Posted on 06/24/2010 9:58:14 AM PDT by Pharmboy
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.
Was this God’s revenge?
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:
BAR ping...
Thanks for posting. Never put Vesuvius in a Christian context before.
You’re most welcome...
thanks - interesting!
Just so I understand. God destroyed Pompeii because he was angry at the Romans for sacking Jerusalem...why didn’t he just prevent the Romans from destroying Judea in the first place?
I was always taught this happened because the Jews had turned away from God which means the Romans were acting as tool of God’s vengeance. Why would he punish them for that?
Romans were kind of damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Surely if God wanted revenge on the Romans, he’d have destroyed Rome, not Pompeii.
Maybe his aim was off a couple hundred miles.
Since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem as agents of God, it seems a little strange for him to revenge himself on them for doing so.
BOTH points that you gentlemen raise have occurred to me, thus I think they are great points.( ;-D Thanks for raising...perhaps some FR scholars can weigh in here.
To assume that God was angry about the destruction of Jerusalem denies his sovereignty. The prophets under the inspiration of God foretold of the destruction of Jerusalem. Christ, God himself, even stated that it would occur during the current generation. The destruction of Jerusalem was in God’s plan all along, as was the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, not the result of a temper tantrum over the loss of Jerusalem.
I doubt anyone in Italy saw a connection between the two events. Judea was just an insignificant province on one end of the Roman “pond”.
Jews, however, WERE a significant part of the Roman Empire. Most scholars estimate that they made up about 10% of the empire’s population.
There, fixed it for you.
I report, you decide. Whatever you prefer...
I doubt any of the many non-Christians of that time, saw it as God’s revenge.
“why didn’t he just prevent the Romans from destroying Judea in the first place”
Well, he was also mad at the Jewish kingdom. And while (as do all things), the Roman sack fit His plans, His promise to punish people who harm Israel stands.
That said, the eruption seems a bit distant.
I would note that Nero attempted to put up a pagan statue of himself on the Temple Mount and was promptly struck dead before the effort could be completed.
That seems pretty direct.
Correction: Caligulia.
bflr
I'm sorry....couldn't help myself.....:-)
Just because God uses the heathen to discipline his people does not mean he cannot judge the heathen. He is GOD, and His ways are not ours.
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