History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6). Graetz Heinrich

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СКАЧАТЬ new city; it had probably been built upon a site which had once served as a battle-field, as a quantity of human bones were discovered there. The inhabitants were consequently prevented by the strict Levitical regulations from visiting the Temple, and performing various religious observances. Antipas induced the Judæans to settle there only by holding out the most tempting offers and by using force; and a century actually elapsed before the more conscientious members of the people consented to take up their abode in the city of Tiberias.

      The town of Beth-Ramatha, in a situation similar to that of Jericho, and also rich in the produce of balsam plants, was renamed Livia, in honor of the wife of Augustus. Philip, whose revenue from the country only amounted to one hundred talents, also built two cities. One of these he built in the beautiful district near the source of the Jordan, and named it Cæsarea Philippi, to distinguish it from the seaport town of Cæsarea; the other, to the northeast of the Lake of Gennesareth, he named Julias, after the daughter of Augustus. Indeed, Judæa teemed with monuments erected in honor of the Cæsars. Philip's disposition was gentle, and seemingly unmarred by fierce passions, and his reign, which lasted seven-and-thirty years (4 B. C. – 33 A. C.), was quiet and uneventful. Antipas, on the contrary, had inherited some of his father's wild and bloodthirsty nature.

      The successor to the Governor Valerius Gratus was Pontius Pilate, whose tenure of office (26–36) embraced a decade memorable in the history of the world. As soon as he was in power, he showed the determination to subject the Judæans to further humiliation, and to convince them that they must drink the cup of suffering to the dregs. The mere facts that Pilate was the creature of the deceitful minister Sejanus, before whom emperor and senate trembled alike, and that he was sent by him to Judæa, would suffice to describe his disposition. Pilate was worthy of his master; he certainly went far beyond any of his predecessors in wounding the susceptibilities of the Judæan nation. He attacked their religious scruples by endeavoring to induce them to pay homage to the emblems and insignia of imperialism. Till now the leaders of Roman troops had respected the aversion with which the Judæans were known to regard all images, and on entering Jerusalem the obnoxious emblems had always been removed from the Roman standards. Herod and his sons had never failed to observe this practice. Although Pilate well knew that the feelings of Judæans had never before been outraged on this subject, he paid no heed to them. It is not known whether he had received secret injunctions on this point from Sejanus, or whether he acted on his own authority, with the anticipation of a satisfactory bribe. He sent privately for all the imperial emblems in order to replace them upon the standards which were in Jerusalem. The command that these representations of human beings were to be worshiped as deities caused the deepest indignation throughout the land. Delegates from the people, who were even joined by members of the Herodian family, hastened to the Procurator at Cæsarea, and implored him to command the removal of the hated images.

      During five days the petitioners remained before the palace of the Procurator, sending up ceaseless supplications. On the sixth day Pilate attempted to terrify them, and threatened that they should be cut down by his legions if they did not immediately disperse. However, when he found that the Judæans were determined to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, rather than their religious convictions, and perhaps afraid of the disapproval of Tiberius, he at last gave way, and issued a command that the cause of their anger should be removed. But he provoked the indignation of the inhabitants of Jerusalem against himself a short time after. He purposed making an aqueduct from a spring at a distance of four geographical miles from the town of Jerusalem. In order to meet the necessary expenses, he possessed himself of the treasures in the Temple (the korban). He was in Jerusalem at the time, and was surrounded by an angry populace, who assailed him with execrations. He did not venture to call out his legions, but ordered a number of soldiers to disguise themselves in the Judæan dress, and to mingle with the crowd and attack them. The multitudes rapidly dispersed, but not before great numbers of them had been killed and wounded.

      CHAPTER VI.

      MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS AND ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY

      The Messianic Hope – Various Conceptions of the Expected Messiah – The Essene Idea of the Kingdom of Heaven – John the Baptist, his Work and Imprisonment – Jesus of Nazareth continues John's Labors – Story of his Birth – His Success – His Relations to Judaism and the Sects – His Miraculous Healing of the Sick and Exorcism of Demons – His Secret Appearance as the Messiah – His Journey to Judæa – Accusations against him, and his Condemnation – The First Christian Community and its Chiefs – The Ebionites – Removal of Pilate from Judæa – Vitellius, Governor of Syria, favors the Judæans.

28–37 C. E

      While Judæa was still trembling in fear of some new act of violence on the part of the governor, Pontius Pilate, which would again afflict the country with disturbances and troubles, a strange event occurred. At first but little heeded, it soon acquired, through the singularity of its origin and many favorable attendant circumstances, a considerable degree of notoriety. So great were the strides this movement rapidly made to influence and power, that radical changes were produced by it and new paths opened in the history of the world. The time had come when the fundamental truths of Judaism, till then thoroughly known and rightly appreciated only by profound thinkers, were to burst their shackles and go freely forth among all the people of the earth. Sublime and lofty views of God and of holy living for the individual as well as for the state, which form the kernel of Judaism, were now to be disseminated among other nations and to bring them a rich and beneficent harvest. Israel was now to commence in earnest his sacred mission; he was to become the teacher of nations. The ancient teaching about God and religious morality was to be introduced by him unto a godless and immoral world. Judaism, however, could gain admission into the hearts of the heathens only by taking another name and assuming new forms, for with its old designation and distinctive features it was not generally popular.

      It was due to the strange movement which arose under the governorship of Pilate that the teachings of Judaism won the sympathy of the heathen world. But this new form of Judaism, altered by foreign elements, became estranged from and placed itself in harsh antagonism to the parent source. Judaism, which had given birth to this new manifestation, could take no pleasure in her offspring, which soon turned coldly from her and struck out into strange, divergent paths. This new power, this old doctrine in a new garb, or rather this Essenism intermingled with foreign elements, is Christianity, whose advent and earliest course belong to the Judæan history of this epoch.

      Christianity owed its origin to an overpowering, mysterious feeling which reigned among the better classes of the Judæan nation, and which became daily stronger as their political position became more and more intolerable. The ever-recurring evils brought on them by the rapacity of their Roman rulers, the shamelessness of the Herodian princes, the cowardice and servility of the Judæan aristocracy, the debasement of the high priests and their families, and the dissensions of rival parties, had raised the longing for the deliverer announced in the prophetical writings – the Messiah – to so great a pitch that any highly-gifted individual, possessed of outward charm or imbued with moral and religious grace, would readily have found disciples, and believers in his Messianic mission. The most earnest thinkers of that time had long regarded the political condition of the Judæans since their return from the Babylonian exile as a temporary or preparatory state, which would only continue until the true prophet arose, and Elijah turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, and restored the tribes of Jacob. When the people, with solemn rites, elected the Hasmonæan Simon as their prince, they decreed that he and his descendants should hold that position only until the True Prophet appeared to assume the royal dignity, and it was only to a scion of the House of David, the Anointed that, according to prophecy, this dignity by right belonged.

      When, consequent upon the wars undertaken by the three powerful leaders, Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, ostensibly to punish Cæsar's murderers, in reality to introduce a new form of government, the great political convulsion took place in the Roman Empire, and three divisions of the world were laid waste, a Judæan poet in Egypt was foretelling a far different outcome – the destruction of the whole heathen world and the dawn of the "Kingdom of God." In СКАЧАТЬ