The Bar Kochba Revolt 132-135 CE

Sources for Tisha B’Av 5769

Torah-source references to Bar Kochba

"

#$

Coins of the Bar Kochba Revolt

!
!
!

!
!

!
 The Bar Kochba Revolt 132-135 CE
Sources for Tisha B’Av 5769

Historical sources

1 Cassius Dio, Roman History Chapter 69: 12-15

12 At Jerusalem he founded a city in place of the one which had been razed to the ground, naming it Aelia Capitolina, and on the site
of the temple of the god he raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war of no slight importance nor of brief duration, for the
Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites planted there. So long, indeed, as
Hadrian was close by in Egypt and again in Syria, they remained quiet, save in so far as they purposely made of poor quality such
weapons as they were called upon to furnish, in order that the Romans might reject them and they themselves might thus have the use
of them; but when he went farther away, they openly revolted. To be sure, they did not dare try conclusions with the Romans in the
open field, but they occupied the advantageous positions in the country and strengthened them with mines and walls, in order that they
might have places of refuge whenever they should be hard pressed, and might meet together unobserved underground; and they
pierced these subterranean passages from above at intervals to let in air and light.

13 At first the Romans took no account of them. Soon, however, all Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were
showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly
by overt acts; many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say,
was being stirred up over the matter. Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus,
who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews. Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the
open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his
soldiers and his under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with
comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them in fact survived.

14 Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five
hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine,
disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had
forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and
collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore
Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, "If you and our children are in
health, it is well; I and the legions are in health."

15 This, then, was the end of the war with the Jews. A second war was begun by the Alani (they are Massagetae) at the instigation of
Pharasmanes. It caused dire injury to the Albanian territory and Media, and then involved Armenia and Cappadocia; after which, as the
Alani were not only persuaded by gifts from Vologaesus but also stood in dread of Flavius Arrianus, the governor of Cappadocia, it
came to a stop.

2 Heinrich Graetz, Popular History of the Jews, vol. II, pp. 317-321

Jerusalem played no part in this war. The site of the city was undoubtedly in Judaean hands; for, even if the rebuilding of the city had
already begun, it was not as yet fortified, and the Romans would hardly have selected such a weak position for their headquarters or
for their camp. The Judaeans, again, occupied as they were with the pursuit of the war, had little time to think of the reconstruction of
the holy city.

In spite of their long accumulated hatred of the Romans, the Judaean warriors, possibly out of regard for their heathen fellow-
revolutionists, did not retaliate with cruelty upon the enemy who fell into their hands. Against the Judaean-Christians who lived in
Judaea, however, Bar Cocheba proceeded with hostility since they were regarded as apostates and especially as informers and spies.
The hatred against the Judaean-Christians was enhanced when they refused to participate in the national war, and remained only
indifferent spectators of this fearful drama….

The war under Bar Cocheba raged for nearly two years (132-134)… The details of this memorable revolutionary war have not been
preserved. The heroic deeds of Bar Cocheba found no chronicler. Even the Roman account of this war, written by the Roman orator
Antonius Julianus, has become a prey of the ages. But the few facts that are known testify to the heroic valor of the Judaeans and to
their death-defying enthusiasm for the cause of the nation. The fifty strongholds which still remained in Judean hands was Bethar,not
far from the Mediterranean coast, south of Caesarea. Bar Cocheba with the flower of his army retreated thither after his defeats; all the
fugitives from the entire country also sought safety in that city where the final act of the tragedy was enacted.

The siege of this stronghold seems to have lasted an entire year, and Severus must have experienced greater difficulty in its capture
than Vespasian did at the siege of Jerusalem. By means of the subterranean passages which had been prepared before the outbreak
of the war, the inhabitants were able to obtain the necessary provisions, and a brook which ran through the city protected them against
a water famine. But the hour of doom finally struck for Bethar. How the fall of Bethar was brought about is not definitely known. Some
reports have it that the subterranean passages were betrayed to the Romans by two Samaritans, Manasseh and Ephraim; others, that
the water supply gave out, and others, again, that the city was captured as a result of treachery. One story has it that Bar Cocheba, led
by a Samaritan to believe in the treachery of a saintly man, Eleazar of Modin, who was regarded as the bulwark of Israel on account of
his piety, stamped with his foot upon the holy man who died in consequence; whereupon a voice proclaimed: "Because thou hast
paralyzed the arm of Israel, and blinded his eye, thine arm shall be paralyzed and thine eye shall be blinded." Thereupon Bethar fell
and Bar Cocheba was killed. As a matter of fact very little is known of the end of the heroic Bar Cocheba. It was told afterward that a
 The Bar Kochba Revolt 132-135 CE
Sources for Tisha B’Av 5769
Roman had bought the hero's head and boasted of having killed him; again, that his body was found wound about by a snake,
whereupon thee Roman victor is said to have exclaimed: "Had not a god killed him, no human power could have overcome him.”
Bethar fell (135) ominously on the very same day on which Jerusalem had fallen sixty-five years before.

3 Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. II, pp. 121-122, 132

The bloody suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt, however, had a sobering effect. Before long, rabbis and populace remembered Bar
Kocheba (son of a star) only as Bar Koziba (son of a lie) and blamed on him the death of one of that revolt’s ‘real’ martyrs, R. Eleazar
of Modein who was Bar Kocheba’s own uncle…

Conversely, Judaism now became more antagonistic to Christianity. The revolts against Trajan and Hadrian and the ensuing
destruction of many Jewish communities greatly weakened the Judeo-Christian groups and relegated them to the Church's sectarian
fringe. To the Christians the acceptance by most Palestinian Jews of the messiahship of Bar Kocheba appeared as the final and
irrevocable Jewish rejection of the Christ Jesus. Jewish patriots, on their part, doubly resented Christian enmity in the midst of their war
for survival. They could forgive the Christians' removal to Pella during the Great War, when so many loyal Jews were pro-Roman or
pacifist, and when even R. Johanan ben Zakkai was smuggled out of the besieged city. Now, however, such fundamentals of the
Jewish faith as circumcision, Sabbath observance, and public assemblies for study were at stake. Much as we may discount Justin
Martry's bias in trying to persuade Emperor Antoninus Pius that Christians had not been involved in that uprising, the assertion in his
First Apology that Bar Kocheba had ordered "that Christians alone should be led to cruel punishment, unless they renounced Jesus
Christ," had a fairly authentic ring. It evidently was but a theological reformulation of what had probably been Bar Kocheba's military
measure against a dangerous ‘Fifth Column’ easily understandable under the existing emergency. Whether or not they were generally
considered spies and Roman partisans, the refusal of all Christians to participate in the struggle, indeed their gloating over the political
downfall of Judaea - whose very name soon went into disuse among the Romans, pagan and Christian alike - opened an unbridgeable
gap between the mother and daughter religions.

One need remember only another comment (relating to circumcision) by Justin Martyr, a native of Shechem and contemporary of Bar
Kocheba, to understand the intensity of mutual hatred.

[It] was given for a sign [the Christian apologist informed his alleged Jewish interlocutor] that you may be separated from other nations,
and from us; and that you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and your cities burned
with fire; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.

4 The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 2 pp. 505-509

Cause of the War

As if to increase the irritation of the Jews, it so happened that the government of Judea had at this time been entrusted to one of the
most rascally subjects of the Roman empire, the governor-general Tinnius Rufus, as he is probably correctly called (Borghesi,
Gregorovius, Renan, Mommsen, and Schürer; whereas others call him variously Tinnius, Titus Annius, or Tacinius, Rufus). Rufus
offended the Jews in their most sacred relations. He was reputed to be a regular debaucher of young women (G. Rösch, in "Theol.
Studien und Kritiken," 1873, pp. 77 et seq.), and was probably the prototype from whom was taken the description of the voluptuary
Holofernes, as given in the Book of Judith. Associated with this is the Talmudic saga that the immediate cause of the war was the insult
offered by the Romans to a bridal couple (Gi%. 57a). So long as the emperor Hadrian remained in the vicinity—that is, in Syria and
Egypt (about 130 common era) —the Jews kept still (Dio Cassius, lxix. 12) and even struck coins in his honor, which bore the motto
"Adventui Aug. Judææ," in commemoration of the visit of the emperor to Judea. It was probably at this time that Hadrian desired to
erect the Roman colony Ælia Capitolina upon the ruins of Jerusalem, and to replace the old Temple by one dedicated to Jupiter
Capitolinus. Dio Cassius, at least, mentions this fact as the cause of the war, while Eusebius and other ecclesiastical historians refer to
them as a result. It is therefore assumed that the building was already begun before the war, but interrupted by it (Münter, Graetz,
Gregorovius). The report (Spartian, ch. xiv.) that the Jews were forbidden to exercise the rite of circumcision may also have originated
after the war; but Jewish sources state that in the days of Bar Kokba many who had before endeavored to disguise the Abrahamic
covenant submitted themselves anew to circumcision(Shab. ix. 1; Yer. ib. 17a; Yeb. 72a; Yer. Yeb. viii. 9; Gen. R. xlvi.). It does not
follow, however, from the preceding passages that the Judæo-Christians were compelled by Bar Kokba to submit to circumcision
(Basnage, "L'Histoire des Juifs," xi. 361, Rotterdam, 1707), and the statement that the Christians were tortured by Bar Kokba if they did
not deny Jesus, is made only by Christian authors (Justin, "Apologia," ii. 71; compare "Dial." cx.; Eusebius, in "Hist. Eccl." iv. 6, § 2, and
in his "Chronicle," where he therefore calls Bar Kokba a robber and murderer; Jerome, in his "Chronicle"; Orosius, "Hist." vii. 13). The
actual reason seems to have been that the Christians refused to unite with the Jews in the struggle. The Samaritans, however,
participated in the conflict, to which Jews residing in foreign countries also flocked in masses, the number of combatants being further
swelled by pagan accessions; and there ensued, as Dio Cassius observes, a war which was neither of small proportions nor of short
duration.

End of the War.

The war was ended, and Bar Kokba met his death upon the walls of Bethar. Indescribable misery spread over Palestine; the land
became a desert; the Jews were slaughtered en masse; and Talmud and Midrash bewail the horrors of the Roman conquest.
According to Dio Cassius, 580,000 Jews fell in battle, not including those who succumbed to hunger and pestilence. It must have been
regarded as an evil omen by the Jews that the pillar of Solomon in Jerusalem fell of itself. Indeed, the end of the Jewish nation had
come. The Romans also had sustained heavy losses; and it is reported that Hadrian did not even send the usual message to Rome
 The Bar Kochba Revolt 132-135 CE
Sources for Tisha B’Av 5769
that he and the army were well (Dio Cassius, ib.)—a story which can not be true in view of the opinion already expressed that Hadrian
was not present during the conflict (see, however, "Revue Etudes Juives," i. 49). Hadrianus was for the second time elected imperator
by the Senate, and Julius Severus was honored with the ornamenta triumphalia. (The governor of Bithynia, named Severus, so highly
praised by Dio Cassius, was another person, Sextus Julius Severus.)

5 Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, pg. 142

Simon did not call himself 'star', but' Koseva' and the coins he issued make no mention of the Messiah and refer to him as 'Simon Nasi
[prince] of Israel'. His chief spiritual adviser was not Akiva but his uncle, Eleazar of Modin, whose name also figures on some of his
coins; but in the final stages of the revolt the two men quarrelled and Eleazar was murdered by his nephew. From the fragments of
evidence we have, it looks as if Simon got little support from learned Jews and in the end lost what he had. In the years 1952-61,
archaeologists working in the Judaean desert found objects connected with the revolt in various locations, especially in what is termed
'the Cave of the Letters'. Many of these documents, in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, were written and signed on his behalf. These
discoveries show that the men of the rebellion were orthodox Jews who took great trouble, despite desperate circumstances, to
observe the Mosaic law the Sabbath, the festivals, priestly and levitical dues for instance. But there is no evidence that Simon regarded
himself as a Messiah, the anointed one or in any way a spiritual leader. The letters show him ruling an extensive territory, concerned
with farm leases, agricultural supplies, the mobilization of the countryside to supply men and food for his war. He was in every respect
a secular ruler, a nasi as he calls himself in his letters, harsh, practical, unbending, ruthless: 'I call Heaven to witness ... I shall put you
in chains'; 'if you will not do this you will be punished'; 'You are living well, eating and drinking off the property of the house of Israel,
and care nothing about your brethren." The later rabbinic legends woven around the 'Son of a Star' seem to have no basis in fact.
Simon was more of a prototype for a modern Zionist fighter: unromantic and professional, a man who lived and died a guerrilla and
nationalist.

6 Rabbi Dr. Binyamin Lau, Chachamim, vol. 2, pp. 276-308