after the Jewish war; but the testimony of Christian writers[1] here is very positive. An image of Jupiter was placed on the Mount of the Ascension; a statue of Venus was adored on the hill of Golgotha; Bethlehem was dedicated to Adonis, and a sacred grove was planted there; and the impure Phœnician rites were actually celebrated in the grotto of the Nativity.
But for the historian of the first days of Christianity, by far the most important event in this brilliant reign of Hadrian was the fatal Jewish war of a.d. 133-5 and its striking results. This was the war of extermination, as the Talmud subsequently termed it; the war in which the false Messiah Bar-cochab and the famous Rabbi Akiba were the most prominent figures. The outcome of this terrible war was the absolute destruction of the nationality of the Jewish people. From henceforth, i.e. after A.D. 134-5, the whole spirit of the Jews was changed; they lived from this time with new ideals, with new and different hopes and aims. This wonderful change we have described at some length and with many details in Book V. of this work.
From this time forward, there is no doubt that the conception which Roman statesmen had formed of Christianity underwent a marked change. Hitherto, more or less, the Christian was regarded as a Jewish dissenter, and was viewed at Rome with dislike, but at the same time with a certain contemptuous toleration provided that he kept out of sight. Trajan evidently, from the Pliny correspondence, was averse to harsh persecution if it could be avoided; and Hadrian, certainly in his earlier years, followed the policy of Trajan. But after A.D. 135 all this was changed. The Jewish people after the termination of the last bitter war passed into stillness.
They now rigidly abstained from admitting any stranger Gentiles into the charmed circle of Judaism, sternly forbidding any proselytizing. They abandoned all earthly ambition—their hope and expectation of seeing their land independent and powerful was relegated to a dim and distant future. They believed that they were the chosen people in far back days
- ↑ Cf. Jerome, Ep. 58, Ad Paulin, 3; Euseb. De vitâ Constant. iii. 26; Sozomen, i. 1; St. Paulin, Ep. 31 (ii.) ad Severum; Rufin. H. E. i. 8; Sulp. Severus, ii. 25, 45; Ambrose, Psalm 43; and in modern historians, cf. De Vogüé's Églises de la terre sainte, iii.; De Champagny, Les Antonins, livre iii. c. iii.
