The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Parergon

The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament · Parergon

p. 175PARERGON. Concerning the FALL of JERUSALEM, AND The Condition of the Iews in that Land after.

BEing come so near to the time of the destruction of Ierusalem, as that it is but three years and an half and a little more from the time we have concluded with unto it, and having so frequent occasion to mention that destruction, and vengeance upon that Nation, as we have had: It may not be amisse to drive so farre further as to take a view of such a spectacle; not that we go about to write the History of their Warres and ruine, which were but to transcribe Iosephus, who is in every mans hand, but to take a brief account of the times thit…er, and of the condition of the Nation in that Land afterward, the History of which is not altogether so obvious as the other: by both which we may not only see the performance of those threatnings of vengeance, that had been so abundantly given: but may the better judge wherein that vengeance did chiefly consist.

CHRIST. LXVII NERO. XIII IN this thirteenth Year of Nero therefore, Vespasian cometh Generall into Iudea, to undertake that Warre: A second Nebuchadnezzar; an instrument of the Lord raised up to execute his vengeance upon that Nation, now the Nation of his curse, and to destroy their City and Temple as the other had done. And as severall strange occurrences befell that destroyer, recorded in the Book of Daniel, so did divers strange things also befall this, recorded by the Roman Historians with one consent. As Nilus flowing a handfull higher on that day that he came into Alexandria, then ever it did in one day before. A Vision that he had in the Temple of Serapis, of his servant Basilides, who was known to be at that instant fourscore miles off sick. And especially his healing of a blinde mans eyes by anointing them with his spittle, and curing a lame mans hand, by treading upon it with his foot: To which may be added those that were accounted the presages of his reigning, as a cypresse tree in his ground, clean rooted up by the windes over night, grew strait up again, and well in the morning. An Ox came and laid him down at his feet, and laid his neck under his feet, at one time as he sat at meat; p. 176and a dog came and brought him a dead mans hand, at another. Now not to dispute whether all these things were true or no, nor by what power they were wrought: certainly they set the man in the eyes of men, as a man of rarity: and as he was designed by God for a singular work, so did these things make him to be a man looked upon as one of some singular omen and fortune.

His work in the Jewish Warres this year was more especially in Galilee: where first coming to Ptolemais, the men of Sipphoris, the greatest City there, come peaceably and yieldingly to him; and they had done so indeed before to Cestius Gallus. Iosephus who afterward wrote the History of these Warres, was now a great party in them, having fortified many Cities and places in Galilee, and being the chiefest that in those parts stood against the Romanes. First he findes them work at Iotepata, which indures a very sharp siege, and puts the Romanes to very sharp service before it be taken: At last after about fifty daies siege Vespasian enters it, Iuly 1. There Iosephus himself is taken, and foretels Vespasian that he should be Emperour. Iopp… taken presently after, and Tiberias yielded, and Taricheae taken and 6500 slain there. Gamala gained Octob. 23. and divers other places brought in this year either by storm or surrender, which Iosephus recordeth the story of de Bello lib. 3. through the whole Book: and lib. 4. to the end of the ninth Chapter which he concludes, foreign, Thus was all Galilee subdued.

CHRIST. LXVIII NERO. XIV VESPASIAN therefore having subjected, and setled Galilee, he fals this year to work in Iudaea, and indeed there the Jews fall to bitter work among themselves. For all the unquiet spirits whom the Warre had prosecuted and hunted from other parts, or whose turbulency desired to be in action, were flocked hither; so that Ierusalem and Iudaea were filled full of men and trouble: and quickly full of famine, blood and all manner of misery. The dolefull story Iosephus gives at large, as also what the Romanes did among them this year, de Bello lib. 4. whither the reader may have recourse.

This year Nero died by his own hand, to escape publick and more shamefull execution. In him ended the Blood and Family of the Caesars: And now that mystery of State was discovered, That an Emperour could be made, though not of that Blood, and elsewhere then at Rome: and the misery of the State accrewed by that discovery, when the longest sword did make the Emperour, and the trying which was the longest, undid the Empire. The souldiery in Spain proclaimed Galba to succeed him: against whom riseth up Otho, and cuts him off when he was now reigning, but in his seventh monethmonth, having only brought the Royalty into his family; and himself to misery and ruine by it. When he was slain a common souldier cut off his head, and putting his finger into his mouth [for he was bald, and therefore he could not bear it by the hair] he carried it to Otho, who gave it to the scum and black guard of the Camp, and they fixing it upon a pole, carried it up and down in derision.

CHRIST. LXIX OTHO. [1] OTHO was scarce set in the Throne, when Vitellius riseth up against him: and the determination of this competition was not so speedy and unsensible as was that betwixt Galba and Otho: For Otho slew Galba without any noise, and when himself had but three and twenty associates at his first conspiring against him: But the present quarrell shook a good part of the Empire, with sidings and preparations; p. 177and came to a pitcht battell before it came to an end. Otho's men lost the field, and when tidings of his defeat came to him, he resolved to strive no longer, but to render up his Empire and life together, and so slew himself. He reigned, if it may be called a reign, but 95 daies.

VITELLIVS. VITELLIUS is now Lord of all; who indeed is not Master of himself. A man of that untemperance and luxury, that few equalled him: and divers that did follow him and his course, died of surfets. Divers men and Cities were undone by his riotous excesses, and the souldiers became effeminate by his example. In the time of his reign which ended before this year was out, there were divers prodigies: A Comet: Two Suns at the same time, one in the East, another in the West. The Moon twice eclipsed unnaturally. In the Capitol the footsteps seen of many and great Daemones coming down from thence. And Iupiters Temple opened of its own accord with horrid noise. And let this be reckoned for a prodigy too, Maricus a man of an ordinary extraction among the Boii, raised a considerable number of men, and proclaimed himself a God. He was soon overthrown and thrown to the wilde beasts, whom when they rent not in pieces, it heightened the peoples opinion in thoughts that he was a God indeed; but Vitellius found another way to put him to death, and so his Godship was spoiled.

There were divers petty mutinies of the Armies, and destroying of Towns in Italy and other parts before Vespasian stird: but when he stood up, there were concussions that made all the Empire to shake, as it had hardly ever done before. He was then in the East about the Warres of the Jews, as we have touched instantly before: And there the Armies in Egypt, Iudaea and Syria swear fealty to him in the monethmonth of Iuly. And in a short time all the Provinces even to Achaia did the like. The Legions in Maesia, Illyricum, Pannonia fall to him, and letters are sent into Britain and Spain to move them to the like, and they prevail with them.

Vitellius this while, follows his riotous courses: and marches towards Rome with 60000 men in Arms, but in no discipline: and a rabble of Ruffians that were of his roaring humour, exceeding that number. And these numbers were made numberlesse, by the conflux of all sorts of people, out of the City to meet him. Corn was trod down, the souldiers quarrelled: the people was abused wounded and slain, and they had the face of a Warre among themselves. In such a confused march they come into the City, and there take up their quarters, but in all looseness, luxury and security.

At last Vespasians party breaks into Italy, and gives them a through Alarm: in a short time they come to a battell at Cremona, where that poor Town is ruined, and left as a monument of those combustions: and another memoriall not to be omitted, A sonne on the one party, killed his father on the other, and perceived and deplored what he had done, as soon as he had done it. And thus these tumults grew on to that height, that in fine they fight it out in Rome it self, fire the Capitol, plunder the City, slay Vitellius, subdue his party, and Vespasian becomes conquerour and Emperour. Think here of Matth. 24.7.

CHRIST. LXX VESPASIAN. I VESPASIAN all this while was in Egypt: at Alexandria he receives tydings of his parties successe, and thither is such conflux of Friends, Ambassadors, and Allies, to congratulate and homage him, that that City, though the second in the Empire, was little enough to intertain the company gathered thither. Vitellius his fall was in December, the later end of the last year: and Vespasian did p. 178wait in the beginning of this, but till he could settle affairs there where he was, and till he might have good weather at sea, and then he sets for Italy: and Titus his son parting with him at Alexandria, sets for Iudea, to make some end of those Warres.

And here we cannot but take in two passages for Chronology sake, which help well to measure the time that we are just now upon. The one is this of Dion Cassius, in the life of Vespasian. From the death of Nero to the reign of Vespasian, there intercurred but one year and two and twenty daies. And I write this, least any should misreckon; giving the whole time to every one that reigned. For they did not succeed one another, but one reigned in the time of another: So that their years are not to be counted, by their succeeding one another, but according to the exact course of the time it self.

The other is out of Iosephus, who once and again tels that the fall of Ierusalem was in the second year of Vespasian. De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 47▪ &c. And yet in recording the story and times of the sacking of it, he doth plainly place it in that year, that the Roman Annals write Vespasians first: as it will be obvious to observe, to any that peruseth them and him. His computation therefore must be cast by his own counters: for he accounteth the beginning of his reign from the time that the Armies in the East proclaimed him, and swore fealty to him: which was in Iuly: and in September twelvemoneth after Ierusalem was taken; at which time Vespasian was entred indeed upon a second year from the time of his proclaiming; and according to this calculation it is that Iosephus reckoneth: whereas Vitellius was alive and fought it out many moneths after Vespasian was proclaimed: therefore the Roman Fasti do very properly begin his first year from the beginning of Ianuary, this year that we are upon.

Titus coming into Iudaea, and there gathering all his forces together, marcheth against Ierusalem, and pitcheth his siege against it, when now the Passeover festivall had called all the people of the Country in thither: For as the turbulencies and intestine commotions in the bowels of the Empire it self the last year, had given the Jews some respite from the Roman Armies, so had they given them some boldnesse and security, seeing Vespasian and his Forces were now forced to turn their faces another way; and they hoped they would hardly have turned towards them again. How much they were deceived, Titus without, and Famine and all miseries within did soon shew them. What were the passages in this siege, and what Famine, Pestilence, Civil slaughters, and various kindes of death the besieged suffered in it, are so largely described by Iosephus, that it were but a needlesse rehearsall to speak of them: The end was, that the Temple and City were raked up in ashes: eleven hundred thousand perished in the siege; almost an hundred thousand taken prisoners, and the Nation ruined from what they had been. That this desolation is phrased in Scripture as the desolating of the whole world, [as we have had occasion to observe divers times by severall passages that we have met withall referring thereunto] it will appear no wonder, if we consider that it was the destroying of the old peculiar Covenanted people; of the Lords own habitation, Ordinances, and place chosen by him above, nay alone of all the places of the world, to put his Name there. A people once highest in his favour, now deepest in his displeasure: once blessed with his greatest dignations, above any, nay above all the people under heaven, and now fallen under his heaviest indignation. A people of his curse, and who have left their name for a curse to his chosen. And a new world [as it were] now created, a new people made the Church, a new Oeconomy, and Old things past, and all things become new, 2 Cor. 5.17.

We are now upon a very remarkable and eminent Period; where should I write an Ecclesiasticall History, I should begin, as at the beginning of a new world: not but that the Calling of the Gentiles had begun before, for the Gospel was now gone through all the world: and the Jews were also given up before as to the generality of them, when the holy Ghost cals them dogs, and a Synagogue of Satan: but their State and Oeconomy was not till now rooted up, nor the Divine Ordinances once planted among them till now extinguished: and their casting off sealed by the ruine of their City, dispersion of their Nation, and their finall obduration.

p. 179§. I. The Desolation of the Temple and City.

THe Temple was burnt down, as Iosephus a spectator setteth the time, foreign, On the tenth day of the monethmonth Lous: which he saith was a fatall day to the Temple, for it had been burnt down by the Babylonians before on that day, De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 27. And yet his Countrimen that write in the Hebrew tongue, fix both these fatalities to the ninth day of that monethmonth which they call the monethmonth Ab; and they account that day fatall for three other sad occurrences besides: On the ninth day of the monethmonth Ab, say they, the decree came out against Israel in the wildernesse that they should not enter into the Land: On it was the destruction of the first Temple, and on it was the destruction of the second. On it the great City Bitter was taken, where there were thousands and ten thousands of Israel, who had a great King over them [Ben Cozba] whom all Israel, even their greatest wise men thought to have been Messias: But he fell into the hands of the Heathen, and there was great affliction, as there was at the destruction of the Sanctuary. And on that day, a day allotted for vengeance, The wicked Turnus Rufus plowed up the place of the Temple, and the places about it, to accomplish what is said, Sion shall become a plowed field. Talm. in Taanith. per. 4. halac. 6. Maymon. in Taanith per. 5.

It is strange men of the same Nation, and in a thing so signall, and of which both parties were spectators, should be at such a difference: and yet not a difference neither, if we take Iosephus his report of the whole story, and the other Jews construction of the time. He records that the Cloister walks commonly called The Porches of the Temple, were fired on the eight day, and were burning on the ninth, but that day Titus called a Council of Warre, and carried it by three voices, that the Temple should be spared: but a new busling of the Jews caused it to be fired, though against his will, on the next day: Ioseph. ubi supr. cap. 22, 23, 24. Now their Kalendar reckons, from the middle day of the three that fire was at it as from a Center: and they state the time thus: It was the time of the evening, when fire was put to the Temple, and it burnt till the going down of the Sunne of the next day. And behold what Rabban Iochanan ben Zaccai saith: If I had not been in that generation I should not have pitched it upon any other day but the tenth, because the most of the Temple was burnt that day. And in the Ierusalem Talmud it is related that Rabbi, and Ioshua ben Levi fasted for it the ninth and tenth daies both. Gloss. in Maym. in Taanith per. 5.

Such another discrepancy about the time of the firing of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, may be observed in 2 King. 25.8, 9. where it is said, that In the fifth monethmonth, on the seventh day of the monethmonth, came Nebuzaradan Captain of the guard, and burnt the House of the Lord. And yet in Ierem. 52.12. it is said to have been In the fifth monethmonth, on the tenth day of the monethmonth. Which the Gomarists in the Babylon Talmud reconcile thus: It cannot be said on the seventh day, because it is said On the tenth: Nor can it be said, On the tenth day, because it is said On the seventh. How is it then? On the seventh the aliens came into the Temple, and ate there and defiled it, the seventh, eight and ninth daies, and that day towards night they set it on fire: and it burnt all the tenth day, and was the case also with the second Temple. Taanith fol. 29.

The ninth and tenth daies of the monethmonth Ab on which the Temple was burnt down, was about the two and three and twentieth of our Iuly: and the City was taken and sacked the eight day of September following: Ioseph. ubi supr. cap. 47. That day being their Sabbath day, Dion fol. 748.

After eleven hundred thousand destroyed and perished in the siege and sacking, and ninety seven thousand taken prisoners, Titus commanded City and Temple to be razed to the ground, only three of the highest Towers left standing, Phasaelus, Hippicus and Mariamme, and the Western Wall of the City: those, that they might remain as monuments of the strength of the place, and thereby of the renown p. 180of the Roman Conquest: and this, that it might be of some use to the Roman Garrison that was left there, which was the tenth Legion. Their chief Captain was Terentius Rufus, a man of exceeding frequent mention in the Hebrew Writers, but his former name a little shortened, yet a little added which makes it long enough, for they constantly call him foreign Turnus Rufus the wicked one. There are endlesse disputes betwixt him and R. Akibah mentioned, about the Jews Law and Religion, and when he died R. Akibah married his widow, now become a Proselytesse.

Amongst those that perished in the fate of the City, the names most famous, were Iochanan, Simeon and Eleazar, the three ringleaders of sedition, names famous for faction. But the person of the best rank that perished, was Rabban Simeon, the President of the Sanhedrin, a man educated with Paul at the foot of Gamaliel his father. The Sanhedrin had sitten at Iab…eh a long while, but the Feast of the Passeover had now brought them up to Ierusalem, and there he is caught. The Bab. Talmud in the place lately cited, relates, that he was once in danger, but one of the Roman Commanders was a means of his delivery: But at last he was caught and slain, and in the Jews Martyrology he is set the first of foreign The ten slain by the Kingdom: meaning ten eminent ones that were put to death by the Romans. All the ten are reckoned by Midras Tillin upon Psal. 9. fol. 10. col. 3. He forgetteth not, saith he, the cry of the poor: that is, he forgetteth not the blood of Israel to require it of the Nations: nor the blood of those Righteous ones that were slain: viz. Rabban Simeon the son of Gamaliel, Rabbi Ismael the son of Elisha, R. Ishbab the Scribe, R. Hotspith the Interpreter, R. Iose, R. Iudah b…n Baba, R. Iudah Hannachtom, R. Simeon ben Azzai, R Hananiah ben Teradion, and R. Akibah. But the Author of …semach David reckoning up these, next after Rabban Simeon nameth Ananias the Sagan, or the second Priest, and saith that he was slain at the destruction of the City when Rabban Simeon was slain. Of this Ananias Sagan there is mention in the Talmud text severall times: we will take but one instance, Shekalim per. 6. halac. 1. There were thirteen worshippings or bowings in the Temple, but the house of Rabban Gamaliel, and the house of Ananias Sagan made fourteen. The Sagan was, as it were, Vice-Highpriest, the next to him in Dignity and Office, and is sometimes called the Highpriest, as Luk. 3.2. And it may be this was the man, and bare that title, Act. 23.2, 4. the enemy of Paul, and whose character and doom he reads, that he was a whited wall, and God would smite him: accomplished when he perished in the fall of the City.

We may not omit the calculation of the time that the Jews make further, of the Temples burning: When the first Temple was destroyed, say they, it was the evening on the ninth of Ab, it was the going out of the year of release, and it was the going out of the Sabbath: And so was it with the second Temple. Tal. Bab. ubi supr. Observe, by their confession the Temple was burnt down upon the Lords day, or on the Christian Sabbath. Fire put to it upon their Sabbath, and it burnt all ours: And so the City fell upon their Sabbath, as was mentioned out of Dion even now.

§. II. The face and state of the Country after the Cities ruine.

WE will first begin at Ierusalem it self. It was laid so desolate, foreign, That travellers by could see no sign that it had been ever inhabited: they are the words of Iosephus De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 1. The Friars there, and the Maps here with us, that point out places so punctually, as to tell you Here was Pilates Palace, here the Highpriests, here the dolorous way, &c. must receive more curtesie from your belief, then they can give proof to their assertion.

It appears by the constant and copious testimony of the Jews, that the City and Temple were not only laid flat by fire, ruine, and demolishment, but that Turnus p. 181Rufus brought a plow over them to make good that Prophesie, Zion shall be plowed as a field: The plowman would finde but rugged work: They allot it, as observed before, to have been on the same day of the year, and so a twelvemoneth at the least must intercede.

What the beauty of the place had been, needs no Rhetorick to set it forth, nor what the populousnesse; the Temple, if there had been no other goodly structures, was enough to speak the one, and the multitude of their Synagogues the other: their own records summe them up to four hundred and threescore. R. Phinehas in the name of R. Hoshaiah saith there were 460 Synagogues in Ierusalem, and every one had a house for the Book of the Law for the publick reading of that, and a house for the publick teaching and explaining the traditions. Jerus. Chetub. fol. 35. col. 3. which in Megillah fol. 73. col. 4. and in R. Solomon upon the first of Isaiah are reckoned up to four hundred and fourscore. But now not one relick left, of Temple, Synagogue, Midrash, House, or any thing else but rubbish and desolation. Her people used this custom while she stood, that on all other daies of the year the unclean walked in the middle of the street, and the clean by the houses sides, and the unclean said unto them, Keep off: But on the daies of the festivals, the clean walked in the middle of the street, and the unclean by the house sides, and then the clean bid Keep off. Jerus. Shekalin fol. 51. col. 1. But now where is that company, that nicenesse, nay where are the streets? Titus himself some time after the desolation, coming that way, could not but bemoan the fall of so brave a City, and cursed the Rebels that had occasioned so fatall a destruction: Ioseph. De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 15.

How the Country neer about was wasted with so long and terrible a siege, and indeed the whole Country with so dreadfull a Warre, it is easier conceived then expressed. Iosephus tels particularly much of it, and this thing for one, That all the timber twelve miles about the City was cut down, and brought in to make forts and engines for the siege, lib. 6. cap. 40.

We may take a view of the whole Country as to the surface and situation of it in this prospective of their own: The Land [say they] that Israel possessed that came out of Babylon, was these three Countries, Iudaea, Galilee and Beyond Iordan, and these were severally tripartite again. There was Galilee the upper, and Galilee the neather, and the Vale. From Caphar Hananiah upward, all that bears not Sycamores, is Galilee the upper, and from Caphar Hananiah downward all that doth bear Sycamores is Galilee the lower, and the border of Tiberias is the Vale. And in Iudaea, there is the Mountanous, and the Plain, and the Vale. And the plain of Lydda is as the plain of the South, and the mountanous thereof as the mountain royall: From Bethoron to the sea is one Region: Sheviith per. 9. halac. 2. The Ierusalem Gomarists do adde thus, What is the vale in Galilee? The vale of Genezareth and the adjoyning. What is the mountanous in Iudaea? This is the mountain royall; and the plain thereof is the plain of the South, and the vale is from Engedi to Iericho. And what is the mountanous beyond Iordan? R. Simeon ben Eleazar saith, The hills of Macvar, and Gedor: And the plain thereof Heshbon and all her Cities, Dibon, Bamoth Baal, and Beth Baal Meon. And the vale is Beth Haran, and Beth Nimrah. Sheviith fol. 38. col. 4.

It were endlesse to trace the footsteps of the Warre particularly in all these places, let Iosephus be consu…ted for that: we may say in short, that hardly any considerable plac… escaped, but such as were peaceable, or such as were unaccessible. Of the later sort the mountanous of Iudah was the chiefest place, Iosh. 21.1. Luke 1.39. foreign The mountain royall, as the Hebrew Writers do commonly call it [a place incredibly populous as they testifie, Ierus. Taanith fol. 69. col. 1.] Hither Christ gives his Disciples warning before hand to flee, when these evils should come, Matth. 24.16. Which warning we cannot judge but they took, and so planted here as in a place of safety by his warrant.

Though therefore the Country were extreamly wasted, with so long and so furious a Warre, yet was it not utterly waste, nor the Nation destroyed from being a people, though it were destroyed from being what it had been. Those places and persons that had quietly submitted to the Roman power, if they had escaped p. 182the fury of their own seditions ones, were permitted to live in quiet, yea to injoy their own Religion and Laws, they in the mean while demeaning themselves as peaceable subjects, to that power that had brought them under. And for one acknowledgement of that subjection, they were injoyned to pay that Didrachma or half shekel that they usually paid to the Temple for their lives, to Iupiter Capitolinus, Xiphil. apud Dionem. pag. 748.

Their Sanhedrin continued in the same lustre and state, as it had done for many years before the City fell: and their Synagogues in the same posture, and their Religion in the same condition, save only those parts of it, which were confined to Ierusalem, which was now in the dust. And generally the places and people that had escaped the Warre, if they would live quiet, did injoy their quietnesse, as well as men could do in a Land in such a condition as into which it was now brought.

§. III. The Sanhedrin sitting at Iabneh: Rabban Iochanan ben Zaccai President.

ALthough Rabban Simeon the President of the Council, was caught in Ierusalem as in a trap, and so lost his life, yet Rabban Iochanan ben Zaccai his Vice President, and who was also then in the City with him, made a shift to escape. He spake and acted for Caesar as much and as long as he durst, and when he saw he could no longer be in safety in the City, he caused his Scholars R. Ioshua and R. Eliezer to carry him forth upon a Bier as a dead corps [for a dead corps might not rest in Ierusalem all night, and so he escaped and was brought to Caesar.] Thus R. Nathan tels the story, Avoth per. 4. This Rabban Iochanan fourty years ago, when the Temple doors flew open of their own accord, foresaw its ruine in that presage, and accordingly applied that saying of the Prophet Zechary, Open thy doors O Lebanon that the fire may devour thy Cedars. Therefore when he saw the enemy now so straitly besieging the City, and such forerunners of ruine apparent, it is no wonder if he used all perswasion to the people to yield and to save their City, as the same Author also tels us he did, and if he went and gave himself up to him that he knew should be Conquerour. Nor needed he any Prophetick spirit to foresee these things, but the very sickly condition and distemper of the Nation might plainly enough tell him, that her death could not be farre off.

He finding favour with Caesar, petitioned of him, that the Sanhedrin might repair to its old place Iabneh, and there settle, and he obtained it. Iabneh was near unto Ioppa upon the sea coast: there is mention of it, 2 Chron. 26.6. Here had the Sanhedrin sitten as we have mentioned, many years before the Temple fell, a good part of Gamaliels time, and all Rabban Simeons his son.

He sate President here five years: and these are the men of note that sate with him: Rabban Gamaliel, sonne to Rabban Simeon that was slain at the fall of the City: R. Zadok, one who had spent his body with extream fasting since the Temple doors had opened of their own accord, taking that for an omen of its ruine approaching: R. Eliezer his son: R. Iudah and R. Ioshua the sonnes of Betirah: R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus the Author of Pirke Eliezer: R. Ioshuah, R. Eliezer ben Erech, R. Ismael, R. Iose, R. Simeon ben Nathaniel, R. Akibah, and divers others, who outlived Rabban Iochanan the most of them a long time. They made many Decretals in his time, especially about those things that had had immediate reference to the Temple, as see Rosh hashanah per. 4. Shekalim per. 1▪ &c.

p. 183§. IV. The Sanhedrin still at Iabneh: Rabban Gamaliel President.

WHen Rabban Iochanan died, Rabban Gamaliel succeeded him in the Presidency seven years. He is commonly called by the Hebrew Writers foreign Rabban Gamaliel of Iabneh. But for the right stating of his Presidency there, two things are to be observed. The first is mentioned in Babyl. in Rosh hashanah fol. 31.1, 2. where all the flittings of the Sanhedrin are reckoned in the Gomara thus: From the room Gazith it flitted to the Taberna [in the mountain of the Temple] from the Taberna into Hierusalem, from Hierusalem to Iabneh, from Iabneh to Osha or Vsha, from Osha to Shepharaam, from Shepharaam to Beth Shaaraim, from Beth Shaaraim to Tsipporis, and from Tsipporis to Tiberias. Now the marginall Glosse teacheth us how to understand these removes. When the President was in any of these places, saith it, the Sanhedrin was with him, and when he or his sonne w…nt to another place, it went after him. It was at Iabneh in the daies of Rabban Iochanan, at Vsha in the daies of Rabban Gamaliel, but they returned from Vsha to Iabneh again: but in the daies of Rabban Simeon his sonne it went back again [to Vsha.] So that the time that Rabban Gamaliel sate at Iabneh instantly upon Rabban Iochanans death, was not long, but he went to Vsha, and his time at Vsha was not long neither, but to Iabneh again. And as we are to observe thus about his time and place, so there is a second thing to be taken notice about him, and that is the mixture of his Presidency.

The Talmudists do speak oft foreign Of placing R. Eliezer the sonne of Azariah in the Presidency. Tsemach David speaks it out thus: R. Eliezer ben Azariah was a Priest, and was exceeding rich: he was made President in the room of Rabban Gamaliel, but afterward they were joyned in the Presidency together: which is still obscure enough; but the Ierusalem Gomarists give the full story in Taanith fol. 67. col. 4. in these words: A certain scholar came and asked R. Ioshua, What is evening prayer? He answered, A thing arbitrary. The same scholar came and asked Rabban Gamaliel, What is evening prayer? and he said, A bounden duty. He saith to him, But R. Ioshua saith it is a thing arbitrary. He saith to him, To morrow when I come into the Congregation, stand forth and ask this question: So the scholar did ask Rabban Gamaliel, What is evening prayer? He answered, A bounden duty. How then, saith the scholar, doth R. Ioshua say it is a thing arbitrary? Rabban Gamaliel saith to R. Ioshua, Art thou he that saith it is a thing arbitrary? He answered, No. He saies to him, Stand upon thy feet that they may bear witnesse against thee. R. Ioshua stood upon his feet, whilest Rabban sate and was expounding, so that all the Congregation repined at him [for making him to stand so.] And they said to R. Hotspith the Interpreter, Dismisse the people, and they said to R. Zinnun the Minister say Begin, and they said all Begin, and stood upon their feet too. And they said to him [Rabban Gamaliel] Against whom hath not thy mischief passed continually? They went presently and made R. Eliezer ben Azaria President, who was but sixteen years old, but very grave. R. Akibah sate by and took it ill, and said, It is not because he is better studied in the Law then I, that he is thus preferd, but because he is nobler born then I. Happy is the man who hath Ancestors to priveledge him. Happy is the man that hath a nail to hang upon. And what was the nail that R. Eliezer ben Azaria had? He was the tenth from Ezra. How many benches of scholars were there sitting there then? R. Iacob bar Susi saith Fourscore besides the people that stood behind them. R. Iosi ben R. Bon saith Three hundred. Rabban Gamaliel went presently to every one at his own home and sought to pacifie him, &c. So that by this it appears how and why Gamaliel was outed out of his Presidency, namely for his pride and passion [of which we might shew you other examples also] but he was restored again to be partner in the dignity with R. Eliezer whom they promoted now.

There is exceeding much mention of this Gamiliel in the Talmuds, and he is a very busie man there: the Reader there meets with him as oft as with any one p. 184man whosoever. He had a servant named Tobi very oft spoken of, whose eye he struck out, and let him go free for it: when he died he much bemoaned and commended him. Beracoth per. 2. halac. 6. Whilest he sate at Iabneh, in his curiosity for the exquisite taking of the new Moons, he had scored upon his wall severall forms and appearances of it, and those that came to bear witnesse that they had seen the new Moon he brought thither, and asked, How saw you it? In this form, or this, or the other, &c. Rosh hashanah per. 1. hal. 8.

§. V. The Sanhedrin still at Iabneh. R. Akibah President.

THe twelve years of Rabban Iochanan and Rabban Gamaliel, raught from the second year of Vespasian, when the Sanhedrin was first setled at Iabneh, to the second year of Domitian: there begins R. Akibah his Presidency, and sate fourty years, namely to the time of the sacking of the Town Bitter or Beth tar, which the Jews generally fix fifty two years after the fall of the Temple, or at most fifty five: So that he sate all the time of Domitian and Trajan, to the 5^th or at most the 8^th year of Hadrianus.

His time was a troublesom time with the Jews. In Domitians daies, Iudaicus fiscus praeter caeteros acerbissimè actus, Above all others the Iews were plagued with taxes and confiscations. Sueton in Domit. cap. 12. where he adds, I remember when I was a boy, I was present when a man of 90 years old was searched before a great company whether he were Circumcised or no.

In Trajan's time was that horrid insurrection of the Jews, mentioned by Dion. lib. 68. about Cyrene, where they murdered Romans and Greeks, to the number of two hundred and twenty thousand; ate their flesh, devoured their intrails, and dawbed themselves with their blood: And the like insurrection they made in Egypt and Cyprus, and murdered to the number of two hundred and fourty thousand. Tsemach David makes Ben Coziba a chief leader in this businesse: who if he were, received his just reward in the time of Hadrian. He took on him to be Messias; made himself a King, stamped Coyn of his own: foreign Ierus. Maasa Sheni fol. 52. col. 4. brought the Romans against him, who destroyed him and the City Bitter, and multitudes of thousands of Jews with him. The Jews commonly write it foreign, but in Ierus. Taanith. fol. 68. col. 4. it is written foreign Beth tar: which properly signifies the house of spies. And there a story is told that makes it no better, of the great ones that had escaped at the ruine of Ierusalem, and dwelt here, and intrapped any man that they saw go toward Ierusalem. Eusebius Hist. lib. 4. cap. 6. cals it Betheka, and saith it was not farre from Ierusalem: which Baronius boldly translates Bethlehem. The Jews do character the dolefull slaughter at this place as the saddest stroke that ever they received, but the fall of Ierusalem. R. Akibah himself perished in it, dotingly have become Armour bearer to Ben Coziba, as holding him to be the Messias. You may observe what kinde of a Messias they expect.

Dion tels that in this Warre Severus, whom Hadrian had sent to quell them, took fifty of their strongest Garrisons, and destroyed nine hundred fourscore and five fair Towns. And he also destroyed all the Olive trees in Iudaea. Jerus. Peah. fol. 20. col. 1. How they themselves record the slaughter at Beth tar, may be seen in the Ierusalem Talmud in Taanith, the place cited above, and the Babylonian in Gittin fol. 57.2.

Whence their first tumultuating took its rise, is of some obscurity, only it may be resolved into Gods just judgement upon them to stirre to their own ruine. Yet Spartianus speaking of their stirring in the time of Hadrian saith, it was because they were forbidden Circumcision. Moverunt ea tempestate & Iudaei bellum quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia. In vit. Hadrian. Trajan put a restraint upon Christianity and persecuted it. Plin. Epist. lib. 10. ep. 97. It may be he did the like upon Judaism, and that might move them to an insurrection. The horrid Massacres p. 185that they committed in Cyrene, Egypt and Cyprus might be looked upon as a just judgement for his persecution of Christianity, if multitudes of Christians did not also perish in those slaughters, if Ben Coziba were ringleader in them: For Iustin Martyr, Apol. 2. saith, that Barchochebas brought Christians only to torture, unlesse they would deny Christ and blashheme him. And Euseb. in Chron. Chochebas the ringleader of the Iews, put to death with all exquisite torture those Christians that would not assist him against the Romanes. That is worth observing which is spoken by Ierus. Ievamoth. fol. 9. col. 1. There were many that had retracted their foreskin in the daies of Bon Coziba, were Circumcised again: which R. Nissim speaks out more at large: There were many Circumcised ones in the daies of Ben Coziba, who had retracted their foreskin perforce, in the Town of Bitter, but the hand of Ben Coziba prevailed, and reigned over them two years and an half, and they were Circumcised again in his daies. In Alphes. in Iovam. fol 428. their retracting their foreskin perforce speaks much like to that which was mentioned before out of Spartianus.

In these times also [of Trajane I suppose] there was an Edict against the Jews Ordination upon pain of death to him that did Ordain, and him that was Ordained, and ruine of the place where any Ordination should be. Talm. Bab. Avodah Zarah fol. 8.2.

And from the time of these tumults forward that began to take place which is spoken in Ierus. Sanhed. fol. 24. col. 2. That in the daies of R. Simeon ben Iochai [who was now alive] the judging even in pecuniary matters was taken away. In fol. 18. col. 1. This is said to have been in the daies of Simeon ben Shetah: but that is a mistake▪ which is corrected in the place cited.

Upon these warres and tumults Hadrian forbids the Jews to go to Ierusalem, or so much as to look upon it from any hill where it might be seen. Euseb. hist. l. 4. c. 6.

Tryphon the Jew that hath the long dispute with Iustin Martyr, fled from these Warres. Iustin. Dial. cum Tryph. he might very well be R. Tarphon, a great associate with R. Akibah, and one much mentioned in the Talmuds.

§. VI. The Sanhedrin at Vsha and Sheparaam foreign. Rabban Simeon President.

THus did the just vengeance of God follow the Nation, but farre were they from being rooted out, and as farre from laying to heart any plague that light upon them. Besides R. Akibah, we can hardly name you another of note that perished in all those deadly combustions, though some of them were in the thickest of the danger; but reserved as it seemeth as a further plague for the seduction of their Nation. Some of their expressions about the sad slaughter at Bethtar or Bitter are to this purpose: The horses waded in blood up to the nostrils: There were slain 400000: And Adrian walled a Vineyard of 16 miles about with dead bodies a mans height. And there were found the brains of 300 children upon one stone, and three chests full of tattared Phylacteries containing three bushels every chest. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel saith there were 500 Schooles, and to the least there belonged 500 Scholars, and they said, If the enemy should come against us we could prick out their eyes with our pens: But when it came to it, they folded them all up in their books and burnt them, and there was not one of them left but only I. Not that he reckons himself in the number of the children, for he was now well in years, but that none of all that great University was left but himself: And yet besides the eminent men that we have named, there were R. Meir a great speaker in the Talmud, but most commonly against the common vote. R. Simeon ben Iochai and Eleazar his son, the first Authors of the book Zohar. R. Nathan the Authour of Avoth. R. Iosi Galileus and his son Eliezer. R. Iochanan ben Nuri. Ben Nanas. R. Ioshua ben Korcha. R. Eliezer ben Chasma: and why should we reckon more when Berishith Rabba makes this Summa Totalis on Gen. 25. That R. Akibah had 24000 disciples. Of some decretals made at Vsha, you may reade Ierus. in Rosh hashan. fol. 58. col. 3. Chetub. fol. 28. col. 3.

p. 186In these times of Hadrian which we are yet upon, Aquila the Proselyte was in being and in repute. In Ierus. Chagig. fol. 77. col. 1. he is introduced discoursing with Hadrian about the universe being supported by a Spirit. In Megil. fol. 71. col. 3. It is said that Aquila the Proselyte interpreted the Law before R. Eliezer and R. Ioshua, and they highly commended him for it and said, Thou art fairer then the children of men. By which it may be conjectured what a translation this was, when these men so extolled it. The Ierusalem Gemarists do cite his version, Megil. fol. 73. col. 2. Succah fol. 53. col. 4. Ioma fol. 41. col. 1. and severall other places.

Rabban Simeon now President, sate about thirty years, namely from about the 6^th or 8^th of Hadrian, to the 15^th or 16^th or thereabout of Antoninus Pius: the honour and power of that Bench growing low and in the wane every day more then other. This Rabban Simeon you have a great spokesman in the Talmud: his grandfather of the same name that died with Ierusalem, is seldom introduced speaking there: Once you have him swearing by the Temple, Cherithuth per. 1. halac. 7.

§. VII. The Sanhedrin at Bethshaaraim, Tsipporis and Tiberias. R. Iudah President.

UPon the death of Rabban Simeon, his sonne Rabbi Iudah succeeded him: a man of note equall with, if not above any named before him: he bare not the title of Rabban as his Ancestors had done for five generations before him, yet had he those appellations that dignified him equall with it: he was called sometimes eminently Rabbi and no more: sometime R. Iudah the holy: sometimes our holy Rabbi: sometime R. Iudah the Prince: and oft in the Ierus. Talmud R. Iudan. Vid. Ierus. Sanhedr. fol. 30. col. 1. where it speaks of all his Titles. There are innumerable stories of him, we shall only pick up those that are most pertinent to our present subject. Iuchasin. fol. 2. tels us that he was with the 70 of the Sanhedrin in Bethshaaraim, Sipphoris and Tiberias, and Tiberias was the tenth and last flitting that the Sanhedrin had. How long in Bethshaaraim is uncertain, and little is mentioned of that place: but Sipphoris foreign is famous: It was the greatest City of Galilee, Joseph. de Bell. lib. 3. cap. 3. a place planted in a fruitfull situation, for sixteen miles about it, saith Talm. Ierus. was a Land flowing with milk and honey. Biceurim fol. 64. col. 2. Rabbi Iudah sate here seventeen years, and he applied that to himself, Iacob lived in the Land of Egypt seventeen years, and Iudah lived in Tsipporis seventeen years. There are these two memorable stories of this place: That a Butcher cousened the Jews here with carcases and beasts torn, and made them eat them, nay he made them eat dogs flesh. Ierus. Trumoth. fol. 45. col. 3. And divers of Tsipporis were glad to wear patches on their faces to disfigure them that they might not be known when inquisition was made after them. Id. Ievamoth fol. 15. col. 3. and Sotah fol. 23. col. 3. The numerous passages about the Doctors and disputes and Scholastick actions in this place would be too tedious to mention, though with the briefest touch we could.

From Tsipporis the Sanhedrin removed to Tiberias, upon the brink of the lake of Genesaret. This was about eight or nine miles from Tsipporis. Id. Sanhed. fol. 21. col. 1. the Jews hold it to be the same with Rakkath in Iosh. 19.35. Megil. fol. 70. col 1. And that Chammath there mentioned also, was a place that joyned to it. Erubbin fol. 23. col. 4. so called from the hot bathes there. Bab. Megil. fol. 6.1. How long Rabbi sate here is uncertain.

Their Records do make him exceedingly in favour with Antoninus the Emperour, but whether Pius or Philosophus they name not: it is generally held to be Pius: whethersoever it was, there are abundance of discourses twixt R. Iudah and him dispersed in their Writings: and they stick not to tell you, that he became a Proselyte, and when the Proselytes of righteousnesse shall come, in the world to come, Antoninus shall come in the head of them. Jerus. Megil. fol. 74. col. 1. Antoninus Philosophus or Marcus Aurelius was the likelier to converse with Scholars. R. Iudah outlived them both, and Commodus also.

p. 187Two famous things, as that Nation reputed it, did this man in his time. First he gathered up and compiled into one Volume all the traditionall Law that had runne from hand to hand to his time [the Mishnah that we have now in our hands] which is the Jews great pandect according to which they live: He saw their state wane daily more and more, and though they had now many Learned Schools, yet their Cabbala or great stock of traditions, he thought might fail and be lost, now the Sanhedrin failed, therefore he thought to make sure work, and committed it to writing, that it might be preserved to the Nation, and so he helped to rule them. And a second thing that he did, was, that he took care that there should be foreign Scribes and Teachers of the Traditions in all the Cities in the Land of Israel. Ierus. Chagigah fol. 76. col. 3. In the same Tract, fol. 77. col. it is reported of him that at six portions of the Scripture when he came to reade them he wept. He compiled the Mishnah about the year of Christ 190, in the later end of the reign of Commodus: or as some compute in the year of Christ 220, an hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Ierusalem.

§. VIII. The Schools and Learned men after the death of Rabbi Iudah.

BEsides the places where the Sanhedrin had sitten, which yet continued Schools when it was removed, there were divers other places that were great Schools and copiously furnished with Learned men, both in Galilee and Iudaea: and hence that distinction that the reader of the Ierusalem Talmud will meet with, of foreign and foreign a Southern man and a Galilean. Chagig. fol. 79. col. 3. that is, a Scholar of the one, or of the other. Hence there is mention of R. Iacob foreign the Southern man. Erubh. fol. 24. col. 2. and the Elders of the South, ibid. col. 3. R. Ioshuah of the South, Challah fol. 57. col. 2. Of all the places in Iudaea, next Iabneh and Bitter, Lydda was most eminent, where R. Akibah sate as President of a School, before he was of the Sanhedrin at Iabneh. Rosh hashanah per. halac. 7. and this continued a School all along to these times of Rabbi Iudah: In Galilee there was Mugdala, Chammath, and Caesarea, if you will reckon that in Galilee, besides others.

R. Iudah left two sonnes behinde him, Rabban Gamaliel and Rabbi Simeon: Rabban Gamaliel was promoted in his fathers life time: but after R. Iudah was dead R. Chaninah sate chief, and that by R. Iudahs appointment, and with him were R. Cha…ia, R. Hoshaiah Rabba, R. Ioshua ben Levi, Kaphra, Bar Kaphra, Rabh and Samuel, which two last went away to the University in Babylonia. This generation is the first of the Gomarists, explaining the Mishnah, and producing the opinions of the Ancients upon it.

After R. Chaninah, who sate ten years, R. Iochanan was President eighty years▪ He compiled the Ierusalem Talmud, as is generally held, in the year of Christ 230 or thereabout, which was about the middle of the reign of Alexander Mammaeae; yet there is that in the Talmud it self that would make you beleeve that you meet with the name of the Emperour Dioclesian there. Beracoth fol. 6. col. 1. foreign When King Docletinus [to speak it acording to the letters] came hither, R. Chaiia, bar Abba was seen getting upon a grave to see him. Sheviith fol. 38. col. 4. foreign Dicletianus afflicted the men of Paneas, &c. In Kilaim fol. 38. col. 3. and Chetuboth fol. 35. col. 2. They say the Land of Israel was incompassed with seven seas, and the last of them they name is foreign The sea of Apamia. [The Samaritan version on Numb. 34.11, 10. renders Sepham, Apamia.] Now this, they say, is the sea or lake Mahaz: foreign Dicletianus gathered the rivers and made it. And it might very well be, that R. Iochanan that compiled the Talmud might live beyond the times of Diocletian: but in Trumoth fol. 46. col. 3. this Dicletianus they speak of, is plainly asserted to be in the daies of Rabbi Iudah haccadosh in this story: The sons of R. Iudah princeps, beat Diclot the swine-heard, who afterward p. 188was made a King. He comes to Paneas and sends letters to the Rabbins, See ye be with me at the going forth of the Sabbath, &c. When they come to him, he saies to them, You despise the Kingdom: They answer him, Diclot the swine-herd we despise, but Diocletianus the King we despise not: which is farre from meaning Dioclesian the Emperour. If this were a place to dispute about the exact time of writing this Talmud, we might also take into examination the meaning of foreign spoken of in Chagigah fol. 79. col. 4. whether it mean Denarius Gordiani or no, but we shall not insist upon that here.

After the compiling of this Talmud there is little further mention of the Schools or Scholars of Iudaea or Galilee [the Universities in Babylonia from henceforward bearing all the renown] yet were they not utterly extinct: and out of them at last ariseth the famous R. Hillel grandchild of R. Iudah, who stated the Jews Almanack into that posture in which it stands at this day: And Hierom had for his help in the Hebrew tongue a learned man of Tiberias.

§. IX. The posture and temper of the People.

HAving taken this brief account of their Scholastick and Magistratick History, as also of some generall occurrences that befell the Nation in these times, let us a little observe the carriage and temper of the men, for the better discerning of the Lords dispensing in reference to them, as a people of his curse, rejection and abhorring. They themselves little thought it, but were yet as proud and self-confident of their being the only people of God as ever; and unlesse it were in their plague by Ben Coziba, a stander by, would hardly think they lay under those curses that had been so oft and so terribly denounced against them: and it may yet appear the more strange, when we do consider the setled way of their Religion, in which they walked with as much confidence and security as ever. The Land full of Synagogues, these frequented every Sabbath, and the second and fifth daies of the week, their paying Tithes, observing purifyings, clean and unclean meats and drinks, and in a word, all their Rites, but what unseparably belonged to the Temple, in as setled a course as they had done before the Temple fell. But in this very thing was their misery and the vengeance upon them; and that which they accounted was their happinesse, and with which they sweetned their Captivity and desolation of their City, was that very thing that was their unhappinesse and undoing.

A double badge of reprobation they visibly carried, though themselves could not see it, namely their doting upon their wretched Traditions, and their rancour and enmity against the Gospel, besides what other brands of a curse may be read upon them.

He that reads their Talmuds may observe this mark of perdition upon them in every page, that the generations after the destruction of Ierusalem, were more mad, if possible, after their foolish and wicked Rites and Traditions, that made faith and the Word of God of no effect, then the generations before had been. A man that reades there may stand amazed to see a people of a lost and languishing condition, yet building up of those toies and trifles an airy structure, as if they were building an everlasting Kingdom. It speaks a palpable blindnesse upon them, that they took so little advertisement by the fall of their City, of the fall of their carnall and beggerly Rites, that they set them up more zealously then ever before. Let any man observe who they are that make the greatest noise in the Talmuds, and they will see this plain: This mindes me of a fancy of the great women among them, a ridiculous way that they used for the remembrance and mourning for Ierusalem, namely by wearing a golden Crown upon their heads, wrought in the fashion of a City, they called it foreign The golden City: It is spoken of in Ierus. Shabb. fol. 7. col. 4. where they are disputing whether the women might go forth with this ornament upon their heads on the Sabbath: And there they tell that R. Akibah p. 189made a golden City for his wife, and when Rabban Gamaliels saw it, she was envious at it: A pretty way of mourning by pride, and to carry Ierusalem in gold on their heads, when Ierusalem lies in ashes under their feet: Much like did they by their Ceremonies and Traditions, when at the ruine of the City they should by right have been all buried in ashes with it, they inhanced them and made them more high and gallant then ever before.

It is needlesse to instance their derision and detestation of Christ and Christianity, their blasphemy against his blessed name, their hatred and mischievousnesse against the professors of it: their Writings proclaim their impiety, and when many of the ancient Fathers have been put to write against the Jews, it argues they were busie and stirring as farre as they might. They had continuall opposings among themselves, yet they all agreed like Simeon and Levi, brethren in evil, to oppose, vilifie and blaspheam the Gospel. Hardly one of the Grandees that we have named, but he had foreign his opposite, one or other that stood out in contestation of opinion with him: Nay they went sometimes to it by the ears, as R. Eliezer and R. Iosi are so strugling together that they rent the Book of the Law betwixt them. Ierus. Shekalim fol. 47. col. 1. and as we observed before, the Shammaeans and Hillelians fought it to blood and death: Rabban Gamaliel at Iabneh, deposed R. Akibah from his Rectorship at Lydda. Rosh hashan. fol. 57. col. 1. And divers such bickerings which still ended in an unanimous consent to oppose Christianity as much as possible.

We spake before of the commonnesse of Magick amongst them, one singular means whereby they kept their own in delusion, and whereby they affronted ours. The generall expectation of the Nation of Messias coming when he did, had this double and contrary effect; That it forwarded those that belonged to God, to believe and receive the Gospel: and those that did not, it gave incouragement to some to take upon them they were Christ or some great Prophet, and to others it gave some perswasion to be deluded by them. These deceivers dealt most of them with Magick, and that cheat ended not when Ierusalem ended, though one would have thought that had been a fair term of not further expecting Messias, but since the people were willing still to be deceived by such expectation, there rose up deluders still that were willing to deceive them. The Ierusalem Talmud will furnish us with variety of examples in this kinde, and I cite it the oftner because it was made among these men we are speaking of, the Jews in Iudaea.

To begin with dreamers and interpreters of dreams, which was a degree of delusion with them. In Maasar Sheni fol. 45. col. 2, 3. there is mention of Rabbi Iosi ben Chalpatha, of this trade, and R. Ismael ben Rabbi Iosi, and R. Lazar, and R. Akibah; and there are many dreams recorded that they interpreted: and it seemeth by a passage in the place, that they taught their Scholars this trick as a piece of their learning: And finding of R. Akibah in this catalogue, we cannot but think how well Ben Coziba and he were met: for if the one were a cheater in one kinde, the other was a deceiver in another. If that of the Apostle Iude in his Epistle, ver. 8. These filthy dreamers; should be construed in this literall sense, it would finde enow in those times to make it good.

In Shabb. fol. 3. col. 2. it speaks of an apparition to one of their religious men that was studying the Law.

Ibid. fol. 8. col. 2, 3. and fol. 14.3. there is mention of severall charmings, as reading some verses over a wound, laying the Book of the Law or Phylacteries upon a sick person, charming against serpents and an evil eye, &c. And now we are speaking of an evil eye, or witchery, we may take in that Sanhedr. fol. 18. col. 3. Four and twenty of the School of Rabbi Iudah came to Lydda to intercalate the year, and an evil eye came in among them and they all died.

In Sotah fol. 16. col. 2. A story related of R. Meir and an Inchantresse, and he proving hard enough for her.

In Sanhedr. fol. 25. col. 4. There are three stories of Magicall feats done by foreign Heretiks, one at Tiberias and two at Tsipporis, but R. Ioshua outvying one of them, and a fourth at Rome, and he making his part good there too. What may be meant by Hereticks must be divided betwixt Samaritans, and some wretches that had forsaken p. 188duplicate page p. 189duplicate page p. 190their Judaism, and professed Christianity, but were such as the Apostle cals false Apostles.

And to conclude all, the many stories they have of Bath kol or a voice from heaven [most commonly coming for the magnifying of some of their Doctors, as see, Sotah fol. 24. col. 2.] are either forgeries, or if there were any such seeming voices, they were forged upon the anvile of Magick: How can a Nation but carry the visible mark of perdition, when vain traditions are their standing Religion, and Magick and Inchantments a common practise?

To this kinde of legerdemain, we may adde another, not altogether indeed of so deep a die, yet that which came from the same father, and that was, the loud legends they invented of their great Rabbines, thereby to awe the people to the reverence of their Persons, Memories and Doctrines: and of others devoutly zealous in their doting Religion, of whom they tell strange wonders for the magnifying of it. I shall name none for shame: these are they that do most disgrace their Writings, and make them most ridiculous.

A last thing to be named that they did toward the intayling folly, unbelief and obduration upon their Nation to all posterity, is their ingaging them to their Canons and Traditions, as they delivered them: especially to the Mishnah when Rabbi Iudah had published it, and to the two Talmuds when they came forth, especially the Babylonian, which stands as a Standard to all the Nation for her Rule and Religion to this day: they being generally Pharisaicall, and scarce a Karaite that we hear of amongst them.

§. X. How farre these Iews in the first generation of Christianity might infect or infest it.

WE need not speak of their crossing the Gospel, and persecuting and mischieving the professors of it, when it lay in their power; that needs no clearing: A twofold infection, more especially, they diffused into the Christian Church, which tainted many, and where it caught proved pestilentiall enough, even that which was the least dangerous: and these were, that out of this sink rose the desperate heresies of the first ages of the Gospel, and from these men came the Allegorizing of the Scriptures, which was but one degree lesse profitable, if not lesse deadly then their traditions.

How damnable Heresies arose from among them in the Apostles times, we have seen copiously as we have come along through the Epistles, some unbeleeving Jews and some Apostates diffusing poyson so deadly and so affluent, that it undid multitudes by backsliding. The venom was of a contrary malignity, yet both extreams met alike in this point, that they proved most deadly. The unbeleeving Jews standing upon the strictnesse of the Law, perverted divers to turn from the Gospel, to the precise course of their Judaism to seek Justification by works. And the Apostatizing, as farre misjudging of the liberty of the Gospel, introduced all manner of licentiousnesse and heedlesnesse of their waies, as to eat things sacrificed to Idols, and to commit fornication. These were the most notorious, as striking directly at the root of Justification by faith, and of holinesse of life: but these were not all, but other roots of gall and wormwood growing upon the same soil, as denying of the resurrection altogether, as did the Sadduces, or denying the Resurrection of those that started from Judaism, and worshipping of Angels, and whatsoever else, the Apostles speak of this gangrean in their Epistles, which though they grew and were at full ripenesse before Ierusalem fell, yet did they fade but little when she was down.

As the first wretched stock of Hereticks that rose, Simon, Cerinthus, Menander, Ebion, Basilides, &c. appeared either in Iudaea, or at least there where there were multitudes of Jews, as Basilides at Alexandria, so the most of those damnable opinions that they sowed, and which grew for a long while after, had some root or other in Judaism, or received some cursed moisture from thence to nourish them. By p. 191Iudaism I here understand the body of the Jews Religions, though differing within it self, yet all contrary to Christianity. Look upon Palestine, and you have it thus stocked in the times that we are upon. 1. With Pharisees of seven sorts, as they be reckoned up Beracoth. fol. 13. col. 2. Sotah. fol. 20. col. 3. 2. With Sadduces, at the least of two sorts, if not more. 3. With Samaritans. 4. With Esseans: Baithusaeans you may reckon with Sadduces or Samaritans whether you will. Now the variety, nay contrariety of opinions that was among this mixture, would afford nourishment to any evil weed of doctrine that could be sowed; these being as Manasseh against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, but all against the Gospel. We have mention of the Baithusaeans going about to put a gull upon the Sanhedrin about the great businesse of stating the beginning of the year, Rosh has…n. fol. 57. col. 4. The Sadduces laughing the Pharises to scorn about washing the Candlesticks of the Temple, Chagig. fol. 79. col. 4. The Pharises and Sadduces crossing one another in disputes, Iudaim. per. 4. halac. 7. And the Samaritans perpetually at enmity with the Jews in all stories. Now all these being alike enemies to Christianity, what mischief might not they severally do in poysoning and seducing those that were not found in it? We finde the names of some arch Hereticks mentioned in the Talmuds, though we cannot say they were the same men. As foreign Dositheus, Orlah per. 2. halac. 5. foreign Ebion, Ierus. Ioma. fol. 4. col. 3. foreign Symmachus, Iovam. fol. 11. col. 3. Chetub. fol. 25. col. 3. And Papias also is a Talmud name, of which name there was one so zealous of traditions, Euseb. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 39.

We observed at the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, that the Jews, partly the unbeleeving, and partly the Apostatized, were the first part of Antichrist, the mystery of iniquity that was then working when the Apostle wrote: and now we may observe how they continued bodied together, as a Corporation of iniquity, in Iudaea, till the times of Constantine the great, the succession of their Schools plainly to be read there: as we have shewed in little. And when they waned there, then did they flourish in their three Universities in Babylonia: and the succession of the Schools and names of their Learned men known there, not only till the signing of the Babylon Talmud which was about the year of Christ 500, but even till the other part of the mystery of iniquity the Papal Antichrist arose at Babylon in the West: And as these two parts make one intire body of Antichrist, and as the later took at the first to do the work that they had done, to deface the truth and oppose it, and that under the colour of Religion, so did it in great measure take his Pandect of Errors from these his predecessors. Traditions, false Miracles, Legends, Ceremonies, Merit, Purgatory, implicit faith, and divers other things so derived from this source, as if left by legacy from the one to the other.

A second taint we mentioned that these Primitive Jews set, not only upon their own posterity, but too much also upon the Church of Christ, was the turning of the Scriptures all into Allegory: which as it is well known how it was used by divers of the Fathers to their great losse of time, and little profiting of the Church: so is it easily to be known from whence it comes, by any that reades Philo Iudaeus, and the Jewish Derushim. The Talmuds indeed are for the most part, upon disputes, but sometimes they bring in how such or such a Doctor did Darash, [mystically expound] such or such a place of Scripture: and then you have directly such stuff as this. Philo in his discourse concerning the Therapeutae or Esseans, relateth that they had used this mysticall kinde of exposition of old. And how near the Christians of Iudaea that fled from the ruine of Ierusalem, might be supposed thenceforward to be planted to the Esseni, we might observe from Pliny and Mela that place the Esseni along the vale that coasted upon the dead sea [the old habitation of the Kenites] and from considering that the mountains to which Christ warns those that were in Iudaea to flee, was, the mountanous of Iudah, as was tou…hed before.

p. 192§. XI. That the Iews for all their spite to Christianity, could not impose upon us a corrupted Text.

HEre we cannot but clear them, as for matter of fact, of what some lay to their charge [but they do it for their own ends] that they foisted a corrupt Text of the old Testament upon Christians, and so befooled them in the very foundation of their Religion: So did their ancestors by Ptolomy King of Egypt, and so what these men would have done, if they could, it is easie to conjecture, but they did not, they could not so impose.

1. It was their great care and solicitousnesse, as to themselves, and their own use, to preserve the Text in all purity and uncorruptnesse; and what our Saviour says of not one Iota or one tittle of the Law perishing, they were of the same minde, and indeavoured to maintain and assert that for true with all industry. It were too long here to speak of the work of the Masorites for this purpose, who altered not, added not, invented not a tittle, but carefully took account of every thing as they found it, and so recorded it to posterity that nothing could be changed. We shall only bring in their own expositions which will attest to this truth to both those words that our Saviour hath, foreign: It is little to be doubted that Christ speaking in their language, meaneth the letter Iod, which is far the least of all their letters. And about this letter the Ierusalem Talmud hath this passage: Sanhedr. fol. 20. col. 3. The book of Mishneh Torah [Deuteronomy] came and prostrated it self before God, and said unto him: O Lord everlasting, Thou hast written thy Law in me. A Testament that fails in part, fails in the whole. Behold Solomon seeks to root Iod out of me [viz. in foreign He shall not multiply wives.] The holy blessed God saith to it: Solomon and a thousand such as he shall fail, but a word of thee shall not fail. R. Honna in the name of R. Acha said: The Iod that the blessed God took from the name of our mother Sarah, was given half of it to Sarah and half to Abraham. There is a tradition of R. Hoshaiah: Iod came and prostrated it self before God and said; Lord everlasting, Thou hast rooted me out from the name of a righteous woman. The holy blessed God saith to it: Heretofore thou wast in the name of a woman and in the end of it, Henceforward thou shalt be in the name of a man and in the beginning. This is that which is written, Moses called the name of Hoshea, Iehoshua. foreign: one Tittle: It most properly means those little Apiculi that distinguish betwixt letters that are very like one to another: You may have the explanation of this in this pretty descant of Tanchuna fol. 1. It is written, saith he, foreign You shall not profane my holy Name. He that makes the Cheth foreign a He foreign destroyes the world: for he makes this sense, You shall not praise my holy Name. It is written foreign Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord: He that makes the He foreign a Cheth foreign destroys the world; for he brings it to this sense, Let every thing that hath breath profane the Lord. It is written foreign They lied to the Lord: He that maketh Beth foreign Caph foreign destroys the world: for he maketh this sense, They lied like the Lord. It is written foreign There is none holy like the Lord. He that makes Caph foreign Beth foreign destroyes the world: for he maketh this sense, There is no holinesse in the Lord. It is written foreign The Lord our God is one Lord. He that makes Daleth foreign Resh foreign destroyes the world: for he bringeth the sense to this, The Lord our God is a strange God, &c. In Chagig. fol. 77. col. 3. they speak more of the letter Iod, and so doth Midras Tillin in Psal. 114. In Deut. 32.18. this little letter is written lesse then it self in the word foreign, and yet preserved in that quantity and not altered, and observed so by the Masorites.

2. Yet could they not for all their care but have some false Copies go up and down amongst them, through heedlesnesse or error of transcribers. In Shabb. fol. 15. col. 2. they are disputing how many faults may be in a part of the Bible, and yet it lawfull to read in. The books of Hagiographa, say they, If there be two or three faults in every leaf foreign He may mend it, and read: The Books of Hagiographa they read not in their Synagogues, as they did the Law and the Prophets, p. 193therefore this is to be understood of a mans private reading, and of his own Bible, which if faulty, there were true Copies whereby he might mend it and so read. Nay in Taanith fol. 68. col. 1. there is mention of a faulty Copy that was laid up in the publick records. They found three books in the Court of the Temple. The book foreign the book foreign and the book foreign. In one they found written foreign and in two it was written foreign [Deut. 33.27.] And they approved the two, and refused the one. In one they found written foreign and in two it was written foreign [Exod. 24.5.] They approved the two, and refused the other. In one they found written foreign and in two it was written foreign; They approved of the two and refused the other. That alteration foreign which is the second mentioned, the Babylonian Gomarists, and Massecheth Sopherim per. 1. say was one of the thirteen alterations that the Septuagint made in the Law for Ptolomy King of Egypt. Which seems to argue that as they translated the Bible into Greek, in which they made thousands of alterations from the text, so that they copied an Hebrew copy for him, and in that made these, and this that was found in the Court of the Temple a transcript of that Copy.

3. In every Synagogue they had a true Copy: And it was their care every where to have their Bible as purely authentick as possible, as may be seen by the curious rules that are given to that purpose in Massecheth Sophorim newly cited, and Megillah. For this they accounted their treasure and their glory: And in the reading of the Law and the Prophets in the Synagogue, it was their great care that not a tittle should be read amisse: and for this purpose the Minister stood over those that read, and oversaw that they read aright: and from this, as Aruch tels us, he was called Chazan, that is Episcopus or Overseer: In Ierus. Sotah fol. 21. col. 3. the Samaritans are blamed by the Jews for wilfully corrupting their own Penteteuch. R. Eliezer ben R. Simeon said, I said to the Scribes of the Samaritans, You have falsified your Law, and yet reap no advantage by it: for you have written in your Law, By the plain of Moreh which is Sichem; And was it not manifest enough without that addition that it was Sichem? But you construe not, a pari, as we do. It is said here, The plain of Moreh, and it is said elsewhere, The plain of Moreh: there it is no other but Sichem: no more must it be here. [The addition cavilled at, which is Sichem, is so in the Samaritan Penteteuch now extant, at Deut. 11.30.] But amongst all the wickednesse that Christ and his Apostles laid to the charge of the Jews, yet you never finde them blamed in the least degree for this, that they went about to corrupt the letter of the Text: The sense indeed they spoiled with their glosses, and so made the Word of God of no effect, and this they hear of throughly, but not a word of their spoiling the letter of the Text.

4. Had they been never so desirous to have imposed upon Christians, by falsifying the Text, they could not possibly do it: for 1. Every Synagogue in the world having the purest Copy that possibly was to be got, how impossible was it such legerdemain should be, when there were so many thousand Copies to discover it [unlesse they were all corrupt alike] and multitudes out of the Synagogues, Rulers and people were converted to the Gospel. 2. As learned men as any they had among them, and that as well understood what Text was pure, what corrupt, Ioseph of Arlmathea, Nicodemus, Paul, and multitudes of the Priests imbraced the Gospel: and so multitudes of pure Copies were in the hands of Christians, upon the first rising of the Gospel, and multitudes that had such Copies in their hands were converted daily.

5. To which may be added that the same power and care of God that preserves the Church, would preserve the Scriptures pure to it: and he that did and could preserve the whole, could preserve every part, so that not so much as a tittle should perish.

§. XII. Concerning the Calling of the Iews.

BY what hath been spoken concerning the state of the Jews in their own Land after the fall of their City, it may be observed wherein it is that the Lords vengeance upon that Nation doth especially consist, namely in his rejection of them p. 194from being his people, and in their obduration. The unspeakable miseries and slaughter that they indured in the siege and ruine of Ierusalem, speak as dreadfull punishment as ever fell upon a Nation, and yet this was but short and small, in comparison of that fearfull blindnesse and hardnesse that lies upon them, and hath done for this sixteen hundred years together. Seventy years in bodily bondage in Babel, did finish the punishment of their forefathers, for all the Idolatry, bloodshed and impiety that they had committed: But these after above twenty times seventy years, under dispersion and obduration, have now as little appearance of amendment of their hearts and of their condition, as there was so many hundred years ago. The same blindnesse, the same doting upon traditions, the same insisting upon their own works for salvation, the same blind confidence that they are Gods only beloved people, the same expectation of Messias to come, the same hatred of Messias already come, and the same opposition against the Gospel is in them still, that was in that first generation that crucified the Lord of life. That generation is plainly and often asserted by the holy Ghost in the New Testament to be Antichrist, and the very same Antichristian spirit hath continued in all the generations of them, ever since, even to this day.

Into the thoughts therefore concerning their Calling after so long and so extream crosness against the Gospel and the Lord of it, I cannot but take these things into consideration. [For though I am unwilling to recede from that charitable opinion of most Christians that there shall once be a Calling of them home, yet see I not how that supposall of the universall Call of the whole Nation, as of one man, which some entertain, can be digested without some allay and mitigation.] 1. That all Israel, both Jews and they of the ten Tribes, have had as full an offer of the Gospel as any of the Gentiles have had, both in the time of the Apostles and since. Of the two Tribes there can be no scruple: and of the ten, almost as little, if their sin that cast them off the place of their seating when carried out of their own Land, and the carriage of the Gospel through the whole world, be well considered: Now that their refusing of the Gospel so offered to them, in that manner as they have done, should be followed with so universall a Call and Conversion, is somewhat hard to beleeve: especially when it is observed that the Gentiles despising the Gospel are doomed to the everlasting deprivation of it, and to a worse condition then Tyre and Zidon. 2. It is true indeed that Gods Covenant with their fathers, is of speciall weight and observation in this business, and the Apostle toucheth it in this question, Rom. 11.28. but how is this to be understood? God made a twofold Covenant with their fathers, viz. the Covenant of grace, and the Covenant of peculiarity; and the later was but a manner of the administration of the former. The Covenant of grace was made with Adam, and belongs to all the seed of Christ, before the Law, under it, and after it, Jews and Gentiles. Now the Oeconomy of Moses was such an administration of this Covenant of grace as made Israel a peculiar people. This effect of the Covenant with their fathers, namely that they still are and ever shall be Gods peculiar, is their conceit all along, but little warrant for us to hold it, since under the Gospel there is no distinction of Jew and Gentile: And as for the other, that many of them yet belong to Election and the Covenant of grace made with their fathers, it is not to be doubted, which yet doth little make for so generall a calling. 3. It was a good sign of the generall conversion of the Heathen once to be, in that there were multitudes of them proselyted daily, before the generall Call by the Gospel came [an hundred three and fifty thousand in the daies of Solomon, and that when Religion was then in a very narrow compass:] But of these, how few, in comparison have come in, in all this long time, though they have had incomparably more means and opportunity then ever those had? Their sin that cast them off, was more horrid then the sin that cast off the Heathen, and so their blindness and obduration is beyond theirs. And which deserves observation, The sin of the two Tribes was beyond the sin of the ten. 4. Since the new Testament doth ordinarily stile that first generation Antichrist: and since, as is apparent, the very same spirit is in the Nation to this day, I see not how we can look upon the conversion of the Jews under a lower notion then the conversion of a brood of Antichrist. Therefore can I no more look for the generall calling of th…m, then I look for the generall call of the Antichristian p. 195brood of Rome. We see indeed by happy experience that severall Nations have fallen off from the Roman Antichrist, as the Protestant Countries that are at this day: but Antichrist is yet in being and strong, and his end will be, not by conversion, but perdition. So can I not but conceive of the Jewish Nation, That although numerous multitudes of them may at the last be brought into the Gospel as the Protestant party hath been, yet that to the end numerous multitudes also shall commo… in the An…tichristian spirit of unbelief and opposition and blaspheming: and both parts of Antichrist, the Roman and this so to perish together. Nor doth this opinion any whit crosse any place of Scripture that is produced about the calling of the Jews, but rather settle its sense and explain it: That eminent place of the Apostle, Rom. 11. carrieth such a limitation throughout: and the very intent of his discourse speaketh to such a tenour all along: For his drift in that Chapter is not to determine whether all the Jews should be once called, but whether all the Jews were wholly cast off: and this he states that there is a remnant, ver. 5. that the election hath obtained, but the rest are blinded, v. 7. and that blindness in part is happened to Israel, &c. v. 25. And this is the mystery that he there speaketh of, and not as some would wrest it, their universal conversion. A mystery indeed that God should cast off his old Covenanted people, and that they that had alwaies had the light, and only seen of all the Nations of the world, should now sit in darkness and be blind, and that the Gentiles by their blindness should come to see. It is remarkable in this place and others of the Apostles Epistles, that though the destruction of Ierusalem were the most signall time, and evidence of Gods casting them off, yet that they were indeed cast off long before: as, to spare more allegations, may be observed in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, Ch. 2. v. 15, 16. which was the first Epistle that the Apostle wrote. Whence punctually to date their rejection, whether from the death of Christ, or from the first sending the Gospel among the Gentiles, is not much materiall to inquire after here: it is enough for our present purpose, to observe, that they are given for cast off so early in the dispersion of the Gospel: So that the Apostle doth clearly include their conversion even at that first spreading of the Gospel, as well as their conversion in future times. He saith, their casting off was the riches of the Gentiles, and the reconciling of the world, and their fulness should much more inrich the Gentiles, and be as life from the dead: By their fulness not meaning the whole number of their Nation, but the full number of Gods Elect of them when they should be brought in. The casting off of the Nation inriched the Gentiles, in that they came in to be the Lords people in their stead, but much more shall it be an inriching to them when the full number of them that belong to God shall come in also and be joyned to the Gentiles, and help to make their body up. This is apparently the drift of the Apostle in those words, which that opinion is exceedingly wide of, that holds that the calling of the Jews shall not be till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. It is true indeed that he saith, that blindness in part is happened to Israel till that time, v. 25. and so our Saviour saith that Ierusalem shall be troden down of the Gentiles untill the time of the Gentile… be fulfilled, Luk. 21.24. but this means her finall desolation, and the finall blindness of that part that is blinded; not that Ierusalem should be built again when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, which the Jews conceit: nor that then the Jews should be unblindfolded and become a Gospel Church, as the Gentiles had been: for what a strange world doth such a supposall imagine? and how often doth the Gospel gainsay any such distinctiveness and peculiarity? As we need not to go far for instance, that very place of the Apostle that is under our hands, doth hold out all along that the Gentiles and the Jews that belong to the election of grace, do make up but one Body. And that very passage that is chiefly pleaded for their universal Call, And so all Israel shall be saved, means no other. Therefore though it may be hoped that God hath multitudes of them yet to be brought in, from under their Antichristian darkness and opp…sition of the Gospel, yet that they shall be generally called, and …o Antichristian party left behind, and that not till Antichrist of Rome be fallen and the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, as some circumstantiate the thing, needeth clearer …vidence of Scripture to evince, then yet hath been produced.

FINIS.