as a reward for some signal service, but eventually it was granted to any one who paid a fixed sum of money. The title was greatly coveted, for it gave those who bore it the privilege of appeal from the jurisdiction of the local governors to the imperial court at Rome.

With regard to language the gigantic empire was split into two great sections. Latin prevailed in the West; but in the East, ever since the times of Alexander the Great, Greek had been the universal language.

Octavianus, better known under the name of Augustus, heir to the great Julius Cæsar, was the first to ascend the imperial throne, which he did after a sanguinary civil war (reigned 29 B.C. to 14 A.D.). And now, for the first time for centuries, there was peace; and the doors of the temple of Janus at Rome, which always stood open in time of war, were closed. Under Augustus the provinces were divided into two classes. To those which had neither internal commotions nor hostile invasions to fear governors were appointed yearly by the Senate; but those which were threatened by tumult or war were governed by nominees of the Emperor. These imperial provinces were for the most part situated on the frontier, and in them the five-and-twenty legions of the empire were quartered. In fact their governors were military commanders, each of them supported by a general overseer of the taxation. Important sub-districts, such as Palestine, were sometimes placed under the immediate control of deputy-governors, who combined the administration of the military, the judicial, and the financial affairs of their respective districts.

The Roman supremacy weighed like lead upon the subject peoples. So far from respecting their independence the governors aimed rather at extinguishing all national peculiarities. But the worst abuse was the systematic draining of the provinces by the contractors of taxes, who practised the most shameless extortion with impunity. On the other hand, the widest toleration of the various religions was practised by Rome. The governors were instructed to respect the religious convictions of the peoples. Thus, for example, the military standards to which the Cæsar's image was affixed had never been carried into Jerusalem before the time of Pilate, out of regard to the Jewish horror of image-worship. The Roman magistrates in many of the conquered districts took part officially in the public worship of their respective territories; and Augustus even went so far as to assign a portion of the

imperial revenues drawn from Palestine to the maintenance of the daily sacrifice in the temple on Mount Zion. Generally speaking, then, the Romans were far from desiring to force the worship of their own gods upon all their allies or subjects. But there was one exception to this rule. It was required, throughout the whole empire, that divine honors should be paid to the Emperor; and the demand involved the Jews, and the Christians after them, in grievous perplexities.

The Romans themselves were forbidden by law to go over to a foreign religion; but the regulation was seldom enforced. Indeed, the religious condition of the ancient world made it impossible to carry it out; for faith in the national deities was tottering to its fall among Romans and Greeks alike. In fact, it had out-lived itself; and philosophy had powerfully contributed to its overthrow. A deep dissatisfaction made the want of something better keenly felt, and an ever stronger yearning after a purer conception of the nature and the will of the Deity threw many a one into the arms of Judaism, just as it afterwards prepared the way for Christianity.

II.

THE civil war between the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, sons of the Maccabæan prince Alexander Jannæus, had brought the Romans under Pompey into Judæa (64 B.C.) ; and once established there as rulers, they obstinately maintained their footing. It was through their favor and by the force of their arms that the Idumæan Herod, son of Antipater, the adviser of Hyrcanus, secured the Jewish throne (from 37 to 4 B.C.). He threw down the temple of Zerubbabel, and raised a new and magnificent structure in its place. The building of this temple occupied eight years, and the cost was enormous. Herod was an energetic and magnificent ruler, but a thorough despot. His suspicious character and unnatural cruelty merited the burning hatred with which he was regarded by his subjects. This aversion was so intense that on his death the Jews sent a special embassy to Rome, praying the Emperor not to impose upon them a prince of the house of Herod, but rather to allow them to follow their own laws and customs, under the supervision of the governor of Syria. But their petition was rejected, and Augustus, giving effect to the will of Herod, divided the country among that monarca's sons. Archelaus received Idumæa, Judæa, and Sa

maria; Herod Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Peræa; and Philip obtained the northern regions east of the Jordan. After a reign of nine years Archelaus was accused at Rome, by his own subjects, of gross misdeeds, was deposed by the Emperor, and banished to Vienna (in Gaul), A.D. 6. His territory was added to the province of Syria, and came under the jurisdiction of the Roman governors who had their seat at Cæsarea, on the sea coast. The fifth of these governors, Pontius Pilate (A.D. 26-37) is the one best known to us. On the death of Philip, in A.D. 34, his district also was incorporated with Syria, and some years afterwards, in A.D. 39, Herod Antipas was deposed by the Romans and banished to Lyons.

Meanwhile, however, a grandson of Herod the Great, by another line, had obtained the title of King, through the favor of the Emperor, and had had the former territory of Philip assigned to him (A.D. 37). Galilee and Peræa were now (A.D. 39) added to his domain; and finally Judæa, Idumæa, and Samaria were placed under him, so that the whole land of the Jews was once more united (A.D. 41-44) under a prince of its own, Herod Agrippa I. He succeeded in gaining the affection of his people by his strict regard to religious observances, but he died after a very short reign. His son, Agrippa II., did not succeed him, but was afterwards, in A.D. 53, appointed to the general supervision of the temple, with the right of nominating the high priest. Henceforth, all Palestine was a Roman Province, and as there had been seven governors before Agrippa I. so there were seven after him. The fourth and fifth of these, Claudius Felix (A.D. 52–61), and Porcius Festus (A.D. 61-63) are mentioned in the New Testament. Under the seventh, Gessius Florus, that revolt against Rome burst out which ended in the fall of the Jewish state and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (A.D. 66-70).

The cruelty and extortion, the caprice and incompetence of Florus had doubtless hastened this outburst; but, independently of all this, it might have been long foreseen. For a century past an increasing fermentation had been observable among the Jews. It had given rise as early as the times of Herod the Great to repeated tumults, and when, at the deposition of Archelaus, the Roman governor held a census in the new province, certain wild spirits had unfurled the banner of revolt against Rome. These "zealots" as they were called, for God and the fatherland, gradually formed a party in Israel, and grew more numerous and more

fanatical year by year, till at last they utterly destroyed the influence of the party of order and submission, and carried away the whole people with them.

Let us now glance at the internal organization and condition of the people. The highest official position was that of the high priest; but Herod the Great had set the example of deposing and appointing the high priest by royal authority, and had conferred the dignity upon a family of priests, who though Jews were not natives of Palestine: so the lustre of the office had greatly declined. The post was passed backwards and forwards between a few families, and not many of the high priests remained in office much above a year. Their ambition was then satisfied, and they willingly resigned the honor in favor of some successor, especially if he were a brother or other near relative. As a rule they secured but little personal respect from the people. The high priest was the president of the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, a body which pronounced judgment without appeal, as the supreme Jewish authority both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. decisions were even held binding by the Jews residing in foreign countries. But it had no power to carry out the sentence of death without the consent of the Roman governor. There were also judges in every city in Palestine, and each synagogue had its council of elders, who exercised certain judicial powers.

Its

Israel's great misfortune was want of unanimity. Up to the last moment of its existence the nation was torn asunder by bitter religious and political disputes. The Pharisees and Sadducees in particular were violently opposed to one another. The Sadducees were the aristocratical party, composed of the families from which the high priests were drawn, together with their adherents and certain other distinguished families. They laid great stress upon the privileges of the priests and upon the dignity and the sanctity of the order; they sedulously cultivated the friendship of their rulers, including the Romans, and insisted upon submission to authority and the maintenance of order. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were the national party. Filled with a lofty sense of Israel's pre-eminence above other nations, and the privileges it might claim as the people of God, they scrupulously avoided all intercourse with the heathen, endeavored to develop the religion of the Law in accordance with the wants of the age, and maintained the sanctity of all Israelites as members of the priestly nation. Narrow-minded, scrupulous, and formal, they were neverthe

less inspired with untiring zeal in the service of Yahweh, with unreserved devotion to his glory, and with inextinguishable hope in the future of his people. As a rule, the love and honor in which the people held them equalled the indifference or even dislike with which they regarded the Sadducees. But the Sadducees, on the other hand, held the reins of authority, though the Pharisees could make their influence felt in the Sanhedrim, to which a certain number of members were appointed from the order of the Scribes. These Scribes received their education at the University or Colleges of Jerusalem, made the study of the Law the task of their lives, and then interpreted and applied it in the synagogues. For the most part they adopted the principles of the Pharisees with heart and soul. The Zealots, too, belonged originally to the Pharisaic school; but while the majority of the party were opposed to violence, the Zealots were determined agitators, and were finally the cause of Israel's fall, after a hopeless struggle.

Lastly, the Essenes must be added to the Pharisees and Sadducees. They were not simply a school or party, however, but a special sect which had risen out of Pharisaism. They may be best described as an order of Jewish monks. Their numbers are estimated at four thousand. Still more strict and scrupulous than any of the other Jews, they were not content with the ordinary observance of the Law, and so withdrew themselves from all public life in nervous fear of contamination, and formed a little society by themselves.

The mass of the people remained as a rule unshaken in their fidelity to their religion, scrupulous in the observance of the Law, and zealous in attending the synagogue and, at the high feasts, the temple. They were impressed with a sense of their own dignity, which was only too apt to degenerate into narrow-minded national pride and hatred of the foreigner or heathen. They bore the yoke of Rome uneasily, and entertained an unmeasured contempt and aversion for the Samaritans. They were in constant hope of being delivered by their God from the miseries they now endured; and this "Messianic expectation," which filled so many bosoms, sometimes rose to the glow of inspiration, or burst into a flame of consuming passion. Judæa, and especially Jerusalem, was the seat of Jewish orthodoxy; that is to say, of the most fanatical enthusiasm for the strict observance of the Law and Levitical "cleanness." Galilee, the most beautiful portion of the country, was surrounded by heathens