Why Bar Kochba persecuted Christians?

[Giuseppe]

While Tacitus wrote about the riotous followers of suetonian "impulsore Chresto" (therefore not about HJ), while Pliny persecuted true Christians, it seems to be hard history that bar Kochba persecuted Jewish Christians.
But why Jewish messianists would persecute other Jewish messianists?
That persecution would be justified only if these Christians were paulines, but difficultly this was the case, because paulinism wasn't radicate in Judaea but in Diaspora (for example, in Bitiny).
If the Jewish Christians believed Jesus as Christ, and if Jesus was Jew, they would have any reason to help bar Kochba in virtue of their sharing of common culture and political hopes. A victorious bar Kochba could be seen as the Jesus Christ of the parusia..
Bar Kochba would not have no reason to make his enemies the Jewish Christians as far as he didn't persecute the last followers of other dead messiahs or of John the Baptist, even more so if a HJ was crucified by Romans for political reasons.

This means for me only a thing:
that the Jewish Christians were persecuted because the object of their cult is a only-celestial angel EVEN if they were entirely Jewish messianists, thus their angel was alien from Judaism and heretical per se (therefore acceptable only in Jewish Diaspora).
Therefore the Christianity had Diaspora origins and entered in Judaea only later, provoking by need, in virtue of his not Jewish doctrine or origin, a Jewish persecution as natural reaction.

[Giuseppe]

Note the strong contradiction for the academic consensus about the traditional views:
1) from one hand the historicist scholars believe Acts about a pacific convivence between Jewish Christians and normal Jews in Jerusalem until 70 CE (assuming no persecution of Jewish Christians by "CHRIST" John of Gamala, for example),
2) but from the other hand they have no problems in assuming a post-70 messianist like bar Kochba being persecutor of JEWISH Christians.

This is a contradiction for the mythicist paradigm of Carrier/Doherty, too, since a historical James "brother of Lord" could live at Jerusalem without problems until 70 (during the short zealot resistance) but not so after the 70, during the Bar Kochba revolt. Remember we are talking of JEWISH Christians, i.e. presumed best candidates in being the legitimate heirs of the true, early Christianity (with no apparent reason, therefore, of consider themselves as members of a DISTINCT cult from Judaism).

[DCHindley]

While Tacitus wrote about the riotous followers of suetonian "impulsore Chresto" (therefore not about HJ),

I am not sure what you meant by "followers of suetonian "impulsore Chresto" (therefore not about HJ)"? Are you saying that the "chresto" that goaded the Jewish rioters was a slave and not a misspelled "Christ"? I have elsewhere suggested that "chresto" was actually an ointment that was famously used by Magicians in their magical rites in order to make their words irresistible. This would make the practice of magical rites, probably believed to be directed against the Roman emperor to advance a broader agenda, the reason these Jews were banished. Romans suspected everyone and everything was a plot against them and their emperors. Those guys ...

while Pliny persecuted true Christians,

I think the only thing we know for sure about Pliny's "Christians" is that they worshipped a quasi divine "Christ" in secret meetings. The Jesus Christ of the NT is quite a bit more than that, meaning he is a misunderstood Judean executed for claiming to be an unauthorized king. There isn't a hint of that, or why NT Christians came to believe he was divine (through resurrection), or even about what they thought that death & resurrection came to symbolize (redemption of sinful mankind), unless that is somehow included lock, stock and barrel in the phrase "depraved superstition". The cult that Pliny described was not that different than a mystery religion.

it seems to be hard history that bar Kochba persecuted Jewish Christians.

That is an interpretation of one phrase in the fragments of one of Bar Kokhba's actual letters, bolstered by general statements preserved in Justin Martyr's 1st Apology and Eusebius' Chronicle.

"From Simeon ben Kosiba to Yeshua ben Galgoula and to the men of the fort, peace! I take heaven to witness against me that unless you mobilise [destroy?] the Galileans who are with you every man, I will put fetters upon your feet as I did to ben Aphlul." ( http://cojs.org/cojswiki/The_Bar_Kokhba ... the_Revolt )

"For in the present war it is only the Christians whom Barchochebas, the leader of the rebellion of the Jews, commanded to be punished severely, if they did not deny Jesus as the Messiah and blaspheme him." Justin, First Apology 31.5-6

"Cochebas, the duke of the Jewish sect, killed the Christians with all kinds of persecutions, when they refused to help him against the Roman troops." Eusebius, Chronicle, Hadrian, year 17. (latter two at http://www.livius.org/ja-jn/jewish_wars ... tml#Justin )

Since Yeshua ben Galgoula was "Chief of the Camp" and had control of Ein Gedi, why would he have "Galileans" among the locals? Assuming they were not some sort of refugees, the term then seems then to be a catch-term for a certain group ort class of people.

It is uncertain what the Hebrew word variously translated "mobilize" or "destroy" was intended to mean.

If "mobilize" then I'd guess that they resisted being pressed into Simon's army, perhaps suggesting an ideological disagreement with his agenda. Simon elsewhere seems to instruct his underlings to basically seize whatever and arrest whoever presented a threat to his authority.

If "destroy" then Simon saw these Galileans as a detested class of people who deserved to be wiped out. "Galileans" could be a nickname for Christians, whether Jewish or Gentile. If fellow Jews, think of Christians burning other Christians at the stake for not sharing some key belief. Think of Shia killing Sunni and vice versa. Heretics are heretics. If Gentiles, they may be those who claimed to be legitimate members of the people of Israel, perhaps as proselytes or "god fearers" (the kind of gentile I have elsewhere proposed Paul had encouraged long before his letters had been "Christianized"). Simon would thus disagree that this is legitimately possible.

But why Jewish messianists would persecute other Jewish messianists?

Why did both Catholics and Reformers burn Anabaptists & Quakers on the stake?

That persecution would be justified only if these Christians were paulines, but difficultly this was the case, because paulinism wasn't radicate in Judaea but in Diaspora (for example, in Bitiny [Bithynia-Pontus]).

If the Jewish Christians believed Jesus as Christ, and if Jesus was Jew, they would have any reason to help bar Kochba in virtue of their sharing of common culture and political hopes. A victorious bar Kochba could be seen as the Jesus Christ of the par[a]usia.

Bar Kochba would not have no reason to make his enemies the Jewish Christians as far as he didn't persecute the last followers of other dead messiahs or of John the Baptist, even more so if a HJ was crucified by Romans for political reasons.

See above about Catholics/Calvinists persecuting Anabaptists/Quakers.

This means for me only a thing:

that the Jewish Christians were persecuted because the object of their cult is a only-celestial angel EVEN if they were entirely Jewish messianists, thus their angel was alien from Judaism and heretical per se (therefore acceptable only in Jewish Diaspora).

Therefore the Christianity had Diaspora origins and entered in Judaea only later, provoking by need, in virtue of his not Jewish doctrine or origin, a Jewish persecution as natural reaction.

[Giuseppe]

If fellow Jews aka Judeo-Christians, I would have some problems with your didactic example of catholics/calvinists etc.
Why Simon bar Kochba persecuted the Jewish messianists, but a John of Gamala or a Simon bar-Jora didn't persecute James the Just & co?
Which would be the difference? Did Bar Kochba persecute even the last followers of John the Baptist, of Judas the Galilee, or the last Essenes?

My belief is that these Galilees were, if Christians at all, gentile and/or pauline Christians. And only in that case your example would work.

[Stuart]

There is zero evidence of Bar Kokhba persecuting Christians from 2nd century sources. But 4th century onward we see that. Also the revolt has been blown out of scale. Archaeological evidence (coins, hiding places) indicates the revolt was confined to the hill country south of Jerusalem/Aelia Capitolina. There is no evidence of Christians being in the effected area, and no evidence in the letters or other primary sources. Justin is not aware of any atrocities or even conflict between Jews and Christians in the revolt.

The event had greater consequences than military impact. Yes a few legions were engaged in a nasty guerrilla war of attrition that was fought on the cohort level rather than the legion sized unit level - lessons and tactics which would be a great use when Marcus Aurelius fought the Germantic tribes a few decades later in terrain that made large scale unit warfare problematic. But the big impact was Hadrian's decision to dissolve the province of Judea and thus end Roman sanction for Jewish Law. It was the end of Judea as a distinct Jewish homeland. The post-war portrayal of Simon as a religious figure and the campaign a religious war are largely false. Only as the revolt entered its final year or so did the invocation of religious appeal become overt. It seems unlikely there were any Christians in the area to persecute, and even more unlikely that the revolt, being economic based would have targeted a non-Roman cult.

For a variety of political reasons, Jews raised the profile of the revolt due to the loss of their homeland. It is overblown to this day in Israel. Christians had their own reasons by the 4th century in their competition for the State religion to cast their competitors in the most negative light.

There was no reason for Simon Bar Kosiba to persecute Christians and there isn't any evidence from the hundred years after the revolt of any happening.

[DCHindley]

If fellow Jews aka Judeo-Christians, I would have some problems with your didactic example of catholics/calvinists etc.

Why Simon bar Kochba persecuted the Jewish messianists, but a John of Gamala or a Simon bar-Jora didn't persecute James the Just & co?

It doesn't seem that JtJ was alive at the time of the war. While I don't buy the equation of the James brother of Jesus of Ant. 20:200 with the James the Just of early Christian tradition, none of the latter tradition seems to connect him to events of the war. They seem to have thought that his death immediately preceded the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian (actually, his son Titus, although Vespasian was emperor by the point Titus captured the city). The James brother of Jesus judged by Ananus the HP would have died about 62 CE, which is like 8 years before the capture of the city, so an actual date of death may have occurred closer to the capture than that. He might have lived into the early years of that war (66-69 CE, say), but the situation was so chaotic with different factions that he could have lived unmolested even until the reign of terror began under the Zealots and the Idumeans (about 69?).

Which would be the difference? Did Bar Kochba persecute even the last followers of John the Baptist, of Judas the Galilee, or the last Essenes?

We don't know. If he did, no record survives. If he didn't, lack of record does not necessarily mean lack of persecution. So we just have to live with the ambiguity.

My belief is that these Galilees were, if Christians at all, gentile and/or pauline Christians. And only in that case your example would work.

Yes, I can allow for that. However, IMHO, Paul's followers were gentile "god-fearers" who never converted to Judiaism, and were not Christians at all (whether "Jewish Christian" with a low Christology or high Christology-NT style-"Christian"). The marriage of these two movements came later, after High Christology developed, IMO, around 90 CE, as a reaction to the events of the Judean War, where many Jews and gentiles used all sorts of "dirty" tactics such as mass executions (in athletic fields to boot, prefiguring the much more recent mass executions of 6,000 young Bosnian Muslim men by Serb militias attempting to establish a "greater Serbia") and marginalization of moderates who refused to renounce their inter-ethnic friends and associates.

To be honest, I seriously doubt that these "Christians" who developed the high Christology were even Judeans by birth, but may have been gentiles resident in southern Syria or the Judean territories as tenants or village officials of the large royal estates, some of whom had converted to the Judean way of life and some as formal proselytes heading in that direction. An expectation of a new just Judean led world empire of justice was quite common in the time, and may have seemed pretty attractive to some gentiles.

Whether Pauline "god-fearers" who claimed a right to be part of greater Israel, or the high-Christology "Christians" we encounter in the NT, Simon ben Kosiba would, it seems, have no part of that. If you are Judeans, whether by birth or by conversion, then you fight for or at least contribute to the Judean cause. Simon had no problem confiscating grain & fruit from those who would not sell or otherwise make it available to his forces. If resident individuals were not Judeans by birth, and would not convert by circumcision (as some rebels forced gentiles to do who had sought sanctuary in Judean held territory during the first Judean war), they are to be destroyed, or driven out. Bye bye!

I do not know what happened to the ethnic Judeans who followed Jesus, although I suspect that they probably developed the idea that Jesus was the Judean messiah who would return exalted to judge the living and the dead. These low Christology "Christians" (the ones who were gentile converts) were so traumatized by the War that they came to reject their "fellow" Judeans, renounced their conversions, and developed the high Christology, transforming their understanding of the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection into the mystery of a divine redeemer.

We only know that relatives of Jesus (or at least those who some Christian writers thought were relatives of Jesus) were believed to have lived into the time of Trajan. Of course, the Christian writers who mention them (Hegesippus and Julius Africanus, at least as related by Eusebius), said their beliefs about Jesus were pure and untainted (i.e., exactly the same views as held by Christians of Hegesippus', Julius', or more likely Eusebius' day).

There were also the Ebionites (the "Poor", as Acts says the earliest followers of Jesus were called) of later times, but it is hard to tell if these were ethnic Judean Christians who held a low Christology or gentile Christians who had come to adopt Judean ways and a corresponding low Christology. However, I do not think Ebionites were around yet in the time of Ben Kosiba. It was a fad ... based on legends told about the relatives of Jesus.

[DCHindley]

There is zero evidence of Bar Kokhba persecuting Christians from 2nd century sources. But 4th century onward we see that. Also the revolt has been blown out of scale. Archaeological evidence (coins, hiding places) indicates the revolt was confined to the hill country south of Jerusalem/Aelia Capitolina. There is no evidence of Christians being in the effected area, and no evidence in the letters or other primary sources. Justin is not aware of any atrocities or even conflict between Jews and Christians in the revolt.

The event had greater consequences than military impact. Yes a few legions were engaged in a nasty guerrilla war of attrition that was fought on the cohort level rather than the legion sized unit level - lessons and tactics which would be a great use when Marcus Aurelius fought the Germantic tribes a few decades later in terrain that made large scale unit warfare problematic.

Unfortunately, we do not have Josephus to document the action in the Bar Kosiba war. My understanding, though, is that the action involved numerous full legions. The corresponding Wiki article suggests that Ben Kisoba may have engaged in frontal attacks on account of superiority of numbers, and that it was the Romans who switched to guerilla style tactics.

But the big impact was Hadrian's decision to dissolve the province of Judea and thus end Roman sanction for Jewish Law. It was the end of Judea as a distinct Jewish homeland.

Agreed.

The post-war portrayal of Simon as a religious figure and the campaign a religious war are largely false. Only as the revolt entered its final year or so did the invocation of religious appeal become overt.

And you know this how?

It seems unlikely there were any Christians in the area to persecute, and even more unlikely that the revolt, being economic based would have targeted a non-Roman cult.

For a variety of political reasons, Jews raised the profile of the revolt due to the loss of their homeland. It is overblown to this day in Israel. Christians had their own reasons by the 4th century in their competition for the State religion to cast their competitors in the most negative light.

There was no reason for Simon Bar Kosiba to persecute Christians and there isn't any evidence from the hundred years after the revolt of any happening.

Ohhh kay.

[MrMacSon]

Here's an interesting take on what led to the Bar Kokhba Revolt -

Hadrian
When Publius Aelius Hadrianus, known to us as Hadrian, took the reigns of power in 117 CE, he inaugurated ― at least at first ― an atmosphere of tolerance. He even talked of allowing the Jews to rebuilt the Temple, a proposal that was met with virulent opposition from the Hellenists. (2)

Why Hadrian changed his attitude to one of outright hostility toward the Jews remains a puzzle, but historian Paul Johnson, in his History of the Jews, speculates that [Hadrian] fell under the influence of the Roman historian Tacitus, who was then busy disseminating Greek smears against the Jews.

Tacitus and his circle were part of a group of Roman intellectuals who viewed themselves as inheritors of Greek culture. (Some Roman nobles actually considered themselves the literal descendants of the Greeks, though there is no historical basis for this myth.) It was fashionable among this group to take on all the trappings of Greek culture. Hating the Jews as representing the anti-thesis of Hellenism went with the territory. Thus influenced, Hadrian decided to spin around 180 degrees. Instead of letting the Jews rebuild, Hadrian formulated a plan to transform Jerusalem into a pagan city-state on the Greek polis model with a shrine to Jupiter on the site of the Jewish Temple.

Nothing could be worse in Jewish eyes than to take the holiest spot in the Jewish world and to put a temple to a Roman god on it. This was the ultimate affront. As bad as this was, the real cause of the revolt seems to have been Hadrian's attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Selucid Greek Empire 300 years earlier by trying to destroy Judaism. Specifically he targeted Sabbath observance, circumcision, the laws of family purity and the teaching of Torah. An attack against such fundamental commandments of Judaism was bound to trigger a revolt-which it did.

Bar Kochba
Jewish outrage at his actions led to one of the single greatest revolts of the Roman Era. Simon Bar Kosiba led the uprising, which began in full force in 132 CE.

For many years, historians did not write very much about Simon Bar Kosiba. But then, archeologists discovered some of his letters in Nahal Hever near the Dead Sea. If you go to the Israel Museum you can see these letters and they are absolutely fascinating. Some of them pertain to religious observance, because his army was a totally religious army. But they also contain a tremendous amount of historical facts. We learn that the Jews participating in the revolt were hiding out in caves. (These caves have also been found ― full of belongings of Bar Kosiba's people. The belongings ― pottery, shoes, etc. ― are on display in the Israel Museum, and the caves, though bare, are open to tourists.)

From the letters and other historical data, we learn that in 132 CE, Bar Kosiba organized a large guerilla army and succeeded in actually throwing the Romans out of Jerusalem and Israel and establishing, albeit for a very brief period, an independent Jewish state. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 97b) states that he established an independent kingdom that lasted for two and half years.

Bar Kosiba's success caused many to believe ― among them Rabbi Akiva, one of the wisest and holiest of Israel's rabbis ― that he could be the Messiah. He was nicknamed "Bar Kochba" or "Son of Star," an allusion to a verse in the Book of Numbers (24:17): "there shall come a star out of Jacob." This star is understood to refer to the Messiah.

Bar Kochba did not turn out to be the Messiah, and later the rabbis wrote that his real name was Bar Kosiva meaning "Son of a Lie" ― highlighting the fact that he was a false Messiah.

At the time, however, Bar Kochba ― who was a man of tremendous leadership abilities ― managed to unite the entire Jewish people around him. Jewish accounts describe him as a man of tremendous physical strength, who could uproot a tree while riding on a horse. This is probably an exaggeration, but he was a very special leader and undoubtedly had messianic potential, which is what Rabbi Akiva recognized in him.

Jewish sources list Bar Kochba's army at 100,000 men, but even if that is an overestimate and he had half that number, it was still a huge force.
United, the Jews were a force to be reckoned with. They overran the Romans, threw them out of the land of Israel, declared independence and even minted coins. That is a pretty unique event in the history of the Roman Empire.

Roman Response
Rome could not let this be. Such boldness had to be crushed and those responsible punished ― brutally and totally.

But the Jews were not easily overcome. Hadrian poured more and more troops into Israel to fight the Bar Kochba forces until the Romans had enlisted almost half of their entire army, as many as twelve of the twenty four legions of the empire may have been brought into Israel (three times as many as they had sent in to crush the Great Revolt 65 years earlier) to crush the revolt.

Heading this mammoth force was Rome's best general, Julius Severus. But even with all this might behind him, Julius Severus was afraid to meet the Jews in open battle. This fact alone is very telling, because the Romans were the masters of open battle. But they feared the Jews because they saw them as being willing to die for their faith ― a mentality the Romans thought suicidal. So what happened?

The Roman historian Dio Cassius tells us:

• "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 numbers of soldiers and his 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. Fifty of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground, and 580,000 men were slain in various raids and battles, and the number of those who perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out.
  "Thus nearly the whole of Judea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regarded as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed. And many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into the cities. Many Romans, however, perished in this war. Therefore, Hadrian, in writing to the Senate, did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by emperors: 'If you and your children are in health it is well and I and my legions are in health.'"

This account of Deo Cassius ― even if he is exaggerating the numbers ― is very interesting. He tells us that the revolt was very bloody and very costly.

Indeed, the Romans lost an entire legion in battle. The 22nd Roman legion walked into an ambush and was slaughtered and never reconstituted. By the end of the revolt the Romans had to bring virtually half the army of the entire Roman Empire into Israel to crush the Jews.

Why Did the Jews Lose?
Apparently the Jews came very close to winning the war. Indeed, they did win for a time. Why did they lose in the end? The sages say they lost because they were too arrogant. Having tasted victory they adopted the attitude of , "by my strength and my valor I did this." (Deut. 8:17)
Bar Kochba too became arrogant. He saw himself winning. He heard people calling him the Messiah. Certainly, if Rabbi Akiva thought so, then he had the potential to be Israel's Ultimate Leader. He also became corrupted by his power and even beat his uncle, the great Rabbi Elazar HaModai, to death, having accepted false accusations that he was a Roman spy (3). Because of these faults he began to lose battles and was forced into retreat and guerrilla warfare.

In Judaism we are taught that while people must make the effort, it is God that wins the wars. It is not human strength nor human might that's doing it.

The Fall of Betar
Bar Kochba made his final stand in the city of Betar, which is to the southwest of Jerusalem ...

http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48944706.html

• 1) The War of Kittos is barely mentioned in Jewish sources. The most extensive reference can be found in the Talmud, Ta'anit 18b.
  2) See: Midrash, Breishit Rabbah 64:10
  3) See: Talmud - Tanit 4:5