Following the defeat of the Zealots at Masada, conditions stabilized in the
Land of Israel. For nearly sixty years, the Romans ruled without armed con-
flict while the Sanhedrin continued to legislate and rule on religious matters.
Small cells of Zealots occasionally caused trouble, but nothing concerted
enough to bother the Romans rulers.
This situation changed during the 130s during the reign of Emperor
Hadrian. A builder like Herod, in 132 Hadrian began a new construction
project in Jerusalem. This raised expectations among Jews in Judea for some
form of divine redemption. After all, 132 was nearly seventy years after the
destruction of the Temple; Jeremiah’s promise of redemption after seventy
years began to resonate. In addition, in 132 the Roman Empire appeared to
be facing serious threats, which appeared to some to be the pre-messianic fall
of the Fourth Empire as prophesied by Daniel. Thus, some Jews believed that
Hadrian might be rebuilding the Temple.
When it became known that, far from rebuilding the Temple, Hadrian was
building a pagan temple in Jerusalem, disillusionment led to another Zealot-
led revolt under the leadership of Simon bar Cosiba, later renamed bar
Kochba by his followers. This revolt lasted three years. When Hadrian sent in
troops from Gaul in 135, the rebels were quickly beaten back to Betar, where
they made a final stand. When bar Kochba was killed (according to Jewish
legend, by a snake and not by a Roman), the revolt collapsed.
Sensing perhaps that Vespasian had been too lenient after defeating the
Jews in 70, Hadrian undertook a series of harsh measures against the Jews of
Judea. He razed Judea to the ground and salted the earth. He outlawed the
practice of Judaism and the teaching of the Torah; when ten leading Jewish
scholars defied this decree, they were arrested, tortured, and executed.
Hadrian also banned Jews from Jerusalem, except on the ninth of Av, when
they were allowed to lament the destruction of the Temple. He renamed
Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and renamed Judea Palestina.
The impact of the defeat of the revolt and the ensuing decrees was far-
reaching. Defeat brought an end to the Zealots and their tradition of armed
revolt; accommodating foreign rule rather than revolting against it would be
the predominant political tactic for Jews for more than 1,700 years. The
promise of divine redemption was deferred from the immediate or near future
to the end of time. The destruction of Judea would lead the Sanhedrin to
move from Judea to Galilee.
The Hellenistic diaspora: Alexandria and Rome
The most important Jewish communities in the Roman Empire outside the
Land of Israel, those of Alexandria and Rome, were minimally affected by
events in Judea. Jewish settlement in Alexandria began as early as the third
century C.E. While initially confined to the eastern sector of the city, by the
Roman era Jews resided and had erected synagogues throughout the city, and
The challenge of Hellenism 41