2 - The Jews

The Jews

Judea was a region located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where today is the State of Israel. Its inhabitants, the Jews, had a fiercely monotheistic religion that they traced for nearly two thousand years in their past, to their patriarch Abraham.

 

The Old Testament tells the story of the ancestors of the Jews, a nomadic people devoted to shepherding goats and sheep, who lived in the region of Judea and, by the eighteenth century B.C., they migrated and settled in Egypt. By the thirteenth century B.C. the Jews fled from slavery in Egypt guided by their leader Moses to Sinai. After many years Jews went back to the region of their origins, where they founded the kingdom of Judea.

For four centuries, from 1000 B.C. to 600 B.C., Judea was an independent kingdom that had some power, under the conqueror King David, but then it gradually declined. In 586 B.C., the Babylonians took their capital, Jerusalem. The Jews were submitted, the Temple of King Solomon was destroyed and Judea was incorporated in the Babylonian Empire. Less than a century later, the Babylonians, in turn, were conquered by the Persian Empire. The Persians were more benign masters than the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. The Jews remained in Judea, under Persian rule, without king or political or military power, but clinging to their religion and their memories of the past independence. The Persian Empire was then conquered by Alexander the Great between 334 BC and 323 BC. When he died, his Greek and Macedonian generals inherited his extensive dominions creating new Greek states. Judea was included in the new Seleucid Empire, named after the Greek general Seleucus.

In 168 BC, the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV outlawed Judaism and tried to convert Jews, once and for all, to Greek culture and way of life. The alternative was death and extinction. The Jews revolted against Antiochus and under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, they won their independence from the Seleucids. For nearly a century, the Jews kept their own kingdom under the dynasty of the Maccabees, and Judea enjoyed a short period of freedom, under kings who were not of the revered "House of David".

In 63 B.C., the Romans were extending their influence and military power to the eastern Mediterranean. By then, the Maccabean family members were fighting among themselves for the right to rule Judea, and the losing side requested the help of the Romans. The Roman general Pompey took Jerusalem, and decided that the best and safest decision for Rome was to totally suppress the Maccabean kingdom. Since then, Judea was converted into a Roman province. Pompey chose Antipater the Idumaean, who was pro-roman, as head of the puppet government of Judea. Pompey knew that Antipater would never have support from his own subjects and that he depend on the power of Rome to keep his throne. In 43 B.C., Antipater was assassinated and succeeded in the government of Judea by his second son, Herod. In 40 B.C., the Parthians invaded Syria and Judea, and only after a three-year war king Herod regained power with the help of the Romans.

King Herod, known as Herod the Great to distinguish him from his descendants, tried to win over the Jewish people practicing their religion. The Temple of Jerusalem was enhanced to the point that it surpassed the original temple of Solomon. But Herod was a cruel man who had no qualms about ordering the execution of wives or offspring he deemed dangerous, and he was detested by the anti-Roman Jews, who saw him as the restorer of Rome domination over their land.

Among Jews, hope had grown as the centuries passed and they were tyrannized by one empire after another - Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans. They believed that one day a descendant of King David would return to become their king and restore independence, sweep all his enemies, and create a great nation with its capital in Jerusalem. Since the Jews consecrated their kings anointing them with holy oil, they called their king "the anointed one"; in Aramaic, this expression translates to "messiah". The Jews, therefore, were awaiting the arrival of “The Messiah" and their traditions included several prophecies that predicted his coming into the world. This hope had not only political and military overtones, but also mystical – religious aspects; most Jews believed that the Messiah would not only liberate Judea; his coming would also start a new reign of justice and holiness on earth, while everyone would yield worship the one and only true God.

In those years in Judea, ruled by the hated king Herod and subjected to Rome, there was a resurgence of “messianism”. Many individuals claimed to be the Messiah and there were always those willing to believe in the messianic character of anyone who would call himself the messiah. There were uprisings under the leadership of such men in the reign of Herod and his successors, all of which were defeated. Herod and the Romans watched warily all these alleged messiahs, whom they considered as an invariable source of all kinds of problems and disturbances.

In the messianic environment of Judea, under the yoke of the Roman Empire, is where the life of Jesus of Nazareth starts. He would become the origin of the most important spiritual movement in the Western world.

Next Chapter: Jesus of Nazareth


The chapters published up to now can be consulted in the INDEX OF PUBLISHED CHAPTERS.

1 - The dawn of Christianity - The Roman Empire

The dawn of Christianity

To start telling the history of Christianity, it is necessary to get a short overview of world history. This will help put in context the time and place of the birth of Jesus Christ and Christianity.

More than 2000 years ago, at the dawn of the Christian era, the main centers of civilization and human knowledge were located in four regions of the Earth: The Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, India and China.

Source: Google - maps of first civilizations

From these regions of the ancient world, the Mediterranean Sea was the region with the greatest cultural variety. There, Egyptian, Greek, Roman and other civilizations flourished. In the Mediterranean shores, the Roman Empire developed and became the empire that left the deepest mark left by any nation in history. Within this empire is where Christianity appeared. (Colored red on the map below)

 

Civilizations in 350 A.D. Source: Wikipedia

The culture of what we call today the western world, and the culture of modern nations where Christianity is the main religion, has its origins in the Greco-Roman civilization and the Roman Empire. Over the centuries, Western civilization had the greatest thrust and expansive force, to the point that today its culture and its influence reach the entire planet. Looking back on the above facts, it might not be risky to affirm that such a place and time in the past was good to sow the seeds of a spiritual movement which in the future would forward its message to the entire planet and all mankind.


The Roman Empire
 
The city of Rome was founded, according to legend, in 753 B.C. Its inhabitants, the Romans, tried to create an efficient government. They got rid of their kings and established a republic. Rome initially was a city - state surrounded by hostile peoples. Over the centuries, thanks to its efficient military organization, the Romans extended their domination over the surrounding regions, and in the time that their city was five centuries old, they achieved the domination of the entire Italian peninsula. Rome then became a naval power and faced other great nations of the Mediterranean world, and although Rome suffered defeats, it always achieved the final victory. In the second century B.C. it was the greatest power in the Mediterranean.

In the first century B.C., Rome defeated its rivals and extended its rule to the entire Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea, under the direction of its efficient generals Pompey and Julius Caesar. In the roman domain was included Greece, whose civilization and culture was greatly admired by the Romans.
 

Source: Google - maps of the Roman Empire

Emperor Augustus

After a series of civil wars, Octavius, nephew of Julius Caesar, achieved total power after defeating all his rivals in 29 B.C. Peace finally arrived after seven centuries of civil and conquest wars. For Octavius, the republic was not the most convenient system to govern the vast expanse of land and sea that Rome dominated, so once peace reigned in the entire Empire, Octavius reorganized the government of all Roman territories focusing the reins of power in himself. However, Octavio treated the Roman Senate respectfully and, although he left it with no real power, he kept it as a consultative body and maintained the fiction of the republic. The Senate conferred to Octavius the title of "Augustus", best known in history. The army considered him the "Imperator" (commander or leader), so Augustus is considered the first of the Roman emperors.

The 45-year reign of Augustus was the golden century for the Empire. With the Mediterranean in peace and a well-managed Empire, the obstacles that blocked trade and the dissemination of ideas were eliminated. The provinces became civilized countries with a thriving economy and the roman people could dedicate more time to thinking and arts. The Romans were ardent admirers of Greek culture, which they copied and imitated. Peace allowed the expansion of Hellenic philosophy, art, and literature throughout all the provinces of the Empire. The exotic religions and cults from the eastern provinces also invaded Rome.

As we will see later, Christianity evolved under the influence of the Roman Empire, and it wouldn't have expanded and developed as it did if a vast domain had not allowed his first missionaries to travel freely in many populous provinces. Over time, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman state and even today the Catholic Church retains much of the atmosphere, the pomp and the language of the Empire.

The most prominent event during the reign of Emperor Augustus, a fact that went unnoticed at the time, was the birth of an anonymous individual in a corner of the Empire, the province of Judea...

Next Chapter: The Jews

The chapters published up to now can be consulted in the INDEX OF PUBLISHED CHAPTERS.