SMOLDERING HATE AMONG THE PEOPLE

Whether they were actual plotters against Rome, like the Zealots, or whether they gave their strength to eager prayer to Jehovah for deliverance, the great mass of the common people among the Jews in the time of Christ were burning with a fierce patriotism and with a hatred against their oppressors such as we can scarcely imagine.  The century of freedom under the Maccabees had made them all the more impatient of tyranny—­and then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants as Herod and Pilate!—­this was almost unendurable.

The children drank in this spirit with their mothers’ milk.  Fathers and mothers had constantly to warn their boys and girls not to show their feelings toward Roman officers and soldiers lest some dreadful punishment should befall them.  So it went on from year to year, growing constantly worse instead of better.  The whole land was like a heap of smoldering leaves.  Sooner or later there would be a sudden flare of open flame.

STUDY TOPICS

1.  Look up in the Bible dictionary “Publicans,” “Zealots,” and “Sadducees.”

2.  How do you explain the success of the Romans in tyrannizing the proud Jews for so many years?  Consider the part played by the Sadducees.

3.  Read Matthew 3. 1-2.  Why did John’s message arouse such interest and enthusiasm?

CHAPTER XXXI

JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS

This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of Abraham.  As the centuries passed these hopes were only very partially realized.  But what was more important the Jews came more and more clearly to understand the meaning of their own hopes.  Their great teachers helped them to know what they really wanted or ought to want if they would be happy.  Moses taught them the first lessons of justice as the foundation of happiness.  The great prophets helped them to see that neither happiness nor justice was possible except as they knew and worshiped the true God—­not a God of greed and anger to be bribed with sacrifices, but the God of justice and love.  A few of the prophets also began to see that such hopes as theirs could not be for Jews alone but must include all mankind.

THE FULLNESS OF THE TIMES

The Jews under their Roman masters had come to a time, as we saw in the preceding chapter, when they were wildly expecting an immediate fulfillment of these hopes.  The short taste of freedom and happiness which they had enjoyed under Judas and Simon Maccabeus, followed by a tyranny more cruel and distasteful than any which their ancestors had known, made them almost mad with the desire for some kind of a Saviour.  And it seemed to them that he must come soon.