.TEWRY (ju'ry), (H eb. yeh-hooa' ; G r. 'Iovoala, Luke xxiii:5; John vii:1), the Jewish na tion, i. e., the kingdom of Judah, later Judea, rendered elsewhere as Judah and Judwa (Dan. v:13).
jEWS, HISTORY OF THE, AND THEIR RELIGION.
(1) From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Mid dle Ages. I he destruction of the temple at Jeru salem meant a crisis for Judaism of even deeper significance than the failure of the Reichstag of Worms to silence the Protestant movement. The belief in the prophecies which had predicted ever lasting glory- for Jerusalem was shaken; but, as is the case with Adventists, when a prophecy fails to be fulfilled, practical necessity found a way out of the theoretical difficulty. The national calamity began to be considered a transitory con dition, after which God's grace would restore the lost glory.
This view was taught by the Pharisaic school. The Pharisee of the first century, A. D. theoret ically held the doctrine that the law would be ab rogated in the Messianic era ; but until then they were just as unwilling to carry this view into practice as the average Christian would be to dis card the apostolic creed on the strength of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The leader of this party was Johanan bon Zakaj. His biography is overgrown with legends. Still so much seems ccrtain that he was a great teacher and a member of the Sanhedrin; that he left Jerusalein before the destruction and established a school in Jabneh, which came to be considered as a substitute for the Sanhedrin. He taught sal vation for righteous Gentiles and advocated sub mission to Rome's political authority. His litur gical institutions meant to preserve as much as possible of the temple worship.
Under the Roman empirg the political condi tion of the Jews was peculiarly sad. The trib ute of the half-shekel, the annual sacred gift to the temple, had bcen confiscated under the name of Fiscus Judaicus—afterwards, however, remit ted by Nerva 06-98). During the war of the desolation of Palestine many had been killed, many sold as slaves; great numbers of the survivors were fugitives in the remotest parts of the empire and in Babylonia, then subject to the Parthians; while under Domitian the perse cution, especially of proselytes, was most severe ; a relative even of the emperor, Flavius Clemens, having been put to death and his wife exiled for this cause. Hadrian 017-138) put an end to the
revolution by conciliatory measures, but his des potic syncretism was the cause of another futile rebellion ; that of Bar Kokba 032-135), which was the last attempt of the Jews to regain polit ical independence by force of arms.
Their religious life during this period was a consolidation on the basis of changed conditions. Rabban Gamaliel, the Hillelite, under the title of Nassi, or Patriarch, was the recognized successor of the President of the Sanhedrin. His only tan gible prerogative was the calendation. He at tempted to compile a fixed ritual, but was opposed in his hierarchical tendencies by Eliezer ben Hyr kanos, who had leanings towards Christianity, and by Joshuah ben Hananiah, a strict Congre gationalist. Gamaliel and Joshua were united in their opposition to political aspirations, while Rabbi Akiba preached political resurrection and proclaimed Bar Kokba as the Messiah. He su pervised the Greek version of the Pentateuch written by the proselyte Akylas.
The defeat of Bar Kokba's uprising was fol lowed by severe measures against the rebels. Thc name of Jerusalem was changed to Aelia Capito lina, and no Jew was allowed to cntcr the city. On the site of Jahve's sanctuary a temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was to be erected; over the gate of the city the image of a swine was placed. Circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, and the study of the law were prohibited.
Under Antoninus (138-161) a complete change took place, and Hadrian's restrictive laws were abolished. From now on until the reign of Con stantine we hear nothing of religious persecu tion. Still, the growing power of Christianity and the devastation of Palestine caused the Jews to emigrate in large numbers to southern Meso potamia and to western Europe.