But for the historian of the first days of Christianity, by far the most important event in this brilliant reign of Hadrian was the fatal Jewish war of A.D. 133-5 and its striking results. This was the war of extermination, as the Talmud subsequently termed it; the war in which the false Messiah Bar-cochab and the famous Rabbi Akiba were the most prominent figures. The outcome of this terrible war was the absolute destruction of the nationality of the Jewish people. From henceforth, _i.e._ after A.D. 134-5, the whole spirit of the Jews was changed; they lived from this time with new ideals, with new and different hopes and aims. This wonderful change we have described at some length and with many details in Book V. of this work. From this time forward, there is no doubt that the conception which Roman statesmen had formed of Christianity underwent a marked change. Hitherto, more or less, the Christian was regarded as a Jewish dissenter, and was viewed at Rome with dislike, but at the same time with a certain contemptuous toleration provided that he kept out of sight. Trajan evidently, from the Pliny correspondence, was averse to harsh persecution if it could be avoided; and Hadrian, certainly in his earlier years, followed the policy of Trajan. But after A.D. 135 all this was changed. The Jewish people after the termination of the last bitter war passed into stillness. They now rigidly abstained from admitting any stranger Gentiles into the charmed circle of Judaism, sternly forbidding any proselytizing. They abandoned all earthly ambition--their hope and expectation of seeing their land independent and powerful was relegated to a dim and distant future. They believed that they were the chosen people in far-back days of the Eternal of Hosts--they would quietly wait His good pleasure, and by a rigid observance in all its minutest details of the divine law, which they made the sole object of their study and meditation, would merit once more His favour; they hoped and expected at some distant day again to rejoice in the light of His countenance,--a light, alas! long since veiled owing to their past disobedience; to the Christian and his teaching in the meantime they vowed an implacable hatred.