The Call of the Carpenter
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II WORKING-CLASS GALILEE As Has been stated, the extension of the Roman "System" to include the Jews, a sturdy mountaineer folk in the hill country of Syria, met there a vehement opposition. And in Galilee, one of the districts of the Jews, the most vehemency of all. This Galilee, restive under every domination, was famed for the intense spirit of its inhabitants. Josephus as a general had carried on military operations there, and later as a historian was moved to bear testimony to the valour of her people. In this she differed from the other Palestine district, Judea, and its capital city, Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem was the home of the country's aristocracy, we read of the Bethlehem event: "When Herod, the king, had heard these things he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." Like the local
...aristocracies in all the other countries of the world, these had lined up with the Romans?were federated with the invader. When Pompey, some years before this, had marched against Jerusalem, the high priests there, representing the local ruling caste, had opened the gates to him. Galilee, a working-class district, was left therefore as the sole leader of the popular cause. The fight is always hottest where the lines come closest together; and the controversy between horny-handed Galilee and theJerusalemite set, haughty with its wealth and learning, was inveterate. But this was only a phase of the larger controversy ? that of the labouring class everywhere against the invasive capitalism of the empire and its Industrialism based on slavery. The Galileans, no better than the other provinces, could have given an explanation of this new thing in the world, the Roman Empire. No age fully understands itself. Lapse of time is needed for perspective. And if the Galileans had been ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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