All parties invoke the aid of Pompey.
At this time Pompey was pursuing his career of conquests in the East, and both parties invoked his interference, and both offered enormous bribes. This powerful Roman was then at Damascus, receiving the homage and tribute of Oriental kings. The Egyptian monarch sent as a present a crown worth four thousand pieces of gold. Aristobulus, in command of the riches of the temple, sent a golden vine worth five hundred talents. Pompey, intent on the conquest of Arabia, made no decision; but, having succeeded in his object, assumed a tone of haughtiness irreconcilable with the independence of Judea. Aristobulus, patriotic yet vacillating,too high-minded to yield, too weak to resist,fled to Jerusalem and prepared for resistance.
Jerusalem falls into the hands of Pompey.
Pompey approached the capital, weakened by those everlasting divisions to which the latter Jews were subjected by the zeal of their religious disputes. The city fell, after a brave defense of three months, and might not have fallen had the Jews been willing to abate from the rigid observance of the Sabbath, during which the Romans prepared for assault. Pompey demolished the fortifications of the city, and exacted tribute, but spared the treasures of the temple which he profaned by his heathen presence. He nominated Hyrcanus to the priesthood, but withheld the royal diadem, and limited the dominions of Hyrcanus to Judea. He took Aristobulus to Rome to grace his triumph.
Reorganization of the government.
But he contrived to escape, and, with his son Alexander, again renewed the civil strife; but taken prisoner, he was again sent as a captive to the eternal city. Gabinius, the Roman generalfor Hyrcanus had invoked the aid of the Romansnow deprived the high priest of the royal authority, and reorganized the whole government of Judea; establishing five independent Sanhedrims in the principal cities, after the form of the great Sanhedrim, which had existed since the captivity. This form lasted until Julius Cæsar reinvested Hyrcanus with the supreme dignity.
Jerusalem governed by Roman generals.
Jerusalem was now exposed to the rapacity of the Roman generals who really governed the country. Crassus plundered all that Pompey spared. He took from the temple ten thousand talentsabout ten million dollars when gold and silver had vastly greater value than in our times. These vast sums had been accumulated from the contributions of Jews scattered over the worldsome of whom were immensely wealthy.
Herod governor of Galilee.
Aristobulus and his son Alexander were assassinated during the great civil war between the partisans of Cæsar and Pompey. After the fall of the latter. Cæsar confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, and allowed him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. But Antipater, presuming on the incapacity of Hyrcanus, renewed his ambitious intrigues, and contrived to make his son, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem, and Herod, a second son, governor of Galilee.
Receives the crown of Judea. And reigns tyrannically. His miserable life.
Herod developed great talents, and waited for his time. After the battle of Philippi Herod made acceptable offerings to the conquering party, and received the crown of Judea, which had been recently ravaged by the Parthians, through the intrigues of Antigonas, the surviving son of Aristobulus. By his marriage with Mariamne, of the royal line of the Asmoneans, he cemented the power he had won by the sword and the favor of Rome. He was the last of the independent sovereigns of Palestine. He reigned tyrannically, and was guilty of great crimes, having caused the death of the aged Hyrcanus, and the imprisonment and execution of his wife on a foul suspicion. He paid the same court to Augustus that he did to Antony, and was confirmed in the possession of his kingdom. The last of the line of the Asmonæans had perished on the scaffold, beautiful, innocent, and proud, the object of a boundless passion to a tyrant who sacrificed her to a still greater onesuspicion. Alternating between his love and resentment, Herod sank into a violent fit of remorse, for he had more or less concern in the murder of the father, the grandfather, the brother, and the uncle of his beautiful and imperious wife. At all times, even amid the glories of his palace, he was haunted with the image of the wife he had destroyed, and loved with passionate ardor. He burst forth in tears, he tried every diversion, banquets and revels, solitude and laborstill the murdered Mariamne is ever present to his excited imagination. He settles down in a fixed and indelible gloom, and his stern nature sought cruelty and bloodshed. His public administration was, on the whole, favorable to the peace and happiness of the country, although he introduced the games and the theatres in which the Romans sought their greatest pleasures. For these innovations he was exposed to incessant dangers; but he surmounted them all by his vigilance and energy. He rebuilt Samaria, and erected palaces. But his greatest work was the building of Cæsareaa city of palaces and theatres. His policy of reducing Judea to a mere province of Rome was not pleasing to his subjects, and he was suspected of a design of heathenizing the nation. Neither his munificence nor severities could suppress the murmurs of an indignant people. The undisguised hostility of the nation prompted him to an act of policy by which he hoped to conciliate it forever. The pride and glory of the Jews was their temple. This Herod determined to rebuild with extraordinary splendor, so as to approach its magnificence in the time of Solomon. He removed the old structure, dilapidated by the sieges, and violence, and wear of five hundred years; and the new edifice gradually arose, glittering with gold, and imposing with marble pinnacles.
The hatred in which he was held. His death.
But in spite of all his magnificent public works, whether to gratify the pride of his people, or his own vanityin spite of his efforts to develop the resources of the country over which he ruled by the favor of Romein spite of his talents and energiesone of the most able of the monarchs who had sat on the throne of Judea, he was obnoxious to his subjects for his cruelties, and his sympathy with paganism, and he was visited in his latter days by a terrible disorder which racked his body with pain, and inflamed his soul with suspicions, while his court was distracted with cabals from his own family, which poisoned his life, and led him to perpetrate unnatural cruelties. He had already executed two favorite sons, by Mariamne whom he loved, all from court intrigues and jealousy, and he then executed his son and heir, by Doris, his first wife, whom he had divorced to marry Mariamne, and under circumstances so cruel that Augustus remarked that he had rather be one of his swine than one of his sons. Among other atrocities, he had ordered the massacre of the Innocents to prevent any one to be born as king of the Jews. His last act was to give the fatal mandate for the execution of his son Antipater, whom he hoped to make his heir, and then almost immediately expired in agonies, detested by the nation, and leaving a name as infamous as that of Ahab, B.C. 4.
His kingdom is divided among his sons. The claims of the rival princes.
Herod had married ten wives, and left a numerous family. By his will, he designated the sons of Malthace, his sixth wife, and a Samaritan, as his successors. These were Archelaus, Antipas, and Olympias. The first inherited Idumea, Samaria, and Judea; to the second were assigned Galilee and Peræa. Archelaus at once assumed the government at Jerusalem; and after he had given his father a magnificent funeral, and the people a funeral banquet, he entered the temple, seated himself on a golden throne, and made, as is usual with monarchs, a conciliatory speech, promising reform and alleviations from taxes and oppression. But even this did not prevent one of those disgraceful seditions which have ever marked the people of Jerusalem, in which three thousand were slain, caused by religious animosities. After quelling the tumult by the military, he set out for Rome, to secure his confirmation to the throne. He encountered opposition from various intrigues by his own family, and the caprice of the emperor. His younger brother, Antipas, also went to Rome to support his claim to the throne by virtue of a former will. While the cause of the royal litigants was being settled in the supreme tribunal of the civilized world, new disturbances broke out in Judea, caused by the rapacities of Sabinus, the Roman procurator of Syria. The whole country was in a state of anarchy, and adventurers flocked from all quarters to assert their claims in a nation that ardently looked forward to national independence, or the rise of some conqueror who should restore the predicted glory of the land now rent with civil feuds, and stained with fratricidal blood. Varus, the prefect of Syria, attempted to restore order, and crucified some two thousand ringleaders of the tumults. Five hundred Jews went to Rome to petition for the restoration of their ancient constitution, and the abolition of kingly rule.
The Romans confirm the will of Herod.
At length the imperial edict confirmed the will of Herod, and Archelaus was appointed to the sovereignty of Jerusalem, Idumea, and Samaria, under the title of ethnarch; Herod Antipas obtained Galilee and Peræa; Philip, the son of Herod and Cleopatra of Jerusalem, was made tetrarch of Ituræa. Archelaus governed his dominions with such injustice and cruelty, that he was deposed by the emperor, and Judea became a Roman province. The sceptre departed finally from the family of David, of the Asmonæans, and of Herod, and the kingdom sank into a district dependent on the prefecture of Syria, though administered by a Roman governor.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ROMAN GOVERNORS
Birth of Christ.
The history of the Jews after the death of Herod is marked by the greatest event in human annals. In four years after he expired in agonies of pain and remorse, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, whose teachings have changed the whole condition of the world, and will continue to change all institutions and governments until the seed of the woman shall have completely triumphed over all the wiles of the serpent. We can not, however, enter upon the life or mission of the Saviour, or the feeble beginnings of the early and persecuted Church which he founded, and which is destined to go on from conquering to conquer. We return to the more direct history of the Jewish nation until their capital fell into the hands of Titus, and their political existence was annihilated.
The rule of Roman governors.
They were now to be ruled by Roman governorsor by mere vassal kings whom the Romans tolerated and protected. The first of these rulers was P. Sulpicius Quirinusa man of consular rank, who, as proconsul of Syria, was responsible for the government of Judea, which was intrusted to Coponius. He was succeeded by M. Ambivius, and he again by Annius Rufus. A rapid succession of governors took place till Tiberius appointed Valerius Gratus, who was kept in power eleven years, on the principle that a rapid succession of rulers increased the oppression of the people, since every new governor sought to be enriched. Tiberius was a tyrant, but a wise emperor, and the affairs of the Roman world were never better administered than during his reign. These provincial governors, like the Herodian kings, appointed and removed the high priests, and left the internal management of the city of Jerusalem to them. They generally resided themselves at Cæsarea, to avoid the disputes of the Jewish sects, and the tumults of the people.
Pontius Pilate.
Pontius Pilate succeeded Gratus A.D. 27,under whose memorable rule Jesus Christ was crucified and slaina man cruel, stern, and reckless of human life, but regardful of the peace and tranquillity of the province. He sought to transfer the innocent criminal to the tribunal of Herod, to whose jurisdiction he belonged as a Galilean, but yielded to the importunities of the people, and left him at the mercy of the Jewish priesthood.
The vigilant jealousy of popular commotion, and the reckless disregard of human life, led to the recall of Pilate; but during the forty years which had elapsed since the death of Herod, his sons had quietly reigned over their respective provinces. Antipas at Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee, and Philip beyond the Jordan. The latter prince was humane and just, and died without issue, and his territory was annexed to Syria.
Herod Antipas.
Herod Antipas was a different man. He seduced and married his niece Herodias, wife of Herod Philip, daughter of Aristobolus, and granddaughter of Mariamne, whom Herod the Great had sacrificed in jealousythe last scion of the Asmonæan princes. It was for her that John the Baptist was put to death. But this marriage proved unfortunate, since it involved him in difficulties with Aretas, king of Arabia, father of his first and repudiated wife. He ended his days in exile at Lyons, having provoked the jealousy or enmity of Caligula, the Roman emperor, through the intrigues of Herod Agrippa, the brother of Herodias, and consequently, a grandson of Herod the Great and Mariamne. The Herodian family, of Idumean origin, never was free from disgraceful quarrels and jealousies and rivalries.
Herod Agrippa.
The dominions of Herod Antipas were transferred to Herod Agrippa, who had already obtained from Caligula the tetrarchate of Ituræa, on the death of Philip, with the title of king. The fortunes of this prince, in whose veins flowed the blood of the Asmonæans and the Herodians, surpassed in romance and vicissitude any recorded of Eastern princes; alternately a fugitive and a favorite, a vagabond and a courtier, a pauper and a spendthriftaccording to the varied hatred and favor of the imperial family at Rome. He had the good luck to be a friend of Caligula before the death of Tiberius. When he ascended the throne of the Roman world, he took his friend from prison and disgrace, and gave him a royal title and part of the dominions of his ancestors.
His brilliant reign.
Agrippa did all he could to avert the mad designs of Caligula of securing religious worship as a deity from the Jews, and he was moderate in his government and policy. On the death of the Roman tyrant, he received from his successor Claudius the investiture of all the dominions which belonged to Herod the Great. He reigned in great splendor, respecting the national religion, observing the Mosaic law with great exactness, and aiming at the favor of the people. He inherited the taste of his great progenitor for palace building, and theatrical representations. He greatly improved Jerusalem, and strengthened its fortifications, and yet he was only a vassal king. He reigned by the favor of Rome, on whom he was dependent, and whom he feared, like other kings and princes of the earth, for the emperor was alone supreme.
Persecutes the Christians.
Agrippa sullied his fair fame by being a persecutor of the Christians, and died in the forty-fourth year of his age, having reigned seven years over part of his dominions, and three over the whole of Palestine. He died in extreme agony from internal pains, being eaten of worms. He left one son, Agrippa, and three daughters, Drusilla, Berenice, and Mariamne, the two first of whom married princes.
Judea a Roman province.
On his death Judea relapsed into a Roman province, his son, Agrippa, being only seventeen years of age, and too young to manage such a turbulent, unreasonable, and stiff-necked people as the Jews, rent by perpetual feuds and party animosities, and which seem to have characterized them ever since the captivity, when they renounced idolatry forever.
Jewish parties.
What were these parties? For their opinions and struggles and quarrels form no inconsiderable part of the internal history of the Jews, both under the Asmonæan and Idumean dynasties.
The Pharisees. Their doctrines and character.
The most powerful and numerous were the Pharisees, and most popular with the nation. The origin of this famous sect is involved in obscurity, but probably arose not long after the captivity. They were the orthodox party. They clung to the Law of Moses in its most minute observances, and to all the traditions of their religion. They were earnest, fierce, intolerant, and proud. They believed in angels, and in immortality. They were bold and heroic in war, and intractable and domineering in peace. They were great zealots, devoted to proselytism. They were austere in life, and despised all who were not. They were learned and decorous, and pragmatical. Their dogmatism knew no respite or palliation. They were predestinarians, and believed in the servitude of the will. They were seen in public with ostentatious piety. They made long prayers, fasted with rigor, scrupulously observed the Sabbath, and paid tithes to the cheapest herbs. They assumed superiority in social circles, and always took the uppermost seats in the synagogue. They displayed on their foreheads and the hem of their garments, slips of parchment inscribed with sentences from the law. They were regarded as models of virtue and excellence, but were hypocrites in the observance of the weightier matters of justice and equity. They were, of course, the most bitter adversaries of the faith which Christ revealed, and were ever in the ranks of persecution. They resembled the most austere of the Dominican monks in the Middle Ages. They were the favorite teachers and guides of the people, whom they incited in their various seditions. They were theologians who stood at the summit of legal Judaism. They fenced round their law hedges whereby its precepts were guarded against any possible infringement. And they contrived, by an artful and technical interpretation, to find statutes which favored their ends. They wrought out asceticism into a system, and observed the most painful ceremonialsthe ancestors of rigid monks; and they united a specious casuistry, not unlike the Jesuits, to excuse the violation of the spirit of the law. They were a hierarchical caste, whose ambition was to govern, and to govern by legal technicalities. They were utterly deficient in the virtues of humility and toleration, and as such, peculiarly offensive to the Great Teacher when he propounded the higher code of love and forgiveness. Outwardly, however, they were the most respectable as well as honorable men of the nationdignified, decorous, and studious of appearances.