Jews for giving up the ancestral religion; and pagans, especially the ignorant rabble, were opposed to "new gods"-as were the Boxers in China.

3. Read Revelation 18, the chant over fallen Babylon, and note the references to its wealth and commercial prestige. What is the correct interpretation of "Babylon"? (See also Revelation 17:9, 18.)

4. Explain the "number of the beast" in Revelation 13: 18.

5. Read some of the songs of rejoicing over the future victory of Christ and his saints-Revelation 5:9-14; 7: 10-12; 11: 15-18; 12: 10-II. What would these songs mean to those who first read them?

6. The book of Revelation is sometimes explained as referring to still-future events, to take place at the end of the world. Would promises of such far-off events, thousands of years in the future, have had much meaning for persecuted Christians in the days of Nero and Domitian?

7. Evidently, most of the language of Revelation is figurative and symbolic. But no such picture of heaven and the life to come is to be found elsewhere in the Bible. Mention two or three facts about that life which are taken for granted in what you have read in the book. Is there any unhappiness in that life? Are Christ's servants in his presence or not? Will sin and disobedience to God continue?

CHAPTER XXV

THE CHURCH IN PALESTINE

THE reign of Nero was one of the darkest periods in the world's history. His persecution of the Christians was only one, if one of the worst, of his many misdeeds. We must not, of course, take Nero as a fair example of the Roman emperors, for some of them were brave and honorable men and good administrators. Nor must we suppose that the Christians were persecuted as Christians. The day was soon to come when angry mobs roared out the cry, "Christians to the lions," and riot filled the streets of Rome and other capitals until their thirst for blood was satisfied. But that evil time was not yet. Christians were not the only ones who suffered under Nero. He was universally hated for his injustice -and particularly in Palestine.

CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS

We have read some of the older sources of which the author of the Revelation of John made use, which date from the days of Nero and were written, in all likelihood, by Jews. They may have been written in Palestine. All the provinces suffered under the reign of "the beast." But in Palestine revolutionary feeling ran especially high. Two years before Nero's death (that is, in 66 A. D.), a serious war broke out, which ended only with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 A. D. Involved in this tragedy and in the events which led up to it were the Christians who lived in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine. How fared the church in that region during those sad and troubled years?

Zealous for the Law.-It will be remembered that when Paul arrived in Jerusalem in the year 56, just before his arrest, he found the Christians in that city carefully observing the Jewish Law. This was only natural, for they had been born Jews, and continued to observe the ancestral rites and customs even after they became Christians. They believed that the Messiah was none other than Jesus; that he was in heaven, soon to come in glory, hold the Last Judgment, and set up his reign upon earth. And meantime they were doing all they could to hasten his coming (on Jewish principles) by observing the Law with care and strictness. Hence James and the elders could say to Paul, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed [in Christ]; and they are, all of them, zealous for the Law" (Acts 21: 20).

As Paul had already pointed out more than once to his Gentile friends, this observance of the Law by Christians really reduced Christianity to nothing more than a sect of Judaism, a sect that believed just as all other Jews believed, save that they identified the Messiah with their Master, Jesus. In time such a sect was bound to disappear, as, indeed, Jewish Christianity did disappear in later centuries, its last vestiges being engulfed by the rising tide of Mohammedanism in the eighth century.

Nevertheless, in the first century, this Jewish Christianity lost none of its original power. The Christian Jews were respected, feared, and sometimes hated by their orthodox neighbors. It may be that their careful observance of the Law helped to win over many of their neighbors to the new faith, and thus served a missionary purpose. One or two quaint and interesting anecdotes have been handed down in popular tradition from those days, showing how

orthodox Jews and "Nazarenes" lived side by side, if not in entire harmony at least not in open conflict.

One such apocryphal story is told of James, the brother of the Lord who was "bishop" or head of the Jerusalem church in the fifties and sixties. He was highly respected by his Pharisaic neighbors for his piety, and was accordingly surnamed "the just." So frequent were his visits to the Temple to pray for the forgiveness of his people that his knees, it was said, became calloused like a camel's. When the scribes and Pharisees saw the growing danger that the whole Jewish people would "expect Jesus as the Messiah," they went to James and said: "We beg of you, restrain the people, who are being led astray after Jesus as if he were the Christ. At the approaching feast of the Passover go up on the wing of the Temple and speak to the assembled crowd and tell them the truth about Jesus." But James answered with a loud voice, “Why do you ask me about Jesus the Son of man? He is now sitting in the heavens, on the right hand of the Great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven!" Whereupon they cast him down from the wing of the Temple, and beat him to death with clubs (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2:23).

Opposition from the Jews.-But it must not be supposed that no further opposition or persecution took place. Orthodox Jews could not tolerate some of the doctrines of the Christians; and the existence of a rival synagogue, calling itself the Ecclesia, or Qahal, the congregation of the "true Israel," was more than most conservative Jews could endure. The open enmity of the early days had passed, but the persecution was none the less real even when it took a different course. For example, it might appear in the treatment of Christian workmen by their orthodox employers. The heart

lessness of rich landowners in withholding the wages of their laborers (probably Christians) is denounced in the Epistle of James.

"Go to now,ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver is rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is kept back by you through fraud, crieth out; and the cries of them that have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the righteous; he doth not resist you."-James 5:1-6.

So far as the author of these words can see, there is no hope of redress save in the coming of the Messiah (Jesus) to hold the Judgment. And he adds, "Behold, the judge stands before the doors!" (5:9.)

Scattered over Palestine, from Galilee and the region of Cæsarea Philippi on the north to the fringes of the desert on the south, in the little villages as well as in the larger centers of population, were to be found the Christians, or "Nazarenes," Jews who added to their faith this one principle, that they believed the Messiah to be none other than Jesus; and believing, they undertook to live as he commanded, observing the Law in the spirit which he exemplified and taught, and looking day by day for his coming on the clouds of heaven "with power and great glory." It is not unlikely that the Gospel of Matthew was written (somewhat later) in Palestine or Syria. It is noteworthy that this expecta