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activities to their own land. Not a city in the world but rang with the wrongs inflicted on the Jews. The Jewish world was in a ferment. In some cities the prudent controlled the turbulent; such was Antioch; but in others again the turmoil almost rivalled that in Judea itself. No longer favoured by Rome, and every enemy and they had many-hastened to gratify an outstanding spite of years; so that there were few countries where there was not a Jew population with some grievance of its own to resent and avenge. These were harvests ripe to the sickle for these followers of Judas-pestilent fellows, who set the world in an uproar. And in the story of the times that has come down to us confusion exists between them and their fellow Christians as we now know them. In spiritual outlook they may have altered, but in all else they were one. These fiery zealots to the Greek and Roman world were followers of a Christ of whose murder they were ever telling. Maybe one saw his service in the fury of war, the other sought light in his teaching itself. Time was to see a change in the relative weight of sentiment, but at this period it is this implacable school that takes and holds the stage. And against these Christians the Romans waged remorseless war. And the underlying hate and antipathy was mutual.

62. And now we are to see the Jews of Canaan in battle array against the Romans. Florus has succeeded and driven them to revolt. Had it been an organized rising of the Jews all over the world; or had it not been for the universal hate borne them in every land, this war had shaken the empire to its very foundations. At enmity with Rome, and massacres of their race were general. Naturally the Greeks at Caesarea led the way, and they murdered some twenty thousand Jews in an hour's time. They literally emptied the city of its Jewish inhabitants. To this the Jews replied with a fiery crusade, laying waste the villages and country of the Syrians, Greeks in sympathy, and who in turn equalized by mobbing and murdering every

helpless Jew settled in their cities. And their natural hate was quickened by envy of their riches and desire of gain. And to their fellows it was a pleasing measure of their patriotism, the amount of plunder they secured. It was common to see cities filled with their unburied dead-old men mixed with infants, all stripped, and women also amongst them, and no covering for their nakedness. At Scythopolis, feeling not being so high, the Syrians were able to delude the Jews into a sense of security, when they fell upon them and cut the throats of as many as thirteen thousand. Similarly at Askelon they slew two thousand Jews; and at Ptolemais two thousand. In Tyre and Sidon many also were slain, and many put in bonds, as also in many another Phoenician city. A notable exception, almost alone, was Antioch, one of the three great centres of the empire. This we remember was the capital of the one time kingdom of the Syrian Greeks, and here the races lived together in comparative amity. Also, about this time, there was the terrible slaughter of the Jews in Damascus, the natives there being in a difficulty how to carry out their plans because of the love of their women folk for the Jews' religion; as well as that terrible strife in Alexandria to which we have also referred, which was so sternly suppressed by their own countrymen, Tiberius Alexander. And in this city it is we get a glimpse of this terrible fourth party, this Judas party, one of those unwitting tributes to them that flit across the narrative of Josephus. We are in Alexandria. It is a little later than the events we are now recording, and things have gone badly with them both here and in Judea. We remember when Onias III. was High Priest and murdered by Menelaus in the first days of the Hellenist popularity, how his son escaped to Egypt and at Heliopolis built another temple in which to serve his God. Till now it had existed, but it is not long to survive the fate of its great original in Jerusalem. It is also to be destroyed as centre of faction and disloyalty to the empire. We have seen

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how Alexandria was in a state of turmoil-turmoil ever fomented by the missioners of these extremists. It was no part of their policy to limit their energies, but in every city and in every land they still sought to stir up the race against Rome. Not that they were made universally welcome by their brethren. Far from it. There was many a Jew above all anxious to live in peace with all men; to stand well with the powers that be; a Hezekiah to give thanks if only there might be peace in his time. But such luke-warmness only roused their anger and fired them to greater zeal, and they as much defied the Roman abroad as at home. And he on his part as remorselessly tracked them to earth, hunted them down, and flogged and crucified them; and his policy ever to do so. And they made it their religion-the one to kill, the other to die. David and his line denied them, and their creed was crystalized into the fewest of words: "No king but God." His rejoinder was as short and explicit : Caesar is master." And Caesar acknowledged, and it was life and liberty; defied, death in torment. All most simple, brief, and to the point on both sides. For or against. A little incense thrown on the altar in acknowledgment, and they left the judgment hall free men. But that incense was never burnt-not by them. "For "-as Josephus tells us―" those that fled . . . were caught . . . whose courage, or whether we ought to call it madness or hardiness, in their opinions everybody was amazed at: for when all sorts of torments and vexations of their bodies that could be devised were made use of to them they could not get any one of them to comply so far as to confess or seem to confess that Caesar was their lord. But they preserved their own opinion in spite of all the distress they were brought to, as if they received these torments and the fire itself with bodies insensible to pain and with a soul that in a manner rejoiced under them. And what was most of all astonishing to the beholders was the courage of the children, for not one of these children was so far

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overcome by these torments as to name Caesar for their lord. So far does the strength and courage of the soul prevail over the weakness of the body." And thus these first Christians, as in all majesty they take the stage. For the moment it is not the ideal of the great Master that sways their lives. Their acceptance of it is to come, and with it many another change, but in spirit they will be one to the end. In these mad extremists of Josephus we have an example of noble passive endurance that is to remake a world. In this existence there are things of higher value than life itself. And this is the lesson they have taught, the message they have delivered to an enslaved world.

CHAPTER XX.

THE ETHICAL IDEAL IN DEVELOPMENT.

163. HERE again we note the more important dates :

A.D.

62. Albinus made procurator.

63. Josephus, aged 26 visits Rome.

64. Completion of the Temple, burning of Rome. Florus succeeds Albinus.

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His excessive

66. Eleazar, son of the High Priest Ananias, a
bold youth, stops sacrifice for Caesar.

Manahem, son of Judas, leads revolt, as-
sumes royal dignity, is killed by above
Eleazar, and Eleazar his kinsman leads at
Massada.

Massacre of 20,000 Jews in Caesarea in an
hour.

"General massacre in Syrian cities of all

Jews. Also Alexandria filled with Jew
dead.

Cestius overruns Zebulon, the "City of
Men," etc. Syrians massacre 2,000 Jews.
Cestius besieges Jerusalem; is defeated.
Massacre of Jews in Damascus.

Josephus made a general. Also Eleazar,
son of High Priest. (Apparently Zealots
ignored.)

Rise of John of Gisghala, at first a nominee of Josephus. Also of Simon of Gioras, an extremist.

67. Appointment of Vespasian.

68.

Jews besiege Ascalon, but bloodily repulsed.
Vespasian reaches Antioch. Joined by
Agrippa and peoples anxious to be well
with Rome.

Titus joins his father.

Vespasian invests Gadara and Jotapa. This
taken after long siege, betrayed by deserter.
Samaritans resist Romans.
Surrender of Josephus.

Suicide of Nero.

69. Taking of Joppa, Tiberias, etc.

Fall of Gamala and Gischala. John escapes to Jerusalem. Panic in Jerusalem. John will have no peace. Prudent make lamentation. Influx of outside Jews, mostly for war. Wild dissensions between Zealots and priest party, mostly for peace. Idumaeans called in to help by Zealots. Leads to further dissensions.

Wild factions in the city.

Taking of Gadara, rich and strong.

Galba, successor to Nero, dies after reign of 7 months.

Otho and Vitellius follow him.

Simon quarrels with John.

Wild scenes in Rome also; filled with

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