[Illustration: (drop cap G) Ruins of a Synagogue] God had given to His people a Book foretelling the coming of the Christ--or Messiah, as the word is written in Hebrew--so that they might be prepared and ready for His appearance. Yet when He came they did not receive Him. They were looking for an earthly king, and the beautiful words spoken by the ancient prophets had no meaning to them. When Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, the Jews were under the iron rule of the Roman Empire, of which they formed a part, for although the Jewish family of the Herods reigned over Judea, they only held their throne under the Roman Emperor. This the Jews could not endure. They longed to be a free and independent nation once again. 'When our Messiah comes He will be a great warrior,' they said. 'He will utterly destroy all our enemies. He will make Jerusalem the greatest and richest city in the whole earth; all other nations will bow down before us, acknowledging that the Jews alone are the chosen people of God.' Thus they were expecting a Messiah who would begin his work by killing all the Roman soldiers in Palestine. Had Jesus of Nazareth been willing to become their earthly king and to lead the nation against the Romans, the Jews would probably have followed Him to a man. (John vi. 15.) But He saw that, even from a human standpoint, the nation could not be helped in this way, and that the Jews would only rebel against the Romans to their destruction. Instead of widening the breach between them and their conquerors, the Saviour sought to heal it. He called out the faith and gratitude of the Roman centurion, and His answer to the Jewish leaders, '_Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's_ (Mark xii. 17) showed them the right attitude in which to regard the Roman rule. When, therefore, He was brought at last before Pilate, the Roman Government had no quarrel with Him. '_Thine own nation ... hath delivered Thee unto me,_' said Pilate who would have released his prisoner, had not the Jews prevented it. '_If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar's friend,_' they cried, thus compelling Pilate, at the risk of being reported as a traitor to his Emperor, to crucify Jesus of Nazareth, and to free Barabbas. But in choosing the rebel, Barabbas (Mark xv. 7) as their hero, the nation started on their downward road, as the story of the forty years which followed the Saviour's crucifixion clearly shows. For the Jews were determined at all costs to throw off the Roman yoke, and the history of those years is one long list of terrible risings and massacres, while cities were ruined, villages wrapped in flames, and men, women and children perished with hunger. Yet the keener the suffering, the more desperate the Jews became. Their whole souls were possessed with a wild and mad passion for revenge.