Claudius, who succeeded Caligula, made Agrippa king over all the districts that his grandfather had ruled. Once more the Jews had their own king, a popular monarch, who followed the Phari sees and was a strict Jew. He is mentioned in Acts (xxv., 13, etc.). He died in A.D. 44 and the rule of the procurators was restored. Under Cuspius Fadus, the robber gangs were put down for the time. Theudas, who claimed to be a prophet, was followed by a number of people who looked for him to cleave the Jordan. He was captured and beheaded. After Fadus came Tiberius Alexan der, an apostate Jew from Egypt, a nephew of Philo. During his administration Helena, the queen of Adiabene, embraced Judaism and purchased corn to relieve a famine in Judaea. The next procurator, Ventidius Cumanus (48-52) provoked the Jews to riot. A massacre took place in the Temple and bloodshed occurred between Samaritans and Galileans. Cumanus was ulti mately banished by the emperor and replaced by Felix (52-6o), under whom the revolutionary movement grew to greater dimensions.
The country was once more full of robbers, the High Priest was murdered in the Temple. False prophets appeared. Felix tried in vain to restore order. He was recalled by Nero. The succeeding procurators (Porcius Festus, 6o-62: Albinus, 62-64: Gessius Florus, 64-66) did no better. Sacrilege and exaction, misunder standing and grew worse and more frequent. The Jews, roused to fury, massacred a body of Roman soldiers, while the citizens of Caesarea slaughtered all the Jews in their town. Various Jewish forces were warring against each other and finally Ves pasian was sent by Nero to crush the rebellion. He advanced from his winter quarters in Antioch early in 67. He was joined by Titus : the Roman armies entered Galilee. The historian Josephus was at the head of a Jewish army. He has been misjudged be cause, convinced of the hopelessness of a struggle with Rome, he urged his co-religionists to sue for peace. But it is in the highest degree unjust to call him a traitor or a coward. His army was confronted by that of Vespasian and fled. After the fall of the fortress, Jotapata, Josephus gave himself up. The Roman forces swept the country.
While Jerusalem was invested, Johanan ben Zakkai had himself conveyed out of the city and, coming to the Roman general, craved a boon. He asked to be allowed to establish a school at Jabneh. His request was granted and this seemingly trivial con cession saved Judaism. Johanan saw that Judaism could survive the Temple, that its future lay in the school and that the Bible was the Jews' portable fatherland. On the loth of Ab in the year 7o, amid circumstances of unparalleled horror, Jerusalem fell. The Temple was burnt and the Jewish State was no more.
continued their fruitless but heroic efforts. The Egyptian temple of Onias, which had existed for 243 years, was first closed and then destroyed. Under Vespasian and Titus the Jews of Rome enjoyed freedom of conscience and political rights. Domitian in augurated a persecution which Nerva ended. In Trajan's reign the Jews of Cyrene revolted but were subdued. Finally, in 132, Hadrian's proscription of Judaism roused the last remnants of Palestinian Jewry to die for their faith. A bitter struggle ensued. Bar-Kochba was acclaimed as Messiah by the great Rabbi Aqiba, though some of Aqiba's colleagues, e.g., Johanan ben Torta, re pudiated Bar-Kochba's pretensions. For three years the hopeless conflict raged, the Jews fought with the energy of despair, but in 135 the end came. Jerusalem and then Bethar fell. The holy city was thenceforth prohibited to the Jews, though the Christians, who had taken no share in the war, were allowed to come and go there freely. Many scholars date the breach between Judaism and Christianity (see JUDAISM) to this event.
BIBLIoGRAPHY.-See appropriate articles in Jew. Enc.; M. L. Mar golis and A. Marx, Hist. of Jew. People (1927) ; H. Graetz, Hist. of the Jews (1891) (an abridgment without notes, of the original German ed., which must be consulted for verification) E. Schiirer, Geschichte d. jiid. Volkes (Leipzig, 1901) (but the treatment of the Rabbis is often unfair, see I. Abrahams, Jew. Quart. Rev., vol. xi., 1899, pp.
626 sqq.). (H. M. J. L.) Rabbinical Learning in the East.—The ruthless suppres sion of the rising of Bar-Kochba had decimated the population of Judaea. The centre of Jewish life in Palestine moved in con sequence northwards, to Galilee. Though local insurrections con tinued sporadically at any favourable opportunity, serious po litical aspirations were now at an end. Henceforth, the dominant position in the national life came to be occupied more and more by spiritual and intellectual leaders, the rabbis of this period being known as Tanaint. Pharisaism, in its finest sense, became an increasingly strong force in daily life. Political leadership was taken over by the presidents of the sanhedrin, or patriarchs, who ultimately obtained formal recognition from the Roman au thorities, and enjoyed additional consideration among the people in virtue of their descent from Hillel (q.v.), and hence by tradi tion from David. The office, which had become firmly estab lished by Gamaliel II. of Jamnia (Jabneh) after the destruction of Jerusalem, reached its zenith in his grandson, Judah I. (135– 217), known as "Rabbi" par excellence. He is remembered for having codified the oral law by the redaction of the Mishnah, the basis of all the vast rabbinical literature of later times.