BOOK FIVE, CHAPTER ONE
Never
was a people so sadly undeceived as was the Jewish race on the morrow of
the day when, contrary to the most formal assurances of the Divine
oracles, the Temple which they had supposed to be indestructible
collapsed before the assault of the soldiers of Titus. To have been near
the realisation of the grandest of visions and to be forced to renounce
them, at the very moment when the destroying angel had already partially
withdrawn the cloud, to see everything vanish into space; to be
committed through having prophesied the Divine apparition, and to
receive from the harshness of facts the most cruel contradiction—were
not these reasons for doubting the Temple, nay, for doubting God
himself? Thus the first years which followed the catastrophe of the year
70 were characterised by an intense feverishness—perhaps the most
intense which the Jewish conscience had ever experienced. Edom
(the name by which 2the Jews already
distinguished the Roman Empire), the impious Edom, the eternal enemy of
God, triumphed. Ideas which had appeared to be unimpeachable were now
argued against. Jehovah appeared to have broken his covenant with the
sons of Abraham. It was even a question if the faith of Israel—assuredly
the most ardent that ever existed—would succeed in executing a complete
right-about-face against evidence, and by an unheard-of display of
strength continue to hope against all hope.
The hired assassins, the enthusiasts, had
almost all been killed: those who had survived passed the rest of their
lives in that mournful state of stupefaction which amongst madmen
follows attacks of violent mania. The Sadducees had almost disappeared
in the year 66 with the priestly aristocracy who lived in the Temple,
and drew from it all their prestige. It has been supposed that some
survivors of the great families took refuge with the Herodians in the
north of Syria, in Armenia, at Palmyra, remained long allied to the
little dynasties of those countries, and shed a final brilliancy on that
Zenobia who appears to us in effect, in the third century, as a
Sadducean Jewess, foreshadowing by a simple monotheism both Arianism and
Islam. The theory is a plausible one; but, in any case, such more or
less authentic relics of the Sadducean party had become almost strangers
to the rest of the Jewish nation: the Pharisees treated them as enemies.
That which survived the Temple and remained
almost intact after the disaster at Jerusalem, was Pharisaism: the
moderate party in Jewish society, the party less inclined to mingle
politics with religion than other sections of the people, narrowing the
business of life to the scrupulous accomplishment of the Law. Strange
state of things! the Pharisees had passed through the ordeal almost safe
and sound; the Revolution had passed over them without injuring them.
3Absorbed in their sole preoccupation—the exact
observance of the Law—almost all of them had fled from Jerusalem before
the last convulsions, and had found an asylum in the neutral towns of
Jabneh and Lydda. The zealots were only individual enthusiasts; the
Sadducees were but a class; the Pharisees were the nation. Essentially
pacific, preferring a peaceful and laborious life, contented with the
free practice of their family worship, these true Israelites resisted
all temptations; they were the corner-stones of Judaism which passed
through the Middle Ages and came down to our own days.
The Law was, in truth, all that remained to
the Jewish people after the shipwreck of their religious institutions.
Public worship, after the destruction of the Temple, had been
impossible; prophecy, after the terrible check which it had received,
was dumb; holy hymns, music, ceremonies, all had become insipid and
objectless, since the Temple, which served as the navel of the entire
Hebrew cosmos, had ceased to exist. The Thora, on the
contrary, in the non-ritualistic part of it, was always possible. The
Thora was not only a religious law, it was a complete system of
legislation, a civil code, a personal statute, which made of the people
who submitted to it a sort of republic apart from the rest of the world.
Such was the object to which the Jewish conscience would henceforward
attach itself with a kind of fanaticism. The ritual had to be profoundly
modified, but the Canon Law was maintained almost in its entirety. To
explain, to practise the Law with minute exactitude, appeared the sole
end of life. One science only was held in esteem, that of the Law. Its
tradition became the ideal country of the Jew. The subtle discussions
which for about a hundred years had filled the schools, were as nothing
compared with those which followed. Religious minutiæ and scrupulous
devotion were substituted amongst the Jews for all the rest of the
worship.
4
One not less grave consequence springing
out of the new conditions under which Israel was henceforward to live
was the definitive victory of the teacher (doctor) over the priest. The
Temple had perished, but the school of the Law had been spared. The
priest, after the destruction of the Temple, saw his functions reduced
to very small proportions. The doctor, or, more properly speaking, the
judge, the interpreter of the Thora, became, on the contrary, an
important personage. The tribunal (Beth-din) was at that time a
great Rabbinical school. The Ab-beth-din (president) is a chief
at once civil and religious. Every titled rabbin had the right of entry
within its limits; its decisions are determined by the majority of
votes. The disciples standing behind a barrier heard and learned what
was necessary to make them judges and doctors in their turn.
“A tight cistern which did not allow the
escape of a drop of water” became henceforward the ideal of Israel.
There was as yet no written manual of this traditional law. More than a
hundred years had to roll on before the discussions of the schools
became crystallised into a body which should be called Mishna, par
excellence, but the root of this book really dates from the period
of which we speak. Although compiled in Galilee, it was in reality born
in Jabneh. Towards the end of the first century it existed only in the
form of little pamphlets of notes, in style almost algebraical, and full
of abbreviations, which gave the solutions by the most celebrated
rabbins of embarrassing cases. The most robust memories already gave way
under the weight of tradition and of judicial precedents. Such a state
of things made writing necessary. Thus we see at this period mention is
made of the Mishna, that is to say, little collections of
decisions or halakoth, which bear the names of their authors.
Such was that of the Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, who about the end of the
first century was described as “short but good.” The Mishnic treatise
Eduïoth, which is distinguished 5from all
others in that it has no special subject and that it is in itself an
abridged Mishna, has for central idea the Eduïoth or
“testimonies” relative to prior decisions which were collected at Jabneh
and submitted to revision after the dismissal of Rabbi Gamaliel the
younger. About the same time Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob composed from
memory the description of the sanctuary which forms the basis of the
treatise Middoth. Simon of Mispa, at a still earlier date,
appears as the author of the first edition of the treatise Ioma,
relating to the Feast of the Atonement, and perhaps of the treatise
Tamid.
The opposition between these tendencies and
those of the nascent Christianity was that of fire and water. Christians
detached themselves ever more and more from the Law: the Jews fettered
themselves with it frantically. A lively antipathy appears to have
existed amongst Christians against the subtle and uncharitable spirit
which every day tended to increase in the synagogues. Jesus fifty years
before already had chosen this spirit as the object of his severest
rebukes. Since then the casuists had only plunged more and more deeply
into the abysses of their narrow hair splittings. The misfortunes of the
nation had in no way changed their character. Disputatious, vain,
jealous, susceptible, given to quarrelling for merely personal motives,
they passed their time between Jabneh and Lydda in excommunicating each
other for the most puerile reasons. James and the relations of Jesus
generally were very strict Pharisees. Paul himself boasted of being a
Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee. But after the siege the war was
open. In collecting the traditional words of Jesus the change of
situation made itself felt. The word “Pharisee” in the Gospels
generally, as later the word “Jew” in the Gospel attributed to John, is
employed as synonymous with “enemy of Jesus.” Derision of the casuist
was one of the essential elements of the evangelical literature,
6and one of the causes of its success. The
really good man in truth holds nothing in so much horror as moral
pedantry. To clear himself in his own eyes from the suspicion of dupery,
he is constrained sometimes to doubt his own works, his own merits. He
who pretends to work out his own salvation by infallible receipts,
appears to him the chief enemy of God. Pharisaism became thus something
worse than vice, since it made virtue ridiculous; and nothing pleases us
so much as to see Jesus, the most purely virtuous of men, set a
hypocritical
bourgeoisie at defiance, and allowing it to be understood that
the Law of which he was so proud was perhaps like everything
else—vanity.
One consequence of the new situation of the
Jewish people was a vast increase of the separatist and exclusive
spirit. Hated and despised by the world, Israel withdrew more and more
into itself. The perischouth insociability became a law of public
salvation. To live apart in a purely Jewish world, to add new
requirements to the Law, to render it difficult to fulfil, such was the
aim of the doctors, and they attained it very cleverly. Excommunications
were multiplied. To observe the Law was so complicated an art that the
Jew had no time to think of anything else. Such was the origin of the
“eighteen measures,” a complete code of sequestration which originally
dates from a period anterior to the destruction of the Temple but which
did not come into operation until after 70. These eighteen measures were
all intended to exaggerate the isolation of Israel. Forbidden to buy the
most necessary things amongst Pagans, forbidden to speak their language,
to receive their testimony and their offerings, forbidden to offer
sacrifices for the Emperor. Many of these prescriptions were at once
regretted; some even said that the day on which they were adopted was as
sad as that on which the Golden Calf was set up, but they were never
abrogated. A legendary dialogue expresses the opposite sentiments of the
two 7parties which divided the Jewish schools in
this matter. “To-day,” says Rabbi Eliezer, “the measure is filled up.”
“To-day,” says Rabbi Joshua, “it has been made to overflow.” “A vessel
full of nuts,” says Rabbi Eliezer, “may yet contain as much oil or
sesame as you wish.” “When a jar is full of oil, if you add water you
drive out the oil.” Notwithstanding all protests, the eighteen measures
obtained such authority that some went so far as to say that no power
had the right to abolish them. Perhaps certain of these measures were
inspired by a sullen opposition to Christianity, and, above all, by the
liberal preachings of St Paul. It would seem that the more the
Christians laboured to overthrow the legal barriers, the more the Jews
laboured to render them impregnable.
It was mainly in what concerned proselytes
that the contrast was marked. Not merely did the Jews seek no longer to
win them, but they displayed towards these new brethren a scarcely
veiled hostility. It had not yet been said that “proselytes are a
leprosy for Israel;” but far from encouraging them, they were dissuaded;
they were told of the numberless dangers and difficulties to which they
exposed themselves by consorting with a despised race. At the same time,
the hatred against Rome redoubled. The only thoughts which her name
inspired were thoughts of murder and of bloodshed.
But now, as always in the course of its
long history there was an admirable minority in Israel who protested
against the errors of the majority of the nation. The grand duality
which lies at the base of the life of this singular people continued.
The calm, the gentleness of the good Jew, was proof against all trials.
Shammai and Hillel, though long dead, were as the heads of two opposed
families; one representing the narrow, malevolent, subtle, materialistic
spirit; the other the broad, benevolent, idealistic side of the
religious genius of Israel. The contrast was striking. Humble,
8polished, affable, putting always the good of
others before their own, the Hillelites, like the Christians, had for
their principle that God “resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the
lowly;” that honours elude those who seek them, and follow after those
who fly from them; that he who hurries will obtain nothing, whilst he
who knows how to wait has time on his side.
Amongst really pious souls singularly bold
ideas sometimes developed themselves. On the one hand the liberal family
of Gamaliel, who had for principle in their relations with Pagans to
care for their poor, to treat them with politeness even when they
worshipped their idols, to pay the last respects to their dead, sought
to relax the situation. In business this family already had relations
with the Romans, and had no scruple in asking from their conquerors the
investiture of a sort of presidency of the Sanhedrim, and, with
their permission, the resumption of the title of Nasi. On the
other hand, an extremely liberal man, Johanan ben Zakaï, was the soul of
the transformation. Long before the destruction of Jerusalem he had
enjoyed a preponderating influence in the Sanhedrim. During the
Revolution he was one of the chiefs of the moderate party which kept
itself aloof from political questions, and did all that was possible to
prevent the prolongation of a resistance which must inevitably bring
about the destruction of the Temple. Escaped from Jerusalem, he
predicted, it is asserted, the Empire of Vespasian; one of the favours
which he asked from him was a doctor for the old Zadok, who, in the
years before the siege, had ruined his health by fasting. It appears
certain that he got into the good graces of the Romans, and that he
obtained from them the re-establishment of the Sanhedrim at Jabneh. It
is doubtful whether he was ever really a pupil of Hillel, but he was
certainly the inheritor of his spirit. To cause peace to reign amongst
men was his favourite maxim. It was told 9of him
that no one had ever been able to salute him first, not even a Pagan in
the market-place. Though not a Christian, he was a true disciple of
Jesus. He even went at times, it is said, so far as to follow the
example of the old prophets, denying the efficacy of worship, and
recognising the fact that justice accomplishes for Pagans all that
sacrifice did for the Jews.
A little consolation came to the
frightfully troubled soul of Israel. Fanatics, at the risk of their
lives, stole into the silent city and furtively offered sacrifice on the
ruins of the Holy of Holies. Some of these madmen spoke on their return
of a mysterious voice which had come out from the heaps of rubbish, and
had declared acceptance of their sacrifices; but this excess was
generally condemned. Certain amongst them forbade all enjoyment, lived
in tears and fasting, and drank only water. Johanan ben Zakaï consoled
them:—“Be not sad, my son,” said he to one of these despairing ones. “If
we cannot offer sacrifices, there is still a way of expiating our sins
which is quite as efficacious—good works.” And he recalled the words of
Isaiah, “I love charity better than sacrifice.” Rabbi Joshua was of the
same opinion. “My friends,” said he to those who imposed exaggerated
privations upon themselves, “what is the use of abstaining from meat and
from wine?” “How,” they answered, “should we eat the flesh which is
sacrificed on the altar which is now destroyed? should we drink the wine
which we ought to pour out as a libation on the same altar?” “Well,”
replied the Rabbi Joshua, “then eat no bread, since it is no longer
possible to make sacrifices of fine flour.” “Then we must feed upon
fruit.” “Nay. Fruits cannot be allowed, since it is no longer possible
to offer first-fruits in the Temple.” The force of circumstances decided
the matter. The eternity of the Law was maintained in theory; it was
believed that even Elias himself could not change a single article of
10it; but the destruction of the Temple
suppressed in fact a considerable proportion of the ancient
prescriptions; there was no room for anything more than moral casuistry
of details or for mysticism. The developed cabbala is surely of a more
modern age. But at that time many gave themselves to what were called
“the visions of the chariot,” that is to say, to speculations on the
mysteries concealed in the visions of Ezekiel. The Jewish mind was
wrapped up in visions, and created an asylum for itself in the midst of
a hated world. The study became a deliverance. Rabbi Nehounia gave
currency to the principle that he who takes upon him the yoke of the Law
thereby frees himself from the yoke of the world and of politics. When
this point of detachment is attained, people cease to be dangerous
revolutionaries. Rabbi Hanina was accustomed to say, “Pray for the
established government: for without it men would eat each other.”
The misery was extreme. A heavy taxation
weighed upon all, and the sources of revenue were dried up. The
mountains of Judea remained uncultivated and covered with ruins;
property itself was very uncertain. When it was cultivated, the
cultivator was liable to be evicted by the Romans. As for Jerusalem, it
was nothing but a heap of broken stones. Pliny even spoke of it as of a
city that had ceased to exist. Without doubt, the Jews who had been
tempted to come in considerable numbers to encamp upon the ruins, had
been expelled from thence. Yet the historians who insist most strongly
on the total destruction of the city, admit that some old men and some
women were left. Josephus depicts for us the first sitting and weeping
in the dust of the sanctuary, and the second reserved by the conquerors
for the last outrages. The 10th Fretensian Legion continued to act as a
garrison in a corner of the deserted city. The bricks which have been
found with the stamp of that legion, prove that the men of it built it.
It is probable 11that furtive visits to the
still visible foundations of the Temple were tolerated or permitted by
the soldiers for a money consideration. Christians, in particular,
preserved the memory and the worship of certain places, notably of the
tabernacle of Mount Sion, where it was believed that the disciples of
Jesus met after the Ascension, as well as the tomb of James, the brother
of the Lord, near the Temple. Golgotha probably was not forgotten. As
nothing was rebuilt in the town or in the suburbs, the enormous stones
of the great edifices remained untouched in their places, so that all
the monuments were still perfectly recognisable.
Driven thus from their Holy City and from
the region which they loved, the Jews spread themselves over the towns
and villages of the plain which extends from the foot of the Mountain of
Judea to the sea. The Jewish population multiplied there. One locality
above all was the scene of that quasi-resurrection of Pharisaism, and
became the theological capital of the Jews until the war of Bar Coziba.
This was the city—originally Philistine—of Jabneh or Jamnia, four
leagues and a half to the south of Jaffa. It was a considerable town,
inhabited by Pagans and Jews; but the Jews predominated there, although
the town, since the war of Pompey, had ceased to form part of Judea. The
struggles between the two populations had been lively. In his campaigns
of 67 and 68 Vespasian had had to show himself there to establish his
authority. Provisions abounded there. In the earlier days of the
blockade many peaceable wise men, such as Johanan ben Zakaï, whom the
chimera of natural independence did not lead away, came thither for
shelter. There it was that they learned of the burning of the Temple.
They wept, rent their garments, put on mourning, but found that it was
still worth while to live, that they might see if God had not reserved a
future for Israel. It was, it is said, at the entreaty of Johanan that
Vespasian spared Jabneh and its 12savants. The
truth is that before the war a Rabbinical school flourished in Jabneh.
For unknown reasons, it was a part of the Roman polity to allow it to
continue, and after the arrival of Johanan ben Zakaï it assumed a
greater importance.
Rabbi Gamaliel the younger put the top
stone to the celebrity of Jabneh when he took the direction of the
school after Rabbi Johann retired to Berour-Haïl. Jabneh, from this
moment, became the first Jewish academy of Palestine. The Jews from
various countries assembled there for the feasts, as formerly they had
gone up to Jerusalem, and as formerly they profited by the journey to
the Holy City to take council with the Sanhedrim and the schools upon
doubtful cases, so at Jabneh they submitted difficult questions to the
Beth-din. This tribunal was only rarely and improperly called by
the name of the ancient Sanhedrim; but it exercised an
undisputable authority; the doctors of all Judea sometimes met in it,
and so gave to the Beth-din the character of a Supreme Court. The
memory was long preserved of the orchard where the sittings of this
tribunal were held, and of the dovecote under whose shade the president
sat.
Jabneh appeared thus as a sort of
resuscitated Jerusalem. As to privileges and religious obligations, it
was completely assimilated to Jerusalem; its synagogue was considered
the legitimate heiress of that of Jerusalem—as the centre of the now
religious authority. The Romans themselves looked at it in this light,
and accorded to the Nasi or Ab-beth-din of Jabneh an
official authority. This was the commencement of the Jewish patriarchate
which developed itself later and became an institution analogous to the
Christian patriarchates of the Ottoman Empire of our own days. These
magistratures, at once civil and religious, conferred by the political
power, have always been in the East the means employed by great Empires
to disembarrass themselves of the responsibilities of their satraps.
13The existence of a personal statute was in no
way disquieting to the Romans, above all, in a town partly idolatrous
and Roman, where the Jews were restrained by the military force and by
the antipathy of the rest of the population. Religious conversations
between Jews and non-Jews appear to have been frequent in Jabneh.
Tradition shows us Johanan ben Zakaï maintaining frequent controversies
with infidels, and furnishing them with explanations of the Bible, on
the Jewish festivals. His answers are often evasive, and sometimes alone
with his disciples he allows himself to smile at the unsatisfactory
solutions he has given to Pagan difficulties.
Lydda had its schools which rivalled those
of Jabneh in celebrity, or rather which were a sort of dependency of
them. The two towns were about four leagues Apart: when a man had been
excommunicated at one he betook himself to the other. All the villages,
Danite or Philistine, of the surrounding maritime plain—Berour Haïl,
Bakiin, Gibthon, Gimso, Bene Barak, which were all situated to the south
of Antipatris, and were until then hardly considered as belonging to the
Holy Land at all—served also as an asylum to celebrated doctors. Finally
the Darom, the southern part of Judea, situated between Eleutheropolis
and the Dead Sea, received many fugitive Jews. It was a rich country,
far from the routes frequented by the Romans, and almost at the limit of
their domination.
It thus appears that the current which
carried Rabbinism towards Galilee had not yet made itself felt. There
were exceptions. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, the editor of one of the first
Mishna, appears to have been a Galilean. Towards the year 100 the
Mishnic doctors are seen approaching Cæsarea in Galilee. It was,
however, only after the war of Hadrian that Tiberias and upper Galilee
became par excellence the country of the Talmud.
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