Before Jerusalem Fell

228 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
heshould destroy the temple, astructure ofsuch extraordinary work.
For it seemed good to some that a sacred edifice, distinguished above
all human achievements, ought not to be destroyed. . . . But on the
opposite side, others and Titus himself thought that the temple ought
specially to be overthrown in order that the religion of the Jews and
of the Christians might more thoroughly be subverted; for that these
religions, although contrary to each other, had nevertheless proceeded
from the same authors; that the Christians had sprung up from among
the Jews; and that, if the root were extirpated, the offshoot would
speedily perish. 27
Clearly the idea here involved the belief in the dependence of Christianity
upon the Temple.**
The early Christians were earnest in their concern to win Israel,
even attempting to operate within the Temple-synagogue structure
ofJudaism. 29 Nevertheless, there was a gradual cleavage between the
Jew and Christianity that led to a final, irrevocable breach: “And
then the breach was no doubt clinched by political circumstance. In
the disastrous war of A.D. 66-70, the ‘Nazarenes’ (a term by then
applied to the Jewish Christians) refused to participate in the Jewish
resistance movement, the Zealot insurrection. . . . [T] he crisis of
A.D. 66 decisively separated Jew from Christian.”3°
27. Sacred History 2:30.
28. This passage in Severus’s writing is often doubted as to its historicity, largely on
the basis of Josephus’s contrary asseveration (Wars 6:4:3-7). Yet there is ample reason
to believe that Severus had access to some document (possibly the lost portion of
Tacitus’s Hi.rtones, or the De ludati by Antonius Julianus) that compelled him to accept
the authenticity of the account over against Josephus, despite the extreme popularity of
Josephus’s writings among Christians. See the insightful defense given in Brandon, The
Fall ofJeruralem, p. 120, and E. Mary Smallwood, Tb Jews Under Roman Rule. Studies in
Judaism in Late Antiquity 20 (Leiden: E, J. Brill, 1976) p. 324fI
The matter is debated in the following P. de Labriolle, History and Literature of
Christtanip (London, 1924), p. 382. St. John Thackeray, Josephus: the Man and the
Hzdorian (New York, 1929), p. 37. H. Milman, Hr.rtoiy of the Jiws (London, 1909), vol.
2, p. 90. W, D. Morrison, The Jews Under Roman Rule (London, 1890), p. 176. T,
Mommsen, T/w Provinces of the Roman Empire (London, 1886), vol. 2, p. 217. A. Momigliano,
Cambridge Ancient History, vol 10: T?u Augu.rtan Em/nre, 44 B. C.– A.D 70 (New York:
Macmillan, 1930), p. 862. B. H. Streeter, Cambrrdge Ancient Htstory, vol. 11: The Imperial
Peme, A.D. 70 – 192 (London: Cambridge, 1936), pp. 254ff.. R. Eider, The Messmh Jesus
arzdJohn the Ba,bti.rt, trans. A. H. Drappe (London, 1931 ), pp. 552ff.
29. M. Goguel, T& Birth of Chrirtzani~, trans. H. C. Snape (London: George Allen,
1953), pp. 510-530, even deemed the ration d’dre of Acts as seeking to secure a re/i#”o licita
status for Christianity as the true Israel.
30. Moule, Birth ~New Tatament, 3rd cd., p. 59.