Flight to Pella
Demolishing the House (62 CE)
Josephus, Antiquities 20:219-223/ix.7
After the death of James the Righteous, the community of disciples in Jerusalem received Simeon son of Clopas as leader over their community. They continued to congregate daily in the Temple courts, gathering for prayer at Solomon's Colonnade.
The chief priests among the Sadducees conceived of a plan to dislodge the community from their accustomed place of worship. They approached King Agrippa (11) with a building request. They pointed out that the laborers working on the massive Temple remodeling project, first instituted by Herod the Great, had finally completed the project.
The conclusion of the project left eighteen thousand laborers unemployed. They suggested a new phase to the project. They suggested that the laid-off workers rebuild Solomon's Colonnade and receive pay from the excess in the Temple treasury.
Solomon's Colonnade stood above an original section of retaining wall on the eastern side of the Temple Mount. Replacing that wall and the colonnades above it would require an ambitious effort that could utilize most of the unemployed workforce for several years. Best of all, the work would force the believers out of their accustomed house of worship.
King Agrippa vetoed the plan. He had authority over the Temple Mount, and he felt that the project would take too much time, effort, and money. He objected, "It is easy to demolish a building, but not so easy to build it up again." In retrospect, his words seem prophetic, and they can be compared with the Master's saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19).
When their plan to remodel Solomon's Colonnade and thereby oust the believers from their roost failed, the Sadducean chief priests seem to have used their authority on the Sanhedrin to simply ban the disciples of Yeshua from participation in the Temple. The ban can be inferred from the Epistle to the Hebrews, a letter sent from an apostolic authority in the Diaspora to encourage the Jewish believers in Judea and Jerusalem.
We do not know who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. The authorship has been debated since the earliest days of the church. The style and language of the letter are not consistent with Paul's, but it might have been someone within his orbit. The epistle comes from somewhere in Italy, and it makes mention of an otherwise unknown arrest and release of Timothy:
Take notice that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom, if he comes soon, I will see you. Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you. (Hebrews 13:23-24)
The epistle addresses a readership faced with mounting social pressure to renounce faith in Yeshua. Apparently, the Sadducean leadership of the Sanhedrin threatened to assign the believers with the status of karet (n72), i.e., cut off from Israel, so long as they clung to their confession of the Master. To return to fellowship within the Temple, they only needed to renounce their faith in the crucified one.
The writer of the book of Hebrews says, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful... not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some" (Hebrews 10:23-25). The epistle discourses eloquently on the theme of the spiritual priesthood of Messiah in the heavenly Temple. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews points out that the Jerusalem Temple reflects a truer, heavenly Sanctuary not made with hands. He points out that the Aaronic priesthood reflects the heavenly, angelic priesthood and that the high priest on earth corresponds to Messiah's position within the heavenly Temple where He is seated at the right hand of Glory.
Contrary to popular interpretation, the writer of the book of Hebrews does not delegitimize the Temple or the sacrificial system. Instead, he freely admits, "The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh" (Hebrews 9:13). His readers no longer have access to the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer. He tells them not to let that dissuade them from their faith in Yeshua: "How much more will the blood of Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14). He tells them, "We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat" (Hebrews I3:10). In this theology, the Temple on earth, the Aaronic priesthood, and the Levitical sacrifices, which must be continually offered, pertain only to this present age. The heavenly Temple above, the Messianic high priesthood of Yeshua, and the atonement of His sacrifice pertain to the World to Come.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
New Tyrant in Town (64 CE)
Josephus, Antiquities 20:252-258/XX.II
Nero removed the reprehensible gangster, Albinus, from the position of procurator over Judea, but the replacement was twice the son of hell. Gessius Florus and his wife Cleopatra arrived at Caesarea in the spring of 64. He immediately set to work exploiting his subjects. Josephus says that Florus was so wicked and violent in the misuse of his office that, by comparison, he made Albinus seem like a kind benefactor. Albinus at least attempted to conceal his corruption.
Florus made an ostentatious display of his contempt for his subjects and his ability to abuse power. He worked closely with the local crime lords and did not hesitate to participate in their rapine. Josephus says, "He never omitted the use of violence, nor any unjust type of punishment. Pity never moved him, and no amount of unjust gain ever satisfied him."
His greed and abuse brought down entire sectors of the economy and forced many Jews to abandon the country and flee to foreign provinces.
Florus took up residence in the grand palace of Herod the Great in Caesarea where all the Roman governors before them had lived. He quickly learned that sharp animosity between Jews and Gentiles divided Caesarea. The street riots that spilled so much blood only five years earlier during the administration of Felix had not resolved the dispute between the two communities. The Syrian Greeks still insisted that Jews should not have the privilege of municipal citizenship, and the Caesarean Jews still pressed their claims that Caesarea was rightfully a Jewish city.
Five years earlier, Felix had sent the dispute to Nero for a decision. When Florus arrived in Caesarea, Nero's court in Rome had not yet issued a ruling on the fate of Caesarea.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Omens in the Temple (Passover 66 CE)
Josephus, Jewish War 6:288-295/V.3
In the month of Shevat (January), 66 CE, Halley's Comet was passing within sight of the earth. From Jerusalem, the swooping, arced tail of the comet looked like the curved blade of a sword hanging over the city. Josephus recalled, "Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year."
The revolutionary radicals began to look to the Zealot heroes for a messianic figure who could rise up, unite the nation, and lead the armies of Israel against Rome. "They paid no attention, nor did they assign any credit, to the signs that were so obvious and so plainly foretold their future desolation. Like men infatuated, with neither eyes to see nor minds to think, they took no heed of the portents that God gave them." The fearsome sword hung in the nighttime sky into the Passover season.
One week before the festival began, the great crowds of pilgrims had already begun to arrive in the city. On the eighth day of Nisan, another miraculous portent occurred. During the ninth hour of the night when all was dark and the city was quiet, a miraculous light suddenly shone all around the altar and Temple, illuminating the Temple area as brightly as if it were daytime. The light seemed to have no specific source of emanation, but it lit up the Temple's inner courts for a space of half an hour. The awestruck Levitical guard sounded an alarm, and the priesthood came forth from their chambers to witness the strange spectacle. After half an hour, the light taded back to darkness. The common people took this as a good sign. They pointed to prophecies about the redemption: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you" (Isaiah 60:1). Yochanan ben Zakkai and the disciples of our Master were less enthusiastic about the meaning of the sign.
Matthias the son of Theophilus was high priest that year. He was the grandson of Annas the elder. As the Festival of Passover commenced, Matthias was leading a heifer into the court of the priests to be sacrificed when it suddenly went into labor. Ordinarily, a pregnant cow would not have been selected for sacrifice. Somehow, the pregnancy had escaped detection by the priesthood. Matthias stood dumbstruck as the animal bellowed and dropped its young onto the holy pavement of the courtyard. Priests and Levites quickly converged to remove the animal and its calf from the court, but they were stunned to see that the newborn did not look at all like a calf. Rather, it had some deformity that made it resemble a young lamb.
It also happened that during the week of unleavened bread, the enormous bronze-plated doors of the Nicanor Gate, which divided the Court of the Women from the Court of Israel, suddenly and noiselessly unbarred themselves and swung open at midnight. Josephus says, "It was made of brass and extremely heavy. It took the combined effort of twenty men to close those gates, and they had fastened it with iron-bound bars, and it had bolts sunk deeply into the solid threshold which was made entirely of a single stone." The Levitical guard sounded the alarm and reported the matter to the captain of the Temple guard. This was not the first time it had happened. The same strange phenomenon had been occurring infrequently since Passover of 30 CE, the year the Master died:
For the forty years before the destruction ... the doors of the Temple opened up by themselves. (b. Yoma 39b)
The captain of the Temple guard summoned the Levitical gatekeepers. With great effort, they shut the doors. "The common people took this to be a good sign, as if God thereby opened to them the gate of happiness, but the learned men understood it to mean that the security of their holy house had been dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate opened to admit their enemies."
The doors of the Temple [would not stay closed but] opened up by themselves, until Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai rebuked them. He said to them, "Temple, Temple, for what purpose do you frighten us with your counsel? I know about you! Your future ending will be destruction, for Zechariah ben Ido has already prophesied about you [in Zechariah II:1], 'Open your doors, O Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!'" (b. Yoma 39b)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
A Petition for Justice
Josephus, Jewish War 2:271-283/xiv.2-3
That very Passover, when all the strange omens occurred, the Roman Governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus himself, happened to visit Judea. He came to Jerusalem with Florus to observe the festival. When the people heard that the governor of Syria was lodging in the praetorium with Florus, a spontaneous protest against Florus erupted in the city. The people converged on the palace, demanding justice and denouncing Florus for his many crimes against the nation.
Cestius Gallus and Florus ascended the tribunal. An uncountable multitude of Jews stood arrayed before them, filling every courtyard, street, alley, and rooftop. They all shouted out their complaints and denounced Florus as the bane of the country.
Florus laughed at their words and dismissed the reports as exaggerations. While in the company of his superior, he concealed his wrath and laughed and smiled. Inside, he secretly vowed to take vengeance on the Jews for the insult to his dignity.
Cestius Gallus motioned for silence, and when he finally quieted the crowd, he assured them that he would see to it that Florus would, thereafter, treat his subjects more gently and fairly. Then he and Florus, under heavy guard, departed for Caesarea.
Florus assured the governor that the complaints were mere trivial mat-ters, and that he would make amends with the people. Secretly, he felt terror over the realization that his excesses would now surely result in a trial before Caesar. Now that things had been set in motion, it could end only one way. The Jews would accuse him of his crimes, and when the truth came out, even the wicked Nero would have to agree to convict him, exile him, or perhaps demand his suicide. One hope remained. If the Jews could be provoked into revolt, the ensuing war might eliminate his adversaries, cover the evidence of his crimes, and make the charges against him irrelevant. He could claim to have been the victim of revolutionary treachery and treasonous plots.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Wrath of Peloros (66 CE)
Josephus, Jewish War 2:284-308/xiv.7-9
The governor Cestius Gallus had business to attend to in Caesarea. He had come to Judea to announce Emperor Nero's decision about the city. Nero's court ruled that Caesarea belonged to the Syrian-Greek population. Caesarean Jews were not entitled to municipal citizenship or postings in the city's governance. They had no say over the affairs of the city. The decision came as a sharp blow to the Jewish population. After Passover, Cestius Gallus left Caesarea and returned to Syrian Antioch.
As soon as the news of the decision in Rome arrived, Syrian Greeks began to openly harass the Jewish members of the community and force them out of their neighborhoods. Skirmishes erupted and quickly mushroomed into a riot.
Florus refused to send troops to suppress the violence. Instead, he sent messengers to Jerusalem with a demand for the withdrawal of seventeen talents of silver from the Temple treasury, claiming that the order came directly from Caesar. The Temple treasury was supposed to be immune to such demands. A mob assembled on the Temple Mount, crying out, "Nero, save us from Florus!" Others openly reviled Florus by name, casting reproaches and insults upon him. Some of the young men made a mockery of the procurator by carrying a basket around the city, begging alms for Florus, as if they were raising charity for a destitute man. The procurator's messengers returned without the seventeen talents and told him about how the people openly insulted and mocked his name. Florus took a host of soldiers and set out for Jerusalem.
He arrived on the fifteenth day of lyyar (late April).
Those most loyal to the Romans and fearful of reprisals went out of the city to meet and welcome the advancing force. A cavalry detachment of fifty riders descended on them and told them to return to their homes. The officer said, "The most excellent Florus says, 'If you are liberal spirited men of free speech and dare to mock me, then mock me to my face and show your love for liberty with weapons, not just with words." Then, they dispersed the loyalists and sent them back into the city.
The next morning, Florus set up his tribunal in front of the praetorium at Herod's Palace, the same place where our Master stood trial before Pontius Pilate thirty-six years earlier. ("The judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha" (John 19:13).
The Sadducean chief priests and all the principal men of the Sanhedrin appeared before the tribunal to appease the governor's anger.
Florus demanded, "Deliver up to me all those who reproached me, otherwise you yourselves will suffer their punishment."
The chief priests and eminent men groveled before the tyrant. They assured him that the vast majority of the people wanted peace and intended no disrespect to the governor. A few hotheaded, foolish youths were to blame for the insult. They begged forgiveness for those who had spoken against him.
These excuses made Florus even angrier. He turned to his soldiers and ordered, "Plunder the Upper Market, and slay all those you meet in the way."
The soldiers immediately rushed on the Upper Market, plundered the shops, broke into homes, slew the inhabitants, and engaged in looting. The people fled before the onslaught, but many were caught in the narrow alleys and streets. The soldiers put everyone they saw to the sword: men, women, young, old, children, and infants. The streets of Jerusalem filled with echoes of screams and wailing.
Moreover, Florus arrested several prominent men of the city, including Jews who were Roman citizens of equestrian rank. Contrary to Roman law, he had all of them scourged and nailed to crosses that were set up in front of his tribunal.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Embassy of Queen Bernikah
Josephus, Jewish War 2:309-314/xv.I
While all of this was happening, King Agrippa Il was visiting Alexandria to congratulate Tiberius Alexander on his new post as governor over Egypt. Bernice might have traveled with him to salute the brother of her first husband, except that a serious illness detained her. During the course of her illness, she feared she might not recover. She turned to the LORD and took a vow, saying, "If I recover, I will be a Nazirite for thirty days."
She did recover. Even though the king had not yet returned from Egypt, she decided to go alone to Jerusalem for the Passover and begin the term of her vow after the festival. She arrived with her retinue in time for Passover and took her accustomed residence in the palace of King Agrippa. She was present in the city while all the prodigies and omens were taking place in the Temple, and she saw the appeal that the people made to Cestius Gallus against Florus.
After completing the festival, she began the term of her vow. She shaved off the hair of her head, unshod her feet, attired herself in the simple garments of a Nazirite, and began thirty days of ritual purity, prayers, and abstinence from wine and strong drink. Perhaps the preaching of Bartholomew had made some impact on her after all.
From the observation deck of the upper dining room that King Agrippa recently had built atop his palace in Jerusalem, Queen Bernice looked down on the whole calamity that engulfed the city. She could see the murderous acts the soldiers carried out in the streets below, and she could hear the screams of the victims and the laments of the bereaved. "When she saw the wicked deeds of the soldiers, she was deeply grieved." She sent her cavalry officers and a detachment of her guard to Florus with a message, beseeching him to stop the slaughter. He gave them no reply. Bernice thought, "Although he does not respect my messengers, surely he will at least pay heed to my royal person." The queen gathered her courage and left the safety of her palace. With a few guards to escort her, she set out across the city to the praetorium.
When she arrived at the palace of her great-grandfather, a horrific sight greeted her. The Romans had erected crosses in the courtyard of Gabbatha around Florus' tribunal. Noble and prominent men of the city (possibly the Sadducees who came to entreat him) many of them Jews with Roman citizenship, hung on the crosses.
Bernice bravely approached the tribunal where Florus sat. She stood barefoot before him, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, but he paid her no notice. The soldiers also ignored the presence of her royal person and continued to scourge men and nail them to crosses before her eyes.
Amidst the mayhem and the screams of men, Queen Bernice cried out to the governor, beseeching him for clemency, but he did not lift his eyes toward her. When the soldiers perceived that the governor paid her no reverence, they turned their attention to her and moved to apprehend her. Bernice turned and fled from the tribunal with her guards, and they led a small band of Roman soldiers on a chase back across the city. They narrowly escaped to the safety of her palace and barred the gates of the doors. She passed the night in fear that the soldiers might try to force entrance.
As night fell, the tumultuous cries of the city fell silent. At the first light of dawn, the sound of lamentation began. Wailing resounded from the Upper Market. Josephus claims that more than three thousand lay dead in the streets.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Peloros Repulsed
Josephus, Jewish War 2:315-332/XV.2-6
The Sadducees and chief priests gathered the people of the city into the court of the Gentiles and said, "Two cohorts of soldiers are marching up from Caesarea. We must go out and greet them civilly in order that Florus do us no more injury." When the people protested, the chief priests brought out the holy vessels from inside the Sanctuary and set them before the people. The Levites brought out their harps and instruments and placed them before the people. The chief priests wept before the people and threw dust on their heads and rent their garments, pleading with them to greet the cohorts.
Under these persuasions, the people agreed to greet the cohorts. A great crowd went out through the gates to line the roads and welcome the soldiers, but under the orders of Florus, the soldiers did not return the salute. Instead, they attacked the welcoming party with clubs, and the cavalry officers trampled them beneath their horses' hooves as they tried to flee back to the city. The people rushed to the city gates. Many were crushed and trampled in the press of the panic.
As the soldiers entered the city, Florus and his men left the praetorium and headed toward Fortress Antonia. The people realized that he intended to enter the Temple from the fortress and loot the treasures. They went up to their rooftops and threw stones and spears down on soldiers. In the Temple, they broke down the ramps that connected the Temple porticoes to Fortress Antonia.
Florus realized he was in danger, and if things went further awry, he and his troops were outnumbered. He sent a message to the chief priests informing them that he was leaving the city, but he was leaving one cohort under their command to restore order. He left the city, hurried to Caesarea, and dispatched an emergency communication to Antioch, informing Cestius that the Jews of Judea were in open revolt and had attacked his soldiers in Jerusalem.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
A Heavenly Army (Iyyar 21, 66 CE)
Josephus, Jewish War 6:296-299/V.3
Queen Bernice met with the leading men of Jerusalem. Together they composed a report detailing the events and the treacherous crimes and atrocities Florus had committed against both innocent people and Roman citizens. Bernice dispatched the report to Cestius in Antioch. The people of the city attended to the dead.
Four days after Florus had left the city, just before the sun set in the west, a strange phenomenon appeared in the clouds on the horizon. Josephus was not yet in Jerusalem, but he received the report from eyewitnesses. He says, "I suppose the account of it would sound like a fable if it were not related by the witnesses who had seen it ... before the sunset, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds and surrounding the cities."
Those agitating for war interpreted the sign to mean that the armies of heaven would defend the cities of the Jews, just as they had defended the Prophet Elisha in the passage that says, "And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around" (2 Kings 6:17).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
An Oracle to Flee
The believers in Jerusalem watched the unfolding events and the signs and portents with great interest. When they saw the omen of the heavenly armies running about among the clouds surrounding Jerusalem, they must have asked one another, "Might this not be a fulfillment of our Master's words about the compassing of Jerusalem?"
When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city. (Luke 21:20-21)
Yeshua had told them, "Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come" (Mark 13:33). He told them to observe the signs of the times and always be prepared to flee on a moment's notice: "Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house. Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak" (Matthew 24:17-18). He told them to pray about their flight from Jerusalem and Judea in advance: "Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath" (Matthew 24:20).
The last warning to leave the city seems to have come at Shavu'ot (Pentecost). The festival arrived, and along with it, the great multitude of pilgrims came also. The Roman cohort kept a low profile. For the first time in a generation, no soldiers stood on the porticoes surrounding the Temple on the holy days. Even if they had wanted to post the regular guard around the Temple, they could not access the porticoes. The ramps that connected the porticoes to Fortress Antonia remained severed.
Tension riveted the city as people prepared for the festival day. Everyone whispered about war. All the while, the mournful voice of the Prophet Yeshua ben Chananiyah continued to weep through the streets, "Woe! Woe to Jerusalem!"
Early in the morning on Shavuot, before the Temple crier had made his first call, several dozen priests entered the courtyard to prepare for the day's sacrifices. The stars still burned brightly. In the predawn darkness, the priests carried torches in hand, as was their routine. The light of their torches illuminated the dark courtyard, and the priests looked for anything that might be amiss before the sacred service began. They divided into two parties and circled the courtyard in opposite directions. As the two parties converged, the one party asked the other, "Is everything in order?"
"All is in order," they answered. Just then, they felt the ground tremble around them. A great noise sounded, but they could not identify the source. The clamor welled up to the sound of a large host in motion, and in the midst of the swelling cacophony, it sounded as if a great multitude of voices declared, "Let us depart from here." Then the sound ceased abruptly, and silence returned. The bewildered priests stood looking about in the light of the torches.
The message heard by the priests, "Let us depart from here," seems to echo the very message that was on the lips of the believers at that time:
For when the city was about to be taken and destroyed by the Romans, it was revealed in advance to all the disciples by an angel of God that they should remove from the city, as it was going to be completely destroyed. They sojourned as emigrants in Pella... in Transjordania. And this city is said to be of the Decapolis. (Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 15)
Eusebius transmits a tradition that "before the war," certain prophets among the disciples in Jerusalem received a revelation from the LORD instructing the community to leave the city and migrate to the Decapolis city of Pella:
The people of the assembly in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, delivered to worthy men there before the war, instructing them to leave the city and to take residence in a certain town of Perea called Pella. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.5.3)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Pella Among the Ten Cities
When those that believed in Messiah had come to that place from Jerusalem, then, it was as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea was emptied of holy men. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.5.3)
The assembly was ready to leave. The authorities had recently banned them (or attempted to ban them) from the Temple, and they knew the Master's predictions about the coming destruction of the city and the desolation of the Holy Sanctuary could not be delayed much longer. The time to leave had come.
The land across the Jordan was called Perea. The city of Pella sat near the Jordan River, about eighteen miles south of the Sea of Galilee on the eastern side of the Rift. Situated at the foothills of the heights that rise up from the Jordan Valley, the location of Pella accorded with the Master's instructions about fleeing to the mountains (Luke 21:21).
The archaeological remains indicate a large city. A spring-fed stream emerges at the foot of the mound that was once the acropolis of the city.
In the days of the apostles, the city spread into the valley. Archaeologists have found the remains of Greco-Roman temples, a theater, a civic center, and the usual architecture of a Roman-era city.
Pella numbered among the cities of the Decapolis. Decapolis (Дека-полс) means "ten cities." The ten cities were independent, Hellenistic cities-outposts of western civilization on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Judea and Syria. As a non-Jewish city loyal to Rome, Pella did not need to fear a Roman siege. The disciples could comfortably nestle into its Jewish quarter to wait out the war. The location allowed the disciples to stay in touch with the rest of the believers in the land. Pella was positioned equidistant from Galilee and Judea, allowing the disciples to remain close to home. Most importantly, the Spirit of the LORD selected Pella as a city in which the Jewish believers could survive the war unmolested by the Gentile citizens (see "Massacres" below).
Under the leadership of Simeon son of Clopas, the disciples of Yeshua began to abandon Jerusalem in anticipation of its coming destruction. Those who had lived according to the Master's warnings and instructions by refusing the accumulation of wealth were the best prepared to evacuate, and they had the least to carry. They were spared the wrath that was about to come. Of them, the Master had said, "Yet not a hair of your head will perish" (Luke 21:18). Thanks to the prophetic warnings, the believers survived, and later generations of Jewish believers looked back at the miracle as one of the validations of Yeshua as the Messiah:
Proof [of the gospel] ... is supplied in the fact that everyone who believes in this Prophet who had been foretold by Moses, and is immersed in His name, shall be saved unhurt from the impending destruction of war which looms over the unbelieving nation and the holy place itself. Those who do not believe, however, shall become exiles from their place and kingdom, that even against their will. (Clementine Recognitions 1.39.3)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The King Appeals For Peace
Josephus, Jewish War 2:342-407/xvi.3-xvii.I
Shortly after the violence in Jerusalem, King Herod Agrippa 11 arrived. He knew that the people were ready to declare war on Rome. He also realized that if he successfully diffused the situation in Jerusalem, he would earn Rome's gratitude. He stood a fair chance of finally adding Judea to his kingdom. He could be, at last, king over the whole kingdom of his great-grandfather Herod.
He called the people together into a large gallery where he could address several thousand at once. He positioned his sister, Queen Bernice atop his palace where everyone in the gallery could clearly see her. Agrippa himself addressed the crowd.
He soundly upbraided the people of Jerusalem for harboring thoughts of sedition and revolt, and he provided them with a quick geography lesson about the extent of the Roman Empire and how its legions had subdued every people on earth. The discourse is a masterful example of persuasive rhetoric from the Classical Period. King Agrippa himself may have provided the text for Josephus to copy.
Agrippa warned the people of Jerusalem that a war with Rome could only end in utter disaster. He predicted the destruction of the Temple and the massacre of Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora. He beseeched them, "Have pity, therefore, if not on your own wives and children, at least have pity on this, your city, and its sacred walls. Spare the Temple and your holy house with all its sacred furnishings!" He concluded the speech by dramatically bursting into tears. Queen Bernice wept aloud from atop the palace. Their tears quenched some of the fighting spirit in the crowd. Agrippa persuaded the people to collect the taxes (now overdue) and send them to Caesarea and to repair the ramps between the Temple porticoes and Fortress Antonia. The people complied with the king's wisdom. They sent out tax collectors to collect the tax. King Agrippa and Queen Bernice led the people up to the Temple, and they began to repair the ramps.
When Agrippa told the people that they needed to obey Florus until Caesar could send a replacement, his wise counsel raised an immediate chorus of jeers. Some of the more impudent began to throw stones at the king. Others hurled insults. The anti-Florus sentiment swelled, and a mob turned against the Herodians. The royal siblings found themselves and their retinue ejected from the city.
The insult to dignity hurt the king more than the stones. He took his sister and returned to the safety of their capital in Caesarea Philippi.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
A Sacrifice for Nero
Josephus, Jewish War 2:408-432/xvii.6-7
After King Agrippa left the city, Eleazar the son of Ananias son of Nebedeus betrayed his father and the Sadducees and joined the Zealots. He persuaded a majority of the common priests to join him. They took their stand against Rome by boycotting sacrifices made on behalf of Caesar. The Romans permitted the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem to remain inviolate and sacrosanct only because the priesthood offered a daily burnt offering on Caesar's behalf.
The chief priests and leading men of the Sanhedrin realized that they had lost control of both the priesthood and the population. The Sadducees' long legacy of control over the Temple was at an end. It also amounted to a declaration of independence from Rome.
The chief priests and leading men of the city dispatched an urgent message to King Agrippa, informing him of the sedition and begging him to send troops to back up their authority. They also sent an ambassador to Florus with the same message. Florus ignored the summons, but King Agrippa immediately sent three thousand of his cavalry-Gentile soldiers from Auranitis, Batanaea, and Trachonitis.
The king's cavalrymen arrived around the seventh of Av (mid-July). The city erupted into chaos. The Sadducean chief priests used Agrippa's men to secure the Upper City. The rebels held the Temple and the lower city. For seven days, both sides launched arrows, spears, and rocks at one another as they fought for control of the city. Agrippa's men were professional soldiers and better armed, but the rebels holding the Temple Mount and the lower city far outnumbered them.
Hundreds of Sicarii rebels joined the fight and drove Agrippa's men out of the Upper City. The Sicarii set fire to the house of Ananias son of Nebedeus, to the palace of King Agrippa, and to the house of the city records, thereby burning all banking and loan records. Ananias son of Nebedeus and Agrippa's men fled to Herod's palace, which was still under the control of the Romans. They closed themselves inside the palace with the small Roman force and prepared for siege. The Sicarii led an assault on Fortress Antonia, overwhelmed the Roman cohort, burned the garrison, and laid siege to Herod's palace.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Menachem Ben Yehudah (Elul 1-7, 66 CE)
Josephus, Jewish War 2:425-441/xvii.6-8
At that time, Rabbi Menachem ben Yehudah rose up and declared himself to be the Messiah. His father was Judas the Galilean of Gamla, the original revolutionary who started the Zealot movement during the census of Quirinius.
Menachem began by leading a raid on the Roman garrison stationed in Herod the Great's fortress of Masada. They took it by means of treachery and slew all the Romans stationed there. Menachem broke into King Herod the Great's armory and armed his followers with fine weapons, shields, and armor. The implements were nearly a century old, but they were of the finest craftsmanship, and the dry climate of Masada preserved them as if they had been forged yesterday.
Menachem and his followers entered Jerusalem in splendor and pomp. The Zealots rallied around them. Menachem took control of the siege of Herod's palace.
Menachem and his men quickly undermined the palace wall. King Agrippa's men surrendered and came out, but the Romans retreated into the royal Herodian towers (Phasaelus, Hippicus, and Mariamne). The enormously obese chief priest, Ananias the son of Nebedeus, attempted to escape through an aqueduct. The Zealots found him and put him to death, thereby fulfilling the imprecation that Paul of Tarsus had spoken against him, "God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall!" (Acts 23:3).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Eleazar Ben Chananiyah
Josephus, Jewish War 2:442-456/xvii.9-10
Ananias the son of Nebedeus was dead, but his son Eleazar continued to wield influence and power among the Jerusalem Zealots. Eleazar resented Menachem's presumptuous messianic claims and his haughty airs. He surely resented Menachem for the murder of his father, regardless of the political differences between father and son.
Menachem entered the Temple in all pomp and splendor, adorned in royal garments. His followers escorted him, clothed in armor and brandishing their weapons. Menachem wanted to offer sacrifices in gratitude for the liberation of Jerusalem. He did not have the opportunity.
Eleazar and his followers attacked the false messiah and sent his followers fleeing from the Temple. They captured Menachem and put him to death. Eleazar sent ambassadors to the Roman soldiers who still held the towers of Herod's palace, offering them safe passage out of the city if they surrendered. (One of the ambassadors was Gorion, the son of Nicodemus.) The soldiers gladly took the assurances of Eleazar and surrendered. When they came out of the towers, however, Eleazar broke his oaths and brutally attacked the soldiers. "The soldiers neither defended themselves nor asked for mercy; they only cried out against the breach of promise and the oaths taken." The treacherous act took place on the Sabbath day. Sorrow filled the city as the people realized that they would all suffer together the punishment due to these violent men.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Massacres (Elul and Tishrei, 66 CE)
Josephus, Jewish War 2:457-480/xviii.3-5
On the same Sabbath that Eleazar and his men attacked and murdered the last Roman soldiers in Jerusalem, the Syrian-Greek population of Caesarea rose up against the Jews. They attacked the Jewish residents of their city and massacred them. Josephus says, "The Jews of Caesarea were keeping their seventh day festival, and did not so much as lift up their hands against the citizens of Caesarea. Nevertheless, those citizens ran upon them in great crowds, and cut their throats, and the throats of their wives and children." Thousands died, and the city was emptied of all Jews.
The massacre in Caesarea touched off immediate reprisals. Zealot raiding parties attacked the cities of the Decapolis, including Pella. They attacked Gentile cities in the territories of King Agrippa and burned many to the ground. They attacked cities on the coast, including Ptolemais, Gaba, and Caesarea. They burned and demolished Sebaste, Ashkelon, Anthedon, and Gaza.
At the same time, the Syrian-Greeks in many of those cities turned against their Jewish populations. All throughout Syria, Gentiles rose up against the Jewish people living in their midst. Even those Jewish citizens most loyal to the Gentile cities died for being Jewish. Cities filled with corpses, lying unburied, those of old men mixed with infants, all dead and scattered about together, without anything to cover their nakedness.
In city after city, the Gentiles took up arms against their Jewish residents. The revolt in Judea offered them an excuse to release pentup anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Others took advantage of the opportunity to loot and plunder. The Jewish quarters in Roman cities exploded into violence, terror, bloodshed, and flame. When the war reached Alexandria, Egypt, it ignited old animosities. The Gentile population carried out a brutal massacre with the permission of the city officials, decimating the Jewish quarters of the city.
In all those cities, God-fearing Gentile believers found themselves caught in the middle. They were distrusted and persecuted by their fellow citizens while, at the same time, not fully received into the Jewish community. As a matter of survival, many did their best to appear un-Jewish.
All over the Empire, God-fearing Gentile believers were in great danger from their fellow citizens because of their close association with the Jewish people. Josephus observes that the Syrian-Greeks mistrusted and dreaded the God-fearing Gentiles in their midst: "When the Syrians thought they had ruined the Jews (among them), they still suspected the Judaizers ... they did not want to kill those whom they only suspected, but they greatly feared them because they were mingled together. They treated [the God-fearers] as if they were certainly foreigners." Many who were not Jewish died as Jews, and those who did not fell under suspicion because of their Jewish practices and close ties with the Jewish community. The God-fearing believers faced enormous social pressure and real danger to life. Simply keeping the Sabbath posed a risk to their lives. Those pressures began the long process of stripping the Jewishness out of Gentile Christianity. Guilty by association, the God-fearing Gentiles had a strong motivation to prove to their fellow citizens that they were not part of the Jewish nation. In order to survive and protect their families, many distanced themselves from the Jewish community and Jewish practice.
The citizens of several Decapolis cities slaughtered the Jews within their walls and plundered their homes.
In the city of Scythopolis, only a few miles across the Jordan River from Pella, the large Jewish population tried to prove their loyalty by fighting against their own countrymen, spilling Jewish blood, to defend the city from the Jewish revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the people of Scythopolis forced them to leave their homes and camp in a grove outside the walls in a temporary internment camp. In the dead of the night, soldiers surrounded the Jewish camp, cutting throats and slaughtering all of them.
If the men of Pella followed the example set by cities like Scythopolis, the Jewish believers faced great peril, but for some reason, the Transjordan Decapolis cities of Hippus, Gadara, and Gerasa all left their Jewish populations unmolested. Josephus says, "As for the Gerasens, they did no harm to those that abode with them; and for those who wanted to go away, they conducted them safely to their borders." The city of Pella (closest to Gerasa) seems to have adopted the same benevolent policy toward the Jews living within their walls. By God's grace, the Pella community, under the leadership of Simeon son of Clopas, survived the uprising.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Defeat of the Twelfth Legion (Tishrei, 66 CE)
Josephus, Jewish War 2:499-555/ xix.6-9
King Agrippa and Queen Bernice traveled to Antioch and reported to the Syrian governor, Cestius Gallus, that Judea and Galilee were in open revolt. They were eager to prove their loyalty to Rome and to disassociate themselves from the Jewish revolutionary movement. Popular rumor said, "Agrippa will be slain by the Romans for the crimes that the Jews have committed."
King Agrippa promised Cestius the support of cavalry and soldiers, and he offered to serve him as a guide and counselor. Cestius accepted the king's help and set out at the head of the twelfth legion. The legion arrived at Jerusalem during the Festival of Sukkot. Cestius brought his army up to the top of Mount Scopus, a hilltop overlooking the city on the same ridge-line as the Mount of Olives. On the last day of Tishrei, his legions entered through the outer walls that King Agrippa 1 had left unfinished. They set fire to the new city. For several days, they attempted to breach the walls of the inner city. They concentrated their efforts on the northern gate of the Temple Mount -the Sheep Gate. The defenders attacked from the porticoes above and from the towers of Fortress Antonia. To even draw close to the gate, the Roman soldiers had to raise their shields above their heads in a defensive posture they referred to as "the turtle." The spears, arrows, rocks, and darts raining from above bounced harmlessly off the turtle's shell while engineers and workmen labored beneath to undermine the northern gate.
Just when it seemed that the gate would surely fall and the soldiers would rush in and seize the Temple, Cestius Gallus called for a retreat. Most likely, Cestius found himself badly outnumbered and inadequately prepared for the scale of the defenses and the ferocity of the defenders.
The Zealots took courage and poured out of the city in pursuit. They attacked the rear of the army and inflicted considerable damage before the Romans were able to fall back to the safety of their camp on Mount Scopus. The Romans abandoned Mount Scopus and retreated back the way from which they had come. All the while, the Zealots pursued and attacked the rear ranks. The heavily armored legion, laden with their baggage and arms, continued their disciplined march while the rebels ambushed them and harassed them from behind and on their flanks.
The road along the treacherous descent of the Bethhoron ridge narrows into a bottleneck with deep canyons on either side. The Jewish rebels knew the place well and had prepared an ambush from all sides. Archers on the heights above both sides of the road punctured the legion while a force in front and a force behind made advance and retreat nearly impossible. For most of the day, the Romans took casualties, unable to defend themselves or strike back.
Cestius nearly lost the whole legion. Under the cover of darkness, he abandoned the siege engines, catapults, and any other equipment that might slow his men down. He picked four hundred men to stay behind and to make it appear as if the legion was still at Bethhoron. He abandoned the legion's ensigns with them. Then he and the rest of his men fled into the night.
The next morning, the rebel host discovered the ruse. They quickly attacked and dispatched the four hundred left behind and seized the war engines. While they themselves had lost only a few men, they had slain 5,300 Roman footmen and 380 cavalrymen. This victory occurred on the eighth day of Cheshvan in the twelfth year of Nero. The rebels saw it as a fulfillment of the prophecies. The great redemption had begun.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.