by
Damien F. Mackey
“What,
therefore, do Caligula and Antiochus Epiphanes have in common, as their reigns
pertain to the Jews? Both reigned during a time when the Jews were abandoning
their God and breaking covenant with him on a national scale. The one ruler officially desecrated the Temple,
while the other planned to do so. Both rulers were involved in the emperor cult that required worship
from those they ruled”.
This blogger
(presuming, apparently, the convenional structure of history) has discerned likenesses
between:
Caligula
and Antiochus Epiphanes
26Mar
I
believe the reign of Caligula, emperor of Rome (37-41 CE), is underrated, as it
pertains to the New Testament and the early Messianic movement in Judea. There
was a lot happening during these few years in Jewish history that remind me of
the period of Antiochus Epiphanes who desecrated the Temple, which
gave rise to the revolt of the Maccabees, cir. 168 BCE.
Just
before the days of the Maccabees the corruption of the high priesthood had
become so prevalent that the Temple duties of the priests had been ignored in
favor of spending time in the gymnasium, bowing to Hellenism. In other words,
the desire to become like the nations around them was so intensified among the
Jews that true worship of God had been virtually abandoned. In fact, to
accentuate his displeasure with his people, the Lord allowed or perhaps caused
Antiochus IV to sacrifice swine’s flesh upon the brazen alter in the Temple at
Jerusalem, thus polluting it and officially ending worship in the House upon
which he placed his name, emphasizing in the words of the writer of the second
book of the Maccabees:
2
Maccabees 5:19-20 KJVA (19) Nevertheless God did not choose the
people for the place’s sake, but the place far the people’s sake.
(20) And therefore the place itself, that was partaker with them of the
adversity that happened to the nation, did afterward communicate in the
benefits sent from the Lord: and as it was forsaken in the wrath of the
Almighty, so again, the great Lord being reconciled, it was set up with all
glory.
In
other words, as the people go, so goes the Temple of God. Therefore the abomination
that polluted the Temple occurred long before official deed of Antiochus IV.
The religious revolution among the dueling High Priests during this time had
taken away the hearts of the people and caused them to seek to become like the
nations around them, ignoring the Covenant made with the Lord.
During
the reign of Caligula and before, Annas, the High Priest, had initiated a
persecution of Messianic Jews, thus making war against true worshipers of God,
simply because they were so devoted to the Lord. I don’t mean to imply the
unbelieving Jews didn’t worship God, but I do mean to say Annas was not among
them. Annas’ persecution began with the stoning of Stephen and the expulsion of
Hellenist Messianic Jews from Jerusalem (Acts 8:1-3), and pursuing them even to cities outside Judea
(Acts 9:1-2; 26:11).
I
often wonder if we tend to leave God out of history at times, or, at least,
refrain from acknowledging the real reason that historical developments took
the shape in which we see them today. What I mean is, what do we really know
about Jewish history between the time of Stephen’s death in Acts 7 and the
death of Herod Agrippa of Acts 12? All the Scriptures tell us is that there was
a persecution, but it doesn’t say how effective or widespread it was. We are
told of evangelistic efforts (Acts 8), Paul’s conversion (Acts 9), Peter’s
preaching to Cornelius, a Gentile (Acts 10), Peter having to explain himself
due to his receiving Cornelius as a believer, and an almost parenthetic remark
about the Hellenist believers getting as far as Antioch with the Gospel (Acts
11), and the death of James the Apostle, Peter’s expulsion from Jerusalem and the
death of Herod Agrippa (Acts 12). More than this we are not told, and this
period covers approximately 10-11 years! Did anything really important occur
that we have to read into the text in order to receive the full impact of what
God is saying to us?
Unrest
in Egypt began over the Jews’ exemption of having to practice the emperor
cult, whereby statues of Caligula were placed within their places of
worship. This ensued into riots with the result that many Jews were killed. In
probable retaliation, Jews rose up in defiance of the emperor cult in
Jamnia, a city in Palestine, near the coast and just south of Lydda and Joppa,
and destroyed an imperial altar there. When news of this incident reached
Caligula, he decided to erect a statue of himself in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, an anti-Jewish backlash among the Gentiles began to spread
throughout the Gentile cities in Palestine. What does all this mean?
What
had occurred in history is only implied in the Scriptures with: “Then had the
churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified…”
(Acts 9:31). Rome and Jerusalem were brought to the brink of
war during Caligula’s reign, and war would have indeed occurred had he placed
the images of himself in the Temple at Jerusalem. If we allow for the working
of God in the historical developments of this time, what may we conclude? What
I see is, Annas was seeking to wipe out the Jesus movement in Judaism. God
retaliated by threatening to wipe out the Jewish nation, if things persisted as
they were. The Jerusalem government left off its persecution of the Messianic
believers (Acts 9:31) in order to pursue peace with Rome. By the
thousands Jewish families flocked to Ptolemias just north of Caesarea, where
the Roman legate of Syria, Petronius, was wintering his troops, planning to
erect the statues of Caligula in the spring of 39 CE. It is only through his
wise efforts to calm the tumultuous situation that Rome and Jerusalem didn’t
come to war at this early date.
What,
therefore, do Caligula and Antiochus Epiphanes have in common, as their reigns
pertain to the Jews? Both reigned during a time when the Jews were abandoning
their God and breaking covenant with him on a national scale. The one ruler officially
desecrated the Temple, while the other planned to do so. Both rulers were involved
in the emperor cult that required worship from those they ruled. Many
scholars associate Daniel’s prophecy of the abomination of desolation as it
pertains to the 1290 days of Daniel 12 with Antiochus Epiphanes. In reality
these 1290 days have to do with the abomination of desolation set up at the
death of Stephen in Acts 7—when persecution culminating in death began (cp. Matthew 24:15), which if we allow for the presence of God
in history, brought about Caligula’s decision to set up images of himself
within the Temple compound at Jerusalem.
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