swarmed about the eloquent Pharisee saved him from the plots of the Zealots. A miserable campaign in Galilee, marked by tumults, dissensions, deceptions, and petty skirmishes ending in fright and disorder, reached a crisis when, in the spring of 67, the renowned general Vespasian advanced into Galilee. Josephus fled to the little fortress of Jotopata which lay perched up on the crest of steep cliffs, and was approachable only on one side. When the Roman batteringram had broken the ramparts, and the starving defenders were outwearied by the forty-seven days' siege, the Romans clambered by night into the fortress, slew the sleeping sentinels, and put the people to the sword. Josephus, who had hidden himself in a cistern, was glad enough to yield to a summons from Vespasian. John of Gischala escaped to Jerusalem, where he gave a fresh stimulus to the Zealots, provoked a fierce civil war with the party of peace and conservatism, and then quarrelled with a rival leader of the rebellion, Simon Bar Giora. Meanwhile, the emperor Nero had died (June, 68); his successor Galba was murdered; Otho and Vitellius fought as rivals; Otho committed suicide. Vespasian's claim to imperial power was followed rapidly by the murder of Vitellius; and on Vespasian's son, Titus, devolved the dread task of conquering the Holy City of the Hebrew race.

Jerusalem overlooked valleys on three sides; the ascent sloped easily on the north. The eastern, or Lower City, faced the western, or Upper City; the hollow passage of the Tyropæon ran between. To the north of the Lower City rose the glittering Temple, and beyond that the strongwalled keep of Antonia. A wall encircled the whole city another wall ran round an old northern suburb; a third wall enclosed, still further north, the new suburb of Bezetha.

Against the battlements of Bezetha the rams of Titus, long delayed by political changes in the Roman empire, began to thunder in April, 70. Josephus, now in the Roman camp, and contemptuously employed by Titus as interpreter and informer, watched wall after wall collapse. Several times, at Roman suggestion, he mounted the broken bulwarks, and offered terms of surrender to the citizens. They replied with jeers and stones. Famine brooded over the City. A mother ate the flesh of her own child. Deserters crept out, only to be nailed up on crosses by the

hundred. A stone from a Roman engine struck Jesus, the insane peasant, and forever silenced the voice that cried woe to Jerusalem. The castle of Antonia fell. In the courts and corridors of the Temple despairing struggles took place. A densely-packed mass of 6,000 Jews, collected in the eastern porticoes of the sanctuary, and every moment expecting the appearance of a divine Messiah, soon lay prostrate in the flames which roared through the hallowed building. John of Gischala and Simon Bar Giora retired to the Upper City with the last grim remnants of their forces. In a few weeks the Romans completed their work of conquest (September, 70). Of the fair city nothing remained but ruined heaps and a few palace-gates left standing to protect a small guard. John and Simon, who had concealed themselves in subterranean passages, were captured. Many Hebrew prisoners wrestled with wild beasts, or met each other as gladiators, in the crowded arenas of Cæsarea and other towns. Others were sold in the slave-markets, or toiled sullenly in the lead works of Egypt. Vespasian and Titus rode in triumph through the streets of Rome, while curious eyes gazed on the table of shewbread, the seven-branched candlestick, and the sacred rolls of the Torah which had been snatched from the burning Temple. Simon Bar Giora suffered death that day on the Tarpeian rock. John of Gischala fretted out the rest of his life in prison. Josephus enjoyed a country estate in the pleasant plain of Sharon. The war died out in sieges of a few scattered fortresses. In 73 the Zealots still defended the fortress of Masada. When the victorious

Romans entered the stronghold it was only to find the garrison slain by their own hands. Palestine now formed an item in the emperor Vespasian's landed property, and its taxes were contributed to his private purse.*

3. The New People.-Ever since the ages when the songs of the Psalter gave expression to the religious passions of the Hebrew soul, a dividing line had been drawn between

*

Josephus, "Wars of the Jews" and "Life." For account of Josephus, Schürer, div. i., vol. i., and Hausrath's "Time of the Apostles," vol. iv. For the war, Schürer, div. i., vol. ii.; Hausrath, vol. iv.; and Graetz, "History of the Jews," vol. ii.

the Pious, whose hopes soared towards God, and the Worldly, whose thoughts clung to the pleasures and interests of earth. And now that the expectation of a Messiah had gained strength and definition, and the belief in a Future Life had grown into a powerful motive, the contention between Piety and Secularism increased in sternness. As the movement continued it changed many of its characteristics, and merged itself into a revolt against Judaism, against politics, and against learning. Not long before the rise of the Christian era the Psalms of the Pharisees* gave vent to the bitter feeling of the pietist class against the humanist, liberal, and prudential Sadducees. In these compositions the Psalmist splits society up into Sinners on the one side, and Saints (hosioi), or Righteous, on the other. The Sinners oppress the Saints, but a day of Judgment approaches, when a great separation will take place, the inheritance of the wicked being "Hades and darkness and destruction and they shall not be found in the day of mercy for the righteous; but the saints of the Lord shall inherit life in gladness." The Saints lift up their eyes in waiting for a Messiah, an Anointed One, the Son of David, who will gather the scattered tribes of Israel, and make Jerusalem the dominant city of the world. The title of Christ (Christos) is three times used in the Psalms of the Pharisees, † so that long before the Christian Gospel was formed the name of Christ was uttered by the lips of the devout. In that portion of the Book of Enoch which we have already dated about the period of Herod the Great‡ we behold visions of the Elect One, or Son of Man, who will destroy Sinners and exalt the Righteous. A passage in the Book of Enoch pictures the Saints as contemning gold and silver and food and life itself in comparison with the service of God; and in the Psalms of the Pharisees the writer speaks of the Righteous as the Poor and the Needy. Let us further recall the fact that a remarkable body of devotees, the Essenes, had, in their wilderness retreat, displayed to the Jewish world the virtue and blessing of a

*Or of "Solomon." See vol. ii. of this "History," sect. 22. Introduction to the "Psalms of the Pharisees," trans. by Ryle and

James.

Vol. ii., secs. 22 and 23.

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simple and even ascetic life. We have here hints as to the birth of the New People,* who, according to the New Testament itself, were not known as "Christians" until some time had elapsed after the death of their Founder (Acts xi. 26). How did the term "Christians come into vogue? Believers in the Christos, or Anointed One, whom the Saints watched for before the Christian era, would naturally adopt the name. But the use of the name received an impetus from another and singular quarter. The Greek word "Chrestos" signified "good, excellent, gracious," etc. Even among the early Christians themselves the name "Christian" had become in some way associated with that of "Chrestos" and "Christian." Justin Martyr observes, in his Apology (chapter iv.), that "we are accused of being Christians," and it must be wrong to dislike people on that account, since, he adds, in a half-jocular manner, "to hate what is chreston—excellent—is unjust." Tertullian remarks that Christians were frequently called Chrestians; and Lactantius, still later, noticed that the common folk had a habit of mispronouncing "Christ" as "Chrest." Christians would raise little objection to an epithet which suggested that they were amiable characters, and their Master a model of goodness. But was it, indeed, a case of mere careless pronunciation ? The Roman historian, Suetonius, writing in the early years of the second century, refers to Christ as one Chrestus," and regards him as a fomenter of disturbances among the Jews in Rome. Another remarkable circumstance must be added: in the epitaphs on tombs, usually looked upon as primitive Christian, the word commonly occurs in the form of Chrest or Chreist. The term "Chrestoi " was applied to the virtuous dead in inscriptions which were undoubtedly pagan. Certain gods enjoyed the title; and an inscription has been found referring to "Isis Chreste," the gracious Isis of Egypt. The conclusion is that, without searching for the Jesus of the Christian history, we find, in the first Christian century, religious beliefs and usages which by themselves sufficiently account for the origin of the name "Christians."

* The expression is Professor Johnson's, in "

Antiqua Mater."

+ Dr. J. B. Mitchell, in his "Chrestos, a Religious Epithet," says it is always spelt so in the earlier cases.

The New Movement could not confine itself to Jewish circles. Antioch, the city where the name Christian is said to have obtained popular currency, was Greek. The names of the prominent men who composed the first poorrelief committee in the Christian community were all Greek (Acts vi.). But a considerable body of the New People clung to the venerable Jewish Law, and these were destined to a double opposition-the Gentile Christians banning them as conservatives bound by Levitical rules and ideas, and the orthodox Jews rejecting them as Minim, or Minæans —¿.e., religious innovators and heretics. They appear to have borne the name of Ebionites because of their poverty (Heb. Ebion = poor). As far as can be gathered from later descriptions of their doctrines, they held that the Law was binding upon all men; that Christ possessed a divine power imparted to him at baptism, but that he was born in the normal manner; and that his mission consisted in an exemplary fulfilment of the Jewish Law. They recognised as an authority (as it was long afterwards asserted) the gospel of Matthew in the Aramaic language, and refused to place any value on the epistles of Paul. Akin to these "Poor," but not so widely-spread, were the Nazarenes, who respected Paul as an apostle, believed in Christ as virginborn, and did not consider the Mosaic law as binding upon Gentile followers of the new way of religion. They, also, read and respected the Aramaic gospel. One easily suspects a close connection between Ebionites and Essenes. Both schools observed circumcision and the Sabbath; both held aloof from animal sacrifice, both practised religious bathing or baptism. While, however, most of the Essenes avoided marriage, the Ebionites claimed the freedom to wed. If, on the one side, the Poor Saints leaned towards the customs and opinions of the Essenes, they clearly sympathised on the other with the mystic doctrines of the Gnostics. For, even when they had accepted the Christian Messiah, they dreamed themselves away in speculation as to his true character; some affirming that he was the son of Joseph, some that he was an archangel, some that he had been more than once incarnated, first of all in Adam and last in Jesus. Other sects remain but dimly visible to us through the historic gloom of the early Christian period, such as the Disciples of John the Baptist, of whom passing glimpses are