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The Theater of Events
When Christ
was born, Palestine belonged to the Roman Empire. This embraced all the known civilized world
of that time, that is, all countries around the Mediterranean – Mare Nostrum
for the Romans – Gaul, and part of England.
On the continent of Europe, the Rhine and the Danube rivers constituted
its frontiers. In this immense empire, “the
corner of Palestine”, the country of the despised Jews, was a very insignificant
part of it. The Emperor had an almost
limitless power over all the Empire.
Yet, the administration of the Emperor was relatively moderate and the
provinces enjoyed certain independence.
The center of
the Empire, capital, and at the same time, mirror of it, was Rome, the
city which was indeed a portent. Even as
an idea (that is, as an incarnation of an eternal Empire) Rome was an effective
force, which during the Ancient Age and Middle Ages exercised a tremendous
influence, with its corresponding effect and importance for the Church.
All the
elements of the Empire flocked to Rome.
Spiritually speaking, Rome was not a unitarian city. Rome was a pagan city. It is difficult today to imagine the exact
existing differences between this pagan Rome and the Christian city. Rome was full of temples; but these served
only as places where the statues of the gods were kept and not as places of
worship (the cult was celebrated outside, in front of the door). The very heart of the city was the capitol
and the forum, that is, these were the places where laws were
promulgated, tribunals, justice and political life administered. Religious life was subservient to this. There were theaters and amphitheaters, in
which immoral shows and cruelties were performed. But there were no places dedicated to the
love of the neighbor, where the poor, sick, derelict could live; there was
nothing of what today we call hospitals, orphanages, asylums, etc.
It is true
that there were religious-charitable associations mainly dedicated to give help
to the neighbor, above all an honorable burial.
This sweetens the picture a little but it does not change it
fundamentally. There was no force
capable of transforming radically that life.
Immorality continued to grow (the same all over the empire) and vices
against nature were indeed very common.
Luxury was exaggerated and the refined life of pleasures were united to
a horrible despise for society: the slaves.
The frequent gladiatorial games, in which so many thousands of lives
were sacrificed, is a resplendent example. Even under the reign of Titus
(79-81) “the favorite of the gods and men”, thousands and thousands of people
were sacrificed (After the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year 70, only in
Caesarea, 2500 lives were sacrificed).
At the beginning of our Era the moral level of the people was very low.
Preparation of Christianity in
Palestinian Judaism
“Salvation
comes from the Jews” (Jn 4:22). Hence
Judaism, the source of Christianity, must be studied here with particular
care. We do not, of course, intend to
trace out here the whole Jewish history, but it is indispensable for us to know
the nation in which Jesus was born, from which he chose his apostles, and in
the midst of which he preached the Gospel.
At the time of
Jesus Christ, the Jewish people were no longer wholly found in the land which
God had allotted to them, the land of Israel: many of its sons were dispersed
throughout the world. Jesus did not
carry the Gospel to those Jews of the Dispersion, nor to the Pagans, but his
apostles on their journeys found everywhere their racial brethren who should
have been the first disciples of the Messiah.
In point of fact, the Church found among them a few disciples, but also
many enemies. In order to understand the
support which the Church found, and the opposition it had to encounter, we must
briefly describe the Judaism of the Dispersion, after a first glance at
Palestinian Judaism.
Palestinian Judaism
During the
times of Jesus, the Romans were the supreme political masters of
Palestine. The descendants of Herod
still possessed some portion of authority which the Idumean king had bequeathed
to them; below these, but closer to the people, the high priests enjoyed the
prestige of a priesthood which the Jews reverenced even when it was in unworthy
hands.
The Herodian Dynasty
During
many centuries, the Jews had lived the isolated life, which nevertheless had
its greatness. Sixty years before the
birth of Christ, this last national dynasty, the Hasmonean dynasty, which had
governed for a century since the first Maccabeans, had fallen and with it
Israel ceased to be independent. Then
began the most tragic period in its history.
Carried away by an irresistible current, Judea was swept like a log into
all the eddies of the Roman revolutions; the quarrels of Pompey and Caesar,
Brutus and the triumvirs, Anthony and Augustus stained Palestine in turn with
blood; the Parthians invaded it, and in the interior of the country the most
sacred authorities were overturned by foreigners, by Rome first and then by
Herod.
The
invasion of Judea by Hellenism and then by the Roman Empire became irresistible
under Herod, and it is this fact that gives to his brilliant and violent reign
its real significance. It is certain
that the reign of Herod was not without its brilliance; he restored to the Holy
Land for a few years its unity and a semblance of independence; he decorated it
with sumptuous buildings, and above all, with a new temple at Jerusalem; but
this brilliance was ephemeral; at the death of Herod in the month of Nissan
(March-April), 4 BC, the country found itself ruined, more divided and more
enslaved than ever. It was towards the
end of this reign of violence, “in the days of Herod the King”, that Jesus was
born. Herod’s last testament divided his
territories among his sons Archelaus, Philip, Antipas and his sister
Salome. To Antipas, to whom he had first
of all left the crown, Herod gave the tetrarchies of Galilee and Perea;
Archelaus obtained the kingship; Philip, brother of Archelaus, had Gaulanitics,
Trachonitics, Batanea and Panias as tetrarchy; Jamnia, Azotus, and Phasaelis
were attributed to Salome, Herod’s sister, with 500,000 drachmas of silver
coins. Herod had put to death three
other sons; also in the year 7, the two sons which he had from Mariamme,
herself put to death in 29. Five days
before his death, Herod had his eldest son Antipater executed.
The
reign of Archelaus began tragically. The
Jews did not want to accept the division of Herod. They revolted and Varus, the Roman legate
from Syria, took swift action and revenge.
He restored order in Palestine and as a result crucified more than two
thousand Jews who were taken prisoners.
Judea, Galilee, and all the other regions of Palestine were ravaged by
the revolt and by the Romans. These were
the years when the Lord was living in Galilee.
The reign of Archelaus lasted for only ten years and Augustus, who had
promised him the royal crown “if he merited it by his virtue”, recalled him
to Rome and finally sent him to exile to
Gaul and confiscated his goods. Such was
the end, at any rate in Judea, of the Herodian regime. The Jews themselves clamored for its
abolition, and many greeted this as a deliverance.
The Procurators
In place of the deposed
ethnarch, Rome had entrusted the administration of Judea to a magistrate chosen
from among the Roman knights. This
“procurator” was nominated by the emperor and depended upon him. The legate of Syria, whose territory is
adjoined, and whose authority was greater, occasionally intervened and took in
hand the government of Judea, but these interventions were exceptional. The procurator fixed his usual residence at
Caesarea, but went up to Jerusalem at the time of the great festivals to keep
order there.
This Roman administration
had been asked for by the Jews, but it did not bring them the peace they
desired. Certainly it delivered them
from the Herods; the tyranny of the Idumeans was very great, and almost without
remedy; Rome left the princes a fairly wide autonomy, and intervened in their
government only for grave reasons. The
Roman magistrates were more under control, their subjects could have recourse
to Caesar, and did not hesitate to do so; the history of Pilate shows by more
than one example that this appeal to Rome was an undoubtable menace; the Jews,
having a powerful friend near the Emperor could make their complains heard
better than many other provincials.
Nevertheless, Caesar was far off; these appeals could not be made every
day; in the ordinary course of affairs the Jews found themselves in the
presence of administrators less involved than Herod in their quarrels, but also
more foreign to their traditions and in consequence, more apt to hurt and wound
their religious susceptibilities.
In the
administration of the procurators, these incidents were not rare, and often
involved brutality. Of these
magistrates, the one who is by far the best known to us, and is most important
for the history of Christianity, is Pontius Pilate; the Gospel story make him
known to us, and the narratives of Josephus and Pliny complete the Gospel
data. They reveal a magistrate who was
suspicious, violent, always mistrustful of the Jews, and ready in case of alarm
to harry and massacre. He had little
understanding of his subjects and their religious scruples, and not without
reason, of their loyalty to Rome; in Palestine he felt himself in a hostile
country and regulated his conduct accordingly.
Herod Antipas
Pilate
had under his administration only Judea and Samaria; Herod Antipas governed
Galilee and Perea; Philip, Iturea and Trachonitis. Of these two latter princes, the first alone
is directly connected with the history of Christianity, this “fox”, as Jesus
called him (Lk. 13:32), was able in the year 6 AD to avoid the disgrace into
which Archelaus fell, and instead ingratiated himself into the favor of
Tiberius. But he was sensual, drunken,
brutal and had all the vices of his father without his strength. Herodias, his brother’s wife, to whom he was
united in an adulterous marriage, was the cause of all his downfall, as also of
his greatest faults; she persuaded him to cast John the Baptist into prison,
and later on to put him to death; she caused the tetrarch to repudiate his
first wife, the daughter of Aretas, king of the Arabs, and this provoked a war,
in which Herod’s army was cut to pieces.
Lastly, it was Herodias who finally succeeded in persuading her husband
to take a step which was fatal to him; Agrippa, brother of Herodias, and nephew
of Antipas, had received from the Emperor Caligula the title of king, and
Antipas himself only a tetrarch. This
was for the princess a humiliation which was insupportable; she insisted that
Herod should go to Rome and ask Caligula for the royal crown. Herod resisted for a long time, but “it was
impossible for him to escape from what his wife had decided”; he set out for
Rome. He was followed there by
emissaries from Agrippa; he was accused of having plotted against the Emperor;
was condemned and deported to Lugdunum (Lyons) in Gaul in the year 39. Shortly after he died, having possibly been
condemned to death by Caligula, his tetrarchy was given to his nephew and
enemy, Agrippa; for the last time, and for just a little while, the whole of
Palestine was under one king. The
history of the Apostles will give us occasion to recall this brilliant but
ephemeral fortune of Agrippa.
The
Roman procurators and the tetrarchs were the rulers in whose hands was the
government of Palestine during the life of Jesus. For that reason we have here to recall their
history, but they form the remote framework for the events which are going to
take place. Of far greater interest to
us, because much nearer to Christ, are the Jews among whom he lived, teaching
them, healing them, and converting, or at least, leading them towards the
little flock which was to become the Church.
Hellenism and Judaism in Palestine
The Jews, in spite of having been conquered by the
Greeks and the Romans remained remarkably faithful to God and the Law. And this in spite of the pagan population
that had established itself among the Jewish population of Palestine. The resistance against Hellenism was strong,
but in the last analysis many pagans established themselves in Palestine and
also some Jews succumbed to the temptation of Hellenism. Pompey had freed the Hellenic towns and had
transferred them to the province of Syria.
Herod reconstituted the unity of Palestine for a time, but that was in
order to favor Hellenism, and still more in order to manifest his devotion to
Caesar, as is shown above by the foundation of Caesarea and the transformation
of Samaria into Sebaste. In these two
cities he erected magnificent temples in honor of Rome and Augustus.
The
movement began by Herod was carried on by his successors; Philip founded a New
Caesarea; Antipas rebuilt Sepphoris and made it a pagan city; he founded
Tiberias and Julias.
All
these efforts bore their fruit; in a good number of towns the Hellenic and
pagan population was as strong as the Jewish, or even stronger. On account of this, riots often broke down in
the course of the first century between Jews and pagans. This bloody conflict brings out the rivalry
between the two populations, and their strength, it also shows their zones of
influence: Hellenism was concentrated mainly on the coast and in the eastern
parts of Palestine, Transjordan and the Eastern Galilee. On the coast we find the Jews destroying or
burning Gaza, Anthedon, Ascalon, Caesarea, Gaba and Ptolemais; in Transjordan,
Philadelphia, Hesbon, Gerasa, Pella, Gadara, and Hippo; in Galilee,
Scythopolis; in Samaria, Sebaste. The
eastern cities belonged for the most part to the league of the “ten towns”, the
Decapolis. We then must realize that the
Galilee in which Jesus grew and later on preached was, almost as greatly as the
Phoenician coast, invaded or at least permeated by Hellenism. And nevertheless Jesus never preached in any
of these new and splendid towns so close to him: Tiberias and Julias were on
the edge of the lake; Sephoris was five miles from Nazareth: Scythopolis,
nineteen miles. The Gospel does not
mention these towns. The reserve,
evidently intentional, shows that Jesus up to the last confined his ministry to
the Jews; he gave the same command to his Apostles: “Go ye not into the way of
the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter not” (Mt 10:5). It was not until after the Resurrection that
he said to them: “Go therefore teach ye all nations” (Mt 28:19).
This
fact, the penetration of Hellenism into Palestine, will also help us to
understand the first circumstances of the ministry of the Apostles. They were Jews, but from birth they had
rubbed shoulders with pagans; they fled from contact with them, but they knew
them and must have understood their language.
Of course the fisherman from Galilee did not speak Greek like the poets
or rhetoricians of the Greek cities, Philodemus or Meleager, who were the boast
of Gadara, or Antiochus of Ascalon, who taught Cicero, but at least they must
have known enough Greek to sell their fish to the inhabitants of Tiberias or
Julias, and also sufficient to understand the orders of the Roman magistrates,
as, for instance, the imperial decree made known to us recently by the Nazareth
inscription. And then, when the barriers
fell down, and the vision of Joppa showed St. Peter that the way was open to
the pagans, he found these first in Palestine, in the city of Caesarea so often
stained with the blood of the anti-Jewish riot.
The Jewish Reaction
These
considerations will help us to understand the ministry of Christ and his
Apostles, but already they throw light on the religious state of the Jewish
people. In the past, in the times of the
kings, the paganism of Egypt and Assyria constituted a great temptation. Under the Seleucids and now under Herod and
the Romans, this temptation had become much more pressing. Isolated in the Roman Empire which dominated
it, and in the Hellenic world which threatened to absorb it, Judaism maintained
itself in Palestine only by struggling against an invasion which was
penetrating it from all sides. It has
been almost expelled from the coast; it was held in check in the valley of the
Jordan; and the mountainous mass was being battered by the rising sea which
surrounded it, penetrated it, filtered into it, and tended to break it up.
The
whole strength of Judaism was being exerted to parry this threat: it drew
itself closer together and isolated itself, and also the most healthy part of
it attached itself more closely to God, his law and the promises.
To
the Israelite, all the pagans were impure, and all contact with them was a
stain. Outside Palestine also, the Jews
held fast to this rule, even at the cost of grave inconveniences. In this land of Israel which the pagans had
invaded, and where there was in all parts the risk of being affected by contact
with them, it was felt that the only method of defense was to surround the
faithful with a hedge of precepts; the Pharisaic doctors, teachers of the
people, did their best from generation to generation to make this hedge thicker
and more prickly; this jurisprudence very soon became difficult not only to
apply but even to know, that those who had not been initiated into it, the
“common people” were always presumed to have violated it and contact with them
was likewise regarded as an impurity; this presumption created in those who
regarded themselves as pure a haughty disdain.
The illiterate answered this disdain with hatred.
These
conflicts, so painful to the conscience, must not be lost sight of by the
historian of Christ and his Apostles.
They help us to understand the preaching of Jesus, so patient, and so
reserved when that was possible, but also, when necessary, so clear and
decisive: they enable one also to foresee the reception which such preaching
was bound to encounter: from the Pharisees, scandal (Mt 15: 12); from the
people, astonishment and admiration, sometimes also uneasiness; but lastly,
from the most teachable and most faithful, the assurance that their Master had
“the words of eternal life”.
The Sadducees
At
the time of Christ, two great parties vied for religious supremacy: the
Sadducees and the Pharisees. We find
them in turn opposing him in the course of his ministry, and finally, joining
together to destroy him. Later on, St.
Paul, appearing before the Sanhedrin, in which Pharisees and Sadducees were
represented, set them against one another.
The
Sadducees were characterized above all by the exclusive importance which they
attached to the written law, to the detriment of oral tradition: they rejected
the belief in the resurrection and in the angels. Josephus accuses them of behaving barbarously
not only towards strangers, but also to each other. In the administration of justice, this
roughness went as far as cruelty.
In
the time of Christ, the Sadducees occupied a prominent position because of
their social rank and the functions they exercised; they played a
preponderating role in the trial of Jesus; they were entirely responsible for
the first measures taken against the Apostles (Acts 4:1) and later on for the
death of James the Less. But though
their authority was great, their religious influence was weak: “they succeeded
in convincing only the rich, and were not followed by the people” (Josephus). Their doctrine was characterized only by negations;
their contempt for tradition and even for their masters isolated them; their
pride alienated the people from them: “their teaching is received but by a few,
yet by those of the greatest dignity.
They do almost nothing of themselves so to speak, for when they become
magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force obliged to, they conform
themselves to the propositions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would
not otherwise bear with them. The
Sadducees were influential less as a religious sect than as a caste; when the
holy city was destroyed with the Temple, they lost their political authority,
and with it all domination over the people.
The Pharisees
We
have just seen that religious influence never belonged to the Sadducees; it was
completely in the hands of the Pharisees.
The testimony of Josephus is in this connection confirmed by the texts
and narratives of the Gospel: “the scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the
chair of Moses. All things therefore
whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do, but according to their work
do ye not” (Mt 23:2-3). The discourse of Jesus from which these words are taken
is the most severe in the whole Gospel.
It is a terrible indictment of the Scribes and the Pharisees, and
nevertheless, even there Christ is careful to safeguard their authority. The Pharisees abuse it; these abuses must be
condemned but their yoke must not be entirely rejected, for that could not be
done without rejecting the yoke of the Law.
The chair in which the Pharisees sit is the chair of Moses. St. Paul speaks in the same way: when he
reminds the Philippians of his very close attachment to Judaism he tells them
he was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews: according to the law, a Pharisee” (Phil 3:5).
The
Gospel history tells us how the Pharisees made their influence serve their
hatred; thereby they lost themselves in losing the people: they became blind
guides of the blind. But so long as this
decay was not complete they were doctors of the Law, and had a right to be
respected.
This
authority enjoyed by the Pharisees in the time of Jesus was not based on their
birth, or on their functions. They were
recruited from all classes of the people: we find some among the priests, many
among the scribes, but many also among the simple people. What made a Pharisee was the traditional
teaching received from a master, to whom he had devoted his life, and which he
would in turn bequeath to his own disciples.
The Sadducees recognized only the written law; the Pharisees was above
all faithful to the tradition of the elders, and regarded it as binding, as
must and even more than the letter of the Scripture.
The
doctrine which the Sadducees rejected and which Pharisees on the contrary held
were the existence of angels and the resurrection of the body. But it was above all to moral theology and
casuistry that they devoted themselves.
They called themselves and claimed to be the “saints.” Their holiness consisted above all in the
scrupulous conformity with the law; the Pharisees were especially careful in
the observance of the Sabbath and of legal purity.
Jesus and the Pharisees
The
scrupulous and devoted observance appears all through the Gospel story. Jesus cannot have been sent by God, for he
does not keep the Sabbath (Jn 9:16); his disciples break the Sabbath inasmuch
as they pull a few ears of corn in passing, and this, for a Pharisee, was
equivalent to working at the harvest, and was forbidden. The paralytic at the pool of Bezatha broke
the Sabbath by carrying his couch: Jesus himself infringed it in miraculously
curing a sick man. On the question of
purity and impurity the divergence was still deeper. “Why,” asked the Pharisees, “do not thy
disciples live according to the tradition of the elders? Why do they eat with unwashed hands?” And Jesus
answers: “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for your tradition?”
And calling the multitudes together, he said to them: “Hear ye and
understand. Not that which goeth into
the mouth defileth a man, but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a
man. If any man has ears to hear, let
him hear” (Mk 7:1; Mt 15:1-20).
Dangers of Pharisaism
“The
rupture between Jesus and the Pharisees was complete.” This statement of Professor Klausner is true,
but we must add that the rupture was a liberation for the disciples of
Jesus. The aim of the Pharisees had been
at the beginning legitimate and beneficial: in the land of Israel, invaded by
so many foreigners, the Law could be observed only at the price of great
vigilance; this fidelity had often been heroic, and under the Maccabees it had
had its martyrs. But the martyrs had
been succeeded by the Scribes; to safeguard the Law they had multiplied around
it the precautions of their jurisprudence, and in their anxiety to prepare for
everything, to regulate everything, and to prescribe for all occasions, they
had rendered the yoke of the Law so heavy that they themselves often avoided
it: “They bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on man’s
shoulders, but with a finger of their own they not move them” (Mt 23:4). And then, to make this burden tolerable, they
indulged in quibbles which sacrificed religion to their meticulous
requirements: “they strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel.”
Lastly,
and this was one of the chief dangers of this sectarian formation, by this
plethora of precautions, and this exaggeration of legal purity, the Pharisees
isolated themselves. They were, as their
name indicates, the “separated ones.”
This danger was so manifest that historians who are especially sympathetic
towards them have recognized it. It is
this separatism that Jesus denounced in the parable of the Pharisee and the
publican: “O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of man, says the
Pharisee (Lk 18:11).
In
spite of these terrible faults, the Pharisees were regarded by the Jews as the
men of the Law. Many of the Israelites
desirous of holiness went to them. In a
passage which seems to be taken from Nicholas of Damascus, Josephus narrates
that six thousand of them had refused the oath of the emperor and King Herod.
This
figure of six thousand is very far from representing the total number of
adherent of the sect; they were numerous, not only in Jerusalem, where dwelt
the great doctors who were their leaders, but in all Palestine and even in the
Diaspora.
It
was likewise the Pharisees who organized the fight against Jesus, and later
on against St. Paul. If the Jewish people as a whole rejected the
Messiah, it was the Pharisees who were responsible. At the same time, among the Pharisees as in
the Jewish people, God had reserved some chosen ones: St. Paul himself is a
proof of this.
The
Pharisees aimed above all at being a religious sect. In political matters, their attitude was
dictated by their beliefs. The majority
thought above all else of the privileges of Israel, and like the six thousand
of whom Josephus speaks, they rejected all foreign domination, all oaths given
to strangers, and also all taxes levied by them (Mt 22: 17ff). But some of them saw in the subjection
imposed upon Israel a divine judgment to which one ought to submit. When the catastrophe of AD 70, and the still
more terrible one of AD 134, had destroyed once and for all the political
independence of Israel, the Sadducees and the Zealots disappeared, but the Pharisees
retained their influence over the faithful Jews: they retain it still to-day.
The Essenes
The
Sadducees and the Pharisees were both closely mixed up with Christian origins,
as is shown sufficiently by the Gospel and Acts. On the other hand, the Essenes are never
mentioned in the New Testament, and they seem, in fact, to have remained
completely outside the sphere of action of Jesus and his Apostles. Hence we shall not have much to say of them. For the rest, this sect is little known. We have to guide us a brief mention in Pliny,
two texts of Philo, and two in Josephus.
Of
all these, the most detailed by far is that in the War of the Jews. If we could regard this as a recollection of
a man who had himself lived in the life of the Essenes, it would be of great
interest. Unfortunately, it is difficult
to attribute it so great a value. If we
compare the two passages in Josephus with one another, we find that the later one
harmonizes well with the earlier, that it is much less detained, and depends on
Philo. However careless Josephus may
have been in transcribing his sources, it would be difficult to imagine that,
knowing by personal experience the life of the Essenes, and having already
described it from his own recollections, he would have recourse in the second
passage to the testimony of an earlier writer who have never seen them.
These
considerations must lead an historian to be very reserved in making use of
these passages. What we may learn from
them is the existence of the Essenian sect in the first century of our era.
Their chief center was situated near Engaddi, on the western bank of the Dead
Sea. There they lived in common a simple
and frugal life, inspired by a great care for ritual purity. In this care, as in the exaggerated respect
for the rest of the Sabbath day, the Essenes exceeded even the Pharisees, and
were poles apart from the teaching of Christ.
In other respects, and above all by their community life and their
celibacy, they resembled externally the first Christians, but in spite of this
external resemblance, the religious sentiment which inspired them was very
different.
The
religion of the Essenes, was differentiated from ordinary Judaism by some
singular characteristics, which are, however, difficult to determine with
precision. Philo praises their disciples
as being, among other things, “splendid servants of God, sacrificing no
animals, but doing their best to make their thoughts such as were fitting to
priests.” Josephus writes in turn: “they
send offerings to the Temple but do not offer sacrifices, for, they practise
another kind of purification. That is
why they keep away from the holy place and sacrifice apart” (Antiquities of
the Jews, 19).
We find
among the Essenes some who foretold the future: Josephus especially mentions
their prophecies. He also says that the
Essenes had an esoteric doctrine; when anyone was received into the sect, he
took an oath “to hide nothing from the members of the sect, and to reveal
nothing about them to the profane, even if tortured to death. He also swore to pass on the rules of the
sect exactly as he had received them… and to guard with the same respect the
books of the sect and the names of the angels” (Wars of the Jews,
141-2).
Finally,
if we must understand literally a passage in Josephus, it would seem that the
Essenes regarded the sun as a god.
All
these features give one the impression of a Jewish gnosis, affected not exactly
by the Iranian religion, but by Oriental syncretism. The study of Christian origins will show us
how virulent this Gnostic syncretism was during the first half of the second
century.
Judaism of the Dispersion
At
the time of Christ, the Jews were much less numerous in Palestine than there
were in the rest of the world. In the
land of Israel there were hardly more than a million; in the other provinces of
the Roman Empire they were at least four to five times as many.
For
many nevertheless, Palestinian Judaism was more deserving of a detailed study
than that of the Diaspora, because its influence until the fall of Jerusalem
extended over all Jews everywhere.
Moreover, we are concerned with Christian rather than with Jewish
history, and it was in Palestine that Christianity arose, and it is there that
its relations with Judaism must be studied.
Later on, by reason of its triumphant expansion, the Church was in
contact with the dispersed Jews. It made
their synagogues the starting point of its propaganda, and when it had grown,
these constituted centers of persecution.
We must therefore study briefly the network of Jewries which in the
first century extended throughout the world.
The Origins of the Dispersion
For
a long time before this, the Jews had established themselves outside the land
of Israel, either in the neighboring kingdom of Syria, or in the two great
empires of Assyria and Egypt. The
conquests of Alexander opened all the East to the Jews, and the Roman conquests
did the same for the countries surrounding the Mediterranean.
They
spread everywhere, as soldiers, tradespeople, slaves, or exiles. Everywhere they established themselves with
the tenacity of their race, and often enjoyed the protection of princes. At Alexandria, Alexander, in founding the
city, had given them equal rights with those of the Macedonians; the Lagidae
protected them in their turn; the Seleucids, who acted as prosecutors and
tyrants in Palestine, were in Anatolia, protectors of the Jews; the Romans, who
from the time of Judas Maccabeus (161 BC) supported the Palestinian Jews,
extended in the time of Simon (139) their protection to the Jews throughout the
Empire. Caesar granted to Hyrcanus II
(63-40 BC) a guarantee for the Jewish privileges, and allowed him the right to
intervene in their favor. Augustus, Tiberius, and above all Claudius, protected
them efficaciously, while requiring from them respect for public peace and the
rights of others.
The
Roman policy towards the Jews was such as to be easily adaptable to local
circumstances.
In Palestine it respected
the Jewish cult, and caused it to be respected by others.
But it kept a close watch on political
tendencies, and restrained all manifestation of independence.
In Rome itself, it was careful to maintain
public peace, and as soon as the Jews seemed to disturb this, it took steps
against them, and if necessary, expelled them.
We find the same severity at Alexandria, where the Jews were very
numerous and powerful.
But in the
Hellenic cities of less importance, where they could not constitute a great
danger, Rome regarded them as Roman subjects, loyal to the Empire, and putting
its interests when necessary before the particular interests of cities.
The Roman Emperors recognized this fidelity,
and in return protected the Jews against the local authorities.
In vain did the magistrates of Tralles openly
declare to the proconsul C. Rabirius that they disapproved of this protection;
the proconsul insisted and the magistrates had to submit.
Similarly, the proconsul made known his
wishes to those of Laodicaea: “by reason of their friendship and alliance with
us Romans, they are not to be ordered about by anyone, or suffer anything from
anyone in our province.”
No one will think that this immunity of the
Jews was accepted by the Greeks with a good grace, but they could but submit to
the Roman ruling, and those who disobeyed could be delated to the Emperor,
condemned by him to death, and executed, as Isidore and Lampo were under
Claudius.
Importance of the Jewish Population
It
is not surprising that being thus protected by Alexander, the Lagidae,
Seleucids, and above all by the Roman Emperors, the Jews spread out in great
numbers in the Mediterranean world.
Already in the second century BC they made the Sibyl say (III, 271):
“the earth is full of thy race, and the sea is full of it.” Strabbo, writing under Augustus, says of the
Jews: “they have invaded all the cities, and it would be difficult to find a
place where these people have not been received and become masters.” The Jewish writers do not stop there. Philo goes so far as to maintain that the
Jews from one half of the human race, and that in the countries in which they
are established they are almost equal in number to the native population. Speaking of Egypt which he knows well, he is
more precise and at the same time more reserved, but his statements show that
the Jews were very numerous: at Alexandria, two out of five sections had a
majority of Jews, and were called Jewish quarters; in the whole of Egypt Philo
reckons the Jewish population at one million, that is, about one-eighth of the
whole population. In Syria and in Asia
Minor also, the Jews seem to have been very numerous. At Rome the importance of their colony is
attested by many facts: the number of their synagogues, their activity, feared
by Cicero at the trial of Flaccus, their mourning, noticed by all, at the
funeral of Caesar, by the fact, again, that the Jewish ambassador who presented
himself to Augustus in 4 BC was accompanied by eight thousand Jews of
Rome. Under Tiberius, a decree of the
Senate enrolled and sent off to Sardinia four thousand young Jews who were
freedmen.
Civil Condition of the Jews
Great
in number, the Jewish Dispersion was strong above all by reason of its
cohesion; its members might rank as citizens of Rome, or of the city in which
they had been born, but whether they were thus Romans, Alexandrians,
Thessalonians, or Tarsiots, they were above all Jews. As Philo says, they regarded as their own the
city where their fathers or grandfathers had lived, but they venerated
Jerusalem as their metropolis.
Such
a situation was tolerated with difficulty by the Greek cities in which the Jews
were established.
The Alexandrians
bitterly opposed their citizenship; at Caesarea, the struggle was still more
violent: it led to bloody riots, an appeal to Rome, where the Jews were condemned
by Nero, and finally the massacre of the Jews of Caesarea: “In one hour, more
than twenty thousand were slain.”
But
this resistance on the part of the Greek cities could not prevail against the
Roman will, and Rome usually upheld the rights of the Jews, and thus ensured in
the majority of Hellenic cities the presence of citizens habitually loyal to
its political policy. Nevertheless, when
the interest of the Jewish fatherland came in conflict with the service of
Rome, the Jews of the Empire rose up at once; we see this on the occasion of
the great revolt (66-70 AD): and again during the last years of the reign of
Trajan (115-117 AD) and finally in the terrible war which raged the whole
nation against Hadrian (132-135 AD).
This
unanimity in the national struggles reveals the profound feeling in the Jews of
the Diaspora. Their religious faith, and
above all their religious practices, might reflect their remoteness from
Jerusalem, as we shall shortly point out, but in spite of everything they
remained Jews, and in case of conflict, they preferred their race and religion
to all else.
Several
facts show this strong religious cohesion, and among them is the influence
exerted by the Jews of Judea on those of Mesopotamia. The latter were descended from the Israelites
deported by the Assyrians and Chaldeans; they had never returned to Palestine,
but nevertheless they adopted all the reforms elaborated by the Scribes from
the time of Esdras. Of all the dispersed
Jews, the most numerous and the most powerful were those of Alexandria. These remained in close touch with the Jews
of Judea; their literary output, which was considerable, aimed chiefly at
making known to pagans the history and belief of the Jews, the Mosaic legislation,
the great figures and martyrs of Judaism, and particularly those of the times
of the Maccabees.
Privileges of the Proselytes
This
religious fidelity was moreover protected by national feeling; race, worship,
and faith were all linked together in the attachment of the Jews to Israel, and
to the pagans, were all one. By a
strange departure from the ordinary tenor of their legislation, they refused
the enjoyment of Jewish privileges to those Jews who did not practice their
religion; and conversely, they granted it to those who were not Jews by birth,
but had adopted the Jewish religion.
This
derogation is understood without difficulty if we remember what were the Jewish
privileges, and the reasons which had led the Romans to consent to them; they
consisted in dispensations from certain civil or military duties, which all
helped to give the Jews the right to live according to their conscience. Only those had the right to these privileges
who regarded the Jewish faith as binding on their conscience, and in fact
observed it.
Apostasies
Protected
in this way by their attachment to the Jewish nation and by the Roman
legislation itself, the Jews were almost unanimous in their fidelity to their
religion. But there were apostasies in
the Diaspora: Philo denounced them more than once; he knew people who “arrive
at such a degree of madness that they do not even reserve the possibility of
repentance, making themselves the slaves of idols, and professing this slavery
by graving it, not on sheets of papyri, but, like animals, on their bodies, with
red-hot iron, so as to make this mark ineffaceable.” Elsewhere he shows how “the apostates from
the holy laws” fall into the vices.
Elsewhere
again he denounces the wicked, in whom he sees the posterity of Cain: Greek
sophistry has perverted them to despise God and his law. Others see nothing more in the biblical
narratives than legends similar to those of the Greek mythology; others,
lastly, while adhering still to Judaism, elude its legislation by their allegorical
exegesis: “they regard the written laws as symbols of intelligible realities,
they study these realities with great care, but neglect the laws.”
Influence of Hellenism to Judaism of the
Dispersion
We could find elsewhere other examples of these
apostasies and of the syncretism. Such
excesses, nevertheless, were rare in the Diaspora; they were felt to be
scandalous. It was not by these complete
defections that the Jews of the Dispersion differed from those of Judea, it was
by their attachment to Hellenism, by their striving to be citizens of the
world. To the Israelites of Palestine,
Greek civilization was regarded as the reign of the wicked world, the kingdom
of Satan. To the Jewish citizens of
Alexandria, Smyrna, or Ephesus, Hellenism appeared under a different color; it
was a great temptation, doubtless, but also a great force, with a great
attraction; one did not repudiate it, but one endeavored to assimilate it. At this time, when the Greeks were everywhere
fabricating apocryphal works, putting their dreams under the patronage of Pythagoras,
Plato, Aristotle, Timaeus, or Thucydides, the Jews similarly professed to quote
the Sibyls, Orpheus, Phocylides, Menander.
They translated the holy books into Greek; the translators were hallowed
with a glorious legend: they became the seventy prophets inspired by God, dear
to the king and dear to the people. The
exegetes followed the translators; they made the Bible the source of all
philosophy and of all science.
Philo of Alexandria
Of
all the commentators on the Bible, the best known is Philo. Born about 20 BC, in a rich and influential
Jewish family, with a brother an alabarch, and Tiberius Alexander as nephew, he
is well qualified to represent Alexandrian Judaism in the time of Christ. He has, moreover, the rare good luck to have
survived not only in some citations in Eusebius, but in numerous works of
exegesis of history which enable us to know him well.
He
was a scholar and a learned philosopher, but nevertheless, he remained attached
to his people and his faith. He made a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem to pray there and offer sacrifice. In his old age, he undertook in 39-40 AD an
embassy to the Emperor Caius in defense of the Jews. The date of his death is unknown. His chief works form an allegorical
commentary on the Pentateuch. To these
we must add a few philosophical treatises, two historical works, and the book
on the Contemplative Life, which describes and praises the life of the
Therapeutas.
What
his life reveals is fully developed in these books, Philo was a believing and
pious Jew. This gives his theology a
firmness and an authority which we do not find in Greek speculation; it also
explains the truly religious ideas we find in his works: God is good, not in
the purely metaphysical sense of Plato, but with a merciful goodness which
spreads good around him; he is peace and liberty, perfection and end. Supremely happy himself, he is the principle
of beatitude, draws us by his call and leads us on by his action.
But
while he was a faithful Jew, Philo was also a Greek philosopher. His God is no longer the God of Israel, but
the God of the world; Jewish history is transformed by his allegorical method
into a doctrine of salvation; Abraham is no longer father of the faithful, but
the first philosopher: he was the first to recognize that the world has a
supreme cause, and that it is governed by Providence. The divine transcendence is no longer
regarded as having its source in holiness, as in Jewish thought, but it arises
from God’s ideal greatness, which renders him superior to all determination. All this directs the soul towards a natural
theology rather than the positive faith, and the soul, inspired with a desire
of God, wonders how she may attain to him.
Philo
endeavors to solve this problem by his theology of intermediaries: between God
and the world there are powers. It is by
these that God’s action reaches the word, and it is by them that man’s
contemplation can rise up towards God.
They are sometimes identified with the angels of Jewish theology,
sometimes with the Platonic ideas, and at other times with the Stoic
powers. Their personality is only
apparent, and arises simply from the weakness of the perceiving mind.
The Logos
Of
all the powers, the highest and the nearest to God is the Logos. In Philo’s theology, it plays a part similar
to that of the other powers, but in an eminent degree: it is the intermediary
which enables God to act upon the world, and men to elevate themselves towards
God: it is the object of contemplation to those who are not able to attain to
God himself. Just as the powers are
identified with the angels of the Lord, the High Priest, the Place and the
Dwelling. The Logos is sometimes called
the elder son of God, the younger being the sensible world. And just as the powers are identified with
ideas, so also the Logos is regarded as the intelligible world, the exemplar of
all beings and particularly of man; it is also, as for the Stoics, the support,
the bond of union, the physical law and the moral law.
The
Logos is not God. Is it a person? What we
know of the powers prepares us for the reply: the Logos, the supreme power,
has, like the other powers, only a fugitive and vague personality, due above
all to our infirmity. To the human mind,
too feeble to gaze upon the divine son, these intermediaries appear as distinct
beings, and gradually, by contemplation and worship, the soul rises from one to
the other and towards God. But this
multiplicity is only apparent, and if the eye is healthy and the mind strong, and
if it can fix its gaze upon the sun without seeing double or triple, then it
will see God as he is, in his unity.
Influence of Philo
This
theology of Philo has for a long time enjoyed the advantage due to the state of
the texts and the privileged situation resulting therefrom. Philo is one of the few survivors of that
Jewish world; his isolation has increased his stature, and often to his
speculations has been attributed as influence which they did not in fact
exercise. The historical studies of the
last twenty years have greatly influenced neo-Platonism and especially
Plotinus; the work of recent historians has dispelled this illusion. In 1903 Loisy wrote: “The influence of
Philo’s ideas on John is unquestionable,” but in 1921: “If there are manifold
affinities between the doctrines of our Gospel and those of Philo, the
differences are no less considerable, and, moreover, it is not likely that the
Johanine gospel depends literally on the Philonian writings.” But it was thought that at any rate Philo’s
exegesis had exercised a great influence on that of St. Justin. A more careful study of Justin, however, has
led to the acknowledgment that the writings of the apologists are altogether
independent of Philo.
In
reality, Philo’s influence affected the Alexandrian exegetes, and chiefly Clement
and Origen. On these it was considerable
and often unfortunate, but outside Alexandria we may seek in vain for any trace
of it. Even at Alexandria it affected
only the exegetes; the Biblical texts interpreted by Philo often passed into
their works with the symbolical signification which Philo had given them. In this way the Philonian theology spread
into the books of Clement, and into some of those of Origen. Pagans left Philo
alone, and the Jews did the same.
Jerusalem remained the center of Judaism until the destruction of the
city, and after that Lydia took its place.
Alexandria never had the same position.
Proselytism
The
Diaspora nevertheless played an important part in the history of the origins of
Christianity, not so much because of its literature, but rather because of its
proselytism. In the days of Jesus, this
proselytism was very ardent, and its success, considerable.
Scattered
throughout the world, the Jews were convinced that their dispersion was
providential: “he hath therefore scattered you among the gentiles who know him
not, that you may declare his wonderful works, and make them know that there is
no other Almighty God besides him” (Tobias, xiii, 4). This thought of old Tobias was familiar to
all Jews. Not content to profit by their
dissemination, they “went round about the sea and the land to make one
proselyte” (Mt 23:13). Every Jew was
“convinced that he is the guide of the blind, a light of them that are in
darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form
of knowledge and of truth in the Law.”
After the great catastrophe of 70 AD and, above all, in 134 AD, Judaism,
battered and uprooted, took refuge in isolation. Then one could say that proselytism was a
disease in Israel: at the time of Jesus it was its glory.
This
propaganda so keenly carried on produced results: Josephus could write: “many
(pagans) have adopted our laws; some of them have remained faithful to them,
others, lacking in courage, have apostatized.
Courage
was indeed required to adhere completely to Judaism and to remain attached to
it: one had to adopt the Jewish doctrine, undergo circumcision, receive a
baptism, and offer a sacrifice.
Of all
these obligations, the most onerous was that of circumcision.
Many pagans regarded it with repugnance, not
only because of the rite itself, but above all because they regarded it as an
enrolling in the Jewish nation, and consequently the abandonment of the city to
which they had previously belonged.
Tacitus echoes this mistrust: “The first instruction given to the
circumcised is to despise the gods and to abjure the fatherland, to forget
parents, children, brothers.”
Judaism
was the faith and hope of Israel: one could not adhere to it completely without
becoming an Israelite.
This nationalist
character was a great hindrance to its development and its propaganda.
The majority of those who were attracted by
the preaching of Jewish doctrines contented themselves with adopting Jewish
beliefs, and often Jewish rites as well, but without submitting themselves to
circumcision.
They formed numerous
groups of sympathizers round the synagogues, and were called “those fearing
God.”
The Jews, who understand this
repugnance in pagans, contented themselves with this half-adhesion: they knew
that the first steps would lead to others, and they were proud to see the
Hellenic world so widely won, almost unconsciously, to Jewish ideas. “The
multitude itself,” writes Josephus, “is long since inspired with a great zeal
for our pious practices, and there is not a town among the Greeks, not a people
among the barbarians, where our custom of weekly rest has not spread, and where
fasts, the lighting of lamps, and many of our laws concerning food are not
observed…”
This
wide diffusion of Jewish beliefs and rites very soon led to a sharp reaction
which the national risings of the Jews made still more violent. Christian propaganda by its rapid and
profound success stifled Jewish proselytism; the pagans could adhere to the true
religion, and to the worship of the One God, without being compelled to abjure
their nation and to enroll themselves in another: “There is neither Jew nor
Greek, but all are one in Christ Jesus.”
But we must not forget that Christian propaganda had been prepared by
Jewish preaching; the history of the missions of St. Paul shows us that his
efforts were first directed to the Jews, the first beneficiaries of the Gospel,
and then to the proselytes and those who feared God grouped round the Jews, and
lastly to the pagan masses. To Israel,
the missionary people, God had offered through the prophets, and especially
through Isaias, the magnificent work of conquering the world for God. Israel was too passionately jealous of its
national greatness, had lost sight of its religious function and had fallen
from it. The proselytism of the
dispersed Jews on the event of the Christian era may be regarded as a rough
attempt at this conquest: the task abandoned by Israel was confided to the
Church.
Preparation
for Christianity in Paganism
At
the beginning of our Era the old pagan religion was not dead in the Roman
Empire. All public and private life was
wholly pervaded by sacrifices, oracles and religious ceremonies of all sorts,
celebrated in honor of the gods. The
cult which was rich and varied, was exercised by the priestly class, very
widespread and influential.
The
emperors, precisely at that time, were promoting the cult to the new gods, so,
together with the incarnation of the State in the goddess Rome, there appeared,
as a new dignity, the person of the Emperor who was surrounded by divine
honors. The cult of the Emperor
flourished, above all, in the provinces of the East. (The East is par
excellence the land of the cult of the sovereign).
But
in this cult there were many things which were only external. On the whole, in the East, as in Greece and
Rome, the old pagan and mythical belief in the Olympian gods had passed away a
long time before. Philosophical
speculation and the growing yearning for interiority had made a hard criticism
of the old gods.
There
was in effect in the paganism of that time a true religious yearning. This yearning was slowly alienating itself
from the official cult of the state. The
enlightened men—when they did not fall into skepticism—took refuge in a
philosophical religiosity which not rarely tended towards monotheism and
universalism. The low classes looked for
salvation and redemption in the old mysteries that were reviving anew or in the
new mysteries coming from the east, in which they thought to find, through external
and mysterious signs, redemption and union with the divinity.
Extremely
important are the mysteries of Mithra, which for centuries constituted a
strong rival and adversary of Christianity.
It was believed that the blood of a sacrificed bull, which was sprinkled
to the adepts and believers, “baptizing” them, blotted out their sins.
These
new current of pagan religiosity—evolution towards monotheism, interiority,
yearning for redemption—also show that, like Judaism, paganism was a “
Pedagogue
to Christ.”
The
most important of all was the tendency towards monotheism and the yearning for
redemption.
The tendency towards
monotheism
had already been prefigured in philosophical religiosity a long time
before.
This tendency became more
important, especially after the great Stoic philosopher Posidonius (135-50
BC).
Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius are some of the most important representatives of this direction at
the beginning of our Era.
A
more immediate influence was exercised by the practical surpassing of the
diversity of gods. This surpassing was
due to the Unitarian tendencies which finally imposed themselves in all fields
of culture in the Roman Empire.
As
a consequence of a long process of evolution which began with Alexander the Great’s
expedition to the East (and the transmission of the Eastern culture to the West
because of this expedition) a Unitarian culture was developing itself in the
Roman Empire: the Graeco-Roman culture.
The
mixture of people – and with it the mixture of their different ideas –
especially in the great cities, like Alexandria and Rome, had brought with it a
more ample unification of the gods and their cults. To this was added the
powerful unity of the Roman Empire, attained by the existence of a unique language
(or respectively of a double language: Greek and Latin), by the unification of
the administration and by the wonderful system of roads that united among
themselves the different parts of the Empire.
The idea of unity imposed itself upon the pagans of those times from all
aspects. The unity of the States and the
Unitarian tendencies of religions and culture demanded, so to speak, to be completed by the unity of
religion, of truth, of God. In this aspect, the terrain was well prepared to
receive the unity of Christ’s message – which is addressed to man as such, that
is, to all men and all peoples – and the universal unity of the Church.
The
Romans were fully convinced of being the makers of the history of the world.
This constituted later on a tremendous force for the Romans converted to
Christianity and served to strengthen the mission, willed by God, of Rome as
seat of the Papacy and the importance that Rome had for the Romano-German
Empire of the Middle Ages.
Christianity
as a New Reality
Even taking
into consideration all the preparation already mentioned, Christianity appeared
to the men of those times as something essentially unknown, never heard of
before. When Christianity made its
appearance on earth the world held its breath; it was greeted by the best
spirits as something completely new. The
Christians constituted indeed a new people, a new Covenant. In what did this novelty consist?
The pagan
monotheism of those times was not clear and did not have an exclusive
character. The contemporary religious
yearning strived to get the knowledge of a unique God, but did not reach it,
for the gods continued to survive. The
concept of “god” was understood in different ways; in the best case it meant a
“supreme” god more than a “unique” gods.
Together with this there was a widespread pantheism and a strong
“dualism” (“matter” as second eternal principle existing sideways with god).
In the moral
principles, love and compassion were not totally lacking, but they were
rare.
The most cold and refined egotism
was prevalent.
The virtue of the good
pagans was frequently united with the pride of being virtuous.
There was
never a perfect harmony in paganism between life and doctrine (Cfr. Again the
doctrine of Seneca and his dissipated life by Christian standards). Christianity, however, pretends to reach this
harmony. The doctrine of Christianity
does not stop in the field of knowledge, but demands that life be lived with
purity, without sin. The Christian took
this very seriously.
Christianity
gave to humanity a moral conscience.
The Christian doctrine about the fundamental structure of man was wholly
new, in spite of the existence of some points of contact; the concept of
religion was now understood in a new way: the value of man was made to consist
wholly in his immortal soul; all men now appear as members of the same human
family (all men are then brothers); family and marriage (its unity,
indissolubility, sanctity, position of woman) are exalted and raised; work is
considered a dignity and a duty.
But, above
all, Christianity is the revealed religion of God Who became man, so irrupting
in history with his incarnation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17) The newness of Christianity is Jesus
Himself, his life, his portentous personality and the calling that he makes
to all men to share in his life, which will turn them away from sin.
The value of
Christianity does not diminish because we recognize the existence of certain religious
and moral values in paganism. The value
of Christianity even grows if it not only found in front of it error and
corruption, but also positive values of which it also became victorious. Everything that is really human finds in
Christianity its plenitude, every truth is part of the Christian truth. “All truths said anywhere are words of the
Holy Spirit” (St. Ambrose).
