Anno Domini 
 
 A GLIMPSE AT THE WORLD INTO 
 WHICH MESSIAS WAS BORN. 
 
 J.D.CRAIG HOUSTON, B.D. 
 

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ANNO DOMINI. 
 
Anno Domini 
 
 OR 
 
 A GLIMPSE AT THE WORLD INTO 
 WHICH MESSIAS WAS BORN. 
 
 J. D. CRAIG HOUSTON, B.D., 
 
 Minister of the Presbyterian Church, Hyde Park, Belfast. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY : 
 
 56, Paternoster Row j 65, St. Paul's Churchyard ; and 
 164, Piccadilly. 
 
 I885. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THIS little volume is not at all designed for the 
 ' learned and wise.' Neither is it meant for 
 such as have time and opportunity to consult the 
 standard works, wherein may be found all the in- 
 formation it contains in better form and greater 
 fulness. It has been written solely for the benefit 
 of those — and they are the majority — who, through 
 lack of leisure or from infelicity of circumstance, 
 are unable to drink of the stream of knowledge 
 nearer to the fountain-head, or who, to vary the 
 metaphor a little, are obliged to content themselves 
 with the rivulet rather than the river. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I -THE GENTILES. 
 
 — Introduction . . . . . .9 
 
 — Augustus Cesar . . . . . 11 
 
 — Extent of the Roman Empire, and the Means of 
 
 Intercourse between the divers Nationalities. 15 
 
 —Roman Religious Beliefs and Practices . . 17 
 
 — Influence of Greek Learning and Philosophy in Rome 43 
 
 — State of the Popular Religious Belief at the Time 
 
 of Christ ...... 53 
 
 — The Social Life of the Roman Empire . . 56 
 
 »>0-€« 
 
 PART ll.-THE JEWS. 
 
 1. — The Time of Nehemiah .... 89 
 
 2. — The Interval from Nehemiah to the Close of the 
 
 Persian Dominion . . . . . 93 
 
 3. — Conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the 
 
 Great ...... 95 
 
 4. — The Successors of Alexander . . . .98 
 
 5. — Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes . . . 108 
 
 6.— The Maccabees . . . . . .111 
 
 7.— Rise of the Herodian Family . . . 119 
 
 8. — Herod the Great ...... 123 
 
 9. — The Birth of the Messiah .... 136 
 
 10. — Civil Constitution of Judaea in b.c. 4. . . 141 
 
 11.— Conclusion ...... 158 
 
 — — ►xx* 
 
 ■ Index. ....... 163 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE GBITTILES. 
 

 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 6, in Table of Contents, before ' Conclusion ' insert — 
 
 ' ii.— Religious Constitution of Judaea in b.c. 4. page 149.' 
 
 43, 4th line from bottom, for 'ascendant' read 'in the ascendant.' 
 
 104, 6th line from bottom, for ' But this time ' read ' At this time.' 
 
 133, 7th line from top, for ' their ' read ' our.' 
 
 159, last line, for ' thought ' read ' thoughts.' 
 
 163, last line of Index, for ' victory ' read ' defeat. ' 
 
 164, third line from top, for 'victory' read 'defeat.' 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE GENTILES. 
 
 I . — I NTRODUCTION. 
 
 SIXTY ships of war are running before a fair wind 
 and under full sail along the shores of Greece, 
 southward, towards the ancient land of the Pharaohs. 
 They are escaping from the scene of a des- The BattIe 
 perate conflict between the fleet of Octavian of Actium - 
 Caesar and that of Mark Antony, the two rulers of 
 the Roman world. In the foremost o£ the fleeing 
 ships — the one with the purple sails — is the Queen 
 of Egypt, the celebrated Cleopatra, who, terrified by 
 the din of battle, seeks safety in flight. Antony, 
 catching a glimpse of the retreating squadron, and 
 impelled by an amorous impulse, springs from his 
 war-ship into a light galley, and hastens away after 
 the queen. Thus does he ingloriously relinquish to 
 his rival the laurels that might possibly have been 
 his own ; for up till the time of his defection and for 
 some hours afterwards the victory was valiantly dis- 
 puted. However, before the evening stars appear, 
 
IO THE GENTILES. 
 
 Antony's entire fleet has either been destroyed by 
 fire or is fallen into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 So ended the famous sea-fight known in history as 
 the Battle of Actium. It is especially noteworthy 
 from the circumstance that it forms an epoch in the 
 history of the world, and inaugurates a new era. As 
 a result of it, Octavian became sole master of the 
 entire civilized world, and the Republic of Rome, 
 which had lasted for well nigh five centuries, was 
 practically brought to a close. Republican names 
 and forms, no doubt, still continued to exist, but even 
 when most ostentatiously paraded they had no real 
 significance. In all but name Octavian became abso- 
 lute monarch, a position which he continued to hold 
 for the long period of four-and-forty years. His reign 
 was remarkable in many ways, but especially in this 
 regard, that it was during his term of sovereignty, 
 and seventeen years before its close, that in a distant 
 Roman dependency, and in one of the least of the 
 cities of Juda, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
 amongst men, and they beheld His glory. 
 
 The aim of the following pages is to carry the 
 Aim of this reader back in thought to this particular 
 book. period of time, and to help him in some 
 
 measure to realize the condition and circumstances 
 of that ancient world over which the first Roman 
 emperor ruled, and into which the Saviour of man- 
 kind was born. 
 
AUGUSTUS CsESAR. II 
 
 2. — Augustus Cesar. 
 
 CAIUS OCTAVIANUS, known in history as Augustus 
 Caesar, being by far the most conspicuous Augustus 
 figure on the world's stage at the time of Caesar ' 
 our Lord's nativity, claims our notice at the outset. 
 He was grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, and by adop- 
 tion his son and heir. After his uncle's assassination, 
 in addition to his own name, he assumed that of his 
 illustrious relative. 
 
 Owing to the state of matters after the tragedy 
 of the Ides of March, there was great difficulty in 
 getting Caesar's will carried into effect. Mark 
 Antony, who was then one of the Consuls, and in the 
 enjoyment of almost absolute authority, took up a 
 decidedly hostile attitude towards Octavian, as he 
 secretly aimed at appropriating the entire property of 
 Caesar to his own use, and but for the efforts put forth 
 by the friends and partisans of the young heir, he 
 certainly would have carried out his designs. How- 
 ever, even greater injuries than this can be forgiven 
 and forgotten when ambitious projects are in contem- 
 plation, and selfish schemes are to be carried out. 
 It was so in the case of Antony and Octavian. 
 
 Antony having been declared an enemy by the 
 Senate at the expiration of his term of 
 office, Octavian led an army against him xriunwkate. 
 and defeated him, and not long afterwards 
 was himself made Consul. Subsequently he sought 
 
12 THE GENTILES. 
 
 a reconciliation with Antony, with whom and Lepidus 
 (another chief man in the state) he entered into an 
 agreement to govern jointly for a term of five years. 
 Thus was formed the Second Triumvirate. One of 
 the first acts of the new rulers was to publish a cruel 
 proscription, in which hundreds of senators were con- 
 demned to death, Marcus Tullius Cicero amongst the 
 number. By the massacre of all who were unfriendly 
 to them in Italy, and by the complete victory gained 
 at Philippi over the Republican forces led by Brutus 
 and Cassius, they made their power absolute. How- 
 ever, the harmony which appeared to subsist between 
 the triumvirs was not destined to be perpetual. The 
 self-seeking spirit which had helped to establish it 
 began in course of time to operate in a contrary way, 
 and was one of the most potent forces in finally 
 destroying it. 
 
 After the victory at Philippi, Antony went to Asia 
 (the eastern portion of the Empire having 
 
 Mark 
 
 Antony in fallen to his lot), where he lived in regal 
 splendour, deposing and setting up princes 
 at his will, and levying taxes on the people. Mean- 
 while, Lepidus having become very unpopular both 
 with the soldiers and the people generally, Octavian 
 went to his tent and obliged him to resign the power 
 which, from his position as triumvir, he was entitled 
 to exercise. No sooner was he got rid of than there 
 began a contest for the supreme authority between 
 the two remaining triumvirs. The mutual hatred 
 
AUGUSTUS CsESAR. 73 
 
 and distrust with which these two men regarded each 
 other had been for a long time mollified and restrained 
 by the good offices of Octavia, the wife of Antony 
 and sister of his colleague. Ultimately, however, 
 such salutary influences ceased to operate. Unfor- 
 tunately for himself, Antony preferred to the endear- 
 ments of his Roman spouse the unlawful embraces of 
 Egypt's peerless queen ; and, basking in the sunshine 
 of Cleopatra's smile, he forgot the kisses of Octavia. 
 But while Antony is spending his time and exhausting 
 his energies amidst the effeminate indulgences and 
 luxurious vices of the Egyptian court, 'while he fishes, 
 and drinks, and wastes the lamps of night in revel,' 
 his rival is assiduously striving to gain the affection 
 and esteem of the Roman people, and to lower Antony 
 as much as possible in popular favour. In neither 
 object was he unsuccessful. He therefore embraced 
 the earliest opportunity of avenging the insult offered 
 to his sister, and of carrying out his own ambitious 
 aims, and with the consent of the Senate he made 
 war upon Antony and his bewitching ally. On the 
 side of Octavian was arrayed the whole power of the 
 West, while Antony was supported by all the forces 
 that the East could furnish. The contest was decided, 
 as indicated above, off the town of Actium, on the 
 coast of Epirus. In less than a year afterwards 
 Octavian followed up his victory, and besieged and 
 took Alexandria, the Egyptian capital, whereupon 
 Antony and Cleopatra both committed suicide. 
 
14 THE GENTILES. 
 
 Egypt was now reduced to a Roman province, and 
 Octavian became undisputed master of the world. 
 All the power and honour the Roman Senate had to 
 bestow were lavished upon him, and he was henceforth 
 styled by the magnificent title of Augustus, — a name 
 by which he has become known to posterity. 
 
 Though thrice married he had no son, and he made 
 his step-son Tiberius (in whose reign Christ 
 
 Death of . . . . 
 
 Augustus was crucified) his heir. He died at the age 
 of seventy-seven. According to tradition, 
 when dying he called for a mirror, and having adjusted 
 his hair carefully, he turned to his attendants and said, 
 ' Have I played my part well ? If so, applaud me ! ' 
 As to how the great emperor played his part opinions 
 will differ. He certainly was not free from some of 
 the gross vices of his age ; but he attained the highest 
 pinnacle of fame and earthly glory accessible to 
 mortals, and during his reign the Roman Empire 
 reached the climax of material prosperity and in- 
 tellectual splendour. The most illustrious names 
 known to Latin literature were his contemporaries, 
 and some of them — Virgil and Horace, for instance — 
 found in him a generous friend and beneficent patron. 
 When he died a shadow fell on the entire Roman 
 world : the sorrowing people erected temples to his 
 memory, and he was numbered amongst the gods. 
 
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 15 
 
 3. — Extent of the Roman Empire, and the 
 Means of Intercourse between the divers 
 Nationalities. 
 
 As we have seen, at the time of Christ's birth the 
 Roman world had but one master, whose 
 
 Extent of the 
 
 sway extended over all the civilized portions Roman Em- 
 of the earth, as well as over many portions 
 of it not yet civilized. The countries now known as 
 England, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium/Holland, 
 Italy, Turkey, Greece, Syria, Egypt and many other 
 African states, were all embraced within the wide 
 boundaries of one colossal Empire. The city of 
 Rome was regarded as the central point of these vast 
 dominions, and this fact was somewhat ostentatiously 
 symbolized by a. golden milestone, which, at the 
 command of Augustus, was erected in the Roman 
 Forum ; from which point well-constructed highways 
 radiated to the utmost limits of the most distant 
 province. 
 
 These great highways formed a marked feature in 
 the political programme both of Repub- Roman 
 lican and Imperial Rome. They were hi s hwa y s - 
 composed of massive stones bound together by 
 cement, and by this means peoples and nations that 
 otherwise must have remained comparatively isolated 
 were brought near to one another, and to Rome the 
 mighty lawgiver and mistress of them all. On them 
 
1 6 THE GENTILES. 
 
 the legions marched from province to province ; now 
 to guard the frontiers from the attacks of the Barba- 
 rians ; now to hold in subjection the nations already 
 conquered. By this means, too, the ever-growing 
 traffic in merchandise between Rome and her various 
 dependencies was increased and facilitated. 
 
 Previous to the Roman ascendency, travel, in 
 anything like the modern sense of the term, was 
 entirely unknown. The various national communities 
 that inhabited the world had up till that time 
 lived for the most part confined within their own 
 borders, and never overstepped them except to wage 
 war against an enemy or to pursue an invader. 
 However, national landmarks and antagonisms of 
 race rapidly effaced themselves in the presence of 
 Universal Empire : loyalty to a national prince was 
 found to be compatible with allegiance to a common 
 lord ; and the dignity of Roman citizen soon came to 
 be an honour coveted by all. The results that fol- 
 lowed this general commingling and amalgamation 
 of the nations were many and various. The more 
 important of them will appear as we proceed. 
 
 For the first five or six hundred years of their ex- 
 Roman istence as a nation, whether as a Kingdom 
 anTikera- or a Republic, the Romans may be said to 
 ture - have had no literature, and their language 
 was too rude for literary purposes. War and con- 
 quest they made the business of their lives ; and 
 their virtues as well as their vices were those of a 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. \j 
 
 military society. After the conquest of Greece, 
 however, and the fusion of the two peoples that 
 ensued, the softening, influence of Greek thought and 
 manners was everywhere felt throughout the Roman 
 world ; and in the Augustan period it became para- 
 mount. The Greek language had by this time 
 attained a position throughout the world similar to 
 that which French had in Europe during the last 
 century ; and towards the close of the Republic all 
 who claimed to be educated men could read it with 
 ease, and in many cases speak it with fluency. 
 Greek had in fact become, even more than Latin, a 
 universal speech. With a knowledge of the language 
 of Greece came also a knowledge of its philosophy, 
 the tendency of which was on the whole atheistic. 
 
 4.— Roman Religious Beliefs and Practices. 
 
 THROUGHOUT a very long period of their history the 
 Romans were essentially a religious people. Roman 
 Patrician and plebeian, soldier and civilian rell s ion - 
 emulated each other in the devout observance of the 
 rites of their religion, and rivalled each other in the 
 assiduity of their devotions. In every important 
 business of state the gods were consulted ; every 
 assembly of the people was constituted by prayer ; 
 and no Roman general would have ventured to take 
 the field against an enemy without first offering 
 sacrifices to the ancestral deities, and paying them 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THE GENTILES. 
 
 homage by various prescribed observances. To enu- 
 merate all the divinities to whom worship was 
 rendered throughout the Roman world, and who had 
 shrines and temples erected in their honour, were a 
 tedious task. Suffice it to say, that as national 
 divinities, Jupiter, Mars, and Ouirinus held the first 
 and foremost place ; and after them came of lesser 
 gods and goddesses, an innumerable multitude. There 
 was no town or village without its shrine to some 
 tutelar deity ; no event in domestic or family life that 
 was not associated with some presiding genius, and 
 hallowed by some religious ceremonial. The various 
 ranks and conditions of men had also their special 
 supernatural protectors. Sailors prayed to Neptune 
 for a safe voyage, merchants to Mercury for good 
 returns in trade, farmers to Ceres for a plentiful 
 harvest. But Jupiter of the Capitol, being the god 
 who was regarded as especially representing the State, 
 received of course the highest honour. For with the 
 Romans the State was everything ; and the religion 
 of the Romans was pre-eminently a State religion. 
 In fact, while the Republic lasted, the State, or Rome 
 itself, was honoured as the highest divinity. After- 
 wards, when the Republic had passed away, the same 
 patriotic feeling continued to be manifested in the 
 apotheosis of the emperors, who, as the representa- 
 tives of the State, were fairly entitled, in the opinion 
 of the Romans, to share the honours of the Capitolian 
 god. 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 19 
 
 A true Roman considered himself as existing chiefly 
 for his country, the gods of which he be- R om an 
 lieved himself bound to honour, just as P atriotism - 
 much as to obey the national government ; and the 
 neglect of either duty was deemed an equally culp- 
 able offence. Indeed, both obligations were regarded 
 as in essence the same, and to have originated in the 
 same source, viz., the desire to safeguard the interests 
 of the State. The welfare of the individual, whether 
 as regards this world or the next, was not at all the 
 raison d'etre of the Roman religion. It did not claim 
 to minister to the inward and spiritual needs of the 
 worshipper, or in any way to advance his prospects 
 of future happiness. In fact, it left out the future 
 altogether ; and as for the individual soul, no account 
 was taken of it whatsoever : its value and importance 
 were not recognized, and religion made no provision 
 for satisfying its aspirations. 
 
 Thus it would appear that the brightest prospects 
 of the Pagan world and its highest hopes , 
 
 ^ S> r Belief about 
 
 were all confined to the present life, and the world to 
 
 come. 
 
 strictly circumscribed by time s narrow 
 limits. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose 
 that this state of feeling was necessarily the result of 
 a disbelief in or a denial of a world to come. On 
 the contrary, such a world was commonly believed in 
 by the ancients ; but it was imagined to be a dim and 
 'joyless region,' whose unsubstantial denizens were 
 tormented by a ceaseless longing to reanimate a 
 
20 THE GENTILES. 
 
 human form, and to engage anew in the toils and 
 activities of earthly existence. And so we read that 
 the hero of the Odyssey, amongst his other experiences 
 in Hades, sees the disembodied spirits eagerly drinking 
 • the black blood ' of the slain victims, in order to be 
 restored to something like real life again, even for a 
 fleeting moment; and he also hears himself addressed 
 by the son of Peleus in the plaintive words, ' Seek 
 not to comfort me, O illustrious Ulysses, respecting 
 death. I would rather be a tiller of the soil, and serve 
 as a hireling in the employ of the humblest of mortals, 
 than possess the sovereign dignity in the realm of 
 the dead.' 
 
 Inseparably associated with the religion and 
 Divination. worship of the ancients was the art of 
 divination or soothsaying. If, as we suppose, there 
 be, indeed, supernatural beings, and if they be 
 favourably disposed towards mortals, and possess the 
 power of making known to them the divine mind, 
 then — so reasoned the ancients — then from such a 
 quarter counsel may be fairly sought and" guidance 
 reasonably expected by those whose human nature 
 makes them liable to err, and whose limited facul- 
 ties expose them to deception. Such a conclusion 
 necessarily gave rise to all manner of expedients for 
 determining the will and intentions of the deities — 
 some of which were, of course, most frivolous and 
 absurd. 
 
 Divination was of two kinds, artificial and natural. 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 21 
 
 Artificial divination consisted chiefly in the observing 
 and interpreting of certain signs, by which the gods 
 were supposed to make known to men future events. 
 Such signs and tokens were either made matters of 
 previous prayer and supplication on the part of men, 
 or else vouchsafed to them unasked by a propitious 
 divinity. The interpretation of such heaven-sent 
 omens was, as a general rule, the special duty of the 
 augurs. 
 
 The office of augur amongst the Romans was a 
 most honourable one, and implied divine Augurs. 
 gifts ; but a special education and discipline were 
 also considered necessary, and hence a ' College of 
 Augurs ' was early established at Rome. The 
 members of this fraternity were held in such esteem 
 that, even if convicted of a crime, the augur was not 
 degraded or deprived of his privileges — an indulgence 
 accorded to no other priestly class. 
 
 The things from which auguries were drawn were 
 of various kinds. The flight and noise of Flightof 
 birds, for instance, were supposed to be a birds - 
 favourite method with the deities for communicating 
 to men celestial decrees. Only certain birds, how- 
 ever, were regarded as true heaven-sent messengers, 
 and of this class, birds of prey were the most im- 
 portant. The eagle especially, as the chief of the 
 feathered tribe, was looked upon as the special herald 
 of Jove, the king of the gods ; and according as this 
 bird was seen soaring through space on the right 
 
22 THE GENTILES. 
 
 hand or on the left, was his appearance considered 
 auspicious or the reverse. So we find, in the Iliad of 
 Homer, the wife of the Trojan king thus addressing" 
 her lord, when against her wish he was about to set 
 out for the tent of Achilles to claim the body of his 
 slain son : — 
 
 Pray to that God, who, high on Ida's brow, 
 Surveys thy desolated realm below, 
 His winged messenger to send from high 
 And lead thy way with heavenly augury : 
 Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 
 Tower to the right of yon ethereal space, 
 That sign behold, and strengthened from above 
 Boldly pursue the journey marked by Jove ; 
 But if the god his augury denies, 
 Suppress thine impulse, nor reject advice. 
 
 Whereupon the aged Priam thus addresses the 
 
 divinity : — 
 
 O first and greatest, heaven's imperial lord, 
 On lofty Ida's holy hill adored ! 
 To stern Achilles now direct my ways, 
 And teach him mercy when a father prays. 
 If such thy will, despatch from yonder sky 
 Thy sacred bird, celestial augury. 
 
 Next to the flight of the eagle, that of the vulture 
 was considered the most significant. Other birds, 
 such as the raven, the owl, and the hen, were 
 supposed, by their respective cries, to reveal the 
 divine purposes. 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 23 
 
 Scarcely inferior to birds as divine prognostics were 
 the meteorological phenomena. The reason Cc iestini 
 of this is obvious. To the popular mind P hen ° mena 
 a lightning flash appeared to come down direct from 
 the far-off celestial heights where the ancients ima- 
 gined their gods ' to sit beside their nectar,' and 
 whence, too, they also believed (Epicurus notwith- 
 standing) that the gods themselves 'hurled their 
 bolts far below them in the valleys.' Accordingly, 
 when such events took place immediately before the 
 commencement of any important undertaking, they 
 were believed to be pregnant with meaning, and to 
 contain a message from the skies. Among the 
 Greeks, if the lightning appeared on the right hand 
 a happy issue of the thing contemplated might 
 confidently be expected ; if, however, the omen ap- 
 peared on the left hand nothing but failure could 
 be looked for. Among the Romans this order seems 
 to have been reversed, and lightning, when it shone 
 on the left hand, was regarded as an auspicious 
 event, but not otherwise. It was supposed especially 
 to menace great personages, and nothing terrified a 
 Roman magnate so much as a thunderstorm. We 
 are told that the Emperor Augustus clad himself in 
 the skin of a sea-calf as a protection in such 
 emergencies ; and that Tiberius employed laurel 
 leaves for a similar purpose ; while Caligula is said 
 to have habitually crept under his bed when a 
 thunderstorm was approaching, that being the safest 
 
24 THE GENTILES. 
 
 retreat he could think of. Eclipses of the sun and 
 moon were also looked upon as the worst possible 
 omens ; and drum-beating and other loud noises, 
 being popularly supposed to have a great influence 
 in restoring the luminary affected to its normal 
 condition, were generally resorted to on such oc- 
 casions. 
 
 In this connexion the important and widespread 
 Astrology. science of astrology, naturally, claims our 
 notice. Though but little known amongst the early 
 Greeks and Romans, this particular kind of divina- 
 tion had become quite common at the commence- 
 ment of the Christian era. Throughout the length 
 and breadth of the Empire astrologers were every- 
 where to be met with, who professed to be able to 
 foretell the whole current of a man's future destiny 
 by simply observing the position of the constellations 
 at the hour of his birth. Each day of the month 
 was supposed to be under the influence of some 
 special god ; and whether an individual's life was to be 
 a happy one or the contrary, whether to be a success 
 or a failure, depended entirely on what day in the 
 calendar he saw the light, and on the particular star 
 that presided over his nativity. 
 
 Taking the auspices from the entrails of animals 
 Taking the about to be offered as sacrifices on the 
 auspices. altars of the gods, was another method of 
 divination also very generally practised throughout 
 the entire heathen world. The explanation of this 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 2$ 
 
 particular kind of superstition is to be found in the 
 circumstance that the gods were only content when 
 they received offerings that were entirely without flaw 
 or blemish. Outward appearances, therefore, were 
 not a sufficient guide in determining whether or not 
 an animal was in a condition to be acceptable to the 
 Immortals, since soundness of limb and symmetrical 
 proportions were often to be found united with an 
 unsound organism and an unhealthy constitution. 
 Accordingly, if it were discovered, on a careful 
 scrutiny of the entrails, that the animal destined as 
 a sacrifice not only looked well outwardly, but was 
 also in its internal organs perfectly sound, this was 
 regarded as a clear indication that the offering was 
 acceptable to the divinity (who was then supposed to 
 have aided in the happy selection), and that the 
 undertaking contemplated by the worshipper, and 
 with reference to which the sacrifice was presented, 
 would be crowned with success. 
 
 This particular method of seeking counsel from 
 the gods was especially resorted to by the ancients in 
 time of war. If they were about to give battle to an 
 enemy, or to march across a frontier into a new 
 country, or to pass a river, the auspices were in- 
 variably taken by the general in command, or were 
 only omitted at the risk of raising a mutiny. 
 
 There were certain parts of the entrails that were 
 regarded as specially important in these examinations 
 — the liver, for instance, and the lungs and heart, 
 
26 THE GENTILES. 
 
 which were justly considered to be the chief organs 
 of the body. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, from anything 
 that has been said, that on every occasion when 
 sacrifices were offered to the gods the internals of 
 the victims were examined. That was not at all the 
 case. If the deities were being propitiated for some 
 supposed offence, it was quite unusual to go through 
 such a ceremony. Indeed, when the offering was 
 entirely of an expiatory nature, such a thing would 
 have been quite meaningless. 
 
 Besides the customary auspices obtained in the 
 manner just mentioned there were other important 
 signs which were supposed to forecast the future with 
 scarcely less accuracy. For instance, when the animal 
 advanced to the altar unwillingly, or had to be dragged 
 thither by force, it was judged an unhappy omen ; and 
 the matter was still worse if it broke away altogether,, 
 and ran back to the herd. On the other hand, if the 
 victim went to the slaughter without resistance, if, as 
 occasionally happened, it seemed to lead the way 
 rather than be led, then the augury was deemed a 
 very favourable one. 
 
 Another matter of anxious observation on the part 
 of those concerned, was the manner in which the 
 sacrifice burned when placed on the altar : if the fire 
 blazed clear and bright, and the smoke rose straight 
 into the air, it betokened good fortune ; otherwise, 
 the signs were not considered auspicious. Indeed, in- 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 2J 
 
 stances are on record in which the motions made by 
 the tail of the victim during the process of burning 
 were regarded with much solicitude and concern — a 
 different fortune being augured, according as the tail 
 was turned upwards or downwards or stood out 
 straight under the influence of the fire. 
 
 Most of the omens hitherto mentioned had this 
 characteristic in common — they were looked Auguries 
 for and expected, and made the subject J^Sf 
 of prayer and supplication beforehand. events - 
 However, auguries were very frequently drawn from 
 things of which this could not be said. Numberless 
 events were happening every day, and every hour in 
 the day, to all appearance wholly accidental, and yet 
 which were of such a character as to awaken anxiety, 
 and to leave the impression on the popular mind that 
 they were visible monitions from the supernatural 
 world. To such a category belonged all unusual 
 or remarkable occurrences ; every departure from the 
 customary course of events ; each unexpected break 
 in the even tenour of life's daily routine. What is 
 the significance of this or that emergency ? Of what 
 explanation is such and such an occurrence suscep- 
 tible ? were questions heard on all hands, and with 
 regard to the merest trivialities. Thus there naturally 
 arose a school of soothsayers, supposed to be divinely 
 gifted, who expended their wit and ingenuity ex- 
 clusively on such matters, and endeavoured after due 
 meditation thereon to unfold their meaning. 
 
28 THE GENTILES. 
 
 Comets and eclipses, to which reference has already 
 been made, belonged, of course, to this class of omens, 
 and were amongst the most dreaded ; and, con- 
 sidering the great ignorance of natural laws that then 
 prevailed, this was not remarkable. But what are 
 we to think of the judgment and intelligence of the 
 man who is thrown into a state of terror and con- 
 sternation because a mouse has eaten a hole in his 
 meal-sack ? This folly is, however, actually laid to 
 the charge of a great philosopher, who, we are told, 
 believed the incident inevitably presaged some terrific 
 calamity. It was considered, if a strange black dog 
 happened to stray into one's house, that the cir- 
 cumstance was most unlucky, and marked the day 
 as one on which no business of importance should be 
 entered upon. If the beams of the house creaked ; 
 if salt were spilled on the table, or wine on one's 
 clothes, dismal forebodings were the inevitable con- 
 sequence. And it is especially worthy of notice, that 
 the very persons who derided most the idea of the 
 existence and activity of the gods, were not unfre- 
 quently the most blindly superstitious as regards omens 
 and portents, and with respect to the occult signifi- 
 cance of such things, credulous in the last degree. 
 
 We shall now briefly glance at the so-called natural 
 Natural divination, in which the soul, either in 
 
 divination. dreams or while in an abnormal state of 
 ecstacy, was supposed to become the recipient of a 
 divine revelation respecting future events. In every 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 29 
 
 age and in all countries dreams have been implicitly 
 believed in, and regarded either as the direct doing 
 of some celestial messenger, or as a result of the 
 temporary accession of a supernatural degree of 
 mental energy. That dreams descend from Jove, 
 ranked as a proverb amongst the ancients. Some, 
 however, held the theory that the soul during waking 
 hours, being distributed over the various members of 
 the body, was enfeebled and embarrassed thereby, and 
 had not the energy and force that resulted from con- 
 centration : that in sleep this obstacle was in some 
 measure removed, and hence the great mental activity 
 which so often resulted in dream-given forecasts of 
 the future. Ancient literature abounds with records 
 of dreams and their interpretation, and their remark- 
 able fulfilment. Cicero mentions a great many such 
 in his work on divination ; and as some of them had 
 reference to current events, he might have verified his 
 own records had he wished to do so. He does, 
 indeed, mention a dream of his own which he con- 
 fesses surprised him greatly, but with his usual 
 scepticism on all such matters, he adds, ' Excepting 
 that, I do not remember having experienced one 
 worth mentioning. I must therefore have wasted to 
 no purpose as many nights as I have slept during 
 my long life.' However, Cicero's scepticism regarding 
 this kind of divination was but little shared even 
 by some of his learned contemporaries, and by the 
 populace not at all. It is related of no less a per- 
 
30 THE GENTILES. 
 
 sonage than the great Emperor Augustus, that in 
 obedience to a dream which he had, he betook him- 
 self on a certain day of each year to a particular spot 
 in Rome, and there stood like a beggar, supplicating, 
 with outstretched hand; the coppers of the passers-by. 
 
 Speaking of the belief in dreams which existed 
 Dreams. about this period, Friedlaender says : x ' No 
 one who is even superficially acquainted with the 
 literature, especially the historical literature of the 
 first century, can have any doubts on the subject. 
 Seldom is any great event mentioned without being 
 associated with at least one dream by which it was 
 foretold. The most illustrious men allowed dreams 
 to exercise the greatest influence on their actions, and 
 their undertakings of every kind were frequently 
 determined thereby. It was in consequence of a 
 dream that Galen wrote his mathematical treatises, 
 and the elder Pliny's History of the Roman War in 
 Germany is attributed to the same cause.' 
 
 As we have said, Pagan literature abounds with 
 such records, and the statement is no less true re- 
 garding the Hebrew Scriptures. Every student of 
 the Bible will at once recall, in this connexion, the 
 many dreams and visions which are recorded by the 
 inspired historians. The dream of Jacob, for instance, 
 and of Pharaoh, of Nebuchadnezzar, and last but not 
 least, the dream of Joseph, in which he was com- 
 
 1 The writer desires once for all to acknowledge his great indebted- 
 ness to Friedlaender's Darslcllnneen aits der SittoiP'cschichtc Koms. 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 31 
 
 manded to take the young Child and His mother, 
 and flee into Egypt. 
 
 With such examples before us, we are precluded 
 from placing dreams on the same level with the 
 auguries and auspices and some other modes of 
 divination familiar to the heathen world ; and more 
 than that, we are positively compelled to recognize 
 them as in some cases supplying a veritable nexus, 
 however subtle and mysterious, between the human 
 soul and the unseen. Such an admission does not 
 involve the necessity of our endorsing the many specu- 
 lative notions and fanciful surroundings which, in the 
 Pagan mind, were commonly associated with dreams. 
 
 Homer tells us that the dream-heralds issue from 
 the shadowy world by two doors : one made of shining 
 ivory, the other of simple horn. From the former 
 invariably emerge the messengers which are men- 
 dacious and misleading ; from the latter only such 
 as are trustworthy and true. Virgil makes a similar 
 statement, which Dryden translates as follows : — 
 
 Two gates the silent house of sleep adorn : 
 Of polished ivory this, that of transparent horn : 
 True visions thro' transparent horn arise : c 
 Through polished ivory pass deluding lies. 
 
 Such a passage may be regarded as merely a poetic 
 expression of the universally acknowledged truth, 
 that gorgeous things frequently contain a spurious 
 ingredient ; whereas what is plain and unpretentious 
 is but seldom associated with deception. But taken 
 
32 THE GENTILES. 
 
 literally the words undoubtedly embody a deeply- 
 rooted conviction of the Pagan world. 
 
 The genii by whom dreams were given were, of 
 Genii. course, considered to be inferior to the 
 
 gods themselves, and to be subject to their man- 
 dates ; and they were indifferently designated Children 
 of the Night, or Sons of Sleep. The shades of the 
 departed were also commonly supposed to have the 
 privilege of acting as celestial messengers, and of 
 bringing back to the world that they had left the 
 secrets of the silent land. 
 
 Another famous method whereby the divinities 
 were supposed to make known their will to 
 theToracie. men > and to grant useful information to 
 those who sincerely invoked them, was the 
 Oracle. From a very early period of the world's 
 history, the Oracle was a renowned institution. 
 Oracles were consulted and implicitly believed in by 
 all the great nations of antiquity. Their deliverances 
 were supposed to be among the most direct of all 
 communications from the supernatural world, and 
 they were constantly questioned both in relation to 
 national and private affairs ; and he who acted in 
 harmony with the oracular response firmly believed 
 that his conduct had the sanction and approval of 
 heaven. A great number of places were sacred to 
 oracular purposes. The augur had the privilege of 
 inquiring the mind of the god in any place whatso- 
 ever : with the oracle it was different. It was con- 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 33 
 
 fined to one particular spot, whither all who wished 
 to consult it must needs repair, cither in person or 
 by proxy. Such places were numerous. The three 
 most celebrated oracles of the ancient world were 
 those of Jupiter Ammon, Dodona, and Delphi — the 
 two latter maintaining their reputation and being 
 more or less visited up till the third or fourth century 
 of the Christian era. 
 
 The oracle at Delphi, a town of Achaia, built on 
 one of the slopes of Mount Parnassus, was 
 the most celebrated of all. It was an T f h ^° r ? c,e 
 
 at Delphi. 
 
 oracle of the god Apollo, and the medium 
 through which its deliverances were given was 
 a prophetess, or Pythia, as she was generally 
 called. She was a maiden chosen out of a respectable 
 family, but it was not necessary that her parents 
 should be either noble or wealthy. The Pythia de- 
 livered her prophecies seated on a tripod, in the 
 temple of the god. This tripod was placed over a 
 cavity within the precincts of the temple, whence 
 arose a certain exhalation which had an intoxicating 
 effect, and under the influence of which the Pythia 
 soon began to manifest symptoms of distraction and 
 frenzy. Her hair stood upright ; her looks grew 
 wild ; she foamed at the mouth ; a violent trembling 
 seized her in every limb ; she ejaculated at intervals 
 certain words — coherent sometimes, sometimes not. 
 In either case, however, her words were carefully 
 taken down by her attendants, the prophets, who gave 
 
 D 
 
34 THE GENTILES. 
 
 the answers to the inquirers either verbally or in 
 writing, after they had turned them into a kind of 
 verse. 
 
 There were certain so-called unlucky days, on 
 which the Pythia dared not on any account ascend 
 the tripod ; and even on other days she could only 
 do so after the auspices had been taken, and if they 
 turned out favourably. The entrails of the offerings 
 presented to the god furnished the chief signs to be 
 consulted as to whether the Pythia should give re- 
 sponses or not on a given day ; and therefore, with a 
 view to discovering the will of the deity in this 
 regard, the entrails of the goats and oxen and wild 
 boars which the devotees brought as sacrifices, under- 
 went the most minute and careful scrutiny at the 
 hands of the sacerdotal attendants of the prophetess. 
 An instance is on record in which the most serious 
 consequences followed when the Pythia ascended 
 the tripod in obedience to a mistaken interpretation 
 of the auspices — either through over-zeal, or for some 
 other cause. As it would appear, she soon made it 
 manifest to those about her, by the unusually fierce 
 tones of her voice, that she was in a state of ecstasy 
 or frenzy not at all of the ordinary kind. She at 
 last leaped from the tripod with a bound, and rushed 
 towards the door of the oracular chamber with such 
 an unearthly yell, that not only the strangers present 
 but even her familiar attendants fled in dismay. 
 When the latter had sufficiently recovered from their 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 35 
 
 fright, they returned to where she was, but found 
 her utterly bereft of reason, and a day or two after- 
 wards she expired. This melancholy result, the 
 narrator clearly attributed to the unfortunate attempt 
 on the part of the Pythia to prophesy on a day on 
 which the auspices were really not favourable, though 
 made to seem so through the carelessness or ignorance 
 of those whose duty it was to interpret them. 
 
 The oracle of Zeus or Jupiter, at Dodona in Epirus, 
 was distinguished from the above, and 
 indeed from all the oracles of Apollo, in atDo dona. 
 this respect, that its deliverances were 
 mostly given by signs, and not in articulate speech. 
 In the rustling of the sacred oaks which surrounded 
 his temple, Jupiter was supposed to make known his 
 will to mortals. However, to interpret the mysterious 
 voices of the grove, and to translate them into human 
 speech, was possible only for those who had fitted 
 themselves for their important duties by a careful 
 observance of the preparatory rites, and who, through 
 divine inflatus, had reached the necessary state of 
 ecstasy. For it was a fixed opinion amongst the 
 ancients that ' inspiration and true divination is not 
 attained by any one when in his full senses, but only 
 when the power of thought is fettered by sleep or 
 disease or some paroxysm of frenzy.' We read of a 
 wonderful spring, called the Fountain of Jupiter, which 
 existed in this locality, and which, though the water 
 was quite cold and extinguished burning torches 
 
36 THE GENTILES. 
 
 when dipped therein, nevertheless possessed the mar- 
 vellous virtue of rekindling the. same when they 
 were again brought into proximity with it. It is 
 quite possible that by drinking of this fountain an 
 effect resulted similar to that produced by the ex- 
 halation from the cave at Delphi, and that thus the 
 ecstasy of the Dodonaic priestesses might perhaps 
 be accounted for. 
 
 Another medium commonly employed by the 
 divinity of Dodona for communicating his behests, 
 was a brazen vessel, beside which stood the statue of 
 a youth, holding in his hand a sort of lash or whip 
 formed of three brass chains, to which solid balls of 
 the same metal were attached. These hung in such 
 close proximity to the vessel that the gentlest action 
 of the wind sufficed to produce' the tinkling sound 
 which was supposed to reveal the will of Jupiter, 
 and on which the predictions of the priestesses were 
 based. 
 
 There is also an instance on record, one, doubtless, 
 Drawing °f man y such, in which this oracle was 
 
 lots. consulted by the drawing of lots— the 
 
 significance of the lot drawn being of course inter- 
 preted by a priestess. 
 
 The oracle of Trophonius, in Boeotia, being scarcely 
 Oracle of l ess celebrated than the above-mentioned, 
 Trophonms. an( j j n some respects peculiar, it may be 
 worth while to glance at it in passing. Trophonius 
 was not a god proper ; he belonged to the class of 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. ^y 
 
 glorified heroes. Whether the circumstance of his 
 having been a mortal had anything to do with the 
 unusual number of preparatory rites to be observed 
 by his votaries or not, we cannot tell, but certainly the 
 preliminary ceremonies to be gone through seem to have 
 been numberless. It would be wearisome to mention 
 them all. As in the case of the Delphic oracle, the 
 entrails of the victims offered (in this case mostly a 
 ram) had first to be examined. The auspices being 
 propitious, the person about to interrogate the oracle 
 was taken to a certain spring, wherein he was washed 
 and then anointed with oil ; which service two youths 
 about thirteen years of age were appointed to perform. 
 This ceremony being completed, the devotee was 
 then conducted to two streams which flowed side by 
 side, called respectively the river of Memory, and the 
 river of Forgetfulness. From these he was made to 
 drink, as a token, on the one hand, that his whole 
 past experience was to be banished from his mind, 
 and, on the other, that he was carefully to fix in his 
 remembrance all that might transpire when he was 
 within the sanctuary of the hero. A picture was 
 then shown to him, which those, and those only, were 
 permitted to behold who were on the point of de- 
 scending into the mystic chamber of the oracle. 
 Before this picture he presented his prayers ; and 
 then having been clothed in a peculiar robe and 
 furnished with a certain kind of shoes worn in the 
 locality, and also with cakes of honey, which he w r as 
 
38 THE GENTILES. 
 
 to hold firmly clasped in his hands, he was led to a 
 high elevation in the wood where the sanctuary of 
 the hero was situated. Having entered through a 
 door into the ante-chamber, he was required to 
 descend into a deep cavity in the earth, by a small 
 ladder through a narrow passage ; at the bottom of 
 this opening was the cave proper. Having laid 
 himself down on his back, and inserted his feet into 
 the mouth of the cave, as far as the knee, he was 
 forthwith borne by some strange and irresistible 
 force into the interior with great velocity. There he 
 had the future revealed to him. Sometimes he saw, 
 sometimes he heard wonderful things. Often he 
 found himself surrounded by all manner of loath- 
 some animals, reptiles and demons ; against their 
 threatened violence, however, the cakes of honey 
 always seem to have acted as an effective charm. On 
 emerging from the cave — feet foremost as he had 
 entered it — he was quite stupefied, and various ex- 
 pedients had to be resorted to in order to revive his 
 faculties, wearied out by the ordeal through which he 
 had passed. 
 
 We shall pass from this subject by briefly noticing 
 
 just one other much-frequented class of 
 of The Dead, oracles, viz., the Oracles of the Dead. 
 
 These were situated for the most part in 
 the midst of deep woods or on solitary shores — in 
 places marked out by their gloomy and dismal aspect 
 as suitable entrances to Pluto's dark abode. Hither 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 39 
 
 those who desired to consult the oracles betook them- 
 selves. After the usual offerings and libations the 
 spirits of the dead were called up, and when in- 
 terrogated they gave their responses ; but they never 
 spoke except in reply to a question. This kind of 
 divination, however, was not confined to oracular 
 temples or to any particular locality ; nor did it 
 always maintain a religious and reverent aspect. 
 There were people who claimed to act independently 
 of the oracle altogether, and to possess the power of 
 calling up the dead in any place, or at any time, or 
 for any purpose whatsoever, whether good or bad. 
 Such were the wizards and witches of antiquity — 
 men and women who invariably rested their claims to 
 be heard by the gods of the lower world on some 
 appalling wickedness or atrocious crime. Explain 
 it how we may, there can be no denying the fact that 
 scenes similar to that recorded in 1 Samuel xxviii. 
 7-20, and which happened more than a thousand 
 years before Christ came, were, or at least are said 
 to have been, of daily occurrence throughout the 
 empire in which Christ paid tribute. 
 
 Ambiguity and obscurity were general character- 
 istics of the deliverances of the oracle, so 
 
 Ambiguity of 
 
 that whatever eventuated, the oracular the oracular 
 
 11 111 1 utterance. 
 
 response would generally be made to 
 harmonize therewith. As an instance in point we 
 may mention the case of Crcesus, who, when about to 
 attack the Medes, consulted the oracle of Apollo at 
 
40 THE GENTILES. 
 
 Delphi as to whether or not he would be successful 
 in the contemplated war. The answer he received 
 was that by passing the river Halys he would ruin a 
 great empire. What empire the oracle did not say. 
 Crcesus assumed it to be that of the Medes ; it turned 
 out, however, to be his own. In either event, it is 
 clear the oracle could not have been convicted of 
 falsehood. 
 
 Another case of such ambiguity is that of Pyrrhus, 
 who, on consulting the oracle as to whether he would 
 be victorious in his war against the Romans or not, 
 got, as a reply, the words — Credo te AZacida Romanos 
 vincere posse. The obscurity is more apparent in 
 Latin than it could be made in good English. But 
 the ambiguity might be shown, even in English, 
 by the clumsy and imperfect translation — ' I believe 
 ^Eacides the Romans can conquer.' The question is 
 to determine the nominative in the sentence. Cicero 
 sets aside this case altogether, and gives as his reason 
 that Apollo never gave a response in the language of 
 the Romans : yet if we believe that the god gave 
 responses at all, we may surely admit that he aired 
 his Latin occasionally. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that sometimes the 
 answers said to have been given by the oracles 
 Croesus. were amazingly clear and circumstantial. 
 
 The history of Crcesus furnishes us with an example 
 of this kind also. When about to engage in war with 
 the^ Persians, we are told that he sent messengers to 
 
ROMAN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 41 
 
 all the oracles of Africa and Greece to assure himself 
 of their veracity, and that he might know which one 
 was the most deserving of his confidence. With this 
 view his messengers were to inquire, each at his 
 appointed oracle, what Croesus was doing on such a 
 day and at such an hour previously agreed upon. 
 The king, having racked his brain to think of some- 
 thing that could not possibly be guessed at, employed 
 himself at the appointed time in boiling a tortoise 
 and a lamb in a brass vessel with a brass cover. 
 None of the oracles gave a correct answer except 
 that of Delphi. Its answer was as follows : ' I know 
 the number of the grains of sand on the seashore 
 and the measure of the ocean's vast extent : I can 
 hear the dumb and him that has not yet learned to 
 speak. A strong smell of tortoise boiled in brass, 
 together with sheep's flesh, has reached my nostrils : 
 brass beneath, brass above.' 
 
 The Emperor Trajan made a similar trial of Apollo's 
 veracity at Heliopolis,a city of Lower Egypt, Trajan at 
 where the god had also an oracle. The Heli °p° lis - 
 emperor sent a letter carefully sealed to which he 
 demanded an answer. In reply the oracle com- 
 manded a blank sheet of paper to be folded up, 
 sealed, and delivered to the imperial messenger. 
 Trajan, it is said, was greatly amazed on receipt of 
 the letter, as it corresponded exactly with his own, 
 and was a most fitting reply to a letter in which, 
 in fact, nothing whatever had been written. 
 
42 THE GENTILES. 
 
 Now the question naturally presents itself: How 
 Explanatory are suc ^ correspondences to be explained ? 
 theories. j n foe opinion of Tertullian and other 
 
 early fathers of the Church, the answers of the pagan 
 oracles were inspired by demons or fallen angels, who, 
 they assumed, could transfer themselves in a moment 
 of time from place to place, and so might easily tell 
 in the shrine at Delphi what the King of Lydia was 
 doing in his palace. At present, however, it is not 
 our purpose to attempt a satisfactory solution of this 
 problem, or, indeed, any solution at all ; what we 
 wish specially to point out is, that, during the reign 
 of the Emperor Augustus, and for long afterwards, a 
 belief in oracular responses was still a potent moral 
 force in the pagan world, and that, in the time of 
 our Saviour, not only in the localities above referred 
 to, but in many other places throughout the empire 
 as well, oracles were still busy in imposing upon the 
 ignorance and in trading upon the credulity of man- 
 kind. The many frauds and impostures detected 
 and exposed at Delphi and elsewhere had indeed 
 diminished, but by no means destroyed their credit 
 among the masses of the people ; though the culti- 
 vated classes, as a rule, had, even before the time of 
 Augustus, taken up, if not an unbelieving, at any rate 
 a doubting attitude. 
 
GREEK INFLUENCE IN ROME. 43 
 
 5. — Influence of Greek learning and 
 philosophy in Rome. 
 
 We have already observed that, several generations 
 before the Christian era, the influence of Greek 
 learning and philosophy had produced a vast effect 
 throughout the Roman world ; and in the time of 
 Augustus, if the political ascendency of Rome was 
 universal, it is not less true that the intellectual 
 ascendency of Greece was complete. Roman virtue 
 found its highest expression in the doctrine of Zeno 
 the Stoic, and Roman vice made bold to propagate 
 itself under the authority of Epicurus. These two 
 philosophies occupy a vast place in the moral history 
 of mankind ; but at no time was their influence 
 greater than just at the dawn of the Christian era, 
 when the teachers and adherents of the two systems 
 divided between them the whole wisdom and culture 
 of the world, and were to be found in every nook and 
 corner of the empire. 
 
 Stoicism was the school of thought to which the 
 noblest spirits of the pagan world belonged stoicism. 
 towards the close of the Republic and at the com- 
 mencement of the imperial regime. In an age in 
 which vice was conspicuously ascendant, the Stoic 
 stood forth as the champion of virtue, and taught the 
 lofty and severe doctrine that duty and virtue are the 
 only motives that should influence men. No prospect 
 
44 THE GENTILES. 
 
 of reward in the shape of coming glory was allowed 
 to influence their judgment. Even a belief in im- 
 mortality was never suffered to furnish a motive for 
 action. Those of the Stoics who did believe in a 
 future life wavered greatly in their belief, and even 
 when they accepted it as a fact, they did not venture 
 to propose it as a motive. The Stoical system was able 
 to propagate itself without any aid from the doctrine 
 of a life to come, and to maintain itself without the 
 assistance of such influences as the praise of mortals. 
 
 The following aphorisms of leading Stoics will 
 stoical serve to illustrate some of the lofty and 
 
 aphonsms. sublime doctrines of the school : — ' Com- 
 mit thyself cheerfully to destiny, allowing her to 
 weave thy thread into what tissue she will.' — ' Be 
 like the promontory, against which the waves go on 
 breaking unceasingly, while it stands firm and lulls 
 the angry surge to rest around it.' — 'Run always 
 the shortest way ; the shortest way is the natural 
 way, and thus be thoroughly honest in every word 
 and deed.' — ' When anything occurs that would cause 
 thee to repine, have_ recourse to the maxim, The 
 thing itself is not a misfortune, whereas the bearing 
 of it bravely is a gain.'- — ' Whatever is in anyway 
 beautiful is beautiful in itself, and with itself its 
 beauty ends. Praise forms no part of it.' — ' Never 
 forget that it is possible to be a divine man, and 
 yet a man unknown to all the world.' — ' He who 
 wishes his virtue to be blazed abroad is not labouring 
 
GREEK INFLUENCE IN ROME. 45 
 
 for virtue, but for fame.' — 'A great man is none the 
 less great when he lies vanquished and prostrate in 
 the dust.' — ' No one has attained to true philosophy 
 who has not learned that all vice should be avoided, 
 though it were concealed from the eyes of gods and 
 men ; and no deeds are more praiseworthy than those 
 which are done without parade, and far from human 
 observation.' Such sentences, and they might be 
 multiplied indefinitely, give us a pretty fair idea of 
 the moral leaven which did its appointed work in the 
 pagan world under the name of Stoicism. 
 
 To be consistent with themselves, the Stoics were 
 obliged to hold, and did hold, that nation- Eeliefs of h 
 ality, rank, country, or fortune, were the Stoics - 
 mere accidents of life, and that virtue alone makes 
 one man better than another. They also held and 
 taught that the Deity was a spirit pervading and 
 animating the entire universe, that all men were 
 members of a single body united in fellowship with 
 the same divine spirit. In fact, the theory of uni- 
 versal brotherhood was upheld and propagated by 
 the Stoics almost as distinctly as it afterwards was 
 by Christ and His apostles. ' This whole world,' 
 Cicero says, ' is to be regarded as the common city 
 of gods and men ;' and Marcus Aurelius calls upon 
 us to 'reflect on the conclusion that all rational 
 creatures were born for one another's sake.' 
 
 What a marked contrast such teaching presents to 
 the petty national jealousies and narrow ethnical 
 
4.6 THE GENTILES. 
 
 prejudices of former times ! How utterly detestable 
 such sentiments would have sounded in the ears of 
 the old Republican heroes, who had been chiefly 
 instrumental in laying the foundations of Roman 
 power and greatness ! But the world was moving 
 towards its goal, and Stoicism was contributing its 
 share in preparing it for something far better. 
 
 The system of which Epicurus was the founder 
 was, for the most part, the direct opposite of 
 
 Epicureanism. . . . 
 
 btoicism. It was based on the doctrine that 
 happiness was the chief good, and that the end and 
 aim of all philosophy was to help men to attain 
 thereto. As an apology for their vices, it was eagerly 
 embraced by multitudes. We are often told by those 
 who wish to defend Epicureanism from the charge of 
 being a vicious system, that its founder was a man of 
 blameless character ; that his teaching was utterly 
 opposed to coarse sensuality, and that almost every 
 form of virtue might be arrived at by carrying out 
 his principles. Granting this to be true, the fact 
 remains and cannot be denied, that it is only one 
 man in ten thousand who is capable of drawing nice 
 distinctions between various kinds of enjoyment, or 
 to whom elevated conceptions of what constitutes the 
 true happiness of man are intelligible. Ease, pleasure, 
 and sensuality, in one form or another, have always 
 been synonymous with happiness in the opinion of 
 the majority ; and therefore, in most cases, for a man 
 to embrace the tenets of Epicurus was tantamount to 
 
GREEK INFLUENCE IN ROME. 47 
 
 resigning himself, with all his will, to a life of luxury 
 and vicious indulgence. 
 
 And this he could do with the less compunction, 
 since neither a belief in avenging gods, nor in an 
 existence after death formed an essential part of the 
 philosophy he had adopted. The latter D ; s b e iiefin 
 belief, indeed, was repudiated absolutely immortalit y- 
 by the Epicureans, as their writings testify. And 
 when we turn from the literature of the school to 
 their grave-stones and monumental tablets we find 
 the same doctrine of utter annihilation epigram- 
 matically recorded. The following are examples of 
 this kind — ' I lived and believed in nothing beyond 
 the grave.' — ' There is no boat in Hades and no boat- 
 man : for door-keeper there is neither an ^acus nor 
 a Cerberus. All we who lie in the cold embrace of 
 death are rotten bones and ashes — nothing more.' — 
 ' I was not, and came into being ; I existed, and now 
 I exist no longer — this much is true ; whoever speaks 
 otherwise lies.' — ' I was nothing, I am nothing ; and 
 thou who art alive, eat, drink, and make merry — and 
 come.' — ' I once lived, and now life is past ; I know 
 nothing about it ; it affects me not.' — ' Thou, my com- 
 rade, who readest this, rejoice in thy life ; for after 
 death there is neither mirth nor laughter, nor any 
 other joy.' 
 
 As to the existence or non-existence of 
 the gods, it was left an open question in eg0 s ' 
 the Epicurean system. This much, however, was 
 
48 THE GENTILES. 
 
 taught as a certainty, that if divinities did exist, 
 they interested themselves in no degree in the affairs 
 of humanity : 
 
 ' Far, far from mortals and their vain concerns, 
 In peace perpetual dwell the immortal gods : 
 Each self-dependent, and from human wants 
 Estranged for ever.' 
 
 Thus writes Lucretius, one of the most devoted 
 disciples of Epicurus. And in another part of the 
 great work from which our quotation is taken we find 
 him intimating, or seeming to intimate, that the gods 
 are merely the creations of fear and superstition. 
 Unlike the Stoics, who believed in an all-pervading 
 soul of nature, in the doctrine of a divine providence, 
 and in the self-consciousness of the deity, the Epicu- 
 reans were for the most part avowed atheists. They 
 attributed the existence of the world to a fortuitous 
 concurrence of atoms, and life to spontaneous genera- 
 tion. Both philosophies, however, held the popular 
 religion in contempt, and treated with scorn the 
 current legends regarding the pagan divinities, but 
 not always openly. Very few, like Lucretius, had the 
 courage of their convictions, and dared to speak of 
 the religion of the multitude as ' the tyrant power of 
 superstition.' 
 
 'Uplifting proud 
 Her head to heaven, and with horrific limbs 
 Brooding o'er earth ; till he the man of Greece 
 Auspicious rose, who first the combat dared, 
 And broke in twain the monster's iron rod.' 
 
GREEK INFLUENCE IN ROME. 49 
 
 Few, we repeat, ventured to express their senti- 
 ments so freely. Many of those who were themselves 
 utter atheists clung to the belief that it was for the 
 advantage of society, and profitable for the State that 
 the people should continue to believe in the ancestral 
 divinities. They therefore refrained from stating 
 their opinions openly, and in most cases even con- 
 tinued to observe the outward forms of religion, and 
 to offer sacrifices publicly in the temples — partly, as 
 already remarked, for the sake of expediency, and 
 partly, no doubt, from the force of long-established 
 custom. But that attachment to the ancient cult 
 and reverence for the immortal gods, were feelings 
 fast dying out amongst the Romans of the time of 
 Augustus is unmistakably witnessed to by the fact, 
 that it had become almost impossible to fill up the 
 vacancies occasioned by death or otherwise amongst 
 the vestal virgins, from free Roman families. 
 
 The Vestales, or Priestesses of Vesta, were a very 
 ancient and very honourable virgin class TheVestai 
 amongst the Romans. It was required Vir s ms - 
 that they should be born of good family, and their 
 duties were considered most important. They were 
 to see that the sacred fire on the altar of Vesta was 
 not extinguished, since such a circumstance was 
 supposed to presage some terrible calamity to the 
 State. Another equally important duty which the 
 vestals had to discharge was to act as custodians 
 of a sacred relic, on the safety of which the very 
 
 E 
 
tjO THE GENTILES. 
 
 existence of Rome was said to depend, and which 
 was popularly supposed to be the statue of Minerva, 
 which had been brought from Troy to Italy by ./Eneas. 
 The privileges of the vestals were very great. They 
 had the place of honour at all public games and 
 festivals ; they could ride in chariots when they 
 pleased, and if by accident they met a criminal on 
 the way to execution, they had the power to pardon 
 him. To insult them was a capital offence, and 
 whoever attempted to dishonour them was scourged 
 to death. 
 
 That such an office as this should go begging, and 
 that it should be necessary to have recourse to the 
 families of manumitted slaves to furnish the due 
 complement of vestals, is, we think, a striking proof 
 of the decadence of the ancient religion. 
 
 One important point on which the Epicureans and 
 suicide. Stoics were agreed, we must not omit to 
 
 notice, viz., the question of suicide. Both schools 
 held suicide under certain circumstances to be a 
 meritorious act. Patet exitus ! The way out of 
 this life is open ! was a boldly proclaimed dictum of 
 pagan philosophy, and one too with which Roman 
 law had no faults to find. It must be admitted 
 that perfect unanimity amongst the ancient sages 
 on this point there was not. Pythagoras, for in- 
 stance, is said to have taught that it was wrong for 
 men to depart from their guard or station in life, 
 without the order of their Commander, that is, of God. 
 
GREEK INFLUENCE IN ROME. 51 
 
 A similar view was held by Socrates, and in a 
 modified form by Plato. Aristotle also condemned 
 suicide, but on civic grounds, as doing an injury to 
 the State. These great names, however, belong to 
 an earlier era. It still remains true that patet exiltis 
 expresses the opinion regarding self-slaughter, 
 which in the time of Augustus may be said to have 
 been all but unanimous. Epicurus advises men to 
 weigh carefully whether they would prefer death to 
 come to them or would themselves go to death. 
 Many amongst his followers chose the last-named 
 alternative, Lucretius, for instance, and Petronius, 
 the master of ceremonies at the court of Nero. The 
 latter, we are told, having opened his veins, began 
 discoursing in his last moments about the gay songs 
 and licentious epigrams of the hour, and actually 
 regaled himself with a sumptuous banquet whilst 
 bleeding to death. With regard to the Stoical 
 doctrine respecting suicide, one of its most eloquent 
 exponents is responsible for the following teaching : 
 • Against all the ills of life I have the refuge of death.' 
 — ' See that yawning precipice — you can go over it to 
 liberty. Behold that sea, that river, that well, liberty 
 sits at the bottom. Do you seek the way to freedom ? 
 You may find it in every vein of your body.' — ' De- 
 part from life as your impulse leads you, whether it 
 be by the sword, or the rope, or the poison : go your 
 way, and break the chains of slavery. . . The eternal 
 law has decreed nothing better than this, that life 
 
52 
 
 THE GENTILES. 
 
 should have but one entrance, and many exits. . . . 
 If life please you, live : if not, you have a right to 
 return whence you came.' 
 
 In passing away from this subject we may observe 
 These that while the systems of philosophy re- 
 
 systemsdii ferred to exercised a vast influence over 
 
 not touch the 
 
 multitude. the learned and cultured classes of society, 
 either for good or evil,, the multitude remained, at 
 least so far as the Stoical system was concerned, al- 
 together unaffected thereby. In grand moral theoriz- 
 ing and sublime philosophical conceptions, the mass 
 of the people took no interest whatsoever. How, 
 indeed, could they ? What had the suffering millions 
 — the weary and heavy laden — the bruised and heart- 
 broken to do with a doctrine that had no balm for 
 their wounds, and whose only response to the cry of 
 the helpless and distressed was the inflexible man- 
 date : Do thy duty ! The high standard of self- 
 control exacted by Stoicism, its imperious impatience 
 with human infirmities, and its utter contempt for the 
 emotional part of man's nature, rendered its adoption 
 practically impossible for ordinary mortals. It was 
 
 ' No lantern for erring feet, but a glare on a white straight road, 
 Where life struggled its weary day, to sink before night with 
 its load.' 
 
 As a school of heroes it was admirable ; but it had 
 no attraction at all for the vulgar mind, and was 
 absolutely incapable of accommodating itself to 
 
THE POPULAR RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 53 
 
 unheroic lives. How different from the docrrine of 
 Jesus ! 
 
 ' The pure teaching, the passionate love, taking thought for the 
 
 humble and weak, 
 The pitiful scorn of wrong which His Scriptures everywhere 
 
 speak . 
 
 Not writ for the sage in his cell, but preached mid turmoil 
 
 and strife, 
 And touched with a living brand from the fire of the Altar 
 of Life. 
 
 ****** 
 ■ 
 — the brotherhood that He loved is more than a saintly 
 
 thought, 
 And the wars and the strifes which we mourn are lost in the 
 peace He taught.' 
 
 6. — State of the Popular Religious Belief 
 at the time of christ. 
 
 In moral and religious matters generally, it may- 
 be truly said the philosophers were not at all in 
 accord with the popular faith, and the people on their 
 part had no sympathy with them. It must not be 
 supposed, however, that the popular views on religious 
 subjects, in the midst of so many changes, had re- 
 mained changeless, and that they had suffered no 
 modification from the influences that were at work 
 and the events that had taken place. If, at the 
 commencement of the Christian era, the ancient 
 peoples of the world had not become less superstitious, 
 
54 THE GENTILES. 
 
 they had, at all events, grown vastly more tolerant [in 
 matters of faith ; and religious fanaticism had visibly 
 diminished. 
 
 This change was the necessary outcome of the 
 Thetoiera- policy of Rome. It was and had been for 
 of Rome. a long period a maxim of Roman state- 
 craft to exercise toleration towards all religions. 
 Whenever a town or province was conquered, the 
 local or national deities were forthwith respectfully 
 and solemnly invited to take up their abode at Rome, 
 in the following terms, ' If there be a god or goddess 
 who has taken this people or this town under his 
 care, I supplicate thee, O divinity ! whosoever thou 
 mayest be, to forsake this people, to withdraw from 
 this city and this temple, and to come to Rome to 
 me and mine. Let our city, our temple and sacrifices, 
 be acceptable unto thee. If thou wilt do this, I, on 
 my part, shall dedicate a temple and offerings to thy 
 divinity.' The Roman theory of conquest might be 
 summed up in the brief sentence: All that belongs 
 to the vanquished belongs to victors, except their 
 gods. These were to be reverently acknowledged, 
 and never to be alienated by force. 
 
 But while the Romans refrained from depriving 
 the conquered peoples of their religion, 
 
 Roman gods 
 
 always intro- they always carried their own gods with 
 
 duced into ' . • i 1 
 
 conquered them into the provinces, and required the 
 inhabitants to treat them with that re- 
 verence which they, on their part, accorded to the 
 
THE POPULAR RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 55 
 
 local deities. Such an arrangement seems, at first 
 sight, reasonable and tolerant enough ; and yet what a 
 fruitful source of heart-burning and rebellion it must 
 have been to the devout Hebrews, who were scattered 
 everywhere throughout the empire, and whose religion 
 not only required them to worship the one living and 
 true God, but likewise forbade them to do homage 
 to any other god besides ! The same grievance was 
 of course felt by the Christians at a somewhat later 
 period. However, in the great majority of cases, no 
 difficulty whatever was experienced, and the arrange- 
 ment worked smoothly enough on the whole. The 
 Romans took their gods to the provinces, and the 
 provincials brought their gods to the capital, where, 
 on the Palatine Hill, the divinities of the whole earth 
 were able to salute each other. It may be truly said, 
 that in the time of Augustus, the rites and obser- 
 vances of every religion under heaven were freely 
 practised within the walls of the imperial city. In 
 the very bosom of a community which had dedicated 
 temples to Jupiter, Mars, Fortune, and Apollo, were 
 to be found a synagogue of the Hebrews, a shrine of 
 the Egyptian Isis, and a grove of Cybele, the Syrian 
 goddess. 
 
 Thus, through the forces which were at work, not 
 only did the nationalities of the ancient world become 
 fused together, but its religions as well came to 
 have a mixed character ; and the opinion began to 
 prevail amongst the masses, that the gods did not 
 
56 THE GENTILES. 
 
 differ much ; that promiscuous worship was, on the 
 whole, a safe thing, seeing that if one divinity- 
 happened to fail the worshipper, another might 
 perchance be able to befriend him. The ancient 
 religion of the Roman State had, in fact, been 
 supplanted, both in Rome and throughout her 
 provinces, by a religious chaos, which was, however, 
 in the good providence of the Almighty and Omni- 
 scient Controller of human destiny, but a preparatory 
 step to the creation of a new world. 
 
 We read that, in the beginning, when the earth 
 was without form and void, and darkness was upon 
 the face of the deep, the Lord said, Let there be 
 light, and light was. So, in like manner, when the 
 faith of humanity had become formless and con- 
 fused in a degree without parallel in the world's 
 annals, and when darkness impenetrable had settled 
 down on the spirit of our race, then it was that He 
 came in whom was life, 'and the life was the light 
 of men.' 
 
 7. — The Social Life of the Roman Empire. 
 
 Having given at least a faint idea of the religious 
 state of the world when our Saviour appeared, we 
 shall now proceed to describe as clearly and as con- 
 cisely as we can the world's social condition at the 
 same period. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 57 
 
 We shall begin with the domestic life of the 
 ancients. In Greece, from a very early 
 
 . . . , . The social 
 
 period, woman occupied a position very state of 
 inferior to man, and the sale of wives Q° e ^" m 
 was quite customary. In later times, this 
 arrangement was altered somewhat, and the legal 
 position of women slightly improved, so that a wife 
 became less the slave and more the help-meet of her 
 lord. Unlike the Jews and some other Eastern 
 peoples, the Greeks condemned polygamy, and mon- 
 ogamy was an institution early established amongst 
 them ; though, it is true, departures from the general 
 rule occasionally occurred. The wives of the Greeks 
 lived a life of great retirement and seclusion. Weav- 
 ing, spinning, embroidery, and the care of their 
 families and households, were their sole employments. 
 The most retired portion of the house was set apart 
 for their use. They walked out but seldom, and then 
 always in the company of a female slave. They were 
 never to be seen at public games or spectacles. Male 
 visitors were never received by them except in the 
 presence of their husbands ; and if such remained for 
 any meal, the seat of the mistress of the house was 
 always empty. The consequences of such a mode of 
 existence were inevitable. Living almost exclusively 
 amongst slaves, and being deprived of the educating 
 influence of male society (such as it was), and of the 
 public shows, which were one of the chief means of 
 culture amongst the Greeks, the mental powers of the 
 
58 THE GENTILES. 
 
 Grecian matron remained dormant, and her nobler 
 faculties decayed, through want of the exercise 
 necessary for their health and development. On the 
 whole, the position of virtuous women amongst the 
 Greeks was far from a desirable one, though, it must 
 be admitted that the combined force of custom and 
 of habit save-d it from being altogether unhappy. 
 The Greek matron possessed in a pre-eminent degree 
 the grace of modesty and the virtue of chastity, but 
 she was not the stuff out of which the world's heroines 
 are made, and as such she seldom appears on the 
 page of history. 
 
 In marked contrast with Greek wives and mothers as 
 The a class, stand the women of easy virtue and 
 
 Hetairse. licentious lives. Courtesans were the real 
 
 heroines of Greek society, and, strange though it may 
 appear, even filled the office of priestesses in some of 
 their temples. Being under no restrictions whatever as 
 to their manner of life, they freely availed themselves 
 of those means of mental culture denied to their more 
 virtuous sisters. Thus they added to the charms of 
 surpassing beauty, which they generally possessed, 
 the intellectual fascinations of cultivated genius and 
 brilliant accomplishments. Their wealth, too, was in 
 some cases enormous. It is related of Phryne, the 
 celebrated paramour of Praxiteles, that when Thebes 
 was overthrown by the Macedonian army, she offered 
 to restore it at her own cost, provided only the in- 
 habitants would consent to inscribe upon its walls, in 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 59 
 
 golden letters, the words — ' Alexander destroyed this 
 city, Phryne rebuilt it.' Doubtless courtesans, as a 
 class, were subject to some slight legal disqualifica- 
 tions. However, though less respected than Greek 
 wives, they were more admired, and extra-matrimonial 
 connexions were formed with them quite openly and 
 without the slightest shame or compunction. The 
 national misfortunes of later times deteriorated still 
 more the morals of the Greeks, and after the loss 
 of their independence things went from bad to 
 worse. 
 
 Turning to the Roman civilization we find that the 
 position of women was also an inferior The position 
 
 of women in 
 
 one, but scarcely so much so as among the Rome. 
 Greeks. A host of legends exist which testify to the 
 high moral estimation in which women were held by 
 the Romans, the important part they played in 
 social life, and the share they had in their country's 
 glories. Matrimonial purity was very strict, and for 
 the first five hundred years of Rome's existence as 
 a nation such a thing as a divorce was unknown. 
 Gibbon, it is true, somewhat minimizes this virtue by 
 the remark that ' the same fact evinces the unequal 
 terms of a connexion in which the slave was unable 
 to renounce her tyrant, and the tyrant was unwilling 
 to relinquish his slave.' The Roman led his wife 
 about with him, a place was assigned to her at the 
 public games, and she always took her seat at the 
 head of her own table. The courtesan class, though 
 
6o THE GENTILES. 
 
 largely enough represented, no doubt, among the 
 Romans, asjelsewhere, was thoroughly despised, and 
 to belong to it was considered an indelible dis- 
 grace. 
 
 But with the widening of the bounds of empire, 
 The and the rapid and enormous influx of 
 
 influence of 
 
 the East. wealth, great changes for the worse took 
 place. Rome, unhappily, was heir, not only of the 
 learning and philosophy of the Greeks, but of their 
 vices as well, and to these were soon added the 
 debasing effeminacies and loathsome lusts of the 
 Oriental nations, representatives of which daily 
 thronged, in ever-increasing numbers, the thorough- 
 fares of the world's capital. Before the luxury and 
 voluptuousness of the Empire republican simplicity 
 soon disappeared ; and female modesty and virtue 
 hopelessly succumbed in the presence of the un- 
 blushing licence of a generation which laughed at 
 conjugal fidelity, and looked on the marriage bond 
 as only a preliminary step to divorcement. In cir- 
 cumstances such as these it was not strange that 
 men preferred to remain in a state of ! single 
 blessedness.' 
 
 To such an extent, indeed, did this preference pre- 
 vail, that it was feared injury to the State might 
 result ; and the Emperor Augustus found himself 
 compelled to pass a law whereby many special 
 privileges were conferred on the fathers of three 
 or more children ; and at the same time a heavy tax 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 6 1 
 
 was imposed on men who, after a certain age, per- 
 sisted in remaining bachelors. This tax, Tax imposed 
 however, very many elected to pay rather ^ d me ? who 
 than risk their fortune in a matrimonial marr y- 
 lottery, in which, for every man who won a prize, 
 hundreds won nothing that was worth winning, and 
 became, in the end, responsible for a much heavier 
 tax than that imposed by Augustus. For, during the 
 first years of the empire, even very rich men found 
 the expenses of female vanity a burden almost greater 
 than they could bear. With fashionable Roman 
 ladies, and their many imitators throughout the 
 empire, it had become a common practice, before 
 retiring for the night, to cover their faces with an 
 artificial paste, in order to preserve their complexion. 
 In the morning they took a bath in asses' milk (the 
 services of fifty or sixty asses being required for this 
 purpose), also for the sake of their beauty. Sweet- 
 scented oil, perfumes, ointments, and paints of many 
 colours and of every description, were indispensable 
 requisites to the proper performance of their toilette. 
 The skill of the best artists was employed in dressing 
 and frizzing their hair, which was often dyed red, in 
 compliance with the fashionable craze of the period. 
 Frequently, however, they had it cut off altogether, 
 and false hair substituted in its stead. The shorn-off 
 locks of the red-haired barbarians of Germany were 
 much in demand for such purposes ; and we are told 
 that those who trafficked in the commodity had the 
 
62 THE GENTILES. 
 
 greatest difficulty in obtaining it in sufficient quan- 
 tities to meet the requirements of the fashion. 
 Fabulous sums were also expended on gorgeous 
 wardrobes and jewelled ornaments. And the most 
 distressing aspect of the matter was, that the un- 
 fortunate husband who was being impoverished by 
 such lavish outlay, was constantly learning, from 
 bitter experience, that the costlier a woman's tastes 
 are as regards outward adornment, the less is her 
 moral value and the more trifling her intrinsic worth. 
 There is another feature of the domestic life of the 
 ancients which is especially worthy of our 
 
 Relation of r J J 
 
 parents to notice, viz., the parent's relation to and 
 children. treatment of his offspring. Of all the 
 
 historic personages of antiquity perhaps none has 
 been regarded with greater abhorrence and detestation 
 throughout the ages of Christendom, than Herod the 
 Idumean, who was King of Judaea when our Saviour 
 was born. He may be said to have attained a 'bad 
 eminence ' little below that of Judas Iscariot himself. 
 The reason is not far to seek. It is to be found in 
 the sixteenth verse of the second chapter of the 
 Gospel according to St. Matthew, where we read that 
 ' Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise 
 men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew 
 all the male children that were in Bethlehem, and in 
 all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, 
 according to the time which he had carefully learned 
 of the wise men.' Such a deed certainly does appear 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 63 
 
 to us a crime of the very first magnitude, and yet, 
 when measured by the moral standard of the time, it 
 can scarcely be looked upon as an offence at all. 
 And this explains how it was that Josephus, the 
 historian of the period, while chronicling many of the 
 other crimes and cruelties of Herod, never once 
 refers to this circumstance — the cold-blooded mas- 
 sacre of some score of innocents being considered 
 an event so trivial as to be beneath the dignity of 
 historic record. 
 
 A very slight acquaintance with the practices of 
 infanticide. the pagan world (Herod, though King of 
 Judaea, was at heart a pagan, and Josephus, though a 
 Jew, was familiar with and accustomed to pagan 
 ways) will explain the otherwise inexplicable pheno- 
 menon. It is no exaggeration to say that the empire 
 over which Augustus ruled was literally crimsoned 
 with the blood of infants murdered, not by fearful 
 and ambitious tyrants, but by their own parents. A 
 Roman father had the undisputed right to destroy 
 his new-born child if it so pleased him, without being 
 at all answerable to any court or tribunal of justice. 
 This parental prerogative was unhappily as often 
 exercised as not ; and in the case of children who 
 were born in a sickly or deformed condition in- 
 fanticide was the uniform practice. Such remorseless 
 cruelty is to be attributed to a variety of causes 
 — sometimes to the destitution of the parents — some- 
 times to mere motives of economy ; but, whatever the 
 
64 THE GENTILES. 
 
 ostensible reason was, it unmistakably indicated an 
 utter absence of all natural affection and a complete 
 ignorance of the child's capacity for immortality. 
 
 As an alternative to destroying infants by violent 
 means, the practice of exposing them in some public 
 place was much resorted to. ' Exposing of children/ 
 says Gibbon, ' was the prevailing and stubborn vice of 
 antiquity; it was sometimes prescribed, often per- 
 mitted, almost always practised with impunity !' And 
 an eminent writer of the present day, referring to the 
 same custom, remarks, ' Often, no doubt, the exposed 
 infants perished, but more frequently the very 
 extent of the practice saved the lives of the victims. 
 They were brought systematically to a column 
 near Velabrum, and there taken by speculators, who 
 educated them as slaves or very frequently as 
 prostitutes.' 
 
 To a world that looked without loathing on such 
 brutality, and whose eyes had become familiar with 
 such scenes, how startling, how incongruous must have 
 sounded the words of the dear Lord, when He said, 
 ' Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid 
 them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven ! ' 
 
 The authority the parent possessed over his infant 
 Absolute was not less absolute when the child be- 
 
 authority . , . - 
 
 of the father, came a youth, and the youth grew to 
 manhood. It was quite within the right of a Roman 
 father to punish his adult son for any fault whatso- 
 ever, or for no fault, by any form of cruelty that 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 6$ 
 
 happened at the moment to suggest itself. He might 
 at his pleasure beat him with stripes, imprison him, 
 or even transport him to the plantations to work in 
 irons like a slave. From the laws that were sub- 
 sequently enacted, whereby the unlimited and ar- 
 bitrary power of .the parent was first reduced to the 
 authority of a judge, and finally to the simple duty 
 of an accuser, we may reasonably infer that parental 
 privilege was frequently abused. Indeed, in the 
 reign of Augustus, more than one case is recorded in 
 which a father cruelly took away the life of his son, 
 if not without some censure, at least without the 
 smallest punishment. It is obvious, therefore, that 
 the child of the family occupied more the position 
 of a servile dependant than an equal ; and his feeling 
 towards his parent was frequently that of a slave 
 rather than of a son. 
 
 How pleasant to turn the weary eye from all this 
 to the relationship which subsists between parent 
 and child under the dispensation of Christ ! What a 
 contrast presents itself when we look on that picture 
 and on this ! Christian parents love their children, 
 and manifest the tenderest care and solicitude on 
 their behalf. Christian children esteem and honour 
 their parents as long as they are alive, and cherish 
 their memory and their counsels with the most 
 tenacious veneration, when death's pale messenger 
 has summoned them hence out of their sight. What 
 a wondrous charm lingers about the words that fall 
 
 F 
 
66 THE GENTILES. 
 
 upon the ear from the sanctified lips of a parent ; 
 they remain fresh and green in the memory when 
 the tongue that uttered them is for ever silent in the 
 grave, and the loving looks that accompanied them 
 have long since been mantled in the deep darkness 
 of death. Though uttered in the [ear of childhood, 
 they remain fixed in the remembrance of the man, 
 and reverberate like the sound of far-off music through 
 the lonely years of age. They are present with us in 
 all our joys, and they help to soften all our sorrows ; 
 they exercise a harmonizing influence on the jarring 
 and discordant noises of this earth, and float around 
 us in the quiet hours like echoes of the songs of 
 heaven ! 
 
 Turning to the social life of the ancients in its 
 Public more public aspect, we observe the same 
 
 aspect of 
 
 sociaiiife. luxury and extravagance everywhere pre- 
 vailing which we have already noticed in connexion 
 with private life. The pursuit of expensive pastimes 
 and costly pleasures characterized in a pre-eminent 
 degree the Augustan period. Indeed, Tacitus assures 
 us that the century from the Battle of Actium till the 
 commencement of the reign of Vespasian was the 
 period of the greatest luxury in Rome. In the old 
 republican days, men found employment for their 
 energies and reward for their exertions in the ardent 
 pursuit of power and place ; but under the imperial 
 regime, when all the offices of state were concentrated 
 in one man, and that man absolute, the prizes open 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 67 
 
 to honourable ambition and attainable by individual 
 effort were very few, and of a kind not much to be 
 coveted. As for work, in the ordinary sense of that 
 term, it was considered utterly incompatible with the 
 self-respect of freemen, and treated with scorn as the 
 vocation of a slave. Thus it came to pass that in 
 the ancient world no middle class arose, such as 
 exists in the present day in all civilized countries. 
 Among the cultivated Greeks all work which de- 
 manded physical exertion was held in contempt, 
 and the Romans deemed any employment whereby 
 money was earned beneath the dignity of a re- 
 spectable Roman citizen, except the professions of 
 medicine and architecture. The business of a mer- 
 chant was also exempt from opprobrium, if carried 
 on in an extensive way. 
 
 It is true that before the civil wars there had 
 existed throughout the rural districts a- influence of 
 kind of yeomanry, who tilled their own wa rs. 
 lands, and formed a sort of middle class between the 
 very rich and the very poor. During the civil dis- 
 turbances, however, many of these people lost their 
 holdings, and the legions were rewarded with vast 
 districts of land by the victorious generals whose 
 fortunes they had followed. But it was obviously 
 an impossibility for a Roman veteran to settle down 
 to the peaceful pursuits of husbandry, and con- 
 sequently he soon parted with his portion of the 
 spoil to the highest bidder. This afforded a fine 
 
68 THE GENTILES. 
 
 opportunity, which wealthy men readily embraced, of 
 buying up numbers of small farms, and consolidating 
 them into extensive estates. The people who had 
 been driven from their homes naturally made their 
 way to the large cities, and of course vast multitudes 
 flocked to the capital itself. Thus we find that 
 during the reign of Augustus the population of 
 Rome was about two millions — half as large as 
 London. Of these ten thousand, or one out of every 
 two hundred, were of the patrician class ; abouty fifty 
 thousand were strangers in Rome from all parts of 
 the world ; one million, or about half the entire 
 population, were slaves ; the rest belonged to the 
 proletariat. For the last-mentioned class employ- 
 ment in Rome was by no means plentiful, and for the 
 very obvious reason that the wealthy citizens had 
 their needs amply supplied and their requirements 
 adequately met by the ministrations of their own 
 slaves. Free labour, therefore, had to seek its patrons 
 chiefly amongst those who were not rich, and in 
 many cases not much removed in station from those 
 whom they employed. Multitudes of the people 
 passed their time in utter idleness, and were de- 
 pendent for the very necessaries of life on the bounty 
 of the State. 
 
 It was an old civic custom to give grain to the 
 state pau- people at a very moderate price ; but a law 
 penzation. was subsequently passed which authorized 
 the distribution of that commodity without any 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 69 
 
 charge whatever to all who required it, — no question 
 being asked as to moral character. On a certain day 
 in each month five sacks of grain were duly delivered 
 to every citizen whose name was on a certain list, and 
 who came to the granary furnished with the necessary 
 order from the magistrate. Money was also given 
 sometimes to those who were entitled to receive grain, 
 as alms. Sometimes, however, it was bestowed as a 
 present, in which case all citizens came in for a share* 
 It is on record that as much as .£3 per head has at 
 times been expended in this way, the entire outlay 
 costing the State some two million pounds sterling. 
 Such was the method devised by ancient Rome for 
 making every citizen a participator in the spoils of 
 conquest, and a sharer in the advantages of universal 
 empire. On the part of the populace these promis- 
 cuous benefactions soon came to be looked upon as a 
 right, while on the part of the rulers they assumed 
 the dignity and importance of a State duty. The 
 multitude thus subsisted for the most part on eleemo- 
 synary donations, the tendency of which in every age 
 and country is to demoralize and degrade. 
 
 The upper ten thousand meanwhile lived in the 
 enjoyment of every conceivable luxury, and 
 
 J J J •" Condition of 
 
 indulged in all manner of extravagant plea- the upper 
 sures and vicious delights. Vast fortunes 
 were expended in the erection of marble palaces, 
 which were converted into 'sties of sense/ wherein 
 wallowed their voluptuous possessors, surrounded by 
 
JO THE GENTILES. 
 
 every variety of obscene sight and unchaste decoration. 
 No expedient was omitted, no device ignored, that 
 could minister in any way to carnal lust or stimulate 
 fleshly passion. Every zone was laid under tribute 
 to furnish delicacies for their sumptuous feasts — 
 indeed, such panderers to appetite were they, that, by 
 way of giving the fishes in their reservoirs a more 
 delicate flavour, they not unfrequently flung them 
 the body of one of their healthiest and fattest slaves. 
 And when they walked abroad they were always 
 accompanied by troops of retainers, as a vainglorious 
 token of their social importance. 
 
 But in every deep there is a lower deep still, and 
 the condition of the slave class as it existed 
 
 The slaves. 
 
 in the time of Augustus represents the 
 ultimate grade in the social degeneracy of the pagan 
 world. Both amongst the Greeks and Romans slaves 
 and cattle were placed in the same category ; the only 
 difference recognized between them being that the one 
 was dumb and the other could speak. 
 
 At the dawn of our era a traveller to or from Rome 
 must have noticed at intervals, as he passed along the 
 great high road, huge ugly structures lying away in 
 the hazy distance, on his right hand or on his left. 
 These were the ergastala, or slave prisons, wherein 
 were lodged the slaves employed upon the several 
 estates on which the ergastula respectively stood. 
 Horrible and repulsive dungeons they were, built 
 partly underground, filthy beyond all description, and 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. y\ 
 
 unhealthy to the last degree. How, indeed, could it 
 be otherwise, seeing that therein were nightly housed, 
 like so many oxen, thousands of unhappy creatures 
 who were often compelled to toil and sweat, from 
 youth till age, their lives through, in cultivating the 
 fields of their cruel taskmasters ! To prevent a slave 
 from trying to escape, and to facilitate his capture, 
 should such an attempt be made, his flesh was branded 
 with a red-hot iron. When he happened to die, his 
 body was tossed into the nearest ditch with as little 
 ceremony as if it were the carcase of a dead dog. 
 The aged and infirm, and all who could not work, 
 were either driven forth to starve, or simply despatched 
 at once, as something that had served its day, and 
 was done with. Even those in the enjoyment of 
 perfect health were often put to death for the most 
 trivial offences, and in the cruellest way. It is a 
 matter of history that a Roman praetor actually 
 ordered one of his slaves to be crucified — and for 
 what? Simply because, during a hunt, the unfortunate 
 wretch happened to kill a wild boar prematurely, or 
 with greater expedition than pleased the humour of 
 his imperious lord. 
 
 As a rule domestic slaves were more mercifully 
 treated than those doomed to labour on the Domestic 
 plantations. But the rule had numerous slaver y- 
 exceptions. To the house-slave was often assigned 
 the duty of keeping watch at the entrance of his 
 master's mansion, chained to a post, as we are accus- 
 
72 THE GENTILES. 
 
 tomed to chain dogs. In his case, too, scourging and 
 even death was frequently inflicted as the penalty of 
 the slightest indiscretion. We read of at least one 
 Roman who had a slave killed for no weightier reason 
 than that the curiosity of a guest might be gratified 
 by the dying agonies of the sufferer. Roman ladies, 
 not one whit behind their lords in the matter of 
 inhumanity, inflicted all kinds of cruelties on their 
 servants in moments of passion, dealing them heavy 
 blows with whatever came nearest to their hand, and 
 sometimes actually burying their long hair-pins in 
 their quivering flesh. And, what was worse than all, 
 to indulge a fiendish caprice, and for mere pastime, 
 they not unfrequently subjected their unoffending 
 slaves to the most excruciating tortures. And, strange 
 as it may seem, the Roman law, which boasted of 
 its equity, dealt just as pitilessly with the members 
 of the servile class as did their remorseless masters. 
 A cruel enactment, intended of course to safeguard 
 the lives of citizens, required that if a man were 
 murdered, and the perpetrator of the crime not dis- 
 covered, all the slaves in the household should forth- 
 with be put to death, — except, of course, such as were 
 in chains at the time, or who were helpless through 
 age or infirmity. And we read of an instance in 
 which no less than four hundred slaves of both sexes 
 and of all ages were ruthlessly executed, in conformity 
 with the provisions of this harsh law. 
 
 When in connection with such facts we call to mind 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. J$ 
 
 that a large proportion of the slaves were captives 
 taken in war, who, in the midst of all this cruelty, and 
 hardship, and oppression, still cherished the remem- 
 brance of a free and happy past, and of a home beside 
 a pleasant river, or in a sylvan vale, in some sunny 
 land far away, w.e can imagine how their grief and 
 misery were intensified, and how they experienced to 
 the full the bitter truth embodied in the words of the 
 great Italian poet : — 
 
 ' Nessun maggior dolore 
 Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
 Nella miseria ;' 
 
 and which our own Tennyson so well anglicises 
 when he says : — 
 
 1 This is true, the poet sings, 
 That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.' 
 
 At such a melancholy juncture in the world's 
 history it was that the glorious prophecy of Isaiah, 
 the son of Amoz, was fulfilled, and the Lord's 
 Anointed was 'sent to preach good tidings unto the 
 meek : to bind up the broken-hearted : to proclaim 
 liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison 
 to them that were bound : to proclaim the acceptable 
 year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our 
 God, to comfort all that mourn.' 
 
 We now turn to that particular aspect of the social 
 life of the pagan world which we find so Sp ortsand 
 fully illustrated in their sports and pastimes, Pastimes - 
 
74 THE GENTILES. 
 
 With reference to the Grecian games, practised 
 from time immemorial throughout the Greek penin- 
 sula, we must speak very briefly. They were talked 
 about over the entire civilized world, and were con- 
 sidered most important events in the national life of 
 the Greeks. These games, which were four in number, 
 were known as the Olympic, Isthmian, Nemean, and 
 Pythian games, and were so called either from the 
 locality in which they took place, or, as in the case 
 of the last-mentioned, from the god in whose honour 
 they were held. They were celebrated with great 
 pomp and splendour, and every effort was put forth 
 in order that the various members of the Pan-Hellenic 
 community might be able to attend them with security 
 and convenience. At the appointed times, and in the 
 presence of innumerable spectators, the competitors 
 for the prize engaged in all manner of athletic sports, 
 such as running, wrestling, throwing of the quoit, 
 boxing, horse and chariot races, etc. — the victor re- 
 ceiving as his reward a simple wreath of olive, or of 
 laurel, or of parsley ! The prize was, from a pecuniary 
 point of view, worthless, and designedly so, for it was 
 intended thus to signify that honour, not interest, 
 should be the principle actuating men in the perform- 
 ance of illustrious deeds. It is of course from these 
 games that the Apostle Paul, in writing to the various 
 Churches, draws some of his happiest illustrations: 
 as, for instance, in his first letter to the Church at 
 Corinth, when he says, ' Know ye not that they which 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 75 
 
 run in a racecourse run all, but one receiveth the 
 prize ? Even so run that ye may attain. And every 
 man that striveth in the games is temperate in all 
 things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible 
 crown : but we an incorruptible.' 
 
 Of the said games the Olympic were unquestionably 
 the most important and imposing. They T he Olympic 
 were sacred to Zeus, the greatest of the s ames - 
 gods, and took place at Olympia, a. small town in 
 the Peloponnesus, at the expiration of every four 
 years, and they lasted for five days. The portion 
 of time which elapsed between two successive cele- 
 brations of these games was called an Olympiad 
 — a method of chronological reckoning employed by 
 the Greeks from pre-historic times down till the end 
 of the fourth century of the Christian era. The year 
 in which Christ was born corresponds with the close 
 of the 194th Olympiad and the beginning of the one 
 following. We must not omit in this connexion to 
 point out a further honour with which the successful 
 competitor in the Olympic contests was rewarded, viz., 
 that his name was henceforth used to designate the 
 particular Olympiad or four-year-cycle in which he 
 was winner of the olive crown. Thus did the Greeks 
 immortalize their most illustrious compatriots, and 
 keep in perpetual remembrance their glorious achieve- 
 ments, — for to conquer at Olympia was, in the estima- 
 tion of the Greeks, the highest distinction attainable 
 by mortals; in fact, it was supposed to exalt the victor 
 
j6 THE GENTILES. 
 
 above humanity altogether, and to place him on an 
 equality with the immortals. 
 
 For a very long time only those of Hellenic origin 
 were allowed to contend in these games ; but after 
 the conquest of Greece. by the Romans, this law was 
 relaxed, and the latter also obtained the privilege. 
 It is worthy of notice, as an example of the high es- 
 timation in which these games were held, that some of 
 the Roman emperors — Tiberius and Nero, for instance 
 — did not think it beneath their dignity to enter the 
 lists as competitors ; and the latter is said to have 
 contended in the games with such success, that he 
 was able to carry back with him to Rome (which he 
 entered in triumph) no less than one thousand eight 
 hundred and eight victor's wreaths. 
 
 In striking contrast with the bloodless and com- 
 paratively harmless games of the Greeks, were the 
 cruel and atrocious sports in which the Romans were 
 wont to engage. Of these, the entertainments of the 
 circus, though often revolting and bloody enough, 
 were, on the whole, the least objectionable. 
 
 If we picture to ourselves a monster edifice com- 
 The circus posed of wood, oblong in shape, furnished 
 Maximus. \ w \i\i seats all round, rising one above the 
 other, and capable of accommodating 250,000 people, 
 we shall have at least a faint idea of the Circus 
 Maximus at Rome in the time of Augustus. There 
 were also in the same city seven or eight other 
 structures of a like kind, and used for similar purposes, 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Jj 
 
 but they were not nearly so extensive. In the centre 
 of the circus was a wide open space, set apart for all 
 manner of games and athletic sports, resembling very 
 much the Grecian games of which we have been 
 speaking, and of which indeed they were in a great 
 measure an imitation. At the period under con- 
 sideration, however, chariot races were the chief 
 feature in the circensian amusements. As the stated 
 time for the annual celebration of these games came 
 round, and for weeks previously, Rome was thrown 
 into a perfect fever of excitement, and all minds were 
 occupied with anxious speculations as to the probable 
 results of the approaching contests. Blue, green, 
 white, and red were the colours worn by the respective 
 charioteers. Four chariots, as a general rule, formed 
 the complement at each start ; seven times round the 
 course determined the issue of the contest, and four- 
 and-twenty races exhausted the programme for one 
 day. The excitement caused by these contests it is 
 very difficult to imagine, and yet more difficult to 
 describe. The entire population were split up into 
 factions, each patronizing one or other of the colours 
 mentioned, and in most cases wearing it as a party 
 badge. Fights and brawls were continually oc- 
 curring ; and in connexion with a matter which 
 appears to us so trivial, blood was often freely shed 
 and lives not unfrequently sacrificed. A religious 
 service and a procession from the temple of the 
 Capitolian Jupiter, in which those bearing the images 
 
y8 THE GENTILES. 
 
 of the Roman deities led the way, inaugurated these 
 festivities. 
 
 We now pass to that entirely unique phase of 
 Gladiatorial Roman holiday-making which is without 
 Combats. parallel either amongst the Greeks or any 
 other ancient people, and which has furnished matter 
 for some of the darkest and most dreadful pages in 
 the whole history of the pagan world. We mean the 
 gladiatorial combats in Roman amphitheatres. The 
 amphitheatres, like the circus, were constructed of 
 wood up till the time of Augustus. They were of an 
 oval or elliptical shape, and like the circuses were 
 provided with sitting accommodation all round for tens 
 of thousands of spectators. We read, indeed, of as 
 many as fifty thousand people being actually killed 
 or wounded by the collapse of a suburban amphi- 
 theatre when Tiberius was emperor. 
 
 In the reign of Augustus, and at his request, the 
 first amphitheatre of stone was built. Let us imagine 
 ourselves in Rome at the time of its completion. 
 Bills announcing its approaching dedication are being 
 everywhere circulated. The games are to begin on 
 a certain day, and they will last for weeks. All 
 Rome is looking forward to the event. Nothing else 
 is talked about in the baths and inns, and whereso- 
 ever men congregate. At length the longed-for day 
 has arrived, and, thanks to our foresight in making 
 an early start, we find ourselves in the amphitheatre 
 securely seated in the place alloted to the respectable 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. yg 
 
 citizens, a class to which of course we claim to belong. 
 The rows of cushioned seats immediately below us 
 are still empty ; they are reserved for the Roman 
 grandees and officers of state, and the world of wealth 
 and fashion generally. The sloping space behind us 
 is already packed full by a countless multitude, com- 
 posed chiefly of the Roman rabble and of slaves. As 
 the hour for the ' commencement ' approaches, we 
 notice the seats below beginning to fill up rapidly. 
 Senators and knights enter in quick succession. The 
 vestal virgins, clad in their white and purple robes, 
 now make their appearance, and advance to the place 
 of honour assigned to them by an ancient and sacred 
 custom. The Emperor himself, amid the sound of 
 martial music and deafening rounds of applause, has 
 at length taken his seat. A momentary lull follows. 
 Then suddenly a loud and prolonged flourish of 
 trumpets is heard, and an imposing procession of 
 gladiators marches into the arena. Some are on horse- 
 back ; some on foot ; all are well armed. They walk 
 round the place with much pomp and solemnity. 
 Opposite to where the Emperor is seated they halt, 
 and lowering their weapons in token of their homage, 
 vociferate, 'Ave, Impcrator, morituH te saint ant !' 
 ' Hail, great Emperor, we who are about to die salute 
 thee ! ' This ceremony being over, they are matched 
 in pairs. At first they fence with wooden swords for 
 a limited time ; then the trumpets again sound, which 
 is the signal for the conflict to begin in real earnest. 
 
8o THE GENTILES. 
 
 There is no longer any pretence about the business. 
 The weapons used by the athletes are very dissimilar, 
 and various are the methods of combat, but the 
 ardent desire to inflict a mortal wound is in every 
 case the same. That the fight is now a deadly one 
 soon becomes very evident, for it has scarcely well 
 begun before at least one of the combatants is lying 
 prostrate in the arena. No sooner does he touch the 
 ground than a dark spot shows itself on the sand 
 beside him, and every moment seems to add to its 
 dimensions. We can guess its significance — it is the 
 life-blood of the wounded gladiator. His successful 
 assailant, standing over him with exultant mien, and 
 eyes directed towards the applauding throng, awaits 
 the mandate, either instantly to despatch his disabled 
 adversary or to spare his life, if life be still in him. 
 The unfortunate man, we notice, is holding up his 
 index finger — the usual mode of imploring mercy — 
 and tries, as much as his failing strength will permit, 
 to attract the attention and excite the pity of the 
 Emperor. The latter, however, allows the decision to 
 rest with the people ; and they are in no merciful 
 mood. They indignantly spurn the request of the 
 helpless suppliant, as though he were seeking to filch 
 from them a sacred right ; and instead of waving their 
 handkerchiefs, as a sign that his life is to be spared, 
 with wrathful looks and angry imprecations they 
 turn their thumbs downwards. This is the unmis- 
 takable death-signal. Such a command brooks no 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 8 1 
 
 delay ; and forthwith the triumphant gladiator sends 
 his sword home to the very hilt in the prostrate 
 body of his defenceless foe. The moment the fatal 
 bl6w has fallen, and almost before life is extinct, a 
 slave clad in the costume and wearing the mask of 
 the god of the nether world advances, and striking an 
 iron grapple into the bleeding corpse, drags it away, 
 through the gate of death, into the receptacle for 
 the slain. 
 
 Such are the incidents which go on repeating them- 
 selves hour after hour the long day through. The 
 victorious gladiator, if he belonged to the slave class 
 (the gladiators were mostly captives taken in war,) 
 received as a reward his freedom. If he were a free- 
 man, as not unfrequently happened, he* was recom- 
 pensed by large gifts of money and other tokens of 
 popular and imperial favour. Sometimes, however, 
 victor was pitted against victor ; and so it occasion- 
 ally came to pass that of the hundreds who had 
 contended only one or two survived when the terrible 
 day's work was done. 
 
 The programme for the next day's sport being 
 perhaps even more interesting than the 
 foregoing, the multitudes that crowd the ^'f!? wI ' h 
 
 & °' wild beasts. 
 
 amphitheatre increase rather than diminish. 
 We suppose ourselves among the number, as before. 
 At the appointed time the trumpeters give the usual 
 signal to begin ; whereupon a band of heavy armed 
 gladiators, some carrying swords, some spears, appear 
 
 G 
 
82 THE GENTILES. 
 
 upon the scene, and march round in the customary 
 way. This preliminary being over, a massive iron 
 grating is flung open, and half as many wild lions as 
 there are of armed men bound into the arena. A 
 tremendous yell of delight goes up from the assembled 
 multitude. The unequal contest between man and 
 savage beast at once begins; the inevitable issue being 
 that one by one the gladiators succumb before their 
 wild and infuriated assailants, their heavy armour 
 serving only to prolong their death-struggles, and to 
 hinder the ravenous animals from enjoying their meal 
 with the ordinary expedition. 
 
 Again the scene changes. While the surviving 
 lions (for several of them have been killed) are engaged 
 in feeding on their victims, an equal number of starving 
 tigers are let loose amongst them. Another outburst 
 of enthusiastic applause greets the new arrivals. This, 
 however, is instantly drowned by the growling of the 
 angry beasts, who at once enter on a life-and-death 
 struggle for the bones of the already half-devoured 
 gladiators. And so the hideous carnage goes on, day 
 after day, for weeks, in the great metropolis of the 
 universe, and before the delighted gaze of the con- 
 querors of the world ! Meanwhile, nothing is omitted 
 that can in any way contribute to the pleasure and 
 convenience of the spectators. The air is charged 
 with the most delightful odours, and the graceful play 
 of sparkling fountains keeps it deliciously fresh and 
 cool. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 83 
 
 Let no one suppose for a moment that in what has 
 been said imagination has been allowed to run riot, 
 or that we have drawn a caricature rather than a true 
 picture of what took place at the dedication of a 
 Roman amphitheatre, or at the sports of the amphi- 
 theatre generally. The details often varied, no doubt, 
 and the order of events was constantly changing; but 
 the atrocity of the scenes enacted, so far from being 
 exaggerated, is, we believe, presented in a subdued 
 form, and in a way that the actual facts of history fully 
 justify. It is historic fact, for instance, that criminals 
 were clad in the skins of wild beasts, and thrown to 
 bulls when maddened by red-hot irons, or by darts 
 tipped with burning pitch. It is historic fact that 
 more than three hundred couples fought at a gladia- 
 torial show given by Julius Caesar, and that five thou- 
 sand wild animals were slaughtered at the dedication 
 of the Colosseum by Titus. It is historic fact that 
 under Trajan the games lasted for one hundred and 
 twenty-three successive days, during which time as 
 many as ten thousand gladiators fought with and 
 killed one another, or contended to the death with 
 savage beasts, for the amusement of the Roman 
 people. 
 
 We must also bear in mind that such scenes were 
 by no means confined to the arena of the amphitheatre. 
 At the banquets of the nobles gladiatorial combats 
 were quite common, and in the public baths they were 
 of daily occurrence. Though Augustus himself was 
 
84 THE GENTILES. 
 
 of course superior to any such charge, some of his 
 immediate successors on the imperial throne are 
 accused of having had constant recourse to the sight 
 of criminals torn by wild beasts, as an antidote against 
 ennui ; and of at least one wearer of the purple it is 
 said that 'he never supped without human blood.' 
 Perhaps we should not omit to mention another 
 kind of show of which the amphitheatre 
 was sometimes the scene, viz. : — Naval en- 
 gagements, or sea fights. Speaking of the Colosseum, 
 Gibbon observes, ' Subterraneous pipes conveyed an 
 inexhaustible supply of water, and what had just 
 before appeared a level plain might be suddenly 
 converted into a wide lake covered with armed 
 vessels and replenished with monsters of the deep.' 
 Julius Caesar had introduced a similar system of 
 canals into the Circus Maximus, which, in his time, 
 was used for such spectacles. We may feel quite 
 sure an arrangement of this kind was not wanting 
 in the new amphitheatre built by the command of 
 Augustus, and we can well believe a grand sea fight 
 formed part of the programme carried out at its 
 dedication. Artificial lakes, however, were some- 
 times constructed for such occasions. It was on a 
 lake thus formed that we read of as many as 19,000 
 men engaging in a naval combat, when thousands 
 fell by the hand of their assailants, and not a few 
 were drowned ; each horrible incident in the fight 
 being the signal for renewed outbursts of applause 
 
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 85 
 
 from the beholders. Such was the outcome of mere 
 human wisdom, such the boasted civilization of a 
 city ' whose houses were palaces, whose citizens were 
 princes, and whose provinces were empires.' 
 
 That a lamentable effect must have been produced 
 on the public mind by such incessant Effect on the 
 carnage goes without saying. The people pubhc mmi ' 
 became so demoralized and debased that sober and 
 humane amusements lost all charm for them, and 
 were looked upon as wearisome and altogether in- 
 tolerable. The ordinary theatrical entertainments 
 customary amongst the Greeks, and borrowed from 
 them by the Romans, were far inferior in the estima- 
 tion of the public to the thrilling and tragic incidents 
 of the arena. And the fierce conflicts, in which at 
 least one of the combatants must actually die, were 
 sources of popular enjoyment, compared with which 
 the simulated calamities of the stage seemed utterly 
 tame and insipid. But ' necessity is the mother of 
 invention.' This proverb is, we presume, nearly as 
 old as the world ; at any rate it verified itself, we 
 make bold to say, pretty early in human history. 
 Driven by a hard necessity, the managers of theatres 
 resorted to a plan whereby they were enabled, in 
 some degree, to recover their lost prestige, and to 
 rival, with at least a moderate measure of success, the 
 bloody spectacles of the amphitheatres. Their plan 
 was this : They secured slaves, or more frequently 
 criminals, for the tragic scenes. Death on the stage 
 
86 THE GENTILES. 
 
 was henceforth no longer a sham or make-believe, 
 but the very thing itself in all its dreadful reality. 
 We read, for instance, of one criminal, who, in the 
 character of a robber, is first nailed to a cross, and 
 then a bear appears on the stage and actually tears 
 him limb from limb. Of another, who, while personi- 
 fying a well-known hero of history, is compelled to 
 hold his hand in a flame till it is entirely consumed. 
 Of another, who, in acting the part of Hercules, is 
 forced to mount the funeral pile and be burned alive. 
 We are also told of certain characters in a play ap- 
 pearing on the stage gorgeously attired, and with 
 gay wreaths adorning their brows, when lo ! fire is 
 suddenly seen to issue from their garments, and they 
 fall down enveloped in devouring flames. 
 
 All this, and worse than this, if worse could be, 
 was being perpetrated, not in the dark places of the 
 earth merely, which w r ere proverbially ' full of the 
 habitations of cruelty,' but perpetrated in the very 
 centre of light and learning and culture, — even in the 
 imperial capital of the world itself, — when far away 
 in an obscure village of Palestina, and in a stable in 
 that village, a Babe was born, who was destined to 
 alter all that, and to be the longed and looked-for 
 pioneer of a golden age, and the heaven-sent herald 
 of unspeakably glorious things : whose birth year 
 was henceforth to be the beginning of years for 
 Christendom, and to run down through the centuries 
 till the end of all time as ANNUS DOMINI. 
 
PART II. 
 
 TZHZIE JEWS. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE JEWS, 
 
 i. — The Time of Nehemiah. 
 
 NEHEMIAH, the Hebrew cupbearer of Artaxerxes 
 Longimanus, King of Persia, having appeared 
 in the royal presence with a sad counten- Nehemiah 
 ance, is asked the reason. 'Let the king f°j e e r r usa- 
 live for ever,' he replied, ' why should lem - 
 not my countenance be sad, when the city, the 
 place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the 
 gates thereof are consumed with fire?' Then said the 
 king unto him, ' For what dost thou make request ? ' 
 and he answered, ' That thou wouldest send me unto 
 Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that 
 I may build it.' The request is promptly granted : 
 whereupon Nehemiah at once avails himself of the 
 king's grace, and, furnished with the royal decree, 
 necessary for the accomplishment of his undertaking, 
 starts on his important mission. 
 
 Few days elapsed after his arrival in the holy city, 
 before he set about the work which the Lord had 
 
90 THE JEWS. 
 
 put it into his heart to do. Having made a moon- 
 light inspection of the dilapidated walls, in company 
 with a few faithful companions, he next day sum- 
 moned together the priests and rulers and people, 
 told them the purpose for which he had come amongst 
 them, and revealed to them his dignity as ' Tirshatha,' 
 or viceroy of the Persian king. The sympathy of 
 the people was at once secured, and they and their 
 leaders eagerly began the work of restoring the city 
 walls ; which task, in spite of much harassing and 
 obstructive opposition on the part of hostile neigh- 
 bours, was soon successfully accomplished. The 
 newly-erected walls were dedicated in due course, 
 with much ceremony, so that 'the joy of Jerusalem 
 was heard even afar off.' 
 
 It was about this time also that the practice of 
 
 reading the law in some public place, for 
 Public *» r r j 
 
 reading of the benefit of the people, was begun and 
 established by Ezra, the priest and scribe ; 
 and hence originated the renowned institution of the 
 Synagogue — an institution which played such an 
 important part in the religious life of the Jews in all 
 subsequent ages, no matter in what clime they so- 
 journed or in what country they found a home. 
 
 Nehemiah remained for twelve years at Jerusalem, 
 exercising his functions as Persian governor, and 
 encouraging by every means in his power the building 
 up of the interior of the city. At the end of this 
 period, and in accordance with the terms of his leave 
 
THE TIME OF N EH EMI A II. 91 
 
 of absence, he returned to the court of Artaxerxes 
 (B.C. 433), where he remained for an in- Nehemiah's 
 terval of time, the duration of which we are admListra- 
 unable definitely to determine. All we tlon - 
 know is that ' at the end of days ' (Neb. xiii. 6) he 
 obtained the king's permission to renew his visit to 
 Jerusalem, with a view to reforming abuses which 
 had begun to prevail there. However, the phrase ' all 
 this time,' taken in connexion with the fact that 
 during his absence the said abuses had grown to 
 immense proportions, leads us to infer that at least 
 ten years must have elapsed from his departure from 
 the holy city till his return to it again. This reckon- 
 ing brings us to the last year of the reign of Ar- 
 taxerxes (B.C. 423). 
 
 During the second period of Nehemiah's admin- 
 istration, we find him maintaining the rules of 
 discipline which he, in conjunction with. Ezra, had 
 formerly drawn up and introduced, and in punishing 
 in the sternest way all law-breakers. He himself 
 tells us that he ' contended with them and reviled 
 them, and smote certain of them and plucked off 
 their hair.' 
 
 It was at this time an incident occurred which 
 intensified the hostility already existing 
 beween the Jews and the Samaritans, and HvaftTmpie 
 by which the irregular worship of the Q n r ^ nt 
 latter was enabled to form itself into an 
 organized schism, which lasted down till our Lord's 
 
92 THE JEWS. 
 
 day. It would appear that Manasseh, the son of 
 Joiada the high-priest, had, in violation of the rules 
 of discipline, married a daughter of Sanballat, the 
 Samaritan chief, and that rather than part with his 
 wife at the bidding of Nehemiah, he fled with her to 
 his father-in-law in Samaria, where he became high- 
 priest. A temple was in due course erected on 
 Mount Gerizim, and a system of worship established 
 closely resembling that of the Jewish sanctuary. 
 The example of Manasseh was soon followed by 
 numerous priests and Levites who had also married 
 heathen wives, and by disaffected Jews generally, 
 so that Samaria became a recognized place of refuge 
 for all transgressors. It is, of course, to the temple 
 and worship thus established that the Samaritan 
 woman refers in her conversation with Christ at the 
 well, when she says, ' Our fathers worshipped in this 
 mountain/ 
 
 With a record of most of the events above men- 
 tioned, and the incidents connected therewith, the 
 narrative of Old Testament history comes to a close. 
 Malachi, it is true, survived Nehemiah, and was the 
 last of the Old Testament writers, but he supplies us 
 with no new facts ; his aim chiefly being to carry on 
 the important work in which we find Nehemiah 
 engaged when his name is last mentioned, that, 
 namely, of insisting on the observance of discipline, 
 and in rebuking its non-observance. 
 
 Between the last of the historic events narrated by 
 
CLOSE OF THE PERSIAN DOMINION. 93 
 
 Nehemiah and the birth of our Saviour there elapsed, 
 at the very least, a period of four hundred 
 
 . . Close of Old 
 
 years. Regarding what transpired during Testament 
 this interval in Hebrew history, the Canon- 
 ical Scriptures furnish us with no information. And 
 yet an intelligent understanding of the many im- 
 portant occurrences which fill up that period, and 
 link together by an unbroken chain of cause and 
 effect its beginning and its end, is necessary to a clear 
 and satisfactory apprehension of the condition of 
 Palestine and its people at the time of our Lord's 
 advent. 
 
 2. — The Interval from Nehemiah to the 
 close of the Persian Dominion. 
 
 When we pass, as it were, by turning one leaf in 
 our Bible, from the scenes and surroundings in the 
 midst of which Nehemiah, Ezra, and Malachi lived 
 and laboured, into the Jewish State of Christ's day, 
 what striking changes present themselves to our 
 notice, whether we have regard to the religious life of 
 the nation, or to its civil constitution, or to its political 
 relations ! At the time of our Lord's nativity, Herod, 
 surnamed the Great, was King of Judaea ; and he ex- 
 ercised his authority, not through the favour of a 
 Persian king, but by the grace of Augustus Csesar, 
 whose minion and tributary he was. An Idumean 
 adventurer, supported on the throne of David by the 
 
94 THE JEWS. 
 
 power of Pagan Rome, was the most recent outcome 
 of a long series of wars and revolutions and revolts 
 which had taken place since the days of Nehemiah 
 the ' Tirshatha.' 
 
 Less than a century passed from the return of 
 Nehemiah to Jerusalem, till the end of the 
 
 End of the J 
 
 Persian Persian dominion ; which dominion, it will 
 
 Dominion. 111 1 -i 1 
 
 be remembered, began on that terrible 
 night when the mysterious mate mene tekel upharsin 
 appeared inscribed on the walls of the banqueting 
 hall of the palace in Babylon. During these years 
 the Jews lived in the midst of ever-changing circum- 
 stances. At one time, their fortune was tolerably 
 happy ; at another time, quite the reverse. 
 
 After the death of Nehemiah an important change 
 in the government of the Jews took place. Judaea 
 then came under the power and jurisdiction of the 
 Persian governors of Syria, who generally delegated 
 the administration of the country to the Jewish high- 
 priest for the time being. This arrangement, though 
 convenient enough from the point of view of the 
 governors, became, as far as the Jewish people were 
 concerned, a prolific source of calamity and crime ; 
 since the men who occupied the sacerdotal office 
 were ofttimes animated by the basest motives, and 
 their actions were more frequently dictated by greed 
 and vainglory than by the aspirations of piety or the 
 promptings of patriotism. 
 
 • Finally, in the reign of the Persian king Darius 
 
CONQUEST OF 'THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 95 
 
 Codomanus, there occurred one of those mighty up- 
 heavals in the midst of which empires disappear and 
 thrones are demolished, and by means of which the 
 currents of human destiny are turned aside from 
 their wonted course, and made to flow henceforth in 
 new channels. 
 
 3.— Conquest of the Persian Empire by 
 Alexander the Great. 
 
 ALEXANDER, the Macedonian warrior and king, one 
 of the mightiest actors that ever played a part on 
 this world's stage, was the instrument in the hands 
 of Divine Providence whereby this transformation 
 was effected. In the spring of the year B.C. 334, the 
 second year of the reign of the Persian sovereign 
 Darius, the King of Macedon crossed the Hellespont, 
 with about 45,000 followers. Five days afterwards, 
 he defeated a Persian army numbering not less than 
 200,000 men ; and by a series of subsequent victories, 
 each more splendid than the preceding, he soon made 
 himself master of the whole of Syria. He thereupon 
 summoned all the cities of that region, Jerusalem 
 amongst the rest, to pay him the customary tribute, 
 and a written order to that effect was de- 
 spatched by Alexander to the Jewish high- JJJUdT 
 priest Tadciua. The latter demurred, and lriklefrora 
 
 r J ' the Jews. 
 
 sent back word to the conqueror that he 
 
 had sworn fealty to Darius, and could not violate his 
 
96 THE JEWS, 
 
 oath, so long as that prince was alive. Alexander 
 was much incensed by this reply, and threatened to 
 come speedily and make sucli an example of the 
 high-priest as would teach a lesson to others. Faith- 
 ful to his promise, he soon advanced on Jerusalem. 
 Jaddua and all the inhabitants were terror-stricken, 
 and earnestly besought the Almighty to send deliver- 
 ance. Thereupon, we are told, God warned the high- 
 priest in a dream to take courage, to adorn the city 
 gaily, and then to go out and meet the king, clad in 
 his sacerdotal robes, and accompanied by the rest of 
 the citizens arrayed in white garments. In obedience 
 to the heavenly vision, all the inhabitants marched 
 out in solemn procession, with the high-priest at 
 their head, to meet the conqueror. No sooner did 
 Alexander fix his eyes on the leader of the approach- 
 ing throng, than he advanced towards him, and 
 adored the name of God, which was inscribed on the 
 golden plate of his turban, and then saluted the 
 high-priest himself. All the Greeks were amazed at 
 such conduct on the part of their leader, and Parmenio, 
 one of his officers, asked him how it was that he, to 
 whom all payed homage, should himself adore the 
 high-priest of the Jews. The king replied, ' I did not 
 adore him, but that God who hath honoured him 
 Alexander's w i tn n * s high-priesthood ; for,' he added, 
 Dream. « j saw ^is ver y person in a dream in this 
 
 very habit, when I was at Dios, in Macedonia. I 
 Was considering with myself how I might obtain the 
 
CONQUEST OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 97 
 
 dominion of Asia, and this very man exhorted me to 
 make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea hither, 
 for that he would conduct my army, and would give 
 me dominion over the Persians. Hence it is, that 
 having seen no other in this habit, and now seeing 
 him in it, and remembering that vision and the ex- 
 hortation I had in my dream, I believe that I bring 
 this army under the Divine protection, and shall 
 therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of 
 the Persians, and that all things will succeed ac- 
 cording to my wish.' 
 
 Afterwards, we are told, Alexander was shown the 
 prophecies in the Book of Daniel (Daniel viii. 21 ; xi. 3) 
 which had reference to himself, at which he was so 
 highly gratified that he willingly granted the request of 
 the high-priest, that the Jews should be exempted from 
 paying tribute on the Sabbatical year, and every- 
 where have liberty to live according to their own 
 laws. 
 
 Having thus arranged matters in Judaea, the con- 
 queror proceeded to Egypt, where he was 
 received with open arms by the Egyptian ^ le g ander 
 nobles. The Persian officers were compelled 
 to surrender without once giving battle, and he entered 
 Memphis, the capital of the country, in triumph. 
 Shortly afterwards he gave orders for the building of 
 the famous city which, after its founder, was named 
 Alexandria. Thither many Jews immigrated, on the 
 invitation of the king, and formed a colony, which 
 
 H 
 
98 THE JEWS. 
 
 enjoyed equal rights and privileges with his other 
 subjects. 
 
 The following spring he crossed the Tigris at the 
 
 head of about 50,000 warriors, and, in a 
 
 Battle of decisive battle, defeated Darius, who com- 
 
 Arbela. ' 
 
 manded an army of not less than one million 
 one hundred thousand men ! In other words, the 
 odds against the conqueror was twenty to one. This 
 famous battle is known in history as the Battle of 
 Arbela, from the name of the city near which it was 
 fought. Alexander was now complete master of Asia, 
 and the commencement of the Grecian monarchy 
 dates from this time (B.C. 331). During the next two 
 years he succeeded in bringing the entire Persian 
 empire under his control. A series of such rapid 
 marches and uninterrupted victories is altogether 
 unparalleled in the Whole history of conquest. Seven 
 years afterwards the King died (B.C. 323), in the very 
 noonday of his life, and in the plenitude of his power. 
 
 4. — The Successors of Alexander. 
 
 The death of Alexander was followed by much 
 confusion and bloodshed. Violent quarrels 
 
 Division of 
 
 Alexander's broke out amongst his generals and chief 
 
 Empire. rr . . . 
 
 officers, to whom the various governments 
 were assigned, and who, after the lawful heirs to the 
 throne had been all murdered, constituted themselves 
 
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER. 99 
 
 independent sovereigns. Cassander exercised authority- 
 over Macedonia and Greece; Lysimachus over Thrace 
 and Bithynia, and some of the adjoining provinces ; 
 Ptolemy Lagi over Lybia, Egypt, Arabia, Petraea, 
 Palestine, and Ccele-Syria; Seleucus over Asia Minor, 
 Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and the far East. Thus 
 was fulfilled the prophecy recorded in Daniel xi. 2-4, 
 ' Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia, 
 and the fourth shall be far richer than they all : and 
 by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all 
 against the realm of Grecia. And a mighty king 
 shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, 
 and do according to his will ; and when he shall stand 
 up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided 
 toward the four winds of heaven, and not to his 
 posterity.' 
 
 It is only with the doings of the two kings last 
 named, that is to say, of the King of Egypt and the 
 King of Syria, that we need now concern ourselves, 
 inasmuch as it was by them or their successors that 
 the ultimate destiny of the Jewish nation was mainly 
 determined. 
 
 Relatively to Palestine, the Grasco-Egyptian king- 
 dom lay on the south, and the Graeco-Syrian kingdom 
 on the north. Palestine was thus situated exactly be- 
 tween the two ; a circumstance which involved the 
 most important consequences for the Hebrew race. 
 For, as the sequel of their history shows, their country 
 became a perpetual cause of quarrel between the two 
 
IOO THE JEWS. 
 
 kingdoms, the respective monarchs of which were 
 always eager to secure it, either as a sort of advance 
 post for warlike operations, or as a means of territorial 
 aggrandisement. And, as is always the case in such 
 circumstances, the Jews were the greatest sufferers in 
 the end. 
 
 Ptolemy Lagi was on the whole a beneficent ruler, 
 Ptolemy an d treated the Jews with kindness and 
 
 Lag1- consideration. When he first took posses- 
 
 sion of the country, he no doubt acted towards them 
 with some degree of harshness, and carried away a 
 hundred thousand of them as prisoners into Egypt. 
 Afterwards, however, these very same Jews, as well 
 as those brought thither by Alexander, were most con- 
 siderately dealt with ; and they multiplied gteatly, 
 spreading themselves over the adjoining districts of 
 Lybia and Cyrene. It was by some of these Egyp- 
 tian Jews that the Old Testament Scriptures were 
 afterwards translated into the Greek language, — a 
 work which was carried out partly under the auspices 
 of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the son of the last-mentioned 
 king, and partly at a somewhat later date. The 
 object of this translation, which is commonly called 
 the Septuagint version, was to afford the Jews who 
 were growing up in Egypt an opportunity of reading 
 the Scriptures in the language with which they were 
 most familiar. 
 
 In the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus a war, which 
 lasted for eight years, broke out between Egypt and 
 
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER. ioi 
 
 Syria — Antiochus Theos being then ruler in the latter 
 kingdom. It ended in a peace, of which 
 one of the conditions was, that Antiochus bel a ^ een 
 should divorce his wife Laodice, and marry Pt0,em y 
 
 } Philadel- 
 
 Ptolemy's daughter, the Princess Bernice. phusand 
 
 t^i l- • -it i« i • Antiochus 
 
 The condition was indeed complied with ; Theos. 
 but the forced union did not last long, 
 for on the death of Ptolemy, two years afterwards, 
 Antiochus took back his former wife, by whom, how- 
 ever, he was subsequently murdered, and his son 
 Seleucus Callinicus raised to the vacant throne. 
 
 Amongst the first acts of the new king's reign was 
 to decree the death of Bernice. This violent measure 
 naturally aroused the wrath of her brother, Ptolemy 
 Euergetes, who had succeeded his father on the throne 
 of Egypt. He vigorously set about avenging the 
 death of his sister, and, marching into Syria, slew the 
 queen-mother Laodice, and possessed himself of the 
 whole country as far as the boundary river of India. 
 In the midst of his triumphs, however, and in conse- 
 quence of a sedition that had broken out in Egypt, 
 he was obliged to hasten back to that country, carrying 
 thither much spoil and about 2500 images, which had 
 on a former occasion been taken away from the 
 Egyptians. And thus another prophecy of Daniel 
 was literally fulfilled (Daniel xi. 6-8). 
 
 It was in this king's reign that Onias, The greed 
 the son of Simon the Just, and one of his ° mas ' 
 successors in the sacerdotal office, well nigh brought 
 
102 THE JEWS. 
 
 ruin on the Jews through his greed and avarice. 
 For many years he withheld the tribute of twenty 
 talents of silver, which had been annually paid by 
 his predecessors to the kings of Egypt, on behalf 
 of the Jewish people. At length, when the arrears 
 amounted to some 480 talents, the alternative was 
 placed before the high-priest, either to pay at once 
 the amount due, or to have the whole country con- 
 fiscated and colonized by Egyptian soldiers. This 
 appalling threat terrified the people beyond measure; 
 and there is no manner of doubt but that their darkest 
 forebodings would have been fully realized, had not 
 Joseph, the nephew of the high-priest, promptly 
 repaired to Alexandria, and effected such arrange- 
 ments as satisfied the king. 
 
 After a reign of five and twenty years, Ptolemy 
 Euergetes, the last good King of Egypt, died, or rather 
 was poisoned by his son, Ptolemy Philopator, who 
 succeeded him on the throne (B.C. 221). This was in 
 the second year of Antiochus the Great, King of Syria. 
 
 Ptolemy Philopator seems to have been a very 
 ptoiemy monster of wickedness. Committing parri- 
 
 Phiiopator. c j c j e to secure the throne, he successively 
 murdered, during his term of sovereignty, his mother, 
 and his brother, and his wife. Hostilities soon broke 
 out between him and Antiochus, to whom he was 
 compelled to relinquish all the possessions which his 
 father had gained by his valour, and Palestine also 
 passed into the hands of the conqueror. However, 
 
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER. 103 
 
 the fortune of war suddenly turned in favour of the 
 Egyptian arms, and in the great battle of Raphia the 
 Syrians were totally defeated. The two kings after- 
 wards signed a treaty, by which Antiochus relinquished 
 all claims on Palestine and Ccele-Syria. Ptolemy 
 was much congratulated by the Jews on his victory ; 
 and, as a sort of acknowledgment of their loyalty 
 and devotion, he subsequently paid a personal visit 
 to Jerusalem. He inspected the temple, offered 
 numerous sacrifices, and bestowed many costly gifts. 
 But his desire to profane the Holy of Holies threw 
 the whole city into a state of consternation and 
 alarm. In spite of the tears and entreaties of the people, 
 he was in the very act of carrying out his design, 
 when suddenly he became paralyzed by fear, 
 his mental faculties seemed to forsake him, Per * ec " tlon 
 
 ' of the Jews. 
 
 and he was carried from the temple quite 
 insensible by his terrified attendants. Strange to say, 
 this incident, which one would have expected to act 
 in quite a contrary way, stirred up in his heart an in- 
 tense hatred against the Jews, and no sooner had he 
 returned to his capital than he gave vent to his spleen 
 by a most cruel persecution of his Hebrew subjects. 
 If we are to accept as historic fact the record in the 
 Third Book of the Maccabees, it would appear that on 
 his return to Alexandria, Ptolemy devised a scheme 
 for exterminating, by a wholesale massacre, every 
 member of the Jewish race on whom he could lay 
 hands. Those who were willing to renounce the 
 
104 THE J EWS - 
 
 worship of Jehovah, and serve idols, he permitted to 
 live ; but the vast multitude who remained faithful to 
 their God he shut up in the hippodrome, to be de- 
 stroyed by infuriated elephants trained for the purpose. 
 When the appointed morning arrived, the king sur- 
 rounded by his guards repaired to the scene of the 
 contemplated slaughter. But how great were his 
 terror and amazement when the elephants, on 
 being brought forth, rushed, not on the defenceless 
 Jews, but on the soldiers and spectators, on whom 
 they vented their fury to the uttermost ! The king 
 trembled before the God of Israel. The faithful Jews 
 were pardoned, and had all their privileges restored, 
 while their false co-religionists were put to death. 
 
 Ptolemy Philopator died at the early age of thirty- 
 seven years, worn out and enfeebled by every form 
 of vice and dissipation. He was succeeded by his 
 son Ptolemy Epiphanes, who was then only five 
 years of age. 
 
 Antiochus the Great, taking advantage of the 
 Egyptian king's minority, revenged himself 
 
 Antiochus 
 
 invades for the signal defeat at Raphia, by seizing 
 
 upon Phoenicia and Palestine (B.C. 202). 
 But this time new actors made their appear- 
 ance in the Eastern world. The Romans, this 
 same year, became famous by the victory gained by 
 Scipio over Hannibal in Africa — a victory which 
 brought the Second Punic War to a brilliant ter- 
 mination. The Egyptians in their difficulty turned 
 
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER. 
 
 105 
 
 to the victors for aid, and offered them the guardian- 
 ship of their young king, which offer was most gladly 
 accepted by the Roman Senate. The immediate 
 result of this arrangement did not amount to 
 much. Antiochus soon made good his claim to 
 Judaea by force of arms ; but, with a view to prevent- 
 ing the Egyptians from having any further dealings 
 with the Romans as allies, he arranged to give his 
 daughter Cleopatra in marriage to the young Pompey, 
 as soon as the youthful couple had arrived at an age 
 suitable for such an alliance. And he promised, at 
 the same time, that Palestine should be part of his 
 daughter's dowry. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Jews having favoured the cause of 
 Antiochus in the last war, and supplied his 
 
 rr The Jews 
 
 army with provisions, and even assisted favour his 
 
 1 • • 11 ■ 1 • t- • cause. 
 
 mm in expelling their Egyptian masters 
 from the country, were liberally rewarded by the 
 Syrian king, who published in their favour more 
 than one edict, whereby taxes were remitted and 
 privileges conferred. As a further proof of his con- 
 fidence and good will, Antiochus, at a time when 
 disturbances were rife in Lydia and Phrygia, caused 
 about 2,000 Jewish families to be transported thither, 
 from Babylon and Mesopotamia, and placed in the 
 fortified towns ; so that they might act as the 
 guardians of peace and order, and by their fidelity 
 secure the safety of the country. He at the same 
 time assigned to them the most fertile lands, and 
 
106 THE JEWS. 
 
 exempted them from taxation for the space of ten 
 years. And there is no doubt but that the vast 
 number of Jews who were scattered over the whole of 
 Asia Minor in our Lord's day were the descendants 
 of these immigrants. 
 
 The time at length arrived when Antiochus was 
 called upon to ratify the agreement with 
 
 Reversion 
 
 of Palestine regard to the marriage of his daughter 
 with Ptolemy, and the bestowal of Palestine 
 and Ccele-Syria as her wedding portion. The Syrian 
 monarch kept his promise ; and he did so with the 
 less reluctance, because he thought by this means, 
 and through his daughter's instrumentality, he might 
 be able to add Egypt itself to his dominions. How- 
 ever, he erred in his calculations in this regard, for 
 Cleopatra remained true to her husband's interest, 
 a circumstance that would seem to have been foretold 
 by the prophet (Dan. xi. 17). Fraud having failed, 
 Antiochus determined to employ force to realize his 
 designs, and accordingly he marched with a great 
 army into the west. He thus came into hostile con- 
 flict with the warlike Romans, who at last completely 
 vanquished him in his own country, and imposed an 
 enormous war indemnity on his much curtailed 
 kingdom. 
 
 Palestine having reverted to Egypt, in accordance 
 seieucus with tne aforesaid agreement, was after a 
 Phiiopator. brief period again annexed to Syria, by 
 the son and successor of Antiochus, Seieucus Philo- 
 
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER. \0J 
 
 pator. This prince, in order to pay the yearly in- 
 stalments of the debt due to the Romans, fixed his 
 covetous eyes on the temple of Jerusalem, and 
 determined by its plunder to replenish his empty 
 coffers. The same thing is said to have happened to 
 the Syrian delegate whom he sent to execute his 
 commission, as formerly occurred to the King of 
 Egypt, Ptolemy Philopator. He received such a 
 fright by an awful manifestation of Divine power, 
 when he was entering the sanctuary of Jehovah, that 
 his life was despaired of, and the high-priest actually 
 offered sacrifices for his restoration. On his return 
 home, he was consulted by the king as to whom he 
 judged the most suitable person to carry out the design 
 which he had himself failed to accomplish. Heliodorus, 
 for that was his name, made answer, ' If the king has 
 any enemy whom he desires to punish in a very 
 signal way, he should send him on this errand, for 
 assuredly the result will be such as to gratify the 
 most cruel and vindictive feelings.' It was this same 
 Heliodorus who afterwards poisoned his sovereign, 
 thinking thereby to raise himself to the royal dignity. 
 His aims were, however, frustrated by the late king's 
 brother, who managed to secure the throne for 
 himself, his brother's son and lawful heir being then 
 detained at Rome as a hostage. 
 
108 THE JEWS. 
 
 5. — Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes. 
 
 Thus began the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes — a 
 very monster of cruelty and crime, whose character, 
 stained by unspeakable vices, is one of the darkest in 
 all history. During this king's reign, which lasted 
 for eleven years, the Jews, like his other subjects, and 
 more than his other subjects, experienced terrible 
 calamities. But it was the proverbially darkest hour 
 before the dawn. At the time of Antiochus' accession 
 to supreme power, there was a man dwelling in 
 obscurity at Jerusalem, destined to make the throne 
 of the Syrian tyrant reel under him, a man who was 
 one day to rival by his exploits the most renowned 
 of Hebrew heroes — to dazzle the eyes of all men 
 by the splendour of his achievements, and to make 
 the whole world ring with the fame of Judas 
 Maccabeus ! 
 
 Antiochus, having gone to Egypt in a semi-warlike 
 
 expedition to settle the rival claims of his 
 
 Antiochus j- wo nephews, sons of Ptolemy Epiphanes 
 
 massacres 
 
 the jews and his sister Cleopatra, was reported to 
 
 and pollutes . ... . _ . . 
 
 the Temple, have been killed. Certain tumints which 
 arose in Judaea in consequence of this 
 rumour, gave him the impression that the Jewish 
 people were in revolt. He forthwith marched against 
 Jerusalem, and slew eighty thousand persons, in- 
 cluding women and children. Forty thousand were 
 
ACCESSION OF ANTIOCIIUS EPIPHANES. 109 
 
 taken prisoners, and an equal number sold into 
 slavery. Moreover, he impiously entered the Holy 
 of Holies, and carried off all the gold and silver he 
 could find there, as well as the golden table, altar, and 
 candlesticks, and all the precious vessels, the whole 
 amounting to eighteen hundred talents of gold. He 
 then sacrificed swine upon the altar, boiled some of 
 the flesh, and sprinkled the liquid over the temple. 
 Menelaus, the high-priest, ' that traitor to the laws 
 and to his country, being his guide' and abettor in 
 all this sacrilege. 
 
 The two Egyptian princes having agreed together 
 to settle their own disputes, and dis- 
 trusting the friendly proposals of their Foiled in his 
 
 • attempt to 
 
 uncle, combined their forces to resist seize Egypt, 
 further meddling on his part with Egyptian 
 affairs. This compelled Antiochus to declare himself 
 in his true character as the enemy of the two brothers. 
 He led an army into Egypt, and would certainly have 
 annexed the whole country to his dominions, had not 
 ambassadors, sent from Rome for the purpose, com- 
 manded him to withdraw from the kingdom. We 
 are told that when the demands of the Roman Senate 
 were put into his hands, he replied, with a view to 
 gaining time, that he would consult his council on the 
 matter. Whereupon one of the ambassadors, making 
 a circle with his staff round the king where he stood, 
 said, ' Before you leave this circle you must give me 
 an answer that I can report to the Senate.' 
 
I io THE JEWS. 
 
 Foiled in his attempts against Egypt, and com- 
 pelled to withdraw from that country 
 
 Second 
 
 massacre of humiliated, the diabolic idea suggested 
 
 the Jews. , r , . r ... , , 
 
 itself to him of renewing his attack on the 
 Jews, as a convenient way of venting his rage, and of 
 restoring his tranquillity of mind. Accordingly, he 
 despatched one of his generals with twenty-two 
 thousand men to Jerusalem. On the first Sabbath 
 after their arrival, the general commanded his soldiers 
 to go forth and slay every man they met, and to 
 make slaves of all the women and children. Blood 
 now flowed like water : the houses were plundered 
 and the walls of the city demolished, ' and they built 
 the city of David with a great and strong wall, and 
 with strong towers, and made it a fortress for them/ 
 This fortress was so situated that its garrison had 
 complete control over the Sanctuary, which now 
 became 'desolate like a wilderness/ the Jews being 
 no longer able to enter it to perform religious services. 
 And thus in the month of June, B.C. 167, in fulfilment 
 of prophecy, the daily sacrifice ceased. All this is 
 graphically described in the first chapter of the First 
 Book of Maccabees, where an account is also given of 
 the depredations of Antiochus himself two years before. 
 As soon as the king returned to Antioch from his 
 Egyptian expedition, he issued an edict, 
 subjects whereby all his subjects were commanded 
 
 commanded 1 . • 
 
 to worship to adopt the religion of their sovereign, 
 and to worship no gods but his. To the 
 
THE MACCABEES. I i i 
 
 Jews he 'forbad burnt offerings and sacrifices and 
 drink offerings in the temple,' and commanded them 
 to 'set up altars and groves and chapels of idols, and 
 to sacrifice swine's flesh and unclean beasts, and also 
 that they should leave their children uncircumcised, 
 to the end that they might forget the law and change 
 all the ordinances.' As we have seen, the high-priest 
 was quite in sympathy with the king in this matter ; 
 indeed, both he and his adherents had already de- 
 liberately abjured the Jewish religion, and solemnly 
 pledged themselves to bring the whole nation to 
 substitute the cult of paganism for the worship of 
 the living God. 
 
 6. — The Maccabees. 
 
 It was at this time, when subject to the fiercest 
 persecution that had ever befallen them, that the 
 faithful Jews took heart under the leadership of 
 Mattathias, an aged priest, and great-grandson of 
 that Hasmon who gave the appellative Hasmonean 
 to the whole race of his descendants. 
 
 Apelles, a Syrian officer, was sent to a town 
 called Modin, lying west of Jerusalem and 
 
 Mattathias 
 
 not far from the sea-coast, to carry out the resists the 
 commands of the king his master. He 
 endeavoured, by promises of enrichment and kingly 
 favour, to persuade Mattathias, who was one of the 
 
112 THE JEWS. 
 
 principal inhabitants of the place, to set the rest an 
 example, and by offering sacrifices to an idol to 
 comply with the requirements of the king's decree. 
 The venerable man indignantly refused to do so, and 
 proclaimed his refusal aloud, so that all might hear it. 
 And when an obsequious Jew dared, in violation of 
 the Divine law, to approach the altar for the purpose 
 of offering sacrifices, he dealt him such a blow as laid 
 him lifeless on the earth. He then attacked the 
 royal officer himself, and supported by his sons and 
 a few compatriots who were encouraged by his heroic 
 example, slew both him and his retinue, and de- 
 molished the idolatrous altar. This work being 
 completed, he addressed himself to the multitude 
 around him, crying with a loud voice, ' Whosoever is 
 zealous for the law, and maintaineth the covenant, 
 let him follow me.' Many of his fellow countrymen, 
 'who sought after justice and judgment, flocked to 
 his standard in the Wilderness of Judaea.' At first 
 the Jews refused to fight, even in self-defence, on 
 the Sabbath ; but as their enemies made a point 
 of profiting by their religious scruples, and massacred 
 many of them without meeting with any resistance, 
 they felt it their duty to give up the principle, 
 believing it to be the outcome of a too literal 
 interpretation of the law. Mattathias and his followers 
 then marched victoriously from place to place, their 
 numbers increasing daily, so that they soon attained 
 the dimensions of a formidable army. Wherever they 
 
THE MACCABEES. 
 
 113 
 
 went through the cities of Judaea they pulled down 
 the heathen altars, circumcised the children, and slew 
 all apostate Jews and royal officers. 
 
 In the midst of this career of conquest, the aged 
 and venerable Mattathias died. Before his Death of 
 death he summoned to his side his five Maltathias - 
 sons — John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan — 
 and charged them, in a few fervent words, to be 
 faithful to the God of Israel. ' My sons,' said the old 
 man, his voice feeble from decaying vitality and 
 trembling with emotion, ' My sons, be zealous for the 
 law, and give your lives for the covenant of your 
 fathers. Call to remembrance what acts your fathers 
 did in their time, so shall ye receive great honour 
 and an everlasting name.' Simon, being a man of 
 counsel and sagacity, was appointed general adviser 
 to the others ; and Judas Maccabeus, who was 'valiant 
 and strong from his youth up,' was made -leader of 
 the army, and captain in the field. 
 
 The origin of the name Maccabeus has been ex- 
 plained in two different ways. The one _ . . , . 
 
 * J Origin of the 
 
 most generally accepted is that the Hebrew name 
 
 Maccabeus. 
 
 word makabi, which signifies hammer, was 
 given to Judas as a surname on account of the heroic 
 and successful way in which he beat down the enemies 
 of Israel. The other explanation traces the origin 
 of the word to the circumstance that Judas bore 
 inscribed upon his ensign the eleventh verse of the 
 fifteenth chapter of Exodus, 'Who is like unto Thee, O 
 
 I 
 
114 THE JEWS. 
 
 Lord, among the gods?' The initial letters of which 
 in the Hebrew are M. C. B. I. 
 
 The truly marvellous exploits clone by the Jewish 
 host under the leadership of Judas fully 
 
 success of i J j 
 
 the jews justified his father's choice in giving him 
 
 under 
 
 judas the command. Alarmed by his great 
 
 success, nearly 50,000 men, under two of 
 the most trusted and experienced generals of Anti- 
 ochus, march against him. Of course they are con- 
 fident of victory ; and so, too, are about a thousand 
 slave-dealers who accompany the army, with a view 
 to purchasing the Jews, who, they believe, are certain 
 to be taken prisoners in great numbers. And doubt- 
 less there is nothing in appearances to discourage 
 such expectations ; for Judas can scarcely muster 
 6,000 men to oppose the overwhelming hosts of his 
 adversaries. And even of this small force only 3,000 
 remain, when, in accordance with the Mosaic custom, 
 he gives permission to those who are 'fearful and faint- 
 hearted ' to return to their homes. But the Lord of 
 Hosts was on their side, and they triumphed glori- 
 ously. About 12,000 of the enemy were slain, many 
 wounded, and a great number taken prisoners — 
 amongst whom were not a few of the slave-dealers. 
 Having become master of the whole country by 
 this victory, Judas repaired to Jerusalem 
 purifies for the purpose of restoring and purifying 
 
 the temple, which, as we have seen, had 
 suffered much during the persecution. The old altar, 
 
THE MACCABEES. 115 
 
 polluted as it was with heathen sacrifices, was removed, 
 a new one erected, and the daily sacrifices recom- 
 menced ; and on the very same day on which, three 
 years before, the temple had been dedicated to Jupiter 
 Olympus, it was consecrated anew to Jehovah. The 
 services on the occasion continued for eight successive 
 days ; and it was unanimously resolved to com- 
 memorate the auspicious event by an annual festival 
 at Jerusalem. Hence we have the ' feast of the 
 dedication,' mentioned in John x. 22. 
 
 Four years after this time, Antiochus died of a 
 most painful disease, and the reproaches of 
 his conscience aggravated his bodily malady. ?S h 
 His successor, or rather those who governed and J udas 
 
 Maccabeus. 
 
 the kingdom in his name, for he was a 
 minor, maintained the same relations of hostility 
 towards the Jews. However, their great captain, 
 Judas, supported his reputation as an invincible 
 conqueror for three years longer. He at last fell at 
 the head of 800 men, when leading an attack on an 
 army of 22,000 Syrians. His brother Jonathan took 
 up the sword that had fallen from the hand of the 
 slain hero, and vigorously prosecuted the work which 
 their common ancestor had so gloriously begun. He 
 succeeded in driving the Syrians out of the country ; 
 and profiting by the disputes which arose between 
 Demetrius Soter and Alexander Balas, regarding the 
 succession to the Syrian throne, he managed to secure 
 for himself the importantdignity of the high-priesthood, 
 
11 6 THE JEWS. 
 
 which office remained hereditary in his family till the 
 reign of Herod. 
 
 It was about this time that a temple after the 
 , , ., model of the temple at Jerusalem was 
 
 Temple built 
 
 in Egypt by built in Egypt, by Onias, a Jew of sacer- 
 
 Onias. . . m 
 
 dotal lineage, who having obtained great 
 influence with Ptolemy Philometor and his queen, 
 was made commander and chief of the Egyptian 
 army, and became possessor of immense influence 
 and authority. He represented to his royal patrons 
 that it would be a source of great advantage to their 
 kingdom, if the numerous inhabitants of Egypt and 
 Cyrene had a temple of their own, where they could 
 perform their religious services without being under 
 the necessity of repairing for such purposes to 
 Jerusalem, which was under the dominion of a foreign 
 prince, and constantly exposed to the ravages of war. 
 He obtained the permission asked for, and having 
 erected a temple, was himself invested with the 
 high-priesthood, the subordinate priestly offices being 
 filled by members of the family of Aaron. Levites 
 were also employed in the temple services, and the 
 whole system of worship was regulated exactly after 
 the Jerusalem model. This temple became the centre 
 or rallying-point of all those Jews who had migrated 
 to Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and whom Luke 
 styles Grecians, or Hellenists, in the Acts of the 
 Apostles ; and it continued until A.D. 76. 
 
 After the death of Jonathan, which was brought 
 
THE MACCABEES. ny 
 
 about by an act of the most cruel treachery on the 
 part of Tryphon, a Syrian general, Simon, his only 
 surviving brother, assumed the high-priesthood and 
 the command of the army. One of his 
 
 Simon sends 
 
 first official acts was to send ambassadors an embassy 
 to Rome, to acquaint the Senate with the 
 fate of his brother, and of his own accession to office, 
 and to renew the alliance with the Romans, which 
 had been first entered into by Judas Maccabeus. He 
 was subsequently created a sovereign prince of Judaea 
 by a treaty with the Syrian king, Demetrius II. 
 Thus the country became entirely independent, and 
 the heathen garrison in the castle on Mount Zion, 
 which had so long resisted every effort to reduce it, 
 was at length required to withdraw (B.C. 138). The 
 two dignities of high-priest and prince of Judaea, 
 conferred on Simon by the Syrian king, were con- 
 firmed by the unanimous voice of the people. He 
 valiantly and successfully defended himself against all 
 his assailants; but after governing for eight years he 
 was murdered at Jericho, along with two of his sons, by 
 his son-in-law, who aimed at usurping the principality. 
 This design was, however, frustrated by the sur- 
 viving son of Simon, John Hyrcanus, who, John 
 on the death of his father, was unanimously H y rcanus 
 acknowledged his successor in the high-priesthood 
 and princedom. This prince greatly extended the 
 boundaries of the country, conquering the Samaritans, 
 whose temple on Mount Gerizim he completely de- 
 
n8 THE JEWS. 
 
 stroyed, and subjugating the Idumeans, to whom he 
 gave the choice either to be circumcised according to 
 the law of Moses or to leave the country. They 
 chose the former alternative, and became one people 
 with the Jews, John Hyrcanus was a zealous 
 Pharisee, and a man distinguished by his virtues. 
 Towards the close of his reign, however, he seriously 
 quarrelled with the religious party to which he be- 
 longed, and joined the Sadducees, thus exposing him- 
 self and his house to the bitterest Pharisaic animosity. 
 And owing to the great influence the Pharisees exer- 
 cised over the common people, they were able to cause 
 him much trouble and annoyance. After governing 
 Judaea for some thirty years, he died (B.C. 106). 
 
 He left the principality to his wife ; but his eldest 
 son, Aristobulus, soon seized the reins of 
 
 Aristobulus. . 
 
 government ; and his mother, refusing to 
 relinquish the authority, was cast into prison, where 
 she died of starvation. No sooner had he secured 
 the high-priesthood and princely dignity, than he also 
 assumed the diadem and the regal title ; and thus 
 the Jews had again a king of their own, after an 
 interval of more than four centuries. He only reigned 
 for one year, and was succeeded by his brother, 
 Alexander Janneus. 
 
 This prince, like his father, regarded the Pharisees 
 Alexander with feelings of aversion ; and they on their 
 janneus p ar f. embarrassed him as much as possible 
 
 in his government, and even broke out in open violence 
 
MSE OF THE IIERODIAN FAMILY. 119 
 
 against him ; so much so, indeed, that when he was 
 dying, and foresaw the troubles that were in store for 
 his family, he asked his wife Salome to deliver over 
 his corpse to them, in order that they might dispose 
 of it in what manner they pleased. He also advised 
 her to put herself entirely in their hands, and to pro- 
 mise to govern the kingdom in accordance with their 
 wishes. Salome faithfully followed her husband's 
 counsels, and appeased by this means the enmity of 
 the Pharisees, who forthwith began to speak of the 
 late monarch in terms of the greatest respect, and 
 gave him a splendid burial. Hyrcanus, the eldest son 
 of the deceased king, succeeded his father in the high- 
 priesthood ; but after the queen's death his younger 
 brother, Aristobulus, usurped both the priestly and 
 monarchical powers. His reign was a troubled one, 
 and various means were employed by his enemies to 
 restore the sovereignty to Hyrcanus. 
 
 7. — Rise of the Herodian Family. 
 
 Pre-eminent among those who took part in these 
 intrigues was one crafty and designing man, who, 
 amid the bloodshed and commotion of the time, 
 suffered no opportunity to slip whereby his own per- 
 sonal interests might be served, and himself A nti P aterthe 
 and his family advanced another step in Idumean - 
 place and power. This was Antipater the Idumean, 
 father of Herod, the future King of Judaea. During 
 
120 THE JEWS. 
 
 the reign of Salome Alexandra, this person had exer- 
 cised great influence at the Jewish court, an influence 
 which he in a great measure lost when Aristobulus II. 
 became king ; and hence his bitter hostility towards 
 him, and his ardent championship of the claims of 
 his brother. In pursuance of his own plans, he per- 
 suaded Hyrcanus to enter into a secret treaty with 
 Aretas, the neighbouring King of Arabia. Accordingly, 
 after making due preparation, and enlisting as many 
 Jews as possible in his cause, Hyrcanus fled, accom- 
 panied by his Idumean adviser, to Aretas, who con- 
 ducted them back to Jerusalem with a great army, 
 defeated Aristobulus, and took possession of the holy 
 city. The king, in his distress, appealed for aid to 
 the Romans, who at that time had possessed them- 
 selves of Damascus. The Arabian invader was ordered 
 to leave Judaea without delay, and to return to his 
 own dominions. And having no choice left but either 
 to comply with the demand or to bring down upon 
 himself the wrath of a powerful people, he prudently 
 chose the former alternative, and withdrew to his 
 own land. 
 
 Ultimately the two brothers, Aristobulus and 
 Pompey Hyrcanus, appeared before Pompey the 
 
 Great, with a view to his arbitrating on 
 their respective claims to the sovereignty of Judsea. 
 Pompey declined to give an immediate decision ; and 
 Aristobulus, having good grounds for believing that 
 he would ultimately decide against him, prepared for 
 
H/SE OF THE HERO DI AN FAMILY. \2\ 
 
 war. Pompey, becoming aware of these hostile pre- 
 parations, led an army against Jerusalem, the gates of 
 which were at once opened to him by the partizans of 
 Hyrcanus, who were now the most numerous. The 
 party of Aristobulus, to which most of the priests 
 belonged, retired .to the temple, and there stood a 
 siege. They held out for three months, when a breach 
 was at length made in the walls of the sacred edifice, 
 and the Romans rushed in and took possession (B.C. 63). 
 Great carnage followed, not less than 12,000 people 
 being slaughtered, many of whom were priests. 
 
 Pompey, attended by his suit, inspected the temple, 
 and even penetrated into the Holy of Holies. 
 
 His 
 
 The sacred treasures of the sanctuary, which visit to the 
 were of great value, the proud conqueror empe ' 
 left untouched, but he caused the city walls to be 
 demolished. He appointed Hyrcanus high-priest 
 and prince of the country, on the condition that he 
 would pay tribute to the Republic, and refrain from 
 assuming the diadem. Thus began the supremacy of 
 the Romans over a people who had once enjoyed the 
 honour of being their allies (B.C. 62). 
 
 Aristobulus II. continued to oppose, as opportunity 
 offered, the existing state of affairs. But all his efforts 
 to recover the throne were in vain ; and after he had 
 been twice a prisoner in Rome, he at last perished 
 by Roman poison. He had two sons, Alexander and 
 Antigonus. The former vigorously imitated his father's 
 example, and sought by every means at his command to 
 
122 THE JEWS. 
 
 regain the power of which his family had been deprived, 
 but without success. He was at length beheaded for 
 having embraced the cause of Caesar against Pompey. 
 Meanwhile the form of government in Judaea was 
 changed to an aristocracy by Gabinius, pro- 
 govemment consul of Syria, Hyrcanus being confirmed 
 
 in Judaea. 
 
 in the high-priesthood (B.C. 54). This 
 arrangement lasted for some ten years, at the end of 
 which time Caesar visited Judaea. Antigonus, the son 
 of Aristobulus II. and brother of Alexander, then 
 met him, and complained that he was still deprived 
 of his kingdom, though both his father and his brother 
 had lost their lives in endeavouring to further Caesar's 
 cause. However, the wily Antipater so represented 
 matters to the dictator, that Antigonus not only got 
 no redress, but was ignominiously dismissed as a 
 seditious person ; while his uncle Hyrcanus was once 
 
 more reinstated in authority, and Antipater 
 
 Antipater 
 
 made made procurator of Judaea under him. As 
 
 an acknowledgment of the favour that 
 had been conferred upon him, and as a token of his 
 gratitude for being permitted to restore the walls of 
 Jerusalem, which Pompey had thrown down, Hyrcanus 
 sent a golden shield to Rome of immense value; 
 whereupon the Jews were again publicly recognized, 
 by a decree of the Senate, as allies of the Roman 
 people. Thus the aristocracy which had been set up 
 by Gabinius was brought to an end, and the princi- 
 pality re-established. Antipater now settled the affairs 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 1 23 
 
 of the country as directed by Caesar, and reduced the 
 inhabitants everywhere to obedience. He made his 
 eldest son, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem, and Herod, 
 his second son, he appointed governor of Galilee (B.C. 
 43). About two years afterwards, at the request of 
 Hyrcanus (who was in truth a mere tool in the hands 
 of his crafty minister), the two brothers were raised to 
 the dignity of tetrarchs of Palestine by Mark Antony. 
 
 8. — Herod the Great. 
 
 ABOUT this time the Parthians, being invited hither 
 by the oppressed peoples, invaded Syria and 
 
 t-> 1 111 1 c Invasion 
 
 Palestine, and made themselves masters 01 fs yr ia 
 the country. They placed Antigonus, the p^jans 
 son of Aristobulus II., on the throne of 
 Judaea, and delivered both Hyrcanus and Phasael into 
 his power. Antipater, the father of the latter, had a 
 short time previously met with a violent death. Pha- 
 sael, rather than die by the hands of his enemies, 
 committed suicide; while the ears of Hyrcanus were 
 cropped by Antigonus, so as to render him for ever 
 ineligible for the office of high-priest. Thus mutilated 
 he was sent back to the Parthians, who carried him 
 away captive. 
 
 Herod had also been marked out for destruction, 
 but he managed to effect his escape to TT . 
 
 r Herod 
 
 Rome. When there he requested that Aris- a* R ° me - 
 tobulus, a grandson of Hyrcanus and brother of his 
 
124 THE JEWS. 
 
 betrothed wife Mariamne, might be appointed King 
 of Judaea, and that he might be made governor under 
 him, as he had been under Hyrcanus. Owing to his 
 friendly relations with Mark Antony, who recom- 
 mended him to Octavian as the son of Antipater, 
 who had rendered important services to Caesar in 
 Egypt at a most critical moment, he got, if not more 
 than he wanted, at least, more than he ventured 
 to ask ; for he was himself appointed king by a 
 decree of the Roman Senate. He was afterwards 
 conducted to the Capitol by Antony and Octavian, 
 and consecrated to his new office with idolatrous 
 sacrifices (B.C. 37). 
 
 A few days later Herod set out on his return to 
 Judaea, where he arrived again after the 
 
 Herod •* 
 
 made King lapse of just three months from the time 
 
 ofjudsea. . ,., . _-. 
 
 of his hasty flight. Meanwhile, the rar- 
 thians had been compelled to leave the country, and 
 the Romans were again masters of Syria. Herod 
 at once set about raising an army, with a view to 
 making himself king, not in name merely, but in 
 reality. However, notwithstanding his best exertions, 
 and the aid afforded to him by the Romans, fully 
 three years elapsed before he obtained complete 
 possession of the kingdom. After standing a 
 lengthened siege, Jerusalem at last capitulated ; but 
 the besiegers, more particularly the Roman section of 
 them, were so enraged by the obstinate defence of 
 the city, that they continued to slay and pillage the 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 1 25 
 
 helpless inhabitants long after all resistance had 
 ceased. Indeed, to such a degree was this the case, 
 that in order to put an end to the carnage, and save 
 his capital from total destruction, Herod was obliged 
 to pay large sums of money to his companions- 
 in-arms. 
 
 Antigonus, being taken prisoner, was loaded with 
 chains and carried to Antioch, where he was De ath of 
 condemned to die by Antony, Herod having Antl s° nus - 
 represented to the latter that if the king's life were 
 spared new disturbances would be sure to arise, owing 
 to the people's affection for the Hasmonean race. He 
 was accordingly executed, and that, too, like a common 
 malefactor, by the sword of the lictor. Thus came to 
 a tragic and ignominious close the dominion of the 
 illustrious Maccabees ; and thus began, amid blood- 
 shed and desolation, the reign of the son of Amipater, 
 Herod the Idumean (B.C. 34). 
 
 As soon as Herod had obtained the kingdom, he 
 adopted the most extreme measures to ,. 
 
 r Measures 
 
 secure himself in its possession. The en- taken by 
 
 Herod to 
 
 tire Sanhedrin, with but two exceptions, establish 
 
 . . his rule. 
 
 was put to death because it ventured to 
 inform the usurper that, in accordance with Deut. 
 xvii. 1 5, a stranger could not lawfully be acknowledged 
 as king. Fearing to make any illustrious person 
 high-priest, because of the dignity and power the 
 office conferred, and the danger that might thereby 
 result to his own authority, Herod sent for an obscure 
 
126 THE JEWS. 
 
 priest out of Babylon, Ananel by name, whom he 
 placed in the pontifical chair, to the great disgust of 
 the entire community. 
 
 He was soon afterwards persuaded, much against 
 his will, to depose the high-priest of his own 
 
 Aristobulus l a I 
 
 made selection, and to bestow the office on 
 
 high-priest. . . . . , . 
 
 Aristobulus, his wife s brother, and son or 
 the late King Alexander by the daughter of Hyrcanus. 
 Though he was only seventeen years of age, this 
 young man had, of course, very strong claims on the 
 office, being of Hasmonean lineage through both his 
 parents. When Aristobulus appeared before the 
 people, clad in his pontifical robes, they were greatly 
 struck with the beauty of his person, the dignity of 
 his mien, and the solemnity and grace of his whole 
 behaviour. Reverence for his royal ancestry was 
 awakened in their breasts, and they called to re- 
 membrance his right, not merely to the priestly, but 
 also to the royal dignity. His praises were en every 
 tongue ; and Herod, the better to disguise his dark 
 thoughts, and to conceal his diabolic designs, swelled 
 the general rejoicings with his own feigned applause, 
 laying his plans, the while, for the destruction of a 
 youth whom he in his heart detested, and of whose 
 rivalry he was nervously afraid. 
 
 The opportunity for carrying out his fell purpose 
 „ , c soon presented itself. Herod, being a 
 
 Murder of x ° 
 
 Aristobulus. g U est of Alexandra at Jericho, where the 
 recently-appointed high-priest also was on a visit 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 
 
 127 
 
 to his mother, enticed the youth away to a lonely 
 place, where there were large fish ponds. The 
 weather being very hot, the king persuaded his 
 companion to enjoy the luxury of a bath. Some of 
 Herod's servants were bathing at the same time, and 
 instigated by their master they plunged Aristobulus 
 under the water, in the dusk of the evening, and kept 
 him there until he was quite lifeless. His death was, 
 of course, attributed to pure accident, and Herod, 
 the better to prevent any suspicion to the contrary, 
 mingled his own feigned regrets with the universal 
 lamentation of the people. However, Alexandra, the 
 queen-mother, was not at all deceived by the assumed 
 sorrow of the homicide, and owing to her representa- 
 tions of the affair to Cleopatra, with whom she was 
 on intimate terms, and through her to Antony him- 
 self, Herod got into serious trouble, out of which he 
 with difficulty extricated himself by the large presents 
 which he made to his patron. 
 
 Herod had reigned about seven years, when the 
 final struggle for the supremacy of the Herod aids 
 world took place between Octavian and Anton y- 
 Antony. With the fortunes of the latter those of 
 Herod were inseparably bound up; and in the great 
 conflict which ensued we find the king aiding Antony 
 to the utmost of his power, both by his counsels and 
 his sword. After the Battle of Actium, however, 
 when his services were no longer of any avail, and 
 when, indeed, they were no longer asked for, he 
 
128 THE JEWS. 
 
 hastened to make his peace with Octavian. Having 
 made all arrangements in view of possible con- 
 tingencies during his absence, he set out for Rhodes, 
 where Augustus was settling the affairs of the empire. 
 The interview that then took place between these two 
 remarkable men illustrates, in a very striking way, 
 some of the best features in Herod's character, and 
 forms a bright episode in the otherwise dark and 
 dismal record of his life. On being admitted to the 
 presence of the emperor, the king wore all his regal 
 decorations except the diadem. The many services 
 he had rendered to Antony he candidly confessed, 
 and avowed his sincere attachment to him, an attach- 
 ment, he added, which was not in the least diminished 
 by his friend's misfortunes, but which, owing to the 
 strange obstinacy and perversity of the man, could 
 no longer be of any advantage to him. 
 
 Offers his 
 
 .services to The services which Antony no longer 
 needed he then offered to Augustus, 
 intimating at the same time that fidelity to a 
 vanquished friend should not disqualify him for re- 
 ceiving the favour and confidence of a new patron, 
 when he professed his readiness to serve him with the 
 same zeal and loyalty which he had displayed in 
 maintaining the cause of the benefactor he had lost. 
 The courage and dignity displayed by Herod on this 
 occasion produced a most favourable impression on 
 Augustus, who forthwith acknowledged the king as 
 his friend, and confirmed him on his throne. 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 1 29 
 
 Before starting on the above-mentioned errand, 
 Herod had added another dreadful murder Murder of 
 to the many of which he was already guilty. H y rcanus - 
 The aged Hyrcanus, having returned from captivity 
 some time previously, was looked upon by the usurper 
 with a feeling of uneasiness similar to that with which 
 he had regarded his grandson, Aristobulus ; and he 
 judged it prudent to remove out of the way a man who 
 had such strong claims on the crown, though the muti- 
 lation he had experienced at the hands of Antigonus 
 had destroyed all prospect of his ever becoming high- 
 priest. A seditious charge was accordingly trumped 
 up against him, and he was judicially murdered at the 
 ripe age of fourscore years. 
 
 The appearance of a possible king of the Jews who 
 might legally claim the throne he had unlawfully 
 usurped, seems to have been the ruling fear of Herod's 
 life. Neither youth nor age nor infancy - was any 
 protection to the individual who was credited with 
 such pretensions. As we have seen, it was this fear 
 that caused him first to murder the young Aristobulus, 
 and then to put to death the venerable Hyrcanus ; and 
 actuated by a similar feeling of anxiety, he subse- 
 quently ' sent forth and slew all the male children in 
 Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two 
 years old and under.' 
 
 But Herod's cruelty towards the Has- Herod's 
 monean race did not confine itself to the cruelties - 
 male members thereof. He caused his own wife, 
 
 K 
 
130 THE JEWS. 
 
 Mariamne, to be executed on a false charge of adul- 
 tery ; and his mother-in-law, Alexandra, because of a 
 rebellion in which she was concerned, was visited with 
 the same fate. 
 
 One by one every possible claimant to the crown 
 Herod's having been removed, Herod began to 
 
 innovations, breathe more freely, and set about intro- 
 ducing some very grave innovations amongst the 
 Jews. For example, he erected a theatre and amphi- 
 theatre at Jerusalem, and instituted the usual heathen 
 games; among others, the gladiatorial combats and 
 contests with wild beasts, which we have already 
 noticed as being so popular at Rome and elsewhere 
 throughout the pagan world. This gave great offence 
 to the people ; and in connexion with such outrages 
 on Jewish susceptibilities Herod on one occasion 
 nearly lost his life. Ten indignant Jews, having 
 formed a conspiracy against him, assembled with 
 daggers concealed under their garments, determined 
 to assassinate the king on his entering the theatre. 
 The plot was, however, discovered, and the would-be 
 regicides were put to death with the most cruel 
 tortures. The informer who revealed the plot was 
 afterwards attacked by a band of men, and murdered 
 without mercy. These offenders, in their turn, were 
 put to the rack by the king's command, and then 
 executed together with their families. 
 
 But Herod's disregard for the opinion of his subjects 
 did not manifest itself merely by the introduction of 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 131 
 
 heathen games. He outraged their feelings still 
 more by the erection of heathen temples, Heathen 
 in which divine honours were rendered to tem P les - 
 Augustus. The indignation of the people at length 
 rose to such a pitch that he was obliged to prohibit 
 all public gatherings under heavy penalties. He also 
 sent spies in great numbers amongst the people to 
 discover the disaffected, and if possible bring them to 
 punishment. It is even said that the king himself 
 spent many a night in going about disguised through 
 the thoroughfares of Jerusalem, for the purpose of 
 learning the sentiments of the crowd. The results of 
 these nocturnal rambles were not encouraging. Their 
 tendency was rather to disturb and distress him ; for 
 instead of the breathings of loyalty and devotion 
 which out of pure selfishness he longed so much to 
 hear, he found that the mere mention of his name 
 was always the signal ' for curses, not loud but deep.' 
 
 As a safeguard against this disaffection, Herod felt 
 himself constrained to build fortified places Caesarea 
 throughout his kingdom, wherein he placed Sebaste. 
 heathen garrisons, in order that any seditious outbreak 
 might be promptly quelled. Among the most im- 
 portant of these were Strato's Tower and Samaria, 
 which he named respectively Caesarea and Sebaste, 
 in honour of the emperor. The latter city, it is 
 true, had, after its destruction by John Hyrcanus, 
 been rebuilt by the pro-consul Gabinius, but not 
 fortified. 
 
132 THE JEWS. 
 
 Feeling that these precautionary measures of intimi- 
 Rebuiiding dation scarcely met all the requirements of 
 
 of the .... . . . 
 
 Temple. the case, Herod, with the view of gaining 
 
 the affection of the Jews, conceived the design of 
 erecting a new temple in Jerusalem, much larger 
 and more magnificent than the old one. Having 
 summoned the people together in the temple, he laid 
 his scheme before them in the following artful address: 
 ' I think I need not speak to you, my countrymen, 
 about such works as I have done since I came to the 
 kingdom, although I may say they have been per- 
 formed in such a manner as to bring more security 
 to you than glory to myself: for I have neither been 
 negligent in the most difficult times about what 
 tended to ease your necessities, nor have the buildings 
 I have made been so proper to. preserve me as your- 
 selves from injuries : and I imagine that, with God's 
 assistance, I have advanced the nation of the Jews 
 to a degree of happiness which they never had before: 
 and for the particular edifices belonging to your own 
 country and to your own cities, as also to those cities 
 which we have lately acquired, which we have erected 
 and greatly adorned, and thereby augmented the 
 dignity of your nation, it seems to me a needless task 
 to enumerate them to you, since you well know them 
 yourselves ; but as to that undertaking which I have 
 a mind to set about at present, and which will be a 
 work of the greatest piety and excellence that can 
 possibly be undertaken by us, I will now declare it 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 1 33 
 
 to you. Our fathers, indeed, when they were returned 
 from Babylon, built this temple to God Almighty, 
 yet does it want sixty cubits of its largeness in alti- 
 tude, for so much did that first temple which Solomon 
 built exceed this temple : nor let any one condemn 
 our fathers for their negligence or want of piety 
 herein, for it was not their fault that the temple was 
 no higher : for they were Cyrus, and Darius, the son 
 of Hystaspes, who determined the measures for its 
 rebuilding : and it hath been by reason of the sut- 
 jection of those fathers of ours to them and to their 
 posterity, and after them to the Macedonians, that 
 they had not the opportunity to follow the original 
 model of this pious edifice, nor could raise it to its 
 ancient altitude : but since I am now, by God's will, 
 your governor, and I have had peace a long time, 
 and have gained great riches and large revenues, and, 
 what is the principal thing of all, I am at unity with 
 and well regarded by the Romans, who, if I may so 
 say, are the rulers of the whole world, I will do my 
 endeavour to correct that imperfection, which hath 
 arisen from the necessity of their affairs, and the 
 slavery we have been under formerly, and to make a 
 thankful return after the most pious manner to God, 
 for what blessings I have received from Him, by 
 giving me this kingdom, and that by rendering His 
 temple as complete as I am able.' 
 
 Much to Herod's disappointment and disgust, the 
 Jews were not at all satisfied with his proposal. 
 
134 THE JEWS. 
 
 Indeed, they were alarmed rather than delighted 
 thereby ; for they greatly distrusted the motives 
 which prompted the undertaking, and feared, lest after 
 pulling down their temple, he might find some excuse 
 for not replacing it, and so leave them without any 
 sanctuary at all. However, the king promised not to 
 disturb the old structure till all the material for the 
 new one should be ready. He kept his word ; and 
 after two years — the stipulated condition being com- 
 plied with — the work was commenced (B.C. 14), and 
 the old walls were taken down ; but only by degrees, 
 and no faster than they could be replaced by new 
 masonry. The main body of the temple was com- 
 pleted in less than ten years ; but the whole was not 
 finished for long afterwards — ' Forty and six years 
 was this temple in building,' said the Jews to Jesus 
 (John ii. 20), and the end of the work had not even 
 then been reached. 
 
 The vast sums expended by Herod in carrying out 
 
 his architectural schemes, not only in Jerusa- 
 
 brelL open l em > but elsewhere throughout his kingdom, 
 
 the royal necessarily exhausted his treasury. With 
 
 tombs. J J 
 
 the object of replenishing his empty coffers, 
 he perpetrated a deed of sacrilege, which, had it been 
 generally known at the time, would not only have 
 effaced any feeling of gratitude which existed amongst 
 the people on account of the rebuilding of the temple, 
 but would also have greatly intensified their former 
 hatred and hostility towards him. A report had 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 1 35 
 
 reached the ears of Herod that Hyrcanus II., when 
 in straits for money, had opened the sepulchre of 
 David and abstracted therefrom some three thousand 
 talents of silver, and that he had lefc behind untouched 
 a much larger sum. Herod determined to possess 
 himself of this money, and accompanied by a few 
 faithful companions, to whom he had imparted the 
 secret, he broke into David's tomb at dead of night, 
 to seize the coveted treasure. However, no trace of 
 money was anywhere to be found. He then deter- 
 mined to prosecute his search into the most sacred 
 recesses of the vault, even to where the ashes of David 
 and Solomon reposed. But just as he approached 
 the hallowed spot two of his guards were slain by a 
 flame of fire that suddenly issued from the chamber 
 they were about to desecrate. The king was greatly 
 alarmed thereat, and rushed from the place closely 
 followed by his terrified attendants. He lost no time 
 in erecting a costly monument at the entrance of the 
 tomb as a propitiatory offering, and with a view to 
 averting further calamity. 
 
 But it was in vain. Further calamity was not 
 thereby averted. We may not, of course, presume 
 with our creature wisdom to divine the counsels of 
 the Creator, or confidently to determine the precise 
 cause wherefore any human being suffers : we can 
 only state the historic fact, that from this time forward, 
 during the remaining years of Herod's life, misfortunes 
 and troubles continued to gather closer and thicker 
 
136 THE JEWS. 
 
 around him. His domestic relationships, never happy 
 at the best, became the unhappiest possible. His 
 household developed into a very hell of mutual 
 jealousies and intrigues. ' The tumult was like a 
 civil war in his palace ; and their hatred towards one 
 another was like that where each strove to exceed 
 another in calumnies.' As an outcome of these family- 
 feuds, the two sons of his murdered wife Mariamne, 
 Alexander and Aristobulus, having fallen under the 
 king's displeasure, were strangled by his orders. And 
 among his last utterances in this world was a com- 
 mand to execute Antipater, another of his sons. Well 
 might the Emperor Augustus exclaim, with regard to 
 his Judaean tributary, that he would rather be Herod's 
 pig than Herod's son. 
 
 9.— The Birth of the Messiah. 
 
 Not many weeks before the king was seized by 
 the fatal malady from which he never re- 
 covered, a small band of foreign-looking- 
 pilgrims, dressed in the garb of Eastern Magi, might 
 have been seen wending their way through one of 
 its gates into the city of Jerusalem. They are no 
 sooner within the walls than they enter into earnest 
 conversation with some of the citizens, and, as a 
 result, immediately become the centre of an excited 
 crowd. And no wonder ; for they declare the object 
 of their visit to be nothing less than to pay homage 
 
THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH. 137 
 
 to a newly-born King of the Jews, whose star, they 
 say, appeared to them when making their customary 
 observation of the midnight heavens, and that by it 
 they have been directed hither. The wonderful 
 tidings, witnessed to as they were by the implicitly- 
 believed-in-science of astrology, and sanctioned by 
 the lively expectation which then prevailed the world 
 over, that a great prince was about to arise amongst 
 the Jewish people, threw all Jerusalem into an uproar. 1 
 The news soon reached the royal palace on Mount 
 Zion, and at length came to the ears of Herod himself, 
 who was thereby greatly troubled. 'And gathering 
 together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, 
 he inquired of them where the Christ should be born. 
 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: 
 for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, 
 Bethlehem, land of Judah, art in no wise least among 
 the princes of Judah : for out of thee shall Gome forth 
 
 1 The Roman historian Suetonius, in his Life of the Emperor Ves- 
 pasian, thus writes : ' There had been for a long time all over the East 
 a firm persuasion that it was in the fates, that at that time some 
 who should come of Judaea should obtain universal dominion. It 
 appeared by the event that this prediction referred to the Roman 
 emperor ; but the Jews, referring it to themselves, rebelled.' And the 
 language of Tacitus is even more remarkable : ' The generality had a 
 strong persuasion that it was contained in the ancient writings of the 
 priests, that at that very time the East should prevail, and that some 
 who should come out of Judaea should obtain the empire of the world. 
 Which ambiguities foretold Vespasian and Titus. But the common 
 people (of the Jews), according to the usual influence of human desires, 
 appropriated to themselves by their interpretation the vast grandeur 
 foretold by the fates, nor could be brought to change their opinions 
 for the true by all their adversaries' (Hist. V. xiii. 3). Josephus confirms, 
 this testimony in almost identical phrase. Wars, Book VI., chap. v.§ 4. 
 
138 THE JEWS. 
 
 a Governor, which shall be shepherd of My people 
 Israel. Then Herod privily called the wise men, and 
 learned of them carefully what time the star appeared. 
 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and 
 search out Carefully concerning the young child ; 
 and when you have found Him, bring me word, that I 
 also may come and worship Him. And they, having 
 heard the king, went their way ; and lo, the star, 
 which they saw in the east, went before them, till it 
 
 came and stood over where the young child was 
 
 And they came into the house and saw the young 
 child with Mary His mother; and they fell down and 
 worshipped Him ; and opening their treasures they 
 offered unto Him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. 
 And being warned of God in a dream that they 
 should not return to Herod, they departed into their 
 own country another way.' 
 
 This supposed slight on the part of the Magi was 
 speedily followed by a retaliatory measure on the 
 part of the king, who forthwith issued an order for 
 the massacre of the children at Bethlehem. 
 
 Probably not many days after this tragedy, and 
 when the author of it, having entered on 
 
 The sedition 
 
 about the the first stage of his fatal malady, was 
 already confined to his couch, a sedition 
 broke out amongst the people, in connexion with a 
 golden eagle, which, in obedience to the king's orders, 
 had been erected over the great gate of the temple, 
 and which was regarded by many as an unlawful and 
 
THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH. 139 
 
 a heathenish thing. Urged on by some of their 
 leaders, a number of young men pulled down the 
 image and cut it into pieces, and that too in broad 
 day, and while many people were in the temple. 
 Herod was greatly incensed by this behaviour, and 
 ordered those who. had been taken in the act to be 
 bound and carried to Jericho, where, along with their 
 two leaders, Judas and Matthias, they were burned 
 alive. ' And that very night,' says Josephus, ' there 
 was an eclipse of the moon.' This incidental remark 
 of the Jewish writer has been of vast use to scholars 
 in helping them to approximate to the exact time 
 at which our Saviour was born. The current chron- 
 ology, which came into use in the sixth century, is, as 
 every one knows, erroneous. Astronomers, profiting 
 by the hint of the historian, have made their calcula- 
 tions, and are agreed that the eclipse mentioned took 
 place on the night of March 12th, or in the evening 
 of March 13th, B.C. 4. The death of Herod must 
 have occurred within three weeks from this date ; 
 and we think the Gospel narrative suggests the con- 
 clusion that the birth of our Lord happened certainly 
 not less than six weeks, and probably not more than 
 three months, previous to the demise of the king. 
 
 The account given by Josephus of the tyrant's 
 death, at the age of seventy years, and Death of 
 after a reign signalized by all manner of Herod ' 
 wanton cruelties and capricious crimes, is one of the 
 saddest and most revolting records in the whole 
 
140 THE JEWS. 
 
 annals of the human race. It would appear that a 
 few days before he expired, and when racked by the 
 agonies of a most loathsome disease, the king sent 
 out and summoned to Jericho, where he then was, 
 all the principal men of the nation. In obedience to 
 the royal mandate, the Jewish leaders assembled in 
 great numbers. Herod at once gave an order for 
 their confinement in the Hippodrome ; and that too 
 without assigning any reason for such an arbitrary 
 and violent proceeding. He then sent for his sister 
 Salome (one of the few of his relatives whom he had 
 allowed to live) and her husband Alexas, and en- 
 joined them, as soon as he had given up the ghost, 
 to slaughter the entire party. His reason being that 
 he might have 'a great mourning at his funeral, and 
 such as never any king had before him, for then the 
 whole nation would mourn from their very soul, 
 which otherwise would be done in sport and mockery 
 only.' Salome and her partner were judicious enough, 
 after Herod's death, to disobey his commands ; and 
 instead of slaying those who were shut up in the 
 Hippodrome, they dismissed them to their homes, 
 and told them, moreover, that in doing so they were 
 carrying out the wish of the late king. 
 
 Herod's son Archelaus succeeded him on the throne; 
 but after a tyrannical and troubled reign of ten years 
 he was accused before Augustus, and banished from 
 the kingdom ; whereupon Judaea and Samaria were 
 declared a part of the Roman province of Syria. 
 
civil constitution of judaea in b.c. 4. 141 
 
 10. — Civil Constitution of Jud/ea in b.c. 4. 
 
 WITH regard to the civil constitution of the Jewish 
 state at the commencement of our era, it had obviously 
 modified itself very considerably since Old Testament 
 times. We have already noticed as amongst the last 
 recorded events in the Hebrew Scriptures, the mutual 
 co-operation of the civil and spiritual officers, in 
 arranging and managing the affairs of the recently 
 re-established Jewish commonwealth. We have seen 
 Nehemiah 'the Tirshatha' and Ezra the priest standing 
 side by side, and sharing between them the cares 
 and responsibilities of national leadership. Nehemiah 
 charged himself not only with matters of state, but 
 he likewise arranged the externals of Divine worship, 
 and formulated the rules for ecclesiastical life ; while 
 Ezra applied himself more especially to the, exposition 
 of the law, and the inculcation of doctrine and duty. 
 The priesthood and the civil power thus maintained 
 towards each other a relation of equapoise. 
 
 Under the Mosaic economy precedency was un- 
 doubtedly assigned to the sacerdotal office, T he 
 for besides conducting Divine service and Priesthood. 
 expounding the law, it was also the priests' duty to 
 act as judges in the more important cases : and as 
 late as the days of Eli the offices of high-priest and 
 judge were united in the same person. Even in the 
 time of the Kings, priests were occasionally appointed 
 
142 THE JEWS. 
 
 to the judicial office (2 Chron. xix. 6). Cases of this 
 kind were, however, the exception rather than the 
 rule. While the kingdom lasted, the priests confined 
 their activities for the most part to the temple and 
 its sacred services, and meddled but little in civil or 
 political affairs. 
 
 After the death of Nehemiah the priesthood again 
 rose into prominence, owing to the high-priest being 
 made the governor under the various powers which 
 successively ruled over the Jews from the period of 
 the Persian dominion till the time of the Maccabees, 
 when, as we have already seen, the sacerdotal and the 
 kingly dignities were united in the same person. And 
 though, at the accession of Herod, the influence of 
 the priesthood was once more considerably curtailed, 
 it still continued to make itself strongly felt in the 
 Sanhedrin, or supreme council of the nation. The 
 presence of the high-priest in this council, as its presi- 
 dent, was without doubt a secularization of his sacred 
 office, for which there was no Divine authority, inas- 
 much as the exercise of judicial functions, and the 
 consulting of the will of the Lord by means of the 
 Urim and Thummim, were the only divinely sanctioned 
 duties of the high-priest unconnected with the worship 
 of Jehovah. 
 
 Besides the priesthood proper, and the civil magis- 
 tracy or eldership, there developed itself 
 amongst the Jews, after their return from 
 exile, a third most important estate, viz., the Scribes, 
 
CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF JUD/EA IN B.C. 4. 143 
 
 or doctors of the law. Ezra himself is already spoken 
 of as a ' ready scribe.' Respecting this body history 
 furnishes us with but little information before New 
 Testament times. But from the prominent part they 
 play in Jewish affairs during cur Lord's ministry, as 
 shown by the Evangelists, we are forced to infer that 
 they represent a system which is the growth of ages. 
 
 If we take into consideration the condition of the 
 Hebrew community during the exile, as well as im- 
 mediately afterwards, satisfactory and sufficient reasons 
 for the rise of such a class cannot fail to suggest 
 themselves. Let us bear in mind that during the 
 captivity Divine service was limited to a simple study 
 of the law of Moses. Far from the holy city, its 
 temple and altar, the pious Israelite could in no other 
 way lawfully do homage to Jehovah ; nor by any 
 other means nourish his theocratic hopes or keep in 
 remembrance the covenant of his God. And so it 
 came to pass, after the return from Babylon, when 
 the inspired books were collected into a whole, there 
 was a class already prepared in some measure, by 
 their previous training and habits, to take up the 
 important duty of investigating and expounding the 
 sacred records. And the almost simultaneous estab- 
 lishment of the synagogues or schools, wherein the 
 law was read and explained, rendered the perpetuation 
 of such a class an indispensable condition of sound 
 national development. The Scribes in a measure took 
 the place of the old prophets, and occupied with regard 
 
144 THE J EWS - 
 
 to the latter a position precisely similar to the relation 
 which modern divines hold to the apostles. 
 
 'Who were the scribes, and what were their aims ?' 
 asks the learned Professor of Theology at Greifswald, 
 and he answers his own question as follows : — ' They 
 were the champions of the law, i.e., the book of the 
 Thorah, whose authority they aimed at making para- 
 mount in Israel. If the Thorah was the soul of the 
 Second Theocracy, the Scribes were the nerves of that 
 soul. When, during the captivity, the sacrifices had 
 ceased, and therewith the sacred usages and duties 
 which could only be rightly observed within the boun- 
 daries of the Holy Land ; and when both, having 
 fallen into desuetude, were in danger of being forgotten, 
 the Scribes, who sprang up in the first instance from 
 among the class of former priests, rescued from oblivion 
 the sacred practices of former days, by making them 
 the subject of study and provisional theoretic en- 
 deavours.' 
 
 Unhappily, the Scribes did not rest content with 
 merely expounding the written law and giving 
 
 Tradition. . . 
 
 its true meaning. They kept adding thereto, 
 from time to time, a mass of unprofitable and absurd 
 matter. Thus the law ultimately came to be lost in 
 the heap of commentary and tradition under which 
 it lay buried, and which, according to the teaching of 
 the Scribes, was quite as important as the law itself, 
 and in some cases even more so, 
 
 'The traditions of the elders/ to which our Lord so 
 
CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF JUD/EA IN B.C. 4. 145 
 
 often refers in terms of disapproval and reproach, 
 were just the additions made to the law by the Scribes, 
 and which passed out of the region of theory into 
 that of practice by the application which the magis- 
 trates or elders made of them in their judicial decisions. 
 For it is to be remembered that the Scribes were not 
 theologians merely, but jurisconsults as well. 
 
 From the Scribes' point of view the only true 
 standard of righteousness was the law in The 
 all its length and breadth — oral as well as standardof 
 
 righteous- 
 
 Written. But to reach this standard was, ness. 
 
 of course, only possible for those who possessed the 
 requisite knowledge. That, under such circumstances, 
 vast influence attached to the party who were pre- 
 eminently and by profession the custodians of know- 
 ledge, goes without saying. As has been truly 
 observed, while ' the authority of the law was the 
 object avowedly aimed at by the Scribes, their own 
 personal ascendency over the community was the 
 result actually arrived at.' 
 
 It will be obvious to the reader from what has been 
 said, that, in the opinion of the Jewish doctors, 'right- 
 eousness' was a thing inseparably bound up with 
 strong intelligence and large attainments, and there- 
 fore, from the very nature of the case, a monopoly of 
 the learned. Indeed, Hillel, one of the best and 
 wisest of the Scribes, who died B.C. 10, explicitly says 
 ' The uneducated man cannot avoid sin, nor can a 
 common person be truly pious.' And in John vii. 49 
 
 L 
 
146 THE JEWS. 
 
 we find the same sentiment re-echoed in still harsher 
 phrase, 'This multitude who know not the law are 
 accursed.' With such facts before us it is not difficult 
 to understand how, when the Divine Teacher came, 
 'the common people heard Him gladly.' 
 
 Though eminent for scholarship, the Scribes as a 
 class were sadly lacking in vital godliness, and 
 merited, too often, the severe reproach, ' Ye are like 
 unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beau- 
 tiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones and 
 all uncleanness.' Yet, notwithstanding the formality 
 and worldliness of the majority, there occasionally 
 arose amongst them some who, like the remarkable 
 man to whom reference has just been made, were 
 distinguished as much by deep piety as by great 
 erudition. Certain modern admirers of these truly 
 admirable men carry their enthusiasm so far as to 
 make comparisons between them and Jesus Christ ; 
 and while, perhaps, allowing the superiority of the 
 latter on the whole, they are wont to insist that our 
 Lord loved virtue only a little more, — that He 
 countenanced sin and selfishness only a little less 
 than did the best of the Rabbins ; but 
 
 ' The little more, and how much it is ! 
 
 And the little less, and what worlds away ! ' 
 
 The priests, the civil magistracy, or elders, and the 
 The Scribes, were the three estates from which 
 
 Sanhedrin. t j ie me mbers of the sanhedrin or supreme 
 council of the Jews were drawn. The idea of the 
 
CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF JUD/EA IN B.C. 4. 147 
 
 formation of such a council doubtless originated as 
 far back as the time when the Book of Numbers 
 was written. At any rate, the eleventh chapter 
 would seem to warrant such a conclusion. But that 
 there is great obscurity about the whole question as 
 to when and how the Jewish sanhedrin originated, 
 the conflicting statements of the foremost authorities 
 on the subject furnish ample proof. Canon Farrar, 
 for instance, says, ' The sanhedrin was the successor 
 of the great synagogue, the last member of which 
 died in the person of Simon the Just.' Dr. Robertson 
 Smith, on the other hand, observes, 'We now know 
 that the whole idea that there ever was a body called 
 the great synagogue holding rule in the Jewish nation 
 is pure fiction.' This much, however, may be safely 
 said, that whenever and wherever the idea of the 
 sanhedrin may have originated, the ultimate realiza- 
 tion of the. idea dates after the return from -exile, and 
 was the outcome of the social forces which began to 
 work at that time. 
 
 As regards the institution itself, there is less room 
 for diversity of opinion. The great sanhedrin — so- 
 called in contradistinction to the local sanhedrins of 
 the various provincial towns, and also to distinguish 
 it from its own committees, formed of twenty-three 
 members — sat at Jerusalem, and was composed of 
 seventy-one worthies, of venerable age and con- 
 spicuous amongst their contemporaries for character 
 and ability. It determined the most important affairs 
 
148 THE JEWS. 
 
 of the nation, and exercised both judicial and ad- 
 ministrative functions, and, when in possession of its 
 full rights, had the power of enforcing its decisions by 
 the penalty of death. The president of the council 
 was the high-priest, who was styled the Nasi, and he 
 had a deputy called Ab-BetJi-Din (father of the house 
 of judgment), and also, as some say, a sub-deputy, 
 named Chacam (wise man). 
 
 The ordinary meetings of the court were held in 
 Their a hall or chamber within the precincts of 
 
 meetings. ^ Q temple, while extraordinary meetings 
 generally took 'place in the official residence of the 
 high-priest. The members of the assemby usually 
 sat in a semicircle before the president, who occupied 
 a kind of throne, with his deputy seated on his right 
 hand, and his sub-deputy on his left. The council 
 met daily, Sabbath days and feast days being of 
 course excepted. 
 
 The fact, however, is not to be overlooked, that 
 from the time of Herod's elevation to the throne, the 
 old independent spirit which characterized the Jewish 
 council during the Hasmonean period almost entirely 
 disappeared. After the terrible massacre by which 
 the tyrant signalized his accession to power, the 
 minions and adherents of the alien king, forming 
 themselves into a spurious and obsequious council, 
 usurped the prerogatives and exercised the functions 
 of the lawful national assembly they had superseded, 
 but to which they were far inferior both in character 
 
RELIGIOUS CONSTITUTION OF JUDALA IN B.C. 4. 1 49 
 
 and independence. It is, indeed, a question, whether 
 from the commencement of Herod's reign onward, 
 during the whole period of the Roman dominion, 
 anything that could be called a sanhedrin, in the 
 original sense of the word, ever once existed amongst 
 the Jewish people. Not a few writers maintain the 
 negative ; and it has even been suggested that the 
 various harsh measures from time to time adopted 
 by the so-called council of the Jews against our Lord 
 and His apostles, were merely the arbitrary decrees of 
 a ' lynch-tribunal,' and not the sober decisions of a 
 deliberative and dignified assembly. But, however 
 that may be, this much at least is clear, that during 
 the entire Roman period the high-priest or president 
 of the council was himself a mere creature of the 
 civil power, now degraded from his office, and again 
 reinstated, according as the caprices of the moment 
 happened to prompt, or the exigencies of government 
 seemed to require. 
 
 11. — Religious Constitution of Jud/ea in B.c.4. 
 
 HAVING glanced at the three civil estates amongst 
 the Tews, we shall now proceed to notice 
 
 J ' r ^ The three 
 
 the three religious parties from which the religious 
 
 • 1 parties. 
 
 former are to be carefully distinguished. 
 These were the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. The 
 relations between these latter and the so-called civil 
 estates were not such as involved the necessity of 
 
I50 THE JEWS. 
 
 the membership and interests of any one party and 
 any one estate being commensurate and identical. 
 Still it is, in point of fact, true, that the members of 
 the Pharisaic party were mostly allies and followers 
 of the Scribes ; while the Sadducees belonged chiefly 
 to the priestly class. It was so, at least, from Herod's 
 time onward. 
 
 What was the origin of these religious parties ? 
 and what their respective characteristics ? are the 
 questions to which we now address ourselves. 
 
 Pharisaism was a direct outcome of the teaching of 
 The the Scribes ; the clear tendency of which, 
 
 Pharisees. as we j lave already seen, was to make the 
 most scrupulous observance of the requirements of 
 the law an indispensable condition of the attainment 
 of righteousness. But it will be asked, Were not the 
 Scribes the teachers of the law and the custodians of 
 saving knowledge for the entire community ? and 
 how then could their teaching result fn producing a 
 party of ' separatists,' who prided themselves in being 
 distinct from the Jewish people as a whole ? To this 
 it may be answered, That between the aim of the 
 Jewish nation as a whole and that of the Pharisees in 
 particular, there was no radical difference. The aim 
 of the latter was righteousness ; but such likewise 
 was the aim of the entire Abrahamic race. The 
 means, moreover, by which it was sought to arrive at 
 this desired end was the very same in both cases, 
 viz., by living in conformity with the law. The 
 
THE PHARISEES. 1 5 I 
 
 difference, therefore, between the two parties was 
 one, not of kind, but of degree, and lay wholly in the 
 intensity and zeal with which the work was set about, 
 and in the thoroughness with which it was performed. 
 To state it otherwise, the demands of the Rabbins 
 were acquiesced i-n by the whole nation as the proper 
 expression of the theocratic principle. But the mass of 
 the people were altogether unable to objectify in their 
 conduct the doctrines and dogmas in which they 
 professed to believe. Indeed, perfectly to master 
 even in theory a collection of injunctions so com- 
 prehensive and confused, was in itself a task which 
 but few could accomplish ; while the carrying them 
 into practice was for the majority an utter im- 
 possibility. And so it came to pass, as time went on, 
 that from the majority of weaker brethren there 
 separated themselves a minority, superior in mental 
 endowments, and gifted with a moral - force and 
 fortitude above the rest, who voluntarily undertook 
 to exemplify in their own persons the Rabbinical ideal 
 of a true Israelite, and who, with this end in view, 
 made the study of the law the serious business of 
 their lives. Such were the Pharisees. 
 
 In religion, the Pharisees were the orthodox party, 
 and as such possessed the confidence and 
 
 r _ Their 
 
 won the admiration of the multitude, religious 
 whom they secretly despised. In politics 
 they were patriots or nationalists ; and whenever a 
 favourable opportunity presented itself, they were, 
 
152 THE JEWS. 
 
 as a general rule, always ready to spend their fortunes, 
 and, if necessary, risk their lives on behalf of their 
 country. It was from their ranks arose the valiant 
 Maccabees and their devoted adherents, ' who struck 
 to the earth the power of the Seleucidae, and planted 
 anew the flag of freedom on the walls of Sion.' They 
 believed in the existence of angels and spirits ; and it 
 was amongst the Pharisees that the doctrine of the 
 resurrection fully developed itself as the necessary 
 outcome of their Messianic hopes and aspirations, and 
 as a natural consequence of the traditional teaching 
 which had come down to them from the days of Moses. 
 
 However, while Pharisaism could boast of some 
 Their very commendable qualities, it was also 
 
 faults. chargeable with serious faults. And from 
 
 the picture of it presented to us in the pages of the 
 New Testament it is clear that, in our Lord's day, 
 the more imperfect side of the system had largely 
 developed itself. Forms more or less accidental had 
 obtained undue prominence ; the spirit had been 
 sacrified to the letter ; the law had been put in the 
 place of the Law-giver ; and the mind, too much 
 occupied with the mere ceremonial of the national 
 religion, had become forgetful of the worship which is 
 ' in spirit and in truth.' 
 
 The Sadducees, as a party, were utterly opposed to 
 The the Pharisees. In principle, Sadduceeism 
 
 Sadducees. was no thing else than a protest against 
 the exaggerations of ritualistic and ascetic formalism } 
 
THE SADD UCEES. I 5 3 
 
 and a denial of the pretensions of cant. While the 
 Pharisee?, as became such ardent followers of the 
 Scribes, based their particular doctrines, for the most 
 part, on the additions made to the law, the Sadducces 
 held exclusively to the law itself, putting aside all 
 tradition, and rejecting the dogma of the resurrection 
 and of the soul's existence after death. 'The 
 Pharisees/ so writes Josephus, 'have delivered to the 
 people a great many observances by succession from 
 their fathers which are not written in the law of 
 Moses ; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees 
 reject them, and say that we are to esteem those 
 observances to be obligatory which are in the written 
 Word, but are not to observe what are derived from 
 the traditions of our forefathers.' 
 
 In matters political the latter accommodated them- 
 selves more easily than did the former to 
 
 J Their 
 
 the circumstances in which they found' political 
 
 1 1 11 11 position. 
 
 themselves placed, and were able to con- 
 template the misfortunes of their country with 
 philosophic equanimity. When they were unable to 
 expel the invader, they made up their minds to live 
 at peace with him, and freely availed themselves of 
 whatever in foreign learning and foreign law they 
 found good and profitable. While acknowledging 
 the forms and principles of Judaism, as developed 
 in the two first centuries after the exile, they did 
 not, like the Pharisees, seek to meet the ever-in- 
 creasing needs of civil society and the requirements 
 
154 THE JEWS. 
 
 of progressive thought by a mere national develop- 
 ment. They acted on the assumption that an 
 indispensable condition of all true progress, whether 
 in the social or the intellectual world, was not the 
 imposition of narrow and antiquated forms, but a 
 free exchange of ideas. In contradistinction to the 
 Pharisees, who were the popular party, the Saddu- 
 cees constituted the aristocratic and governing section 
 of the nation. 
 
 Professor Edouard Reuss, of Strasburg, sums up an 
 Reuss . admirable contrast of the two parties in 
 
 contrast. foe following sentences : ' The Sadducees 
 
 happily avoided the formalism, at once hollow and 
 oppressive, of the Pharisees ; the narrow and over- 
 scrupulous spirit of the latter was foreign to them. 
 Still, in matters of greater moment, they made a 
 much wider departure from the spirit of the prophets. 
 Along with faith in the Jewish nationality, they had 
 also lost a great part of the religious convictions of 
 their fellow-citizens ; with as much error they had 
 less superstition and more indifference ; with equal 
 selfishness they had more prudence and less nobility ; 
 with as many faults they had more success and less 
 merit. Thus were the Sadducees, as a party, dis- 
 tinguished from the Pharisees, who were their most 
 direct, most persistent, and most frequently defeated 
 adversaries ; but who, though cruelly crushed, re- 
 mained in the end incontestably victorious. The 
 former ended in a shameful impoverishment of 
 
THE ESSEN'ES. I 5 5 
 
 Judaism ; the latter transformed it into a miserable 
 petrification.' * 
 
 With regard to the third religious party, viz., the 
 Essenes, no information is to be obtained The 
 from an inspired source. Though the Essenes - 
 Pharisees and the Sadducees are frequently mentioned 
 in the New Testament, the Essenes are not once re- 
 ferred to ; and all knowledge of them has to be 
 derived from Josephus and other historians. Like 
 the Pharisees, the Essenes seem to have aimed at 
 cultivating a special holiness ; but the holiness of the 
 latter was a far higher and nobler kind than that with 
 which the former were identified. In so far as they did 
 not pretend to adhere strictly to every jot and tittle of 
 the Jewish law, the Essenes agreed with the Sadducees. 
 
 Their religion was essentially of the mystic type, 
 and led them to seek retirement from the 
 
 Their 
 
 world, and to forswear all social relation-' religious 
 ships. It is said that the blighted and 
 cheerless shores of the Dead Sea were voluntarily 
 chosen by many of them as a fitting and favourite 
 abode. They put aside pleasure as an evil, and 
 regarded mastery over their passions as a prime 
 virtue. As a general rule they did not marry ; but 
 they brought up other people's children, and watched 
 over their moral and mental development with as 
 much solicitude as if they had been their own flesh 
 
 1 Histoirc de la Theolo°ic Clurtiome an Silrle Apostoliqne. Tome T., 
 chap, v., p. 75. 
 
156 THE JEWS. 
 
 and blood. Riches they despised, and had all things 
 in common. In their relations towards the Deity 
 they sought to cultivate the utmost sincerity and 
 singlemindedness. Their piety was, indeed, extra- 
 ordinary. Till after sunrise they never discussed 
 secular affairs, but invariably occupied the time 
 before dawn in prayer and devotional exercises. A 
 single plate of one kind of food satisfied at once the 
 temperate cravings of appetite and the modest re- 
 quirements of an unpampered palate. Before par- 
 taking of any meal grace was always said by a priest, 
 who also returned thanks when the repast was 
 finished. They were remarkable for fidelity, and 
 their word was as good as their oath. Indeed, the 
 taking of an oath they abhorred, and, except on the 
 most solemn occasions, such a thing was regarded as 
 quite unlawful. When any of their number was 
 guilty of heinous sin, he was expelled from their 
 society ; and only after giving the most satisfactory 
 evidence of repentance, by suffering and penance, 
 was he readmitted into fellowship. 
 
 There were always found amongst them some who 
 
 claimed to possess the gift of prophecy, 
 of prophecy- which they diligently cultivated by reading 
 
 the sacred books and by prayer and puri- 
 fications. Josephus relates a remarkable instance of 
 the fulfilment of a prophecy of one Manahem, a 
 member of the fraternity. It appears that when 
 Herod the Great was a mere schoolboy, this man one 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE ESSE NFS. 157 
 
 day saluted him as the future King of the Jews. 
 Afterwards, when the thing predicted had actually 
 come to pass, Manahem being sent for by Herod, not 
 only foretold the duration of his reign, but also the 
 Divine punishments that were in store for him on 
 account of crimes as yet uncommitted. 
 
 Without claiming for the Essenes an immunity 
 from blame on every point — for doubtless 
 they were not without faults, and in their • a ^J^. 
 pious zeal they entirely overlooked the 
 necessity for the forgiveness of sins — we, nevertheless, 
 cannot but feel that the tendency of their teaching 
 was to prepare the moral soil of Israel for the ' good 
 seed of the Word ; ' and to dispose such of the people 
 as had come under their influence to give an atten- 
 tive hearing to Him who said, ' Blessed are the poor 
 in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed 
 are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.' And, 
 although we are not explicitly informed that any of 
 this sect became followers of Christ or of His apostles, 
 it were strange indeed if, with their principles, some 
 of them at least did not hail the appearance of the 
 Prophet of Nazareth, and become disciples of a Master 
 who required all who came after Him to deny them- 
 selves, and to take up their cross daily, and who, 
 to inflame His followers' zeal, offered no greater in- 
 ducement than the plaintive declaration, ' The foxes 
 have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but 
 the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.' 
 
158 THE JEWS. 
 
 12. — Conclusion. 
 
 In conclusion we would invite the reader to consider 
 the facts which have been brought under his notice 
 in the foregoing pages, not merely as illustrative of 
 the state of the world about the time of our Lord's 
 advent, but likewise in their preparative relationship 
 to the advent itself, and very especially as an evidence 
 of the overruling Providence of Almighty God, in 
 making the activity of the ages conducive to the 
 furtherance of the Divine scheme of redemption. 
 
 In the national misfortunes of the Jews, for instance, 
 
 as well as in the prosperity and imperial 
 
 The fulness swa y f Rome, we cannot fail to recognize 
 
 of time. J ' & 
 
 the co-operation of forces, the result of 
 which clearly was to usher in that momentous epoch 
 in world-history spoken of by the apostle as 'the 
 fulness of time,' when ' God sent forth His Son, born 
 of a woman.' 
 
 In their dispersion over the whole earth, consequent 
 The on the vicissitudes of their nation, the Jews 
 
 dispersion. carried with them their synagogue, which 
 served a twofold purpose. It shone as a light in the 
 midst of Pagan darkness, and, in spite of the mists of 
 polytheistic superstition with which it was surrounded, 
 stedfastly witnessed for the one living and true God. 
 But it did more than that : it was the Jewish syna- 
 gogues, one or two or several of which existed in all 
 
CONCLUSION. 159 
 
 the great cities and centres of life throughout the 
 world, that furnished a pulpit and also provided an 
 audience for the first preachers of Christianity. 
 
 And Pagan Rome, while she was paving the world 
 with her highways, little dreamed she was i, lfluenceo f 
 at the same time accomplishing the plans of P a 2 anRome - 
 the unknown, or at least the unacknowledged Jehovah. 
 Thinking merely of facilitating the march of her 
 legions from province to province throughout her 
 vast dominions, she was in truth, all the while, liter- 
 ally preparing the way of the Lord, and making 
 straight in the desert a highway for our God. Roads 
 built, primarily, for military purposes, and as a means 
 of encouraging commerce and consolidating Roman 
 power and dominion, were really designed by Divine 
 Providence to promote the world's spiritual conquest, 
 and to subserve the purposes of the King whose 
 kingdom is not of this world. The Gospel-meralds of 
 Immanuel were to find a way prepared for their feet, 
 so that unrestrained and untrammelled, either by 
 physical landmarks or ethnical barriers, they might 
 carry into every land the glad tidings of salvation. 
 
 Greece, too, all unconsciously, contributed her 
 share towards advancing the merciful The 
 
 influence. 
 
 designs of the Eternal. For she gave the of Greece, 
 beautiful language of the Hellenes to be the repository 
 of truths surpassing any that Socrates or Plato or 
 Aristotle ever taught or dreamed of, and to be a 
 vehicle for thought infinitely transcending the sub- 
 
160 THE JEWS. 
 
 limest that Grecian bard ever embodied in Muse- 
 inspired song. 
 
 ' This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in 
 our eyes.' Greece and Rome were not only pressed 
 into the service of Messiah's kingdom as its hand- 
 maids, but the greatest achievements of heathen 
 genius were effectively utilized for the complete over- 
 throw of the corrupt religion of heathendom. The 
 star which stood over the cradle of the Christ at 
 Bethlehem was symbolical of the guiding light that 
 was one day to fill all lands, and before whose heaven- 
 derived brilliance all mere earthly lights were to die 
 away. Where are pagan Rome and Greece now ? 
 where the cult of their gods? All are buried beneath 
 the ruins of the ' immemorial centuries.' The name 
 of Jupiter Maximus is long since forgotten ; but the 
 name of Jesus of Nazareth is adored by thousands 
 and millions to-day. Darkness and oblivion have 
 settled for ever on Ida and Olympus, while eternal 
 glory gilds with a splendour that can never fade, with 
 a lustre that can never grow dim, Bethlehem Ephratah 
 — for there Mary, the virgin mother, ' brought forth her 
 first-born Son ; and she wrapped Him in swaddling 
 clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was 
 no room for them in the inn.' 
 
 We have now, however imperfectly, performed the 
 task we set ourselves at the commencement ; and we 
 have tried to do so within the briefest space possible. 
 
CONCLUSION. i§i 
 
 But in taking leave of our readers, we would venture 
 to add, even at the risk of being accused of irrelevancy, 
 that, however necessary and right it be to acquaint 
 oneself with the circumstances and conditions of the 
 world into which the Saviour was born, it is infinitely 
 more important to have a clear idea as to the object 
 of our Lord's mission. This object, as we have more 
 than once hinted in passing, was none other than to 
 raise up a world sunk in darkness and death and 
 misery into light and life and blessedness. 
 
 Jesus Christ came into our world as the divinely 
 appointed and Divine Redeemer of Jew and of 
 Gentile, of bond and of free ; and He has secured by 
 His death on the cross the benefits of an eternal salva- 
 tion to every one who by the help of the Holy Spirit 
 believes on His name. And other way of salvation 
 there is not; for 'there is none other name under 
 heaven given amongst men whereby we must be 
 saved.' 
 
 M 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Actium, battle of, description 
 
 of, 9 
 
 Alexander, victories of 95 
 
 Treatment of high-priest by 95 
 
 Dream of 96 
 
 Conquest of Egypt by 97 
 
 Victory of, at Arbela 98 
 
 Death of 98 
 
 Successors of 98 
 
 Alexander Janneus, career of... 118 
 
 Alexandria, foundation of 97 
 
 Attempted massacre of 
 
 Jews at 103 
 
 Alexas, conduct of, at Herod's 
 
 death 140 
 
 Antigonus, career of 122 
 
 Antiochus Theos, reign of 101 
 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, reign of 108 
 Massacres Jews, pollutes 
 
 the Temple 108 
 
 Tries to take Egypt 109 
 
 Second massacre of Jews by no 
 
 Profanity of 1 10 
 
 Death of .... 115 
 
 Antiochus the Great, reign of 102 
 Antipater the Idumean, career 
 
 of 119 
 
 Aphorisms, Stoical 44 
 
 Apollo, oracle of, at Delphi ... 32 
 
 At Heliopolis 41 
 
 Apelles, errand of in 
 
 Arbela, battle of 98 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Archelaus, reign of 140 
 
 Aretas, reign of 120 
 
 Aristobulus, career of 118 
 
 Aristobulus II., reign of 120 
 
 Aristobulus, the high-priest, 
 
 career of 126 
 
 Aristotle, opinion of, concern- 
 ing suicide 51 
 
 Astrology 24 
 
 Auguries, unexpected 27 
 
 Augurs, Roman 21 
 
 Augustus Cresar, victory of, at 
 
 Actium 9 
 
 Birth of 11 
 
 Becomes one of Second 
 
 Triumvirate : 12 
 
 Conflict with Antony 13 
 
 Becomes master of the 
 
 world 14 
 
 Death of 14 
 
 Fear of lightning 23 
 
 Dream of 30 
 
 Meeting of, with Herod 
 
 the Great 128 
 
 Auspices, taking the 24 
 
 Bachelors, Roman tax on 60 
 
 Bernice, murder of 101 
 
 Birds, flight of, auguries from 21 
 
 Boeotia, oracle at 36 
 
 Brazen vessel, divination by, at 
 
 Dodona 36 
 
 Brutus, victory of, at Philippi 21 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Caesarea, building of 131 
 
 Caligula, fear of lightning 23 
 
 Cassius, victory of, at Philippi 12 
 Celestial phenomena, auguries 
 
 from 23 
 
 Chariot races, Roman 77 
 
 Children, Roman, exposure of 64 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, death 
 
 of 12 
 
 Circus Maximus, the 76 
 
 Cleopatra, flight of, from Ac- 
 
 tium 9 
 
 Suicide of 13 
 
 Marriage of, to Pompey . . . 105 
 
 Courtesans, Grecian 58 
 
 Croesus and the oracle of Apollo 39,40 
 
 Daniel, prophecy of 99 
 
 Darius, defeat of, at Arbela ... 98 
 
 Dead, oracles of the 38 
 
 Delphi, the oracle at 33 
 
 Dispersion of the Jews, the ... 158 
 
 Divination, artificial 20 
 
 Natural 28 
 
 Dodona, the oracle at 35 
 
 Domestic slavery 71 
 
 Dream heralds, doors of 31 
 
 Dreams, belief in 30 
 
 Eagle, sedition of the 138 
 
 Eagles, flight of, auguries from 21 
 
 Eclipses, omens from 24 
 
 Egypt conquered by Alexander 97 
 
 Epicureanism, description of... 46 
 
 Epicures, the, description of . . . 46 
 
 Disbelief of, in immortality 47 
 
 Gods of 47 
 
 Epicurus, advice of, concerning 
 
 suicide 51 
 
 Ergastula, or slave prisons 70 
 
 Essenes, the, description of ... 155 
 
 Ezra, duties of 141 
 
 Fountain of Jupiter, the 35 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fulness of time, the' 158 
 
 Genii, belief in 32 
 
 Gerizim, Mount, the temple on 91 
 Gladiatorial combats, Roman . 78 
 
 Greece, influence of 159 
 
 Grecian games, description of. . . 74 
 
 Grecian women, state of 57 
 
 Hannibal, defeat of, by Scipio 104 
 
 Hasmoneans, the in 
 
 Heliodorus, story of 107 
 
 Heliopolis, the oracle at 41 
 
 Herod the Great, cruelty of ... 62 
 
 Made tetrarch 123 
 
 At Rome 123 
 
 Made King of Judea 124 
 
 Appoints Aristobulus high- 
 priest 1 26 
 
 Murders him 127 
 
 Aids Antony 127 
 
 Offers to aid Augustus ... 128 
 
 Murders Hyrcanus 129 
 
 Cruelties of 129 
 
 Innovations of 130 
 
 Builds Csesarea and Sebaste 131 
 
 Rebuilds the Temple 132 
 
 Breaks open the royal 
 
 tombs 1 34 
 
 Murders his sons 136 
 
 Causes massacre of the 
 
 innocents 138 
 
 Sedition of golden eagle 
 
 against 138 
 
 Death of 139 
 
 Herodians, the, history of 119 
 
 Highways, Roman 15 
 
 Homer, quotation from 22 
 
 Hyrcanus, John, career of 117 
 
 Murder of 129 
 
 Infanticide, Roman 63 
 
 Jaddua, the high-priest, and 
 
 Alexander 95 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Jews, attempted massacre of, 
 
 by Ptolemy 103 
 
 Massacres of, by Antio- 
 
 chus 108, no 
 
 Jonathan Maccabeus, career 
 
 of 115 
 
 Judas Maccabeus, career of ... 113 
 
 Laodice, murder of 101 
 
 Law, public reading of the 90 
 
 Lepidus becomes one of Second 
 
 Triumvirate 12 
 
 Resignation of 12 
 
 Lightning, omens from 23 
 
 Lucretius, quotation from 48 
 
 Maccabeus, the history of 113 
 
 Maccabeus, origin of name .. 113 
 
 Magi, the, story of 1 36 
 
 Manahem, prophecy of 156 
 
 Mark Antony, defeat of, at Ac- 
 
 tium 9 
 
 Becomes one of Second 
 
 Triumvirate 12 
 
 Life of, in Asia 12 
 
 Suicide of 13 
 
 Friendship of, with Herod 
 
 the Great 124 
 
 Mattathias, career of in 
 
 Messiah, the, birth of 136 
 
 Modin, incident at in 
 
 Mythology, Roman 18 
 
 Nehemiah, arrival of, at Jeru- 
 salem 89 
 
 Second administration of 91 
 
 Work of 92 
 
 Duties of 141 
 
 Octavia, good offices of 12 
 
 Octavian Caesar, see Augustus 
 
 Caesar 
 
 Old Testament, close of the ... 93 
 
 Olympic games, description of . 75 
 
 Onias, the high-priest, greed of 101 
 
 Onias, temple built by, in 
 
 Egypt 116 
 
 Oracles, description of 32 
 
 At Delphi 32 
 
 At Dodona 35 
 
 Of Trophonius 36 
 
 Of the Dead 38 
 
 Ambiguity of 39 
 
 At Heliopolis 41 
 
 Explanatory theories of ... 42 
 Parental authority, Roman ... 64 
 
 Parthian invasion of S yria 123 
 
 Peleus, words of 20 
 
 Persian government of Judea... 94 
 
 Petronius, suicide of .. 51 
 
 Pharisees, the, description of... 150 
 Phasael, tetrarch of Palestine . 123 
 Philippi, victory of Second Tri- 
 umvirate at 12 
 
 Phryne, wealth of 58 
 
 Plato, view of, concerning sui- 
 cide 5 1 
 
 Pompey, marriage of, to Cleo- 
 patra 105 
 
 Pompey the Great, reign of ... 120 
 
 Priesthood, the Jewish 14I 
 
 Ptolemy Epiphanes, reign of ... 104 
 Ptolemy Euergetes, reign of ... 101 
 
 Ptolemy Lagi, reign of 100 
 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus, reign of 100 
 Ptolemy Philopator, reign of 102 
 Pyrihus and the Oracle of 
 
 Apollo 40 
 
 Pythagoras, teaching of, con- 
 cerning suicide 50 
 
 Pythia, the, description of 33 
 
 Raphia, battle of 103 
 
 Reuss, Professor, on the Sad- 
 
 ducees 154 
 
 Righteousness, Jewish standard 
 
 of 145 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Roman Augurs 21 
 
 Belief in a future world ... 19 
 
 Civil Wars, influence of... 65 
 
 Empire, extent of 15 
 
 Games, description of ; ... 76 
 
 Gladiatorial combats 78 
 
 Gods forced on conquered 
 
 peoples 54 
 
 Highways 15 
 
 Infanticide 63 
 
 Language and literature ... 16 
 
 Parental authority 64 
 
 Patriotism 19 
 
 Patricians 69 
 
 Pauperization 68 
 
 Religion 17 
 
 Sea-fights 84 
 
 Social life 64 
 
 Stage Plays, cruelty of ... 85 
 
 Tax on bachelors 60 
 
 Women, State of 59 
 
 Rome, Pagan, influence of ... 159 
 Population of, during reign 
 
 of Augustus 68 
 
 Sacrifice, daily, cessation of ... no 
 
 Sacrifices, omens from 26 
 
 Sadducees, the, description of 152 
 Salome, sister of Herod, con- 
 duct of, at his death ... 140 
 Wife of Alexander Janneus, 
 
 conduct of 119 
 
 Samaria, the Temple at 92 
 
 Sanhedrin, the Jewish 146 
 
 Scipio, victory of, over Han- 
 nibal 104 
 
 Scribes, the, description of ... 142 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sea-fights, Roman, 84 
 
 Sebaste, building of 131 
 
 Seleucus Philopator, reign of 106 
 
 Septuagint Version, the 100 
 
 Simon Maccabeus, career of... 115 
 Slavery, Ancient, description 
 
 of 70 
 
 Social Life, ancient 64 
 
 Socrates, view of, concerning 
 
 suicide 51 
 
 Sports and Pastimes, ancient 73 
 
 Stage Plays, Roman, cruelty of 85 
 
 Stoics, the, description of 43 
 
 Aphorisms of 44 
 
 Beliefs of 45 
 
 Views of, concerning sui- 
 cide 51 
 
 Stoicism, description of 43 
 
 Suicide, Ancient opinion con- 
 cerning 50 
 
 Synagogues, establishment of 143 
 Syria, invasion of, by the Par- 
 
 thians 123 
 
 Temple, Herod's, building of 132 
 
 Tiberius, his fear of lightning .. 23 
 
 Toleration policy of Rome, the 54 
 
 Tradition, Jewish view of 144 
 
 Trajan and the oracle of Apollo 41 
 
 Triumvirate, Second, the 12 
 
 Trophonius, the oracle of 36 
 
 Tryphon, treachery of 117 
 
 Ulysses in Hades 20 
 
 Vestal Virgins, the, description 
 
 of 49 
 
 Women, Grecian, state of 57 
 
 Roman, state of 59 
 
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