The life and work of St. Paul

THE LAST JOURNEY TO JEBUSALEM. 529
the soldiers with stones, which seem to have been always ready to hand
among this excitable race. Fearing that the Antonia detachment would be
too weak to cope with so savage an onslaught, Cumanus marched his entire
forces ronnd from the Pnetorium. At the clash of their footsteps, and the
gleam of their swords, the wretched unarmed mass of pilgrims was struck
with panic, and made a rush to escape. The gates of the Temple were choked
up, and a multitude, variously stated at ten and at twenty thousand, was
trampled and crushed to death.
This frightful disaster was followed by another tragedy. An imperial
messenger was robbed by bandits at Bethhoron, not far from Jerusalem.
Furious at such an insult, Cumanus made the neighbouring villages re-
sponsible, and in sacking one of them a Roman soldier got hold of a copy of
the Scriptures, and burnt it before the villagers with open blasphemies.
The horror of the insult consisted in the fact that the sacred roll contained
in many places the awful and incommunicable Name. As they had done
when Pilate put up the gilt votive shields in Jerusalem, and when Caligula
had issued the order that his image should be placed in the Temple, the
Jews poured in myriads to Csesarea, and prostrated themselves before the
tribunal of the Procurator. In this instance Cumanus thought it best to
avert dangerous consequences by the cheap sacrifice of a common soldier, and
the Jews were for the time appeased by the execution of the offender.
Then had followed a still more serious outbreak. The Samaritans,
actuated by the old hatred to the Jews, had assassinated some Galilaean
pilgrims to the Passover at En Gannim, the frontier village of Samaria which
had repulsed our Lord. 1 Unable to obtain from Cumanus whom the Sama-
ritans had bribed the punishment of the guilty village, the Jews, secretly
countenanced by the High Priest Ananias, and his son Ananus, flew to arms,
and, under the leadership of the bandit Eleazar, inflicted on the Samaritans a
terrible vengeance. Cumanus, on hearing this, marched against them and
routed them. A renewal of the contest was prevented by the entreaties of
the chief men at Jerusalem, who, aware of the tremendous results at issue,
hurried to the battle-field in sackcloth and ashes. Meanwhile the Prsefect of
Syria, Titus Ummidius Quadratus, appeared on the scene, and, after hearing
both sides, found Cumanus and his tribune Celer guilty of having accepted a
bribe, and sent them to Borne with Ananias and Ananus to be tried by the
Emperor, 1
Jonathan, one of the very able ex-High Priests of the astute
house of Annas, was sent to plead the cause of the Jews. At that time
Agrippina was all-powerful with the Emperor, and the freedman Pallas allpowerful
both with him and with Agrippina, who owed her elevation to his
friendly offices. The supple Agrippa introduced Jonathan to Pallas, and
it seems as if a little compact was struck between them, that Pallas should
l Luke ii. 53 ; Jos. Antt. xx. 6, L
1 The discrepancies in this story as told by Josephus in B. J. ii. 12, 5, and Antt.
TO., 6, 2, are glaring, yet no one doubts either the honesty of Josephus or the general
truth of the story. How scornfully would it have been rejected as A myth or an Invention
if it had occurred in the I Gospels
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