The Early Christians in RomeSpence-Jones, H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice)
History
The Early Christians in Rome
Spence-Jones, H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice)
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Rome (Italy) -- Church history
In A.D. 71, Titus, with his father Vespasian and brother
Domitian, with extraordinary pomp and a carefully arranged pictorial
display, entered Rome. This triumph was adorned with a long train of
captive Jews, some of whom were publicly put to death as part of the
great show. Among the more precious spoils of the fallen city were
conspicuously displayed some of the celebrated objects rescued by the
victors out of the burning Temple,--such as the famous seven-branched
sacred candlestick; the golden table of shewbread; the purple veil
which hung before the Holy of Holies; and the precious Temple copy of
the Torah--the sacred Law of Moses.
The story of the great triumph is still with us, graved upon the
marble of the slowly crumbling Arch of Titus,--the traveller may
still gaze upon the figure of the great general, crowned by Victory,
in his triumphal car driven by the goddess Rome, and upon the same
imperial figure borne to heaven[147] by an eagle. Still the carved
representation of the sacred candlestick of the seven branches, and
the golden table, are beheld by the Christian with mute awe; by the
Jew with a mourning that refuses to be comforted. But the sacred
things[148] themselves over which brood such ineffable memories are
gone.
The fall of Jerusalem, the utter destruction of the Holy City, the
burning of the Temple, really sealed the fate of the Jews as a separate
nation. The centre of the chosen race existed no longer. The sacred
rites, the daily sacrifice, and the offering ceased for ever. The great
change in Judaism we are going to dwell upon must be dated from the
year 70. But more terrible events had yet to happen before the Jew
acknowledged his utter defeat, and recognized that a great change had
passed over him and had finally altered the scene of his cherished
hopes and glorious anticipations.
Two more bloody wars had to be fought out before the Jew settled down
to his new life--the life to be lived by the Chosen People for a long
series of centuries, the life he is living still, though more than
1800 years have come and gone since Titus brought the sacred Temple
treasures from the ruined city to grace the proud Roman triumph.
Under Trajan in A.D. 116-7, and again under Hadrian in A.D. 133-4, the
Zealot party of the defeated but still untamed people again rose up in
arms against the mighty Empire in the heart of which they dwelt.
We will rapidly sketch these last disastrous revolts. The spirit of
unrest and of hatred of the Roman power--the wild Messianic hopes which
had inspired the party of Zealots in Jerusalem in the first war which
had ended so disastrously--still lived in the great Jewish centres of
population outside the Holy Land, in countries where the desolation
which succeeded the events in 70 had not been acutely felt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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