A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES IN PALESTINE, 175 BC-70 AD

CHAPTER V.

PALESTINE UNDER THE ROMANS AND THE TETRARCHS

Exclusive of the Greek cities, Palestine was broken into three separate administrative districts, the province of Judea and the tetrarchies of Herod Antipas and Philip—a division that seems to have outlasted the Jewish nation itself.

1. Of these three districts, the most important in all respects was the province of Judea, over which were the procurators. It was composed of three parts, each historically distinct from each other. Samaria lay between Judea and Galilee, corresponding roughly to the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel, except that it no longer included the plain of Esdraelon, Jenin being its northern border. It apparently extended from the Jordan to the maritime plain, but its northern boundary was never long fixed. Josephus gives the Acrabattene toparchy, the village Annath or Borceas, and Korea, as on the southern border. It was a fertile region, and although small,—its area being even less than that of Galilee,—like Judea, it was “full of people” whose history has already been seen to have been closely interwoven with that of the Jews proper.

Judea, the most important division of the country, and that which gave its name to the province, extended from Samaria to the desert, and from the Jordan to the maritime plain, the cities of which, even Joppa and Jamnia, thoroughly Jewish though they were, not being counted as a part of it. Its area was approximately two thousand square miles. It was divided into eleven toparchies, at the head of which was Jerusalem, although the official residence of the procurator was Caesarea. Jerusalem, alone of all the towns of Judea, was a city in anything like the Graeco-Roman sense. The nature of these toparchies is not altogether clear, but probably they consisted of a town and its surrounding country. The smaller towns of Judea do not seem to have been very much organized, and were probably dependent upon some larger city or metropolis. If this conjecture be correct, we have another parallel between the Graeco-Egyptian and the Graeco-Jewish administration. These villages had their own councils or Sanhedrins which tried civil and less important criminal cases, and were probably administered by “village-clerks” precisely as in Egypt. The relation of Jerusalem to these toparchies was something more than that of a merely nominal head. Itself the one great city out of the twenty-nine which Judea boasted, its Council, or Sanhedrin, not only was the court of appeal, but its officials collected the tribute paid to the Romans. Its position is to be seen also in the fact that in the great rebellion it organized all Judea and, at least imperfectly, Galilee against their enemy. This superiority, however, did not extend over the Greek cities of Judea, which were either like Caesarea directly attached to the province of Syria, or held as the private property of some favored person.

Idumea was the district lying to the south of Judea proper, including the Negeb and the southern Shephelah. John Hyrcanus conquered it, and compelled its inhabitants to receive the law of Moses and circumcision. Notwithstanding the fact that its inhabitants were regarded as the descendants of Isaac only through Esau and that the Herodian family originated within it, Idumea was treated as Jewish, since descendants of three generations were regarded as real Jews. In the time of Christ this was increasingly true, and during the War, the Idumeans were among the most fanatical of all the revolutionists. It is not possible to discover the exact political relations of Idumea to the province, but it would seem to have been treated as a toparchy.

These three little districts were joined into Judea. The fiscal an imperial province of the second rank, governed by a procurator who was of the equestrian rank. Strictly speaking, Judea was not a part of Syria, although in one or two exceptional cases the legate of that province seems to have possessed some power over the procurators. But apart from these exceptional cases the procurator was vested with full powers. Primarily a fiscal agent, his office naturally kept him at the head of the administration of the taxes and the customs. Of the two, the taxes were more directly under his control, although under the empire the Roman governors were no longer able to abuse the provincials as under the republic. In fact, they had become salaried officials, and whatever taxes were collected—in the case of Judea, probably six hundred talents—were expended as far as necessary upon the province itself for public improvements like roads, harbors, public buildings, and the remainder was sent to the imperial treasury (fiscus). It was probably for this collection of taxes that Judea had been divided into toparchies, and to the Sanhedrin of each was probably assigned the duty of collecting the tax levied upon it. These taxes, however, were no longer farmed, but collected by imperial officials. Naturally the procurator of Judea could levy no taxes upon the tetrarchies of Antipas and Philip.

But if the taxes were officially collected, the customs were farmed. They were of almost every conceivable sort,—export duties, import duties, octroi, bridge and harbor duties, market taxes, tax on salt—and were sold out to speculators, who in turn sold their rights to various collectors. The men who actually did the collecting —the publicans (mokhes) of the New Testament—were thus exposed to the strongest temptation to misuse their position, and no class of men was ever more cordially hated. However much the local authorities might attempt to regulate the impost, the despised collectors were always able to levy blackmail and practice extortion.

Military and judicial powers of the procurator.

In addition to his fiscal duties the procurator had military and judicial powers that easily made him master of Judea. Except at feasts, only a single cohort was stationed at Jerusalem. His troops consisted almost exclusively of mercenaries, chiefly Samaritans,—a fact that did not make toward good feeling. As a judge he had the power of life and death, appeal to the emperor being granted only in case of Roman citizens, and then only after formal protest had been made. Yet the number of cases actually brought before the procurator was probably small, for most would doubtless be settled in one of the toparchical sanhedrins, or in the great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, where the Jewish law would be understood. Crimes involving capital punishment were, however, in his hands, although it is not quite certain at what date the right was thus restricted.

In general the establishment of the Roman administration probably affected Jewish society but little. It may even have been acceptable to the Pharisees, if, as Josephus says, the government fell really into the hands of native aristocracy with the high priest at its head. The Jews were indeed required to take the oath of allegiance to each new emperor, and the procurator, except at feasts, kept the robe of the high priest locked up in the castle of Antonia, but such requirements were more than offset by the religious liberty given the Jews, the guaranteed sanctity of the temple, and the general leniency shown their intense religious feeling. Apart from the Zealots it is probable that there was but a minority of the inhabitants of Judea that did not assent heartily to the daily sacrifices of two lambs and an ox for the welfare of the emperor.

Such examples of tolerance as the recognition of the Sabbath, the omission of the emperor’s head on the copper coinage of the country, the leaving of military standards outside Jerusalem, the recognition of the Jews’ right to kill even a Roman citizen who went beyond the court of the Gentiles in the temple, are as creditable to the Romans as indicative of the extraordinary religious fervor of the Jews themselves. Indeed, from the days of Julius Caesar the Jews had enjoyed special favors from the Romans, who, it will be remembered, seldom interfered with a conquered people’s customs and institutions further than was absolutely necessary in the interest of good administration.

In the case of Judea the native courts or sanhedrins were also left in possession of considerable powers of local jurisdiction and administration, and the people were thus allowed large opportunity for pursuing the practice as well as the study of the Law.

The Sanhedrin

It is here that one meets the culminating institution of legalistic Judaism—the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. If the various rabbinical traditions concerning its origin be disregarded, the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem may be said to have been essentially the Gerousia of that city with changed powers and character. As merely a town-council its powers had sensibly diminished from the death of Simon, and it had become increasingly judicial and academic in character. At the same time it had doubtless grown in the estimation of the people at large, and, as it grew predominantly Pharisaic, its prestige and influence still more increased. Under Aristobulus II and Antigonus it is true its membership was largely from the Sadducees, but the massacre of forty-five of its members by Herod immediately after his victory over Antigonus again opened the way for Pharisaic predominance. Thus under Herod, the Sanhedrin first became the Creature of the king, ready even to condemn the unfortunate Hyrcanus, but lost practically all of such administrative powers as it still retained. With the Powers of establishment of the provincial government, it regained many of such powers, and, in addition, became the supreme court for all cases of importance—civil, criminal, and religious—under the Mosaic law. That it had any jurisdiction in Galilee during the reign of Herod Antipas seems unlikely, although its decisions on legal points, especially concerning marriage, divorce, genealogies, heresies, and the calendar, would undoubtedly be received as final by all Jews. In Judea proper it could make arrests, try and condemn criminals to any punishment except death, without any ratification on the part of the procurator. In all capital cases condemnation could not be pronounced until after a night had passed, but no such restriction applied to acquittal. All decisions were apparently made by a majority, but in convictions this must not be less than two.

The Sanhedrin met on Mondays and Thursdays in its own building, which probably stood on the west side of the temple mount. It was composed of seventy-two members of pure Hebrew descent; twenty-three constituting a quorum. How the members were appointed is uncertain, but they were inducted into the body by the laying on of hands. They were not all of equal rank; the members of the high priestly families being naturally the more important. The other members of the body were called scribes, or simply elders. The latter two classes were doubtless Pharisees. The Sanhedrin seems to have been organized with the high priest as president, and with the Committee of Ten, so common in Graeco-Roman towns.

Procurators.

Of the early procurators there is very little known. They had the power of removing and appointing high priests, but judged Jews according to Jewish law. Their office was not an easy one, and the fanatical hatred of the Jews and Samaritans was constantly leading to outbreaks requiring severe punishment. Of them all, Pontius Pilate is best known, not merely from the gospels, but from Philo and Josephus. The  former describes him as of an “unbending and recklessly hard character”, while the latter gives various incidents of his alleged oppression. At this distance, however, one of these acts seems to have been due to inexperience; and the others —the use of temple treasures to build an aqueduct, and the punishment of the Samaritans for what certainly looks like an incipient revolution—seem those of a man very much in earnest to maintain order and give a good administration. The fact that Tiberius, who was especially attentive to the provinces, left him in office for ten years, is distinctly in his favor—a fact that his condemnation under Caligula does not seriously affect.

The Tetrarchy of Philip

2. Altogether independent of the procurators were the tetrarchies given the two sons of Herod. Of these two, that of Philip embraced the territory lying between the Yarmuk, the Jordan, Mount Hermon, and Damascus and the desert, but its boundaries are very difficult to locate exactly. It was composed of a number of small districts (Batanea, Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, Iturea, Auranitis), which had been conquered by Jewish rulers, especially Herod I, or which had been given Herod I by Rome. This heterogeneous tetrarchy, after having been raised to a kingdom by Caligula, continued its political life after the destruction of Jerusalem.

The tetrarch Philip (4 BC-34 AD) was the most respectable of the three brothers who succeeded Herod. His territory was not Jewish, and was far less productive than that of either Archelaus or Antipas, yet he seems to have been content to live within it, especially seeking to administer justice. One of the most peaceful pictures of these years is that of Philip travelling through his rough dominions attended by a few chosen friends, and sitting as judge in the market-places of the cities and towns, or wherever a case had to be tried. Like his father, he was fond of building. Banias was made into a noble city, with rights of asylum, which he named Caesarea (Philippi), and on the east bank of the Jordan, just above its entrance into the Lake of Galilee, he made the village of Bethsaida into a city, which, in honor of the daughter of Augustus, he called Julias. Removed from the influences of the Jewish life, he grew increasingly Hellenistic, and again like his father, built many temples to the heathen gods. He seems to have had some interest in scientific matters, for it is related of him that he proved (at least to the satisfaction of his own time) that the springs at Banias mark the emergence of an underground river, by throwing chaff into the pool of Phiala. Further than this, little is known of his reign, except that he stamped his image on his coins, which, although not unprecedented in the history of the Jews, is sufficient to show his Hellenistic sympathies. At his death, his territory, though still controlling its revenues, was added to Syria, but later was given by Caligula to Herod Agrippa I (37 AD), with the title of king.

3. The tetrachy of Herod Antipas

Much more important was the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, consisting of Galilee and Perea. In popular speech, Galilee was divided into two parts—Upper and Lower. Upper Galilee is much higher and more mountainous, some of its peaks reaching nearly four thousand feet; while Lower Galilee has rolling hills and fine valleys in which sycamores grow—a prime distinction in the Talmud. As, however, the two were politically a unit, it is hardly necessary to retain the division.

On the north Galilee was bounded by Tyre, the line running approximately through Tell-el-kadi to the Litani; on the east by the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee and again the Jordan; on the south by the region of Scythopolis and Samaria, the line running along the southern edge of Esdraelon; and on the west by the regions of Tyre, which included Carmel and Ptolemais. Altogether it measured fifty or sixty miles north and south, and from twenty-five to thirty-five east and west, its area being about sixteen hundred square miles. It was an exceedingly prosperous region, full of vineyards and gardens, villages and cities, while its beautiful lake —the Sea of Galilee—had upon its northwestern side the plain of Gennesaret, regarded by Josephus as “an ambitious effort of nature doing violence to herself in bringing together plants of discordant habits, with an admirable rivalry of the seasons, each as it were, asserting her rights to the soil; a spot where grapes and figs grew during ten months without intermission, while the other varieties of fruit ripened the year round”. Its capital was Sephoris, until Herod Antipas transferred that honor to his new city of Tiberias. Under the later Maccabees and Herod I, Galilee had been a part of the kingdom of the Jews, but after the death of Herod I it was separated from the rest of Palestine and given as a tetrarchy to Herod Antipas. Thereafter it retained to some degree its identity, being treated probably as an administrative unit; for we find it added entire to the kingdom of Herod Agrippa I, and at the time of the Jewish war assigned to Josephus for organization. There is, however, no certain evidence that it was ever treated as a separate procuratorial district.

Galilee was inhabited by Gentiles and Jews, although the latter undoubtedly predominated. They are called Galileans, but whenever contrasted with other peoples, like the Romans, they are called Jews, as, indeed, are also the Samaritans and Pereans. But it should be remembered that in the time of Jesus this Jewish element had not been long resident in Galilee. Whatever colonists had settled there prior to the Maccabean revolt had been removed by Simon. It was probably not until after Aristobulus conquered and circumcised the Itureans, or North Galileans, that the tide of Jewish colonization really set in again.

In the days of Josephus the region was densely populated, and judging from the ruins surrounding the Sea of Galilee it is difficult to believe that he is exaggerating seriously when he declares that it possessed three walled cities and two hundred and four villages. The Galileans were a sturdy, impulsive people, with the virtues of all colonists, inured to war, ready for resistance to oppression, and although thorough Jews in their devotion to the Law and the temple, without the arid fanaticism of the Judeans. In many particulars their moral life was more healthy than that of the inhabitants of other portions of Palestine, and as regards marriage public sentiment was much purer. Farmers and fishermen, they were marked by considerable idealism, for it is worth noticing that Galileans were always ready to accept Messianic claims. No region was more punctual in the observance of the Sabbath and the feasts. At the same time they were much more than the Judeans in constant relations with Graeco-Roman civilization, and this perhaps gave them a freer and broader life than that of their southern brethren.

Grouped with Galilee was the somewhat larger region of Perea. It lay on the east of Jordan and extended from the Yarmuk to the Arnon, and from the regions of Gerasa, Philadelphia, and the desert to the Jordan. Within it, though politically independent, were many of the cities of the Decapolis, but this fact did not prevent its being considered as second to Judea alone in the purity of its Judaism. Politically it was of but little importance.

Herod Antipas, to whom these prosperous regions Herod were entrusted, although far from being Herod’s equal, had more of his father’s abilities than either of his two brothers. He is called a king in the gospels; and, although the title is not strictly correct, it probably represents popular terminology. As in the case of his brother, Philip, we are left in doubt as to the course of his long reign (4 BC-39 AD), Josephus telling us but little except certain gossipy details. Like his father, he was a great builder. Sephoris, the most important city of Galilee, which had suffered at the hands of the robber chief, Judas, he once more surrounded with a wall and made again the metropolis. He also walled the city of Bethar-amptha, in which the palace of Herod had been destroyed during the anarchy following his death, renaming it Livias, or Julias, in honor of the emperor’s wife. He seems also to have done some similar service to Cos and Delos, as tablets in his honor have been found in those islands. But the most important of such undertakings was his building of the new city of Tiberias, on the western bank of the Sea of Galilee, not far from the celebrated hot springs. The ruins of this city, which yet remain stretched along the lake and the highlands above it, show but imperfectly its original importance. To judge from the order of events as recorded by Josephus, Herod built it after the coming of Pilate, as procurator of Judea (26 AD), naming it in honor of the Emperor Tiberius. It had a number of large buildings, including a stadium; a royal palace, ornamented with the golden tile and figures of animals; and a great proseuche, or prayer house, of the Jews. As appears from its ruins, it was surrounded by walls, with bastions extending into the lake, and had colonnaded streets. In organization it was thoroughly Greek, having a council of six hundred members, with an archon at its head, and a Committee of Ten, together with other officials. Its population was mixed. As it was partly built over sepulchers, it was at first shunned by the stricter Jews; but many were compelled to settle in it by Herod Antipas, and others were attracted by gifts of homes and lands, and by the time of the great war it was evidently filled with fanatical Jews. So rapidly did it grow, and so much was it in favor with Antipas, that he made it his capital, superior even to Sepphoris, though it was not as large.

The character of Herod Antipas is summed up by the word of Jesus,—“fox”. Singularly enough, we have an illustration of his cunning. At one time he accompanied Vitellius on an embassy to Artabanus, king of Parthia. The meeting was held in a rich tent, pitched by Herod on a bridge over the Euphrates. As soon as the desired treaty was concluded, in order to forestall Vitellius and be the first to report the good news to Tiberius, Herod hurried off a full report to the emperor. That of Vitellius was therefore unnecessary, and Herod may be supposed to have gained in the estimation of Tiberius. But he made Vitellius his enemy, as he was to discover later to his cost. The same trait of character appears in his attitude toward the Jews, to whom, much more than in the case of Philip, it was necessary to be gracious. Here he followed closely in the footsteps of his father, balancing his friendship for Rome and heathen customs by his attendance upon the feasts at Jerusalem. He put no image on his coins, and joined in a protest against Pilate for having set up a votive shield in the temple. As far as we can judge from the material at our disposal, the Pharisees never regarded him with the same suspicion and hatred they had shown his father during his later years.

It was characteristic of his house that misfortune should reach him through his domestic relations. Antipas had been married to the daughter of the king of Arabia, but on one occasion, when in Rome, he had fallen in love with Herodias, the wife of the Herod who lived as a private citizen at the capital. The fact that she was his own niece caused no hesitation, and they had arranged to be married as soon as Antipas could rid himself of his legal wife. In some way, however, this wife learned of his plans and fled to her father, who thereupon made war upon his faithless son-in-law. Antipas was defeated through treachery, and complained to Tiberius, who ordered Vitellius to assist him. Tiberius died, however, before Vitellius had fairly begun the campaign, and the expedition was given up. Herodias had, in the meantime, divorced her husband and married Antipas. Later she had seen her brother, Agrippa I, made king over the former tetrarchy of Philip (37 AD), and had grown ambitious for her new husband to be made king also. With considerable difficulty she persuaded Antipas to ask the emperor Caligula for the title, but he met with an unexpected reply. The preparations made for carrying on his war with Arabia gave Agrippa I an opportunity to get revenge for certain quarrels, and he wrote the emperor that Antipas was preparing to revolt. As the unhappy tetrarch was unable to deny that his arsenals were full of weapons, Caligula refused to listen to explanations, and forthwith banished him to Lyons, whither Herodias accompanied him.

4. The Decaolis

Interspersed within the regions of Galilee, Perea, and the tetrarchy of Philip, was the Decapolis. It would be incorrect to speak of it as a region or district, for it was nothing more politically than a confederation of great Graeco-Roman cities. Scythopolis, its capital, was on the west of Jordan, and on the various roads that spread out like the sticks of a fan from the fords and bridge it controlled, were Pella, Gadara, Hippos, Dium, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Raphana, Kanatha, and at one time Damascus. The union of these ten cities, for military and commercial purposes, was probably brought about during the time of Pompey, and although the Romans gave Hippos and Gadara to Herod, and the latter city seems to have joined in the great revolt against Rome, the league maintained itself for centuries, and at the time of Ptolemy embraced eighteen towns, most of them lying in the region between Damascus and the Yarmuk. Each of these cities had a considerable territory attached to it, and was thus an example of the city-state; and although several of them were in the midst of some of the main political divisions already described, they were not subject to either procurator or tetrarch. For this reason their territories were not Greek cities continuous, and it is impossible to speak of a “region of the Decapolis” in anything more than a popular sense. But it should be further noted that not merely in the Decapolis were there cities clearly differing from Jewish towns and called distinctly Hellenistic by Josephus4 All over the region west of the Jordan were such cities to be found. Ptolemais, Dora, Caesarea, Apollonia, Jamnia, Azotus, Ascalon, Gaza, Anthedon, Phasaelis, and others crowded along the coast; Antipatris and Sebaste lay further inland, and Archelais, in the Jordan valley. Each city had some dependent region, and in all of them it is probable were Jewish quarters, as in Alexandria. Several like Caesarea, Sebaste, Tiberias, and Gaba, had been built by Jewish rulers, but they were organized after Greek rather than Jewish models, and were filled with a vigorous anti-Semitism that needed only incipient anarchy to break out in massacres, or even, as in the case of Caesarea, to occasion revolution.

But such anti-Semitism was far enough from proselytism, and whatever may have been the suffering it caused Jews, it was far enough from repressing Judaism. That vigorous faith has always thriven whenever social customs have been hostile to its spirit and rites. In the modern world alone has it been exposed to those subtle influences which, distinct from politics and indifferent to differences in religious practices, affect individuals through a catholic social mind.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PALESTINIAN JEWS

It was among those Jews who lived outside of Palestine that the positive influences of Graeco-Roman civilization are mostly seen. From the time of Antiochus III, indeed from that of Alexander the Great, the Jews had been regarded as especially good colonists, and by the time of Augustus there was no city of any importance in the empire that did not possess its Jewish quarter. Sometimes, as at Alexandria, such colonies were very large; in other cities they could not even boast a place of prayer. Often, even if not generally, these “Grecians” as they were called, had some sort of political recognition, being organized into wards with ethnarchs of their own. They had their synagogues, their rabbis, their Law, and in Alexandria, it will be recalled, their temple. They were as devoted to Judaism as their brethren of Palestine, the “Hebrews”, and their annual contributions to the maintenance of the temple at Jerusalem were enormous. Once, during his lifetime, every Jew hoped to attend the Passover at Jerusalem, and wherever he might live, whenever he prayed he turned his face toward the Holy City. Yet, despite this truly Jewish spirit, the members of the Dispersion were less narrow than the Palestinian Jews, and at times appear anti-Pharisaical. So far from wishing to set limits to Judaism, by proselyting, by interpreting their sacred books according to the spirit of various Greek philosophies, they endeavored to bring about a universal Mosaism. In this they were by no means unsuccessful; but in the effort their own point of view was changed, and without any weakening of their national character there grew up among the Dispersion a new style of thinking and literature, in which Jewish and Greek elements are strangely mixed. To some extent these influences affecting the Dispersion were transmitted by its members to the Jews in Palestine, but the influence exerted by the Greek population of the land itself was undoubtedly reactionary. However much the Palestinian Jew might feel the influence of Alexandria, the sight of so many thousand men and women indifferent to Jehovah and the Law; of idolatry with all its attendant customs; of contempt for the Sabbath and Jewish rites; even the occasional submission of individuals to circumcision or some less pronounced confession of proselytism; conspired to make the Pharisee and his devoted disciples the more zealous for their faith. Danger of a new period of degeneration, like that under Menelaus and Jason, there was none. Judaism grew sterner and the more exclusive under the pressure of Graeco-Roman life, and the scribes increased the number of cases in which any intercourse with a Gentile would defile a Jew. If politically the heathen possessed the land, religiously, Judaism under the inspiration of the Pharisees and Zealots was subject to no master except its God, and awaited in faith the establishment of His kingdom in the Holy Land.

But politics and religion by no means exhausted the interest of the Jews of Palestine. They had a social life as well developed as that of any other people. While to an understanding of the New Testament and the rise of Christianity a knowledge of the social aspects of Judaism is not as essential as that of the state and the religion, it yet throws no little light on the life of Jesus and the development of the Christian community. For in no other nation was culture more inspired and simultaneously repressed by religion.

We have already called attention to the fact that Palestine was not exclusively Jewish, but it is altogether impossible to estimate with accuracy the numbers of either population. Josephus, indeed, gives us data as regards the Jews, but they can hardly be taken seriously. It is difficult to see how in the 6000 square miles on the west of the Jordan there could ever have been more than three million Jews. Especially does this estimate seem probable when it is recalled that much of the land must have been uninhabited, and that the towns, though close together, could not have been extensive. Jerusalem itself could hardly have had a population of more than a hundred thousand within its walls.

The Jewish population used at least three languages : Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. The use of the first two must have been all but universal. The last, however, was the official language, and it is not likely that it was used by the masses. In addition to these three languages the Biblical Hebrew was used in religious services, but it was not universally understood.

The cities and towns which by the hundred were scattered over Palestine must have presented striking contrasts. In cities like Caesarea, Tiberias, and Jerusalem the noble buildings erected by the Herodians and the Greeks towered above the flat houses of the masses. The small towns could have differed little from the appearances of the same towns today. The houses were exceedingly simple, flat roofed, with walls built of mud mixed with straw, packed in around wattlework and baked in the sun. Streets were narrow, sanitary arrangements altogether lacking, the water supply that of some neighboring spring, reservoir or aqueduct, and, with the exception of the synagogue, public buildings were lacking. Such architectural remains as are found in Palestine are chiefly those of the Greek settlers. The strictly Jewish town has passed away, leaving little trace of itself.

Life within these towns and cities, as far as the Jewish population was concerned, was Semitic rather than Greek. The social classes were few, hardly more than those of slave and freemen. In the large towns there were the aristocracy of wealth and the aristocracy of learning and office, but such distinction was not strictly hereditary. The Jewish people had no such social classification as is to be found throughout the Greco-Roman world, the nearest approach to it being that of the priestly families. Their position was, however, less that of aristocracy than that of a religious caste, and even this description is sure to be misleading. The distinction which is made everywhere by the rabbis between themselves and the ‘amha arets’ is not to be taken as indicative of anything more in kind than that which is made today between the so-called classes and the masses.

Slavery among the Jews was merciful as slavery goes. The owner had no right to kill his slave, and was compelled to allow him to observe the Sabbath. While it is not possible to know just how far the old Hebrew codes were in use, it was apparently true that the Hebrew slaves were circumcised and treated with comparative leniency. Slaves of heathen descent probably enjoyed less favorable conditions. It is to the honor of the Pharisees and Essenes that they were opposed to slavery, and probably because of this opposition the number of slaves was decreasing in New Testament times.

The position of women among the Jews was much higher than that which exists among the people in modern Syria. While they did not have the same rights that belonged to the women of certain strata in Roman society, they were permitted to go abroad freely and were not compelled to be completely veiled. At the same time they were not as carefully educated as men, and were uniformly treated as an inferior sex. The birth of a boy was more celebrated than that of a girl. “The world cannot exist without males and females”, said one rabbi, “but blessed are they whose children are sons; woe to them whose children are daughters”. The inferior status of women may be further seen from rabbinical opinion where among the nine miseries brought women by the Fall are: “The covering of her head like one in mourning, the wearing of her hair long like Lillith, the boring of her ear like a slave, serving her husband like a maidservant, and not being able to testify in court”. None the less the rabbis abound in praises of good wives and of marriage in general. When one married, his sins were said to decrease. The sphere of women, however, the rabbis wished to be strictly domestic. The ideal Jewess was the good housekeeper of Proverbs, and unless she could afford servants the housewife’s duties are stated succinctly in the Mishna as that of grinding corn, baking, washing, cooking, nursing her children, making the beds, and working in wool.

Property might be settled upon a wife by her husband, and she was to have one-tenth of her dowry for pin money. But such arrangements were to be made definitely, since the wife’s property after marriage usually went to her husband, and in no case did property of a deceased son pass to the mother. Daughters, however, shared in the inheritance at least to the extent of a dowry.

As to religion, the position of women was also inferior to that of men, in that they were not expected to keep the law in its entirety. They could not wear phylacteries, and were not obliged to recite the Shama or wear fringes on their mantles. They could not testify in a court of law except to prove the death of a husband.

The Jewish family was monogamous, but polygamy was doubtless practiced in Palestine during the New Testament times. So far as we can discover, however, such polygamous relations would exist only among the most wealthy. The increasing ease of divorce made polygamy unnecessary. Marriage among the Jews was a purely private affair. It consisted in the exchange of certain promises and the public and somewhat formal passage of the bride from her father’s to her future husband’s house. At least in theory, the wife was the property of her husband, as is evident, not only in the wedding ceremony, but also in the fact that fathers sometimes sold young daughters to men on the condition that they should subsequently be made their wives.

Betrothal was an incomplete marriage. The terms between the two families represented might be made by a third party, the friend of the bridegroom. They involved the formal sale and purchase. The young woman— or even girl, for betrothal was often arranged between children and even infants—was given a piece of money and a document containing the various promises which her future husband made. In this was included the amount of money which he was willing to pay the father. At the same time a public declaration was made by the prospective bridegroom or his representative to the effect that he had betrothed the woman. After this betrothal the two could live together as man and wife and their children would be legitimate, but ordinarily the betrothal was followed after some time by the wedding. This was in most particulars similar to the betrothal, and was without religious ceremony except the priestly benediction if a priest was present. The woman was expected to bring a dowry to her husband. The wedding festivities were conducted during several days and, especially in Judea, were marked by rough hilarity.

In New Testament times the practice of divorce was rapidly increasing, the liberal rabbis in particular making it easy. The right to bring about a divorce was generally restricted to the husband, although there are cases in which it was exercised by the wife. Subsequently the right to divorce was given women by the rabbis. By the more serious, however, the breaking of marriage ties was regarded as dangerous. “He who divorces his wife is hated before God”, was the opinion of the strictest school. But unfortunately divorce, like marriage, was a private matter rather than that of law, and it seems to have degenerated by the end of the first Christian century until husbands were permitted to divorce their wives on merely nominal causes. At the same time this practice was doubtless checked by the requirement that in case of divorce the husband was obliged to repay the dowry and the jointure.

The children followed the status of their father, and were regarded as a great blessing. The Jews never practiced that exposure of children that clouded Greek family life. When eight days old, the child, if a boy, was circumcised and named. When two years old, it was weaned, the event being celebrated in a feast. As soon as a boy could speak he was taught texts of Scripture, and by degrees was taught his letters and to read, most families having at least portions of the Scriptures either in Aramaic or Greek.

The education of the Jews was essentially religious, intended to make men in the first place servants of Jehovah and in the second place good citizens. Whether there were public schools throughout Palestine before the fall of Jerusalem is uncertain. Simon ben Shetach, brother of Queen Alexandra, is said to have founded a school in Jerusalem, but the children of people living at a distance from the city could not well be sent there and the rabbis ordered elementary schools for children to be established in each hyparchy. But these were not always successful. By 65 AD schools were prescribed for boys in every town under penalty of excommunication. This penalty is said to have been necessary in order to prevent teachers running away from troublesome pupils. Such a school could be held in the synagogue, if the people of the town were poor. After the destruction of Jerusalem the rabbis gave particular attention to the education of children. “Perish the sanctuary, but let the children go to school”. “Knowledge is to take the place of sacrifice”. The number of these schools it is, however, impossible to state, although the likelihood is that all of the chief towns had places of regular instruction for the boys.

The instruction given in these schools was viva voce, and until the pupil was ten years of age was entirely from the Scriptures. The teacher was not supposed to be paid for teaching the sacred text, but for taking care of the boys or for teaching some extra subject, like grammar. From ten to fifteen years of age the boy was taught the Mishna and probably some few rudiments of science. After that, if he planned to become a rabbi, he went to the professional school at Jerusalem or, after the fall of the Jewish state, at Tiberias. Girls do not seem to have been permitted to attend these schools, although among the rabbis we find several learned women. Ordinarily the girls were taught embroidery and music. A woman once asked Rabbi Eliezer a question as to a point in science. He replied that “no other wisdom is becoming a woman than that of the distaff”. Other extremists declared that, “He who teaches his daughter the law, teaches her immorality”. Such statements, however, are to be regarded as epigrams of conservativism rather than as legal decisions.

The economic life of the Jew was by no means primitive, the stories of the Old Testament life being inapplicable to the more highly developed civilization of New Testament times. Life in Palestine outside the great cities was largely agricultural. Farmers, however, lived in villages, to which they returned from the fields at nightfall. Most of the chief forms of agriculture were known to the Jews. Vineyards, olives groves, grain fields, and fruit orchards abounded in all parts of the land. Root crops, however, do not seem to have been largely raised. Sowing began after the early rains had fallen, in the end of October and the early part of November. Harvest began about the middle of April, and was completed in& about seven weeks,—grapes and fruit ripening later than wheat and barley. Thus we have the origin of the great feasts: Passover, at the beginning of the barley harvest; Pentecost, at the end of the grain harvest, and Tabernacles, after all crops are gathered in.

Terracing and irrigation were absolutely necessary, and even at this date, when Palestine is hardly more than a suggestion of its former self, one can see the hills still terraced and frequently meets the remains of reservoirs and aqueducts. The dressing of the soil seems to have been left almost entirely to the process of rotation of crops and to “ploughing under” what grew in the land during the sabbatical year. Further than that the soil was constantly being enriched naturally by the disintegration of the limestone rocks. Dressing by manure does not seem to have been usual. The fertility of the soil is surprising when one considers its rockiness. Even to this day, although it has been in use for thousands of years, the land of Palestine when properly tilled brings forth abundant harvests.

Commerce

In New Testament times Palestine had grown to some extent commercial, although it is probable that the great bulk of trade was in the hands of the Greeks. The rise of the commercial class among the Jews was a grief to the rabbis, but it was a part of the outcome of the Maccabean policy. There were said to be one hundred and ten different articles of import, included among which were fancy food stuffs, dresses, articles of luxury in general. Among the exports were agricultural products, oil, balsam, figs, and salt from the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee abounded in fish, and there were considerable pickling establishments at Tarichaea. Commerce at Tiberias had become sufficiently extensive to establish a market with an inspector.

Manual trades were regarded as on the whole honorable pursuits, and it was the duty of parents to see that their sons were trained in some such occupation. Even the rabbis had their trades. All occupations were not of the same value, and it was the ambition of a father to have his sons adopt the more important.

How highly developed industrially was Jewish society appears from the variety of trades which are mentioned in Jewish literature. It would seem as if the division of labor had been carried practically to the limit possible in an age that did not use machinery.

Some of these trades had developed embryonic unions. This was particularly true of those persons engaged in transportation, like muledrivers and sailors. If the situation in Alexandria is to be treated as at all characteristic, these unions seem to have developed into bodies which resembled those of the Greco-Roman world and anticipated to some extent the trade guilds of the Middle Ages. The wages paid it is impossible to state with accuracy, but would probably be approximately a denarius a day.

 Professions.

The professions were also represented among the Jews. It is somewhat difficult to distinguish the lawyers from the scribes, but there seem to have been two classes, those practising in Jewish courts and those in Roman. Medical knowledge was probably inferior among the Jews to that of the Greco-Roman world, since the Jews could hardly overcome the fear of defilement which came from touching a corpse. This would almost certainly stop anything like anatomical knowledge. Yet physicians were numerous. “A wise man”, says one rabbi, “will not live in a town where there is no physician”. Bleeding was common, but was done by the barber, and it seems to have been customary to practice it regularly. The ordinary procedure of medicine was, however, conditioned by belief in devils, and it was customary to use charms and exorcisms and nauseous drinks to rid the sick person of the evil spirit.

Art

In so far as arts were concerned the Jews were inferior to the Greeks. This was doubtless due to the religious prejudice against the making of graven images, the command of the Decalogue being interpreted to cover all forms of representations of living creatures. Among all the ruins of Palestine there is practically nothing which may be said to argue a high development of architecture, sculpture, or painting. The noble buildings of the temple area were built after the Greek style, although the work was conducted by the priests. There was, however, no decoration except carvings representing products of the vegetable kingdom. The same is true in the case of coins and seals, although in the latter case there seems to have been a certain relaxation in the severity of the regulation. Music, however, was brought to a considerable perfection, and musical instruments were commonly used in the temple services.

Few periods in the world’s history have been more filled with literary activity than that of New Testament times, but the Palestinian Jews seemed to have been little interested in anything except their own history and religion. Roman, Greek, Alexandrian, Syrian writers flooded the world with every form of literature. The Jews of the Dispersion were not unaffected by this literary spirit, but their contributions to belles lettres were scanty and mostly confined to Alexandria. There also belonged that great contemporary of Jesus, Philo of Alexandria, but his writings were concerned with religion. The apocalyptic and historical literature of Judaism has already been briefly described, and there is need here only to refer to the works of Josephus and of the rabbis.

Flavius Josephus was a Palestinian Jew in descent, born about 37 or 38 AD After having received a thorough rabbinical education he studied with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes, and finally with a hermit. At the age of nineteen he joined the fraternity of the Pharisees. When twenty-six years of age, he went to Rome on an embassy on behalf of certain priests who had been arrested by Felix. Successful there through the influence of Poppaea, he returned to Judea in time to take a prominent part in the revolt of 66-70. After having been taken prisoner in Galilee he was able to make friends with Vespasian and continued to enjoy the favor of the Flavian family through life. As he mentions the death of Agrippa II he must have lived into the second century. As a contemporary of many of the persons whose lives he describes his works are of first importance, although they are marked with many defects. The first of his works was the War of the Jews, written in Aramaic, and later rewritten in Greek, consisting of seven books, the first two of which treat briefly of the period of the Maccabees and more fully of the reign of Herod I, and written before 79.

The Antiquities consist of twenty books, the first ten of which were hardly more than half-legendary and half-rationalistic rewriting of the Old Testament. The second ten books covered Jewish history until the outcome of the revolt of 66. For this period Josephus is wholly dependent upon his sources and his narrative varies greatly in fullness and reliability. The other works of Josephus are his Life and his Treatise against Apion, which are of less historical value, partly because of their misrepresentation of facts, partly from their polemical tone. In the former he endeavors to show that even in Galilee he was faithful to the Romans, while in the latter he defends the Jews against the attacks of all heathen writers.

The rabbinical Literature

The strictly rabbinical literature that belongs to this period was not reduced to writing for centuries, but it was shaping itself in the Mishna or the oral law. The Mishna consists of six books or sedars, subdivided into sixty-three treatises, and these are subdivided into chapters. It was arranged by Rabbi Juda the Holy who died about 220 AD, but even he did not write it out. The rabbinical schools taught their pupils to commit it verbatim. This oral law was intended to protect the Thorah, but in all its forms it was regarded as a part of a divine will, all being included in what was given Moses from Sinai. The Mishna was not completely reduced to writing until 550 AD. It includes the oldest collection of rabbinical teachings, the Pirqe Aboth or Sayings of the Fathers.

The religious aspects of the social life of the Jews are not easily grasped, for in most particulars it is as foreign to a Christian civilization as to the men of Rome. Two contradictory dangers especially confront the student—that of overestimating and that of underestimating this religious element.

On the one hand, it is perfectly clear that the people at large did not share in the punctilious religious life of the Pharisees, however much they might admire it. In Palestine, as in modem lands, the proportion of those actively engaged in religious service was undoubtedly small. The fact that a village became a town when once it possessed ten men who agreed to be regular attendants upon the synagogue service, and the additional fact that later it became customary to pay these men for attending service, certainly do not heighten one’s confidence in popular piety. It would seem, further, as if one synagogue sufficed for a town of considerable size. The ‘amha-arets’ (people of the land)—the uneducated masses—were despised by the Pharisee, not so much because of their poverty as because of their indifference to the Law and its discipline. They were sinners, whose presence defiled the person and the house of the Pharisee.

Pietism.

It is not improbable, though hardly to be proved, that there were those Jews who were filled more with the quiet spirit of the Second Isaiah rather than with the obtrusive piety of Pharisaism,—persons like the aged Simeon and Anna, who waited for the consolation of Israel, untroubled by and perhaps indifferent to the mass of rabbinical laws.

Yet on the other hand, while ultra-Judaism can be given too great an extent, its intensity can hardly be exaggerated. Legally centered about the Temple and the high priest, its real soul was in scribism. Feasts, ritual, sacrifices, pilgrimages, tithes, Sabbaths, and fasts,—these were all alike but expressions of the profound determination to keep God’s law as expounded in the synagogue. In the services of this newer place of worship we see the prototype of Christian public worship through prayer and sermon. It was in the synagogue that Judaism really came to its completed form. But the synagogue was no mere showplace for theological pedantry. The note of idealism in that summary of synagogue instruction, the Mishna, though weaker, is as sincere as in the apocalypses. Complain though the people might of Pharisees who were but hypocrites, and of teachers who laid rather than removed burdens, they followed them by the thousands, if need be to death. The legalistic spirit had been too great an element in Jewish life, and its representatives—the Chasidim, the ‘Couples’, the rabbis, the Pharisees, the Essenes—had furnished too many heroes, to be disregarded.

Of this more exacting religious life it is not possible to speak in detail. Its provisions are easily to be seen in the gospels, and to a far greater degree in the Talmud. For scrupulosity, unhesitating logic, conscientiousness as regards the moral aspect of every act in life it stands unparalleled. It is easy and even customary to see absurdity in talmudic discussions. Absurdity there may be, but a sympathetic reader will also feel that some determination as to the morality of every trivial detail is inevitable if righteousness is to be gained by obedience to any law. Thus in the case of the Sabbath, the minute grouping of all sorts of forbidden work into thirty-nine classes is no mere play of scholastic casuistry, but, if once the principle of legalism be granted, is a legitimate exposition of the distinction between permissible and forbidden actions. The great danger to which scribism yielded was that of moral pedantry and pride, but this was involved in legalism itself, and no one before Jesus felt the danger more keenly than the greater rabbis themselves. Despite its excesses, Pharisaism succeeded in grinding into the very soul of Jewish life, be it never so humble or degraded, moral distinctions as regards the acts of the individual, such as Hellenism even at its best never enforced.

When, however, all this and even more has been granted, it is abundantly clear that Pharisaism laid upon the people burdens impossible to be borne. The rabbis’ insistence upon tithes and other religious charges must have been burdensome in the extreme, but even more deadening must have been their insistence that righteousness was impossible except through an unbroken observance of the Mosaic and the oral Law; for who among the people could hope to master the accumulation of rabbinical teaching? In proportion as legalism grew did the old prophetic teaching retreat, and life became less a direct service of a loving Jehovah and an ever increasingly fettered and hopeless succession of impossible tasks.

Yet legalism could not kill the idealism that lay in the prophetical side of Jewish life. Whether learned or ignorant, gentle or fanatic, the Jew never lost his belief that the future held in store for his nation a universal empire, a kingdom of God. Other nations of antiquity had not been without ideals, but they had been either regretful recollections of a past Golden Age or philosophical and impossible Utopias like the republic of Plato. The Jew’s hope was something other. His prophets spoke God’s promises through God’s inspiration. And these promises were of a new and glorious Kingdom whose king was to be the Lord Messiah.

CHAPTER VI

THE MESSIANIC HOPE AND JESUS THE MESSIAH

HISTORY OF THE JEWS