The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

It is probable that the authority exercised by the Patriarchs of the East[48] grew up after the abandonment by Adrian of his predecessor’s conquests beyond the Euphrates. The power of the Parthian kings had been broken by the victories of Trajan; and in the remoter parts of their dominions they exercised but a feeble authority. Hence little opposition would be offered to the rule of the Jewish Patriarch—the less, because the respect and obedience rendered to him did not in any way trench on the allegiance due to the civil ruler.

His power appeared to be everywhere firmly established; yet in the ensuing generation it was assailed, and in a great measure superseded, by the interference of his Western rival, the Patriarch of Tiberias. Simeon, son of Gamaliel II., called ‘the Just,’ was a man of ambitious and restless character. Believing that Jerusalem was the true centre of Jewish unity, and that his Patriarchate was, in reality, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, he argued that he ought to exercise undivided sway over the whole of the Jewish community, and regarded his brother of Babylon as a usurper. He sent a delegate to him, accordingly, who was instructed to approach him with all possible deference; but as soon as he had made good his position, to throw off the mask, and demand his submission. His scheme took effect: the delegate was kindly received, and admitted to the confidence of his entertainers; when he suddenly changed his tone, and sharply censuring some of the prince’s acts, required, in the name of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, that they should be rescinded. A scene of angry resistance followed. But the name of Jerusalem had too strong a hold on the heart of every Jew to allow of any successful opposition. The Babylonian potentate was obliged to succumb, and until the Patriarchate of Tiberias ceased to exist continued to hold a place subordinate to his rival.

But in the succeeding century the Prince of the Captivity recovered all, and more than all, the power exercised by his predecessors. Tales are related of his grandeur and magnificence, which it is difficult to credit, and the more so, because they do not seem to have diminished after the accession of the Persian kings,[49] who might reasonably have been expected to be jealous of such subjects. The Patriarch was wont to be installed in his office with the greatest pomp. He was carried in a splendid procession, attended by the Rabbins, and preceded by trumpets, to the Synagogue, where he was formally admitted to his office, amid the prayers and blessings of the people. He then returned in like fashion to his palace, where he entertained his chief officers at a sumptuous banquet. He lived in the seclusion usual among Eastern potentates. But whenever he went abroad or entered a house he was received with every token of respect. He would sometimes, we are told, pay a visit to the king; when one of the royal chariots would be sent for his use—which, however, he would decline, remembering that, after all, he was an alien and a captive. But this studied humility was visible in nothing else. He was robed in the most splendid vestments, and preceded by a guard of fifty soldiers. The way was cleared before him, and all who met him saluted him with the profoundest respect. At the door of the palace he was met by the royal officers, who conducted him to the king’s presence; where, after the first reverence had been paid, he was placed on the left hand of the throne, to confer with the sovereign on the affairs of the State.

It seems that intercourse with the Persians, who were fire worshippers,[50] and at least as bigoted in their religious opinions as the Jews, did not bring about enmity and persecution. Yet many of the Jewish practices must have been highly offensive to them. Thus the Jews have always interred their dead, and that practice is an abomination in the eyes of the Ghebirs. Again, there were certain occasions when no lights were permitted to be kindled except in the Fire Temples;[51] and the Jews were, in consequence, obliged to extinguish their household fires. We should naturally have expected that some at least among the Jews would refuse compliance, and so bring themselves into collision with the law. But we do not hear of any disputes of this kind[52] until the time of Sapor, who, at the outset of his reign, had shown the Jews great favour. But having embarked one day in a controversy with the Rabbins on the subject of the burial of the dead, he required that they should produce some passage out of their Scriptures in which interment in the earth was ordered. The doctors, unable to do this, gave some evasive answer; which so incensed him that he began a fierce persecution. Sapor, however, died A.D. 272, and we do not hear that the persecution was continued.

This is also the era of the notorious Mani, or Manes, who founded the sect which caused such widespread strife and division in the Christian Church. He is said by some to have held many conferences with Jewish doctors during Sapor’s reign, and to have urged upon them that the acts attributed to their God in the Old Testament, such as the extirpation of the nations of Canaan, were inconsistent with the Divine attribute of mercy. He was, in fact, according to Mani’s teaching, the God of Darkness; from whom they ought to turn, to worship the God of Light. It is needless to say that the Jews utterly rejected his teaching. Through their influence, he lost the favour of Sapor, and was banished from his dominions.[53]

Turning again to the West, we now come to the era of Constantine, when the pagan idolatry was abolished by law, and the religion of Christ publicly recognised. It is obvious that this was a matter which gravely affected the Jews no less than the heathen. They were as much opposed to the newly authorized faith as any pagans could have been—far more so, in fact, because they had a profound belief in, and an earnest zeal for, their own creed, which was altogether wanting in the instance of the heathen. It would seem that the Roman Emperor contemplated making the religion of Christ the religion of the world; in which case he must insist on its adoption by the Jews, as well as by all the other subjects of the Roman empire. Whether the idea of compulsory conversion was ever entertained must remain doubtful. But it is tolerably clear that Constantine did hope for, if he did not anticipate, their adoption of his own faith. Conferences with Jewish doctors were held in his presence, at which the disputants on both sides not only upheld their cause by argument, but endeavoured to prove its truth by resort to miracles. If Constantine hoped anything from trials like these,[54] in which anything that appeared to be preternatural was claimed on the one side as having been effected by the finger of God, and denounced on the other as due to the agency of Satan—he was certainly disappointed; and to this failure perhaps may be imputed the severe laws against the Jews, some of which he certainly decreed. Thus he issued an edict that any Jew who imperilled the life of a Christian should be burned alive; he forbade proselytizing by the Jews on the severest penalties; he prohibited Jews from having Christian slaves. In one of his Acts he styles the Jews ‘the most hateful of all people.’ On the other hand, he has been unjustly charged with acts of positive cruelty towards them, which would have soiled the lustre of his name, if they had been really committed. It is said, for instance, that having heard that large numbers of them had assembled for the purpose of rebuilding Jerusalem, he ordered their ears to be cut off, and themselves banished,[55] and again that he required them to accept baptism, whether they would or not, and to eat swine’s flesh on Easter Day.[56] But these charges refute themselves. Jerusalem was a large and noble city in his day, and it is absurd to talk of the Jews having wished to rebuild it. Nor among all his edicts, preserved in the Theodosian Code, is there a word about cutting off ears or compulsory eating of pork.

During this reign the Jews in Persia are accused of having stirred up a sanguinary persecution against the Christians. The latter had, for a long time past, been making their way into Sapor’s dominions, to the great vexation of the Jews. But when at last they had succeeded in converting to their faith Ustazades, one of Sapor’s chief officers, the irritation of the Jews rose to so great a height that they persuaded Sapor to put down the growing evil by the severest measures. A long and bloody persecution ensued, in which Simeon, Bishop of Ctesiphon, suffered martyrdom, the newly built churches were destroyed, and every trace of Christianity obliterated.

Constans, the son of Constantine, who succeeded to the throne A.D. 353, far from relaxing any of the severities laid on the Jews by his father, proceeded to greater lengths against them. Provoked by an insurrection they had raised in Judæa, he re-enacted the laws of Adrian and his father—adding to them that any Jew who married a Christian, who circumcised, or even kept, any Christian slave, should be put to death. He also greatly increased the heavy taxes with which they were already loaded.

It is no wonder that the accession of Julian—who, immediately after his assumption of the purple, publicly declared his abnegation of Christianity—should have been hailed by the Jews, as well as the pagans, as the dawn of a new day of freedom and prosperity to them. They hastened to present him with an address, representing, among other grievances, the great wrong done them in their exclusion from Jerusalem, the scene of the ancient glories of their race, the never-forgotten home of their ancestors, though the heathen were permitted to dwell there without molestation. While the most sacred sites were hidden by Christian churches, and devoted to Christian worship, the spot where their own beloved Temple had once stood lay desolate, and they were not even permitted to approach and gaze upon its ruins. Julian replied even more favourably than they could have hoped. He addressed the Jewish patriarch as ‘his brother;’ he inveighed against the unmerited severity with which they had been treated; he remitted the imposts of which they complained; annulled the decree by which they had been forbidden to enter Jerusalem; and finally gave them permission to rebuild the Temple on Mount Moriah, promising them every help in the execution of the work, and appointing one of his own favourite officers, Alypius, to superintend it.

His motives for this extraordinary step are not difficult to conjecture. He had not the slightest inclination to Judaism, being a devoted follower of the ancient creed of Greece and Rome, as held by the sages, whom he had made his study. But he wished, in the first place, to repair the injustice of past years; in the second, to conciliate the Jews, whose help might be of the greatest service to him in his Persian expedition; and in the third, to confute and establish the falsehood of Christianity. It was well known that the universal belief among the Christians was, that the voice of prophecy had declared that the Jewish Temple should never be rebuilt;[57] at all events, never until the Jewish people had accepted Jesus Christ as their God. If then he could prove that their belief was untrue on one point, why might it not be untrue on all?

It is needless to say that this unexpected grace filled the whole Jewish world with wonder and delight. Funds for providing the required materials poured in, in abundance; thousands offered themselves as labourers; men of the highest position and wealth, even delicately nurtured ladies, were seen digging up the ground with pickaxes made of gold and silver, or carrying away the earth in silken handkerchiefs. The work advanced with great rapidity, till it was suddenly interrupted by flames bursting forth from the ground, accompanied by earthquakes, which repeatedly injured or destroyed the labourers engaged in the undertaking, and ultimately compelled them to desist from it.[58] Other strange circumstances are said to have accompanied this occurrence. Fiery crosses filled the air, and were seen on the dresses of the fugitives, as they escaped from the dangerous precincts. Some of the latter, who fled to the shelter of a neighbouring church, found the doors closed by some unseen power against them.

Doubtless much that has been related must be regarded as idle tales, the result of panic or exaggeration. But to suppose the whole occurrence to be simply attributable to natural causes appears impossible. This, however, is a matter requiring careful and minute inquiry. The reader will find a full examination of it in Appendix IV.

Not long afterwards (on the 26th of June, 363) the death of Julian, in battle with the Persians, put a period—not only to any renewal of this particular undertaking—but to the hopes in which the Jews had indulged, of Imperial favour especially bestowed on them. So ended the last recorded attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple.

Note to Chapter VI. on the Religion of the Magi.