Bibliography.—The most comprehensive of modern books dealing
with the period is Emil Schürer, Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes
im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3 vols., Leipzig, 1901 foll.). Exception
has been taken to a certain lack of sympathy with the Jews, especially
the rabbis, which has been detected in the author. But at least
the book remains an indispensable storehouse of references to ancient
and modern authorities. An earlier edition was translated into
English under the title History of the Jewish People (Edinburgh,
1890, 1891). Of shorter histories, D. A. Schlatter’s Geschichte
Israel’s von Alexander dem Grossen bis Hadrian (2nd ed., 1906)
is perhaps the least dependent upon Schürer and attempts more
than others to interpret the fragmentary evidence available. Dr
R. H. Charles has done much by his editions to restore to their
proper prominence in connexion with Jewish history the Testaments
of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Book of Jubilees, Enoch, &c. But
Schürer gives a complete bibliography to which it must suffice to
refer. For the Sanhedrin see Synedrium.
(J. H. A. H.)
III.—From the Dispersion to Modern Times
42. The Later Empire.—With the failure in 135 of the attempt led by Barcochebas to free Judaea from Roman domination a new era begins in the history of the Jews. The direct consequence of the failure was the annihilation of political nationality. Large numbers fell in the actual fighting. Dio Cassius puts the total at the incredible figure of 580,000, besides the incalculable number who succumbed to famine, disease and fire (Dio-Xiphilin lxix. 11–15). Jerusalem was rebuilt by Hadrian, orders to this effect being given during the emperor’s first journey through Syria in 130, the date of his foundations at Gaza, Tiberias and Petra (Reinach, Textes relatifs au Judaïsme, p. 198). The new city was named Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of Jehovah there arose another temple dedicated to Jupiter. To Eusebius the erection of a temple of Venus over the sepulchre of Christ was an act of mockery against the Christian religion. Rome had been roused to unwonted fury, and the truculence of the rebels was matched by the cruelty of their masters. The holy city was barred against the Jews; they were excluded, under pain of death, from approaching within view of the walls. Hadrian’s policy in this respect was matched later on by the edict of the caliph Omar (c. 638), who, like his Roman prototype, prevented the Jews from settling in the capital of their ancient country. The death of Hadrian and the accession of Antoninus Pius (138), however, gave the dispersed people of Palestine a breathing-space. Roman law was by no means intolerant to the Jews. Under the constitution of Caracalla (198–217) all inhabitants of the Roman empire enjoyed the civil rights of the Cives Romani (Scherer, Die Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden, p. 10).
Moreover, a spiritual revival mitigated the crushing effects of material ruin. The synagogue had become a firmly established institution, and the personal and social life of the masses had come under the control of communal law. The dialectic of the school proved stronger to preserve than the edge of the sword to destroy. Pharisaic Judaism, put to the severest test to which a religious system has ever been subject, showed itself able to control and idealize life in all its phases. Whatever question may be possible as to the force or character of Pharisaism in the time of Christ, there can be no doubt that it became both all-pervading and ennobling among the successors of Aqiba (q.v.), himself one of the martyrs to Hadrian’s severity. Little more than half a century after the overthrow of the Jewish nationality, the Mishnah was practically completed, and by this code of rabbinic law—and law is here a term which includes the social, moral and religious as well as the ritual and legal phases of human activity—the Jewish people were organized into a community, living more or less autonomously under the Sanhedrin or Synedrium (q.v.) and its officials.
Judah the prince, the patriarch or nāsī who edited the Mishnah, died early in the 3rd century. With him the importance of the Palestinian patriarchate attained its zenith. Gamaliel II. of Jamnia (Jabne Yebneh) had been raised to this dignity a century before, and, as members of the house of Hillel and thus descendants of David, the patriarchs enjoyed almost royal authority. Their functions were political rather than religious, though their influence was by no means purely secular. They were often on terms of intimate friendship with the emperors, who scarcely interfered with their jurisdiction. As late as Theodosius I. (379–395) the internal affairs of the Jews were formally committed to the patriarchs, and Honorius (404) authorized the collection of the patriarch’s tax (aurum coronarium), by which a revenue was raised from the Jews of the diaspora. Under Theodosius II. (408–450) the patriarchate was finally abolished after a régime of three centuries and a half (Graetz, History of the Jews, Eng. trans. vol. ii. ch. xxii.), though ironically enough the last holder of the office had been for a time elevated by the emperor to the rank of prefect. The real turning-point had been reached earlier, when Christianity became the state religion under Constantine I. in 312.
Religion under the Christian emperors became a significant source of discrimination in legal status, and non-conformity might reach so far as to produce complete loss of rights. The laws concerning the Jews had a repressive and preventive object: the repression of Judaism and the prevention of inroads of Jewish influences into the state religion. The Jews were thrust into a position of isolation, and the Code of Theodosius and other authorities characterize the Jews as a lower order of depraved beings (inferiores and perversi), their community as a godless, dangerous sect (secta nefaria, feralis), their religion a superstition, their assemblies for religious worship a blasphemy (sacrilegi coetus) and a contagion (Scherer, op. cit. pp. 11–12). Yet Judaism under Roman Christian law was a lawful religion (religio licita), Valentinian I. (364–375) forbade the quartering of soldiers in the synagogues, Theodosius I. prohibited interference with the synagogue worship (“Judaeorum sectam nulla lege prohibitam satis constat”), and in 412 a special edict of protection was issued. But the admission of Christians into the Jewish fold was punished by confiscation of goods (357), the erection of new synagogues was arrested by Theodosius II. (439) under penalty of a heavy fine, Jews were forbidden to hold Christian slaves under pain of death (423). A similar penalty attached to intermarriage between Jews and Christians, and an attempt was made to nullify all Jewish marriages which were not celebrated in accordance with Roman law. But Justinian (527–565) was the first to interfere directly in the religious institutions of the Jewish people. In 553 he interdicted the use of the Talmud (which had then not long been completed), and the Byzantine emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries passed even more intolerant regulations. As regards civil law, Jews were at first allowed to settle disputes between Jew and Jew before their own courts, but Justinian denied to them and to heretics the right to appear as witnesses in the public courts against orthodox Christians. To Constantine V. (911–959) goes back the Jewish form of oath which in its later development required the Jew to gird himself with thorns; stand in water; and, holding the scroll of the Torah in his hand, invoke upon his person the leprosy of Naaman, the curse of Eli and the fate of Korah’s sons should he perjure himself. This was the original of all the medieval forms of oath more judaico, which still prevailed in many European lands till the 19th century, and are even now maintained by some of the Rumanian courts. Jews were by the law of Honorius excluded from the army, from public offices and dignities (418), from acting as advocates (425); only the curial offices were open to them. Justinian gave the finishing touch by proclaiming in 537 the Jews absolutely ineligible for any honour whatsoever (“honore fruantur nullo”).
43. Judaism in Babylonia.—The Jews themselves were during this period engaged in building up a system of isolation on their own side, but they treated Roman law with greater hospitality than it meted out to them. The Talmud shows the influence of that law in many points, and may justly be compared to it as a monument of codification based on great principles. The Palestinian Talmud was completed in the 4th century, but the better known and more influential version was compiled in Babylonia about 500. The land which, a millennium before, had been a prison for the Jewish exiles was now their asylum of refuge. For a long time it formed their second fatherland. Here, far more than on Palestinian soil, was built the enduring edifice of rabbinism. The population of the southern part of Mesopotamia—the strip of land enclosed between the Tigris and the Euphrates—was, according to Graetz, mainly Jewish; while the district extending for about 70 m. on the east of the Euphrates, from Nehardea in the north to Sura in the south, became a new Palestine with Nehardea for its Jerusalem. The Babylonian Jews were practically independent, and the exilarch (resh-galutha) or prince of the captivity was an official who ruled the community as a vassal of the Persian throne. The exilarch claimed, like the Palestinian patriarch, descent from the royal house of David, and exercised most of the functions of
