Body: | The Founding of Aelia Capitolina and the Chronology of the Jewish War under
Hadrian|
William D. Gray
The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures
Vol. 39, No. 4., Jul., 1923, p 248-256.
The Jewish war under Hadrian rather than the more familiar struggle of 74
A.D. was the dying agony of Jewish nationalism; it was the later war which
effected the final separation between Christianity and Mosaic Judaism and
determined the cosmopolitan development of Judaism.' The colony of Aelia
Capitolina whose founding on the site of Jerusalem led, as Dio Cassius (dd.
12) tells us, to the war, was a renowned city in its day, and its outlines
have determined the sub-sequent topography of Jerusalem. The importance of
both the war and the city makes it the more desirable to dispel if possible
some of the obscurity surrounding the relations between the two, and
involving the causes, the character, and the chronology of the war. The
following paper is due to the belief that certain recently discovered
documents do throw some light into this darkness.
Most recent writers on the subject pin their faith on Dio and assign both
the founding of the city, and the resulting war, to a date late in
Hadrian's reign. Dio says:
In Jerusalem he founded a city in place of the one razed to the ground,
naming it Aelia Capitolina; and on the site of the temple of the god he
raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war that was not slight
nor of brief duration, for the Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign
races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites be
planted there. While Hadrian was close by in Egypt and again in Syria they
remained quiet, etc. [Foster's translation.]
On this last statement of Dio's is based the now prevailing view of the
chronology of the founding of the colony. It is well known that Hadrian's
visits to Egypt and Syria took place in 130-31 during his last great
journey.' The founding of the colony must, it is argued, be assigned to
about this date, and the war must have begun soon after it. Thus Schurer,
Geschichte des Judisehen Volks, 1, 674, puts the founding of the colony in
130, and Juster, Lea Juifa Bans 1'empire Romaine, 11, 191, n. 3, agrees
with Schurer. The correctness of this view of the chronology seems to be
established by the Eusebius-Jerome Chronicle which assigns the outbreak of
the war to about 132. Schurer and Kornemanns make the war begin in this
year; Schurer gives 130 as the year of its beginning, while Juster's date
is 131.
But there are not wanting ancient testimony and modern opinion that
conflict with the above conclusion. Eusebius' tells us that the colony of
Aelia Capitolina was founded as a consequence of the war. This statement of
course can be reconciled with Dio's with no special difficulty. The city as
first founded was destroyed during the war and afterwards rebuilt. There
are, however, more serious divergences. In the most important source for
the reign of Hadrian, the Vita Hadriani by Spartianus in the Historia
Augusta, we find the fol-lowing:' "moverunt ea tempestate et Judaei bellum,
quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia." The vague phrase, "ea tempestate,"
seems from the context of chapters xiii and xiv to refer to the second year
of Hadrian's last great journey, that is 129. The discrepancy between this
date and the one implied in Dio's account is, to be sure, slight. More
serious, however, is the divergence between the causes for the war as
stated in the two accounts. The credibility of the Vita statement will be
considered presently.10 There are also Jewish and Christian traditions
which agree in assigning the founding of Aelia Capitolina to an early date
in Hadrian's reign. According to the tradition of the Talmudic writers,
while Hadrian was yet in charge of Syria, that is, in 117 immediately after
his accession, members of the sanhedrim headed by Joshua ben Chananiah
conferred with Hadrian apparently at Antioch or Jerusalem, and received
from him permission to rebuild the temple. This permission was later
withdrawn because of representations against the enterprise made by the
Samaritans.,
That Hadrian ever intended the rebuilding at Jerusalem as a concession to
the Jews whose kinsmen even at the time were in revolt, no one familiar
with this emperor's policy and character will for a moment believe. It is
of course quite possible that the emperor, whose lively intellectual
curiosity was stigmatized by his more stupid contemporaries as idle
inquisitiveness, was glad of an opportunity to confer with those strange
beings, the Jewish rabbis, and he may even have amused them with vague
promises. But granting that many absurdities were attached to the
tradition, the fact remains that the impression that Hadrian early in his
reign contemplated the rebuilding of the temple and city, was widely
diffused among the Jews (cf. the references in Derenbourg, n. 13) and we
are confronted with the question: how did this impression arise?
The question becomes the more pertinent when we find that the impression
was shared by the church fathers. A goodly number believed that Hadrian had
given permission to the Jews to restore the temple, while others assign an
early date for the founding of Aelia Capitolina. Thus the Chronacon PawAale
says that the founding of the city and the Jewish rebellion occurred in
119. But the most remarkable passage occurs in chapter my of the De
menauris ei pondenbus of Epiphanius, of Eleutheropolis in Palestine, bishop
at Cyrenaica in 367. Epiphanius tells us that Hadrian fell sick and
journeyed from Rome to Egypt, traveling first to Antioch and then to
Jerusalem, where he founded Aelia .4 All this according to Epiphanius
happened "forty-seven years after the destruction of Jerusalem," i.e., in
117 A.D. Of the founding Epiphanius says: "ALapWrat oup d `Adptapds rip
xb)4p Krlaat, ou fAJP ra iep&." In the last words he contradicts, and
therefore shows independence from the Jewish tradition.
On the face of it the passage seems hopeless! We know of no serious illness
of Hadrian's in 117. Hadrian never began a journey from Rome in 117 for the
simple reason that he was in the East throughout that year and did not
return to the capital till July, 118. 1 Recent investigators* have
concluded that Epiphamus has made a mistake in his chronological
indication, and that he is really referring to Hadrian's last great journey
which began in 128. This explanation does not seem altogether satisfactory.
Neither Palastine nor Egypt were special objectives of Hadrian on this last
journey, but merely stages in his "Rundreise"; he did not in 128 proceed
directly from Rome to Syria, but tarried long in Grime and Asia Minor. If
Epiphanius means anything at all, he means that Hadrian in 117 made a
special journey to Palestine and Egypt. He has in my opinion quite
gratuitously added to his statement other items derived from an unreliable
memory, and inserted them in this passage without regard to chronological
fitness. Thus he has heard of Hadrian's famous last illness under which his
character so deteriorated; and as the capital city was the regular
residence of the emperors, Epiphanius makes Rome the starting point of the
journey. But for all his ineptitudes Epiphanius seems to have had at his
disposal a reliable source,' and it is a question whether we have the right
entirely to ignore his statements. Nevertheless the manifest absurdities of
the notice under consideration have led most modern investigators, with the
important exception of 1?iirr,4 to regard the passage as unusable. And this
was also my first conclusion. Were Epiphanius entirely unsupported, the
prevailing refusal to accept his testimony would perhaps be justi-fied. But
he receives support in my opinion, if not confirmation, from other ancient
sources, some long familiar, some but recently dis-covered. To consider the
former class of sources first, Syncellus (657. 5) says: "Abptap8s ItwBaIom
nor' Ahekay6p&w imw&4~ovras bcbhavep." This is equivalent to the passage in
the Armenian Version of the Eusebius,Terome Chronicle under the caption, Ab
Abraham 2133 (117 A.n.), and to the passage in Jerome's version (Ab
Abra-ham 2133) : "Hadrianus Judaeos capit secundo contra Romanos
rebellantes." Besides and preceding this passage, we have in Jerome under
the same dating: "Adrianus Alexandriam a Judseis subversam restauravit." It
is true that Hadrian's presence in Egypt was not absolutely required for
the punishment of the rebellious Jews or the rebuilding of Alexandria. But
the personal forms of the verbs (it is not said that. Hadrian "ordered the
punishment" or "had Alexandria rebuilt ") seem to imply the emperor's
presence and personal participation in these activities.
It is especially, however, the study of certain Hadrianic papyri of the
year 117 which has led me to believe that it is probable that Epiphanius in
his blundering way has given us a valuable piece of information. These
papyri prove that the emperor's activity in Egypt in 117 was at once very
intense and of a character that seems best explicable by his presence on
the spot.2 There are moreover strong a priori reasons why Hadrian would
have visited both Palestine and Egypt soon after his accession. The
rebellion of the Jews which began under Trajan (about 115) was a very
serious affair, a r6Xeym rather than a wrbots, and the papyri show that the
war was going on when Trajan died and continued for at least some tune
after Hadrian's accession.' It required less intelligence than Hadrian
possessed to perceive that the two great sources of Jewish sedition were
Palestine and Egypt. His founding of Aelia Capitolina signified that he
planned to destroy Jewish nationalistic uprisings at their source. The
natural moment for the formation of this plan would have been in 117, when
the Jews, in Egypt at least, were stall in revolt, and when the emperor was
receiving tidings of the atrocities they were committing in a veritable
frenzy of murder and destruction.
So Hadrian would naturally have desired to visit Jerusalem at this time; he
would wish to verify what he had heard of the stragetic, political and
economic importance of the site. It might be added that he rarely failed to
take advantage of an opportunity to visit a famous city. As to Egypt, not
only was it a stronghold of Judaism and a fountain-head of Jewish sedition,
it was also at his accession the theatre of a Jewish war. When we add to
these considerations the fact that it was absolutely necessary for any
pretender to the Roman throne to control the province which was really a
part of the crown domain, and which supplied the capital with food for so
large a portion of the year,' we will be led, I think, to believe that
Hadrian would have gone in 117 from Antioch to Palestine and Egypt, as
Epiphanius says be did, unless prevented by insuperable difficulties,
physical or otherwise. But what can these have been ? He was in the East
from his accession August 11 to the early part of October.4 He had thus
ample time to pay short visits to Jerusalem and Alexandria. His hands were
full of business, and it has been argued that he could not have afforded
the time for these visits. As it happens, most of his business was carried
on by correspondence and his letters could have been dispatched during his
journeys, or from Jerusalem or Alexandria, as well as from Antioch.
But if we conclude to accept the testimony of Epiphanius, we find ourselves
involved in further difficulties. What are we to do with the chronology
suggested by Dio's statement and apparently confirmed by Eusebius and to a
certain extent by the Vita Hadriani ? Why did the Jews remain quiet down to
about 131 'or 132 A.D., if the work on Aelia Capitolina began as early as
117, and if the founding of that colony was, as Dio asserts, the cause of
the war? A partial answer to these questions is found, in my opinion, in a
papyrus that has not, to my knowledge, been brought into relation with this
problem. This papyrus is No. 189 of the Rylands collection (published
1914), and is an humble business document affording its historical
information quite incidentally, as the papyri so frequently do. The
"Associate Collectors of Public Clothing for the Guards," "ot.ciro&Xoa
wapaarhrTal &Ipwiov 114arwpo(v) icovorw&wv," acknowledge in this receipt
issued to the weavers of Socnopaei Nesus, the delivery of nineteen tunics
(presumably for the "guards"), and of "five white cloaks for the needs of
the soldiers serving in Judaea," "xal eis <ayrpa-rawrucas Xpdas tar b, rfj
Iov#a}Sat¢ irrparevopvcw -raaatwha hevxa r& re." The papyrus is dated in
the year "13 of Hadrian," 99 Of (irrovs) Abroxpltropos Kaioapm Tpacavov
'ASptavou ac.r.k.," and in the month %tax (22d day). That is to say, the
receipt was issued in 1281 in the latter part of December, since the month
Choiak= November 27 to December 26. The soldiers then were in service in
Judaea in the last month of 128, and the campaign in which they were
engaged may have begun long before this date.
The editor of this papyrus apparently did not perceive its historical
significance. He says:
The words eis orparwrrwas Xpei'es seem at first sight to point to a
campaign [in Judaea] in this time, but there is no record of any particular
military expedition there in A.D. 128..... The great Jewish mutiny did not
break out before 132. 1\Tor is there any evidence of an Egyptian auxiliary
cohort having been stationed in Palestine. Possibly there was a
considerable number of Egyptian legionaries serving in that region,
although it appears that the majority of the recruits were retained in
their own country. Cf. Mommsen Herows six, pp. 5-218.
The most obvious interpretation of the document is that there was a war of
some kind going on between the Jews and the Romans at a date from three to
four years earlier than any that can be inferred from Dio's statement' It
even appears that the trouble was serious enough to require the summoning
of auxiliary troops from Egypt. The Jews it would seem did not "remain
quiet" between 117 and 132_ Some cause of discontent, other than their
chronic disaffection with Roman rule, was active among them at least as
early as 128.
The following is offered as effecting in a measure a reconciliation between
these apparently contradictory traditions and bits of evidence. Hadrian
while in the East in 117 did visit the two great centers of Jewish
disaffection, Palestine and Egypt. During his stay in Jerusalem he
discussed with his associates the rebuilding of the city as a Roman colony,
and caused the work to be taken in hand.' It is possible that he held
conferences also with deputations from the Jewish leaders, and that the
Jews were deceived regarding the real character of his intentions in
beginning this work. Their delusion as to Hadrian's friendly disposition
toward themselves, was furthered by his treatment of their old enemy,
Trajan's famous general, the Moorish chieftain Lusius Quietus. The latter,
it will be remembered, had repressed the Jewish rebellion in Mesopotamia
with great severity and had been a stern governor of Judaea over which
Trajan had appointed him Legatus in 117. He was a personal enemy of
Hadrian, who soon after his accession removed him from his post, and later
put him to death on the charge of conspiracy. But as time went on the Jews
gradually became aware that Hadrian, so far from reviving the glories of
the ancient capital, was in reality building in place of it a Roman
camp-city, pagan in character, specifically dedicated to the worship of the
emperor as the earthly manifestation of Jupiter Capitolinus. Their wrath
eventually took the form of sporadic revolts to one of which the Rylands
papyrus bears witness.
It is possible that Hadrian during his absence in Rome and his journeys in
the West allowed the work on the colony to languish, but renewed it with
vigor during his journeys in the East, 128-32. Exasperated by Jewish
revolts and by the persistent recalcitrancy of this stiff-necked people, he
adopted further measures of repression against them. He excluded them
altogether from the colony' and finally forbade them to practice the rite
of circumcision? This was the last straw. The smoldering embers of
rebellion burst into the great conflagration, the extinction of which taxed
the resources of the empire, in other words, the war under Barc osiba. The
Jewish war under Hadrian began then ca. 132 only in the sense that it
became at that time so intense and formidable that it required the
summoning to the seat of war of legionary troops other than those already
stationed in Palestine and Syria, and demanded, as Hadrian concluded, the
presence of the emperor himself.
Whatever may be thought of this reconstruction, it will be admitted, I
think, that the new evidence favors the view that the Jewish and Christian
traditions deserve more respect than they have received of late, that the
building of Aelia Capitolina began early in Hadrian's reign, and that
consequently there was a long prelude to the final struggle that began in
131 or 132. That struggle was not, as it is currently presented, a sudden
outbreak following an interval of peace. As early as 128 at least, a cloud
had appeared to foretell the coming of the storm.
(The Founding of Aelia Capitolina and the Chronology of the Jewish War
under Hadrian, William D. Gray, The American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literatures, Vol. 39, No. 4., Jul., 1923, p 248-256.)
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