Now, events began to move quickly, and the decade of the sixties proved to be a momentous one in the history of the Church. Felix was replaced by Portius Festus as procurator, and he immediately convened a tribunal to hear the charges against Paul and his reply. (Acts 24:27 and Acts 25:1-6) "Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me?" Festus asked the apostle. Paul replied: "I am standing before Caesar's tribunal, where I ought to be tried. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as you yourself know very well. If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death. But if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar." "To Caesar you have appealed; to Caesar you shall go!" the procurator decided. (Acts 25:8-12)
After also appearing before King Agrippa, Paul and his companions were placed in the custody of a centurion named Julius and set sail for Italy. (Acts25:13-27, 26 and 27:1) However, while sailing across the Mediterranean, they ran into a storm and were shipwrecked on the island of Malta. (Acts 27:2-44 and 28:1) Fortunately, the inhabitants of the island welcomed the survivors and even kindled a fire to warm them. Thankful for the reception that they had received, Paul gathered up an armful of wood and threw it on the fire. Unfortunately, the heat drove a snake out of the sticks, and it sunk its fangs into Paul. Even so, Paul simply shook off the snake back into the flames and didn't suffer any harm! The apostle also healed many of the inhabitants of the island who were ill. Moreover, their leader extended the hospitality which had already been shown to the survivors and resupplied another ship so that their journey could continue. After wintering there, they continued on their way to Rome. (Acts 28:2-16) Paul lived under house arrest in Rome for the next two years, but he continued to preach the Gospel and to write letters to some of the congregations which he had started. (Acts 28:17-30)
By this time, James had been the leader of the Jerusalem Church for many years. And, by extension, was one of the leading voices within the Jewish Christian Church. As a consequence of his visibility within the community of Jewish Christians, he was also well-known to the High Priest and other members of the Council in Jerusalem. Moreover, after Festus died and before the new procurator could arrive, the High Priest Ananus "assembled the Sanhedrim of the judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some of his companions); and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king (Agrippa) desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified: nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria [the new procurator], and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a Sanhedrim without his consent." (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapter 9, Section 1, by Flavius Josephus) It should be noted that Eusebius recounts a tradition that James was thrown off of the pinnacle of the Temple (I obviously believe that Josephus was closer to the actual event and more reliable). Now, obviously, the death of James was a grievous blow to the whole Church, but it hit Jewish Christians especially hard.
In terms of chronology, the next major event of the decade in the history of the Church occurred in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Nero. As a consequence of the great fire that broke out in the city in the year 64 CE, the Roman historian, Tacitus described the events that followed. He wrote: "Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed." Annals, by Tacitus, Book XV
In his account of the fate of the apostles, Eusebius wrote: "Such was the condition of the Jews. Meanwhile the holy apostles and disciples of our Saviour were dispersed throughout the world. Parthia, according to tradition, was allotted to Thomas as his field of labor, Scythia to Andrew, and Asia to John, who, after he had lived some time there, died at Ephesus. Peter appears to have preached in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia to the Jews of the dispersion. And at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer in this way. What do we need to say concerning Paul, who preached the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and afterwards suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero? These facts are related by Origen in the third volume of his Commentary on Genesis." Church History, by Eusebius, Book 3, Chapter 1, Sections 1 and 2 Moreover, the martyrdom of Peter and Paul were mentioned by Clement in his letter to the saints at Corinth. He wrote: "Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors; and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience." Letter to the Corinthians by Clement At any rate, just as the martyrdom of James had caused a great hurt to the Church, the loss of Peter and Paul was devastating.
Even so, an even more monumental and cataclysmic storm was brewing in Judea. The Jews had long been restive under Roman rule, and the appointment of a new procurator was about to bring those long-simmering tensions to a head. Josephus described those events in the following manner: "Now Gessius Florus, who was sent as successor to Albinus by Nero, filled Judea with abundance of miseries...This Florus was so wicked, and so violent in the use of his authority, that the Jews took Albinus to have been (comparatively) their benefactor; so excessive were the mischiefs that he brought upon them. For Albinus concealed his wickedness, and was careful that it might not be discovered to all men; but Gessius Florus, as though he had been sent on purpose to shew his crimes to everybody, made a pompous ostentation of them to our nation, as never omitting any sort of violence, nor any unjust sort of punishment; for he was not to be moved by pity, and never was satisfied with any degree of gain that came in his way; nor had he any more regard to great that to small acquisitions, but became a partner with the robbers themselves; for a great many fell then into that practice without fear, as having him for their security, and depending on him, that he would save them harmless in their particular robberies; so that there were no bounds set to the nation's miseries; but the unhappy Jews, when they were not able to bear the devastations which the robbers made among them, were all under a necessity of leaving their own habitations, and of flying away, as hoping to dwell more easily anywhere else in the world among foreigners (than in their own country.) And what need I say any more upon this head? since it was this Florus who necessitated us to take up arms against the Romans, while we thought it better to be destroyed at once, than by little and little. Now this war began in the second year of the government of Florus, and the twelfth year of the reign of Nero. But then what actions we were forced to do, or what miseries we were enabled to suffer, may be accurately known by such as will peruse those books which I have written about the Jewish War." Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus, Book 20, Chapter 11, Section 1
In fact, Judea was rapidly descending into a state of armed rebellion against its Roman overlords. Eusebius wrote: "But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come there from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men." Church History, Book 3, Chapter 5, Section 3 Josephus went on to recount the fact that Florus further inflamed Jewish passions by withdrawing a large sum of money from the Temple treasury and ordering his soldiers to plunder and murder around the Upper Market Place. The Wars of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, Book 2, Chapter 14, Sections 6-9 Even so, all of the misery and disruption up to that point were nothing compared with what was to follow!
Initially, Vespasian had led the Roman Army's response to the Jewish rebellion, but he had left for Rome to be crowned as the new emperor before completing the suppression of the rebellion. Thus, he had appointed his son, Titus, to complete that task. In the course of time, the Roman forces surrounded Jerusalem and laid siege to the city. Josephus wrote: "Now of those that perished by famine in the city, the number was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable; for if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear, a war was commenced presently; and the dearest friends fell a fighting one with another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports of life." The Wars of the Jews, Book 6, Chapter 3, Section 3 Moreover, when the wall surrounding Jerusalem was finally breached, Josephus recorded what would become a defining event for both the Jewish and the Christian faiths. He wrote: "So, Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to storm the Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house; but, as for that house, God had for certain long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of the ages: it was the tenth day of the month Lous, (Ab), upon which it was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon; although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves, and were occasioned by them; for upon Titus's retiring, the seditious lay still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again, when those that guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire that was burning in the inner (court of the) Temple; but these Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard about it" The Wars of the Jews, Book 6, Chapter 4, Section 5
The year was 70 CE, and Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed by the Romas! In just forty short years since Christ's death and resurrection, his prophecy about the destruction of the Temple had come to pass (see Matthew 24). Although the war would continue for a few more years, both Judaism and Christianity had been transformed by what had happened in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Church was gone - its members scattered and in hiding. The Jewish nation lay prostrate before the Roman Empire! Even so, it was the destruction of the Temple itself which would prove to be the defining event for both faiths! Without a central sanctuary, it was no longer possible to fulfill the sacrificial and ritualistic demands of Torah! In short, Jews and Christians were no longer able to celebrate the pilgrimage festivals in the manner prescribed by Torah (see Deuteronomy 16:1-16). Sure, the ever-resilient Jews would regroup and redesign their religion around local synagogues, but Jewish Christianity had been delt a fatal blow. The surviving Jews did not welcome them, and Gentile Christians began to regard them as a relic of a past which no longer existed or made any sense. Indeed, within the Roman Empire, it was now hardly a point of pride to be associated in any way with the Jewish people or their religion. Moreover, there were some who would regard what had happened to the Jews as Divine punishment for what they had done to Jesus of Nazareth. It is unfortunate, but we can trace the beginnings of Christian anti-Semitism to these very events! Even so, our story is NOT finished - we have another sixty years to account for before this series will be complete. Stay tuned!
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