48). For the Pharisees the new state of affairs
appears to have been less satisfactory. That the Romans were
much less oppressive to the Jews than the rulers of the house of
Herod was a consideration of less importance to them than the
fact that the heathen first unintentionally and then deliberately
were guilty of the rudest outrages upon the law, outrages against
which those sly half-Jews had well understood how to be on their
guard. It was among the lower ranks of the people, however, that
hatred to the Romans had its proper seat. On the basis of the views
and tendencies which had long prevailed there, a new party was now
formed, that of the Zealots, which did not, like the Pharisees, aim
merely at the fulfilment of all righteousness, i.e., of the law,
and leave everything else in the hands of God, but was determined
to take an active part in bringing about the realisation of the
kingdom of God (Josephus, Antiquities, xviii. 1, 1).
As the transition to the new order of things was going on, the
census of Quirinius took place (6-7 A.D.); it occasioned an
immense excitement, which, however, was successfully allayed.
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