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| The Misfortunes which overwhelmed the Jews after their Presumption against Christ. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
VI.—The Misfortunes which overwhelmed
the Jews after their Presumption against Christ.
1. After the death of Tiberius, Caius received the empire,
and, besides innumerable other acts of tyranny against many people, he
greatly afflicted especially the whole nation of the Jews.310
310 Caius’ hostility to the Jews resulted chiefly (as mentioned
above, chap. 5, note 4) from their refusal to pay him divine honors,
which he demanded from them as well as from his other subjects. His
demands had caused terrible disturbances in Alexandria; and in
Jerusalem, where he commanded the temple to be devoted to his worship,
the tumult was very great and was quieted only by the yielding of the
emperor, who was induced to give up his demands by the request of
Agrippa, who was then at Rome and in high favor with him. Whether the
Jews suffered in the same way in Rome we do not know, but it is
probable that the emperor endeavored to carry out the same plan there
as elsewhere. | These things we may learn briefly from the
words of Philo, who writes as follows:311
311 Philo, Legat. ad Caium, 43. |
2. “So great was the
caprice of Caius in his conduct toward all, and especially toward the
nation of the Jews. The latter he so bitterly hated that he
appropriated to himself their places of worship in the other cities,312
312 ἐν
ταῖς ἄλλαις
πόλεσι. The
reason for the use of the word “other” is not quite clear,
though Philo perhaps means all the cities except Jerusalem, which he
mentions a little below. | and beginning with Alexandria he filled
them with images and statues of himself (for in permitting others to
erect them he really erected them himself). The temple in the holy
city, which had hitherto been left untouched, and had been regarded as
an inviolable asylum, he altered and transformed into a temple of his
own, that it might be called the temple of the visible Jupiter, the
younger Caius.”313
313 “‘Caius the younger,’ to distinguish him from
Julius Cæsar who bore the name Caius, and who was also
deified” (Valesius). |
3. Innumerable other terrible
and almost indescribable calamities which came upon the Jews in
Alexandria during the reign of the same emperor, are recorded by the
same author in a second work, to which he gave the title, On the
Virtues.314
314 This
work is probably the same as that mentioned in the beginning of chap.
5. (See chap. 5, note 1.) The work seems to have borne two
titles ἡ πρεσβεία
and περὶ
ἀρετῶν. See
Schürer, ibid. p. 859, who considers the δευτέρω
here the addition of a copyist, who could not
reconcile the two different titles given by Eusebius. | With him agrees also Josephus, who
likewise indicates that the misfortunes of the whole nation began with
the time of Pilate, and with their daring crimes against the Saviour.315
315 This
is rather an unwarranted assumption on the part of Eusebius, as
Josephus is very far from intimating that the calamities of the nation
were a consequence of their crimes against our Saviour. |
4. Hear what he says in the
second book of his Jewish War, where he writes as follows:316
316 Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 2. | “Pilate being sent to Judea as
procurator by Tiberius, secretly carried veiled images of the emperor,
called ensigns,317 to Jerusalem by
night. The following day this caused the greatest disturbance among the
Jews. For those who were near were confounded at the sight, beholding
their laws, as it were, trampled under foot. For they allow no image to
be set up in their city.”
5. Comparing these things with
the writings of the evangelists, you will see that it was not long
before there came upon them the penalty for the exclamation which they
had uttered under the same Pilate, when they cried out that they had no
other king than Cæsar.318
6. The same writer further
records that after this another calamity overtook them. He writes as
follows:319
319 Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 4. | “After this he stirred up
another tumult by making use of the holy treasure, which is called
Corban,320
320 Heb. קָרְבָּן; Greek κορβᾶν
and κορβανᾶς. The word denoted originally any offering to God,
especially an offering in fulfillment of a vow. The form κορβανᾶς, which Josephus has employed here, was used to denote
the sacred treasure or the treasury itself. In Matt.
xxvii. 6, the only place where this form of the word
occurs in the New Testament, it is used with the latter meaning. Upon
this act of Pilate’s, see above, chap. 5, note 9. | in the construction of an aqueduct
three hundred
stadia in length.321
321 Josephus, in Ant. XVIII. 3. 2, says that the aqueduct was
200 stadia long. In the passage which Eusebius quotes the number given
is 400, according to the Greek mss. of
Josephus, though the old Latin translation agrees with Eusebius in
reading 300. The situation of the aqueduct we do not know, though the
remains of an ancient aqueduct have been found to the south of
Jerusalem, and it is thought that this may have been the same. It is
possible that Pilate did not construct a new aqueduct, but simply
restored one that had been built in the time of Solomon. Schultz
(Jerusalem, Berlin, 1845) suggests the number 40, supposing that
the aqueduct began at Bethlehem, which is 40 stadia from
Jerusalem. |
7. The multitude were greatly
displeased at it, and when Pilate was in Jerusalem they surrounded his
tribunal and gave utterance to loud complaints. But he, anticipating
the tumult, had distributed through the crowd armed soldiers disguised
in citizen’s clothing, forbidding them to use the sword, but
commanding them to strike with clubs those who should make an outcry.
To them he now gave the preconcerted signal from the tribunal. And the
Jews being beaten, many of them perished in consequence of the blows,
while many others were trampled under foot by their own countrymen in
their flight, and thus lost their lives. But the multitude, overawed by
the fate of those who were slain, held their peace.”
8. In addition to these the same
author records322
322 See
B. J. II. 10, 12 sqq. | many other tumults which were
stirred up in Jerusalem itself, and shows that from that time seditions
and wars and mischievous plots followed each other in quick succession,
and never ceased in the city and in all Judea until finally the siege
of Vespasian overwhelmed them. Thus the divine vengeance overtook the
Jews for the crimes which they dared to commit against
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