Barnabas found the Church of Jerusalem in great trouble. The year 44 was perilous to it. Besides the famine, the fires of persecution which had been smothered since the death of Stephen were rekindled.

Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, had succeeded, since the year 41, in reconstituting the kingdom of his grandfather. Thanks to the favor of Caligula, he had reunited under his domination Batania, Trachonites, a part of the Hauran, Cibilene, Galilee, and the Persea.[14.1] The ignoble part which he played in the tragi-comedy which raised Claudius to the empire,[14.2] completed his fortune. This vile Oriental, in return for the lessons of baseness and perfidy he had given to Rome, obtained for himself Samaria and Judea, and for his brother Herod the kingdom of Chalcis.[14.3] He had left at Rome the worst memories, and the cruelties of Caligula were attributed in part to his counsels.[14.4] The army and the pagan cities of Sebaste and Cesarea, which he sacrificed to Jerusalem, were averse to him.[14.5] But the Jews found him to be generous, munificent, and sympathetic. He sought to render himself popular with them, and affected a polity quite different from that of Herod the Great. The latter was much more regardful of the Greek and Roman world than of the Jewish. Herod Agrippa, on the contrary, loved Jerusalem, rigorously observed the Jewish religion, affected scrupulousness, and never let a day pass without attending to his devotions.[14.6] He went so far as to receive with mildness the advice of the rigorists, and took the trouble to justify himself from their reproaches.[14.7] He returned to the Hierosolymites the tribute which each house owed to him.[14.8] The orthodox, in a word, had in him a king according to their own heart.

It was inevitable that a prince of this character should persecute the Christians. Sincere or not, Herod Agrippa was, in the most thorough sense of the word, a Jewish Sovereign.[14.9] The house of Herod, as it became weaker, took to devotion. It was no longer that broad profane idea of the founder of the dynasty, seeking to make the most diverse religions live together under the common empire of civilization. When Herod Agrippa, for the first time after he had become king, set foot in Alexandria, it was as a King of the Jews that he was received; it was this title which irritated the population and gave rise to endless buffooneries.[14.10] Now what could a King of the Jews be, if not the guardian of the laws and the traditions, a sovereign theocrat and persecutor? From the time of Herod the Great, under whom fanaticism was entirely repressed, until the breaking out of the war which led to the ruin of Jerusalem, there was thus a constantly augmenting progress of religious ardor. The death of Caligula (24th Jan., 41) had produced a reaction favorable to the Jews. Claudius was generally benevolent towards them,[14.11] as a result of the favorable ear he lent to Herod Agrippa and Herod King of Chalcis. Not only did he decide in favor of the Jews of Alexandria in their quarrels with the inhabitants and allow them the right of choosing an ethnarch, but he published, it is said, an edict by which he granted to the Jews throughout the whole empire that which he had granted to those of Alexandria; that is to say, the freedom to live according to their own laws, on the sole condition of not outraging other worships. Some attempts at vexations analogous to those which were inflicted under Caligula were repressed.[14.12] Jerusalem was greatly enlarged; the quarter of Bezetha was added to the city.[14.13] The Roman authority scarcely made itself felt, although Vibius Marsus, a prudent man, of wide public experience, and of a very cultivated mind,[14.14] who had succeeded Publius Petronius in the function of imperial legate of Syria, drew the attention of the authorities at Rome from time to time to the danger of these semi-independent Eastern Kingdoms.[14.15]

The species of feudality which, since the death of Tiberius, tended to establish itself in Syria and the neighboring countries,[14.16] was in fact an interruption in the imperial polity, and had almost uniformly injurious results. The “Kings” coming to Rome were personages, and exercised there a detestable influence. The corruption and abasement of the people, especially under Caligula, proceeded in great part from the spectacle furnished by these wretches, who were seen successively dragging their purple at the theatre, at the palace of the CÆsar, and in the prisons.[14.17] So far as concerns the Jews, we have seen{14.18} that autonomy meant intolerance. The Sovereign Pontificate quitted for a moment the family of Hanan, only to enter that of Boethus, no less haughty and cruel. A Sovereign anxious to please the Jews could not fail to grant them what they loved best; that is to say, severities against everything which diverged from rigorous orthodoxy.[14.19]

Herod Agrippa, in fact, became towards the end of his reign a violent persecutor.[14.20] Some time before Easter of the year 44, he cut off the head of one of the principal members of the apostolical college, James son of Zebedee, brother of John. The matter was not presented as a religious one; there was no inquisitorial process before the Sanhedrim; the sentence, as in the case of John the Baptist,[14.21] was pronounced by virtue of the arbitrary power of the sovereign. Encouraged by the good effect which this execution produced upon the Jews,[14.22] Herod Agrippa was not willing to stop upon so easy a road to popularity. It was the first days of the feast of Passover, ordinarily marked by a redoubled fanaticism. Agrippa ordered the imprisonment of Peter in the tower of Antonia, and sought to have him judged and put to death with great pomp before the mass of people then assembled.

A circumstance with which we are unacquainted, and which was regarded as miraculous, opened Peter’s prison. One evening, as many of the disciples were assembled in the house of Mary, mother of John-Mark, where Peter habitually dwelt, there was suddenly heard a knock at the door. The servant, named Rhoda, went to listen. She recognised Peter’s voice. Transported with joy, instead of opening the door she ran back to announce that Peter was there. They regarded her as mad. She swore she spoke the truth. “It is his angel,” said some of them. The knocking was heard repeatedly; it was indeed himself. Their delight was infinite. Peter immediately announced his deliverance to James, brother of the Lord, and to the other disciples. It was believed that the angel of God had entered into the prison of the apostle and made the chains fall from his hands and the bolts fly open. Peter related, in fact, all that had passed while he was in a sort of ecstasy; that after having passed the first and second guard, and overleaped the iron gate which led into the city, the angel accompanied him still the distance of a street, then quitted him; that then he came to himself again and recognised the hand of God, who had sent a celestial messenger to deliver him.[14.23]

Agrippa survived these violences but a short time.[14.24] In the course of the year 44, he went to Cesarea to celebrate games in honor of Claudius. The concourse of people was extraordinary; and many from Tyre and Sidon, who had difficulties with him, came thither to ask pardon. These festivals were very displeasing to the Jews, both because they took place in the impure city of Cesarea, and because they were held in the theatre. Already, on one occasion, the king having quitted Jerusalem under similar circumstances, a certain Rabbi Simeon had proposed to declare him an alien to Judaism, and to exclude him from the temple. Herod Agrippa had carried his condescension so far as to place the Rabbi beside him in the theatre, in order to prove to him that nothing passed there contrary to the law,[14.25] and thinking he had thus satisfied the most austere, he allowed himself to indulge his taste for profane pomps. The second day of the festival he entered the theatre very early in the morning, clothed in a tunic of silver fabric, with a marvellous brilliancy. The effect of this tunic, glittering in the rays of the rising sun, was extraordinary. The Phoenicians who surrounded the king lavished upon him adulations borrowed from paganism. “It is a god,” they cried, “and not a man.” The king did not testify his indignation, and did not blame this expression. He died five days afterwards; and Jews and Christians believed that he was struck dead for not having repelled with horror a blasphemous flattery. Christian tradition represents that he died of a vermicular malady,[14.26] the punishment reserved for the enemies of God. The symptoms related by Josephus would lead rather to the belief that he was poisoned; and what is said in the Acts of the equivocal conduct of the Phoenicians, and of the care they took to gain over Blastus, valet of the king, would strengthen this hypothesis.

The death of Herod Agrippa I. led to the end of all independence for Jerusalem. The administration by Procurators was resumed, and this rÉgime lasted until the great revolt. This was fortunate for Christianity; for it is very remarkable that this religion, which was destined to sustain subsequently so terrible a struggle against the Roman empire, grew up in the shadow of the Roman principality, under its protection. It was Rome, as we have already several times remarked, which hindered Judaism from giving itself up fully to its intolerant instincts, and stifling the free instincts which were stirred within its bosom. Every diminution of Jewish authority was a benefit for the nascent sect. Cuspius Fadus, the first of this new series of Procurators, was another Pilate, full of firmness, or at least of good-will. But Claudius continued to show himself favorable to Jewish pretensions, chiefly at the instigation of the young Herod Agrippa, son of Herod Agrippa I., whom he kept near to his person, and whom he greatly loved.[14.27] After the short administration of Cuspius Fadus, we find the functions of Procurator confided to a Jew, to that Tiberius Alexander, nephew of Philo, and son of the alabarque of the Alexandrian Jews who attained to high functions and played a great part in the political affairs of the century. It is true that the Jews did not like him; and regarded him, and with reason, as an apostate.[14.28]

To cut short these incessantly renewed disputes, recourse was had to an expedient in conformity with sound principles. A sort of separation was made between the spiritual and temporal. The political power remained with the procurators; but Herod, king of Chalcis, brother of Agrippa I., was named prefect of the temple, guardian of the pontifical habits, treasurer of the sacred fund, and invested with the right of nominating the high-priests.[14.29] At his death (year 48), Herod Agrippa II., son of Herod Agrippa I., succeeded his uncle in his offices, which he retained until the great war. Claudius, in all this, manifested the greatest kindness. The high Roman functionaries in Syria, although not so strongly disposed as the emperor to concessions, acted with great moderation. The procurator, Ventidius Cumanus, carried condescension so far as to have a soldier beheaded in the midst of the Jews, drawn up in line, for having torn a copy of the Pentateuch.[14.30] It was all useless, however; Josephus, with good reason, dates from the administration of Cumanus the disorders which ended only with the destruction of Jerusalem.

Christianity played no part in these troubles.[14.31] But these troubles, like Christianity itself, were one of the symptoms of the extraordinary fever which devoured the Jewish people, and the Divine travail which was accomplishing in its midst. Never had the Jewish faith made such progress.[14.32] The temple of Jerusalem was one of the sanctuaries of the world, the reputation of which was most widely extended, and where the offerings were most liberal.[14.33] Judaism had become the dominant religion of various portions of Syria. The Asmonean princes had violently converted entire populations to it (Idumeans, Itureans, etc.).[14.34] There were many examples of circumcision having been imposed by force;[14.35] the ardor for making proselytes was very great.[14.36] The house of Herod itself powerfully served the Jewish propaganda. In order to marry princesses of this family, whose wealth was immense, the princes of the little dynasties of Emese, of Pontus, and of Cilicia, vassals of the Romans, became Jews.[14.37] Arabia and Ethiopia counted also a great number of converts. The royal families of Mesene and of Adiabene, tributaries of the Parthians, were gained over, especially by their women.[14.38] It was generally granted that happiness was found in the knowledge and practice of the law.[14.39] Even when circumcision was not practised, religion was more or less modified in the Jewish direction; a sort of monotheism became the general spirit of religion in Syria. At Damascus, a city which was in nowise of Israelitish origin, nearly all the women had adopted the Jewish religion.[14.40] Behind the Pharisaical Judaism there was thus formed a sort of free Judaism, of inferior quality, not knowing all the secrets of the sect;[14.41] bringing only its good-will and its good heart, but having a greater future. The situation was, in all respects, that of the Catholicism of our days, in which we see, on one hand, narrow and proud theologians, who alone would gain no more souls for Catholicism than the Pharisees gained for Judaism; on the other, pious laymen, very often heretics without knowing it, but full of a touching zeal, rich in good works and in poetical sentiments, altogether occupied in dissimulating or repairing by complaisant explanations the faults of their doctors.

One of the most extraordinary examples of this tendency of religious souls towards Judaism was that given by the royal family of Adiabene, upon the Tiger.[14.42] This house, of Persian origin and manners,[14.43] already partly initiated into Greek culture,[14.44] became entirely Jewish, and even preËminently devout; for, as we have already said, these proselytes were often more pious than the Jews by birth. Izate, chief of the family, embraced Judaism through the preaching of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who, entering the seraglio of Abermerig, king of Mesene, for the purposes of his petty traffic, had converted all the women, and constituted himself their spiritual preceptor. The women brought Izate into communication with him. Towards the same time Helen, his mother, received instruction in the true religion from another Jew. Izate, with the zeal of a new convert, wished to be circumcised. But his mother and Ananias vehemently dissuaded him from it. Ananias proved to him that the observation of God’s commandments was of more importance than circumcision, and that he might be a very good Jew without this ceremony. Such a tolerance was the privilege of a small number of enlightened minds. Some time after, a Jew of Galilee, named Eleazar, finding the king occupied in reading the Pentateuch, showed him by texts that he could not observe the law without being circumcised. Izate was convinced, and submitted immediately to the operation.[14.45]

The conversion of Izate was followed by that of his brother, Monobaze, and of all the family. Towards the year 44, Helen came and established herself at Jerusalem, where she had built for the royal house of Adiabene a palace and family mausoleum, which still exist.[14.46] She rendered herself dear to the Jews by her affability and her alms. It was very edifying to see her, like a pious Jewess, frequenting the temple, consulting the doctors, reading the law, teaching it to her sons. During the plague of the year 44, this holy personage was the providence of the city. She had a large quantity of wheat bought in Egypt, and of dried figs in Cyprus. Izate, on his part, sent considerable sums to be distributed among the poor. The wealth of Adiabene was in part expended at Jerusalem. The sons of Izate came thither to learn the customs and the language of the Jews. All this family was thus the resource of this population of beggars. It acquired there a sort of citizenship; several of its members were found there at the time of the siege of Titus;[14.47] others figure in the Talmudic writings, presented as models of piety and devotedness.[14.48]

It is thus that the royal family of Adiabene belongs to the history of Christianity. Without being Christian, in fact, as certain traditions have represented,[14.49] this family represented under various aspects the first fruits of the Gentiles. In embracing Judaism, it obeyed a sentiment which was destined to bring over the entire pagan world to Christianity. The true Israelites according to God, were much rather these foreigners animated by so profoundly sincere a religious sentiment than the arrogant and spiteful Pharisee, for whom religion was but a pretext for hatred and disdain. These good proselytes, although they were truly saints, were in nowise fanatics. They admitted that true religion might be practised under the empire of the most widely differing civil codes. They completely separated religion from politics. The distinction between the seditious sectaries, who must presently defend Jerusalem with rage, and the devoutly pious who, at the first rumor of war, were going to flee to the mountains,[14.50] made itself more and more manifest.

We may see at least that the question as to proselytes was propounded in a very similar manner at once in Judaism and in Christianity. On both hands alike the void was felt for enlarging the door of entrance. For those who were placed at this point of view, circumcision was a useless or noxious custom; the Mosaic observances were simply a mask of a race having no value but for the sons of Abraham. Before becoming the universal religion, Judaism was obliged to reduce itself to a sort of deism, imposing only the duties of natural religion. That was a sublime mission to fulfil, and to it a portion of Judaism, in the first half of the first century, lent itself in a very intelligent manner. On one side, Judaism was one of those innumerable national worships[14.51] of which the world is full, and the sanctity of which springs solely from the fact that the ancestors had adored in the same way; on another side, Judaism was the absolute religion, made for all, destined to be adopted by all. The terrible flood of fanaticism which spread over Judea, and which led to the war of extermination, cut short this future. It was Christianity which took upon its own account the task which the synagogue had been unable to accomplish. Laying aside ritual questions, Christianity continued the monotheistic propaganda of Judaism. That which had caused the success of Judaism with the women of Damascus in the seraglio of Abenverig, with Helen, with so many pious proselytes, became the force of Christianity throughout an entire world. In this sense the glory of Christianity is truly confounded with that of Judaism. A generation of fanatics deprived this latter of its recompense, and hindered its gathering the harvest it had prepared.