The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite.

That’s not exactly the question I want to raise, however. Rather, did anyone at the time see it that way? Did anyone connect the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70? First the dates: The Romans destroyed the Second Temple (Herod’s Temple) on the same date that the Babylonians had destroyed the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple) in 586 B.C.E. But the exact date of the Babylonian destruction is uncertain.

Two different dates are given in the Hebrew Bible for the destruction of the First Temple. In 2 Kings 25:8 the date is the 7th of the Hebrew month of Av; Jeremiah 52:12 says it occurred on the 10th of Av. The rabbis compromised and chose the 9th of Av (Tisha b’Av). That is the date on which observant Jews, sitting on the floor of their synagogues, still mourn the destruction of the First Temple, Solomon’s Temple, in 586 B.C.E. and the Second Temple, Herod’s Temple, in 70 C.E.

The exact corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar is also a bit uncertain. According to the translator of the authoritative translation of Josephus, the ancient historian who gives us our most detailed (if sometimes unreliable; see sidebar) account of the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., it occurred on August 29 or 30.1 Others place it earlier in the month. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabia and other nearby sites occurred, according to most commentators, on August 24 or 25 in 79 C.E. According to Seneca, the quakes lasted for several days.

But the dates are close enough to raise the question: Were these two catastrophic events connected, at least in the mind of some observe.

The volcanic eruption of Vesuvius has been graphically described by Dio Cassius in his Roman History: The whole plain round about [Vesuvius] seethed and the summits leaped into the air. There were frequent rumblings, some of them subterranean, that resembled thunder, and some on the surface, that sounded like bellowings; the sea also joined in the roar and the sky re-echoed it.

Then suddenly a portentous crash was heard, as if the mountains were tumbling in ruins; and first huge stones were hurled aloft, rising as high as the very summits, then came a great quantity of fire and endless smoke, so that the whole atmosphere was obscured and the sun was entirely hidden, as if eclipsed. Thus day was turned into night and light into darkness … [Some] believed that the whole universe was being resolved into chaos or fire .

… While this was going on, an inconceivable quantity of ashes was blown out, which covered both sea and land and filled all the air … It buried two entire cities, Herculaneum and Pompeii … Indeed, the amount of dust, taken all together was so great that some of it reached Africa and Syria and Egypt, and it also reached Rome, filling the air overhead and darkening the sun. There, too, no little fear was occasioned, that lasted for several days, since the people did not know and could not imagine what had happened, but, like those close at hand, believed that the whole world was being turned upside down, that the sun was disappearing into the earth and that the earth was being lifted to the sky.2

The tone is plainly apocalyptic. And indeed Dio seems to have had this in mind. In the next paragraph he notes that the eruption consumed the temples of Serapis and Isis and Neptune and Jupiter Capitolinus, among others. It is almost as if some supreme God was at work. Seventeen-year-old Pliny the Younger was an eyewitness to the eruption and described it in terms similar to Dio’s. In two surviving letters to Tacitus, Pliny also gives an account of the death of his famous uncle Pliny the Elder, author of the renowned Historia Naturalis. Pliny the Elder was at Misenum in his capacity as commander of the Roman fleet when the eruption began. He set sail to save some boatloads of people nearer Vesuvius and headed toward Stabia—to no avail. All perished, including Pliny, as his nephew recounts:

I understand your question, and why it seems confusing. Try to remember Scripture context. In the Hebrew Bible (The Tanakh, or the Old Testament) there are examples of God warning His People by His prophets of coming judgment if they do not repent and return to the ways of God and godliness, which God had detailed to them through Moses and others. When there was no national repentance, and when the leaders of the people continued to lead them astray from God (usually for selfish political or moral corruption reasons), then God would raise up a foreign army from a pagan nation to cause judgment and punishment of His People. Nevertheless, God would then bring a judgment upon those who attacked His People, IF the invading army rejoiced or gloated over their defeat of the Israelis, thinking that they (the attacking army) had now found more favor with the God of Israel — OR, that they and their god or gods were now more worthy to rule the Land of Israel or the Children of Israel — that is, more worthy of acclaim than God’s Chosen People. THEN, God would punish either that whole nation or that nation’s army. That happened to Assyria when they gloated over the destruction of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. God later had Assyria destroyed by others for their punishment for having rejoiced in the slaughter of many innocents among the populace of the Northern Kingdom. (The North-South split had occurred after the death of Solomon.) So, I hope that explains that juxtaposition somewhat. God will use the enemies of His People to punish His People for great moral and spiritual lapses and any rejection of God’s right to have their obedience to Himself. The same might be said of any nation founded upon a declaration of fidelity to God, such as was done by America’s Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony with the Mayflower Compact (1620).

Pompeii and Herculaneum were primarily brothel pleasure cities for the use of Roman armies when the were home from foreign wars or other activites. At the time of the Vesuvius blowout, the Roman X-Legion (10th Legion) - the Legion which had made war on Jerusalem and destroyed it - was on its R & R visit to those cities. And, it was 9 years (on the Hebrew calendar) from the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Romans believed (after the destruction of Jerusalem) that Rome was now invincible in the sight of all men and every god, and would deserve to rule the whole world henceforth. But, that was not a true perception. It was an egotistical percention. Which the God of Israel blunted that day. Unfortunately, the Romans wrote most of the histories, and they didn’t get the message thar God had sent. The brothels and all the guests and hosts, and male and female prostitues, were all destroyed that day. The Tenth Roman Legion was nearly wiped out in one vast stroke of God’s explosive wrath. The God of Israel DID avenge His People for all their agony and loss. When Rome laid siege to Israel and Jerusalem, the city and the Temple were swollen with about 2.5 million person for a High Feast Day. Fewer than 10,000 survived to go into captivity as slaves. The deaths of those who were innocent (children and babes, etc.) were indeed avenged by the Lord God of Israel. He put His seal of doom and displeasure upon the Roman Tenth Legion and Roman pride on the day He caused Vesuvius to errupt, turning their party into a litteral “blowout!”

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