07-30-2007, 09:58 AM
The Romans were no religious fundamentalists..... they tolerated those last strains of Egyptian religion, the pagan faiths of the Celts, Scythians and and the Sarmatians and even the Zoroasterians from the acquired territories of Parthia and Asia Minor. The Jewish rebellions were put down mercilessly but there was IMO no religious angle to it.... Vespasian and his son's act of destroying the temple is the same as a Julius Caesar smashing up the Briton's Sacred Groves or a Suetonious massacring the Iceni Druids during Boudica's revolt. Those institutions were a focal point of the revolt/resistance and razing them had tremendous psy-ops values onlee. Nothing personal, all business.
Jews were persecuted by the Romans (and the Persians before them) 'coz they used the religious identity to close the ranks.
The Early Roman Empire spanned perhaps all of today's Italy, Greece, Spain, France, Britain, Asia Minor and North Africa Its backbone was perhaps a collection of 5000 towns with a population of about 50 million. The governance was orderly, stable and pragmatic. Impressive engineering feats were achieved and a vast infrastructure built. Every major town and city had paved streets, efficient water supply, waste disposal systems, administrative centers, temples, commercial areas, and recreational and cultural centers. Roman engineers built a road network of 50,000 miles extending from Britain to Iraq, so durable that in World War II, they were still used for the invasion of France. They had excellent hydraulics with large reservoirs, aqueducts and an extensive underground drainage system. A vibrant commerce sustained by currency, safety, roads and general infrastructure. Trade flourished with the rest of the world, including India, China and Arabia. It boasted an elite intellectual culture, literature and intricate legal systems. It incorporated several aspects of the Greek civilization, with Greece spoken in the eastern half of the empire (the western half speaking Latin). Most of the Roman soldiers worshipped Mitra, the Sun God. The initial decline of this great empire would approximately coincide with the time of the Christ. It was during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius Caesar. We take a brief interlude to glimpse at some events around this interval.
Now as the head of the Roman empire, Julius Caesar did much to improve the degenerating conditions, and had also to keep in check the many enemies that stemmed from political intrigue in the various regions of the empire. On 15 March 44 BC, as he went to Senate with bodyguard Marcus Antonius, he was stabbed by a group of conspirators, led by Gaius Cassius, at the feet of Pompey's statue. Gaius Cassius had been Pompey's first commander, whom Caesar had pardoned and made a member of senate along with Marcus Brutus, also a Pompeyite.
It would be in order here to mention that Judaism had a good foothold in the Roman Empire. The Romans had a strict policy of not interfering in the religious lives of their subjects. This enabled the Jews to continue following their religion in Judea and in the rest of the Empire. It is estimated that probably about 5-7 million Jews lived in the Roman Empire, with roughly a million in Egypt, another million in Syria, and close to one million in Palestine. At least 10,000 Jews lived in Rome; Jewish colonies also existed in the large trading centers of Asia Minor. About sixty percent of the five-seven million Jews of the Roman empire lived outside of Judea. Judaism had long been viewed favorably by pagan writers who viewed Jews as philosophers, like the Brahmins of India. Throughout the Roman Empire various practices of Judaism were adopted by significant segments of the populace. Many Gentiles (non-Jews) observed the Sabbath, the fasts, the food restrictions and the Jewish holidays and many attended synagogue. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar had granted them special privileges. Amongst other things, Julius Caesar granted them exemption from military service, and the freedom to follow their own laws. While Judaism had no formal missionary apparatus, individual Jews actively sought converts. This is the context of Jesus Christ's anger against them: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte..." (Matthew 23:15). Judaism continued to gain converts and remained a viable religious movement within the Roman empire until the end of the fourth century. There were of course tensions between Jews and Gentiles, but these were relatively minor, when compared with what was to come.
Let us now turn our attention to Judea. After their return from Babylon in 538 BC the Jews had created a theocratic community in Palestine. It was based on the Torah, the law as God revealed to Moses. Religious life centered on the Temple at Jerusalem, which they had rebuilt, following its earlier destruction, with the high priest being the most exalted figure. The legal system, called the "Great Sanhedrin", was centered at this temple as a religious assembly of elders and wise men. This existed along with other smaller Sanhedrins. It was the final authority on Jewish law and any scholar who went against its decisions was put to death. During the period when Judea was under Roman rule, the members of the Sanhedrin played a pragmatic role in keeping relations with both the Roman rulers and the local Jews. The Jews were a tightly knit community and even Jewish groups outside Palestine were linked to the Temple for informal worship and instruction in the scriptures. (The synagogue first arose during the Babylonian exile and would act as the nerve center of Judaism, outliving the main Temple. It would influence the forms of worship in the Christian church as well as the muslim mosque. The Jews were perhaps unique in the Roman world in insisting that their God was the only true one.)
Around 333 BC, Palestine came under the rule of Alexander the Great after his conquest of Persia, and there followed a rule by the Ptolemies and then by the Seleucids. Most Jews outside Palestine spoke Greek and a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures became a necessity. Greek influence contributed to factionalism among the Jews in Judea and eventually this led to an internal struggle between the Maccabaens and the pro-Greek Sadducees who were favored by the King of the Seleucid empire. In 168 BC the Seleucid king intervened and ordered the Temple be dedicated to Zeus. The Jews saw this as blasphemy and defilement of their temple and rebelled. Led by Judas Maccabaeus they re-dedicated their Temple to Yahweh and in 142 BC won their independence from the Seleucids. Judas and his next successor were high priests, but later members of the family had themselves enthroned as kings, who became corrupt. Factionalism then increased and civil conflict erupted and it was in the midst of a civil war that the Romans intervened in Palestine. Actually one Jewish state had appealed to Rome for aid. Pompey then intervened and ended the civil war in 63 BC, by making Judea a Roman protectorate. The Romans had installed an Arab chieftain, Antipater, to rule Jerusalem and in 43 BC, his son Herod succeeded him with the approval of the Roman Marc Antony. Herod made good of his close friendship with the Roman Agrippa (also a Jew), and many Jews began to detest him as a foreigner and as an extravagant ruler. Nevertheless, as is the case with many degenerate and corrupt societies, there were always several groups of Jews who supported Herod and the Romans. We mention two such groups in particular: the Pharisees and Sadduccees. The former were orthodox Jews from various social classes, while the latter were aristocratic elite of the Jewish society. There were other groups such as the Scribes (responsible for transmission of tradition and law) and the Essenes (ascetics who opted out of the political world) and the Zealots, who were revolutionaries.
In this environment of despair, various reactions developed in the Jewish society centered around Judea. While some groups such as the Zealots organized guerilla attacks on the Romans, other groups that took the path of introversion and perhaps despair. Many Jews had become increasingly disenchanted. They began to denounce fellow Jews as apostates and collaborators with the Romans. They saw Jerusalem as being polluted. The Jews were divided into a majority "sons of darkness", and a minorty "sons of light". There was an increase in ascetic practices. One such group that practiced ascetism was the Essenes, who spent much time on the banks of the Dead Sea. Two predominant lines of expectation were "messianic" and "apocalyptic". In the former, God was expected to intervene through a human to set right the injustice and in the latter, the injustice was to result in a vast or complete destruction of the world. Christ combined both these views. The coming of a messiah was prophecied in the sacred books of the Jews, with some description of the exact details. Amongst other things, the Messiah was expected to rebuild Israel and restore the Davidic Kingdom. One of the reasons today's Jews do not accept Christ as this Messiah, is his failure to do this.