ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 6.2
PREVIOUS | NEXT
INTRO | PART 1.1 | PART 1.2 | PART 1.3 | PART 1.4 | PART 1.5 | PART 1.6 | PART 2.1 | PART 2.2
PART 2.3 | PART 2.4 | PART 4.0 | PART 5.1 | PART 5.2 | PART 5.3 | PART 5.4 | PART 5.5 | PART 6.2
PART 6.3 | PART 7.1 | PART 7.2 | PART 8.1 | PART 8.2 | PART 8.3 | PART 8.4 | PART 8.5 | PART 8.6
PART 8.7 | PART 9.1 | PART 9.2 | PART 9.3 | PART 10.1 | PART 10.2
PART 31.1 | PART 31.2 | PART 31.3 | PART 31.4
Acknowledgements | Bibliography

In the next part of the serialisation of Tom Lee's manuscript we take two excerpts from Part 6 in which Tom looks at the impact of the desfruction of the Temple in the year 70. This leads up the conclusion at the end of Part 6.3 that "Christianity alone developed a system uniting philosophy and theology, sacrament and morality, a church and a private sense of God"

The impact of the destruction of the Temple
Part 6.2
by Tom Lee

At War with Rome…

It was about this time that construction and embellishment of the Temple buildings in Jerusalem that had been begun by Herod the Great some seventy years before, was completed, throwing eighteen thousand men out of work. Although King Agrippa II employed them temporarily in paving the city with white stone, they formed a discontented rank and file in the city.

The Zealots, under the leadership of Menahem, the son of the founder of the party Judas of Galilee, rose in revolt and appealed to the people for a life and death struggle against the oppressor. The Pharisees, who taught submission to the divine will, tried in vain to restrain the people from plunging into war and ruin. No doubt any remaining Nazoreans supported the Pharisee attitude as they excitedly awaited the return of Jesus the Messiah.

At first Menahem was accepted by the nationalists and they succeeded in occupying Herod's Palace in Jerusalem, slaughtering the high priest Ananias and his brother in the process. But Menahem's triumph was short-lived. Processing to the Temple in royal robes he and his followers were there attacked by the people. Menahem fled but was captured, tortured and executed.

Josephus blamed the politico-religious fanaticism of the Zealots for leading the Jewish people ultimately into the disastrous war with Rome. They certainly became the driving force of the revolt, but for a time their energies were absorbed in combating the efforts of the aristocracy, who were supported by the Roman garrison of Jerusalem and a detachment of troops sent by King Agrippa II. The raising of the standard of revolt against Rome had repercussions throughout the whole of Israel and a large part of the Diaspora. Pogroms broke out in Alexandria, Tyre, Damascus, and many other Syrian cities.

News of the revolt and especially the slaughter of the Roman garrison at Jerusalem had a disastrous consequence for the Jewish population of Caesarea. A complete massacre of the Jews ensued. This bloody act naturally provoked Jewish reprisals. Many Gentile cities in Israel, including Pella, were attacked and the neighboring Syrian villages were laid waste.

The Zealots knew from the start that, humanly speaking, their cause was hopeless against the military juggernaut of Rome — but they hoped for and believed in a saving miracle from God. They inscribed their coinage with the words "The first year of the redemption of Israel". Undoubtedly a great many Nazoreans flocked back to the Holy City believing that the End of Roman power and the return of Jesus were nigh.

The Roman attack, though delayed, was powerfully delivered. Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, lamenting no doubt his fate as a colonial administrator and sickened by reprisals in a ratio of at least five to one, entered Israel with a strong force of legionary and auxiliary troops and, encountering little opposition in Galilee or Samaria, advanced straight to Jerusalem. He pushed his attack to the point of breaching the Temple walls, then unaccountably withdrew and retreated northward. The reason is unknown, but he may have been party to one of the plots against Nero.

Once the Jews fears of some stratagem were dispelled, their joy was unbounded. God had in some mysterious way saved his shrine, and the Jews eagerly pursued the retreating Romans, harassing their march and inflicting many losses. To the Jews the defeat of Gallus was the hoped for demonstration of God's power and saving care. It seemed indeed as if His Temple was inviolable and all Jewish opposition to the revolt faded away.

Nero, infuriated by the loss of this key province between Syria and the granary of Egypt, selected Vespasian, whose military experience had been strenuously acquired and honed in Britain, for the difficult task of subduing the rebellious Jews and restoring Roman dominance in their rugged lands.

The Execution of St Paul depicted by Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto

In the spring of 67 Vespasian entered Galilee from the north with three legions and a strong body of auxiliary troops. Their operations during the campaigning season of this year were confined to the reduction of the insurgents of Galilee and other neighboring districts, steadily moving south, encouraged and aided by the Greek and Roman inhabitants, as the troops destroyed Jewish settlements. As Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: "Christianity did not create anti-Semitism. It was formed by the Jew hatred that already existed among its would-be converts, the Hellenized peoples of the Roman world."

Many Jews, throughout the empire, were executed for political offenses in this year, including Paul. Tradition says he was beheaded (as befitted a Roman citizen) at Rome. Some authorities place Peter's martyrdom at this later date also. Messianic beliefs of any kind were sufficient to merit the death sentence from the Romans at this time.

A dangerous doctrine of communism…

We know from Paul that followers of the new faith were members of the emperor's household. Since a great majority of the six thousand servants were slaves, the new teaching, offering them rewards in the next life in compensation for the miseries of this world, naturally appealed. But it was not only a new religion, propagated by renegade Jews who made preposterous claims, it was a dangerous doctrine of communism, adopted by the have-nots who-looked forward to a time when their rich masters would be suffering instead. To profess Christianity was, at best, to invite ridicule. When, therefore, it leaked out that a page at the imperial palace in Rome, Alexamenos, was a Christian, it was a thing for mirth and derision among the other boys. One, with .a neat gift for caricature, embellished the wall in the pages' quarters with the graffiti of an ass with large ears on a crucifix, and scribbled derisively underneath "Alexamenos worships his God".

In 67 Nero travelled to Greece, farcically winning some events at Olympia. Though he fell out of his chariot and failed to finish the race the intimidated judges still awarded him the victory crown; news of his vengeful nature and self-glorification had preceded him.

During the following year, 68, Vespasian continued his careful policy of reducing the insurgent centers in Judaea outside the capital, thus isolating Jerusalem, the headquarters of the revolt. He seems to have been unwilling to involve himself too deeply in operations while the affairs of the Empire were so precarious.

The suicide of Nero plunges the Empire into 18 months of civil war…

Both Spain and Gaul were also in revolt and when the Senate voted that Nero was a public enemy the debauched tyrant fled. On learning that the Praetorian Guard had deserted his cause and were hunting for him, Nero, realizing that only a dead man is safe from death, with the assistance of his secretary, raised a dagger to his throat and dealt himself a mortal blow. His sudden extinction plunged the empire into eighteen months of civil war, during which time no fewer than three emperors, Galba, Otho and Vitellius came and went in blood.

Convinced that Jerusalem was doomed to destruction, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, one of the Pharisee leaders opposed to the war, left the city. He is said to have simulated death and had himself carried out in a coffin by his trusted disciples. The Romans had a superstitious regard for the dead, and it may also have been a protective ruse by a noted pacifist to forestall attack from his fellow Jews patriotically engaged in defending the city.

Once outside the gates Jochanan boldly went to seek Vespasian, and prophesied that the general would soon become emperor and begged permission to establish a Jewish cultural center and academy at Jabneh, on the coast northwest of Jerusalem. The plea appeared to the general too trifling to be refused and he promised that if the prophesy came true he would grant the request. Vespasian was no doubt well aware that the Pharisees had preached against the war and for submission to Roman rule. When at last the legate of Syria and the governor of Egypt concurred in proclaiming Vespasian as Emperor, the Judaean campaign came to a standstill and Vespasian left Israel with a large part of his army, leaving Jerusalem's walls encircled by a vast earth-work, creating a no-mans-land. Any of the besieged that tried to escape were crucified atop the mound.

Seige and Sabbatical Year creates famine and desperation…

September 68-69 was a Sabbatical Year when no grain could be sown. Even had the Roman occupation not prevented it, famine added to the desperation of the Jews.

The suspension of the war came to an end when in the spring of 70, a few days before Passover, Titus the eldest son of the Emperor, gathered his forces before the walls of Jerusalem for the final overthrow of the Jewish rebels. Seutonius (75-160) claimed that Titus maintained troops of catamites (exsoleti) and eunuchs for his personal pleasures, but Emperor Vespasian he described as modest and amiable, and the first decent man in the job for many years. The Emperor pressed for a decisive victory over the Jewish rebels. The Roman troops had grown restless, no doubt wishing to be home for Saturnalia.

The siege was one of the most terrible in history. Hunger and disease proved to be enemies as potent as the Roman legionaries, "most savage to look at, frightening to listen to". When the siege engines finally breached the wall, the Jewish patriots fought with indescribable fury in contesting every foot of the Roman advance. But the miracle for which they hoped did not come. God did not answer their prayers or send his Messiah to blast the impious invader; instead thousands of his people were butchered in the holy courts of the Temple.

The destruction of the Temple…

When the Temple fell, the inner sanctuary going up in flames, the remaining residential districts were sacked and burnt. The destruction of the Temple, so recently completed, was the virtual end of Jewish resistance, although some isolated bands, such as the defenders of the fortress at Masada, held out for two or three more years.

The Jew's homes, goods and economic resources were destroyed. It was a blow from which, as a nation, they never recovered. The Holy City and its Temple were razed to the ground and all who attempted resistance were put to the sword. Tall and handsome Jewish youths were rounded up for the Roman triumphal procession. Others were dispatched to slavery in the Egyptian mines and many were distributed throughout the provinces for gladiatorial shows. One and a half million had perished in the siege and one hundred thousand were made prisoners of war. Another four hundred thousand had fallen during the five years of fighting in Judaea.

If it wasn't for the Jews the Colosseum might never have been built. Twelve thousand Jewish prisoners, including many masons who had learnt their trade building the Temple in Jerusalem, worked on the construction of the great building. Later they were slaughtered in the arena as part of the inaugural ceremonies in a gladiatorial show that lasted for a hundred days. The Midrash Rabbah: Lamentations tells us that three shiploads of Jewish men, condemned by Vespasian to be exsoleti (passive male prostitutes) in the male brothels of Rome, committed suicide by jumping overboard.

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 6.2
PREVIOUS | NEXT
INTRO | PART 1.1 | PART 1.2 | PART 1.3 | PART 1.4 | PART 1.5 | PART 1.6 | PART 2.1 | PART 2.2
PART 2.3 | PART 2.4 | PART 4.0 | PART 5.1 | PART 5.2 | PART 5.3 | PART 5.4 | PART 5.5 | PART 6.2
PART 6.3 | PART 7.1 | PART 7.2 | PART 8.1 | PART 8.2 | PART 8.3 | PART 8.4 | PART 8.5 | PART 8.6
PART 8.7 | PART 9.1 | PART 9.2 | PART 9.3 | PART 10.1 | PART 10.2
PART 31.1 | PART 31.2 | PART 31.3 | PART 31.4
Acknowledgements | Bibliography

Tom Lee is an Australian, now semi-retired in Phoenix, Arizona, who has had an illustrious international career as an actor, writer, and broadcast commentator. He does not claim to be a professional theologian, nor an historian, but he undertook this study because, like many of the people who are attracted to what we're doing here at Catholica Australia, he was simply inquisitive about the history of Christianity and trying to better understand what he had been brought up to believe. In a sense, his book is a one-man journey seeking to better understand who Jesus was and what his own faith was about.

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2008 Tom Lee (Star Concepts LLC) 15633 N. 17* Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85023-3409

[Index of this series]