THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
over the Jews. But the victory over the Jews of the Orient was fearfully avenged upon both Romans and Greeks in a rising of the Jews of the Occident. The imperial legions were exterminated, and in Cyprus alone 240,000 Greeks were said to have been slaughtered. Trajan called in the aid of his best generals to suppress the insurrection, and severe vengeance was taken on the Jews of Mediterranean lands, while the beautiful synagogue in Alexandria was completely destroyed. But in Syria and Asia Minor a new revolt was raised, and the fanaticism of the Jewish spirit, fanned by the Messianic hope centered in Bar Kokba, made necessary the sending of Trajan s most capable general, Julius Severus, from Britain to Palestine. This was the last important attempt of the Jews to establish a Messianic kingdom by force of arms; thenceforth they looked for it to come only by special divine interposition. The site of Jerusalem was given to the plow, and in 134 a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina, was founded to the north of the old city. Another revolt among the Jews was suppressed in 135. A poll tax was levied, and circumcision and observance of the Sabbath were forbidden. By these means the possibilities of political danger from the Jews were so thoroughly eliminated by the time of Antoninus Pius that he abolished the severe restrictions, and their renewal under Marcus Aurelius was caused not by political conditions, but by religious intolerance. The Jews themselves recognized that their political importance was a thing of the past and that all which remained was their community in matters of religion.
At the end of the second century the Sanhedrin lost its eminence, and the decisions of Rabbi Juda
ben Simon were recognized as authori-
the^Bab** tative- He established as finally de-
loniar^" c'siye tne Mishna of Rabbi Akiba,
School, while other collections were pronounced
devoid of authority. At this time, it is probable, the Mishna ceased to be oral and was committed to writing. Since all national, political, and judicial rights had ceased, the law had in part only an ideal value as fashioning the inner life and conceptions of Jews. With the compilation of the Mishna Palestinian Judaism had exhausted itself, and the scholastic center shifted to Babylon in the production of the Gemara or the Talmud proper by the school of the Amoraim. What the Mishna is to the Bible the Gemara is to the Mishna — a continuous refinement of the law, binding Judaism within ever tightening chains. The first Amoraim were Palestinians, the most eminent among them Rabbi Juda the younger. He transferred the seat of the school to Tiberias, where, under the favor of Alexander Severus, something of splendor appeared. Relations between Jews and Romans became not merely friendly, but intimate, and laxity in following Judaic practises was the natural result. During this period Babylon was coming into greater significance for the Jews, and was even called " the land of Israel." The head of the Babylonian Jews was an officer under the Parthian government, fourth in rank after the king, and a descendant of the Davidic line. His power, however, was temporal, not as yet spiritual. Rabbi Abba Rab
brought the Mishna from Palestine and founded a school at Babylon which soon had 1,200 students. His friend Mar Samuel first enunciated the maxim which became authoritative for Jews — " the law of the state is valid." During the reign of Alexander Severus the neo-Persian kingdom of the Sassanides was established, and this, in its zeal for Zoroastrianism, excluded Jews from office and introduced certain restrictions to be followed on Zoroastrian festivals. These restrictions did not continue long, and until Constantine's time the Jews had peace. Constantine's edict of toleration (312 a.d.) included the Jews also, but later his policy changed and proselyting was forbidden as well as the circumcision of slaves of Jews. In this Jews saw the approach of Messianic times, for it had long been said that " the Messiah will not come till the Roman empire is Christian." But Rabbi Hillel the younger declared that Israel had no Messiah to look forward to, for the prediction by the prophet of a mighty ruler had been fulfilled in Hezekiah; the head of the Babylonian school replied in the prayer " May God forgive Rabbi Hillel for holding this error." Under Constantius matters were still worse for the Jews, and many in the Roman empire emigrated to Persia. Constantine's laws were enforced with the addition that marriage between Jews and Christians was forbidden. Julian especially favored the Jews, and preparations were made for rebuilding the temple, which ceased, however, on his death.
About the year 400 a.d. Rabbi Aschi had the oral explanations, discussions, decisions and investiga- 4. The Two tions based on the Mishna collected in Talmudic the Babylonian Talmud, which became Collections: the chief source of spiritual instruction, the Masso- as much superior to the Mishna in the rah. regard of scholastic Judaism as the Mishna was to the Bible. Even till the present the Talmud has been for millions of Jews the totality of truth, wisdom, righteousness and holiness, and study of it the certain way to eternal life, while to study anything else is to a real Jew a sign of godlessness. To a Jew instructed in the Talmud God and his revelation as set forth therein are the first and highest interests of life, thought, feeling and action. Thus this collection became the wall which hedged about all Jewish life, the influence which controlled all Jewish thought and molded Jewish conceptions for fifteen hundred years. It was the obstacle, as well, to further development of Jewish religion and life (see Talmud). This great production came forth in the time when Rome was hard pressed by the Germanic peoples and North Africa became the booty of the Vandals. The mighty world-movements of the times served to arouse once more the Messianic hopes of the Jews, expressed in the saying that the Messiah would not come till the eighty-fifth Jubilee (4200 anno mundi, 440 a.d.), about the time when the Vandals captured the temple treasures at Rome and carried them to Africa. As at this time the old sacred treasures of the Jews disappeared, the more precious became the Talmud as the one sacred instrument remaining. So in Palestine the Amoraim collected their traditions in the Jerusalem Talmud, though it is not