among the Jews, anxious to submit to the cultural processing-machine. But it never formed the majority, and it was to the majority that the Maccabean brothers appealed against the Seleucids, seizing Jerusalem, and cleansing the Temple of Greek impurities in 165 BC. This bitter religious war inevitably strengthened the connection in the Jewish mind between history, religion, and the future aspirations of the people and the individual, no real distinction being drawn between national destiny and a personal eternity of happiness. But the connection was variously interpreted and rival predictions and theories jostled each other in the sacred books. The oldest of the Maccabean writings in the Old Testament, opposing the revolt led by the brothers, is the Book of Daniel, which foretells the fall of empires through the agency of God, not man: ‘one like a son of man’ will come on the clouds of heaven, embodying the apocalyptic hope of the Jews, and accompanied by a general resurrection of the dead. By contrast, the first book of Maccabees insists that God helps those who help themselves. Its successor, by Jason of Cyrene, emphasizes the transcendent power of God and reverts to the idea of a bodily resurrection and the potency of miracles. The Jews, then, were unanimous in seeing history as a reflection of God's activity. The past was not a series of haphazard events but unrolled remorselessly according to a divine plan which was also a blueprint and code of instructions for the future. But the blueprint was cloudy; the code uncracked; or, rather, there were rival and constantly changing systems for cracking it. And, since the Jews could not agree on how to interpret their past or how to prepare for the future, they tended to be equally divided on what they should do at present. Jewish opinion was a powerful force, but an exceptionally volatile and fragmented one. Jewish politics were the politics of division and faction. After the Maccabean revolt, the Jews had kings who were also high priests, accorded recognition by an expanding Roman empire, but rivalries of scriptural interpretation led to irreconcilable disputes over policies, successions, claims, and descents. There was a strong element in the Jewish priesthood and society which regarded Rome as the least of various evils, and it was this faction which invited Pompey's intervention in 65 BC. Nevertheless, especially in its early decades under Herod the Great, Rome's relationship with the Jews was fruitful. There was already a huge Jewish Diaspora, especially in the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean Alexandria, Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus, and so forth. Rome itself had a large and rich Jewish colony. During the Herodias years, the Diaspora expanded and flourished. The empire gave the Jews equality of economic opportunity and freedom of movement for goods and persons. They formed wealthy communities wherever the Romans had imposed stability. And in Herod they had a munificent and powerful patron. To many Jews he was suspect and some refused to recognize him as a Jew at all- not on account of his voluptuous and exceptionally violent private life, but because of his Hellenic attachments. But Herod was unquestionably generous to the Jews. In Jerusalem, he rebuilt the Temple on twice the scale of Solomon. This huge and magnificent enterprise was still uncompleted at Herod's death in 4 Be, and was finished in Jesus lifetime. It was large and expensive even by the standards of Graeco-Roman architecture, and one of the great tourist sights of the empire: an impressive symbol of a fierce, living, expanding religion. Herod was equally generous to the Diaspora Jews. In all the big cities he provided them with community centers and he endowed and built scores of synagogues, the new type of ecclesiastical institution, and prototype of the Christian basilica, where services were held for the dispersed. In the great Roman cities, the Jewish communities gave an impression of wealth, increasing power, self-confidence and success. Within the Roman system, they were exceptionally privileged. Many of the Diaspora Jews were already Roman citizens, and all Jews, since the days of Julius Caesar, who greatly admired them, enjoyed rights of association. This meant they could meet to hold religious services, community dinners and feasts, and for every kind of social and charitable purpose. The Romans recognized the strength of Jewish religious feelings by, in effect, exempting them from observance of the state religion. In place of emperor-worship, the Jews were allowed to show their respect for the state by offering sacrifices on the emperor's behalf. This was a unique congession, [he wonder is that it was not more resented. But the Diaspora Jews were, on the 7