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popularly the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Hea

ven.*

The captivity and restoration were thought of less and less as events rolled on; but the writings which they had occasioned remained amongst the Jews, a conspicuous part of their scanty literature. There is, indeed, in them so much of rich imagery and wild beauty, that they are to this day read with pleasure by those who look upon them merely as poetical relics; it is no wonder, then, that they should have continued for centuries in the hearts and mouths of all patriotic Jews, and that, when sufficiently veiled by antiquity, the prophets, as well as the law, should have been reverenced as divine oracles.

Events, however, did not correspond with these prophecies of Jewish greatness. With slow and painful efforts their temple and city were rebuilt under the leadership of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah [B. C. 536-445]; but they remained insignificant as a nation, and were successively tributary to the Persians and Macedonians, until the revolution

Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man; and the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning; and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. Zech. xiv. 3, 4, Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east, and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. Isaiah xxiv. 23, Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. See also Zech. xii. 4-8; Zephaniah iii. 8-20; Malachi iii. iv.; Joel i. 15, ii. 27-32, iii. 1, 2, 9-21; Hosea ii. 21-23; Ezek. xxxix. 21, 22.

Ezek.

Zech. xiv. 9, And the Lord shall be king over all the earth. xxxvii. 23, So they shall be my people, and I will be their God. xxxiv. 30, 31; Zech. viii. 8.

effected by Judas Maccabæus. [B. C. 166.] Under him and the subsequent able princes of the Asmonæan race, they attained the rank of a respectable second-rate power, although inferior to the adjoining kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. But the Asmonæan dynasty grew weak from internal dissension; and during the quarrel between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, Jerusalem was taken by Pompey, who first imposed upon the Jews a Roman tribute. [B. C. 63.] Under the patronage of the Romans, Herod the Idumean obtained the sovereignty, [B. C. 40,] to the exclusion of the native Asmonæan family; and, although generally hateful to the Jews as a heathen and usurper, maintained by a vigorous government the respectability of the nation. After his death, [B. C. 3,] however, the Jews were compelled to make another step towards national servitude, by the appointment of Roman governors of Judea, [A. D. 6 or 7,] who exercised a jurisdiction superior to that of the family of Herod, and of the Jewish sanhedrim.

Throughout all these changes, the Kingdom of Heaven may be seen to have been from time to time a popular idea,*

* Tobit xiii. 15, 18, Let my soul bless God the great king. For Jerusalem shall be built up with sapphires, and emeralds, and precious stone : thy walls, and towers, and battlements, with pure gold. And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with beryl, and carbuncle, and the stones of Ophir; and all her streets shall say Alleluia!

Josephus says that the Pharisees persuaded Pheroras, Herod's brother, that he was the predicted king, who would have all things in his power. Antiq. xvii. 4. About B. C. 4.

Targum Micah iv. 7, (written probably in the century before Christ,) And the kingdom of Heaven shall be revealed to them on Mount Zion, from now and for ever.

In the preaching of John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 2) the Kingdom is introduced without any explanation, as a well-known idea. Josephus, War, vi. ch. 6. "What did most elevate them in undertaking this war [A. D. 66-70] was an ambiguous oracle found in their sacred writings, how about that time one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth." The testimonies of Tacitus and Suetonius might be founded on this passage of Josephus.

and during the Roman encroachments, it revived in full force. The romantic exploits of Maccabæus had renewed the Jews' spirit of independence, and encouraged the hope that the holy nation might, at length, in its turn, succeed Assyria, Persia, and Macedonia, in the empire of the world. The period mentioned in an obscure prophecy relating to the Messiah appeared to expire near the close of the Asmonean dynasty ;* but after waiting through the long reign of Herod, the people of God seemed about to pass into a more permanent servitude to the Gentiles. The Jewish princes and aristocracy were easily soothed into submission to their powerful masters, who allowed them to retain many of their privileges; but the indignation of the populace broke out in continual tumults and insurrections, which the Roman governor, aided by the priests and nobles, usually quickly suppressed. In one of these, soon after the accession of Archelaus, the multitude of Galileans, Idumeans, and provincials from beyond Jordan, assembled at Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, succeeded in distressing the Roman legion under Sabinus to such a degree, as to give the idea that by a simultaneous effort the Romans might be overcome. This attempt was followed by the revolts of Judas the son of Ezekias at Sepphoris in Galilee, of Simon the slave of Herod, of Athronges, and many other adventurers, assuming the title of king, which the populace were ready to allow to almost any one having

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The seventy weeks of Daniel, ix. 24, ended B. C. 46, counting from the decree of Cyrus. This would lead the Jews about that time to look more earnestly for their Messiah. The direct evidence of this application of the prophecy at that time is not very ample; but Schoettgen has collected enough from the Talmudists to strengthen very materially the vague testimony of Josephus, and the intrinsic probability. Sanhedrin, fol. 97. i. "Our Rabbins delivered; In that week, when the Son of David cometh, and in his first year, that will be fulfilled which is written Amos iv. 7, &c." See De Messiâ in Dan. ix. 24.

the courage to claim it.* But the most remarkable insurrection was that of Judas the Galilean or Gaulonite, who persuaded the Galileans to resist an extraordinary taxation imposed by Cyrenius, the Roman Governor of Syria.

The account which we have of Judas the Galilean comes from Josephus, who, being himself a noble and a conservative, disliked all attempts at insurrection and innovation; yet through his angry comments it is easy to perceive that Judas was a man of great talent, and that he left a deep impression on the minds of his countrymen; for he is characterized as being not only the leading revolter against the Romans, but also the head of a fourth philosophic sect, which occasioned the alteration of the customs of Moses,† and, though agreeing with most of the pharisaic notions of religion, had an inviolable attachment to liberty, saying that God was to be their only ruler and lord. Judas was therefore both a political and religious reformer; and as his sentiments spread extensively among the Galileans, these provincials came to be looked upon with suspicion by the Romans for their disaffection to the tribute, and by the other Jews for their liberalism or heresy in religion.

Even before the time of Judas, the Jews had begun to

"And now Judea was full of robberies; and as the several companies of the seditious lighted upon any one to head them, he was created a king immediately, in order to do mischief to the public."—Ant. xvii. 10.

+ Less stress should be laid upon this as a characteristic of the party of Judas, than upon the next-mentioned doctrine. The passage of Josephus, which will be quoted, might signify that Judas occasioned the alteration of the ancient customs, indirectly, by the fatal consequences of his other main doctrines, rather than by inculcating directly the abrogation of the Mosaic law. Yet the accusation itself, and the complaint of the great novelty of Judas's teaching, may warrant the conjecture that there was something in it which was considered as opposed to the permanence of the Mosaic code. The conduct of the Zealots, Sicarii, and other ferocious bandits, into whom the followers of Judas degenerated in later times, was marked by frequent instances of disrespect to the law. War, iv. 3, 6; iv. 5, 5; iv. 6, 3; vii. 8, 1.

allow themselves free discussion on the subject of their religion. The system of Moses, intended for a secluded people, was found to be inconsistent, in many points, with the spirit of the age, when they were forced into continual contact with other nations. From the restoration of the laws of Moses by Maccabæus, all the efforts of the strict Mosaic party were unable to stop the influx of the customs and notions of the Greeks, and to prevent the admixture of Gentile philosophies with the law and the prophets. As early as in the priesthood of Jonathan Apphus, [B. C. 161,] the Jews were divided into three principal sects of Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes, of which the latter, consisting chiefly of the lower ranks, presents a remarkable picture of simplicity and moral purity, tinctured by the austere spirit of monachism. The principles of benevolence, morality, and religion, being implanted in the nature of man, it is natural that some of those combinations for common objects which men love to form together, should be directed to the cultivation and advancement of these principles. Hence there have frequently been seen, in different ages of the world, societies attempting to exhibit schools of perfect virtue, and to attain the highest possible degrees of temperance, benevolence, and piety. In the Essene sect we see an example of such a society influenced by a religion of Monotheism, and by the national literature already described. The condition of the three sects, and especially of the Essenes, forms such an interesting and important feature in the Jewish history at the period we are now arrived at, that it is worth while to transcribe the accounts of them given by Josephus and Philo.

Josephus says, (War, ii. ch. 7,) “For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of whom are the Pharisees, of the second the Sadducees, and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, is

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