History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

But this tragical fate could break only the national power of the Jews, not their hatred of

Christianity. They caused the death of Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem (107); they were particularly

active in the burning of Polycarp of Smyrna; and they inflamed the violence of the Gentiles by

eliminating the sect of the Nazarenes.

The Rebellion under Bar-Cochba. Jerusalem again Destroyed.

By severe oppression under Trajan and Hadrian, the prohibition of circumcision, and the

desecration of Jerusalem by the idolatry of the pagans, the Jews were provoked to a new and

powerful insurrection (a.d. 132–135). A pseudo-Messiah, Bar-Cochba (son of the stars, Num.

24:17), afterwards called Bar-Cosiba (son of falsehood), put himself at the head of the rebels, and

caused all the Christians who would not join him to be most cruelly murdered. But the false prophet

was defeated by Hadrian’s general in 135, more than half a million of Jews were slaughtered after

a desperate resistance, immense numbers sold into slavery, 985 villages and 50 fortresses levelled

to the ground, nearly all Palestine laid waste, Jerusalem again destroyed, and a Roman colony,

Aelia Capitolina, erected on its ruins, with an image of Jupiter and a temple of Venus. The coins

of Aelia Capitolina bear the images of Jupiter Capitolinus, Bacchus, Serapis, Astarte.

Thus the native soil of the venerable religion of the Old Testament was ploughed up, and

idolatry planted on it. The Jews were forbidden to visit the holy spot of their former metropolis

upon pain of death.

19

8 Only on the anniversary of the destruction were they allowed to behold and

bewail it from a distance. The prohibition was continued under Christian emperors to their disgrace.

Julian the Apostate, from hatred of the Christians, allowed and encouraged them to rebuild the

temple, but in vain. Jerome, who spent the rest of his life in monastic retirement at Bethlehem (d.

419), informs us in pathetic words that in his day old Jewish men and women, "in corporibus et in

habitu suo iram a Domini demonstrantes," had to buy from the Roman watch the privilege of

weeping and lamenting over the ruins from mount Olivet in sight of the cross, "ut qui quondam

emerant sanguinem Christi, emant lacrymas suas, et ne fletus quidem i eis gratuitus sit."

20

9

 The

same sad privilege the Jews now enjoy under Turkish rule, not only once a year, but every Friday

beneath the very walls of the Temple, now replaced by the Mosque of Omar.

21

0

The Talmud.

After this the Jews had no opportunity for any further independent persecution of the

Christians. Yet they continued to circulate horrible calumnies on Jesus and his followers. Their

learned schools at Tiberias and Babylon nourished this bitter hostility. The Talmud, i.e. Doctrine,

of which the first part (the Mishna, i.e. Repetition) was composed towards the end of the second

century, and the second part (the Gemara, i.e. Completion) in the fourth century, well represents

the Judaism of its day, stiff, traditional, stagnant, and anti-Christian. Subsequently the Jerusalem

Talmud was eclipsed by the Babylonian (430–521), which is four times larger, and a still more

19

As reported by Justin M., a native of Palestine and a contemporary of this destruction of Jerusalem. Apol. l.c. 47. Tertullian

also says (Adv. Jud. c. 13), that, "an interdict was issued forbidding any one of the Jews to linger in the confines of the district."

20

Ad Zephan. 1:15 sqq. Schürer quotes the passage, p. 363.

21

"The Wailing Place of the Jews" at the cyclopean foundation wall is just outside of the Mosque El Aska, and near "Robinson’s

Arch." There I saw on Good Friday, 1877, a large number of Jews, old and young, men and women, venerable rabbis with

patriarchal beards, others dirty and repulsive, kissing the stone wall and watering it with their tears, while repeating from Hebrew

Bibles and prayer-books the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Psalms 76

th

 and 79

th

, and various litanies. Comp. Tobler, Topographie

von Jerusalem I. 629.

28

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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distinct expression of Rabbinism. The terrible imprecation on apostates (pratio haereticorum),

designed to deter Jews from going over to the Christian faith, comes from the second century, and

is stated by the Talmud to have been composed at Jafna, where the Sanhedrin at that time had its

seat, by the younger Rabbi Gamaliel.

The Talmud is the slow growth of several centuries. It is a chaos of Jewish learning, wisdom,

and folly, a continent of rubbish, with hidden pearls of true maxims and poetic parables. Delitzsch

calls it "a vast debating club, in which there hum confusedly the myriad voices of at least five

centuries, a unique code of laws, in comparison with which the law-books of all other nations are

but lilliputian." It is the Old Testament misinterpreted and turned against the New, in fact, though

not in form. It is a rabbinical Bible without inspiration, without the Messiah, without hope. It shares

the tenacity of the Jewish race, and, like it, continues involuntarily to bear testimony to the truth

of Christianity. A distinguished historian, on being asked what is the best argument for Christianity,

promptly replied: the Jews.

22

1

Unfortunately this people, still remarkable even in its tragical end, was in many ways cruelly

oppressed and persecuted by the Christians after Constantine, and thereby only confirmed in its

fanatical hatred of them. The hostile legislation began with the prohibition of the circumcision of

Christian slaves, and the intermarriage between Jews and Christians, and proceeded already in the

fifth century to the exclusion of the Jews from all civil and political rights in Christian states. Even

our enlightened age has witnessed the humiliating spectacle of a cruel 

Judenhetze

in Germany and still

more in Russia (1881). But through all changes of fortune God has preserved this ancient race as

a living monument of his justice and his mercy; and he will undoubtedly assign it an important part

in the consummation of his kingdom at the second coming of Christ.

§ 15. Causes of Roman Persecution.

The policy of the Roman government, the fanaticism of the superstitious people, and the

self-interest of the pagan priests conspired for the persecution of a religion which threatened to

demolish the tottering fabric of idolatry; and they left no expedients of legislation, of violence, of

craft, and of wickedness untried, to blot it from the earth.

To glance first at the relation of the Roman state to the Christian religion.

Roman Toleration.

The policy of imperial Rome was in a measure tolerant. It was repressive, but not preventive.

Freedom of thought was not checked by a censorship, education was left untrammelled to be

arranged between the teacher and the learner. The armies were quartered on the frontiers as a

protection of the empire, not employed at home as instruments of oppression, and the people were

diverted from public affairs and political discontent by public amusements. The ancient religions

of the conquered races were tolerated as far as they did not interfere with the interests of the state.

The Jews enjoyed special protection since the time of Julius Caesar.

22

On the literature of the Talmud see the articles in Herzog, and in McClintock & Strong, and especially Schürer, Neutestamentl.

Zeitgeschichte (Leipz. 1874), pp. 45-49, to which I add Schürer’s essay: Die Predigt Jesu Christi in ihrem Verhältniss zum Altem

Testament und zum Judenthum, Darmstadt, 1882. The relation of the Talmud to the Sermon on the Mount and the few resemblances

is discussed by Pick in McClintock & Strong, vol. ix. 571.

29

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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