The Misfortunes which overwhelmed the Jews after their Presumption against Christ

110 BOOK II CHAPTER VI The Misfortunes which overwhelmed the Jews after their

Presumption against Christ.

3. One of the Alexandrian deputies was Apion,305 who uttered many slanders against the Jews; among other things saying that they neglected the honors due to Cæsar. For while all other subjects of Rome erected altars and temples to Caius, and in all other respects treated him just as they did the gods, they alone considered it disgraceful to honor him with statues and to swear by his name.

4. And when Apion had uttered many severe charges by which he hoped that Caius would be aroused, as indeed was likely, Philo, the chief of the Jewish embassy, a man celebrated in every respect, a brother of Alexander the Alabarch,289 and not unskilled in philosophy, was prepared to enterupon a defense in reply to his accusations.

5. But Caius prevented him and ordered him to leave, and being very angry, it was plain that he meditated some severe measure against them. And Philo departed covered with insult and told the Jews that were with him to be of good courage; for while Caius was raging against them he was in fact already contending with God.”

6. Thus far Josephus. And Philo himself, in the work On the Embassy290which he wrote, describes accurately and in detail the things which were done by him at that time. But I shall omit the most of them and record only those things which will make clearly evident to the reader that the misfortunes of the Jews came upon them not long after their daring deeds against Christ and on account of the same.

7. And in the first place he relates that at Rome in the reign of Tiberius, Sejanus, who at that time enjoyed great influence with the emperor, made every effort to destroy the Jewish nation utterly;291 and that in Judea, Pilate, under whom the crimes against the Saviour were committed, attempted something contrary to the Jewish law in respect to the temple, which was at that time still standing in Jerusalem, and excited them to the greatest tumults.292

CHAPTER VI. The Misfortunes which overwhelmed the Jews after their Presumption against Christ.

1. After the death of Tiberius, Caius received the empire, and, besides innumerable other acts of tyranny against many people, he greatly afflicted especially the whole nation of the Jews.293 These things we may learn

289 The Alabarch was the chief magistrate of the Jews at Alexandria. Alexander was a very rich and influential Jew, who was widely known and held in high esteem. His son Tiberius Alexander was appointed procurator of Judea in 46 a.d., as successor of Cuspius Fadus. Philo thus belonged to a high and noble Jewish family. The accuracy of Josephus’ statement that Philo was the brother of the Alabarch Alexander has been denied (e.g., by Ewald. Gesch. des Jüdischen Volkes, Vol. VI. p. 235), and the Alabarch has been assumed to have been the nephew of Philo, but this without sufficient ground (compare Schürer, ibid. p. 832, note 5) 290 See note 1, above. The work is cited here under the title ἡ πρεσβεία (Legatio). 291 The Jews in Rome had enjoyed the favor of Augustus, and had increased greatly in numbers and influence there. They were first disturbed by Tiberius, who was very hostile to them, and to whose notice all the worst sides of Jewish character were brought by their enemies, especially by Sejanus, who had great influence with the emperor, and was moreover a deadly enemy of the Jews. The Jews were driven out of Rome, and suffered many acts of violence. After the death of Sejanus, which took place in 31 a.d., they were allowed to return, and their former rights were restored. 292Pilate proved himself exceedingly tyrannical and was very obnoxious to the Jews, offending them greatly at different times during his administration by disregarding their religious scruples as no procurator before him had ventured to do. Soon after his accession he changed his quarters from Cæsarea to Jerusalem, and introduced the Roman standard into the Holy City. The result was a great tumult, and Pilate was forced to yield and withdraw the offensive ensigns (Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 2; see the next chapter). At another time he offended the Jews by hanging in his palace some shields inscribed with the names of heathen deities, which he removed only upon an express order of Tiberius (Philo, ad Caium, chap. 38). Again, he appropriated a part of the treasure of the temple to the construction of an aqueduct, which caused another terrible tumult which was quelled only after much bloodshed (Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 4; see the next chapter). For further particulars about Pilate, see chap. 7, below.

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briefly from the words of Philo, who writes as follows:294

2. “So great was the caprice of Caius in his conduct toward all, and especially toward the nation of the Jews. The latter he so bitterly hated that he appropriated to himself their places of worship in the other cities,295 and beginning with Alexandria he filled them with images and statues of himself (for in permitting others to erect them he really erected them himself). The temple in the holy city, which had hitherto been left untouched, and had been regarded as an inviolable asylum, he altered and transformed into a temple of his own, that it might be called the temple of the visible Jupiter, the younger Caius.”296

3. Innumerable other terrible and almost indescribable calamities which came upon the Jews in Alexandria during the reign of the same emperor, are recorded by the same author in a second work, to which he gave the title, On the Virtues.297 With him agrees also Josephus, who likewise indicates that the misfortunes of the whole nation began with the time of Pilate, and with their daring crimes against the Saviour.298

4. Hear what he says in the second book of his Jewish War, where he writes as follows:299 “Pilate being sent to Judea as procurator by Tiberius, secretly carried veiled images of the emperor, called ensigns,300 to Jerusalem by night. The following day this caused the greatest disturbance among the Jews. For those who were near were confounded at the sight, beholding their laws, as it were, trampled under foot. For they allow no image to be set up in their city.”

5. Comparing these things with the writings of the evangelists, you will see that it was not long before there came upon them the penalty for the exclamation which they had uttered under the same Pilate, when they cried out that they had no other king than Cæsar.301

6. The same writer further records that after this another calamity overtook them. He writes as follows:302 “After this he stirred up another tumult by making use of the holy treasure, which is called Corban,303 in the construction of an aqueduct three hundred stadia in length.304

7. The multitude were greatly displeased at it, and when Pilate was in Jerusalem they surrounded his tribunal and gave utterance to loud complaints. But he, anticipating the tumult, had distributed through the crowd armed

Jerusalem, where he commanded the temple to be devoted to his worship, the tumult was very great and was quieted only by the yielding of the emperor, who was induced to give up his demands by the request of Agrippa, who was then at Rome and in high favor with him. Whether the Jews suffered in the same way in Rome we do not know, but it is probable that the emperor endeavored to carry out the same plan there as elsewhere. 294 Philo, Legat. ad Caium, 43. 295 ἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις πόλεσι. The reason for the use of the word “other” is not quite clear, though Philo perhaps means all the cities except Jerusalem, which he mentions a little below. 296 “‘Caius the younger,’ to distinguish him from Julius Cæsar who bore the name Caius, and who was also deified” (Valesius). 297 This work is probably the same as that mentioned in the beginning of chap. 5. (See chap. 5, note 1.) The work seems to have borne two titles ἡ πρεσβεία and περὶ ἀρετῶν. See Schürer, ibid. p. 859, who considers the δευτέρω here the addition of a copyist, who could not reconcile the two different titles given by Eusebius. 298 This is rather an unwarranted assumption on the part of Eusebius, as Josephus is very far from intimating that the calamities of the nation were a consequence of their crimes against our Saviour. 299 Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 2. 300 σημαῖαι καλοῦνται 301 John xix. 15. 302 Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 4. 303 Heb. ; Greek κορβᾶν and κορβανᾶς. The word denoted originally any offering to God, especially an offering in fulfillment of a vow. The form κορβανᾶς, which Josephus has employed here, was used to denote the sacred treasure or the treasury itself. In Matt. xxvii. 6, the only place where this form of the word occurs in the New Testament, it is used with the latter meaning. Upon this act of Pilate’s, see above, chap. 5, note 9. 304 Josephus, B. J. II. 9. 4.