Messianism in the times of Trajan & Hadrian

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MrMacSon
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Messianism in the times of Trajan & Hadrian

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The Roman emperor Trajan had decided to bring peace to the eastern borders of his empire for once and for all. Therefore, in 115 CE, he attacked Armenia and the kingdom of the Parthians. His operations were a brilliant success, and he was to be the only Roman emperor to sail on the Persian Gulf. However, after he had created new provinces - Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria - and believed he had been victorious, several Messianic revolts broke out similtaneously. The reasons are unclear to us, but the appearance of a comet, a Messianic symbol, may be the explanation (it is referred to in Chinese sources; and perhaps Juvenal, Satires, 6.407). The diasporic Jews of Egypt, Cyrenaica and Cyprus were among the rebels, but the newly conquered region of Mesopotamia was unquiet too.

Their revolt started in Cyrene, where one Lukuas -sometimes called Andreas- ordered the Jews to destroy the pagan temples of Apollo, Artemis, Hecate, Demeter, Isis and Pluto, and to assail the worshippers. The latter fled to Alexandria, where they captured and killed many Jews. (With a population of some 150,000 Jews, Alexandria was Judaism's largest city.) In 116, the Jews organized themselves and had their revenge. The temples of gods like Nemesis, Hecate and Apollo were destroyed; the same fate befell the tomb of Pompey, the Roman general who had captured Jerusalem almost two centuries before.

Meanwhile, the Cyrenaican Jews plundered the Egyptian countryside, reaching Thebes, six hundred kilometers upstream. The future historian Appian of Alexandria records that he made a providential escape from a party of Jews pursuing him in the Nile marshes (more...). There was nothing the Roman governor Marcus Rutilius Lupus could do, although he sent a legion (III Cyrenaica or XXII Deiotariana) to protect the inhabitants of Memphis.

rajan sent out two expeditionary forces. One, consisting of VII Claudia, restored order on Cyprus; the other was to attack Lukuas' rebels and was commanded by Quintus Marcius Turbo. The Roman general sailed to Alexandria, defeated the Jews in several pitched battles and killed thousands of enemies, not only those in Egypt but also those of Cyrene. It is unclear what became of Lukuas, except for the fact that according to our Greek source Eusebius he had styled himself 'king' (= Messiah?). After this war, much of northern Africa had to be repopulated. The emperor Trajan and his successor Hadrian confiscated Jewish property to pay for the reconstruction of the destroyed temples.

Trajan was afraid that this revolt would spread to the Jews in the rebellious eastern provinces. Perhaps, there was some cause for his anxiousness. After the end of the revolt in Mesopotamia, someone had written the Book of Elchasai, in which the end of the world was predicted within three years. Of course, Trajan did not read this book, but he may have sensed that the Jews remained restless.

Therefore, he ordered the commander of his Mauritanian auxiliaries, Lusius Quietus, to clean the suspects out of these regions. Quietus organized a force and killed many Cypriote, Mesopotamian and Syrian Jews - in effect wiping them out; as a reward, he was appointed governor of Judaea. (He is one of the few blacks known to have made a career in Roman service.) He was responsible for a forced policy of hellenization; in response, the rabbis ordered the Jewish fathers not to teach their sons Greek (Mishna Sota 9.14).

Meanwhile, Trajan had reached his military aims and returned home. On his way back, he fell ill, and not much later, he died (8 August 117). His successor Hadrian gave up the newly conquered countries and dismissed Lusius Quietus, who was killed in the Summer of 118.

http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/ ... sh-wars-7/?

After the revolt of 115-117 CE, the Roman government took several anti-Jewish measures, and it looked as if the old nation had been destroyed. In 130, when the emperor Hadrian visited Judaea, he ordered the construction of a new city to replace the town that Titus had razed to the ground, Jerusalem. It was to be a Roman city, with a Roman temple dedicated to the Roman supreme god Jupiter (text).

The Jewish response to the rebuilding of Jerusalem was divided: although some found it intolerable that foreign religious rites should be performed in their city, others argued that pagans who wanted to sacrifice to the supreme God should not be hindered. This moderate point of view carried the day; after all, was it not written that the Temple was to be "a house of all nations"?

Two years later, Hadrian forbade castration and circumcision, making a law against a practice that had offended Greek and Roman sensitivities for a long time (more). There are indications that he did not forbid circumcision as such, but only the circumcision of boys who had not yet reached the age to consent with the operation; but whatever the precise meaning of the measure, the Jews explained this law as directed against them. Again, there were moderates and radicals; but this time the moderates received less support. As a fourth-century author put it:
  • At this time, the Jews started a war because they were forbidden to mutilate their genitals.Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 14.2.

Little is known about the initial stages of the revolt. It seems that the spark was put to the tinder in the first months of 132, when the building operations in train to convert the ruins of Jerusalem into a Roman city, caused the tomb of Solomon to collapse. This was seen as a messianic omen. The Roman governor Tineius Rufus severely underestimated the situation.
  • Soon, the whole of Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by open acts; many others, too, from other peoples, were joining them from eagerness for profit, in fact one might almost say that the whole world was being stirred up by this business.Cassius Dio, Roman history 69.13.1-2; full story
To make things worse for the Romans, the Jews found a national leader, Simon, the son of a man named Kosiba. Some ofhis letters survive, making clear that he was firmly in charge on the first day of the month iyar of the first year of the revolt (3 April 132); he was still able to write on the fourteenth marhesvan of the fourth year (6 November 135). The opening phrases of a Jewish letter from this period deserves to be quoted. It runs 'On the twenty-eighth marhesvan of the third year of Simon ben Kosiba, prince of Israel...' and this style of writing indicates that Simon was seen as the lawful ruler.

... On some of his coins and in his letters, he calls himself 'Prince' (Nasi), a word that had very strong messianic connotations (cf. Ezekiel 37.24-25 and several Qumran documents). His loyal followers liked to make a pun on his name: his real name was Simon ben Kosiba, but he was usually called Bar Kochba (son of the star), which again is a messianic claim. Some miracles were attributed to him: there were reports that he had been seen spewing out flames (go here for a discussion).

Rabbi Aqiba, the president of the rabbinical academy at Yavne and the official religious leader of the Jews in this age, declared that the successful Jewish commander was the Messiah; at least two rabbis -rabbi Gershom and rabbi Aha- agreed, but others remained skeptical, and said that grass would grow in Aqiba's cheeks before the Son of David would come (text).

The revolt was clearly religious in nature. The rebels were convinced that this was the apocalyptic war that had been predicted by prophets like Daniel and Zechariah. Their coins show a star on top of and the Ark of the Covenant inside the Temple; the legend is written in archaic Hebrew letters. Some coins were struck with the legend 'Eleazar the priest', which strongly suggests that a new high priest was elected ...


From the account of the Greek historian Cassius Dio (Roman history 69.12.1-14.3) we can deduce that the ensuing war effort of the Jews was extensive, widely supported and fanatical. But they seem to have failed to take Jerusalem: this seems the only possible explanation for the fact that the rebel coins have been found everywhere in Judaea, except for its capital. On the other hand, there is some (non-conclusive) evidence that a new high priest was elected, which suggests that the Jews controlled the site of the Temple at least for some time.

However this may be, it is certain that Simon and his men were able to control the countryside. Legal documents signed by the 'prince of Israel' show that the imperial estates were confiscated and leased out to Jewish peasants.

Simon was so successful, that the emperor Hadrian was obliged to dispatch his best generals to suppress the rebellion. Julius Severus, the governor of Britain, was one of them. Technically, his new command was a demotion, because Britain was a very prestigious province; it indicates the severity of the situation. Other generals were Publicius Marcellus end Haterius Nepos, the governors of Syria and Arabia. Simon knew that the Romans would send a large expeditionary force, and prepared himself.
  • The rebels did not dare try to risk open confrontation against the Romans, but occupied the advantageous positions in the country and strengthened them with mines and walls, so that they would have places of refuge when hard pressed and could communicate with one another unobserved underground; and they pierced these subterranean passages from above at intervals to let in air and light.Cassius Dio, Roman history 69.12.3.
In December 133 or January 134, Julius Severus superseded Tineius Rufus as governor of the war zone. He commanded a large army. Three legions were deployed: VI Ferrata, X Fretensis -hastily strengthened with marines from Italy- and XXII Deiotariana. No less than seventeen auxiliary units are known to have fought in Palestine. Legion XXII was probably annihilated by the Jews, since there are no indications of its existence after this war. New reinforcements were sent, the legion II Traiana Fortis. There are indications that units from other legions were involved in the struggle, possibly III Cyrenaica, III Gallica and IIII Scythica. For the first time in more than a century, the Romans suffered from manpower shortage; two senators started to conscript Italian boys.

If it were not pleonastic, one would call the war a disaster. The Romans experienced great difficulties when they tried to subdue Judaea, and they made some progress only after the emperor had personally come to Judaea. The Roman soldiers were used to fight full scale battles, but Simon evaded this kind of engagement. Hadrian's generals were forced to form smaller units to intercept small groups of rebels. In this war, the highest ranking officers had to stand by doing nothing, while the under-officers had large responsibilities. Famine, disease and fire proved better weapons than swords and lances.
  • Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their fanaticism, but - by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his soldiers and under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up - he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparative little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few Jews in fact survived. Fifty of their most important outposts and 985 better known villages were razed to the ground. 580,000 were killed in the various engagements or battles. As for the numbers who perished from starvation, disease or fire, that was impossible to establish.Cassius Dio, Roman history 69.13.2-3.
It was the type of war the Romans tried to forget. When the Roman author Cornelius Fronto wrote a letter to the emperor Marcus Aurelius on the occasion of the destruction of a legion by the Parthians (in 162 AD), he compared it to the Bar Kochba revolt, implicitly admitting that the latter had been a defeat (text).
The Romans resorted to terrible atrocities to win the war. Bodies were left unburied for several years (text). There are three reports that children were wrapped in Torah scrolls and burned alive (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 57a-58b; Lamentations Rabbah 2.2 §4; Seder Elijah Rabbah 151). This may be exaggerated, but the Roman legionaries were perfectly capable of acts like these. Many Jews started to regret the rebellion. A new pun on Bar Kosiba's name became popular: some called him Simon bar Kozeba, the 'son of the disappointment' ...


Slowly but surely, the Romans gained the upper hand. Simon made his last stand at Betar, three hours southwest of Jerusalem. The defenders are recorded to have caught the missiles from the Roman catapults and hurled them back. The siege lasted a long time, until the winter of 135/136 (Simon was still able to send letters on 6 November 135). The rebels never surrendered, but died from famine and thirst. Among the dead bodies, the legionaries recognized that of Simon, the son of Kosiba. When they brought his head to the emperor Hadrian, he said: 'If his God had not slain him, who could have overcome him?'

According to Jewish tradition, Betar fell on the ninth day of the month of Av. In the Gregorian calendar, this would be 25 July 136. The date is extremely suspect, however, because this is also the date of the destruction of the Temple in 70. Since Hadrian accepted the title Imperator ('conqueror') late in 135, we must assume that Betar was captured in November or December.

The anecdote about Hadrian's words on seeing the head of Simon, has caused some scholarly debate: was Hadrian really present? The answer is that he was. Roman texts use the expression expeditio Judaica, which can only mean that the emperor was present. Besides, there is an officer from the imperial guard, C. Arrius Clemens, who was decorated for war service in Judaea by the emperor.

This was not the end of the struggle, however. The recent discovery of a triumphal arch in the neighborhood of Skythopolis (Beth Shean), dedicated in 136 to the emperor by the Senate, proves that fighting continued in Galilee.
  • Many Romans perished in the war. Therefore, Hadrian, in writing to the Senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors: 'If you and your children are in health, it is well; I and the army are in health.Cassius Dio, Roman history 69.14.3.]
After the Jewish defeat, Hadrian (the picture shows him killing a Jew) tried to root out Judaism. The prisoners were sold at Hebron and Gaza, each one at the price of a horse. He forbade the conquered to teach Mosaic law and to own scrolls. The province Judaea was renamed Palestine; Jerusalem was called Aelia Capitolina.

Pagan sanctuaries were erected right over places of Jewish worship: the temple to Jupiter was erected on the site of the Jewish Temple, Hadrian's equestrian statue being placed in the Holy of Holies; the goddess Aphrodite received a new home on the place where the sect of the Christians had venerated the tomb of Jesus, and before the southern gate of Aelia, the Romans erected a marble statue of a pig. (Text. This was the symbol of the Tenth legion Fretensis, but the insult was obvious and probably intended.) Even worse, the Jews were not even allowed to see their ancestral home town. Rabbi Aqiba violated this edict, and after some time in prison, the old man was tortured to death; at least nine other rabbis were executed, too.
  • The world was not to see Jewish armies anymore until 1915, when the British recruited a unit with the remarkable name of 'Assyrian Jewish Refugee Mule Corps', which was to play a role during the Dardanelles campaign.
After the death of Hadrian, reconciliation started. The new emperor Antoninus Pius allowed the burial of the dead and repealed the ban on circumcision that had caused the war (Digests 48.8.11). The rabbis started a self-critical discussion. Messianic claims in general were considered suspect. When Jehuda ha-Nasi composed that large collection of rabbinical wisdom, the Mishna, he left out many messianological speculations. Politically, Judaism was dead; there was to be no Jewish state for more than eighteen centuries. What was left, was the religion, which easily survived Roman paganism.

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outhouse
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Re: Messianism in the times of Trajan & Hadrian

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MrMacSon wrote:He was responsible for a forced policy of hellenization;
My favorite quote
Stuart
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Re: Messianism in the times of Trajan & Hadrian

Post by Stuart »

Historia Augusta is a terrible source, very gossipy and unreliable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustan_History
However, the true authorship of the work, its actual date, and its purpose, have long been matters for controversy amongst historians and scholars, ever since Hermann Dessau in 1889 rejected both the date and the authorship as stated within the manuscript. Major problems include the nature of the sources it used, and how much of the content is pure fiction. For instance, the collection contains in all about 150 alleged documents, including 68 letters, 60 speeches and proposals to the people or the senate, and 20 senatorial decrees and acclamations. Virtually all of these are now considered to be fraudulent.

By the second decade of the 21st century, the overall consensus supported the position that there was only a single author who was writing either at the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th century, and who was interested in blending contemporary issues (political, religious and social) into the lives of the 3rd century emperors. Further, that the author used the fictitious elements in the work to highlight references to other published works, such as to Cicero and Ammianus Marcellinus in a complex allegorical game. Despite these conundrums, it is the only continuous account in Latin for much of its period and is thus continually being re-evaluated, since modern historians are unwilling to abandon it as a unique source of possible information, despite its obvious untrustworthiness on many levels.
You have to consider the Christian lens on events, twisting and injecting elements that did not happen. Even so the premise of Messainism is less accurate than rebellion of newly conquered territories chaffing under Roman tax farming. Even Historia Augusta The Life of Hadrian chapter 5 frames it more along these lines
1 On taking possession of the imperial power Hadrian at once resumed the policy of the early emperors, and devoted his attention to maintaining peace throughout the world. 2 For the nations which Trajan had conquered began to revolt; the Moors, moreover, began to make attacks, and the Sarmatians to wage war, the Britons could not be kept under Roman sway, Egypt was thrown into disorder by riots, and finally Libya and Palestine showed the spirit of rebellion. 3 Whereupon he relinquished all the conquests east of the Euphrates and the Tigris, following, as he used to say, the example of Cato, who urged that the Macedonians, because they could not be held as subjects, should be declared free and independent. 4 And Parthamasiris, appointed king of the Parthians by Trajan, he assigned as ruler to the neighboring tribes, because he saw that the man was held in little esteem by the Parthians.
The claims of banning circumcision you cite are baseless. Roman legal code records no such.

I suggest this paper http://www.history.ucla.edu/sites/defau ... kokhba.pdf see page 10 on Hadrian and the unfounded claim he banned circumcision. This is one of the (multiple) Jewish scholars I contacted, when researching Hadrian and the Bar Kokhba revolt situation. There is some terrific work that has been done in the field, which pretty much destroys the traditional Christian view of the events.

I can point you to several good papers from recent years. These are based on archeological findings and mainstream (not religious bias) study of historical material. Christian scholarship is much worse for such subjects - too much apologetic crap.
“’That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.” - Jonathan Swift
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