United States or Tokelau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings?
Pupils of the compilers of the Mishnah proceeded to Babylon to spread its influence, and they naturally maintained a correspondence with their chiefs in Palestine. Rab and Samuel in particular, among the Amoraim, were regular letter-writers, and Rabbi Jochanan replied to them. Towards the end of the third century this correspondence between Judea and Babylon became even more active.
But Peter, together with the eleven apostles, stood up and addressed them: "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, understand this and listen to what I say: these men are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only nine in the morning, but this is what was foretold by the prophet Joel: "'In the last days, God declared, 'I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions.
From which fact, the two following inferences may be fairly drawn: first, that if, in the space of thirty-four years from its commencement, the religion had spread throughout Judea, had extended itself to Rome, and there had numbered a great multitude of converts, the original teachers and missionaries of the institution could not have been idle; secondly, that when the Author of the undertaking was put to death as a malefactor for his attempt, the endeavours of his followers to establish his religion in the same country, amongst the same people, and in the same age, could not but be attended with danger.
The old clock ticked away furiously, as if rejoicing that weary days were over for the pet and darling of the house: nothing else broke the silence. Without, the deep night paused, gray, impenetrable. Did it hope that far angel-voices would break its breathless hush, as once on the fields of Judea, to usher in Christmas morn? A hush, in air, and earth, and sky, of waiting hope, of a promised joy.
Pompey, intent on the conquest of Arabia, made no decision; but, having succeeded in his object, assumed a tone of haughtiness irreconcilable with the independence of Judea. Aristobulus, patriotic yet vacillating,—“too high-minded to yield, too weak to resist,”—fled to Jerusalem and prepared for resistance.
"I tell you," resumed Clopin angrily, "that I'm not a Jew, and that I'll have you hung, belly of the synagogue, like that little shopkeeper of Judea, who is by your side, and whom I entertain strong hopes of seeing nailed to a counter one of these days, like the counterfeit coin that he is!"
It was in this godless, yet brilliant, age that Cleopatra appears upon the stage, having been born sixty-nine years before Christ, about a century before the new revolutionary religion was proclaimed in Judea. Her father was a Ptolemy, and she succeeded him on the throne of Egypt when quite young, the last of a famous dynasty that had reigned nearly three hundred years.
The administration of justice in Samaria and Judea was theoretically in the hands of the procurator; practically, however, it was left with the Jewish courts, either the local councils or the great sanhedrin at Jerusalem. This last body consisted of seventy-one "elders."
Meanwhile Arria and Appius, fearing the power of this new king of Judea, and thinking also of the peril of Vergilius, travelled slowly, considering what they should do. Appius feared either to go or to return, but Arria was of better courage. "I must go to him," said she. "You know not this love in me, dear brother. I would give up my life to be with him.
Word Of The Day