47. The Jewish Revolt and the Destruction of Jerusalem. The Significance of This Event in Church History

All twelve apostles, with the exception of the one Apostle John, completed their apostolic activity before an event of tremendous importance for the establishment of the Church in the world—namely, in the sense of the final destruction of the false dreams of the Jews about an earthly Messianic kingdom. That event was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

The Jews had never been able to reconcile themselves to the yoke imposed upon them by pagan conquerors and were constantly hostile to the Romans, merely waiting for an opportunity to free themselves from them. In this respect they were the most disobedient and turbulent subjects of Rome. All other peoples had comparatively little difficulty in making peace with the yoke laid upon them, and some even regarded it as a benefit, since the strong hand of the conquerors established internal and external peace in place of the endless civil wars that had exhausted their moral and physical forces. In religious matters too, pagan peoples reconciled themselves easily to conquest and quickly grew accustomed to seeing in the Roman pantheon a common sanctuary and in the Roman emperor a common embodiment of divinity. Quite different was the case with the Jews. Their entire history separated them from the pagan world by an impassable chasm. As a chosen people entrusted with the guardianship of the great religious truth, they justifiably regarded themselves as a light whose rays were destined in time to spread to all other peoples. This moral and religious superiority took on a more material character in the minds of the Jewish people over the course of time, and the Messiah they awaited was conceived by them not only as the deliverer of humanity but also as a political conqueror before whom all other peoples must bow. The Jews had cherished this dream for whole centuries, and then to their horror—at the time of the coming of the Messiah, as all the signs indicated—they found themselves enslaved to cruel pagans and had entered as an insignificant people into the composition of a vast empire where the political freedom of all peoples seemed destined to perish. Thus all their dreams seemed to crumble to dust before a hopeless and grim reality. But they could not be reconciled to this and regarded their subjection to the Romans as merely temporary, awaiting the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah who would at last throw off the hated yoke. When the true Messiah came but was not recognized by them as failing to match their expectations, this put the Jews in an even more sorrowful and hopeless position. They saw how whole masses of people recognized as the Messiah that very Nazarene Prophet whom they had not only rejected but had handed over to the most cruel tortures and the most shameful execution, and this involuntarily undermined in them even that Messianic hope which had hitherto sustained their spirit, since the fateful thought inevitably crept into their consciousness that they might indeed have crucified the Messiah. If so, every hope for the future perished. And so, wavering between these dark doubts and their half-destroyed hope, the Jews became from year to year increasingly discontented, embittered, and rebellious. The Romans themselves contributed no little to this. They treated the Jews with complete contempt and disdain, and regarding them as the most unclean and wicked of peoples, made no effort even to instill their civic order among them as they did with other peoples, but simply kept the Jews in their stern grip and looked upon them as a source of revenue. All of Judea was leased to companies of tax collectors who, through their subordinate publicans, squeezed the last juices out of the people, plunging the popular masses into unpayable debts and poverty. In appointing the governors themselves the Romans had no scruples about their selection and generally sent to Palestine persons who were barely suitable for other provinces. The majority of the procurators were men without any moral principles who looked upon the country entrusted to their administration exclusively as a source of revenue and resorted to every possible extortion and injustice. The nominal Jewish petty kings, being entirely dependent on the Romans, cared solely for maintaining good relations with the latter and for this purpose suppressed any popular movements. The upper classes of the people, especially the Sadducees, who held the high priestly dignity in their hands, were also estranged from the people and, caring exclusively about their own interests, found it preferable to grovel shamefully before the Roman authorities rather than to strive for the political independence of the people. Patriotism was preserved still only among the Pharisees, who dreamed of nothing but the overthrow of the Roman yoke; but this class was too hypocritical to take any open measures for the relief of the people’s lot, and if it strove for political independence, it was by no means out of concern for the people but only out of a morbid ambition that found insufficient satisfaction in the existing state of affairs.

And so the Jews endured the hated yoke with growing discontent for more than half a century. With each year the yoke grew heavier, discontent increased, and at the same time the hope for miraculous deliverance by the Messiah dimmed. The procurators changed frequently, but each time more rapacious ones appeared who drove the Jewish people to furious exasperation. Already Felix and Festus, before whom the case of the Apostle Paul had been tried, had marked their rule with many cruelties and injustices, but the next procurator Albinus was even worse and made his office an outrageous source of plunder, since he sold everything for money, even impunity for the most dangerous criminals. “There was no evil,” says Josephus Flavius, “that he did not commit during his administration.” But his successor was Gessius Florus, who surpassed even him in this respect. In the words of the same Jewish historian, he was like an executioner sent to punish criminals. His rapacity was so great that entire cities and districts were stripped bare by his plundering. Not content with this, he wanted to make use of the treasures of the Temple as well. In the name of the emperor he demanded that seventeen talents be surrendered to him from the Temple treasury. When the Jews refused, he sought to penetrate the treasury by force of arms. But this the Jews could no longer endure and resisted him by force. A street battle ensued which forced Florus to abandon his attempt. Indignation meanwhile reached an unprecedented degree. A faction formed in the city that was determined to break away from the Romans. An assembly was held in the Temple under the chairmanship of Eleazar, the son of Ananias, and it was resolved to reject the annual offering of the emperor to the Temple, which had been made since the time of Julius Caesar. This was a direct sign of the rejection of dependence on Rome—a revolt against Caesar. War thus became inevitable, and indeed began that famous Jewish War which is unparalleled in the history of the world for the horrors of ferocity and bloodshed that accompanied it.

When the Jews’ final request for the removal of the hated Florus met with refusal, a revolt broke out in Jerusalem and the insurgents seized control of the city and the fortified tower of Antonia, killing the Roman garrison stationed there. Only one centurion was saved, and he bought his pardon by accepting circumcision. The High Priest Ananias, who had sided with the Romans, tried to hide in a water drain but was found, dragged out, and killed. The revolt spread throughout Palestine and Syria and was everywhere accompanied not only by the massacre of Roman garrisons but also by bloody clashes between Greeks and Jews, the deadly enmity between whom had at this time reached its greatest intensity. To suppress the revolt, Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, advanced on Jerusalem, but at Beth-horon he suffered a defeat that further raised the spirit of the insurgents and inflamed their fanaticism. It then became clear that the available Roman forces were insufficient to suppress the uprising, and the Roman government dispatched to the scene of the revolt Vespasian, one of its best commanders, who was given a fully adequate army to avenge upon the Jews the disgrace suffered by the Romans. Vespasian directed his first blow at Galilee, which was defended by an army of one hundred thousand young men under the command of the well-known Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. It is understandable that the latter had difficulty holding out against the proven courage of the Romans with his hastily assembled and untrained army, and the cities fell one after another, subject to terrible destruction at the hands of the embittered Romans. The first city to fall was Gadara, and in it, as well as in the surrounding villages, all men, women, and children were put to the sword indiscriminately. For forty-six days Josephus Flavius defended Jotapata; on the forty-seventh day it was surrendered through treachery. Forty thousand Jews perished during the siege, 1,200 were taken prisoner, and the city was given over to the flames. In Ascalon 10,000 Jews were killed. In Jafia 27,000 were slain and the women and children were sold into slavery. On Mount Gerizim many Samaritans perished of thirst, and 11,600 fell by the sword. In Joppa 8,400 were killed and the city itself was burned. But a considerable number of fugitives hid in the ruins and lived by plunder and robbery. As the Roman troops approached, these Jews fled to ships, but the next morning a storm broke over them, and after a terrible scene of despair, 4,200 of them drowned and their bodies were washed ashore. Taricheae was a strongly fortified city on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Romans promised its inhabitants mercy, but despite this, when the city was taken, 2,200 old and young were killed; 6,000 of the most able-bodied were sent to Nero for work on the cutting of the Corinthian isthmus, and 30,400 citizens of this and neighboring cities, including those whom Vespasian had given to Agrippa, were sold into slavery. After this terrible slaughter, almost the entire district submitted to the conqueror. Gamala, however, still held out. It was considered by its citizens to be impregnable, having been built on a mountain peak accessible by only one road, cut off by a deep ditch. Agrippa besieged it in vain for seven months. Then Vespasian himself moved against it. Pressed by hunger, from which many had died, some citizens threw themselves down the precipice or escaped through drains. Finally the Romans took this city as well. Again a terrible slaughter occurred. Only two women were saved; 4,000 were killed in defense and 5,000 threw themselves off the precipice. All the rest, even women and children, were cut to pieces or hurled down from the cliffs. Mount Tabor, which Josephus Flavius had fortified, still held out. The Romans lured some of its defenders outside the city by a feigned retreat, while the rest were forced to surrender for lack of water. So began that terrible judgment upon the Jewish people which Christ had once foretold, saying that “then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21).

The death of Nero and the proclamation of Vespasian as emperor interrupted this war of extermination for a time; but it resumed, and with even greater ferocity, when Vespasian entrusted his son Titus with completing the task of suppressing the Jews that he had begun. Titus advanced directly on Jerusalem and began a systematic siege. This was in April of the year 70 (74). Titus had at his disposal an army of eighty thousand, which encamped around the city. In Jerusalem there were only 2,400 trained soldiers, but the city was crowded with tens of thousands of Passover pilgrims and refugees who were now seeking shelter behind its walls and taking part in the defense of the city’s ramparts. The Romans made peaceful overtures, but the Jewish Zealots refused to hear anything and rejected them. On both sides marvels of courage were displayed, and if the besiegers surpassed their opponents in military skill, the besieged compensated for their lack of military experience with an almost frenzied fury in combat. But the catastrophe was inevitable. Everything about this siege pointed to the terrible judgment of God upon the Jewish people. This was no ordinary historical event, and the Jews themselves sensed this. Stories circulated in the city of terrible portents of the impending doom. Some five years before the siege, at the feast of Passover in the Holy of Holies, a mysterious light shone at midnight, seen for three hours; the massive bronze gates of the Temple, which required twenty men to open, suddenly opened of themselves and could not be closed. At the feast of Pentecost the priests heard a mysterious voice in the Temple saying: “Let us depart from here.” Finally, on the clouds were seen fiery warriors waging fierce combat, covering the clouds with blood. Four years before the war, when the city was still enjoying peace, there appeared in Jerusalem a certain strange man by the name of Jesus, son of Ananias, who at the feast of Tabernacles began crying out ominously in the Temple: “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds of heaven! A voice against Jerusalem and the Temple, against men and women; a voice against all the people.” The people tried to silence him and subjected him to every sort of beating, but he kept on repeating the same thing, adding: “Woe, woe to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” He did not cease making these ominous cries until the war itself, and already during the siege cried out: “Woe to me as well!” and was killed by a stone hurled from a Roman catapult.

The besiegers, meanwhile, were pressing more and more tightly around the city. Jerusalem began to suffer from lack of supplies, and many began to flee from it; but Titus began to crucify all such fugitives. The city itself became the scene of the most senseless slaughters between rival factions and terrible acts of violence and plunder. The Zealots under the leadership of Eleazar gave themselves over to open robbery. And the Romans kept advancing on the walls, and their projectiles caused terrible devastation in the streets. To all these horrors was added a terrible famine. All the food supplies laid up by private citizens had been plundered by the Zealots, and everyone suffered the agonies of hunger. Women and children ran through the streets weeping, begging for a piece of bread; young men walked like shadows and fell dead from exhaustion. There were even terrifying rumors of mothers killing and devouring their own children. The daily sacrifices in the Temple ceased for lack of sacrificial animals and the absence of priests, most of whom had either been killed in the city itself, at the very altars, or had fled from the city and been crucified by the Romans. Finally the Romans breached the city wall, burst into the city, and took the Tower of Antonia by assault. It remained to take the Temple, since all the Jews who had been driven to furious frenzy had gathered around and in it. But this last stronghold of Judaism too could not hold out against the Roman onslaught, and amid screams, suicides, and the most terrible slaughter, the Temple was taken and reduced to ashes. The great altar was heaped with the slain. The courts of the Temple were awash in blood. Six thousand terrified women and children perished with screams of horror amid the blazing ruins of the Temple porticoes. The Romans planted the standards of their legions on the spot where the Holy of Holies had been. Having seized the upper city, they ceased killing only when utterly exhausted by the slaughter. According to the testimony of Josephus Flavius, Titus had a sincere desire to preserve the Temple, but his order was not carried out by his soldiers, carried away by the furious heat of battle. On the other hand, according to the testimony of the Roman historian Sulpicius Severus, Titus had the deliberate intention of rooting out Christianity and Judaism in a single blow, thinking that if the Jewish root were torn out the Christian branch would perish of itself. The tallest and most handsome young men were kept for the triumph of the victors. From the people, all above seventeen years of age were condemned to forced labor in the Egyptian mines. Others were sent as gifts to various cities to be killed by wild beasts or gladiators, or for mutual slaughter in provincial amphitheaters. Young people of both sexes were sold into slavery. Even during the days when this distribution was being made, 11,000 people perished for lack of food; some because their guards refused to give it to them, and others because they refused to receive it. Josephus Flavius puts the number of prisoners taken during the war at 97,000, and the number of those who perished during the siege at 1,100,000. The total number of those who perished during the war is given as the terrible figure of 1,337,490, and the number of prisoners as 101,700; but even these figures do not include all the losses in the many skirmishes and battles and take no account of the multitude of those who throughout the whole country perished from the disasters of famine and disease. One may truly say that this people was as if doomed to extermination; 2,000 decomposing bodies were found even in the underground passages of the city. During the siege all the trees in the vicinity had been felled, and as a result the entire appearance of the locality with its charred and blood-soaked ruins had changed so completely that anyone suddenly arriving there would have been unable to recognize where he was. The city itself had seemed so impregnable with its massive and incomparable fortifications that Titus openly declared that in this victory he clearly saw the hand of God.

Thus was accomplished the terrible judgment of God upon the Jewish people, who in their stiff-neckedness had not known the time of their gracious visitation, had not accepted the promised Messiah, and had thus not fulfilled their great vocation. Like a barren fig tree, they were cut down at the very root and ceased their national existence. This event was of extraordinary importance for the Church. It showed even the Judaizers, of whom there were not a few among Christians, that Judaism had outlived its age, and the Old Testament was decisively brought to a close by the almighty hand of God. The Church of Christ had to come into full independence from the Jewish Temple and the Law of Moses, and all this now came about of itself, under the most instructive circumstances. When in the year 120 Aelia Capitolina was built on the ruins of Jerusalem and Christians were permitted free access to it, while not a single Jew dared approach it, the Judaizing church practically ceased to exist. “Until that time,” says Sulpicius Severus, “almost all Christians in Judea observed the law, while at the same time worshiping Christ as God; but by Divine ordinance this yoke of the law had to be removed from the freedom of the Church.” The Church of Aelia Capitolina was no longer predominantly Jewish, and even formally distanced itself from the Jews. For the first time in 137 it elected as its bishop Mark from among the uncircumcised Gentiles. This event significantly proved that even in Judea the future fate of the Christian Church was no longer in danger from the Jews. The Church then finally and forever freed herself from the bonds of the synagogue and could peacefully fulfill Christ’s prophecy about that day when true worshipers would worship neither on the mountain nor in Jerusalem, but would worship everywhere—in spirit and in truth.