Приложения дополнительных замечаний по отдельным вопросам из Библейской истории Нового Завета

I. Civil history of the Jews from the Nativity of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem For a clearer understanding of the course of New Testament history, some familiarity with the civil history of the Jews at this time is necessary. After the death of Herod the Great, which took place shortly after the Nativity of Christ, the kingdom of Judea was divided between his three sons - Archelaus, Herod Antipas and Philip. The first went to Judea, which, together with Idumea and Samaria, made up half of the entire kingdom of Herod the Great and brought 600 talents of income. He was given the title of “ethnarch” with a promise to later give him the title of king if he turned out to be worthy of it. Herod Antipas was given the government of Galilee and Perea with the title of “tetrarch” or tetrarch, that is, the head of the fourth part of his father’s former possessions. These areas brought him 200 talents of income. Philip became tetrarch of the Avranite and Trachonite regions, which lay in the northern part of the country on the eastern side of the Jordan. During the reign of these sons of Herod the Great, the earthly life of the Savior, and partly of His apostles, passed. Archelaus, the son of one of the ten wives of Herod the Great, was born in 21 BC and was educated in Rome, where he absorbed into his naturally evil soul all the worst that could be learned in the capital of the world of that time. He was an arrogant, despotic, unjust and dissolute man, as he declared himself to be immediately after ascending the throne. His short ten-year reign was marked by all kinds of oppression, injustice and the most shameless debauchery. Like his father (who probably loved him more than all other sons because of his affinity with himself in all respects), he entered into unlawful marriages and continually changed high priests, increasingly humiliating the high rank of the high priesthood. When Joseph, having received notification of the death of Herod the Great, wanted to return to Judea, then, as is known, he received a warning from an Angel not to remain in Judea, under the rule of Archelaus, and this warning was quite an echo of the general popular distrust of the latter. His injustices soon aroused general complaints against him to the Emperor Augustus, who, as a result, deprived him of the throne and sent him into exile in Vienne, in Gaul, and Judea was turned into a Roman province, placed under the control of special Roman dignitaries, the so-called procurators. The procurators, in turn, were subordinate to the imperial rulers (prefects) of Syria. At their disposal was the army stationed in Palestine, they were in charge of the financial affairs of the region entrusted to them, as well as all legal proceedings, excluding those cases, mostly of a religious nature, which were left to the authority of the Sanhedrin. They exclusively had the right to pronounce death sentences, which right was taken away from the Sanhedrin at that time (John 18:31). Their main residence was in Caesarea, but they often visited Jerusalem, especially on major holidays, when the gathering of incoming masses of people required special monitoring of public order in order to prevent popular riots and riots. During their stay in Jerusalem, they usually lived in one of Herod’s palaces, in the so-called Praetoria, where the tribunal of justice was located. We know very little about most procurators. The first of them after the deposition of Archelaus was Coponius, who ruled Palestine under the command of Quirinus, prefect of Syria, the same “Quirinius” under whom the famous census had previously been carried out (Luke 2:2). He immediately showed the Jews the spirit of Roman autocracy and arrogated to himself the right to manage the high priestly vestments used during worship on the great annual holidays. The census sparked a rebellion led by Judas the Gaulonite (Acts 5:37). Under him, Anna was made high priest. Coponius ruled Palestine for four years, and after him were procurators Marcus Ambivius (13–16 AD), Annius Rufus (16–19), Valerius Gratus (19–30) and Pontius Pilate (30–40). The last three were already appointed by Emperor Tiberius, who ascended the throne in 15 A.D. During the administration of these procurators, the high priests changed every now and then, and by the time of Pontius Pilate the famous Joseph Caiaphas was the high priest. The most famous of the procurators was Pontius Pilate. Like all other procurators, he came from a wealthy class of horsemen and probably from the Pontian family, which traced its ancestry to the famous Samnite commander Pontius Telezin. Under him, the entire public ministry of the Savior in Judea took place, and under him He suffered and died, as evidenced by the Roman historian Tacitus, who said that “Christ was put to death during the reign of Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius Pilate.” By nature, he was, as Philo testifies, a stubborn, cruel and unforgiving man. He declared himself by many cruelties and injustices. Under him there were so many explosions of popular discontent. The first reason for the explosion was the order for his Roman soldiers to enter Jerusalem with their pagan banners and images of the emperor; but when this threatened an uprising and bloodshed on the part of the Jews, who saw in this a terrible insult to their “holy city,” Pilate reluctantly canceled his order, harboring terrible hatred for the people he ruled. During popular outbreaks in Jerusalem, he brutally dealt with the culprits, and from Lk. 13:1 we know how he executed several Galileans by mixing their blood with the blood of the victims they had offered. During his time there was still so much confusion and outbursts of discontent that finally attracted the attention of the prefect of Syria, Vitellius, who reported him to Rome and achieved the deprivation of his post (in 40). When Judea (together with Samaria) had already been completely transformed into a Roman province and was governed by Roman procurators, other regions were still under the control of the sons of Herod, namely Herod Antipas and Philip. Herod Antipas ruled Galilee and Perea, and it was under his rule that St. lived. Nazareth family. He reigned from 1 to 43 AD, and is often mentioned in the Gospels under the name simply Herod (tetrarch). He was an outwardly educated man, extremely ambitious, wasteful, and, like all Herods, dissolute. Occupying a very modest position and feeling his complete dependence on the Romans, he groveled before them and, due to his flattering cunning, fully deserved the name “fox” given to him by Christ (Luke 13:32). Like his father, he was passionately devoted to construction and founded a new city on the shores of Lake Galilee, which he named Tiberias in honor of the emperor and became the capital of Galilee. In his private life, he disgraced himself by illegally marrying Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Herod Philip, and when this criminal relationship found a formidable whistleblower in John the Baptist, he, through his weakness, became guilty of the martyrdom of the great prophet, who became a victim of Herodias’s insidious malice. His conscience tormented him terribly for this great crime, and when rumors about the activities of Christ reached him, it even seemed to him that it was John who had risen from the dead and was thirsting for revenge. As a result, he secretly sent agents to Christ in order to find out the essence of the matter and then wanted to see Jesus himself, but he only succeeded in this during the trial of Christ, when Pilate sent the Savior to him as a resident of Galilee and, therefore, subject to his authority. Despite his low character, Herod had quite a few followers who were called “Herodians” (Matthew 22:16; Mark 3:6). Towards the end of his life, Herod waged war with his father-in-law Aretas, an Arabian prince, who wanted to take revenge on his son-in-law for insulting his daughter, rejected by Herod after he entered into an illicit relationship with Herodias. At the same time, he suffered a severe defeat, and the people saw in this a well-deserved punishment for his infidelity to his wife and especially for the murder of John the Baptist. At the libel of Herodias' brother, Agrippa, he was deprived of the throne (in 43) as a traitor to Rome and exiled to Lugdunum, in Gaul, where he ended his life together with Herodias, who accompanied him into exile. The third son of Herod the Great, tetrarch Philip, was in all respects more worthy than his half-brothers Archelaus and Antipas. He peacefully ruled the areas entrusted to him and was engaged in the construction and improvement of his cities. So he expanded and beautified the city of Pania, at the foot of Lebanon, renaming it Caesarea Philippi (to distinguish it from Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast); He elevated the village of Bethsaida, on the northeastern shore of Lake Galilee, to the level of a city, renaming it Bethsaida Juliana, in honor of Julia, daughter of Augustus. He was married to Salome, the daughter of Herodias, the one who achieved the head of John the Baptist with her dancing, but was childless, died (in 38) in Bethsaida Julian and was buried with all honors. Its areas were annexed to the Roman province of Syria. Thus, Palestine, little by little, was absorbed by the Romans. But thanks to one accident, she temporarily regained some independence. At the Roman court, among other Herodian princes, there was the grandson of Herod the Great, Agrippa, the son of the murdered Aristobulus. He managed to especially get along with Caius Caligula, rendered him an important service upon his very accession to the Roman throne, for which he was rewarded by granting him control of the former regions of Philip the tetrarch with the title of king. Using his influence at the Roman court, he then achieved that the regions that were under the control of Herod Antipas, i.e. Galileo and Perea, were given to him; and upon the accession of Emperor Claudius to the throne, both Judea and Samaria were given to him, so that he became king of all Palestine and began to be called Agrippa I. In order to retain this position, he tried in every possible way to curry favor with the strong Pharisaic party; being a pagan at heart, he hypocritically fulfilled all the laws of Moses and, to please the Pharisees, became a persecutor of Christians. It was under him that the ap suffered martyrdom. James (Acts 12:2) and St. Peter was thrown into prison, from which he received a miraculous release. After a short reign, Agrippa I unexpectedly received a blow, being struck by an Angel in the theater in Caesarea, where, following the example of the Roman emperors, he wanted to accept idolization from the people. Like his grandfather, he suffered from a disgusting disease and was eaten by worms before his death (Acts 12:20–23). After his death, all of Palestine again became a Roman province and was governed by procurators. Among them, the most famous are Antony Felix (from 56–64) and Porcius Festus (64–66), those procurators (fourth and fifth in order), before whom the ap. Paul defended himself against the accusations of the Jews (see chapters XL and XLI of the Manual). In 54, the son of Agrippa I, Agrippa II, received control of the small region of Chalkida, in Lebanon. Three years later, he achieved the title of king, as well as the annexation of the former regions of Philip to his possession, and with the accession of Nero to the throne, some parts of Galilee and Perea, including the city of Tiberias. It was this Agrippa II, during his official visit to the procurator Festus, made together with his sister Bernice, who expressed a desire to hear the case of the prisoner Paul, who was given the opportunity to deliver a great sermon on Christianity before a brilliant assembly of the highest representatives of the pagan and Jewish world. Agrippa II was completely devoted to Rome, and when the great uprising of the Jews began, which led to a war of extermination and the destruction of Jerusalem, he sided with the Romans. After the defeat of the Jewish people and their capital, he retired to Rome, where he died in the third year of the reign of Trajan, around 104 A.D. All kinds of abuses of the procurators, who simultaneously ruled the regions of Palestine with Agrippa II that were not within the boundaries of his kingdom, little by little brought the people to violent bitterness and rebellion, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the church in the year 74 (70). II. Year of the Nativity According to generally accepted chronology, the Nativity of Christ took place in 754 from the founding of Rome. But this chronology, which owes its origin to the monk Dionysius the Lesser, who lived in the 6th century AD, has no authority and, according to the study of the latest chronologists, turns out to be incorrect. She puts the birth of Christ four years later than it should. Now it is completely and reliably known that Herod the Great died in 750 from the founding of Rome, and since Christ was born at least several months before his death, then the year of Christmas should be considered the end of 749 or the beginning of 750 from the founding. Rome. Thus, all chronological data given in the previous appendix, in order to bring them into agreement with the scientifically established chronology, must be reduced by four. III. Prefect Quirinius and the census of the Jewish people Quirinius's full name is Publius Sulnidius Quirinus. He was Roman consul in 12 BC and was made prefect of Syria after the deposition of Archelaus in 10 AD. He was entrusted with carrying out a complete census of property in Syria, which he did, extending the census to Judea. But since this census dates back to a later time, to the beginning of the second decade A.D., the question arises of how Ev. Luke says (Luke 2:2) that it was under Quirinius that the census was carried out during which Christ was born in Bethlehem. At this time the prefect of Syria was apparently Sentius Saturninus. In order to resolve this difficulty, many different assumptions have been made, and according to one of them, even the possibility of error on the part of the Ev is allowed. Luke. But this last assumption cannot be accepted, since the entire narrative is Ev. Luke reveals the most accurate and complete acquaintance with all the circumstances of the great event. Therefore, another assumption is more plausible, that Quirinius was twice prefect of Syria, and in the first period of his reign, he, as an experienced ruler in this matter, was entrusted by Augustus with carrying out a nationwide census in Judea, which, as a result, is called by the Ev. Luke "first". Among the most despicable class of people in the eyes of the pious Pharisees, the Gospel narrative often mentions “publicans,” so-called in Greek τελώναɩ. These were the portitores, or lower servants, through whom taxes and duties were collected. The Roman Senate usually farmed out the collection of taxes and duties to special companies of capitalists, who deposited the amount due from one or another province into the state treasury (publicum, from which they themselves called publicani), and then, in their own way, collected it from the population of the province. The tax farmers were naturally people from the richest class, namely the class of horsemen (eguites). In the provinces, for the collection of duties, they had special directors, who had at their disposal numerous minor employees, portitores, publicans, real collectors of taxes and duties. This system obviously gave great scope for all sorts of abuses. Tax-farmers take all measures to collect from one or another province the amount paid to the treasury with a good surplus or interest, as a result of which they in every possible way encouraged their employees, who worked hard to please them, often resorting to excessive and illegal exactions, deception and extortion. From among the Jews themselves, all those predators usually took up this craft, for whose greed and heartlessness nothing was impossible. Since strict Jews and lawyers considered the very payment of taxes and duties to the pagan government illegal, they looked at tax collectors not only as worthless and despicable people, but also as traitors and apostates. They were usually ranked in the same class with sinners (Matt. 9:11; 11:19), harlots (Matt. 21:31–32), and pagans (Matt. 18:17). Eating and drinking with them was considered a shameful thing and completely incompatible with the dignity of any more or less recognized teacher or rabbi. But the Savior, by His example, showed that in the publicans lived the same human soul with a spark of good smoldering in it, and with His Divine word more than once ignited this spark and revived its entire being to a better moral life, as was the case with Matthew and Zacchaeus. V. The Death of Judas the Traitor There were already unclear ideas about the death of Judas in early times, which gave rise to various subsequent legends. It is described in two places, in Matthew 27:5,7 and Acts. 1:18, and these two indications are so different from each other that additional assumptions must be made to agree between them. The meaning of the narrative of the book of Acts seems to indicate that Judas “fell” from some mountain into an abyss, so that from the strong fall “his belly was split open and all his entrails fell out”; nevertheless, the tradition preserved in ancient apocryphal documents and passed into folk tales preferably adhered and adheres to the simplest understanding of the expression of St. Matthew, that the traitor “hanged himself,” that is, hanged himself. This is evidenced by, for example. the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, which details the story of Judas preparing a rope for himself for promotion (see Skvortsova, “The Life of Jesus Christ according to the Gospels and Popular Traditions,” p. 276). Church archeology knows two images that clearly represent this method of suicide of a traitor. One is in the Syriac manuscript of Rabula (see photograph in Smith's Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Archaeology, p. 891) and the other on ivory in the British Museum (photograph of it in Kraus' Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Archaeology, p. 75, vol. II). In both cases, Judas is depicted hanging from a rope tied to the branch of some leafy tree. The imagination of various Christian peoples and, by the way, the Russians also perfectly imagines the death of the traitor. The Russian people, as you know, very categorically define the further detail, namely, that Judas hanged himself on the “bitter aspen”, which from that time on has been trembling in its foliage. Object to this that this detail is completely unfounded, since there are not even aspen trees in Palestine. But we tend to attach much more importance to folk tradition and do not consider it particularly courageous to recognize some factual basis in it. We are prompted to do this by the fact that the very opinion (quite widespread) that there are no aspen trees in Palestine is hardly substantiated. In any case, it is known with certainty that poplars are found in Palestine, and they are mentioned more than once in the Bible, and aspen, as even a non-specialist botanist knows, is only one of the varieties of poplar, the so-called “shaking poplar” or, in its botanical terminology, populous tremula. Finally, in central Palestine, according to very serious researchers, there is not just a poplar, but also that particular variety of it, which, according to the Russian people, served as a means of Judas’ suicide. Thus, the Smith Bible Dictionary directly states: “poplars, especially aspen and silver, are extremely often found in floods” (see Smith, Dictionary, under the word Palestine, Dept. Botany). And this circumstance, in turn, can serve as an important explanation for other details. Aspen branches, as you know, are very weak and break under more or less significant weight; and this is partly assumed by the legend, which explains the reason for the fall of Judas with the twofold assumption that either the rope broke under him, or the very branch of the tree broke. Finally, if we assume that the “cursed aspen” stood precisely on the bank of some mountain “stream” (where it likes to huddle, according to the testimony of Smith’s dictionary cited above), then the fall from a steep slope to the flinty bottom of a stream hollow can serve as a sufficient explanation for the testimony of Acts. 1:18 that Judas “fell down” and from a strong fall his “belly was split open and all his entrails fell out.” This last fact can serve as a sufficient refutation of those rationalist critics who, on the basis of medical evidence, try to refute the authenticity of the story itself, since a simple fall of a corpse from a tree branch to the ground would not entail such terrible consequences for it. VI. New Testament measures of length In New Testament times, the Jews came into use of some measures of length that differed from the Old Testament ones. By the way, the Sabbath way (Acts 1:12), the stage (Luke 24:13; John 6:19; Rev. 21:16) and the race (Matt. 5:41) are mentioned. 1) The Sabbath route meant the distance that could be covered without disturbing the peace legalized on the Sabbath. It was equal, according to the interpretation of the rabbis, to two thousand cubits, i.e. one mile. 2) The stage was equal to 600 Greek or 625 Roman feet, or 125 Roman steps, i.e. approximately 90 fathoms. Eight furlongs made a mile. 3) Field - there is a Roman mile, mille, so named because it was equal to a thousand (mille) steps. When translated into our measures, the field is approximately one and a half miles. In New Testament times, Greek and Roman coins were used almost exclusively in Palestine. The books of the New Testament mention one type of Jewish coin, but five types of Greek coin and four types of Roman coin. The current Jewish coin was a piece of silver, a remnant of the Maccabean coinage. It was equal to a shekel (about 80 kopecks) and was considered a national coin, used preferentially over all others at the church. For these “thirty pieces of silver” Judas betrayed Christ (Matthew 26:15; 27:3–6, 9). At the prices of that time, this was a sufficient amount to buy a small plot of land even in the vicinity of Jerusalem. The Talmud also mentions a special coin called zuz, plural. zuzim, equal to the 6th part of a denarius, i.e. approximately 4–5 kopecks. Greek coins were of five kinds: 1) drachma (Luke 15:8–9), a silver coin equal to the Roman denarius: it was the 6,000th part of an Attic talent, the 100th part of a mina and was divided into 6 ovols. In the age of Pericles, it weighed about 1 spool 5 shares and was equal to 25 kopecks, although after Alexander the Great its value decreased significantly. The drachma, as the main monetary unit, was doubled in price as 2) the didrachm (Matthew 17:24), which coin was equated to a half-shekel, so that instead of the latter it was accepted as payment of the church tax, although it was much higher in value. 3) Four drachmas made up a statir (Matthew 17:27), also called a tetradrachm. It was equivalent to a full holy shekel or piece of silver. On the front side of it was depicted Minerva, and on the back - a night owl, the symbol of this goddess. Such a statir was found by the ap. Peter in the fish he caught and gave it to them to pay the church tax for Jesus Christ and for himself. 4) One hundred drachmas or 25 staters made up a mina, which was thus approximately equal to twenty-five rubles. 5) The highest monetary unit was the talent, gold or silver (Matt. 18:24; 25:15 et seq.; Rev. 16:21). Its weight and value varied greatly in different periods. A gold talent was equal to ten silver talents. The Attic talent was equal to 60 minas or 6,000 drachmas, i.e. approximately 1,500 rubles. The Corinthian talent was equal to 100 minas (2,500 rubles). The latter was more suitable for the value of the actual Jewish (Old Testament) silver talent, which was equal to approximately 2,400 rubles. The Roman coins mentioned in the New Testament were of four types. 1) The denarius, in Latin denarius, was a silver coin, so called because it originally amounted to ten aesir, but later became equal to sixteen. The denarius is often mentioned in the Gospels as apparently the most commonly used coin (Matt. 18:28, 20:2, 9, 10, 13, 22:19; Mark 6:37, 12:15, 14:5; Luke 7:41, 10:35, 20:24; John 6:7, 12:5; Rev. 6:6). In terms of its weight and value, the denarius was equal to the Greek drachma or 1/4 shekel; but during the earthly life of the Savior it had significantly less value, and was equal to approximately 20 kopecks. On the front side it depicted the reigning emperor (Matthew 22:19–21). The denarius was the daily pay of the Roman soldier, just as the drachma was the daily pay of the Athenian soldiers. He also made up the workers' usual daily wages (Matthew 20:2 et seq.). The denarius was equal to the poll tax, which the Jews were obliged to pay to the Romans (Matthew 22:19). 2) The denarii were divided into ten, and then into sixteen assarii, or abbreviated ases (Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6). It was a copper coin equal to approximately two kopecks. 3) The fourth part of the assarium was the codrant, in Latin guadrans (Matthew 5:26; Mark 12:42), and it was equal to 1/2 kopeck, i.e. money. On the obverse of both of these coins the emperor was depicted, and on the reverse there was the skeleton of a ship with inscriptions. 4) Half of the codrant was a minute (minutum) or mite (Luke 12:59; 21:2; Mark 12:42), the smallest copper coin, equal to half a ruble. Two such coins were put into the treasury of the church by a poor widow who had received special praise from Christ. VII. Chronology of the most important events of New Testament history Putting the Nativity of Christ in 750 from the founding of Rome, i.e. four years earlier than the accepted era, we can compile the following table of the most important events of New Testament history: Most of these dates are speculative and are given here only to visually demonstrate the general course of history in the 1st century of the Christian era. You might be interested in: