Sketches from Church History | Titus Vespasian and the Fall of Jerusalem

Good morning good to see you all nice to have you here on this lovely morning this is i'm going to not put the code this is casual sunday school class attire and then this is real church business attire you are receiving i'm not big on on notes sorry or on handouts i have no fancy presentation so you get just one boring Sheet of paper here at the beginning just to give you a an indication of where we're heading with this class and know that you're welcome to hopefully you can be here for most of it

but i know everyone travels and has other things and may come in and out or you may go to this one week and say man derek in the parenting class sounds good which is which is fine but we're glad to do this i've wanted to do this for A long time i usually teach the new members class and i love doing that and tom grossman is doing that this semester and actually this is the the biggest new members class we've ever had so i should have stepped aside from it long time ago we have i

think berries had 135 people signed up for the new members class so that is wonderful I wanted to do something in church history i teach systematic theology one morning a week at the seminary which i also love but my degree is actually in history and i love to study history and to be able to teach history and thank you all for being here my goal and this is a an ambitious audacious goal a multi-year goal so if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen but my plan at Least is to try to teach church history each

fall for these 10 or 12 or however many weeks and to do it over the course of four years and make it through 2000 years of church history so you can see that this class is meant to go until 451 which is the council of calcidon just moving it away this is brand new and then Lord willing next fall will kind of go up until the reformation and then so on for four times that's that's the goal to make it through and then if it seems good we can just start and do it again alberto

wave and say hello alberto oh we got lots of uh different people back there sorry this alberto pereirs is going to be helping with the class you've seen alberto before a pastoral intern here he also is my teaching Assistant at rts and does a fabulous job so if you have any questions of course you can ask me or you can ask alberto as you see on the schedule he's going to be a t i gave him just the you know easy week to teach on augustine nobody too important in the class and he may help

out here or there with a couple of others just to look at this schedule for a moment you'll see 13 but we only have 10 weeks i originally Planned this this summer when i thought maybe there would be 13 weeks and then it got to 12 and then really excited to have eric do what he did for the last two weeks so now it's down to ten so you see uh alas justin martyr tertullian the cappadocian fathers they got the ax but we may try to sprinkle a little nugget from them in here or there

or you just have to wait till the next time around to figure out what they're about Let me start with a word of prayer father in heaven thank you for these brothers and sisters for their interest in the church and in its history and pray that you would help us as we learn together over these weeks in jesus name amen let me put before you a bold statement but i think it can be justified and that is that every Christian must be a historian of course by that i don't mean that every christian must be

a voracious reader though i'm sure we have some of those in this room let alone do i think that every christian has to be an expert in in the academic discipline of history but i do think that every christian insofar as they have opportunity to learn to to read Ought to be a student of history think about it for starters our salvation took place in history the gospel is historical fact plus theological interpretation every sunday especially at a church like this our worship services are steeped in history We read from an ancient book we sing

old songs we recite creeds and confessions that have come from centuries ago we repeat rituals baptism and lord's supper that were initiated over two millennia ago most importantly we find our salvation in historical facts we sing and we celebrate the fact of israel's redemption from egypt we remember Israel's return from exile in babylon and most critically we celebrate the fact of jesus birth life death resurrection and ascension all of that means that our faith stands or falls based on history within the bible itself god is often calling his people to remember Their past here's a

few verses exodus 13 3 moses said to the people remember this day in which you came out from egypt out of the house of slavery for by strength of hand the lord brought you out from this place he's calling them to remember something deuteronomy 7 17-18 if you say in your heart these nations are greater than i how can i dispossess them You shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the lord your god did to pharaoh and to all egypt over and over god is saying you need to know something and

remember something about your past history is on the one hand supposed to be a source of encouragement hebrews 13 7 remember your leaders who spoke to you The word of god consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith so that's history as encouragement remember those who went before imitate them learn from them and history is supposed to be a source of warning positive lessons negative lessons deuteronomy 24 9 remember what the lord your god did to miriam on the way as you Came out of egypt first corinthians 10 6 now these

things took place as an example for us that we might not desire evil as they did think about hebrews chapter 11 the hall of fame faith chapter what do we have there but a record of many men and women who are commended because of their part in history we will go astray if we don't remember The right things psalm 106 our fathers when they were in egypt did not consider your wondrous works they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love but rebelled by the sea at the red sea you hear there they forgot

something they did not remember the deeds of the lord or this passage from numbers 11 now the rabble that was among them had a Strong craving and the people of israel also wept again and said oh that we had meat we remember the fish we ate in egypt that cost nothing the cucumbers the melons the leeks the onions and the garlic they sinned instead of remembering god's steadfast love they remembered vegetables of course they rebelled against the lord i did not remember the right thing this is a class then On church history there's a lot

of different ways to approach history one is an academic approach either in the classroom or written down and you engage with lots of scholarly debates and try to understand the history of the interpretation of history and it's really a conversation with other people and what they have thought about history and there's value in that That's not what this class is going to be there's also an approach to history that's history for everyone by that i mean history for christians non-christians just trying to give the facts you're not trying to be sympathetic to one side or

another just trying to present things and while i hope that this class will present facts and present them faithfully i don't want to just have a class that says Here's the facts so this is a course on not a course but a class on church history for people in the church all three approaches have their place but what i mean is that church history is fundamentally thinking about jesus promise that he will build the church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it psalm 78 some of you may know that psalm Is one

of the longest psalms and it's all about one generation recounting the wonderful deeds of the lord to the next recounting here's where we messed up here's where we succeeded and above all here's what god did for us you can think of the story of the church over 2000 years sort of like that parable that jesus tells of the seed growing in mark chapter four you remember says the farmer scatters the Seed and then he sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows he knows not how and that's often the case you

look back and you say lord it's amazing what you've done with people like us through us often despite us and like that parable jesus told that the farmer went up and went down and then he woke up and he said i don't even know how This worked but the word did the work the seed took root jesus promised to build his church like the other parable jesus tells in that passage about the mustard seed the church has often looked small and insignificant and we'll see here today in just a moment it started out so small

and insignificant and yet it has grown and has flourished with many ups and downs and setbacks and successes to be truly a global Movement a global institution there are two dangers we might say when we talk about our history as christians one is to do hagiography maybe you've heard of that phrase before hagios is the word for saints so hagiography is to do nothing but present the past As the saints of the heroes almost superheroes of the past i was reading a book recently about a 20th century evangelical leader and it was very interesting but

it was hagiography i mean everything was you know when he met his wife it said and his eye alighted upon the fairest maiden that he had ever seen i mean like this was 1940s or something what are you talking about it was all hagiography it talked about When he was a in a college student and he was a lifeguard and it said for three summers at the boy scout camp nary a soul was lost under his watchful care okay he was a lifeguard no one died good so there's there's a way to tell our history

that's not really accurate and it's not the way the bible tells its own history you know that the bible is very honest about abraham's sins and isaac and jacob and david and all everybody except for one person pretty much Sinner so we don't want to do hagiography and just present the best people and all they did was get everything right isn't that wonderful that's not accurate to them and it really doesn't help us because we're all saints and sinners but the other danger which is more common today if that's hagiography i call the other danger

hamartiography the the greek word hamartias is the word For sin and so instead of presenting people in the past as nothing but saints now there is a danger you present people in the past as nothing but sinners so instead of warts and all it's only warts you only get to see them and so history is just an exercise in deconstructing people and showing how really sinister and how really bad they are and that's not a faithful way remember this passage i just read from Hebrews remember your leaders and imitate their way of life think of

those commended in hebrews 11 abel enoch noah abraham sarah isaac jacob joseph moses rahab gideon barack sampson jeff the david sam samuel others are alluded to joshua daniel the shunamite woman most of the people in that list sinned rather spectacularly profound flaws and yet the bible didn't cancel them In fact the bible even said yep we know about their mistakes but they're also to be commended for their faith i take that to be an example for us hebrews 12 says we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses so this these weeks together are to

introduce you to some of those cloud of witnesses we're going to get to this first lesson here in just a moment but just one more piece of introduction There's so i read a lot of church history some of you have taken classes maybe you've even taught some yourself or if you've looked at things or a lot of church history books that i read are basically chronological encyclopedias and that's fine and they do a nice job but 2 000 years of history is impossible to really cover and so most books or most classes that I've listened

to or seen end up being something whether they have a powerpoint or not something like a presentation okay and click here's the dita here's a date here's what the decay was it's this book from the first century bullet point bullet point clements of alexandria here's where he lived here well you get introduced to lots of people and there's maps and there's artifacts And documents and people and so you get a lot of information that maybe helps you to sort of piece things but you don't really get the story so what i want to do is

to focus as much as possible on the stories of the past now the weakness of this approach as you can see sketches from church history each week i'm focusing on a person or Sometimes a couple of people and then how the story of their life helps us understand something about the time in which they live the danger with this approach is we're leaving lots of things out lots of people well why don't you talk about so-and-so yes we're leaving lots of things out but i hope that you'll actually get something of the story and so

i don't want this so much sometimes you can do church history And it's really it's really a class on historical theology here's this doctrine this doctrine and this doctrine or it's simply a class on this book or i i want to introduce you to the people and i do think that we need heroes now actually the first person we're looking at today wasn't even a christian so i'm not commending to you as one of your heroes but by and large i'm going to Lean into people that i think teach us something and we have something

to learn from them so first titus vespasian you woke up this morning and you thought honey i'd like to learn something about titus vespasian well you have come to the right place let me introduce him this way if i were You know attuned to how to use i'm just gen x and i still don't use computers for my for my class i really don't have an excuse if i did i would show you a picture of perhaps the most famous arch anywhere in the world you didn't know an arch could be famous and it's not

the golden arches It's the arch of titus 50 feet high 44 feet wide 15 feet deep and still there today it stands at the southeastern end of the forum which is the plaza at the center of the ancient city of rome the arch was constructed in a.d anna domini year of our lord a.d 81 by the emperor domitian to commemorate the Death of his older brother titus the arch of titus with its very large boxy rectangular design arch passageway through the middle has been the model for many famous arches all around the world the soldiers

and sailors arch in brooklyn the national memorial arch in valley forge the india gate in new delhi and most Known the arc de triomphe in paris so some of you picture that or if you watch the end of the tour de france each year and you see them going around you've seen the arc de triomphe that's modeled on this arch of titus the details inside the arch depict titus in glorified form there's inner panels and relief work there and they show him crowned with a laurel wreath And he's deified as a god and he's surrounded

by imperial servants and angels and there's a four-horse chariot that's leading him into the afterlife and this is the original description the synod and the roman people dedicate this to the deified titus vespasian augustus son of the deified vespasian most famously however or infamously you've probably without even realizing it may have seen this depiction before on the one of the inner panels There's this stonework this relief that shows an army with the spoils of war from the temple in jerusalem and you can see clearly that titus is victorious army they're carrying golden trumpets that would

have been in the temple they're carrying the fire pans that would have been from the altar they're carrying the table that held the showbread and most prominently you can see They're holding this seven branched lamp stand the menorah which is one of the reasons that the menorah became and still is such a symbol of judaism and symbol for the jews because they're depicted clearly on the shoulder of two of these soldiers leaving jerusalem with the spoils of war titus and his army have laid waste to jerusalem and to the temple and they're leaving with the

Spoils who was this man titus he was born in rome on december 30 a.d 39 during the reign of caligula he was not born into great wealth as many of the emperors were the city arrived in the world in a small dark room in an ordinary house but claudius became emperor in 41 and titus his father vespasian fought with Claudius in the invasion of britain titus was then granted the rare privilege of an imperial education so he was born into what we might say sort of middle class but his father had served alongside claudius and

then titus has given this great privilege once out of school he served in germany and in britain as a military tribune he married the daughter of a former commander of The praetorian guard and after she died he married into a more distinguished family but that was short-lived also he divorced his wife in 65 he never remarried though as we'll see he had a very famous lover along the way so up to this point titus had led a privileged life he's the son of this great man vespasian but it would have been a rather unremarkable life

but that changed with the outbreak of the jewish War 66 273 a.d it's a series of conflicts but it's called the jewish war he was appointed a commander of the 15th legion and served with great success under his father his father we're talking about titus vespasian so named because of his father vespasian He becomes the emperor in ad 69 and then titus takes the title of caesar and he takes over the command of the conflict in judea so up for these first few years vespasian is prosecuting this jewish war in judea and then vespasian becomes

the emperor and so titus is it charged with the jewish conflict He returns eventually to rome in 71 a.d he's been victorious in battle but he will soon become unpopular as the heir apparent to the emperor's throne why was titus initially unpopular a couple of things he was appointed to be commander of the praetorian guard if you remember anything from western civilization class remember the praetorian guard sort of picture like the you know from star wars the guys with The red helmets and the big red well that's and they had to protect the emperor so

that's modeled after the praetorian guard i don't think they actually looked quite so cool but these were the people the secret service for the emperor and it was unusual that you would appoint your son to this task because it was a pretty dirty grubby task and titus did it very well he forged letters to Throw his enemies under the bus he removed political opponents he ginned up convictions so he was well reputed just think of sort of a a mafia kind of hit man who's doing the dirty work for his father he was also despised

as a libertine he had a reputation for partying late into the night with eunuchs these were court officials who had been castrated and with catamites catamites as the Term for boys that would be kept for homosexual relationships with men even then most of the roman populists thought that this was debauched behavior worse however in the eyes of the average roman titus was in love with a woman named bernice or berenice she was a jewish queen you may remember that she makes an Appearance in the bible she's the daughter of herod agrippa and paul comes before

agrippa and bernice in acts 25. well during the time when titus is here with fighting the jewish war he becomes lovers with bernice the daughter of great king herod agrippa and for a time she even went to rome but it was you know the people could almost tolerate his debauchery but they refused to tolerate that he had a jewish lover From some far-flung eastern province and the spacey and his father ordered her to be sent back to judea you just you can't do it titus eventually becomes emperor on june 24 79 so his dad reigned

for 10 years then he becomes emperor in 79 and most romans thought they were in store for another nero come back to nero in a little bit another nero selfish cruel tyrant Utterly depraved but in his short reign titus will be the emperor from 79 to 81. he reigned for two years and two months and most historians say he was actually one of the best emperors surprisingly he stopped the partying He banished the informers he became a man of clemency and generosity mount vesuvius you've maybe heard of that and the destruction of pompeii that took

place during his reign in 79 destroyed the towns of pompeii and herculaneum and titus went like a good politician and he visited the people and he showed that he was there on the ground and he cared for the people and he opened the Royal imperial treasury that he might provide for the rebuilding so he ingratiated himself to the people a fire went through rome and he showed the same sort of generosity to rebuild rome he was frugal and effective with the finances he surrounded himself with wise counselors he approved popular legislative matters he continued his

father's policy by establishing more roads and forts especially in the east he encouraged Some manner of free speech he flogged in formers whose sort of communist style informants to rat on their fellow neighbors he said that's not the way we want to live and he famously completed the flavian amphitheater which you know as the coliseum i've not been to rome how many of you have been to rome and walked by a lot of you've seen the coliseum does It still look big so this was started by his father vespasian the flavian dynasty is vespasian titus

and domitian those three emperors were the flavian emperors and so it's called the flavian amphitheater and it was finally opened started with vespasian finally opened with titus to great fanfare they hosted games and shows and theater to great acclaim Titus died suddenly of a fever in the summer of 81 he was only 42 years old which these people dying in their 40s just keeps getting more and more discouraging now many historians think if he had lived longer he would have maybe the mask would have fallen and you would have he would have ended up being

a bad emperor but at least for two years and two months whether he was a changed man or He just knew how to fake it to make it for two years and two months he was really quite an enlightened emperor upon his death these were his final enigmatic words and they have puzzled historians ever since his final words on his deathbed i have made but one mistake what was it interestingly his father vespasian also Had famous mysterious last words most people think vespasian said this tongue-in-cheek sort of sarcastically pointing fun at the the roman religion

his last words i think that i'm becoming a god and they think that he didn't really mean it but that's what everyone was going to think as he died he became a god what did titus mean i have made but one mistake There's lots of theories did he regret sleeping with his brother's wife that was a rumor did he regret not killing his brother domitian because titus died of a fever and there were rumors that his brother may have had a hand in his illness or most enticing is it possible he regretted something of the

cruel Devastation that he wreaked upon jerusalem and judea which we'll talk about in just a moment we don't know but what we do know is of all the things that marked the life of titus you talk about pompeii and the amphitheater of all the things that mark out the life of titus the one picture that stands out most is that Relief in the arch of titus with his men carrying out the spoils of war from the destruction of jerusalem vespasian titus he was succeeded by his brother domitian whose reign was not anything like the relatively

enlightened reign of vespasian and titus domitian was a bad emperor in fact if we assume the later date Of revelation and i'm going to preach and wherever the church is in a little bit from revelation revelation if we take a late date around 90 a.d as the last book written is during the reign of domitian who was a bad emperor who was persecuting christians and so the backdrop to revelation is a lot of hostility from rome when titus's younger brother domitian comes to the throne he was more like nero he was a tyrant he was

not Popular his enemies conspired against him he was killed in his own palace what more can we say about the jewish war jerusalem had been conquered by the romans way back in 63 bc so before christ so for a hundred years 63 bc jewish war 66 a.d for a hundred years they had been under The thumb of the romans of course you have the time of the gospels in the new testament so you understand that in the background is judea as a imperial province state under the rule of the romans they were ruled by governors

or sometimes called procurators from rome or sometimes they would appoint a local King it gets confusing because you have someone like pontius pilate who was a governor or a procurator over that region but then you also have herod who is called the king now he was really a vassal king he was a king underneath rome rome was happy to give them their jewish king and as long as the jewish king did ultimately the bidding of the romans that's fine give to the jews a king of their own The romans were generally fairly tolerant if you

kept to your own business of course they did insist on not being a rabble-rouser and they liked it if you would worship the emperors you can worship whoever you want just pay the emperor his due or before that to cease her but understandably the jews did not take well to the roman rule you've uh i'm not saying you should go See this movie because i think it has bad parts i've never seen the movie i've just seen that clip from monty python where all the insurrectionists are there and they're the they're plotting the overthrow of

the romans and they say what have the romans ever done for us have you seen this clip before the romans haven't done anything for us they say well the roads well of course the roads they've done the roads but what else Have they done the aqueducts well yes obviously the aqueducts sanitation and they get their hands keep going these are supposed to be the rebels who are going to overthrow the romans and by the time it's done well other than the aqueducts the sanitation the parks romana the roads what have they done for us nothing

so the romans were hated but They don't these are not nazis these are imperial romans who have a far-flung empire as far up to hadrian's wall in britain all the way around to the middle east north africa up around the central european region as we would know it And they were fairly tolerant if you kept to your own business but of course the jews did not take well within memory of the jews was their own rule their own authority their own kings let alone the stories that they knew from the past of the great heights

of their power under david and solomon and that god had promised them all of these covenant promises So they were never happy to be under the romans rule by the 60s a.d these rebellions had become bigger and better more successful and the jews were able to secure various roman garrisons roman forts roman military outposts one at jericho in the jordan valley another one at masada on the dead sea they even the jews even began to mint Their own coins they said things like liberation of zion they had inscription like israel's shekel year one holy jerusalem

they were marking out their rebellion against rome and as they saw it they had won their independence they had their own coins this was year one of new life in israel there were divisions always Among the jews however they were uniform if you were to take a poll do you like the romans yes or no overwhelmingly no but if the follow-up question is well what should we do about the romans and as so often happens in history they're divided between radicals and moderates the moderates who say well let's just Try to make the best of

it or go along to get along or maybe even if we just bend a little bit and do some of the things they want they'll leave us alone they're not so bad and then the radicals the zealots who said any sort of compromise with rome on anything is a sin and the zealots the radicals went out in may 66 there's the governor flores they hate Him the jews in palestine revolt and this marks the beginning of what is called the jewish war to defy rome not only the world's superpower but perhaps in the history of

the world the greatest hyper power that has ever existed to defy rome without a single military advantage was either an act of foolish fanaticism Or heroic bravery or both whichever it was it was from the very beginning absolutely bound to fail at least humanly speaking so this rebellion sets out this little tiny promise the romans got bigger problems but now they rebel in 66 and what happens but the jews seem to be winning nero is still the emperor and he sends One of his best generals this man vespasian he gives him command of three legions

which is about 40 000 men and they advance down the coast of the mediterranean sea in the spring of 67 and they subdue jewish town after jewish town from antioch all the way down to jerusalem and then in 68 a.d nero commits suicide And when nero commits suicide in 68 there is a great rush to see who will be the emperor and in quick succession they go through three other emperors all the while vespasian is waiting in the wings rather smartly he just said i'm not going to rush and get into all of this violent

intrigue and three emperors in quick succession and then finally in 69 vespasian is appointed as the emperor so with Vespasian now as i said earlier tied up in all of the imperial politics and now he's the emperor the quelling of this jewish rebellion falls to his son titus most of what we know about the jewish war comes from two ancient historians the roman historian sutonius and then the jewish historian josephus let me say something about josephus he is an interesting guy because josephus is a jew He was a pharisee he was very learned and like

all jews he was opposed to the romans at least initially but as vespasian moves through galilee josephus hides in a cave with some of the town's people rather than surrender and as would sometimes happen the people would turn on each other or rather than be conquered by the romans they would commit some kind of mass suicide or homicide and they all kill each other except josephus and one other person and So josephus surrenders to the romans and eventually vespasian frees josephus and he says well this guy can be useful a jew he can be an

interpreter for us he can be a mediator for us and josephus goes completely over to the side of the romans i have a big book the the works of josephius and josephus and it is it is this thick and he has hundreds and hundreds of pages on the jewish war now you have to Take it uh with a little grain of salt i mean he was a very fine historian some of his numbers of troops in the millions are likely not reliable but he was right in the middle of the action remember in the ancient

world to be in the middle of the action we tend to think well then you're not going to be objective you can't be a really good historian they thought well what better historian than the person who is actually right in the middle of it Taking sides that person is going to be able to give us the best history so when you read josephus you got to keep two things in mind one he thinks the jews have the the height and the pinnacle of civilizational religion and virtue so he's pro his own people and yet at

the same time he thinks that the romans are basically on the right in that many of the jews had turned against each Other and somewhat brought upon this to themselves so josephus is highly favored by vespasian and then titus in fact titus basically says i don't think anyone else in their record of the jewish war just burn it all nobody should read it except my friend josephus so not surprisingly titus comes through very manly very courageous very benevolent in josephus's telling of the story Titus takes over the command from the roman forces in april 70

after the feast of passover and he lays siege to jerusalem and the jews are there holed up in jerusalem for months siege you have to picture actual siege works so large beams swung on Rudimentary devices trying to break through the multiple layers of walls to come into the city so you just picture something like the battle of helm's deep you got walls okay you don't have orcs and things but it's just this is what ancient warfare was like you have catapults you have ladders you have sieges you have fire how can we Breach the walls

and the jews are holed up inside and the situation josephus tells it in great detail was beyond desperate here's one recounting from josephus all hope of escape and all food supplies were cut off from the jews and famine devoured thousands upon thousands the alleys were choked with bodies the survivors not having enough strength to bury the dead and even falling into graves with them no mourning was heard In jerusalem for famine stifled all emotions and an awful silence shrouded the city it was a horrific ordeal heroically the jews held off the romans for months even

at times the romans would breach a wall and the jews would drive them back it was really amazing that the jews had As much success as they did the siege started in april of 70 by august the roman legions had broken through the city walls and on august 10 they set ablaze the temple itself vespasian he's the emperor at this time he has coins minted to commemorate the triumph and the coins say things like judea capta judea captured or devicta judea Judah conquered it was a great triumph for the romans zealots all throughout the ordeal

refused to compromise during those months april to august the sacrifices ceased the temple is eventually destroyed josephus as he tells the story says titus wanted to spare the temple as a gesture of goodwill and to save it as spoil but another historian sepulches severus No not from harry potter says that titus ordered the destruction of the temple to make an end once for all to both judaism and christianity so it's debated who was more accurate josephus wanting to present titus in the best light since it really wasn't his idea he wanted to spare the temple

this other historian said no it was his intent all along to make a display and an absolute end of these two religions The whole city was in roman hands the jews in palestine fled you may know something of this from history they fled to this fortress masada remember i said it was one of the garrison towns on the dead sea that they had taken over years ago and famously they flee to masada and for three years for three years they are there and it's set on top of this massive hill plateau And it took the

romans that long to build a ramp all the way up to masada that they could finally conquer the jews and when they did when they got there they found that all of the jews had committed suicide rather than be conquered by the romans three years they were there at masada and that marked the end of the jewish war in 73 a.d absolutely cataclysmic No more sanctuary no more priesthood no more sacrifices no more pilgrimages no more holy of holies no more ark no more bread altar judaism without the temple and without jerusalem would become a

different kind of religion centered on the synagogue and ordered according to the laws gathered together in the talmud some of the christians It's reported stayed in jerusalem and they continued there but nothing would be the same and many christians it said were warned in a dream and they fled to the city not that dutch enclave in iowa but the original pella they fled to the city of pella which was a gentile city east of the jordan river you can understand christians fleeing To pella while very few remain and the jews are forced in this horrific

starvation under siege in jerusalem this only further served to separate the two bodies we thought you were jews like us and you left and you fled and you went to pella when we think of the important emperors in the first Decades of the church we usually think about and if it's marked somewhere on a church history timeline you usually think about what emperor you think about nero you know the story of nero perhaps fire broke out in 64 a.d june 18. it's one of my son's birthday maybe i won't tell him that the fire lasted

six days and seven nights rome had 14 sections and 10 of those sections of the city were destroyed And it began to be rumored that nero spent most of the time during the fire on a tower dressed as an actor playing his liar singing songs about the destruction of troy that's where you get the fiddling while rome burned that was the rumor that was circulated that nero was up in a tower as a crazy man playing his liar and singing songs and then the the rumor developed that nero maybe actually Initiated this fire to be

some sort of theatrical inspiration for him to sing his songs and do his thing so nero who was already unliked was now thought to be the culprit for this disastrous fire and as a result nero needs somebody to blame and so who does he blame the christians here's what the roman historian tacitus says And so to get rid of this rumor nero set up as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations who are commonly called christians christus from whom their name is derived was executed at the

hands of the procurator pontius pilot in the reign of tiberius quite apart from what happened That sentence is incredibly important because you have outside of the bible itself one of the earliest references to christ he died pontius pilate the reign of tiberius they're called christians all of the same facts that we have in the gospels are here corroborated by this roman historian tacitus he says that those who confessed to being christians were arrested And tacitus says they were arrested not so much because they were thought to be arsons but quote because of their hatred of

the human race the christians were thought not just to be benighted but they were positively hate-filled why did they think that they were haters of the human race well they didn't even worship the gods you heard me say this before but they were often criticized as being atheists Christians were atheists yeah because you can't see any of their gods you go into their worship they don't have any statues and they do these weird things called love feasts and they call each other brothers and sisters weird and then they're cannibals and they drink the blood of

their crucified god in a ceremony and they are absolutely opposed to all of the things that were so normal in Roman society they had a completely different view of sex in roman society sex was all about class distinctions and if you were a free roman male you could have sex with almost anyone you wanted as long as it wasn't a married roman woman that was adultery but it was thought that a roman man had sexual urges and it Was impossible for him to keep those urges in so if he wanted to have sex with a

boy with a slave with someone other than a roman with a woman who wasn't married all of that was just seen as quite normal the christians have an entirely different view there's a really fascinating book i did a a lecture on it at rts a few years ago but the book is called the Something like the first sexual revolution and it talks about how christianity changed and won out with a completely different sexual ethic in those first centuries in late antiquity they had a very different view the christians were thought for all of these reasons

not just to have a bad religion people can have any religion they want in rome but they were haters of mankind and nero persecuted them But he persecuted them so fiercely it said that he made them objects of amusement he put them to death he dressed them as animals they were torn by wild dogs others were crucified others he set on fire tacitus says to illumine the roman city and he was so fierce against the christians that people began to feel sorry for them and they thought nero was Doing this not out of public good

we could see some punishment just for the public order but this seems to be just out of spite for one man we've heard of nero and most of us would say well that must have been the most important imperial event in the first centuries of the church but actually much more important with far-reaching ramifications is this man Titus because early christians saw the destruction of jerusalem and the temple as the fulfillment of christ's prophecies eusebius for example now this is a few centuries later the early church historian writing around 325 he considered the destruction of

the temple a direct fulfillment of matthew 24 luke 19 luke 21 when jesus on palm sunday enters into the the city environs and then he looks out and it says he weeped over the city and he says if only you would know the things that would give you life but he weeps over them because he knows destruction is coming the early christians at 70 a.d said that's amazing that's exactly what jesus predicted here's what eusebius says these things happened In the second year of vespasian's reign in exact accordance with the prophetic predictions of our lord

and savior jesus christ who by divine power had foreseen them as though already present and wept and mourned over them any who compared our savior's words with the rest of the historian's account he means josephus of the whole war could not fail to be astonished and acknowledged as divine and utterly marvelous the foreknowledge revealed by our savior's Prediction so the christians understood and i think rightly almost all scholars now think that jesus most of what jesus says in those end times discourses are not about well they're certainly not about russia they're not about china they're

most of it is not even about the end of the world some of it but most of it is about what would come within their lifetimes with the fall Of jerusalem in 70 a.d so why do i start this first week not even with a christian but with a pagan roman emperor because to understand what christianity would become is impossible without understanding what happened in 70 a.d the jewish war meant a decisive break between judaism and christianity And when they fled to pella the pious jews viewed them as traitors and it also meant that christians

would no longer be tied to a holy space or a holy place the church would now be on its own not as a sect of judaism and it would largely become a gentile religion of course we should look back with with pity and compassion and see the destruction of jerusalem and the Suffering there is sad and tragic and as christians and maybe you even have a few jew jewish christians in our congregation but as christians we feel a sympathy toward the jews and and rightly so certainly the christians would have been saddened and considered it

a great tragedy and yet in looking back we can see how god has his ways of forcing the church out You may know that in china during the cultural revolution under mao christians were forced underground they had had some relative freedom and then they're forced underground they're diffused they're scattered throughout china one of the great unintentional missionary sending forces in history was mao and that's why one of the reasons why the church in china is by many measures More than a hundred million people strong because they all had to scatter and they all had to

flee god has a way of spreading his people out acts 11. now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over stephen traveled as far as phoenicia and cyprus and antioch spreading the word initially to no one except the jews titus if he believed that he was wiping Out the jewish religion and christianity could not have been more mistaken though we can understand why he thought so in the mind of the romans they didn't think so judaism christianity they just thought judaism has all of these sects there's always people who who rise up

and follow me there's always supposed messiahs this Was just in there my another one of these supposed messiahs that comes from these people the jews who are always not quite wanting to be good roman citizens they were just another jewish appendage you can understand why christianity had been jewish christianity think about the new testament almost all of the main problems in the new testament in the churches That paul would write to are jewish problems what do we do with the holy days what about food laws what's the place of the law how do we mediate

between jew and gentile what about the promises to israel have they failed and most importantly what do we understand about this messiah that we think is jesus what sort of messiah those are all jewish questions the evangelistic strategy you know from the book of acts was always to the jew First then to the greek so first go to the jewish synagogue and try to have a hearing among the jews and you also know in acts often the fiercest persecution came to paul into the church from other jews who was stoning stephen other jews what was

paul doing persecuting the church he was a jew the romans had bigger issues to deal with they they just didn't want rabble rousers they just wanted Somewhat compliant roman citizens figure out your own religion it was often other jews who persecuted the jewish christians so this date of 70 a.d marked the end in some ways of the apostolic age it wasn't that all of the apostles were dead but it marked the end of something and it was also the beginning of something The pax romana the peace of rome is this period from caesar augustus bc

27 into the first century and beyond the pax romana that provided basic political social stability there were roads there was relative peace you know the romans were always conquering these barbarian hordes further up North but there was freedom to travel and commerce and ideas and so many historians and christians at the time understood that in the fullness of time god chose to send his son at that moment in history where things were in place where this new messiah this message of good news could travel more quickly and more easily because of this general Pax romana

that existed the destruction of the temple in 70 a.d under titus vespasian was the first great turning point in the history of the church here's what we'll say as we close this is from the historian mark noll in his book he says the blows that vespasian titus hadrian and other roman generals reigned upon jerusalem did not destroy the christian church Rather they liberated the church for its destiny as a universal religion offered to the whole world yet from the perspective of the very earliest christians roman decimation of jerusalem probably seemed like an unspeakable tragedy that's

right what undoubtedly seemed like the end of the world as they knew it for These jewish christians became in god's plan and his providence the means of pushing the church out they'd already brought the gospel to the gentiles they already knew that it was a gospel for everyone but now they would have to be on their own and now they would have to be something different and no longer would they be tempted in the same way to just huddle up in jerusalem and think that We're just here for this enclave of people but christianity from

70 a.d onward would begin to embrace its identity and its god-given destiny as not just a faith for a sect of a particular people but a universal faith for everyone who can hear and believe isaiah 49 and now the lord says he who formed from the womb to be his servant to bring back Jacob to him for i am honored in the eyes of the lord and my god has become my strength he says it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of jacob and to bring

back the preserves of israel i will make you a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth about three minutes any questions clarifications Something you want us to know about titus yes yeah yes yeah the last three that's right so the jewish war 66-73 it's a series of skirmishes and conflicts and pushes and pulls so it's uh a jewish war in that the jewish rebellion is not finally quelled until 73. so 70 the temple jerusalem destroyed and then for Three years they they retreat to this mountain fortress in

masada so for three years they're under siege in masada and they're hiding out there and the romans have to build up ramps again google masada you'll get a nice article about it online and you'll see the picture of it and you can see they had to build these earthenworks ramp up to the top and that took three years as they are hiding out there in masada until finally they come they've committed suicide and That's 73 so that marks the end of the jewish war and it's called the jewish war mainly because that's what josephus calls

it in his whole big book called the jewish war yeah so why did the jews never rebuild the temple they they wanted to so the temple had been destroyed this was the second temple and the the wailing western wall is the one part that still remains which is why People go there and jews say their prayers there on that part in the ancient city they never had control or resources to rebuild again and jerusalem it would take another few centuries before christians would think about jerusalem as one of their holy cities which is of Course

why in the middle ages you have the crusades and so today jews muslims and christians would think of jerusalem as a place a holy place but for the for the rest of history i mean they until israel had a country again in you know after world war ii it didn't have access to it and even now don't have the uh You know it became a very different religion and so by the time you have centuries and centuries laters it's something very different last question yeah or two more i didn't encounter that in reading several things

this week so it could be that i missed it but i did not i've not heard that or encountered that was these it was roman legions last question yeah These are recorded right i don't know how you'll get them but they are the audio is recorded all right thank you all see you in just a little bit over yonder you