success, and Vitellius, a supple and unscrupulous courtier, afterwards notorious as the basest sycophant at the imperial court, left no stone unturned to win their favour. He at once dismissed Pilate in disgrace,! remitted obnoxious taxes, rescinded unpopular regula- tions, and repaired in person to Jerusalem to curry favour by feasts and sacrifices while his army was on the march. We know from Josephus that his most ostentatious and successful display of sympathy with the Jews was the restoration of the sacred vestments to the custody of the priesthood, which his predecessors had hitherto retained in their own hands with jealous care as a hostage for Jewish loyalty, and that he bestowed the office of high priest on a son of Annas the powerful head of the priestly oligarchy. That oligarchy had by that time conceived the same jealous hatred against the disciples of Christ as against their master; and an unscrupulous governor like Vitellius could find no cheaper means of gratifying them than the surrender of an unpopular sect to their will, The martyrdom of Christians by Jewish zealots for the Law became in short as natural under the circumstances as it was contrary to the imperial principle of religious toleration, and had been inconceivable under Pilate. The presence again of Vitellius in Jerusalem suggests a reasonable explanation of the mission to Damascus, which could hardly have been undertaken without express sanction from the proconsul.
Finally, the circumstances of the year 37 completely explain the rapid termination of the reign of terror in the Church. For about Pentecost Vitellius received tidings of the emperor’s death, and being personally disposed to side with Aretas against Herod Antipas, he at once abandoned the expedition, and gladly returned to Antioch. From the day of Tiberius’ decease no motive remained for courting Jewish favour: the new reign brought with it in fact an entire re- versal of Roman policy in these regions; the Church enjoyed once more comparative peace under the shelter of Roman indifference; and before long the threats of Caius Cesar to erect his own statue in the temple of God turned the thoughts of the Jews from attacks on the Christian religion to the defence of their own. There is in short one period, and one only, in the Roman government of Judza during which the martyrdom of Stephen and many other Christians in Jerusalem was either probable or feasible, and that is the first half of the year 37.
1The date of Pilate’s deposition and of the subsequent events is fixed with some precision by the time of his arrival in Rome: though he hastened thither according to his instructions, he did not arrive before the death of Tiberius on 16th March, 37 (¥os. Ant., xviii., ἵν.» 2).