At this momentous juncture, when universal dismay prevailed, it was announced that the Messiah had appeared.  He had come in power and glory.  His name fulfilled the prophecy of Balaam.  Barcochab, the Son of the Star, was that star which was to “arise out of Jacob.”  Wonders attended on his person; he breathed flames from his mouth which, no doubt, would burn up the strength of the proud oppressor, and wither the armies of the tyrannical Hadrian.  Above all, Akiba, the greatest of the rabbins, the living oracle of divine truth, espoused the claims of the new Messiah; he was called the standard-bearer of the Son of the Star.  Of him also wondrous stories were told.  The first expedition of Barcochab was to the ruins of Jerusalem, where a rude town had sprung up.  Here he openly assumed the title of king.  But he and his followers avoided a battle in the open field.  On the arrival of the famous Julius Severus to take command of the Roman forces, the rebel Jews were in possession of fifty of the strongest castles and nearly a thousand villages.  Severus attacked the strongholds in detail, reducing them by famine, and gradually brought the war to a close.

Over half a million Jews perished during the struggle, and the whole of Judea was a desert in which wolves and hyenas howled through the streets of the desolate cities.  Hadrian established a new city on the site of Jerusalem, which he called AElia Capitolina, and peopled with a colony of foreigners.  An edict was issued prohibiting any Jew from entering the new city on pain of death, and the more effectually to enforce the edict, the image of a swine was placed over the gate leading to Bethlehem.

II.—­Judaism and Christianity

For the fourth time the Jewish people seemed on the brink of extermination.  Nebuchadrezzar, Antiochus, Titus, and Hadrian had successively exerted their utmost power to extinguish their existence as a separate people.  Yet in less than sixty years after the war under Hadrian, before the close of the second century after Christ, the Jews present the extraordinary spectacle of two separate and regularly organised communities—­one under the Patriarch of Tiberias, comprehending all of Israelitish descent who inhabited the Roman Empire; the other under the Prince of the Captivity, to whom all the eastern Jews paid allegiance.  By the mild temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient privileges.  Though still forbidden to enter Jerusalem, they were permitted to acquire the freedom of Rome, to establish many settlements in Italy, and to enjoy municipal honours.

This gentle treatment assuaged the stern temper of the race.  Awakened from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behaviour of peaceable and industrious subjects.  The worship of the synagogue became the great bond of racial union, and through centuries held the scattered nation in the closest uniformity.