Third came Ventidius Cumanus (48–52), an inept ruler responsible for many of his own problems. In 52, when a Galilean was murdered in Samaria and conflict between the two populations subsequently broke out, Cumanus did nothing. The conflict spread to Judea, from which two Jews mounted a raid into Samaria. Claudius, spurred on by Agrippa II, finally intervened: he found in favor of the Jews, penalized the Samaritans, and exiled Cumanus.
The next governor, Antonius Felix (52–60), faced increasing incidents of rebellion, particularly attacks from the Sicarii (from ska, a curved dagger, used to assassinate Jews seen as cooperating with Rome). Felix was also ruling when a Jew known only as the “Egyptian” led a large number of people to the Mount of Olives, having promised them that he would bring down the walls of Jerusalem. The governor’s heavy-handed approach to squelching these incipient revolts only exacerbated local tension. His greed is attested by Acts 24.26; he had hoped to relieve Paul of his funding. Felix’s personal life, no less suspect, demonstrates the interconnection of Roman rule and Judean royalty. His wife, Drusilla, was the daughter of Agrippa I. Although she was betrothed to Epiphanes of Commangene, that contract ended following Agrippa’s death, when Epiphanes recanted on his promise to be circumcised. Drusilla was then betrothed by her brother, Agrippa II, to Azizus of Emesa, who did agree to the ritual operation. The queen would later dissolve her marriage in order to wed Felix, who had been courting her by proxy.
Personal scandal also touched Agrippa II. Rome did not approve of his living with his other sister, Berenice; rumors of incest spread. Berenice was the widow of, first, the son of the Jewish leader of Alexandria, and second of Herod of Chalcis; she would later become the wife of the king of Cilicia and finally the partner of the emperor Titus. Yet Agrippa’s personal life does not appear to have interfered substantially with his political career. Appointed by Claudius king of Chalcis in 49, when his uncle Herod died, Agrippa II also received control of the Jerusalem Temple and the power to appoint the high priest. In 53, Claudius granted him both Herod Philip’s former holdings and Abilene. In 54/55, Nero would increase these holdings with the addition of two cities in Perea and two more in Galilee.
In turn, Agrippa II remained faithful to the empire. From the time of his enthronement in 49 to his death in 92, his coins depict the reigning emperor. Nevertheless, he also tried to do well by his Jewish citizens. He continued the construction of the Jerusalem Temple, and when the massive unemployment that resulted from its completion threatened Jerusalem’s peace, he provided jobs for many of the workers. When the First Revolt broke out in 66, he sought to quell the rebellion; but once hostilities increased, he sided with Rome. Although his loyalties were to the empire, and although he did have a dispute with the Jerusalem priests mediated by the next governor, Porcius Festus (60–62), over his desire to tear down a wall that blocked his view of the Temple (Nero decided in favor of the priests), Agrippa II is well regarded in rabbinic sources.
Festus is also known for sending another dispute to Nero. It is Festus to whom Paul appeals in Acts 25.11. Although an able and cautious administrator, Festus could not resolve the heightened tensions and increasing Jewish antipathy toward Rome. Between Festus’s death in office and the arrival of his successor, Albinus (62–64), the Jerusalem church began to face increasing local pressure.
That the early followers of Jesus faced opposition is certain; Paul himself admits in his letter to the Philippians that he had been a persecutor of the church. Yet it is much less clear why and to what extent it was harassed—by Jewish kings, Sadducees, representatives of the synagogues, Roman authorities, and members of the general populace. Although much of the evidence for the persecution of the church locates the difficulties outside Judea, Acts does record several local incidents. For example, Acts 12.1–2 mentions that James the son of Zebedee and brother of the apostle John was ordered executed by Agrippa I. And in 62, during the interim between governors, James the brother of Jesus perished at the command of the Sadducean high priest, Annas II. But then, prompted by complaints from the Pharisees, Agrippa II deposed the priest. The timing of the incident indicates that the high priest’s action was illegal; both Roman and Christian sources suggest that local governments in occupied territory lacked the right to carry out capital punishment.
Such persecution of the church occurred sporadically outside Judea as well. Although the origins of the Christian communities in such locations as Rome and Egypt are not known, it is nevertheless likely that the movement was spread by Jewish evangelists, who used private homes and perhaps synagogues as bases for proselytizing. Among these missionaries, the best known is Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who himself once persecuted the church. Following a conversion experience, Saul—or, as he became known to the Greek-speaking world, Paul—established churches throughout Asia Minor and Greece. Through his efforts and those of his fellow missionaries, Gentiles were brought into the church by means of baptism. They were not required to follow the rituals of the Jewish scriptures, such as dietary regulations, circumcision for males, or particular forms of Sabbath observance. Instead, their principal ritual appears to have been the Eucharist, practiced as a fellowship meal. Yet Paul, who advised cooperation with the government (see Rom. 13.1–7), was, according to legend, beheaded by Nero.
As a new religious movement, the Christians were already suspect in the eyes of their neighbors. Their preaching of a crucified savior, the sexual asceticism practiced by some of them (especially women), their Eucharistic language, their strong eschatological orientation, and their insistence (like the Jews’) that there was only one deity—all these contributed to various outbreaks of violence against them. The most famous of these occurred in Rome, when Nero accused the local Christian community of starting the great fire of 64CE. Moreover, whenever Jews were targeted for specific governmental action, Christians, especially those who were ethnically Jews, were likely to find themselves under attack in the wake of that action. Thus, when Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in 49, the Jewish Christians were banished as well; one missionary couple involved in this expulsion, Priscilla (Prisca) and Aquila, is known from both Paul’s letters and Acts of the Apostles.
The Fall of Jerusalem
Albinus (62–64), together with the last governor prior to the revolt, Gessius Florus (64–66), confirmed for much of the local populace that independence from Rome was essential. Each took bribes, looted treasuries, and served only himself. Simmering hatred of the governors reached the boiling point in 66 CE, heated by growing nationalism, religious enthusiasm, increasing strife between Jews and Gentiles in various areas of the country, major economic problems caused by droughts and famines as well as by taxation, massive unemployment in Jerusalem in the early 60s occasioned by the completion of Herod’s Temple, the inability of the upper classes either to provide leadership or to evoke popular support, and a series of local incidents. Adding even more heat were the diverse interests of peasants from the rural areas of Galilee and urban merchants from the cosmopolitan centers, of those who expected divine intervention and those who relied on their own skill with weapons, of those who hated the Romans and those who hated the rich. As Richard Horsley has aptly observed, a “spiral of violence” eventually enveloped the entire country.
The incident that sparked the revolt may have been the blocking of a synagogue in Caesarea in 61 by a building erected by Greeks. Nero judged in favor of the Greeks; Jewish tensions began to rise, and by 66 fighting erupted in the streets between the Jewish and Greek populations. Concurrently, Florus—following an old procuratorial practice—attempted to remove funds from the Temple treasury. Although his predecessors had faced little direct opposition to this action, Florus provoked Jerusalem’s anger. The population, disgusted by his plan but aware of their limited political power, mocked him by holding a public collection. The governor ordered his soldiers to break up the protest, but the opposition became so intense that he retreated to Caesarea, leaving behind in Jerusalem only one cohort of soldiers.<
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The absence of the governor and the limited number of troops provided the final impetus. Rebellion broke out in Judea; shortly it swept Galilee; within a year it had spread to Samaria. The Sanhedrin, comprised primarily of Sadducees and Pharisees, became the de facto governmental organ. Those in rebellion quickly took various fortresses, including Masada and the Antonia, and even the Temple Mount. Led by Eleazar, the son of the high priest, they stopped the daily offerings to the emperor. Many priests, recognizing that their positions now depended on their support of the revolt, joined the alliance.
Among the various groups engaged in active resistance against Rome, the best known are the Zealots and the Sicarii. Josephus connects the Zealots with the philosophic schools of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, but he lists this “fourth philosophy” as an “innovation and revolution in the ancestral ways”(Antiquities 18.1.1). The term Zealot appears first in the context of the revolt itself, and should not be confused with either the “bandits” (Greek lestai) or the Sicarii. The lestai probably came from rural or village settings and were involved in social banditry. Their primary motivation seems to have been economic rather than ideological. In contrast, the Sicarii were urban-based revolutionaries who shared the ideals of Judas the Galilean and Zadok. One of their leaders, Eleazar, was the grandson of Judas. The Zealots, perhaps peasants who headed toward Jerusalem from the north even as the Romans were advancing into Galilee, had various agendas: economic, political, even personal. Nor should the Zealots be equated with others involved in the first days of the war, including various revolutionaries from among the priestly houses and the rich who hated the Zealots and Sicarii, and even some Jews from Idumea, who scorned the priests and the upper class.
That the revolt was not merely an uprising against Rome but was also fueled by local political and economic concerns is clearly indicated by the Zealots’ more destructive activities. They torched the palaces of Agrippa II, Berenice, and the high priest, as well as the city archives. This latter event is particularly telling, since the debt and tax records were stored there. For the Zealots, elimination of debt would end the economic imbalance of the country, allowing land and wealth to be distributed according to the more egalitarian model suggested by the Torah. The fighting was especially intense in areas of mixed Jewish and Gentile population, as earlier in Caesarea. In such cases, nationalism rather than economics served as the primary catalyst. From Josephus, one might conclude that in Galilee part of the unrest was caused by cultural and geographical rivalries; he recounts that the urban populations were much less in favor of the revolt than the rural peasants.
To what extent the revolt represented the sentiments of the full population is not known. Agrippa II sought peace; sailing immediately from Alexandria to Jerusalem, he sent three thousand soldiers to attempt to remove the Zealots, but receiving almost no help from the inept Florus, he failed. Unlike his son, the high priest as well as the majority of the Sadducees could see no benefit from the revolt. Yet the lower-ranking priests did have reason to rebel. According to Josephus, their superiors had begun taking the people’s tithed offerings directly from the threshing floor of the Temple; the lower priests, who depended on these offerings for their livelihood, were thereby being reduced to impoverishment and starvation. One leader of the Jewish forces in Galilee was John the Essene. Pharisaic views are less clear, since they are recorded only by Josephus, if not already then at least later himself a Pharisee with strong apologetic interests. Some Pharisees appear to have counseled peace or at least caution; Rome’s willingness to sponsor Pharisaic interests in the aftermath of the war may imply at least some Pharisaic sponsorship of Roman interests prior to the revolt. But others, including Simeon ben Gamaliel, joined the struggle.
For many in Galilee, the war was unwanted. Much of the territory remained prosperous despite famines, taxation, occupation, and memories of Judas and the census. The major cities, Sepphoris and Tiberias, had substantial economic and cultural ties to Rome. Josephus, at first the leader of the Galilean resistance, announces in his Jewish War (the major source for the reconstruction of the events of 66–73) that rebellion is not desired by God.
The varied responses to the call for revolt are epitomized by two residents of Galilee who, during the war, found themselves in Jerusalem. Johanan ben Zakkai, who had lived in Gabara just prior to 66, counseled peace; John of Gischala was at the forefront in defending Jerusalem against the Roman troops. How the Jerusalem church reacted is unclear. According to the fourth-century church historian Eusebius, the church relocated to Pella, across the Jordan River, early in 66. Yet this account has its problems. Much of the sixty miles between Jerusalem and Pella would already have been under Roman control; Pella itself was then in the hands of Jewish revolutionaries, and the reports of the relocation may well originate from Pella itself.
Rome was clearly unhappy with this turn of events. In the autumn of 66, the governor of Syria, Cestius Callus, headed for Jerusalem. Facing strong opposition, he had to retreat, and during the withdrawal, over half of his military support perished at Beth-horon. This initial victory brought even more of the Jewish population over to the Zealot side. Soon local coins with the inscription “Year 1” began to appear.
Nero next sent his general Vespasian to restore order. Supported financially and materially not only by the emperor but also by Agrippa II and Malchus II of Nabatea, Vespasian embarked for Galilee in 67. There he would meet Josephus, whom the Sanhedrin had appointed commander of the revolutionary troops. Josephus by his own account fortified Jotapata, Tarichea, Tiberias, Sepphoris, and Gischala; he also claims to have mustered a hundred thousand soldiers, an improbably high number. Distrusted by the Zealots, and in particular by John of Gischala, Josephus was accused of negotiating with Rome. Once Vespasian arrived, Josephus recounts that many of the Jewish resistance fighters fled, and he himself retreated to Tiberias while his own troops moved to Jotapata.
The siege of the fortress in Jotapata lasted forty-seven days in June and July of 67. Then, through internal betrayal, the fortress finally fell. The population was either killed or enslaved, and the city was leveled. Josephus claims that he fled to a cave and then, after both a convenient miracle and his opportune prediction that Vespasian would become emperor, his life was spared. He joined the general’s entourage, took Vespasian’s household name—Flavius—as his own, and spent the rest of his life under Rome’s aegis.
Distrusted during and after the revolt by many of his fellow Jews, Josephus is not entirely trusted by modern historians either. His various accounts of Roman political activities in Judea and Galilee, of the actions of the Jewish revolutionaries, of the general political climate in Jerusalem, of the role of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and of the extent of Gentile attitudes toward Jews during the first century CE must be viewed in the context of his apologetic motives. Yet regardless of the extent of his exaggeration, it remains the case that by the end of the year 67, Rome had retaken not only Jotapata and Tiberias, but all of Galilee. John of Gischala fled to Jerusalem, and the Roman army soon followed.
Under Vespasian, the tenth Roman legion next headed for the Dead Sea. Probably expecting the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness, the Qumran covenanters found instead the army of Rome. Their light remained extinguished until 1947, when their scrolls were rediscovered; Rome turned their settlement into a barracks. Some members of the group may have fled to Masada, but their fate too was sealed.
As the Roman forces marched on toward Jerusalem, the various revolutionary groups in the city recognized the need to consolidate their power. With help from Idumean allies, they replaced the weak Sanhedrin government with their own. They also deposed the high priest, in favor of Phanni (or Phanassus) ben Samuel, not from one of the high-priestly families but chosen by lot. Still, factionalism began to sap both their strength and their spirit. Simon bar Giora, who left Idumea following Vespasian’s incursion, headed for Jerusalem in the summer of 69. There he found himself in rivalry not
only with John of Gischala, but also with the priest Eleazar ben Simeon, who had split from John’s party. Each group formed its own base: bar Giora directed the upper city and parts of lower Jerusalem; John of Gischala held the Temple Mount; Eleazar controlled the Temple’s inner forecourt. The rival groups burned much of the grain stored in the city, a move that gave different factions temporary political advantage but ultimately doomed Jerusalem.
Recognizing the toll internal fighting was taking, Vespasian had left the Zealots in Jerusalem to weaken each other and turned instead to Idumea, Perea, Antipatris, Lydda, and Jamnia. Quickly advancing, he took Shechem, and thus the Samaritans who had begun to fight Rome in 67 were subdued. Soon Jericho fell, and Vespasian was ready for the last major rebel stronghold, Jerusalem. Yet again, however, Jerusalem was spared. On the ninth of June 68, Nero committed suicide, and the general’s attention was redirected westward. Given this sudden lull in Roman activities, bar Giora recognized an opportunity to attack southern Judea, including Hebron. Vespasian naturally then mounted a campaign against Hebron, which fell quickly. By mid-June, he held all points except for Jerusalem and the fortresses of Herodium, Machaerus, and Masada.
Apparently during this time, perhaps as late as the summer of 69 when the Idu-means also fled Jerusalem, the Pharisaic leader Jochanan ben Zakkai escaped from the city. Rabbinic accounts suggest that he had received permission from Vespasian to establish a school in Jamnia. These accounts also depict ben Zakkai—like Josephus—as predicting that Vespasian would both destroy the Temple and ascend the imperial throne. A minor episode during the war, ben Zakkai’s relocation would have a major effect on the survival, and configuration, of Judaism.
Attentive to power struggles both in Rome and in Jerusalem, Vespasian bided his time. On 1 July 69, the Roman armies stationed in the eastern part of the empire proclaimed Vespasian emperor. Leaving his army in the control of his capable son, Titus, Vespasian returned to Rome, where he began his ten-year reign as emperor. Titus, aided by (among others) the Jewish-born former procurator Tiberius Julius Alexander, the former rebel leader in Galilee Josephus, and four legions of soldiers, began the siege in early 70, a few weeks before Passover. The timing perfectly coincided with the increasing tension among the internal factions. When Eleazar the priest opened the gates of the Temple for the celebration of the festival, John of Gischala stormed the inner court. Now only two Zealot factions remained. With Titus laying siege to the northern wall of Jerusalem, the groups inside finally united. Their effort failed, and in only three weeks Titus controlled the entire inner city.
The Oxford History of the Biblical World Page 65