and by their numerous colleagues and scholars, the interpretation of the law was carried on with greater zeal than ever. It was as though, after the political overthrow, the whole strength of the nation had concentrated itself upon the care of the law as its own highest and proper task. Everything pertaining to it, the criminal and the civil law, and the manifold religious statutes and ordinances, were dealt with by these scholars with painful particularity, and drilled into the memories of the scholars by their teachers. It did not matter in the least whether the circumstances of the time allowed these ordinances to be put in practice or not. All the minutiae of the temple service, the entire ritual of the sacrificial worship, were discussed as diligently and as earnestly as the laws of purifying, the Sabbath commandment, and other religious duties, the observance of which was still possible. There is nothing so fitted to produce before us a lively picture of the faith of the people in their future as the conscientiousness with which the prescriptions about the temple service and the sacrificial worship were treated by the guardians of the law. The time of desolation might continue for a longer or shorter period, but once again the day of restoration would surely dawn. And hence, in the cataloguing by the scribes in the second century of the Jewish law in the corpus juris or Mishna, there are included a topography of the temple in the tract Middoth and a description of the distribution of the priests in the daily service in the tract Tamid. Their descendants, to whom was to be granted the privilege of a restored worship, were to be told how it had previously been conducted in the days of the fathers.
The scholars who after this fashion cared for the highest interests of Israel formed now even more exclusively and unrestrictedly than before the rank of the highest authorities among the people. The priests, who had previously been the most influential in the direction and practice of religious duties, were now relegated to a condition of inactivity. All the energies of the pious had now to be restricted to the doing of that which the Rabbins prescribed to them. There was no need of any external compulsion. Whatever the most distinguished teachers had laid down was regarded by the pious without any further question as obligatory. Indeed, they were not only recognised as lawgivers in spiritual and temporal things, but in all matters of dispute they were appealed to as judges, even in questions of meum and tuum. During this period it was indeed no uncommon occurrence to see, e.g., R. Akiba, purely by means of his spiritual authority, condemning a man to pay 400 denarii compensation, because he had on the street uncovered his head to a woman.[1379]
[1379] Baba kamma viii. 6.
The court of law at Jamnia enjoyed the highest reputation toward the end of the first and in the beginning of the second century after Christ, a college of learned men, which can scarcely have had any formal recognition from the Roman authorities, but yet actually stepped into the place of the old Sanhedrim of Jerusalem, as the supreme court of law for Israel. The enactments passed by Rabban Jochanan ben Saccai in Jamnia after the destruction of the temple, in order to adapt certain legal requirements to the altered circumstance of the times, were regarded as binding.[1380] Rabban Gamaliel II. and his court of justice watched over the correct reckoning of the contents of the calendar. To its decisions the elder R. Josua submitted, even if he considered them to be erroneous.[1381] As a rule the decisions on points of law issuing from Jamnia were treated as constituting the authoritative standard.[1382] Indeed, the succession of Jamnia to the privileges of Jerusalem was so generally acquiesced in, that where this was not the case, it was pointed to as an exception to the rule.[1383] Even in regard to the number of members, they seem to have copied the pattern of the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem. At least there occurs in one place a statement to the effect that “the seventy-two elders” appointed as president R. Eleasar ben Asariah.[1384]—We may assume that this court of justice at Jamnia was voluntarily accepted by the Jewish people as authoritative, not only in the domain of the ceremonial law, but also in the domain of the civil and criminal law. In reference to the civil law it may indeed have received actual authorization, in accordance with the, general procedure in legislation. For the Roman legislation, so far as we can understand it, recognised the authority of the Jewish communities in the Dispersion to administer the law in civil suits among their countrymen, wherever the contending parties chose to bring their disputes before their own communal court.[1385] But in criminal matters this jurisdiction bore the character of a usurped authority, rather than of one conferred by the emperor. Origen very vividly, and at the same time authentically, describes to us the state of matters which then prevailed. In vindicating the story of Susanna and Daniel, he endeavours to prove that the Jews might quite well have had their own judicatories during the Babylonian exile. In proof of this he refers to the state of matters in Palestine in his own days, of which he knew from his own observation. The power of the Jewish Ethnarch (so Origen designates him) is so great, that he is in no respect different from a king (ὠς μηδὲν διαφέρειν βασιλεύοντος τοῦ ἔθνους). “There are also secret legal proceedings in accordance with the law, and many are condemned to death without any general authority having been obtained for the exercise of such functions, and without any attempt to conceal such doings from the governor.”[1386] This was the state of matters during the third century, In the first decades after the destruction of Jerusalem, they would not have ventured to go so far. Yet this was the direction in which things were tending.—To this Jewish central court in Palestine, whose president subsequently received the title of Patriarch, were also paid the contributions of the Jews of the Dispersion, so far as these continued to be collected after the destruction of the temple. At least for the period of the later days of the empire this can be proved to demonstration. In this matter also the Rabbis take the place of the priests. For previously the contributions were cast into the central treasury of the priests at Jerusalem. It was now a rabbinical board which made the collection by means of their apostoli, and superintended its proper distribution. See Div. II. vol. ii. pp. 269, 288.
[1380] Sukka iii. 12; Rosh hashana iv. 1, 3, 4; Menachoth x. 5. Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 304 sq.
[1381] Rosh hashana ii. 8-9.—According to Edujoth vii. 7, once in Gamaliel’s absence the year was declared to be an intercalary year, on the condition that he would confirm this opinion when he returned.
[1382] Kelim v. 4; Para vii, 6. Compare also Bechoroth iv. 5, vi. 8 (how they were wont to do in Jamnia in making inspection of the first-born).
[1383] Sanhedrin xi. 4; Rosh hashana iv. 2.
[1384]a Sebachim i. 3; Jadajim iii. 5, iv. 2. Compare Div. II. vol. ii. pp. 370, 372.
[1385] Josephus, Antiq. xiv. 10.17; Codex Theodosianus, ii. 1. 10: ex consensu partium in civili duntaxat negotio. Compare Div. II. vol. ii. pp. 263, 269.—According to Edujoth vii. 7, Gamaliel II. once made a journey to the governor (Hegemon) of Syria (it should be “of Judea”) “in order to obtain a permission from him” (לטול רשות מהגמון בסוריא). It is possible it had to do with an investiture, or extension, or execution of legislative functions.
[1386] Origen, Epistola ad Africanum, § 14, given literally in Div. II. vol, i. p. 173.
All zeal for the law of their fathers in this later time, at least among the great majority of the pious, had its motive power in the belief in a glorious future for the nation. Such was the case even before the great catastrophe; and so it continued in a yet more exaggerated degree after that terrible event. If now, more zealously than ever, the people occupied themselves with the scrupulous fulfilment of the commandments of God, certainly the most powerful motive working in this direction was the wish to render themselves thereby worthy of the future glory in which they so confidently believed. In regard to this religious movement during the first decades after the overthrow of the holy city, the Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra, which had their origin in that very period, afford us a lively as well as an authentic picture. On these Apocalypses see Div. II. vol. iii. pp. 83-114. The immediate consequence of the terrible slaughter was indeed a profound and paralyzing shook to the feelings. How could God permit this disaster to befall His own chosen people? But this grand mystery was only a particular instance of the universal mystery: How is the misfortune of the righteous generally and the good fortune of the unrighteous possible? Through the darkness of this latter problem the pious consciousness of Israel had long ago successfully struggled. So now also a satisfactory answer was soon found. It is a chastisement which God has inflicted upon His people because of their sin. It has its own appointed time. When the people by means of it shall have learned righteousness, the promised day of redemption will soon dawn for them. This is the fundamental idea of both of these apocalypses, and their purpose is to comfort the people in their distress, to inspire them with courage and with holy zeal by visions of the redemption that will come to them surely and soon. The confident belief in this future was therefore only intensified, confirmed, and inflamed by the sore sufferings and sad disasters of the time. Out of the grief for the overthrow of the sanctuary, the Messianic hope drew new nourishment, new strength. This was also, from a political point of view, important, and productive of serious consequences. For this Messianic hope was a wonderful blending of religious and political ideals. The political aspirations of the nation had never been abandoned, and the element of danger just lay in the combination of them with religious motives. The political freedom of the nation, which the people longed for, was now represented as the end of the ways of God. The more firmly this was believed, the more readily did the people set out of view the cool calculations of what is humanly possible, the bolder became their resolve to dare even the impossible. It was this feeling which even in the time of Nero had broken out in rebellion. In it there also still lay hidden elements that yet would lead to new and frightful catastrophes.
Under the emperors of the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, down to A.D. 96) there does not seem to have been any more serious development of these tendencies. Sufficient occasion, however, was presented for giving expression to those already present. For the command to contribute what had been the temple-tax to the Capitoline Jupiter at Rome (see above, p. 255), was an outrage upon the religious sensibilities of the Jews, which every year, on the levying of the tax, must afresh have roused the feeling of resentment. Under Domitian this tax was levied with great strictness, as generally this emperor posed as a decided enemy of the Jews, and conversion to Judaism was punished by the imposition of severe penalties.[1387]
[1387] Enforcement of the tax, Suetonius, Domitian, 12; prohibition of conversions to Judaism, Dio Cassius, lxvii. 14. Both passages are quoted in full in Div. II. vol. ii. p. 267.
Eusebius speaks of an actual persecution of the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem, even during Vespasian’s reign, referring to Hegesippus as his authority. Vespasian, as well as Domitian and Trajan, is said by Hegesippus to have hunted for and executed all Jews of the house of David with great rigour, in order that the royal family, on which the Jews rested their hopes, should be rooted out.[1388] This order led to a great persecution of the Jews under Vespasian.[1389] We have no longer any means of determining how far this story is historical. It can scarcely be altogether without foundation, for that a Messiah descending from the house of David was expected is beyond dispute. The existence, therefore, of descendants of David might actually be looked upon as a source of political danger. This “persecution,” however, cannot have been of great dimensions and importance, since it is not taken notice of by any other writer.—Whether political uprisings occurred in Judea under Domitian is certainly very questionable. From certain hints in a military diploma of A.D. 86, some have supposed that such disturbances must have taken place. Meanwhile, these conclusions have not by any means been satisfactorily proved. See above, p. 259.—On the other hand, the outbursts which occurred, first outside of Judea and afterwards in Judea itself, under Trajan and Hadrian, spread widely, and led to scenes of terrible violence.
[1388] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iii. 12 (Vespasian); ibid. iii. 19-20 (Domitian); ibid. iii. 32. 3-4 (Trajan); reference being made in all cases to Hegesippus.
[1389] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iii. 12: Οὐεσπασιανὸν μετὰ τὴν τῶν Ἱεροσολύμων ἅλωσιν πάντας τοὺς ἀπὸ γἑνους Δαβὶδ … ἀναζητεῖσθαι προστάξαι, μἐγιστόν τε Ἰουδαίοις αὖθις ἑκ ταύτης διωγμὸν ἐπαρτηθῆναι τῆς αἰτίας.
2. THE WAR UNDER TRAJAN, A.D. 115-117
SOURCES
DIO CASSIUS, lxviii. 32.
EUSEBIUS, Hist. eccl. iv. 2; Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq.
OROSIUS, vii. 12, almost wholly according to Jerome’s Latin reproduction of the Chronicle of Eusebius.
LITERATURE
MÜNTER, Der jüdische Krieg unter den Kaisern Trajan und Hadrian (1821), pp. 10-29.
CASSEL in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedie, sec. ii. Bd. xxvii. 1850, p. 12 f. (in art. “Juden”).
GRÄTZ, Geschichte der Juden, Bd. iv. p. 123 ff.
DERENBOURG, Histoire de la Palestine, pp. 402-412.
NEUBÜRGER, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft Judenthums, 1873, pp. 386-397.
EWALD, History of Israel, viii. pp. 271-276.
MORRISON, The Jews under the Roman Empire, pp. 189-194.
HAUSRATH, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 2 Aufl. iv. 181-189.
RENAN, Les Évangiles (1877), pp. 503-512.
VOLKMAR, “Zur Chronologie des Trajanischen Partherkrieges mit Rücksicht auf die Ignatiustradition und eine neue Quelle”(Rhein. Museum, Neue Folge, Bd. xii. 1857, pp. 481-511).
VOLKMAR, “Der parthische und jüdische Kreig Trajans nach den Quellen” (Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft. XV. Jahrg. 1857, Nr. 61-65).
VOLXXAR, Handbuch der Einleitung in dis Apokryphen, 1 Thl. Abth. 1, Judith. 1860.
DIERAUER in Büdinger’s Untersuchungen zur röm. Kaisergeschichte, i. 1868, p. 182 f.
DE LA BERGE, Essai sur le règne de Trajan (1877), pp. 182-184.
SOHILLER, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 2 (1883), p. 561 f.
MOMMSEN, Römischs Geschichte, Bd. v. (1885) pp. 542-544 Compare p. 397 ff.
Trajan, during the last years of his life, A.D. 114-117, was incessantly occupied in bold expeditions of conquest in the farthest eastern parts of the empire.[1390] While he was, in A.D. 115, engaged in the conquest of Mesopotamia, the Jews in Egypt and Cyrene, taking advantage of the emperor’s absence, “as if driven along by the wild spirit of revolution, began to make riots against the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land.”[1391] The rebellion reached such dimensions in the following year, A.D. 116, that it assumed the character of a formal war.[1392] The Roman governor of Egypt, M. Rutilius Lupus, seems not to have been aware of the strength of the Jews. In an engagement the rebel Jews conquered the “Greeks,” and compelled them to fly to Alexandria. There, in the capital, the Greeks had decidedly the upper hand, and the Jews residing there were seized and slain.[1393]
[1390] On Trajan’s wars in the East, compare, besides the above-named works of Volkmar, H. Francke, Zur Geschichte Trajan’s (2 Ausg. 1840), pp. 249-300; Dierauer, “Beiträge zu einer kritischen Geschichte Trajan’s,” pp. 152-186 (in Büdinger’s Untersuchungen zur römischen Kaisergeschichte, Bd. i. 1868); De la Berge, Essai sur le règne de Trajan (Paris 1877), pp. 149-190; Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 2 (1883) pp. 555-563; Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, v. 397 ff.; Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans und seiner Nachbarländer (1888), pp. 140-146.
[1391] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2: Ἔν τε γὰρ Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ καὶ τῇ λοιπῃ Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ προσέτι κατὰ Κυρήνην ὥσπερ ὑπὸ πνεύματος δεινοῦ τινὸς καὶ στασιώδους ἀναρʼῥιπισθέντες ὥρμηντο πρὸς τοὺς συνοίκους Ἕλληνας στασιάζειν.—With reference to the war in Egypt, the oldest witness, though very brief, is Appian, Civ. ii. 90. Appian there relates how that Caesar had dedicated a sanctuary at Alexandria to the memory of Pompey; and then proceeds: ὅπερ ἐπʼ ἐμοῦ κατὰ Ῥωμαίων αὐτοκράτορα Τραϊανόν, ἐξολλύντα τὸ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ Ἰουδαίων γένος, ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐς τὰς τοῦ πολέμου χρείας κατηρείφθη.—Undoubtedly the reference is to this period in a fragment of Appian in which he tells how he had been obliged to flee from Egypt at the time of the war with the Jews (Revue archéologique, Nouve Série, t xix. 1869, pp. 101-110=Müller, Fragmenta hist. graec. (v. 1, p. lxv.).
[1392] The chronology is not quite certain. Dierauer and Schiller assume for the Jewish revolt only the one year A.D. 117; Mommsen, the years 116-117; Clinton (Fasti Romani) t. i.), de la Berge, and others, the years 115-117 (the first beginning in 115, and extending more widely in 116). The latter view is the correct one. For Eusebius, not only in his Chronicle, whose dates are often quite arbitrarily given (Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164, ad ann. Abr. 2131), but also in his Church History, definitely characterizes the eighteenth year of Trajan as the time when the revolt began (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2: ἤδη γοῦν τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος εἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ὀκτωκαιδέκατον ἐλαύνοντος, αὖθις Ἰουδαίων κίνησις ἐπαναστᾶσα κ.τ.λ.). But the eighteenth year of Trajan reaches from the end of January 115 down to the end of January 116. (On the day of Nerva’s death, see Dierauer, p. 27 f.) In the following year, that is, 116, and, indeed, while Lupus was governor of Egypt, the rebellion assumed larger proportions (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2: αὐξήσαντές τε εἰς μέγα τὴν στάσιν τῷ ἐπιόντι ἐνιαυτῷ πόλεμον οὐ σμικρὸν συνῆψαν, ἡγουμένου τηνικαῦτα Λούπου τῆς ἁπάσης Αἰγύπτου).—The correctness of this statement is confirmed by the chronology of the governors of Egypt, which for these years can be determined with tolerable accuracy (comp. Franz in Corpus Inscr. Graec. t. iii. p. 312).
[1393] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2; Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq. (at the eighteenth year of Trajan, 2131 Abr.); Orosius, vii. 12: “In Alexandria autem commisso proelio victi et adriti sunt.” Compare also Buxtorf, Lexicon Chald. col. 99, s.v. אלכסנדריא; Derenbourg, Histoire, pp. 410-412; Wünsche, Der jerusakmische Talmud (1880), p. 125 f.—In the Chronicle of Eusebius it is remarked on the first year of Hadrian that this emperor restored Alexandria that had been destroyed by the Jews (or Romans?). See Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq., according to the Armenian: “Adrianus Alexandriam a Judaeis subversam restauravit;” according to Jerome: “Hadrianus Alexandriam a Romanis [sic] subversam publicis instauravit expensis.” The city must therefore have suffered severely, even though it might not have been, strictly speaking, “destroyed.” See, on the other side, Münter, pp. 19-23. The conjecture of Mommsen, that the statement did not originally stand in the text of Eusebius, and was only introduced by a misunderstanding of the Armenian and Latin translators (Römische Geschichte, v. 543) in presence of the agreement of the two, is not tenable.
(1) On the inscription of a temple in the oasis of Thebes, M. Rutilius Lupus is referred to as governor of Egypt during the nineteenth year of Trajan, i.e. A.D. 116 (Letronne, Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines ds l’Égypte, i. 120 sq.=Corpus Inscr. Graec. n. 4948: ἐπὶ Μάρκου Ρουτιλίου Λούπου ἐπάρχου Αἰγύπτου … Λ ιθʹ αὐτοκράτορος Καίσαρος Νερούα Τραϊανοῦ . . παχὼν λʹ; the date corresponds to the 24th May A.D. 116.
(2) In order to quell the rebellion in Cyrene and Egypt, Trajan sent Marcius Turbo (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2). That this man is to be regarded as governor of Egypt, is proved from the circumstance that the governor of Cyrene had no army; Turbo, therefore, can have fought against the rebels in those quarters only as governor of Egypt From Spartian’s Vita Hadriani, however, we know positively that Hadrian subsequently assigned Dacia to him titulo Aegyptiacae praefecturae, i.e. with permission to retain the honorary rank of governor of Egypt (Spartian, Hadrian, c. 7; compare Letronne, i. 164). Turbo was therefore the successor of Lupus, and that during the time of Trajan, A.D. 117.
(3) Eight months and a half after Trajan’s death, i.e. in April A.D. 118, Bammius Martialis is described on an inscription as governor of Egypt (Letronne, Recueil des inscriptions, i. 153, n. xvi.=Corpus Inser. Graec. n. 4713 f.: ἐπὶ Ῥαμμίῳ Μαρτιάλι ἐπάρχῳ Αἰγύπτου … βʹ αὐτοκράτορος Καίσαρος Τραϊανοῦ Ἀδριανοῦ … φαρμουθὶ κή; the date corresponds to 23rd April A.D. 118).—Marcius Turbo had therefore been recalled at the latest in the beginning of A.D. 118 (compare also Spartian, Hadrian, 5: “Marcio Turbone Judaeis compressis ad deprimendum tumultum Mauretaniae destinato”). But since he had quelled the rebellion πολλαῖς μάχαις ἐν οὐκ ὀλίγῳ τε χρόνῳ (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2), his period of office must have filled up the year 117. This is also confirmation of the view that the decided victory of the rebels over Lupus is to be put down to the year 116, and the first beginning of the revolt to the year 115.
Still more furiously did the Jews in Cyrene conduct themselves. Of the cruelties which the Jews there perpetrated upon their non-Jewish fellow-inhabitants a dreadful picture is presented by Dio Cassius. They ate their flesh, besmeared themselves with their blood, sawed them through from above downward, or gave them for food to the wild beasts. The number of the murdered is said to have been as many as 220,000.[1394] Though here, certainly, the pen has been directed by the most extravagant fancy, the extent and importance of the revolt are beyond all dispute. The leader of the Jewish population of Cyrene, whom they proclaimed as their king, is called by Eusebius, Lukuas, by Dio Cassius, Andrew.[1395]
[1394] Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32. Compare Orosius, vii. 12: “Incredibili deinde motu sub uno tempore Judaei, quasi rabie efferati, per diversas terrarum partes exarserunt. Nam et per totam Libyam adversus incolas atrocissima bella gesserunt: quae adeo tunc interfectis cultoribus desolata eat ut nisi postea Hadrianus imperator collectas illuc aliunde colonias deduxisset, vacua penitus terra, abraso habitatore, mansisset. Aegyptum vero totam et Cyrenen et Thebaidam cruentis seditionibus turbaverunt.”
[1395] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2; Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32.
To suppress this revolt Trajan sent one of his best generals, Marcius Turbo.[1396] By means of long-continued and persistent fighting (πολλαῖς μάχαις ἐν οὐκ ὀλίγῳ τε χρόνῳ) he brought the war to an end, and slew many thousands of the Jews, not only of Cyrene, but also those of Egypt, who had attached themselves to their “king” Lukuas.[1397]
[1396] According to an inscription at Sarmizegethusa in Dacia, his full name was Q. Marcius Turbo Fronto Publicius Severus (Orelli, Inscr. Lat. n. 831=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 1462). The same, but incomplete, occurs in Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. xiv. n. 4243.—After the suppression of the Jewish revolt by Hadrian, Marcius Turbo became successively governor of Mauretania, Pannonia, Dacia (Spartian, Hadrian, c. 5 fin. 6 fin. 7), was appointed praefectus praetorio (Spartian, Hadrian, c. 9; Dio Cassius, lxix. 18; Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 1462), and is described as one of the most active men of Hadrian’s time (Dio Cassius, lxix. 18; Frontonis epistulae, ed. Naber, p. 165), but who, as many of his like had done, fell under the suspicion and awakened the dislike of Hadrian (Spartian, Hadrian, c. 15).
[1397] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2.—According to Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq.; Orosius, vii. 12, the revolt had also extended into the Thebaid.
The outbreak had also spread to the island of Cyprus. Under the leadership of a certain Artemio, the Jews there imitated the example of their co-religionists of Cyrene, and murdered 24,000 non-Jewish inhabitants of the island.[1398] The very capital, Salamis, was laid waste by them.[1399] In regard to the suppression of the revolt we have no information. The consequence of it was that henceforth no Jew was allowed to appear upon the island; and if through stress of weather any Jew should happen to be cast upon its coasts, he was put to death.[1400]
[1398] Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32.
[1399] Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq. (on the nineteenth year of Trajan, 2132 Abr.). According to the Armenian: “Salaminam Cipri insulae urbem Judaei adorti sunt et Graecos, quos ibi nacti sunt, trucidarunt, urbemque a fundamentis subverterunt.” According to the Greek in Syncellus, ed. Dindorf, i. 657: Τοὺς ἐν Σαλαμῖνι τῆς Κύπρου Ἕλληνας Ἰουδαῖοι ἀνελόντες τὴν πόλιν κατέσκαψαν.—Orosius, vii. 12: “Sane Salaminam, urbem Cypri, interfectis omnibus accolis deleverunt.”
[1400] Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32.
Finally, when Trajan had pressed on as far as Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian empire, the Jews of Mesopotamia in his rear had become disturbed. Such a disturbance there upon the very frontier of the empire was a most serious affair. Trajan gave orders to the Moorish prince Lusius Quietus, who was at the same time a Roman general, to sweep the rebels out of the province (ἐκκαθᾶραι τῆς ἐπαρχίας αὐτούς). With barbarous cruelty Quietus executed his commission. Thousands of Jews were put to death. Thus was order restored, and Quietus, in recognition of his services, was appointed governor of Palestine.[1401]
[1401] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 2; Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq. (on the eighteenth year of Trajan, 2131 Abr.); Orosius, vii. 12; Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32 (who also gives many personal details about Quietus).—On Lusius Quietus compare also what is said above at p. 262. His name seems at an early date to have been corrupted in the text of the Chronicle of Eusebius, for Jerome has Lysias Quietus, and Syncellus (ed. Dindorf, i. 657), Λυσίας Κύντος. The correct form is given in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. ed. Heinichen, Dio Cassius, ed. Dindorf, and Spartian, Hadrian, c. 5.
The Jewish revolt was not, it would seem, finally suppressed until the beginning of Hadrian’s reign in A.D. 117. At least Eusebius speaks of disturbances in Alexandria which Hadrian had to quell;[1402] and the biographer of Hadrian states that Palestine also had taken its share in the rebellion.[1403] In any case, however, perfect quiet seems to have been restored in the first year of Hadrian.
[1402] Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 164 sq. (on the 1st year of Hadrian, 2133 Abr.). According to the Armenian: “Adrianus Judaeos subegit ter [tertio] contra Romanos rebellantes.” According to Jerome: “Hadrianus Judaeos capit secundo contra Romanos rebellantes.” According to Syncellus: Ἀδριανὸς Ἰουδαίους κατὰ Ἀλεξανδρέων στασιάζοντας ἐκόλασεν,
[1403] Spartan, Hadrian, c. 5: “Lycia denique ac Palaestina rebelles animoe efferebant.
It is very doubtful indeed whether Palestine generally had any share in the rebellion. This is maintained by Volkmar and Grätz in the interest of their conception of the Book of Judith, which they place in this period; but it has been rightly contested by Lipsius and others.[1404] Rabbinical tradition makes mention distinctly of a “war of Quietus,” פוֹלְמוֹס שֶׁל קִיטוֹס;[1405] but there is nothing to oblige us to understand by this any other than the well-known war of Quietus in Mesopotamia. In Megillath, Taanith § 29, the 12th Adar is designated the “day of Trajan,” יום טוריינוס,[1406] and the commentary upon this passage remarks that this day was celebrated in commemoration of the following incident:[1407] Two brothers, Julianus and Pappus, were arrested by Trajan at Laodicea, when the emperor called out to them in mockery: Let your God now save you as he saved Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The two brothers replied that neither he nor they were worthy of having such a miracle wrought, but that God would indeed require their blood of him if he slew them. But before Trajan left that place, an order came from Rome, in consequence of which he was put to death. This fable, which deserves no attention whatever, as it proceeds on the assumption that Trajan was only a subordinate officer, is now forsooth offered as the principal evidence regarding the war of Trajan in Palestine! But it should be observed that even in it there is no mention either of a war or of Judea, but expressly of Laodicea.[1408]—The one thing that seems to favour Volkmar’s view is the statement of Spartian above referred to, according to which, in the beginning of Hadrian’s reign, Palestine rebelles animos efferebat. From this statement, indeed, it would seem to have been not altogether in a quiet condition. But it can hardly have gone the length of an actual war. Otherwise our original authorities would have given a more circumstantial account of it.
[1404] Volkmar, Theolog. Jahrbücher, 1857, pp. 441-498, and especially, Das Buch Judith (1860), pp. 56 ff., 64 ff., 83 ff., 90 ff. Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. 439 ff. On the other side, see Lipsius, Zeitschrift für wistenschaftliche Theologie, 1859, pp. 81-111. On the subject generally, Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift, 1858, p. 270 ff., and 1861, p. 338 ff.; Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 405; Fritzsche in Schenkel’s Bibellexicon, iii. 448 ff.; Renan, Les évangiles, p. 509; Gregorovius, Hadrian, (3 Aufl. 1884), pp. 27, 35-38.
[1405] Mishna, Sota ix. 14, and Seder Olam. sub fin. In both passages, instead of the common reading of the text, פולמוס של טיטוס, we should read: פולמוס שלקיטס. See Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. 439 ff.; Volkmar, Judith, pp. 83-90; Lipsius, Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1859, pp. 97-104; Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 404 f.; Salzer, Magazin für dis Wissenschaft des Judenthums, iv. 1877, pp. 141-144.—In the Mishna passages קיטס is the reading in: (1) a manuscript of the Royal Library at Berlin (MSS. Or. fol. 567, previously in private hands; it is the same to which Grätz had referred). (2) The Cambridge Manuscript, edited by Lowe in 1883 (University Additional, 470. 1). In the passage from the Seder Olam, this same reading is found in an old manuscript collated by Azariah de Rossi. See Grätz in the work above quoted. In the latter passage this reading is also required by the context; for there are, according to it, fifty-two years to be reckoned between the war of Vespasian and the war of the קיטוס, and from that to the war of Ben-Cosiba (Bar-Cochba), 16 years. Also in the Mishna passage the war of the קיטס follows upon the war of Vespasian, and then after that “the last war,” i.e. that of Bar-Cochba.
[1406] Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, pp. 443, 446. On the forms of the name טוריינוס, טיריון, etc., see Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 408.
[1407] See Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 406 f.; Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. p. 445 ff.; Volkmar, Judith, pp. 90-100; Lipeius, Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1869, pp. 104-110.
[1408] At the basis of the legend there may lie probably an obscure reminiscence of the fact that Lueius Quietus, the oppressor of the Jews, was recalled by Hadrian, and subsequently executed (Spartian, Hadrian. 5 and 7).
3. THE GREAT REBELLION UNDER HADRIAN, A.D. 132-135
SOURCES
DIO CASSIUS, lxix. 12-14.
EUSEBIUS, Hist. eccl. iv. 6; Chronicon, ed Schoene, ii. 166-169.
On Aristo of Pella, see vol. i. of this work, pp. 69-72.
Rabbinical traditions in Derenbourg, pp. 412-438. A collection of the rabbinical texts which refer to the history of Beth-ther is given in Lebrecht, Bether, pp. 43-50; comp, also p. 20 f.
On the coins, see Appendix IV.
LITERATURE
BASNAGE, Histoire des Juifs, t. vii. (according to another arrangement, t. xi.), 1716, pp. 328-378.
TILLEMONT, Histoire des empereurs, t. ii. (Venice 1732), pp. 285-296.
MÜNTER, Der jüdische Krieg unter den Kaisern Trajan und Hadrian, 1821; a most comprehensive monograph.
CASSEL in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedie, sec. ii. Bd. 27, 1850, pp. 13-16 (in article “Juden”).
HERZFELD, Zur Geschiehte des Barkochba (Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1856, pp. 101-111).
GRÄTZ, Geschichte der Juden, Bd. iv. 2 Aufl. pp. 138-183.
JOST, Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Sekten, ii. 75-83.
DERENBOURG, Histoire de la Palestine, pp. 412-438.
NEUBÜRGER, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1873, pp. 433-445, 529-536.
WILLIAMS, The Holy City, vol. i. pp. 209-213.
MORRISON, The Jews under the Roman Empire, pp. 198-206.
“The Jewish Wars under Hadrian and Trajan” (Journal of Sacred Literature, vol. vii. 1851, pp. 439-444).
EWALD, History of Israel, viii. 271-311
HAUSRATH, Neutestamentliche Zeitgesch. 2 Aufl. iv. 327-342.
RENAN, L’église, chrétienne (1879), pp. 186-228, 541-553. Revue historigue, t. ii. 1876, pp. 112-120.
SALZER, “Der Aufstand des Bar-Cochba” (Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums, iii. 1876, pp. 121-139, 173-190; iv. 1877, pp. 17-38).
HAMBURGER, Real-Encyclopaedie für Bibel und Talmud, Abth. ii., articles Akib, Barkochba, Bethar, Hadrian, Hadrianische Verfolgungsedikte.
DERENBOURG, “Quelques Notes sur la guerre de Bar Kozeba” (Mélanges publiés par l’école des hautes etudes, Paris 1878, pp. 167-173).
DARMESTETER, “Notes épigraphiques,” etc. (Revue des études juives, t. i. 1880, pp. 42-55).
SCHILLER, Geschichte der römische Kaiserzeit, i. 2,1883, pp. 612-615.
MOMMSEN, Römische Geschichte, v. pp. 544-546.
GREGOROVIUS, Der Kaiser Hadrian (3 Aufl. 1884), pp. 38 f., 147-153, 188-216.
GREGOROVIUS, “Die Gründung der römischen Colonie Aelia Capitolina” (Sitzungsberichte der philos.-philol. und hist. Classe der Münchener Akademie, 1883, pp. 477-508).
SCHWARZ, Der Bar-Kochbaische Aufstand, Brünn 1885 (worthless; see Bursian’s Jahresber. der class. Alterthumswissensch. pp. 48, 282 f.).
A late Jewish legend tells how in the days of Joshua ben Chananiah, that is, in the time of Hadrian, the pagan government had granted authority to proceed with the building of the temple. But the Samaritans had made representations against the enterprise. And in consequence of these the emperor had not indeed withdrawn the permission, but issued a decree that the new building should not be erected precisely on the site of the old temple, which came to the same thing as an actual prohibition. Then the Jews gathered together in factions in the valley of Beth-Rimmon. But R. Joshua, in order to quiet them, told them the story of the lion and the stork: as the stork ought to be glad to have got its head uninjured out of the jaws of the lion, so also ought they to be glad if they were allowed to live in peace under a heathen government.[1409] The historical value of this legend is simply nil, and yet it forms the chief ground for the view insisted upon by many modern scholars, that Hadrian had given permission for the rebuilding of the temple, and that the withdrawal of this permission was the real cause of the great Jewish rebellion.[1410] In confirmation of this view reference is made to statements by Christian writers. But even these are little calculated to support such a theory. Chrysostom, Cedrenus, and Nicephorus Callistus only say that the Jews in the time of Hadrian had rebelled and made an attempt to rebuild the temple, and that Hadrian put a stop to that undertaking. The Chronicon Paschale speaks of a destruction by Hadrian of the temple that had actually been built.[1411] Of a permission to build the temple that had first been given by Hadrian and afterwards withdrawn, there is no mention whatever. The attempt to rebuild the temple was really itself one of the acts of the rebellion. An apparent support for this theory is to be found only in one passage in the Epistle of Barnabas, of which, however, the explanation is uncertain. Barnabas seeks to show that it is not according to God’s will that the Jews should continue to observe the law. Their Sabbath is not the true one. “And almost like the heathens have they honoured God in a temple.” In order to prove the heathenish character of the Jewish temple, Barnabas, in chap, xvi., quotes the prophecy of Isaiah 49:17 (LXX.): “Behold, they who have cast down this temple, even they shall build it up again;” and then proceeds, in chap. xvi. 4: “It has so happened. For through their going to war it was destroyed by their enemies; and now they [together with] the servants of their enemies shall rebuild it” (γίνεται· διὰ γὰρ τὸ πολεμεῖν αὐτοὺς καθῃρέθη ὑπὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν· νῦν καὶ αὐτοὶ [καὶ] οἱ τῶν ἐχθρῶν ὑπηρέται ἀνοικοδομήσουσιν αὐτόν). Only if the bracketed καί be retained, is the expectation there set forth that now the Jews and the heathens together were to build in common the Jewish temple. By striking out the καί the meaning of the sentence becomes this: the heathens themselves build the temple, that is, for heathenish purposes. But on external grounds also the latter reading deserves the preference. Barnabas seems therefore to allude to Hadrian’s intention to erect a building for heathen worship.[1412]—Of the alleged permission given by Hadrian for the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, therefore, we do not meet with any trace when we investigate the causes of the rebellion.[1413] Such permission, at least in the form of active encouragement, is also improbable on internal grounds. For while Hadrian zealously patronized the Greek-Roman religious rites, he looked with contempt upon all foreign superstitions.[1414]
[1409] Bereshith rabba c. 64. See the passage in the original text, and in a French translation in Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 416 sq. Text and Latin translation in Volkmar, Judith, pp. 108-111. German in Wünsche, Der Midrasch Bereschit Rabba (1881), p. 307 f.
[1410] So Volkmar, Judith, pp. 108 if., 131 ff.; Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. 138 ff., 442 ff.; Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 412 sq.; Neubürger, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1873, p. 433 ff.; Hausrath, Zeitgeschichte, iv. 328 f.; Salzer, Magazin, iii. 127 ff.; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopaedie, art. “Hadrian.”
[1411] The passages are collected in Münter, p. 64 f., and Volkmar, Judith, pp. 131-134. Compare also under note 93.
[1412] The καί is given only in the Sinaiticus; in all other texts it if wanting. The explanation given above, that the building was for heathen worship, is supported, for example, by Lipsius in Schenkel’s Bibellexion, i. 371 f. The words have been understood of the aid given to the Jewish building by the heathens, especially by Volkmar, and that indeed even before the discovery of the Sinaiticus, resting upon the common reading without the καί (Theolog. Jahrbücher, 1856, pp. 351-361, and elsewhere). He was followed by J. G. Müller, Erklärung des Barnabasbriefes (1869), pp. 334-340; Harnack, Patrum apostolorum, Opera, i. 2, ed. 2 (1878), pp. lxx.-lxxii., and I myself adopted this view in the first edition of this work. Others explain the words metaphorically of the building of the spiritual temple by the Gentile Christians. So, e.g., Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theologie, 1870, pp. 116-121; Barnabae epistula, ed. 2, 1877, pp. 119-123; Wieseler, Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, 1870, pp. 612-614; Riggenbach, Der sogenannte Brief des Barnabas (1873), pp. 41-45. But according to the language of the passage it evidently treats of the rebuilding of the actual temple. Barnabas wishes to say: this temple was not better than a heathen temple, as even then it actually was rebuilt by the heathen. Special emphasis should be laid on the αὐτόν at the close. Against Weizsäcker’s reference to the building of Zerubbabel (Zur Kritili des Barnabasbriefes, 1863, p. 21 ff.), the νῦν and the future are decisive.
[1413] Compare Renan, L’église chrétienne, p. 24; Schiller, Geschichte der röm. Kaiserzeit, i. 613; Gregorovius, Hadrian, 3 Aufl. p. 38 f.
[1414] Spartian, vita Hadriani, c. 22 (in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. Peter): sacra Romana diligentissime curavit peregrina contempsit.
Only two accounts of the causes of the great rebellion are worthy of consideration. Spartian says:[1415] “moverunt ea tempestate et Judaei bellum, quod vetabautur mutilare genitalia.” Dio Cassius, on the contrary, gives his account thus:[1416] “When Hadrian had founded at Jerusalem a city of his own in place of the one destroyed, which he called Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of their God erected another temple to Jupiter, the great and long-continued war broke out. For the Jews regarded it as a horrible outrage that foreigners should settle in their city, and that temples for strange gods should be built in it.” Since Spartian mentions only the one and Dio Cassius only the other, it is doubtful whether without more ado we are entitled to combine the two. Gregorovius rejects the statement of Spartian, and regards that of Dio Cassius as alone worthy of credence. In fact, a prohibition of circumcision, without any special occasion, seems little in accordance with the mild character of Hadrian, although it might quite conceivably be used for the purpose of securing the extinction of the Jews after the suppression of the revolt.[1417] Nevertheless, the statement of Spartian is to be defended. For, according to all that we know, the prohibition of circumcision was not limited to the Jews, and was not immediately directed against them. When, under Antoninus Pius, the Jews were again allowed to circumcise their children, the prohibition still stood good against the non-Jewish peoples. It was therefore originally a general order.[1418] The special feature of this legislation was not that it aimed at the rooting out of Judaism, but that it placed circumcision on the same level with castration, and punished its practice accordingly.[1419] The prohibition was not, therefore, first of all directed against Judaism, but it is at the same time quite evident that Judaism would receive from it a deadly wound. In addition to this it was now made known that Hadrian designed the erection of a new heathen city upon the ruins of Jerusalem. In this also the ruling motive was not hostility to Judaism. The rearing of magnificent buildings and the founding of cities was the work to which Hadrian devoted the energies of his life. But this proposal must also have been regarded as a blow in the face to Judaism. So long as Jerusalem lay in ruins, the Jews could cherish the hope of its restoration. The founding of a heathen city, the erection of a heathen temple on the holy place, put an end to these hopes in terrible manner. It was an outrage as great as that which Antiochus Epiphanea had fomerly committed, and was answered, as that had been, by a genenal uprising of the excited people.—Both reasons, therefore, are not in themselves improbable. A combination of the two is a suggestion which has much to commend it, if the two enactments of Hadrian were not too far separated in time from one another.
[1415] Spartian, Hadrian. 14.
[1416] Dio Cassius, lxix. 12.
[1417] Compare Gregorovius, Sitzungsberichte der philos.-philol. und hist. Classe der Münchener Akademie, 1883, p. 499 ff.; Der Kaiser Hadrian, p. 188 ff. In favour of Gregorovius’ view one might refer to the state of the original documents. Dio Cassius, as well as Spartian, founds partly on the autobiography of Hadrian (see Dio Cassius, lxix. 11, ὡς Ἁδριανὸς γράφει; Spartian, 1. 1, “in libris vitae suae Hadrianus ipse commemorat;” 7. 2, “ut ipse vita sua dicit;” comp. also 3. 3, and 3. 5). In Dio Cassius, however, the history of the Jewish war follows immediately upon the quotation from the autobiography, and may probably have been derived from it. So thinks Dürr, Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, 1881, p. 14 On the other hand, it seems probable that Spartian derives his short notice of the Jewish war from some other source (Dürr, Reisen, p. 82).
[1418]a Modestinus, Digest. xlviii. 8. 11, pr.: “Circumcidere Judaeis filios suos tantum rescripto divi Pii permittitur: in non ejusdem religionis qui hoc fecerit, castrantis poena irrogatur.” This statement of fact is also corroborated by other witnesses. In the Syrian Dialogue on Fate, which is ascribed to Bardesanes, as a historical instance of the fact that ofttimes kings when they conquer foreign countries have abolished the native laws and introduced their own without the stars putting any hindrance in the way, this is advanced as pre-eminently applicable, that only shortly before the Romans, after the conquest of Arabia, had abolished the laws of that country, especially the law regarding circumcision (Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, 1855, p. 30; in the somewhat abbreviated text in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangel. vi. 10. 41, ed. Gaisford, the prohibition of circumcision is not mentioned). But the same author speaks immediately after of circumcision as an existing institution among the Jews. He witnesses, therefore, precisely to the condition of matters as determined by Antoninus Pius. A further witness for this is Origen, who distinctly says that only the Jews were allowed to practise circumcision, but that it was forbidden to all others on the pain of death (Contra Cels. ii. 13). The jurist Paulus, a contemporary of Origen, says, Sent. v. 22. 3-4 (in Huschke’s Jurisprudentias antejustinianae quae supersunt, ed. 5, Lips. 1886): “Cives Romani, qui se Judaico ritu vel servos suos circumcidi patiuntur bonis ademptis in insulam perpetuo relegantur; medici capite puniuntur. Judaei si alienae nationis comparatos servos circumciderunt, aut deportantur aut capite puniuntur.” The prohibition, therefore, by no means applied especially to the Jews, but they rather were by Hadrian’s immediate successor expressly excluded from its application. Compare also Nöldeke, Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenland Gesellschaft, Bd. 39, 1885, p. 343 (who has also paid attention to the above passage in the Dialogue on Fate). Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 119.
[1419]b Compare Mommsen, Rämische Geschichte, v. 549.—Hadrian strictly forbade castration; it was to be punished under the lex Cornelia de sicariis, i.e. it was treated as murder (Digest. xlviii. 8. 4. 2). That circumcision was treated in the same category as castration, is seen from the passage quoted above from Modewstinus.
In regard to the date at which the building of the Aelia Capitolina was begun, various statements are given in the original authorities. Epiphanius had been informed that Hadrian, forty-seven years after the destruction of Jerusalem, when he arrived there on his second journey, gave orders to rebuild the city (not the temple), and commissioned Aquila to see the work done.[1420] This indication of date gives us A.D. 117, immediately after Hadrian’s accession to the throne. He was then certainly in the East, but Epiphauius expressly refers to his later journey taken from Rome, and thus his statement regarding the time is deprived of all its value.[1421] The Chronicon Paschale places the founding of Aelia Capitolina in A.D. 119; but it does so only because it has also placed the great Jewish rebellion in that year, after the quelling of which Aelia was founded.[1422] With the date fixed for the Jewish rebellion, which is demonstrably false, falls also that fixed for the founding of Aelia.[1423] Eusebius also regards the founding of the city as a consequence of the rebellion.[1424] This is correct, inasmuch as only thereafter was the plan carried out. But, according to Dio Cassius, it is not to be doubted that the building had already been begun before the outbreak of the rebellion, and indeed not very long before, for he says that the Jews, who were irritated about the building, remained quiet so long as Hadrian stayed in Egypt and Syria, but that they broke out so soon as he had left those regions.[1425] In accordance with this, it must be assumed that the founding of the city took place during the period of Hadrian’s visit to Syria, which occurred in A.D. 130.
[1420] Epiphanius, De mensuris et ponderibus, § 14.
[1421] It has been turned to account as serviceable by Dürr, Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, p. 16. Against it: Gregorovius, Sitzungsberichte, 1883, p. 489.
[1422] Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, i. 474.
[1423] See also Gregorovius, Sitzungsberichte, 1883, p. 493 f.—Renan’s assertion, that the founding took place about A.D. 122 (L’église chretienne, p. 26), has no support from the original authorities.
[1424] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6.
[1425] Dio Cassius, lxix. 12.
Hadrian at that time—it was during his last great journey in the East—arrived in Syria from Greece, and thence went to Egypt, and then back again to Syria.[1426] It is made certain from inscriptions and coins that he was in Syria in A.D. 130, in Egypt in November A.D. 130, and so again in Syria in A.D. 131.[1427] Generally, wherever he went he furthered the interests of culture: artistic and useful buildings were erected: games were celebrated: he was a restitutor in all the provinces.[1428] In the cities of Palestine also we come upon traces of his presence. Tiberias had obtained an Ἀδριάνειον; Gaza, a πανήγυρις Ἀδριανή; Petra, in grateful remembrance of the benefactions of the emperor, took the name of Ἀδριανὴ Πέτρα.[1429] His residence in Judea was commemorated by coins bearing the inscription, adventui Aug(usti) Judaeae.[1430]
[1426] This route is particularly described in Dio Cassius, lxix. 11-12.
[1427] That Hadrian’s visit to Egypt occurred in A.D. 130, upon which all the other dates turn, has been proved by Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum, vi. 489-491. He is followed by: Haakh in Pauly’s Real-Encyclopaedie, iii. 1036, article “Hadrianus;” Clinton, Fasti Romani, t. i. 1885, ad ann. 129-131, p. Chr.; Letronne, Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines de l’Égypte, t. ii. 1848, pp. 364-367; Dürr, Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, 1881, pp. 62-65. For a further list of the literature, see Dürr, pp. 7, 8.—The principal proofs are: (1) An inscription at Palmyra of the year [4]42 aer. Seleuc.=A.D. 130-131, assumcs a previous visit of Hadrian to Palmyra (De Vogüé, Syrie Centrale, Inscriptions de Palmyre, n. 16; Le Bas and Waddington, Inscriptions, t. iii. n. 2585). (2) The coins of Gaza of the time of Hadrian have an era beginning with A.D. 129 or 130, the occasion of which was certainly Hadrian’s residence in Gaza, and the benefits that had been thereby conferred upon the city. On this see the literature mentioned in Div. II. vol. i. p. 72. The year 1 of the new era is the year 190-191 of the old era of Gaza; and as this earlier era began in B.C. 60 or 61, is equivalent to A.D. 129 or 130. But even if one should assume A.D. 129 with Stark, Gaza, p. 550, Hadrian’s visit may still be put down as A.D. 130, since the commencement of the era may not be exactly synchronous with Hadrian’s visit. (3) In Alexandria coins of Hadrian were minted in the fifteenth year of the emperor, that is, according to the reckoning commonly used in Egypt, A.D. 130-131. According to all analogies, it must be assumed that this must have occurred at the celebration of Hadrian’s visit (Eckhel, Doctr. Num. vi. 489 sq.). (4) The most precise information is supplied by an inscription on the Memnon statue at Thebes, from which it appears that Hadrian was there in the fifteenth year of his reign, in the month Athyr. This date corresponds to November A.D. 130. For the words of the inscription, see Eckhel and Clinton; more correctly given in Letronne, ii. 365, and Dürr, p. 123; also in Corp. Inscr. Graec. n. 4727. An exact facsimile is given by Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Bd. xii. bl. 78; Inscrip. Graec. n. 91. On the reckoning of the years of the emperor’s prevailing in Egypt, especially the years of Hadrian, see Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, i. 117 ff.
[1428] Compare generally: Dürr, Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, p. 4 t; Gregorovius, Der Kaiser Hadrian, 3 Aufl. p. 468 ff.—On numerous inscriptions Hadrian is called σωτήρ, οἰκιστής, εὐεργέτης, κτίστης. See the texts in Dürr, p. 104 ff. On coins of Hadrian are found the following inscriptions: restitutori Achaiae, restitutori Africae, restitutori Arabiae, restitutori Asiae, restitutori Bithyniae, restitutori Galliae, restitutori Hispaniae, restitutori Italiae, restitutori Libyae, restitutori Macedoniae, restitutori Nicomediae, restitutori orbis terrarum, restitutori Phrygiae, restitutori Siciliae.” See Eckhel, Doctr. Num. vi. 486-500; Cohen, Médaillée impériales, ed. 2, t. ii. 1882, pp. 209-214.
[1429] On Tiberias, see Epiphanius, Haer. 30. 12: ναὸς δὲ μέγιστος ἐν τῇ πόλει προῦπῆρχε· τάχα, οἶμαι, Ἀδριάνειον τοῦτο ἐκάλουν.—On Gaza, Chronicon, ed. Dindorf, i. 474: καὶ ἐκεῖ ἔστησεν πανήγυριν … καὶ ἕως τοῦ νῦν ἡ πανήγυρις ἐκείνη λέγεται Ἀδριανή.—The coins of Petra with the superscription: Ἀδριαηὴ Πέτρα, in Mionnet, Description de Médailles, v. 587-589; Suppl. viii. 387 sq.; De Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, pp. 351-353.
[1430] Eckhel, Doctr. Num. vi. 495 sq.; Madden, Coins of the Jews (1881), p. 231; Cohen, Médailles impériales, ed. 2, t. ii. p. 110 sq. The coins were minted in Rome (S. C.).—There were similar coins for almost all the provinces. See Eckhel, vi. 486-501; Cohen, ii. 107-112.
The founding of Aelia also, without doubt, belongs to the period of the emperor’s activity. Pliny calls Jerusalem longe clarissima urbium orientis, non Judaeae modo.[1431] This celebrated city now lay in ruins, or was still merely a Roman camp. What then could be more attractive to the emperor than the restoring of such a city to its former magnificence? It was, however, manifestly intended that this new magnificence should be of a heathen character. A temple of the Capitoline Jupiter was to be erected on the spot where formerly the temple of the God of the Jews had stood. This was the fatal proposal. The Jews had been roused to a most violent degree by means of the order, issued probably not long before, against the practice of circumcision. And now to that was added a new outrage. By means of this proposed profanation of their city matters were brought to a crisis. The people remained quiet so long as the emperor remained in Egypt, and during his second visit to Syria. But when he was no longer in the neighbourhood, that is, in A.D. 132, they broke out into revolt: an uprising that, in its extent and violence, and its unhappy consequences, was at least as serious as that of the time of Vespasian. If it does not bulk so largely in our records, it is only because of the meagreness of the original sources of information that have come down to us.[1432]
[1431] Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 14. 70.
[1432] From Dio Cassius, lxix. 12, it appears that the founding of Aelia occurred in the time of Hadrian’s first visit to Syria, A.D. 130, but the outbreak of the rebellion after his second visit in A.D. 131, and so probably in A.D. 132. In fact, the Chronicle of Eusebius places the beginning of the rebellion in the sixteenth year of Hadrian, i.e. A.D. 132-133 (Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 166 sq.).
The leader of the revolt is called in the works of Christian writers Cochba or Bar-Cochba, and by the rabbinical authorities Barcosiba or Bencosiba.[1433] The one as well as the other is only a designation; the former distinguishes him as the star, or the son of the star, with reference to Numbers 24:18, which passage R Akiba applied to him;[1434] the latter is a name derived either from his father (the son of Cosiba) or from his home (the man of Cosiba), and not until a comparatively late period, and only by a few individual writers, in view of his miserable collapse, was it taken to mean liar or deceiver.[1435] The designation Cochba or Bar-Cochba was apparently chosen on account of its similarity in sound to Barcosiba, but seems to have become pretty generally current, since the Christian authorities are acquainted with it alone. The coins have preserved for us the proper name of two men. For it is a fact scarcely admitting of question that the Simon-coins, some of which certainly, and others most probably, were stamped during the period of this outbreak, were issued by the leader of this outbreak, who was certainly Bar-Cochba. Those minted in the first year have the inscription, “Simon, Prince of Israel,” שמעון נשיא ישראל; those minted in the second year have only the name “Simon” שמעון. On some the figure of a star appears over that of a temple. Besides the Simoncoins there are also coins of the first year with the inscription, “Eleasar the Priest,” אלעזר הכהן. There thus seem to have been two men at the head of the rebellion, besides the Prince Simon, the Priest Eleasar. After the second year there are no more Eleasar-coins.[1436] Since in late rabbinical documents the R. Eleasar of Modein, who is also known from other sources, is described as the uncle of Barcosiba,[1437] some have ventured to conjecture that this man is the same as the one named “Eleasar the Priest” on the coins.[1438] But there is nothing anywhere to indicate that Eleasar of Modein was a priest.
[1433] Χοχεβᾶς and Chochebas are the forms of the name in the Chronicle of Eusebius, and in Jerome, ad ann. Abr. 2149 (ed. Schoene, ii. 168 sq.; the Greek form in Syncellus, ed. Dindorf, i. 660); so too in Orosius, vii 13 (ed. Zangemeister). Βαρχωχέβας in Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 31 (ed. Otto) and Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6 (ed. Heinichen); the passage from Justin also in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 8. Barcochabas in Jerome, Adv. Rufin. in. 31 (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, ii. 559).—In the rabbinical sources, on the other hand, we have בר כוזיבא or בן כוזיבא (Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 423; Lebrecht, Bether, p. 13).—Compare in regard to him generally: Buxtorf, Lexicon Chald. col. 1028 (s.v. כזב); Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 423 sqq.; Salzer, Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums, iii. 184 ff.; Lebrecht, Bether (1877), pp. 12-20; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopaedie, article “Barkochba;” “Levy, Neuhebräisches Wörterbuch, ii. 312.
[1434] Jer. Taanith iv. fol. 68d (Cracow ed.): “R. Simon ben Jochai said: R. Akiba my teacher expounded the passage: There shall go a star (כוכב) out of Jacob” (Numbers 24:17), as follows: ‘There goes כוזבא out from Jacob.’ When R. Akiba saw Barcosiba he said, This is the king Messiah. Then said to him R. Jochanan ben Torta: Akiba, the grass will grow out of thy jaw-bone, and yet the Son of David will not have come.” See the text in Lebrecht, Bether, p. 44; German in Wünsche, Der Jerusalemische Talmud, 1880, p. 157.—The correct explanation of Cochba as meaning a star (ἀστήρ) is also given in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6, and Syncellus, i. 660. According to Eusebius, Barcoshba also gave himself out for a φωστὴρ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ.
[1435] Since Barcosiba or Bencosiba is the prevailing form, even in the mouths of such as esteemed him highly, like Akiba, it cannot have had a disrespectful meaning. Cosiba is either the name of his father (so in earlier days, Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 423, note 3) or of his home, כזבא, 1 Chronicles 4:22=כזיב, Genesis 38:5=אכזיב, in the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15:44; Micah 1:14 (hardly to be identified with אכזיב in the tribe of Asher=Ekdippa, between Tyre and Ptolemais, as conjectured by Derenbourg, Mélanges publiés par l’école des hautes études, 1878, p. 157 sq.)—The rendering of it כוזב, “Liar,” makes its appearance first in the Midrash, Echa rabbathi, see Levy, Neuhebräishches Wörterbuch, ii. 312; the text is given in Lebrecht, Bether, p. 46; in German in Wünsche, Der Midrasch Echa rabbati, 1881, p. 100.
[1436] See on the coins generally, Appendix IV.—The coins with the star are given, e.g., in Madden, Coins of the Jews (1881), pp. 239, 244.
[1437] Midrash on Echa ii. 2; Gittin 57a (in Derenbourg, Histoire, pp. 424, 433. See on Eleasar of Modein: Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten (1884), pp. 194-219. ר׳ אליעזר הקודעו is frequently referred to in the Mechilta. See above, vol. i. p. 209 f.
[1438] Ewald, History of Israel, viii. 291; De Saulcy, Revue Num. 1865, p. 44.
The application of the designation of the “Star,” which should come out of Jacob, to Barcosiba, shows that he was regarded as the Messiah. R Akiba, the most celebrated doctor of the law in his time, is said to have distinctly announced him as such.[1439] And though, indeed, all the colleagues of Akiba did not recognise him, he had the mass of the people on his side. As in the days of Vespasian, so also at this time there was a widespread idea that the day had come when the old prophecy of the prophets would be fulfilled, and Israel would cast off the yoke of the Gentiles. The Christian legends also declare that Barcosiba bewitched the people by deceitful miracles.[1440]—Just by reason of the Messianic character of the movement it was quite impossible for Christians to take part in it. They could not deny their own Messiah by recognising the leader of the political revolution as such. Hence they were persecuted with peculiar violence by the new Messiah, as Justin Martyr and Eusebius testify.[1441]
[1439] See the passage quoted in note 83; also Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, p. 291 f. On Akiba generally: Div. II. vol. i. p. 375 f., and the literature there referred to.
[1440]a Jerome, adv. Rufin. iii. 21 (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, ii. 559). Jerome says there to his opponent Rufinus that he spits fire “ut ille Barchocbabas, auctor seditionis Judaicae, stipulam in ore succensam anhelitu ventilabat, ut flammas evomere putaretur.”
[1441] Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 31: Καὶ γὰρ ἐν τῷ νῦν γεγενημένῳ Ἰουδαῖκῷ πολέμῳ Βαρχωχέβας, ὁ τῆς Ἰουδαίων ἀποστάσεως ἀρχηγέτης, Χριστιανοὺς μόνους εἰς τιμωρίας δεινάς, εἰ μὴ ἀρνοῖντο Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ βλασφημοῖεν, ἐκέλευεν ἀπάγεσθαι. Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 168 sq. ad. ann. Abr. 2149. According to the Armenian: “Qui dux rebellionis Judaeorum erat Chochebas, multos e Christianis diversis suppliciis affecit, quia nolebant procedere cum illo ad pugnam contra Romanos.” So, too, the Latin reproduction of Jerome in Schoene, and Syncellus, ed. Dindorf, i. 660. Compare also Orosius, vii. 13.
The rebellion spread rapidly over all Palestine. Wherever strongholds, castles, caverns, subterranean passages afforded hiding-places, there were those who struggled for native customs and freedom gathered together. An open conflict they avoided; but from their dens in the mountains they made devastating raids upon the country, and fought with all who did not attach themselves to their party,[1442] Jerusalem also was certainly beset by the rebels. The doubt which many, on the other hand, have raised is mainly supported by this, that in the more trustworthy sources (Dio Cassius and Eusebius’ Church History) there is no mention of a war at Jerusalem. But how unspeakably meagre are these sources generally ! Even upon internal grounds it is probable that the rebels, who were at the beginning victorious, should have made themselves masters of Jerusalem, which was not then a strongly fortified city, but only a Roman camp. But this conjecture is confirmed by twofold testimony. In the first place by the coins.[1443] The coins that with the greatest confidence can be set down to this period, bear on the one side the name of Simon, שמעון, and on the other side the superscription, לחרות ירושלם, lechêruth Jeruschalem, “the freedom of Jerusalem.” Therefore, the freeing of Jerusalem was commemorated by Simon on the coins. But there are among the coins belonging to this period also examples which, besides the date “First Year of the freeing of Israel” or “Second Year of the freedom of Israel,” bear only the name Jerusalem, ירושלם. These, therefore, have been minted by the city itself in its own name, and hence we see that this city in the first year as well as in the second was in the hands of the rebels. In addition to this witness from the coins, we have the contemporary Appian, by whom, as will be told farther on, the fact of the reconquest of Jerusalem by the Romans is declared as a fact.[1444]—Whether during these troubled years of war the rebuilding of the Jewish temple may actually have been begun must be left undecided. Late Christians declare that this was so, and the intention to carry on this work was certainly entertained.[1445]
[1442] Dio Cassius, lxix. 12. Compare Jerome, Chronicon, ad ann. Abr. 2148 (Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 167): “Judaei in arma verai Palestinam depopulati sunt.” The Armenian text of Eusebius has: “Judae rebellarunt et Palestinensium terram invaserunt.”
[1443] In regard to these see Appendix IV.
[1444] The besieging of Jerusalem by the rebels has been contested, without any sufficient ground, by Cassel in his article “Juden” in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedie, sec. ii. Bd. 27, p. 14, and by Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums, ii. 79, note. Also Renan declares that it is very improbable, in the treatise: “Jérusalem a-t-elle été assiégée et détruite une troisième fois sous Adrien?” in Revue historique, t. ii. 1876, pp. 112-120=L’église chrétienne, 1879, pp. 541-553. His final judgment is: “que l’occupation de Jérusalem ait été un épisode court de ladite guerre, cela est strictement possible; c’est peu probable cependant;” see Revue, ii. 119=L’église chrétienne, p. 551. Gregorovius, founding upon the coins, holds it as probable that the rebels gained at least a temporary possession of Jerusalem, but denies that it had been the scene of any regular fighting (Der Kaiser Hadrian, 3 Aufl. pp. 194, 200 f.; Sitzungsberichte der Münchener Akademie, 1883, pp. 502-505). Similarly Selzer, Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums, iv. 22 f. Upon the whole the besieging of Jerusalem by the rebels is admitted by most, e.g. Deyling, Observationes sacrae, t. v. Lips. 1748, pp. 455-460 (in the dissertation: “Aeliae Capitolinae origines et hietoria”); Münter, Der jüdische Krieg, pp. 56 ff., 69 ff.; also Schiller, Geschichts der röm. Kaiserzeit, i. 612, note; Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, v. 545.
[1445] Chrysostom, Orat. adv. Judaeos, v. 10, speaks of an attempt at the rebuilding of the temple in the time of Hadrian. He endeavours there to show that the destruction of the temple had been brought about by the will of God. If the Jews had not made the attempt to build again the temple, then they might say: If we had chosen we might have built it again. Νυνὶ δὲ αὐτοὺς δείκνυμι, ὅτι οὐχ ἅπαξ, οὐδὲ δὶς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τρὶς ἐπιχειρήσαντας καὶ ῥαγέντας, namely, under Hadrian, Constantine, and Julian,—Georpius Cedrenus, ed. Bekker, i. 437, relates: ἐφʼ οὗ στασιασάντων τῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ τὸν ἐν Ἰεροσολύμοις ναὸν οἰκοδομῆσαι βουληθέντων ὀργίζεται κατʼ αὐτῶν σφόδρα καὶ πολέμου γενομένου μεταξὺ ἀνεῖλεν ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐν ἡμέρᾳ μιᾷ μυριάδας νή. In the details of his statement this Cedrenus agreea so exactly with the statement of Chrysostom that it is apparent that he must have drawn his information either directly from Chrysostom, or else from the sources which Chrysostom had used. Nicephorus Callistus also, in his Eccles. Hist. iii. 24 (Migne, Patrol. Graec. t. cxlv.), reproduces this report The Chronicon Paschale asserts that Hadrian at the building of Aelia, after the suppression of the revolt, destroyed the Jewish temple (ed. Dindorf, i. 474: καθελὼν τὸν ναὸν τῶν Ἰουδαίων τὸν ἑν Ἱεροσολύμοις).—Much weight cannot be laid upon any of these witnesses.
In regard to the progress of the war we know almost nothing. When it broke out Tineius Rufus was governor of Judea.[1446] When he was unable with his troops to crash the rebels, the revolt not only increased in dimension and importance throughout all Palestine, but also spread itself far out beyond the limits of that country. Unstable and restless elements indeed of another sort attached themselves to the Jewish rebellion, so that at last “the whole world, so to speak, was in commotion.”[1447] The severest measures were necessary in order to put an end to the uproar. Large bodies of troops from other provinces were called in to strengthen the resident garrison. The best generals were commissioned for Palestine.[1448] Even the governor of Syria, Publicius Marcellus, hasted to the aid of his endangered colleague.[1449] But it seems that Rufus for the most of the time retained the supreme command; for Eusebius names no other Roman commander, and speaks as if the suppression of the revolt was accomplished by Rufus.[1450] In rabbinical authorities also, “Rufus the Tyrant,” טורנס רופוס, appears the chief enemy of the Jews at that time.[1451] But from Dio Cassius, whose statements on this point are corroborated by the testimony of inscriptions, we know that during the last period of the war Julius Severus, one of the most distinguished of Hadrian’s generals, had the supreme command, and that it was he who succeeded in bringing the rebellion to an end. He was summoned from Britain to conduct this war, and took a considerable time in crushing the revolt. In an open engagement no decisive result was gained. The rebels had to be hunted out of their hidingplaces one by one; and, where they kept concealed in mountain caverns, they were exhausted by having their supplies cut off. Only after long continued conflicts with individuals, in which there was great expenditure of life, did he at last succeed in harrying, exterminating, and rooting them out of the whole country (κατατρῖψαι καὶ ἐκτρυχῶσαι καὶ ἐκκόψαι).[1452]
[1446] On the correct form of his name see above, p. 263.
[1447] Dio Cassius, lxix. 13: πάσης ὡς εἰπεῖν κινουμένης ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῆς οἰκουμένης.
[1448] On the increasing of the strength of the troops: Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6. 1; Chronicon, ad ann. Abr. 2148.—Generals: Dio Cassius, lxix. 13: τοὺς κρατίστους τῶν στρατηγῶν ὁ Ἀδριανὸς ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς ἔπεμψεν.—By inscriptions it can be proved that the following troops took part in the war (see Darraesteter, Revue des études juives, t i. 1880, pp. 42-49; Schiller, Geschichte der röm. Kaiserzeit, i. 614, note; the facts are very incorrectly stated by Gregorovius, Der Kaiser Hadrian, p. 199: (1) The leg. III. Cyrenaica, which from the time of Augustus to that of Trajan had remained in Egypt, and since the time of Trajan had formed the garrison of the new province of Arabia (Pfitzner, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserlegionen, 1881, p. 227 f.). A tribune belonging to the legion was presented “donis militaribus a divo Hadriano ob Judaicam expeditionem” (Orelli-Henzen, Inscr. Lat. n. 6501=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. xiv. n. 3610); a centurion of this same legion received “ab imp. Hadriano corona aurea torquibus armillis phaleris ob bellum Judeicum” (Orelli, n. 832=Inscr. Regni Neap. n. 3642=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. x. n. 3733).—(2) The leg. III. Gallica, which probably from the time of Augustus belonged to the garrison of Syria (see above, p. 50; Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. ii. 1876, p. 432 ff.; Pfitzner, p. 228 ff.). An emeritus of this legion was presented “ex voluntate imp. Hadriani Aug. torquibus et armillis aureis,” undoubtedly in connection with the Jewish war (Orelli, n. 3571).-(3) It is also self-evident that the leg. X. Fretensis, as the resident garrison troops of Judea, would take part in the war. A centurion of that legion was presented “ab divo Hadriano ob bellum Judaicum corona aurea torquibus armillis phaleris” (Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 1888, p. 424 sqq.=Revue des études juives, t. xvii. 1888, p. 299 sq.).—(4) Presumably also the legio VI. Ferrata took part in the war, for it had previously formed part of the garrison of Syria, and formed from the time of Hadrian, along with the leg. X. Fretensis, the garrison of Judea (see above, pp. 50, 257 f.). On the other hand, the co-operation of the leg. IV. Scythica in this war is highly improbable, although insisted upon by Darmesteter. See on this point the next note.—(5) Of auxiliary cohorts, of which undoubtedly a great number took part in the war, the inscriptions refer to the coh. IV. Lingonum, the commander of which was presented “vexillo mil(itari) a divo Hadriano in expeditione Judaica” (Orelli-Henzen, n. 5480=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 1523)—(6) A detachment, which took part in the Jewish war, is also mentioned in Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 3505: “Sex. Attius Senecio praef. alae I. Fl. Gaetulorum, trib. leg, X. Geminae, missus a Divo Hadriano in expeditione Jadaica ad vexilla(tiones deducendas?).” It would appear as if this detachment had been taken from the leg. X. Gemina, which was stationed in Pannonia.—(7) Also the Syrian fleet had been called to give assistance (classis Syriaca), for its commander was presented “donis militaribus a divo Hadrian o ob hellum Judaicum” (Orelli-Henzen, n. 6924=Renier, Inscriptions de l’Algérie, n. 3518=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. viii. n. 8934). That the fleet did actually engage in a bellum Judaeicum is also stated in a fragmentary inscription, Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 1565. Here too the reference clearly is to the war of Hadrian (so Mommsen, Ephmeris epigraphica, iii. p. 331). On an inscription in honour of a certain P. Lucilius Gamala at Ostia, near Rome, mention is made of a bellum navale, to which Ostia had contributed a large contingent Since this Lucilius Gamala, according to another inscription, lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, it might indeed have been the Jewish war of Hadrian that he was engaged in. But it is probably the Marcomanian war of Marcus Aurelius that is intended. See the two inscriptions in the Annali dell’ Instituto, 1857, p. 323 sqq.; and for their explanation, especially Mommsen, Ephemeris epigraphica, t. iii. 1877, pp. 319-332.
[1449] Corpus Inscr. Graec. n. 4033 and 4034 (the former=Archäolog.-epigraph. Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich-Ungarn, ix. 118). In both inscriptions, which are almost literal copies of each other, it is told that Ti. (or P.?) Severus was commander of the leg. IV. Scythica, and administered Syria as commissary when Publicius Marcellus had left Syria on account of the outbreak of the Jewish revolt(Σεούηρον … ἡγεμόνα λεγεῶνος δʼ Σκυθικῆς καὶ διοκήσαντα τὰ ἐν Συρίᾳ πράγματα, ἡνίκα Πουβλίκιος Μάρκελλος διὰ τὴν κίνησιν τὴν Ἰουδαϊκὴν μεταβεβήκει ἀπὸ Συρίας). Publicius Marcellus led a portion of the Syrian garrison, which consisted of three legions (Pfitzner, p. 187), against Judea, while Severus undertook as commissary the administration of Syria, presumably still retaining the command of his legion. The leg. IV. Scythica therefore probably remained in Syria.
[1450] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6. 1: πολέμου τε νόμῳ τὰς χώρας αὐτῶν ἐξανδραποδιζόμενος.
[1451] Bab. Taanith 29a in Derenbourg, Historie, p. 422. Generally: Schoettgen, Horae hebraicae, ii. 953-957; Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, col. 916 (s.v. טרן); Levy, Neuhebraïsches Wörterbuch, ii. 149, s.v. טורנוס; Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, 1884, pp. 294-300=Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1883, pp. 303 ff. 347 ff.—The form טורנוס רופוס is indeed only a corruption of Tineius Rufus. In the Jerusalem Talmud the older editions (e.g. that of Cracow) have in several places, Berachoth ix. fol. 14b from below, Sota v. fol. 20c from below, מונוסטרופוס, Tunustrufus, where the t between the s and r seems to have been introduced as a modification in pronunciation, as in Istrahel, Esdras, and such like forms.
[1452] Dio Cassius, lxix. 13.—That Julius Severus was recalled from Britain is shown by an inscription, Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 2830, which gives his entire cursus honorum (see above, p. 263 f.).
Where Hadrian was residing during the war cannot be determined with certainty. Probably during the critical year he was himself personally present at the seat of war. He had left Syria before the rebellion broke out. The evil tidings seem to have led him to return to Judea; for his presence at the seat of war is not only presupposed in the rabbinical legends,[1453] but is also made probable by some particulars derived from inscriptions.[1454] There is no reference to his presence in Rome again till May of A.D. 134.[1455] He would return so soon as he had been assured of a successful issue to the war, without waiting for the completion of the operations.
[1453] Gittin 57a, in Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 433 sq.
[1454] Hadrian’s presence at the seat of war was denied, e.g. by Gregorovius, Der Kaiser Hadrian, 3 Aufl. p. 197; but is, on the contrary, maintained without any detailed proof by Dürr, Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, 1881, p. 65; Mommsen, Röm. Geschichte, v. 545; and, on the ground of the rabbinical documents, is assumed by Lebrecht, Bether, p. 37, and others. Darmesteter, Revue des études juives, i. 49-53, and Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 613, note, attempt to prove it from the inscriptions. Both seek support for their view from the following data: (1) One Q. Lollius was “legatus imp. Hadriani in expeditione Judaica, qua donatus est hasta pura corona aurea” (Orelli-Henzen, n. 6500=Renier, Inscriptions de l’Algérie, n. 2319=Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. viii. n. 6706). The expression “legatus imp.,” without any particularizing addition, can only be understood as designating a personal adjutant, who occupied the position of an immediate attendant upon the emperor. (2) On an inscription, certainly in a very fragmentary condition, but undoubtedly belonging to the later period of Hadrian’s reign, very probably to A.D. 134 or 135, it is said that he “(lab)oribus max(imis rempublicam ab ho)ste liberaverit” (Orelli-Henzen, n. 5457=Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 974). Since the only event occurring in this later period is the Jewish war, the inscription would seem to refer to Hadrian’s active participation in it. See Henzen’s remarks. According to Schiller, Hadrian’s presence at the seat of war is made certain from the fact that to Julius Severus were awarded only “ornamenta triumphalia,” not “supplicationes”(Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 2830), “he was not therefore commander-in-chief.”
[1455] Corp. Inscr. Graec. n. 5906. Dürr, Die Reisen des Kaiers Hadrian, p. 33.
Dio Cassius as well as Eusebius is silent regarding the fate of Jerusalem. It certainly did not form the middle point of the conflict, as it had done in the Vespasian war. Its fortifications were quite unimportant. Even although the rebels had succeeded in driving out the Roman garrison, the recapture of the city would have been no very serious undertaking for a sufficiently strong Roman military force. But that it had been actually taken after a violent assault is plainly stated by Appian, a contemporary witness.[1456] When Appian speaks of a destruction (κατασκάπτειν), he is undoubtedly right, inasmuch as violent seizure is not conceivable without destruction to a certain extent. But after all, as following the thoroughgoing work of Titus, the object arrived at was comparatively limited. And, on the other hand, the Romans after once they had made themselves masters of the city, would not go further in the work of destruction. This was necessary in view of their purposed new building of Aelia. A siege of the city is assumed by Eusebius in his Demonstratio evangelica.[1457] Many Church Fathers (Chrysostom, Jerome, and others) maintain that Hadrian completely destroyed the remnants of the old city which were still left standing after the destruction by Titus. By this they really only mean that Hadrian made an utter end of the old Jewish city, and erected a new heathen city in its place.[1458] In the Mishna it is related that Jerusalem was run over on the 9th Ab by the plough. By this, as the context shows, the time of Hadrian is meant. In the Babylonian Talmud and by Jerome this deed is ascribed to Rufus; only they both speak, not of a ploughing of the city, but of the site of the temple.[1459] The short statement in the Mishna is specially deserving of notice. What this ceremony would signify, however, would be, not the destruction, but the new founding; and the incident must therefore be placed before the outbreak of the revolt.[1460] The story of the conquest of Jerusalem by Hadrian as told in the Samaritan chronicle is wholly fabulous.[1461]
[1456] Appian, Syr. 50: τὴν μεγίστην πόλιν Ἱεροσόλυμα—, ἢν δὴ καὶ Πτολεμαῖος ὁ πρῶτος Αἰγύπτου βασιλεὺς καθῃρήκει, καἱ Οὐεσπασιανὸς αὖθις οἰκισθεῖσαν κατέσκαψε, καἱ Ἁδριανὸς αὖθις ἐπʼ ἐμοῦ.
[1457] Eusebius, Demonstratio evangel. vi. 18. 10, ed. Gaisford: the prophecy of Zechariah 14:2, ἐξελεύσεται τὸ ἥμισυ τῆς πόλεως ἐν αἰχμαλωσίᾳ, was fulfilled in the time of Vespasian; the other half of the city, i.e. of the inhabitants, was besieged in Hadrian’s time and driven out, τὸ λοιπὸν τῆς πόλεως μέρος ἥμισν πολιορκηθὲν αὖθις ἐξελαύνεται, ὡς ἐξ ἐκείνου καὶ εἰς δεῦρο πάμπαν ἄβατον αὐτοῖς γενέσθαι τὸν τόπον. Eusebius therefore does not speak of the destruction of the city, but only of the driving forth of the Jewish population after a siege had been conducted against the city.
[1458] Chrysostom, Adv. Judaeos, v. 11: τὰ λείψανα ἀφανίσας πάντα.—Cedren. ed. Bekker, i. 437: καὶ τὰ μὲν παλαιὰ λείψανα τῆς πόλεως καὶ τοῦ ναοῦ κατερειπώσας πτίξει νέαν Ἱερουσαλήμ.—Nicephorus, Callist. Eccl. hist. iii. 24: ὅσα γε μὴν τῇ πόλει περιελείφθη τῆς ἐκ πάλαι οἰκοδομῆς λείψανα ἐρειπῶσαι καὶ παντάπασιν ἀφανίσαι.—Hieronynius, Comm. in Jes. i. 5 (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iv. 15): “post Titum et Vespasianum et ultimam eversionem Jerusalem sub Aelio Hadriano usque ad praesens tenipus nullum remedium est.” Idem, in Jeremiah 31:15 (Vallarsi, iv. 1065): “sub Hadriano, quando et urbs Jerusalem subversa est.” Idem, in Ezek. c. 5 (Vallarsi, v. 49): “post quinquaginta annos sub Aelio Hadriano usque ad solum incensa civitas atque deleta est ita ut pristinum quoque nomen amiserit.” Idem, in Ezek. c. 24 (Vallarsi, v. 277): “post quinquaginta annos sub Hadriano civitas aeterno igne consumta est.” Idem, in Dan. c. 9 fin. (Vallarsi, v. 696). Idem, in Joel 1:4 (Vallarsi, vi. 171): “Aelii quoque Hadriani contra Judaeos expeditionem legimus, qui ita Jerusalem murosque subvertit, ut de urbis reliquiis ac favillis sui nominis Aeliam conderet civitatem.” Idem, in Habakkuk 2:14 (Vallarsi, vi. 622): “usque ad extremas ruinas Hadriani eos perduxit obsidio.” Idem, in Zechariah 8:19 (Vallarsi, vi. 852). Idem, in Zechariah 11:4-5 (Vallarsi, vi. 885).—Passages from other writers on Church history are given in Münter pp. 69-71.
[1459] Mishna, Taanith iv. 6, enumerates five unfortunate events as happening on 17th Thammuz, and five unfortunate events as happening on 9th Ab. In reference to the latter it is said: “On 9th Ab sentence was pronounced upon our forefathers that they should enter into the country, and the temple was on the first occasion and on the second occasion destroyed, and Beth-ther was conquered and Jerusalem levelled down with the plough” (נחרשה העיר). The Babylonian Talmud, bab. Taanith 29a (Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 422), relates more particularly that it was the “turannus Rufus” (טורנס רופוס) who caused the plough to pass over the site of the temple (it is there called ההיכל, not העיר).—The whole passage is to be found quoted almost literally in Jerome, who expressly refers for authority to the Jewish tradition (“cogimur igitur ad Habraeos recurrere”), ad Zechar. 8:19, Opp. ed. Vallarsi, vi. 852: “In quinto mense, qui apud Latinos appellatur Augustus, quum propter exploratores terrae sanctae seditio orta esset in populo, jussi sunt montem non ascendere, sed per quadraginta annos longis ad terram sanctam circuire dispendiis, ut exceptis duobus, Caleb et Josue, omnes in solitudine caderent. In hoc mense et a Nabuchodonosor et multa post saecula a Tito et Vespasiano templum Jerosolymis incensum est atque destructum; capta urbs Bethel [l. Bether], ad quam multa millia confugerant Judaeorum; aratum templum in ignominiam gentis oppressae a T. Annio [l. Tinnio] Rufo.”
[1460] That the plough should have been driven over Jerusalem as a sign of devastation and utter ruin is not probable, since, indeed, the building of a new city was contemplated. But this act may indeed have been performed at the beginning of the founding of the new city as a ceremony of initiation. The ceremonial act would be in either case the same; see Servius on Virgil. Aeneid, iv. 212: “cum conderetur nova civitas, aratrum adhibitum, ut eodem ritu quo condita subvertatur.” An exact description of the ceremony is given in a passage from Varro quoted by Servius on Virgil. Aeneid, v. 755.
[1461] Chronicon Samaritanum, Arabice conscriptum, cui titulus est Liber Josuae, ed. Juynboll (Lugd. Bat 1848), p. 47.—The hopes which Münter entertained from the publication of this chronicle have not been realized.
The last hiding-place of Bar-Cochba and his followers was the strong mountain fastness of Beth-ther,[1462] according to Eusebius not very far from Jerusalem, probably on the site of the modern Bettir, three hours south-west of Jerusalem.[1463] After a long and stubborn defence this stronghold was also conquered in the eighteenth year of Hadrian=A.D. 134-135,[1464] according to rabbinical calculation on the 9th Ab.[1465] In the sack of the city they found Bar-Cochba, “the originator of all the mad fanaticism which had called down the punishment.”[1466] We have absolutely no information about the siege and conquest. The rabbinical legends tell all manner of stories about this struggle; but these productions of the wildest fancy do not deserve even once to be mentioned. This one point alone may perhaps deserve to be repeated, that before the fall of the city R. Eleasar, the uncle of Bar-Cochba, is said to have been slain by his nephew because he falsely suspected him of having come to an understanding with the Romans.[1467]
[1462] The name of the city is given by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6, as Βίθθηρ (accus. Βίθθηρα), or according to some manuscripts, Βέθθηρ, Βήθθηρ; in Rufinus, Bethar. In the Jerusalem Talmud, Taanith iv. fol. 68d-69a, where the name occurs frequently, it is almost constantly ביתתר, only very rarely ביתר. In the Mishna, Taanith iv. 6, the Cambridge and Hamburg manuscripts have ביתתר; the editio princeps and cod. de Rossi, 138, ביתר; a Berlin manuscript, בתר. The correct form is undoubtedly ביתתר, Beth-ther.—On the ground of the common printed text of the Mishna it is generally assumed that our Beth-ther is also referred to in Challa iv. 10. But, according to the context, the place there intended lies beyond the borders of the land of Israel, and the correct reading there is בייתור, Bê-jittur.—In other passages also, where it has been thought that our place was referred to, this is found to be extremely questionable. Thus in Josephus, Wars of the Jews, iv. 8. 1, where a village, Βήταρις, is mentioned as “in the midst of Idumea.” We may also compare Βαιθήρ, which, according to some manuscripts of the Septuagint text of Joshua 15:59, is named among the cities of Judah in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem (cod. Vaticanus has Θεθήρ, but Alexandrinus, Βαιθήρ; so also read Jerome, Comm. in Micham, v. 2, Opp. ed. Vallarsi, vi. 490). Also Βαιθθήρ, which the text of the cod. Alex. 1 Chronicles 6:59 (vi. 44), names besides Beth-shemesh. In the passage in the Son_2:17, בֶּתֶר is not Nomen proprium but appellativum. On Bethar, south of Caesarea, see the next note.
[1463] In determining the site many have allowed themselves to be led astray by adopting a wrong point of view. In the Itinerarium Antonini, and by the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, a Bethar is spoken about south of Caesarea on the road to Lydda; and the rabbinical legends tell how that the blood of those slain in Beth-ther rolled away with it great masses of rock until it flowed into the sea (jer. Taanith iv. fol. 69a from above, text in Lebrecht, Bether, p. 45; French in Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 434; German in Wünsche, Der jerusalemische Talmud, 1880, p. 159). On the basis of these statements many have assumed that it lay in the neighbourhood of the coast, and was identical with that Bethar. But whoever will follow the rabbinical legend must follow it out fully. Now it expressly states that the blood flowed from Beth-ther into the sea, although Beth-ther was forty mil. pass. from the coast. See Derenbourg’s and Wünsche’s translations of the jer. Taanith iv. fol. 69a. Only by later writers, who Sound the statement too absurd, has the distance been reduced to four or one mil. pass. (see Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 434, note 4). That Bethar of the Itineraries cannot therefore be identified with our Beth-ther, because it lay in a predominantly heathen district, and on the plain, and was therefore certainly not an important military post in the Jewish war. The only certain point of view for determining the site is that offered by the statement of Eusebius, that it was not far from Jerusalem (Hist. eccl. iv. 6: τῶν Ἱεροσολύμων οὐ σφόδρα πόρρω διεστῶσα). It is accordingly scarcely to be doubted that it is identical with the modern Bettir, some three hours south-west of Jerusalem. A steep ridge, which only in the south joins the mountain range, there breaks into the valley. The place is therefore admirably fitted for a stronghold, and indeed traces of an early fortress are still to be found there. Finally, from this to the sea the distance is just about forty mil. pass., as mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud; as the crow flies, thirty-one. The identity of this locality with Beth-ther has therefore been rightly accepted by: Ritter, Erdkunde, xvi. 428 f.; Williams, The Holy City, i. 209-213; Tobler, Dritte Wanderung nach Palästina (1859), pp. 101-105; Guérin, Judée, ii. 387-395; Sepp, Jerusalem, 2 Aufl. i. 647-650; Renan, Les évangiles, 1877, pp. 26-29; L’église chrétienne, 1879, p. 202 sq.; Derenbourg, Mélanges publiés par l’école des hautes études, 1878, pp. 160-165; The Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs by Conder and Kitchener, iii. 20, and with it Sheet xvii. of the large English Map.—The identity with Bethar south of Caesarea is maintained by: Cassel in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedie, sec. ii. Bd. 27, p. 14; Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. 156; Ewald, History of Israel, viii. 290; Göttingen gel. Anzeiger, 1868, p. 2030 ff.; Gregorovius. Hadrian, pp. 191, 202 f.—Yet otherwise: Herzfeld in Frankel’s Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1856, pp. 105-107 (=Betaris in Idumea); Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, iii. 270 (identifies it with Bethel); Neubauer, Géographie du Talmud, pp. 103-114 (= Beth-shemesh, but as he identifies this with the modern Bettir he is so far correct); Lebrecht, Bether, die fragliche Stadt im hadrianisch-jüischen Kriege, 1877 (Bether=vetera !!, by which title the old castle of Sepphoris is said to have been designated !!!); Hamburger, Real-Encyclopaedie, article “Bethar” (in general correct but indefinite: “on the mountains of Judea”).—Material on Beth-ther is also to be found in Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, s.v. בתר; Lightfoot, Centuria Matthaeo praemissa, c. 52 (Opp. ii. 208 sq.).
[1464] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6.
[1465] Mishna, Taanith iv. 6, and Jerome, Comm. in Zech. viii. 19, Opp. ed. Vallarsi, vi. 852 (see the passage quoted in note 107).—If we could give any credence still to this tradition it might be understood of Ab of the year 135; for the war was probably carried on into that year. The years of Hadrian’s reign run from 11th August to 11th August (Spartian, Hadrian. c. 4). The 9th Ab would correspond to the end of July.
[1466] Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6.
[1467] The legends about the fall of Beth-ther are found principally in jer. Taanith iv. fol. 68d-69a (German in Wünsche, Der jerusalemische Talmud, 1880, pp. 157-160), and Midrash, Echa rabbathi c. ii. (German in Wünsche, Der Midrasch Echa rabbathi 1881, pp. 100-102). The texts are collected by Lebrecht, Bether, p. 44 ff. On their relation to one another, see Lebrecht, p. 20 f.—The story of the death of Eleasar is given also in Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 433 sq.—In the description of the fearful massacre which the Romans perpetrated, the rabbinical legends use the same hyperbole which the author of the Book of Revelation also employs: that the blood reached up on the horses as far as the nostrils (Revelation 14:20 : up to the horses’ bridles, ἄχρι τῶν χαλινῶν τῶν ἵππων). Even Lightfoot and Wetstein have called attention, in their notes on Revelation 14:20, to the parallel between that passage and jer. Taanith 69a and Midrash, Echa rabbathi, c. ii.
With the fall of Beth-ther the war was brought to a close, after having continued for somewhere about three years and a half, A.D. 132-135.[1468] During the course of it also many Rabbis died a martyr’s death. The later legends have glorified by poetic amplification and exaggeration especially the death of ten such martyrs, among them that of R. Akiba.[1469]
[1468] That “the government of Barcosiba” lasted three and a half years is stated in Seder Olam (in Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 413: מלכות בו כוזיבא שלש שנים ומחצה; the reading three and a half is certainly the correct one; see Salzer, Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums, iv. 1877, pp. 141-144). Jerome also mentions it as the opinion of some Hebraei that the last week year of Daniel (Daniel 9:27) covers the period of Vespasian and of Hadrian (Comm. in Daniel 9 fin. = Opp. ed. Vallarsi, v. 696: “tres autem anni et sex menses sub Hadriano supputantur, quando Jerusalem omnino subversa est et Judaeorum gens catervatim caesa”). In the Jerusalem Talmud the three and a half years are mentioned as the period of the siege of Beth-ther (jer. Taanith iv. fol. 68d in Lebrecht, Bether, p. 44; Wünsche, p. 158); in the Midrash, Echa rabbathi, three and a half years are assigned to Vespasian’s siege of Jerusalem and three and a half years to Hadrian’s siege of Beth-ther (Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 431).—Although these witnesses do not carry any great weight, they are correct in saying that the war lasted about three and a half years. Later documents confound the continuance of the siege of Beth-ther with the continuance of the war. That the beginning is to he placed in A.D. 132 has been shown above in p. 297. The end is to be placed, according to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6, in the eighteenth year of Hadrian=A.D. 134-135, and, indeed, in 135 rather than 134. For on inscriptions of the year 134 Hadrian does not yet bear the title (Imp)erator II., which was given him in consequence of the Jewish war. The war was therefore then not yet ended (comp. note 118).—It is singularly perverse on the part of Jewish scholars like Cassel (Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedie, art. “Juden,” p. 14 f.), Herzfeld (Monatsschrift, 1856, pp. 107-111), and Bodek (M. Aurelius Antoninus, 1868, pp. 50-54), in opposition to all certain data, to set the fall of Beth-ther some ten years earlier; Cassel and Herzfeld in A.D. 122, and Bodek in A.D. 125. In this they follow the Jerusalem Talmud, which places the conquest of Beth-ther fifty-two years after the destruction of Jerusalem (jer. Taanith iv. fol. 69a: ר׳ יוסי אומר חמשים ושתים שנה עשת ביתתר לאחר חרבן בית המקדש; on עשת=“to spend, continue in existence,” as in Ecclesiastes 6:12, see Salzer, Magazin, iii. 175 f.). This statement has arisen out of a confusion between the war of Hadrian and that of Vespasian (see above, note 56). The error here is improved in the course of being repeated by Jerome in epist. ad Dardanum, c. 7 (Vallarsi, i. 974): “deinde civitatis usque ad Hadrianum principem per quinquaginta annos mansere reliquiae.” Idem, Comm. in Jes. c. 6 s. fin. (Vallarsi, iv. 100): “quando post annos ferine quinquaginta Hadrianus venerit et terram Judaeam penitus fuerit depraedatus.” Idem, Comm. in Ezech. c. 5 (Vallarsi, v. 49). Idem, Comm. in Ezech. c. 24 (Vallarsi, v. 277); the last two passages are quoted above in note 106.—The authority also of the Chronicon Paschale, which places the war of Hadrian in the year 119 (ed. Dindorf, i. 474), is not of such a kind that its statement can override all other witnesses.—Essentially correct is the statement of the Seder Olam, that the war of Bencosiba occurred sixteen years after the war of Quietus. On the correct reading see Salzer, Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums, iv. 141-144.
[1469] According to the bab. Berachoth 61b, R. Akiba was put to a martyr’s death by torture, his flesh being torn from his body with iron combs. But during his sufferings he prayed the Shema, and while he, proceeding with the repetition of it, lingered long over the word Echad (Deuteronomy 6:4), he breathed out his spirit. Then there sounded forth a Bath Kol, a voice from heaven, saying: “Blessed art thou, R. Akiba, that thy soul departed with ‘Echad.’ ”—Elsewhere also in the older Midrash literature, and in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud, casual reference is made to the martyr death of this and that rabbi. The gathering together of ten martyrs, on the other hand, makes its appearance first in the Midrashim of the post-Talmudic period. Jellinek, Midrasch Ele Eskera, edited for the first time, according to a manuscript of the Hamburg City Library, with dissertations, 1853, and in Bet ha-Midrasch, Bd. ii. 64-72 and vi. 19-35, gives some texts. Compare further: Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, p. 142; Grätz in the Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1851-1852, pp. 307-322; Geschichte der Juden, iv. 175 ff.; Möbius, Midrasch Ele Eskera, die Sage von den zehn Märtyrern, metrisch übersetzt, 1854; Derenbourg, Histoire, p. 436; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopaedie für Bibel und Talmud, Supplementalband, i. (1886) pp. 155-158, art. “Zehn Märtyrer” (this last the relatively best statement).—Bibliographical hints are also given in Steinschneider, Catalog. librorum hebr. in Biblioth. Bodl. col. 585, n. 3730-3733.
In honour of the victory Hadrian was greeted for the Second time as Imperator.[1470] Julius Severus received the ornamenta triumphalia; to officers and men were given the customary rewards.[1471] The victory was won indeed at a very heavy cost. So great were the losses that Hadrian in his letter to the Senate omitted the usual introductory formula, that “he and the army were well.”[1472] Still more grievous than this direct loss of men was the desolation of the fruitful and populous province. “All Judea was well-nigh a desert.” Fifty fortresses, 985 villages were destroyed, 580,000 Jews (?) fell in battle, while the number of those who succumbed to their wounds and to famine was never reckoned.[1473] Innumerable was the multitude of those who were sold away as slaves. At the annual market at the Terebinth of Hebron they were offered for sale in such numbers that a Jewish slave was of no more value than a horse. What could not be disposed of there was brought to Gaza and there sold or sent to Egypt, on the way to which many died of hunger or by shipwreck.[1474]
[1470] In this designation of Hadrian the title Imp(erator) II. is wanting in two military diplomas which are dated 2nd April and 15th September A.D. 134 (Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. iii. pp. 877 and 878, Dipl. xxxiv. and xxxv.; the latter also, Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. x. n. 7855). Also, it is wanting on other inscriptions of A.D. 134 (Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 973, Inscr. Regni Neapol. n. 5771=Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. ix. n. 4359). Particularly decisive is the witness of the military diplomas, which in the designatory clauses are usually most precise.—Even from A.D. 135 (Hadr. trib. pot. xix.) up to a very recent period the title had not been proved. But perhaps certain inscription-fragments, on which the number xix. and the letters teru are found, should be expanded into Hadr. trib. pot. xix. imp. iterum (so Hübner, Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. ii. n. 478).—The title Imp. II. is certainly demonstrable for A.D. 136 (Hadr. trib. pot. xx.); see Orelli, Inscr. Lat. n. 813 and 2286=Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. vi. n. 975 and 976; also on an inscription which bears this date (Hadr. trib. pot. xx.), but belongs probably to the very beginning of that year, namely, December A.D. 135, Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. xiv. n. 3577=4235 (the tribunicial year began then in December).—Hadrian therefore received the title Imp. II. in A.D. 135, undoubtedly in consequence of the successful ending of the Jewish war. Compare Darmesteter, Revue des études juives, i. 53; Schiller, Geschichte der röm. Kaiserzeit, i. 614, note 4.
[1471] On Julius Severus, see Corp. Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 2830: “Huic senatus auctore imperatore Trajano Hadriano Augusto ornamenta triumphalia decrevit ob res in Judea prospere gestas.” Julius Severus was probably the last upon whom this honour was bestowed. See Mommsen, Röm. Staatsrecht, i. 378.—On the rewards of officers and men, see above, notes 96 and 102.—The coin with the inscription exercitus Judaicus is not as, e.g., Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. 164, supposes, a memorial coin, by which it was intended to recognise the services rendered by the army in the war. For there are many similar coins in provinces in which during the time of Hadrian no war had been carried on (Eckhel, Doctr. Num. vi. 486 sqq.; Cohen, Médailles impériales, ed. 2, t. ii. 1882, p. 153 sqq.). Besides, its very existence is questionable. It is given by Eckhel after older authorities, but is now no longer demonstrable (Renan, L’église chrétienne, p. 209, note). Cohen therefore has not reckoned it.
[1472] Dio Cassius, lxix. 14. Comp. Fronto, De bello Parthico, s. init. (ed. Mai, 1823, p. 200=Frontonis epistulae, ed. Naber, 1867, p. 217 sq.): “Quid? avo vestro Hadriano imperium optinente quantum militum a Judaeis, quantum ab Britannis caesum?”
[1473] Dio Cassius, lxix. 14.
[1474] Jerome, ad Zechar. xi. 5 (Vallarsi, vi. 885); ad Jerem. xxxi. 15 (Vallarsi, iv. 1065); Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, i. 474. See the passage in Münter, pp. 85 f., 113. On the terebinth at Hebron: Josephus, Wars of the Jews, iv. 9. 7.
With respect to the capital Jerusalem, that was now proceeded with which had been projected before the war: it was converted into a Roman colony with the name Aelia Capitolina.[1475] In order to make permanent the purely heathen character of the city, the Jews still residing there were driven out, and heathen colonists settled in their stead.[1476] No Jew was allowed thereafter to enter the territory of the city; if any one should be discovered there he was put to death.[1477] The official name of the newly-founded city is given on the coins as Col(onia) Aell(ia) Cap(itolina); writers designate it in their works, as a rule, only Aelia.[1478] Its constitution was that of a Roman colony, but it had not the jus Italicum.[1479] It may readily be supposed that it did not want beautiful and useful buildings. The Chronicon Paschale mentions: τὰ δύο δημόσια καὶ τὸ θέατρον καὶ τὸ τρικάμαρον καὶ τὸ τετράνυμφον καὶ τὸ δωδεκάπυλον τὸ πρὶν ὀνομαζόμενον ἀναβαθμοὶ καὶ τὴν κόδραν.[1480] At the south gate of the city toward Bethlehem the figure of a swine is said to have been engraved.[1481] The chief religious worship in the city was that of the Capitoline Jupiter, to whom a temple was erected on the site of the former Jewish temple.[1482] It would also seem that in it there was the statue of Hadrian of which Christian writers speak.[1483] On the coins, as deities of the city, besides Jupiter are mentioned: Bacchus, Serapis, Astarte, the Dioscuri. A sanctuary of Aphrodite (Astarte) stood on the place where, according to the Christian tradition, the sepulchre of Christ had been;[1484] or, according to another version, a sanctuary of Jupiter on the site of the sepulchre, and a sanctuary of Venus on the site of the cross of Christ.[1485]
[1475] Compare on the founding of Aelia generally: Deyling, “Aeliae Capitolinae origines et historia” (Observations sacrae P. V., Lips. 1748, pp. 433-490); Münter, Der jüdische Krieg, p. 87 ff.; Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, ii. 27; Kuhn, Die städtische und bürgerliche Verfassung des röm. Reichs, ii. 357 ff.; Renan, L’église chrétienne, pp. 21-30, 223-226; Gregorovius, “Die Gründung der römischen Colonie Aelia Capitolina” (Sitzungsberichte der philos.-philol. und hist. Classe der Münchener Akademie, 1883, pp. 477-508); Der Kaiser Hadrian, 3 Aufl. 1884 pp. 209-216.
[1476] Dio Cassius, lxix. 12; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6; Demonstratio evangelica, vi. 18. 10, ed. Gaisford. The latter passage is quoted above in note 105. Malalas, ed. Dindorf, p. 279.
[1477] Justin, Apologia, i. 47: ὅτι δὲ φυλάσσεται ὑφʼ ὑμῶν ὅπως μηδεὶς ἐν αὐτῇ γένηται, καὶ θάνατος κατὰ τοῦ καταλαμβανομένον Ἰουδαίου εἰσιόντος ὥρισται, ἀκριβῶς ἐπίστασθε. Dialog. c. Trypho, c. 16; 92. Aristo of Pella in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. iv. 6: ὡς ἂν μηδʼ ἐξ ἀπόπτου θεωροῖευ τὸ πατρῷον ἔδαθος (comp. on Aristo, vol. i. pp. 69-72). Tertullian, Adv. Judaeos, c. 13 init.: “de longinquo eam oculis tantum videre permissum est,” seems to be a conscious modification of the words of Aristo for the purpose of harmonizing them with Isaiah 33:17. See Grabe, Spicilegium patr. ii. 131 sq.: Routh, Reliquiae sacrae, i. 104 sq.: “saltim vestigio salutare conceditur;” Eusebius, Demonstratio evangel. vi. 18. 10, ed. Gaisford; Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 168, ad ann. Abr. 2151; according to the Armenian: “ex hoc inde tempore etiam ascendere Hierosolymam omnino prohibiti sunt primum Dei voluntate, deinde Romanorum mandato;” Jerome, Comm. in Is. vi. 11 sqq., ed. Vallarsi, iv. 100; in Jerem. xviii. 15, ed. Vallarei, iv. 971: “nullus Judaeorum terram quondam et urbem sanctam ingredi lege permittitur;” in Dan. ix. fin., ed. Vallarsi, v. 696: “ut Judaeae quoque finibus pellerentur.” Other passages are given by Renan, L’église chrétienne, p. 221, note 1.
[1478] Dio Cassius, lxix. 12; Ulpian, Digest. l. 15. 1. 6, and Tabula Peuting. (Helya Capitolina) gives the name in full, Aelia Capitolina. In Ptolemy, v. 16. 8 and viii. 20. 18, the common printed text has in both cases Αἰλία Καπιτωλιάς.—It was called Aelia after the family name of Hadrian: Capitolina after the Capitoline Jupiter.—The coins are given in Eckhel, Doctr. Num. iii. 441-443; Mionnet, Description de Médailles antiques, v. 516-522, Supplem. viii. 360, 363; De Saulcy, Recherches sur la Numismatique judaïqué, pp. 171-187; Cavedoni, Biblische Numismatik, ii. 68-73; Madden, History of Jewish Coinage, pp. 211-231; Reichardt in the Wiener Numismat. Zeitschrift, Jahrg. i. 1869, pp. 79-88; Kenner, Die Münzsammlung des Stiftes St. Florian in Ober-Oesterreich, 1871; De Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, 1874, pp. 83-109; Madden, Numismatic Chronicle, 1876, pp. 55-68; Madden, Coins of the Jews, 1881, pp. 247-275, where the material is given most fully.
[1479] Ulpian, Digest. l. 15. 1. 6: “In Palestina duae fuerunt coloniae, Caesariensis et Aelia Capitolina, sed neutra jus Italicum habet.”—Paulus, Digest. l. 15. 8. 7: similes his (namely, like the Caesariens who had not the full jus Italicum) Capitulenses esse videntur.—A memorial inscription which the courts of the colony set up in honour of Antoninus Pius is given by De Saulcy, Voyage atour de la mer morte, ii. 204, with atlas, pl. xxiv. n. 6=Le Bas and Waddington, Inscriptions, iii. 2, n. 1895=Corpus Inscr. Lat. t. iii. n. 116: “Tito Ael(io) Hadriano Antonino Aug. Pio P. P. pontif(ici) Augur(i) d(ecreto) d(ecurionum). Compare also Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, i. 2 Aufl. 1881, p. 428. The coins of the colony extend down to Valerian (A.D. 253-260).—According to the Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, i. 474, the city was divided into seven districts: καὶ ἐμέρισεν τὴν πόλιν εἰς ἑπτὰ ἄμφοδα καὶ ἔστησεν ἀνθρώπους ἰδίους ἀμφοδάρχας καὶ ἑκάστῳ ἀμφοδάρχῃ ἀπένειμεν ἄμφοδον.
[1480] Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, i. 474.
[1481] Jerome, Chronicon, ad. ann. Abr. 2152 (Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schoene, ii. 169): “Aelia ab Aelio Hadriano condita, et in fronte ejus portae qua Bethleem egredimur sus scalptus in marmore significans Romanae potestati subjacere Judaeos.”—The figure of the swine was found also upon a coin of the leg. X. Fratensis discovered in Jerusalem, which De Saulcy has published (Revue archéologique, nouv. série, t. xx. 1869, pp. 251-260, and De Saulcy, Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, p. 83 sq., pl. v. n. 3). Compare generally on figures of animals on the coins of the legions: Domaszewski, Die Fahnen im römischen Heere, 1885, pp. 54-56.
[1482] Dio Caseins, lxix. 12.—The figure of Jupiter often occurs on the coins of Aelia.
[1483] Jerome, Comm. in Jes. ii. 9 (Vallarsi, iv. 37): “ubi quondam erat templum et religio dei, ibi Hudriana statua et Jovis idolum collocatum est.”—Idem, Comm. in Matt. xxiv. 15 (Vallarsi, vii. 194): “potest autem simpliciter aut de Antichristo accipi aut de imagine Caesaris, quam Pilatus posuit in templo, aut de Hadriana equestri statua quae in ipso sancto sanctorum loco usque in praesenteni diem stetit.”—Since, according to this, the statue of Hadrian stood on the site of the Jewish temple, where, according to Dio Cassius, the temple to Jupiter was erected, and since it is mentioned by Jerome in the former passage along with the figure of Jupiter, it must have stood in the temple of Jupiter. Compare also, Chrysostom, Orat. adv. Judaeos, v. 11; Cedrenus, ed. Bekker, i. 438 (στήσας τὸ εαυτοῦ εἴδωλον ἐν τῷ ναῷ); Nicephorus Callistus, Eccl. Hist. iii. 24.—The Pilgrim of Bordeaux speaks of two statues of Hadrian (Palaestinae descriptiones, ed. Tobler, p. 4: “sunt ibi et statuae duae Hadriani”).
[1484] Eusebius, vita Constantini, iii. 26. Constantine, it is well known, caused a church to be built on that site. According to the later legend, which to Eusebius was still unknown, the cross of Christ was found upon the excavation of the sepulchre in its neighbourhood (Socrates, Hist. eccl. i. 17; Sozomenus, Hist. eccl. ii. 1, and others. Compare Holder, Inventio sanctae crucis, 1889; Nestle, De sancta cruce, 1889).
[1485] Jerome, Epist. 58 ad Paulinum, c. 3 (Vallarsi, i. 321): “Ab Hadriani temporibus usque ad Imperium Constantini per annos circiter centum octoginta in loco resurrectionis simulacrum Jovis, in crucis rupe statua ex marmore Veneris a gentibus posita colebatur.”—The difference of statement between Jerome and Eusebius has its origin evidently in the legend of the finding of the cross. Socrates and Sozomen still speak, like Eusebius, only of a sanctuary of Aphrodite. On account of the story of the finding of the cross, however, they assumed that this was the site of the sepulchre as well as of the crucifixion. Jerome, on the other hand, endows each of the two holy places with an idol of its own.
The complete ethnicizing of Jerusalem was the actual accomplishment of a scheme which previously Antiochus Epiphanes had in vain attempted. In another respect also the enactments of Hadrian were similar to those of the former attempt. The prohibition of circumcision, which had been issued probably even before the war, and was directed not specially against the Jews (see above, p. 292), was now without doubt continued in force. It was only under Antoninus Pius that the Jews were again allowed to circumcise their children (see above, p. 292). The Jewish tradition, which certainly refers to this prohibition, affirms that even the observance of the Sabbath and the study of the law had been forbidden.[1486] Whether this statement be reliable or not, the prohibition of circumcision was, according to Jewish notions, equivalent to a prohibition of the Jewish religion generally. So long as this prohibition was maintained and acted on, there was no use speaking of a pacification of the Jewish people. In fact we hear again, even in the time of Antoninus Pius, of an attempted rebellion which had to he put down by strong measures.[1487] To the Roman authorities there was here only the choice: either to tolerate the religious ceremonies, or to completely exterminate the people. We may indeed assume that the knowledge which the emperor Antoninus had of this alternative, led him to allow again and grant toleration to the practice of circumcision.
[1486] Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 430; Hamburger, Real-Encyclopaedie für Bibel und Talmud, 2 Abth. pp. 328-332 (art. “Hadri anische Verfolgungsedikte”).
[1487] Capitolin. Antoninus Pius, c. 5 (in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae ed. Peter): “Judaeos rebellantes contudit per praesidee ac legatos.”
Under Hadrian’s successor, therefore, essentially the same state of matters is seen still to exist as had existed since the time of Vespasian. He did not by any means answer the political ideals of the Jews. But in regard to religious matters they could be satisfied with him. The extinction of their political existence just led to this, that those tendencies obtained the supremacy which represented undiluted Judaism: Pharisaism and Rabbinism.
The development now proceeded forth upon those lines which became prominent in consequence of the great revolution of sentiment that followed the destruction of Jerusalem. Without a political home, grouped together into a unity only by the ideal power of the common law, the Jews continued all the more persistently to hold by and cherish this birth-right in which they all shared. In this way the separation between them and the rest of the world was more and more sharply defined. While, during the period in which Hellenistic Judaism flourished, the boundaries between the Jewish and Graeco-Roman view of the world threatened to melt away, the Jews and their opponents now gave attention with all their combined strength to deepen the cleft even more and more. Jewish Hellenism, which proclaimed the common brotherhood of man, disappeared, and Pharisaic Judaism, which sharply repudiated all communion with the Gentile world, won universal acceptance. But paganism also had become more intolerant: the rush of the masses to the worship of the Jewish God had ceased, partly because of other powerful spiritual forces, pre-eminently that of Chris tianity, which exercised a more potent influence, but partly also because of the civil legislation which, without abrogating the guaranteed toleration of the Jewish religion, imposed legal limitations to the further encroachments of Judaism.
And thus the Jews became more and more what they properly and essentially were: strangers in the pagan world. The restoration of a Jewish commonwealth in the Holy Land was, and continued even to be, a subject of religions hope, which they held by with unconquerable tenacity. The difference between the ideal and the actual, however, was at first, and even after centuries had passed, so marked and severe, that they could enter even their own capital only as strangers. Even in the fourth century it was permitted them only once in the year to enter the city on the 9th Ab, the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, in order that they might be able, on the site of the temple, to pour forth their lamentations. In graphic terms Jerome describes how the Jews on that day were wont to gather in mournful companies, to utter forth their grievous complaints, and by gold to purchase from the Roman watch permission to linger longer in the place of mourning:[1488] “Usque ad praesentem diem perfidi coloni post interfectionem servorum et ad extremum filii dei excepto planctu prohibentur ingredi Jerusalem, et ut ruinam suae eis flere liceat civitatis pretio redimunt, ut qui quondam emerant sanguinem Christi emant lacrymas suas et ne fletus quidem eis gratuitus sit. Videas in die, quo capta est a Romanis et diruta Jerusalem, venire populum lugubrem, confluere decrepitas mulierculas et senes pannis annisque obsitos, in corporibus et in habitu suo iram Domini demonstrantes. Congregatur turba miserorum; et patibulo Domini coruscante ac radiante ἀναστάσει ejus, de oliveti monte quoque crucis fulgente vexillo, plangere ruinas templi sui populum miserum et tamen non esse miserabilem: adhuc fletus in genis et livida brachia et sparsi crines, et miles merceden postulat, ut illis flere plus liceat. Et dubitat aliquis, quum haec videat, de die tribulationis et angustiae, de die calamitatis et miseriae, de die tenebrarum et caliginis, de die nebulae et turbinis, de die tubae et clangoris? Habent enim et in luctu tubas, et juxta prophetiam vox sollennitatis versa est in planotum. Ululant super cineres sanctuarii et super altare destructum et super civitates quondam munitas et super excelsos angulos templi, de quibus quondam Jacobum fratrem Domini praecipitaverunt.”[1489]
[1488] Jerome, ad Zephan. i. 15 eq. (Vallarsi, vi. 692).
[1489] Compare also Origen, in Josuam homil. xvii. 1 (ed. Lommatzsch, xi. 152 sq.): “Si ergo veniens ad Jerusalem civitatem terrenam, o Judaee, invenies eam subversam et in cineres ac favillas redactam, noli flere sicut nunc facitis tanquam pueri sensibus; noli lamentari, sed pro terrena require coelestem.”—Itinerarium Burdigalense (Palestinae descriptiones, ed. Tobler, p. 4): “est non longe de statuis [Hadriani] lapis pertusus, ad quem veniunt Judaei singnlis annis, et unguent eum et lamentant se cum gemitu, et vestimenta sua scindunt et sic recedunt.”—Some other passages are given by Renan, L’église chrétienne, p. 221, note 3.