Many false prophets arose and led many astray, as an apocalyptic passage in the Gospel says; Josephus asserts that they were suborned by the tyrants (i.e. by the dominant faction) to keep the people from deserting. At length the end came. The city and temple were destroyed. The golden altar of incense, the golden candlestick and the Book of the Law were taken to Rome and exhibited to the populace in the triumph of Vespasian and Titus.
Still, though the temple was destroyed, the Jewish religion remained, and the wonder is that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law should have been able so skilfully to adjust the religious and social systems to the altered circumstances. Could the Jews have put aside the hope of a sudden divine intervention, and devoted themselves to the task of witnessing for righteousness within the wide limits of the Roman world, the Jewish people would yet have recovered from even such a great humiliation. But the transcendentalism which pervades so much of the later Jewish literature was too deeply seated to be expelled from the national mind. And the command of the emperor Hadrian that Jerusalem should be rebuilt as a Roman colony, was the spark which rekindled the flame of revolt.
Again the Jews in Palestine flew to arms with the sympathy of the entire Jewish world. Their leader was a certain Simon, surnamed Bar Kosiba, or Bar Kocheba, who claimed to be the Messiah, and was recognised as such even by Rabbi Alciba. His coins bear the legend “Simon, Prince of Israel.” He actually succeeded in “liberating” Jerusalem; the sacrificial system, too, was probably restored. Julius Severus had to be brought from Britain to crush the rebellion. The closing struggle took place at Bether, now Bittir, to the southwest of Jerusalem. After a heroic resistance the fortress was taken, Bar Kocheba having been already slain. The war had probably lasted three and a half years (132-135 A.D.).
The history of the expansion of Judaism from a national to a universal religion has too many lacunæ for us to attempt it here. We have but given the outward history of the people which was the appointed bearer of the monotheistic idea. These facts are themselves highly significant. They show the wonderful receptivity of the Jewish race; they also show that there was, at least, in certain heroes of the race, a moral enthusiasm which converted all experiences, as well as all intellectual acquisitions, into the basis of an ever higher and nobler faith in God. The evolution, however, of pure spiritual religion was far from complete when the old Jerusalem passed away forever, and the name of Israel had become little more than a rhetorical archaism.
HEBREW HISTORY IN OUTLINE
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SOURCES OF HEBREW HISTORY, THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY
The modern historian knows as little of the origin of the Hebrews as he knows of the beginnings of the racial history of any other nation. The Hebrew traditions, according to which the race originated in Chaldea, and migrated thence under Father Abraham, are familiar to every one through the Bible records. There is no reason to doubt that here, as elsewhere, the national tradition represents at least a general outline of the historical truth. But the scientific historian of to-day looks askance at all unverified traditions of antiquity, and it is becoming more and more common to begin the history of Israel with the Egyptian sojourn, or at least to treat the prior history of the race as merely traditional.
There are ethnologists, indeed, who regard the Hebrews as primarily of Egyptian origin; but such a theory is only tenable on the assumption that the entire Semitic race came originally from the valley of the Nile. For it is not at all in question that the Hebrews were closely related ethnically to the Semitic races of Mesopotamia. Whatever the ultimate origin of the Semites, it need not be doubted that the Hebrews were the offshoot of that portion of the race which had settled at an early day in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. It must be admitted, however, that the present day historian has no such tangible records of the pre-Egyptian history of the Hebrews as have been discovered for the early period of Babylonian history.
Even as regards the Egyptian sojourn of the Hebrews, our records are by no means so secure as could be wished. Despite patient searching, the monuments of Egypt fail to reveal any traces of the Jewish captivity. A few years ago it was thought that a monument discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie, in the tomb of Meneptah at Thebes, had at last furnished the long looked for mention of the people of Israel. As Meneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II, was believed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, this inscription naturally excited the widest curiosity and the most eager expectations. But when fully elucidated, the record was found to contain merely a somewhat doubtful reference to the Hebrews as a people existing at the time of Meneptah, throwing no light whatever on the vexed question of the Exodus. No other reference to the people of Israel has been found in the Egyptian records. Of course, such a record may exist as yet undiscovered; but as the task of searching the Egyptian monuments goes on, this becomes increasingly improbable. It would appear that national egoism, which is the birthright of every people, gave to the Egyptian sojourn an importance in the eyes of the Hebrews themselves, which it did not possess for their captors. There is little reason, therefore, to suppose that the Hebrews made any important impression on the course of Egyptian history.
It is quite otherwise, however, when we consider the probable influence of the Egyptian residence upon the Hebrews themselves. What they may have been, before going to Egypt, is only inferential; but there is no reason to suppose that they were other than an uncultivated, partially civilised, nomadic race. The contact with the high civilisation of the Egyptians may have had upon them some such effect as the contact with the Romans had in later times upon the barbaric German hordes. In any event it is notable that the Hebrews after their migration, and throughout the period of their subsequent history, were firmly imbued with some essentially Egyptian ideas. They alone, of ancient people other than the Egyptians, practised a circumcision. It is at least an open question whether the Hebrew belief in the immortality of the soul was not gained through contact with the people of the Nile. This entire subject, however, is too new and too deeply hedged in by prejudice and preconception, to be susceptible of full and satisfactory handling at the present time. Fortunately, the main facts of Hebrew political history may be discussed with greater certitude.
After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled in the region of the Jordan, and entered upon a localised national existence. But for several centuries they made too small a mark to be remembered otherwise than by vague tradition; and even at their best, they cut no very large figure in the scheme of political news in the ancient world. There was but one period when they attempted, with any measure of success, to rival their powerful neighbours. This was the brief period when David and his son Solomon occupied the throne. The wars of David, if not so extensive as those of some of his contemporaries, have left no less sanguinary records of pillage and plunder than the records of other oriental conquests; and Solomon, under whose government the kingdom reached its apex of political glory, so far succeeded in vying with other kings, that his name became a byword of magnificence to later generations, though it probably did not dazzle his contemporaries. If the national tendency toward exaggeration has not played false to the facts, Solomon established a record, in one regard at least, that has not been equalled to this day: his harem of a thousand wives and concubines has no historical counterpart.