صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

patronage he experienced under this Prince. If, how ever, the circumstances and conduct of his life be impartially considered, with regard to the people and nation he governed, in general; and to the Jews and other tributary Powers, in particular; there will appear some grounds for discrediting, in part, what the partiality or prejudice of his Historians have asserted: indeed the same tyranny which his predecessors exerted over the vanquished, was not lessened by that generosity of character and sympathy, which Josephus so liberally ascribes to him; the same exultation over the fallen which the Roman satyrist censures, may

be applied, with peculiar force to him, who carried this spirit so far, as to delight in offering thousands of his captives to the sport and fury of wild beasts, for his own diversion, and that of others not less barbarous. 2

1 Bellorum exuviæ, truncis affixa trophæis
Lorica, et fractâ de cuspide buccula pendens,
Et curtum temone jugum, victæque triremis
Aplustre, et summo tristis captivus in arcu,
Humanis majora bonis creduntur.

That

Juv. Sat. x. 1. 133, 137.

2 This wanton cruelty he is said to have exercised IN HONOUR of the birthday of his brother Domitian, who afterwards, when Emperour, took every means to shew his abhorrence of the Jews by expelling them the city to the suburbs of Rome, and by levelling a tribute (as it is generally supposed) for the service of the Temple consecrated to Jupiter Capitolinus, in lieu of that, formerly paid to their own. (Vide Suet. in vitâ Dom. c. 12.) He commanded also that no Jew should appear in the streets of Rome without carrying a basket and some hay, as a mark of servility, and of the contempt in which they were held. To this Juvenal alludes in the following lines:Nunc sacri fontis nemus et delubra locantur Judæis quorum COPHINUS FÆNUMQUE supellex.

Sat. iii. 15,

and again,

COPHINO FÆNOQUE relicto

Arcanum Judæa tremens mendicat in aurem
Interpres Legum Solymarum.

Sat. vi. 544,

That he possessed those qualifications and virtues, both as a soldier and a magistrate, which recommended him to the approbation of his subjects, there is every reason to believe; but as to a man endued with disinterested affection for those who equally claimed his protection and humanity, it is impossible to grant any portion of general esteem; at least, not from us, who have been taught that love of our neighbour and of our enemy, which was exemplified in the conduct of him, whom we proudly aknowledge to be the Captain of our Salvation!

CHAP.

CHAPTER II.

THE HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF JERUSALEM AND

THE TEMPLE.

HAVING briefly shewn by what concurrence of events the Jews were made tributary to the Romans, and under what circumstances they continued so to the time of Titus, I proceed to give a short description of their famous City and Temple; before I relate that fatal destruction, which overthrew their civil and religious polity, and reduced the people to a state of abject slavery. This subject will claim additional interest from the reflection that the Holy City was a figure or type of that heavenly Jerusalem, so nobly described in the book of Revelation. 1

The City of Jerusalem once so holy and revered, the spot consecrated by God for his chosen people, and situated on high above the mountains; the center of nations and the glory of the earth, was founded, as some suppose, by Melchisedeck, about 2023 years before Christ, and by him designated Salem, or the City of Peace. 2

Walk about Zion, and go

Mark ye well her bulwarks,

1. Chap. xxi.

It

round about her: tell the towers thereof. consider her palaces, that ye may tell it

to the generations following. Psalm xlviii. 12. 13.

2. God is my King of old, working salvation in the MIDST OF THE EARTH.-Psalm lxxiv. 12. Thus saith the Lord God; this is Jerusalem:

I

It was afterwards in the possession of the Jebusites,

from

I have set it IN THE MIDST OF NATIONS and countries round about her.Ezek. v. 5.

[ocr errors]

Jerome says, that " Jerusalem is not only in the middle of Palestine, but "in the center of the habitable world."-The Jews, in this respect, were like the Romans, each looking upon their Capital as the centre of what they supposed constituted the whole globe. In toto Imperio Romano, quod et ipsi vocabant. Imperium orbis terrarum." So Delphi is called, "Orbis umbilicus;" that is, the middle of Greece. Queresmius, shewing its position to agree with the words of Ezekiel, and to be that which the Jews regarded as the middle of the known world, says, “ Operatus est "salutem in medio terræ: a parte enim Orientis cingitur plaga quæ dicitur "Asiæ: a partibus Occidentis ejus quæ appellatur Europa, â Meridie et "Austro Libya, et Africa; et a Septentrionali Scythia, Armenia atque 'Perside, et cunctis Ponti Nationibus. In medio igitur gentium posita ❝est." Elucidatio Terræ Sanctæ ii. 436.

66

It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's House shall be established in the tops of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills. Isaiah ii. 2.

The mountains upon which Jerusalem and the Temple were built, were not the highest of those in Palestine, but were, in point of situation, the most eminent and best adapted to the purposes of a city, of all those immediately surrounding. Reland thus describes the situation of the city:-" Sita "fuit hæc urbs in tractu montano Judææ adeoque loco alto, ita tamen ut respectu montium quibus circumdatur in loco humili sita videatur, quandoquidem mons olivifer aliique circumjecti altiores sunt. Deum propterea dici in sacris literis (Deut. xxxiii. 12) habitare inter humeros "Benjaminis non in capite."

[ocr errors]

66

66

With respect to Melchisedeck (a name derived from the Hebrew MELCHI and SEDECK, signifying A KING OF PEACE OR JUSTICE), it is only necessary to say, that he was the King of Salem, (Gen. xlv. 18), and by Josephus has also been looked upon as the founder of it, in opposition to the more received opinion of its being built by Shem, and thence called in Hebrew SHALEM. The opinion that Salem of old was Jerusalem, some have derived from the 76th Psalm, where David speaking of God as being well known and worshipped in Israel, says, “In Salem is his Tabernacle, and his dwelling "place in Zion." The words," IN SALEM," in the Hebrew original, signifying" IN PEACE:" and that this applies to Jerusalem, appears evident from the remaining part of the sentence.-Vide Heb. vii. 1, 2, in particular.

Josephus asserts that the founder of Jerusalem was a Canaanite, who was called in the language of his country, "THE KING OF JUSTICE;" and that afterwards the city was denominated Solyma, not as some

E

from whom it was called Jebus;1 and by them it was principally held during an interval of more than four succeeding centuries, when it was taken by Joshua, who permitted the Jebusites to dwell there in common with the Israelites. 2

of

This permission continued in force for the space four other centuries, when the city was besieged by David, who, after some resistance, took Mount Sion and expelled the Jebusites. David rebuilt and adorned the city, erected a palace and other buildings of considerable extent on the heights of Sion, and removing from Hebron made Jerusalem the seat of religion and the capital of his kingdom. Quaresmius supposes that from this time it took the name of Jebusalem, which for the better harmony of speech was converted to Jerusalem. This name, however, is of older date, and derived from a more ancient and probable origin. Lightfoot quotes a learned Rabbi, who says, "the

4

name of that place is Jehovah-fireh. Abraham "called it fireh and Shem called it Salem:" hence the

(vide Tacit. Hist. v. 2.) supposed from the Solymi mentioned by Homer, but from the Hebrew word signifying PEACE or SAFETY, and that when David took it, he called it " JEBUS."

1 1 Chron. xi. 4.

Vide Jos. Antiq. 7. iii. 2. and Bell. Jud. 6. iv. 1.

2 Josh. xv. 63, and Jud. i. 21.

3 2 Sam. v. 9. 1 Chron. xi. 5.

4 Postea eam esse Jebus dictam, ac deinde ex illis duobus vocabulis in unam demigrantibus appellatam esse Jebusalem, sed melioris soni gratia, в in mutato, Jerusalem nominatam, quæ denominatio frequentissima sit insacris et profanis litteris, et eamdem etiam in præsentia, post multam mutationem retinere.

5 Lightfoot's Works, vol. ii. p. 20.

Euclid. Terræ Sanctæ, ii. 27.

« السابقةمتابعة »