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earth in his mortal body will cease; but all analogy is against the thought that, when every thing on the earth has been burned up, the earth itself shall for ever lie waste without form and void, and shall not again bring forth any more the living creature after his kind. W. B. WINNING,

Keysoe Vicarage, Beds.

DISTURBANCES OF THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

SIR,-Rabbinical historians pretend that the rebellion of the Jews against Trajan and Adrian was carried on by three Barcochabs in succession. But they render their own statement absurd and ridiculous by asserting that the name of the last was Romulus. With respect to two Barcochabs, they have rather more foundation to rest on. For the person who headed the Jews against Trajan is called Lucuas by Eusebius, and Luminus by the Arabic historian, Abu'lpheraj, and both these names must be taken, with more or less accuracy, from a Latin one expressing The Light, or Giver of Light; and they are equivalent to Barcochab, according to Eusebius, who explains that name to mean pworηp, a giver of light. The real name of the former was Andrew; that of the person commonly known as Barcochab, or son of the star, does not appear, unless we attach weight to the assertion of Eutychius, who says that the Jews, in their revolt against Adrian, elected a certain Barjuz for their King. The latter only was acknowledged by the Jews as their Messiah.

The extraordinary struggle maintained by the Jewish nation under this impostor, and his unblushing bold coadjutor, Rabbi Akiba, fills a conspicuous place in every history of the Jews; but conspicuous only from its own intrinsic magnitude. Rabbinical authority is nearly as none at all, and the precious details of Dion Cassius have been replaced by the jejune abridgment Xiphilin. It is, however, surprising to read in a recent history+ of that nation, that Barcochab's first enterprise was to make himself master of the ruins of Jerusalem, amidst which "probably some sort of rude town had grown up." For Dion expressly declares that the war in which Barcochab figured began to break out after Adrian had founded on the ruins of Jerusalem his city of Alia Capitolina, and dedicated a temple to Jupiter where the God of the Jews had formerly possessed his temple; and not only at that time, but for that reason, that the Jews were indignant at the introduction of foreign inhabitants and a foreign religion.

The great and lasting enthusiasm with which the whole Jewish nation embraced this false Messiah seems to require some stronger reason to account for it, than their mere displeasure at Adrian's presuming to restore a city already profaned, demolished, and lost to them. The art of the profound Akiba would not have failed to select some cir

Eutych. p. 352.

† III. p. 120, Murray..

Hist. p. 1161, Reimar.

cumstances and conjunctures calculated to inspire superstitious confidence, and to shew to a nation, not then as yet sunk into ignorance of their own religion and immersed in Talmudistic barbarism, that he who now called them to arms was the Anointed whom Daniel had promised to them for their prince, and whom Moses had declared should be like unto himself, and had commanded them to hearken to. The Jews were not ignorant of the declaration of Daniel, the only one of their prophets who speaks of their Messiah by name, that "from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks." The kings of Persia had given such orders, and from one of those orders the Christians compute the epoch of the nativity. But the Jews did not choose to resort to any such computa tion; and, as they continued to look for a Messiah yet to come, it is evident that they did not consider his advent to be marked, either in years or days, by the weeks which succeeded the Persian decrees. But, since the time of the Persian kings, no such order had gone forth. It follows from thence, that the Jews of the age in question regarded not only the coming of their Messiah, but also the prior epoch from which that coming was to be reckoned, as being still in futurity. Again-it follows, that when Adrian's order went forth to restore and build Jeru salem, an event occurred, which to all of them who were read in their prophecies, seemed to portend the approach of such glorious days as their nation had never yet seen. It afforded to Akiba an opportunity for lighting up such a blaze of fanaticism as perhaps the world never saw before or since. When he heard the edict, he must have said, in his deep mind, "either now or never." And we may conjecture, not without confidence, that he lost no time in selecting from among his countrymen, an accomplice, or a dupe of sufficient talents and audacity to buckle on the armour of antichrist against the power of Rome while at its height; and that when sixty-nine weeks, or 483 days, were elapsed from the date of Adrian's rescript, he caused that man to assume the style of Barcochab, and to do some solemn act or perform some juggling miracle which might pass for the commencement of his messiahship. The words of Xiphilin, as to the progress of the works at the Ælian Jerusalem, may render it dubious whether open insurrection was resorted to so early as on the 484th day. The building of Ælia was really the proximate cause of these convulsions, but not wholly upon the grounds which he adduces.

I will now advert to another feature of this most awful war."Not venturing+ to bring matters to an open issue with the Romans, in a pitched battle, they occupied convenient spots, and fortified them

E. g., a connexion with Bethlehem, and a reputed descent from David. Akiba found the absence of the ten tribes, who were entitled to their share in the Messiah, a serious objection, and therefore he boldly denied that they were ever to return, and argued thus-It was written, Israel shall depart into captivity, even as this day shall depart; but that day departed and never will return; therefore Israel will never return. Such was the fatuity of the audience to which this daring villain addressed himself.

† Dion, p. 1161.

with walls, and mines in which they could take refuge when pressed, and could also privately pass from one to another under ground, having perforated their subterraneous galleries from above, so as to admit the air and light." In his previous account of Vespasian's siege, Dion* had observed, that "the Jews were very strong in point of mines, for they had such, excavated from the city to a distance in the country, and passing under the walls, through which they made sorties, and fell upon the watering parties of the Romans." Rabbis relate that Akiba, his wife, and his twenty-four thousand disciples were buried under a mountain near Tiberias! It is not improbable that multitudes perished in these subterraneous places, and some may have preferred to pull the superincumbent earth about their ears to a death of famine: Whether these troglodytic wonders, which the rebellious Jews improved and turned to their uses, were the labours of Canaanites, or of yet earlier possessors of the land, such as Rephaim, Anakim, and Horim, cannot be unriddled. But perhaps there may be some room for supposing that they are collectively the famous, the unknown, and (if so) the fabulous city of Betthera. The Rabbis declare that all the Barcochabs reigned at Betthera, and that it contained 400 colleges in each of which there were 400 professors. Romance has invented much concerning Charlemagne and Arthur, but no one is ignorant of the site of Aquisgrana or Caerleon upon Usk. It is strange that no one should know the situation of this enormous Hebrew fortress. In Canticles ii. 17, we read of "the mountains of Bether," but geographers are not acquainted with those mountains, and the Seventy were so little so as to render those words, "the mountains of cavities," or "of excavations." If, therefore, the old word Bether meant, or was in these later times supposed to mean, rowμara, in either case we are warranted in thinking that the BerOnpa, which is said to have constituted the chief resource and last asylum of Barcochab and his people, was the wonderful system of excavations which we know did constitute his main resource. Akiba, and his twenty-four thousand pupils under the mountain, and the multitude of colleges and professors in Betthera, thus resolve themselves nearly into identity. Barcochab's reign was one of blood and horror and agonizing contention, ill-suited to a residence in any capital city. But it can hardly be doubted that Ælia Capitolina was nominally the capital of his dominions. The war of Barcochabt was preceded by an omen of sad import, for the tomb of Solomon upon Mount Sion "crumbled to pieces, and fell in automatously." Not quite automatously, as the reader will easily conceive the Jewish miners, who were secretly improving the subteranean communications, were so unfortunate as to perforate some of the main supports, and consequently the earth fell in.

The first apocalyptic vision has its scene entirely in heaven, and displays the adoration of the four beasts and twenty-four elders, concerning whom I have nothing to say. The second has its scene in heaven (except ver. 13), and exhibits the lion of Judah, from the root

* Dion, p. 1080.

VOL. VIII.-Sept. 1835.

† P. 1163.

2 P

of David, entering the heaven of heavens in the guise of a lamb just slain, and unsealing the volume of prophecy. Christ, crucified and received up into glory, is unfolding the awful decrees of his Father to the saints and angels by whom his throne is surrounded. This vision is exempt from difficulty and obscurity. The third vision contains the six first seals of the prophetic volume, and my business is with that. Its first revelation is that of the rider of a white horse, armed as a warrior, and crowned as a king, going forth to conquer. This person is involved in no obscurity. He recurs in c. 19, and he is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war . . . and his vesture was dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. Therefore, the first seal had its scene in heaven, and exhibited to the visionary, the Lord arming for judgment and preparing to set forth in execution of it. By the second seal, peace is taken from the land that they should kill one another, and a tagre sword was given to the angel of that prophecy. Leaving which for the moment, I will pass on to the last of the six, which was full of unexampled horrors, and, in the upshot of which, "The kings of the land, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" Much obscurity is added to the prophecies, as handled by us, through the extensive loss of ancient history. We cannot interpret words or symbols in entire ignorance of the facts to which they alluded. But the epitome of Xiphilin has preserved to us the substance of those extraordinary transactions in which the vision of this seal has its palpable solution. The end of the expedition of the white-horse cavalier, making war in judgment and righteousness, was (so far as Israel was concerned) when Barcochab and Akiba, and all their followers, great and small, perished in the dens and rocks of their excavated mountains, and prayed in vain, or perhaps not always in vain, that they might fall in upon their heads.

The first operations of the expedition of judgment took peace from the land that they should slay one another. The revolt of the Barcochabites was rendered illustrious amidst its horrors by the devoted unanimity of the fanatic nation. But the first operations of direct judgment had their rise when the Sicarians, disciples of Judas Gaulonites, began the work of intestine havoc, and their cessation when Jerusalem, gorged to the very last hour with the blood of her own children, was taken and demolished; and they occurred in the days of Nero and Vespasian. The later operations, which fell upon the times of Trajan and Adrian, were greater and more terrible, and occupy three of the six prophecies in the book of the Lainb. In the first of these, death and hades are let loose and empowered to destroy one fourth part of the people by sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild beasts of the earth. These words describe a war of unexampled ferocity and destructiveness. In ferocity, the wars of the first

Barcochab have scarce any recorded parallel. The Jews devoured* the flesh of the Romans, made garments of their skins, and girded on those garments with their bowels. As to destructiveness, Dion asserts that, under the second Barcochab, 580,000 Jews fell by the sword, and, by famine, disease, and fire, a number exceeding calculation, But ferocity and havoc are vague terms; the scripture mentions one circumstance very unusual in the wars of civilized nations-viz., that many people were devoured by the wild beasts of the earth. Dion becomes almost an expositor of that scripture, when he tells us that wolves and hyænas went howling through the cities. The 2nd of these three seals exhibits a scene in heaven; the saints and martyrs of God pray for judgment against their murderers, but are exhorted to rest yet for a little season until some brethren, who still survived, had received the crown of martyrdom. And the 3rd contains the extinction of all the Jewish state, civil and spiritual, sun, moon, and heaven, and the extermination of the rebels in the cavities of their mountains. The pause awarded in heaven should seem to be that which intervened between the crimes of Andrew (the Barcochab of Trajan) and those of the greater Barcochab of Adrian, who filled up the number of the martyrs of Palestine.

In making these remarks, I have not yet touched upon the third clause, being that which intervenes between the system of civil war and that of national war. We shall find it a firm link of connexion between them. The angel of the third seal carried a pair of balances, and a voice was heard, saying a choenix of wheat for a denarius, and three chonices of barley for a denarius, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. The voice is an injunction to the angel of the third epoch, commanding him to produce an extraordinary dearth of corn; for the choenix was about % of a modius, and the maximum price of a modius of wheat in Sicily, in Verres' time, wast only % of a denarius, and the debasement of the coin will never account for a twelvefold price. On the other hand, he was directed to foster the vintage and the harvest of oil. The main part of the period intervening between Vespasian and Trajan (fifteen years out of eighteen) was occupied by the reign of Domitian. And we have the good fortune to learn from an incidental allusion‡ made by his brief and unsatisfactory biographer, that the peculiar dispensation in question fell upon his time, summa ubertas vini, frumenti verò inopia. The dearth of corn and abundance of wine must have been a dispensation spreading itself over several years of his reign. A single bad harvest, accompanied by a good vintage, would never have induced that emperor to break in upon the rights of property and freedom of trade, by a law ordaining an extensive excision of vineyards throughout the empire, and their cultivation in grain. That must have been a measure resorted to in hopes of mitigating an evil which appeared to be permanent and increasing. The invisible ministers of wrath were not revealed

+ H. S., duobus . .

* Dion, p. 1146.

summum H. S. ternis. Cic. Verr., 2 L. iii., c. 81.
Sueton. Domit. c. 7.

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