JEWS
389
JEWS
St. Paul's teacher, had more authority than ever be-
fore. Yet the national party remained in an almost
constant state of mutiny, wliile the Christians were
persecuted by Agrippa. Upon Agrippa's death (a. d.
44), the country was again subjected to Roman pro-
curators, and this was the prelude to the destruction of
Jerusalem and the Jewsh people. Nearly all the seven
procurators who ruletl Judea from a. d. 44 to 66 acted
as though they sought to drive its population to de-
spair and revolt. Gradually, the confusion became so
great and so general
as manifestly to presage
the dissolution of the
commonwealth. At
length, in a. d. 66, in
spite of all the precau-
tionary efforts of Agrip-
pa II, the party of the
Zealots burst into an
open rebellion, which
was terminated (a. d.
70) by the capture of
Jerusalem by Titus, the
destruction of the Tem-
ple, and the massacre
and the banishment of
hundreds of thousands
of the unhappy people,
who were scattered
among their brethren
in all parts of the world .
According to Eusebius,
the Christians of Jeru-
salem, forewarned by
their Master, escaped
the horrors of the last
siege, by removing in
due time to Pella, east
of the Jordan. Promi-
nent among the Jewish
writers of the first cen-
tury of our era are
Philo, who pleaded the
Jewish cause at Rome
before Caligula, and
Josephus, who acted as
Jewish Governor of
Galilee during the final
revolt against Rome,
and described its vicis-
situdes and horrors in a
thrilling, and probably
also in an exaggerated,
manner.
(5) Last Day.s of Pagan Rome (A. D. 70-3S0). —Rome ex- ulted over fallen Jeru- salem, and struck coins commemorative
of the hard won victory. Antonio Ciseri, Chu
The chief leaders of the defence, a long train of heavily chained captives, the vessels of the Temple, the seven- branched candlestick, the golden table, and a roll of the Law, graced Titus's triumph in the imperial city. And yet three strong fortresses in Palestine still held out against the Romans: Herodium, Machsrus, and Masada. The first two fell in a. d. 71,andthethird, the following year, which thus witnessed the complete con- quest of Judea. For a while longer, certain fugitive Judean Zealots strove to foment a rebellion in Egypt and inCyrenaica. Buttheireffortssooncametonaught, and Vespasian availed himself of the Egyptian commo- tion to close for ever the temple of Onias in Ileliopolis. At this juncture, it looked as though t lie distinct groups of Jewish families were henceforth ilostincd to drift separately, finally to be absorbed by the various nations
in the midst of which they chanced to live. This dan-
ger was, however, averted by the rapid concentration
of the surviving Jews in two great communities, mostly
independent of each other, and corresponding to the
two great divisions of the world at the time. "The first
naturally comprised all the Jews who hved this side of
the Euphrates. Not long after the fall of Jerusalem
and its subsequent misfortunes, they gradually ac-
knowledged the authority of a new Sanhedrin, which,
in whatever way it arose, was actually constituted at
Jamnia (Jabne), under
the presidency of Rab-
1)1 Jochanan ben Zac-
cai. Together with the
Sanhedrin [now the
supreme Court (Beth
Din) of the Western
communities], there
was at Jamnia a school
in which Jochanan in-
culcated the oral Law
(specifically the Hala-
cha) handed down by
the fathers, and de-
livered expository lec-
tures (Hagada) on the
other Hebrew Scrip-
tures distinct from the
wiitten Law (Penta-
teuch). Jochanan's
successor as the head
of the Sanhedrin (a. d.
SO) was Rabbi Gam-
aliel II, who took the
title of Nasi (" prince " :
among the Romans,
■patriarch"). He also
lived at Jamnia, and
presided over its
school, on the model
of which other schools
were gradually formed
in the neighbourhood.
He finally transmitted
(A. D. lis) to his suc-
cessors, the " patri-
archs of the West", a
religious authority to
which obedience and
reverence were hence-
forth paid, even after
the seat of this author-
ity was sliifted first to
Sepphoris, and finally
to Tiberias.
The supremacy of "Rabbinism", thus firmly established among the Western Jews, prevailed like- wise in the other great community which comprised all the Jewish families east of the Euphrates. The chief of this Babylo- nian community assumed the title of Resh-Galutha (prince of the Captivity), and was a powerful feu- datory of the Parthian Empire. He was the su- preme judge of the minor communities, both in civil and in criminal matters, and exercised in many other ways a wellnigh absolute authority over them. The principal districts under liis jurisdiction were those of Nares, Sora, Pumbeditha. Nahardea, Nahar-Paked, and Machuza, whose rabbinical schools were destined to enjoy the greatest fame and inflvience. The patri- archs of the West possessed much less temporal au- thority than the princes of the Captivity ; and this was only natural in view of the suspicious watchfulness which Vespasian and Titus exercised over the Jews of
f yanta Felicita, Flon
