In view of these events, Josephus bitterly laments the results, and says: "_We lost our liberty', and became subject to the Romans_, and were deprived of that country which we had gained by our arms from the Syrians, and were compelled to restore it to the Syrians. Moreover, the Romans exacted of us, in a little time, above ten thousand talents." (Josephus, _Antiquities_, Book XIV. ch. iv. sec. v.) When did the Jews, after the conquest of Pompey, shake off the yoke of the Romans? Between his conquest and the birth of Christ at least sixty-seven years had intervened. In the meantime Caesar crossed the Rubicon, was assassinated in the senate; the empire was distracted by civil wars; Mark Antony and Augustus tried the fortune of battle with Brutus and Cassius, on the field at Philippi, and the first of the Roman emperors had nearly completed a long reign of four-and-forty years. When Christ was born, the scepter had departed from Judea, and the Jews were a nation of slaves. Space will not allow us to pursue this subject farther. Throughout the Gospel of John we discover the most studied and labored effort to connect Christ with the religion of Moses, so that it may appear that in himself he is only the response to the many prophesies contained in the Hebrew scriptures. This Gospel is full of instances where the Jews, upon Christ's bare word--and sometimes not even that--gave up everything, and followed him, even to the cross. The day following the baptism, as John stood by the side of the disciples, Jesus walked by, when the Baptist exclaimed: "_Behold the Lamb of God!_" This was sufficient to induce two of the disciples to follow Christ, and one of them was so carried away that he hunted up his brother, who was Peter, and told him they _had found the Messiah, who was the Christ_. On the next day, Christ went to Galilee, and found Philip, whom he directed to follow him; and soon Philip found Nathaniel, and told him, "We have found him of whom _Moses, in the law, and the prophets, did write_." They had found no such thing. The conversion of Paul formed a new era in religious history. We may well say, that when he left Judaism, he left the twelve disciples behind him, for they could neither climb over or break down the wall of circumcision which separated the Jews from the Gentiles. Paul quarreled with and then left them, but took along with him enough of the Mosaic faith to keep up a connection between the old and new religion, so that we can trace the features of the child in those of the parent. He carried with him _Monotheism_, but it was qualified in the glare of his vision at Damascus so that, in some sense, Christ was the Son of God. Here was a clear departure from Moses, for which the Jews always despised him. Then followed Paul's tug with the Greeks. In spite of him, they established a dual government in Heaven. _The Son was equal with the Father_, At this point there should have been an eternal separation between Jewry and Christianity.