A.C.270-323.] DECLINE OF THE PATRIARCHATE. 173 worldly thrones, through the struggles of the sovereign for unlimited sway, and the unwillingness of the people to submit even to constitutional authority. The exactions of the pontiff, and of the spiritual aristocracy, the Rabbins, became more and more burthensome to the people.* The people were impatient even of the customary taxation. Gamaliel succeeded Jehuda, Jehuda the Second, Gamaliel. This pontiff was of an imperious character; he surrounded himself with a sort of body-guard; at the same time he was outshone by his competitors in learning, Simon Ben Laches and R. Jochanan, whose acknowledged superiority tended still farther to invalidate the supremacy of the Patriarch.

A temporary splendour was thrown around the Jewish name by the celebrity of Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra, who was of Israelitish descent. But the Jews of Palestine neither derived much advantage from the prosperity, nor suffered in the fall of that extraordinary woman. Her favourite, Paul of Samosata, seems to have entertained some views of attempting an union between Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected the unnatural alliance. The Jews spoke contemptuously of the wise men who came from Tadmor, and Paul of Samosata was rejected by the orthodox Church as an intractable heretic. On the formal establishment of Christianity, the

At a period considerably later, the Apostles of the Patriarch are called in a law of Honorius devastators. It is asserted in the life of Chrysostom, that the heads of the synagogues were displaced if they did not send in enough

money.

more zealous Jews might tremble, lest the synagogue should be dazzled by the splendour of its triumphant competitor, and recognizing the manifest favour of the Divinity in its success, refuse any longer to adhere to an humiliated and hopeless cause; while the Christians, after having gained this acknowledged victory over Paganism, might not unreasonably expect that Judaism, less strongly opposed to its principles, would relax its obstinate resistance, and yield at length to the universally acknowledged dominion of the new faith.

But the Rabbinical authority had raised an insurmountable barrier around the synagogue-masters of the education, exercising, as we have shown, an unceasing and vigilant watchfulness, and mingling in every transaction during the whole life of each individual;—still treating their present humiliation merely as a preparatory trial from the ever-faithful God of their fathers, and feeding their flock with hopes of a future deliverance, when they should trample under foot the enemy and oppressor; enlisting every passion and every prejudice in their cause; -occupying the studious and inquisitive in the interminable study of their Mischna and Talmuds;-alarming the vulgar with the terrors of their interdict; while they still promised temporal grandeur as the inalienable, though perhaps late inheritage of the people of Israel; consoling them for its tardy approach by the promise of the equally inalienable and equally exclusive privilege of the children of Israel-everlasting life in the world to come ;-these spiritual leaders of the Jews still repelled with no great loss, the

ATTEMPT TO CONVERT THE JEWS.

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aggressions of their opponents. At the same time unhappily the Church had lost, in great degree, its most effective means of conversion-its miraculous powers, the simple truth of its doctrines, and the blameless lives of its believers. It substituted authority, and a regular system of wonderworking, which the Jews, who had been less affected than might have been supposed by the miracles of our Lord and his Apostles, had no difficulty in rejecting, either as manifest impostures, or works of malignant and hostile spirits. In fact, the Rabbins were equal adepts in these pious frauds with the Christian clergy, and their people, no less superstitious, listened with the same avidity, or gazed with the same credulity, on the supernatural wonders wrought by their own Wise Men, which obscured, at all events neutralized, the effect of the miracles ascribed to the Christian saints. Magical arts were weapons handled, as all acknowledged, with equal skill by both parties; the invisible world was a province where, though each claimed the advantage in the contest, neither thought of denying the power of their adversary. A scene characteristic of the times is reported to have taken place in Rome; the legend, it will easily be credited, rests on Christian authority. A conference took place in the presence of Constantine and the devout Empress-mother, Helena, between the Jews and the Christians. Pope Sylvester, then at the height of his wonder-working glory, had already triumphed in argument over his infatuated opponents, when the Jews had recourse to magic. A noted enchanter commanded an ox to be brought forward;

66

he whispered into the ear of the animal, which instantly fell dead at the feet of Constantine. The Jews shouted in triumph, for it was the Ham-semphorash, the ineffable name of God, at the sound of which the awe-struck beast had expired. Sylvester observed with some shrewdness, as he who whispered the name must be well acquainted with it, why does he not fall dead in like manner?" The Jews answered with contemptuous acclamations" Let us have no more verbal disputations, let us come to actions." "So be it," said Sylves

ter; "and if this ox comes to life at the name of Christ, will ye believe?" They all unanimously assented. Sylvester raised his eyes to heaven, and said with a loud voice-" If he be the true God whom I preach, in the name of Christ, arise, oh ox, and stand on thy feet." The ox sprang up, and began to move and feed. The legend proceeds, that the whole assembly was baptized. The Christians, by their own account, carried on the contest in a less favourable field than the city of Rome, and urged their conquests into the heart of the enemy's country. Constantine, by the advice of his mother Helena, adorned with great magnificence the city which had risen on the ruins of Jerusalem. It had become a place of such splendour, that Eusebius, in a transport of holy triumph, declared that it was the new Jerusalem foretold by the prophets. The Jews were probably still interdicted from disturbing the peace, or profaning the soil of the Christian city, by entering its walls. They revenged themselves by rigidly excluding every stranger from the four great cities which they occupied-Dio Cæsarea (Sepphoris), Naza

A. C. 300-346.] JOSEPH THE PHYSICIAN.

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As it was the

reth, Capernaum, and Tiberias. ambition of the Jews to regain a footing in the Holy City, so it was that of the Christians to establish a church among the dwellings of the circumcised. This was brought about by a singular adventure. Hillel had succeeded his father, Judah the 2d, in the Patriarchate. If we are to believe Epiphanius, the Patriarch himself had embraced Christianity, and had been secretly baptized on his death-bed by a bishop. Joseph, his physician, had witnessed the scene, which wrought strongly upon his mind. The house of Hillel, after his death, was kept closely shut up by his suspicious countrymen; Joseph obtained entrance, and found there the Gospel of John, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Acts, in a Hebrew translation. He read and believed. When the young Patriarch, another Judah, (the 3d,) grew up, Joseph was appointed an apostle, or collector of the patriarchal revenue. It seems that Christian meekness had not been imbibed with Christian faith, for he discharged his function with unpopular severity. He was detected reading the Gospel, hurried to the synagogue, and scourged. The bishop of the town (in Cilicia) interfered. But he was afterwards seized again, and thrown into the Cydnus, from which he hardly escaped with his life. This was not the wisest means of recovering a renegade; Joseph was publicly baptized, rose high in the favour of Constantine, and attained the dignity of Count of the Empire. Burning with zeal-it is to be hoped not with revenge he turned all his thoughts to the establishment of Christian churches in the great Jewish cities. He succeeded under the protection of the

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