before Rome had made any beginning. Though at present distinct from the surrounding world, it proGen. xii. 3. fessed that it was designed for the ultimate blessing of all; and indeed, it had therefore survived the strangest vicissitudes of history, while other peoples and races one after another had changed and perished. We cannot complete our brief view of the condition of the first century without looking at the state of things among the Jews; especially also as amidst them our Christianity took rise, using both their social and religious system.

nomy under

This long dispersed people had in many ways obtained from their heathen rulers a liberty of internal Their auto- self-government. The Romans, after the Holy Land the Romans. fell under their power, acquiesced in this. Their conquests being so wide, and of so various a character, it was necessary for them everywhere to adopt much of the local administration of society, and the Jews had the full benefit of this. Unless, the fault were their own, they were but little molested, out of Syria; and not unfrequently had, in addition to a certain national exemption, the privileges of Roman citizenship, and even the position and favour of B.O. 42. Roman officials. Before Julius Cæsar, their San(it had hedrim had indeed been abolished for a time; but he restored it. Among them, therefore, the means of moral and religious advancement had remained; but, we have to enquire, with what results?

been sup pressed,

however, in favour of five local courts.)

We must think of the Synagogue of the Dispersion as everywhere a little republic, in confederacy with numerous societies like itself, ordered by traditional

1.] ITS CONDITION SINCE THE CAPTIVITY;

23

division of

customs and laws. The nation, after the Babylonian Twofold captivity, was mainly divided into two sections, con- the nation. sisting of those who returned to Jerusalem on the permission of Cyrus, and of those who remained in Babylon. The temple was the common centre of both. In both were schools of the law, in connexion with the synagogues; of every synagogue there was an elected ruler,' and he was subordinate in certain vital points to the 'Nasi'" or to the 'Resh Glutha,' as the case might be. Their independence was greater, indeed, in the East than in Palestine ; they who lingered in the Persian kingdom of Alexander's successors not coming fully under the Roman yoke, as Persia maintained a kind of freedom of its own throughout the whole period of Roman power, and was only subdued by the Saracens in the seventh century of our era.

lonian

their Head.

The head of the Babylonian Jews, the Prince The Eabyof the Captivity,' as he at length was called, was Jews and thought to be of Royal extraction; and the nobler part of the nation remained with him. The Palestinian Patriarch was, however, long deemed his superior, and was elected to his office by the council of the elders. It was the duty of both to transmit the Scriptures, and the traditions of the fathers and they had their Schools, zealous in performing this. The Babylonian Jews, in their old settlements between the Tigris and the Euphrates, enjoyed large and prolonged protection; and even maintained their succession for a thousand years after

n The Patriarch of the West; and the Prince of the Captivity.

Christ, under their Prince-Rabbies.

The Ju

daan Pa

6

The Patriarch

of the West extended his power by means of subordinate patriarchs in chief places of Jewish resort; appointed his apostles, shalekim,' as his messengers; and received tribute from the remotest of his spiritual subjects. Even the Emperor acknowledged his digtriarchate nity, nor was it abolished till the time of Theodosius. We may see then at a glance the unity of the Jewish civilization. Indeed for three hundred years after the fall of Jerusalem their spiritual chief could, almost single-handed, hold together the massy fragments of his scattered people.

in Pales

tine.

Schools of the Law.

A.D. 51.

At the era of Augustus-the period which we must keep before us-the Schools of Jerusalem were frequented by Jews from all quarters. The illustrious Rabbi Hillel, followed by Simeon and by Gamaliel in succession, presided. The increasing

troubles induced Gamaliel to transfer the schools to Jamnia, near Joppa, in the reign of Claudius ; in fact about the time of the council of apostles at Acts ix. 32. Jerusalem. At Lydda, a few years after S. Peter's visit to that place, we find a school, devoted chiefly to mystic and cabbalistic learning, perhaps as best adapted to meet both the rising Christianity and the Gentile philosophy. Other schools arose at the capitals of Galilee and lower Galilee, Tzephoria and Continued Tiberias, (the latter the Patriarch's seat), and at Cæsarea, the chief city of the Roman province and a colony. We have thus the outline of the Jewish civilization of the first Christian century. After the fall of Jerusalem, Tiberias which had been endowed

after the

fall of Jerusalem.

by Nero with many privileges, and escaped greatly in the general desolation, became the head-quarters of Judaism; and a hundred years later it was, we know, the birth-place of the Talmud.

Among this people so intensely organized, and so 'dwelling alone' in all the world, there was at this time an earnest belief that a ‘Kingdom of Heaven,' a new and higher order of things, was at hand. Their prophets had taught them to watch for it; their 'Targums,' or synagogue-interpretations, bore witness to it; their heroes had died in the faith of it; their princes had but the ambition to hold place till King Messiah should appear. We have to ask, what had they done to prepare themselves for this? or what for the 'blessing of the nations of the earth' around them? One whom all the people owned as a prophet, suddenly appeared among them, preaching to them, 'repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' They did not exactly understand what he demanded What had of them; and he said that he required the result. plainest duties of justice and mercy, instead of that exclusive reliance on their Abrahamic descent which S. Matt. iii. 7-10. had become the substance of their religion and virtue. When the leaders of the people ap- A general proached him at the Jordan, he spoke as if he de- decay. spaired of them, and told them that they were a 'generation of vipers,' and that the axe was laid at the root' of their long sacred polity.

On looking closer yet, we learn that the wealthiest and most cultivated among this people were Sadducees, who owned no life at all beyond the present, any

been the

moral

The Sad

ducees, infidels;

sees, for

malists.

more than the heathen Epicureans had done. They denied the Resurrection, they only half-accepted their prophets, and yet they held authority as chief priests the Phari- and rulers. A more numerous body of the nation, Pharisees and their followers, clung to all the Scriptures, interpreting them to the people however in the most secular sense, 'making them void by their traditions.' Without denying either the Resurrection, or a future world, they left them out of their practical teaching, so that they were but theories for controversy with the Sadducees. And in their philosophy they were well nigh as fatalistic as the Stoics of heathenism.

Jewish blindness

ralization

The heartless exclusiveness of the Pharisees, and with demo- their perversion of the very ground of morals, whether with the poor of their own people, or with the Gentiles to whom their nation should have brought blessing, drew on them 'the woes' that were inevitable; while their adherence outwardly to the Law blinded them even to the last. The Roman historian declares that the Jews came to be regarded as the very ' enemies of the human race,' a proverb of malignity and cruelty. Josephus, one of themselves, who would gladly have been their panegyrist, is the unwilling chronicler of their crimes. Philo, a real patriot, while exalting Moses as warmly as he praises the sacred Pythagoras' and the 'sweetest Plato,' is witness of the abhorrence of the world for his own people. The at the fall most thoughtful men of Israel, when they saw their temple in flames, confessed that 'God is just.'

by all men

of Jerusalem.

A.D. 70.

A lull followed the wars of Vespasian and Titus ; but the terrible story of Judaism that soon ensued