But they had reckoned without the isolating influence of Rabbinism. Here and there small insurrections took place, in themselves easily suppressed, but showing the Romans that they had a turbulent and troublesome people to deal with. At last Hadrian determined to stamp out this aggressive Jewish nationalism. He issued an edict forbidding the reading of the law, the observance of the Sabbath, and the rite of circumcision; and determined to convert the still half-ruined Jerusalem into a Roman colony.
The consequence of this edict was the meteor-like outbreak of Bar-Cochebas (q.v.) A.D. 132–135. The origin of this person and the history of his rise to power are unknown. Nor is it certain whether he himself at first made a personal claim to be the promised Messiah; but it was his recognition as such by the distinguished Rabbi Akiba, Bar-Cochebas. then the most influential Jew alive, which placed him in the command of the insurrection, with 200,000 men at his command. Jerusalem was captured, as well as a large number of strongholds and villages throughout the country. Julius Severus, sent with an immense army by Hadrian, came to quell the insurrection. He recaptured Jerusalem, at the siege of which Bar-Cochebas himself was slain. The rebels fled to Bether—the modern Bittir, near Jerusalem, where the fortress garrisoned by them still remains, under the name Khurbet el-Yahud, or “Ruin of the Jews”—and were there defeated and slaughtered in a sanguinary encounter. It is said that as many as 580,000 men were slain! Hadrian then turned Jerusalem into a Roman colony, changed its name to Aelia Capitolina, built a temple of Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple and (it is alleged) a temple of Venus on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, and forbade any Jew, on pain of death, to appear within sight of the city.
This disaster was the death-blow to hopes of a Jewish national independence, and the leaders of the people devoted themselves thenceforth to legal and religious study in the Rabbinical schools, which from A.D. 135 (the year of the suppression of the revolt) onwards developed in various towns in the hitherto despised province Rabbinic Schools. of Galilee. Shefa ʽAmr (Shafram), Shaʽarah (Shaaraim) and especially Tubariya (Tiberias) became centres of this learning: and the remains of synagogues of the 2nd or 3rd century which still exist in Galilee attest the strength of Judaism in that district during the years following the abortive attempt of Bar-Cochebas.
Palestine thus continued directly under Roman rule. In A.D. 105, under Trajan, Cornelius Palma added Gilead and Moab to the empire. In 295 Auranitis, Batanea and Trachonitis were added to the province.
The pilgrimage of the Empress Helena properly belongs to the second section into which we have divided this history; we therefore pass it over for the present. The conversion of Constantine to Christianity—or rather the profession of Christianity by Constantine—seemed likely to result in another Jewish persecution, foreshadowed by severe repressive edicts. This, however, was averted by the emperor’s death.
The progress of the corrupt Christianity of the empire of Byzantium was checked for a while under Julian the Apostate, who, among other indications of his opposition to Christianity, rescinded the edicts against the Jews on his coming to the throne in 361, and gave orders for the restoration of the Jewish temple. The latter work was interrupted almost as soon as begun by an extraordinary phenomenon—the outburst of flames and loud detonations, easily explained at the time as a divine judgment on this direct attempt to falsify the prophecy of Christ. It has been ingeniously suggested in this more scientific generation that the explosion was due to the ignition of some forgotten store of oil or naphtha, such as was said to have been stored in the temple (2 Macc. i. 19–23, 36), and similar to a store discovered, with less disastrous consequences, in another part of the city early in the 19th century.[1]
On the partition of the empire in A.D. 395 Palestine naturally fell to the share of the emperor of the East. From this onward for more than two hundred years there is a period of comparative quiet in Palestine, with no external political interference. The country was nominally Christian; the only history it displays being that of the development The later Empire. of pilgrimage and of the cult of holy places and of relics, varied by occasional persecutions of the Jews. The elaborate building operations of Justinian (527–565) must not be forgotten. The “Golden Gate” of the Temple area and part of the church which is now the El-Aksa Mosque at Jerusalem, are due to him.
Not till 611 do we find any event of importance in the uninteresting record of Byzantine sovereignty. But this and the following years were signalized by a series of catastrophes of the first magnitude. Chosroes II. (q.v.), king of Persia, made an inroad into Syria; joined by the Jews, anxious to revenge their misfortunes, he swept over Chosroes II. the country, carrying plunder and destruction wherever he went. Monasteries and churches were burnt and sacked, and Jerusalem was taken; the Holy Sepulchre church was destroyed and its treasures carried off; the other churches were likewise razed to the ground; the patriarch was taken prisoner. It is alleged that 90,000 persons were massacred. Thus for a time the province of Syria with Palestine was lost to the empire of Byzantium.
The Emperor Heraclius reconquered the lost territory in 629. But his triumph was short-lived. A more formidable enemy was already on the way, and the final wresting of Syria from the feeble relics of the Roman Empire was imminent.
The separate tribal units of Arabia, more or less impotent when divided and at war with one another, received for the first time an indissoluble bond of union from the prophet Mahomet, whose perfect knowledge of human nature (at least of Arab human nature) enabled him to formulate a religious system that was calculated Rise of Islam. to command an enthusiastic acceptance by the tribes to which it was primarily addressed. His successor, Abu Bekr, called on the tribes of Arabia to unite and to capture the fertile province of Syria from the Christians. Heraclius had not sufficient time to prepare to meet this new foe, and was defeated in his first engagement with Abu Bekr. (For the general history of this period see Caliphate). The latter seized Bostra and proceeded to march to Damascus. He died, however, before carrying out his design (A.D. 634), and was succeeded by Omar, who, after a siege of seventy days entered the city. Other towns fell in turn, such as Caesarea, Sebusteh (Samaria), Nablus (Shechem), Lydd, Jaffa.
Meanwhile Heraclius was not idle. He collected a huge army and in 636 marched against the Arabs. The latter retreated to the Yarmuk River, where the Byzantines met them. Betrayed, it is said, by a Christian who had suffered personal wrongs at the hands of certain of the Byzantine generals, the army of Heraclius was utterly defeated, and with it fell the Byzantine Empire in Syria and Palestine.
After this victory Omar’s army marched against Jerusalem, which after a feeble resistance capitulated. The terms of peace, though on the whole moderate, were of a galling and humiliating nature, being ingeniously contrived to make the Christians ever conscious of their own inferiority. Restrictions in church-building, in dress, in the Omar. use of beasts of burden, in social intercourse with Moslems, and in the use of bells and of the sign of the cross were enforced. When these terms were agreed upon and signed Omar, under the leadership of the Christian patriarch Sophronius, visited the Holy Rock (the prayer-place of David and the site of the Jewish temple). This he found to be defiled with filth, spread upon it by the Christians in despite of the Jews. Omar and his followers in person cleaned it, and established the place of prayer which, though later rebuilt, has borne his name ever since.
Dissensions and rivalries soon broke out among the Moslem leaders, and in 661 Moawiya, the first caliph of the Omayyad dynasty, transferred the seat of the caliphate from Mecca to Damascus, where it remained till the Abbasids seized the sovereignty and transferred it to Bagdad Abdalmalik.
- ↑ See Palestine Expl. Fund Quarterly Statement, 1902, p. 389.
