JUDEA CHANGED TO PALESTINE

What were the consequences of Hadrian's renaming of the region to Syria Palaestina, and how did this affect Jewish identity and history?

Dan Toler
B.A. in Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science & International Relations, University of Notre Dame (Graduated 2008)

Why did the Romans change the name of Judaea to Syria Palaestina?

The Romans changed the name of Judea to Syria Palaestina in 135 AD after the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which is sometimes called the Third Jewish-Roman War. At the same time, the Romans expelled most Jews from the province. The purpose was to destroy the cultural identity of the province and spread the Jews throughout the empire to prevent another revolt.

The fact that we call this war the Third Jewish-Roman War should give you some clue as to why the Romans did this. Let’s look at the history of the event.

The Messiah
Jewish tradition had long held that a messiah — meaning “anointed” but often translated as “savior” — would free their people. If you ask a modern Jewish rabbi, most of them will tell you that the messiah will be a great spiritual leader. Christians were the first major Jewish sect to believe this, except that they believed the messiah had already come to liberate them from sin. But back in the days of the Roman Empire, most Jews believed that the messiah would be a military leader like King David, who would liberate them from their Roman overlords and re-establish Israel as an independent kingdom. Since the Jews of ancient times were fiercely nationalistic, it should come as no surprise that messiahs were a dime a dozen. These included leaders of the First and Second Jewish-Roman wars, as well as Simon Bar Kokhba, who led the Bar Kokhba rebellion.
So by the end of the rebellion, the Jews had launched three rebellions in the space of less than a century, and they tended to produce charismatic leaders who claimed to have the support of divine prophecies.

Monotheism
Another problem the Romans had was the Jewish religion. While Romans were religiously tolerant as ancient empires go, they had it in for Yaweh, which is why they destroyed the Second Temple when they retook Jerusalem in 70 AD. The problem was that the Jewish god claimed to be the Only God. When the Romans conquered other pagan peoples, the religions were relatively easy to integrate. This isn’t to say that there were no religious conflicts, but pagan gods usually don’t care if you worship lots of gods. The Romans could roll into a Celtic city and put up a temple to Jupiter, and most of the locals wouldn’t care. And if making a small donation would get them in the Romans’ good graces, this was perfectly fine with their local gods. Over time, the local religions would be absorbed. This worked both ways, by the way. Roman officials could make sacrifices to local gods to ingratiate themselves with the locals, and they could do this without betraying their religion. This wasn’t possible in Judea. The Jewish God was, if you like, strictly monogamous. This was also a problem for the Christians later on, when they were not allowed to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods, even when the emperor Decius required it as a token gesture of loyalty to the empire. Conversely, the idea of Romans — or any gentiles — paying tribute to the Jewish God would be unthinkable to the Jews. If anything, it would be an insult to the Jewish people. So now you have people with a history of rebellion, divinely-prophesied military leaders, and their god — the same God who prophesied those military leaders — didn’t like the Roman gods.

Jewish Military Skill
This is where the rubber meets the road. The last two things wouldn’t matter except for the fact that the Jews were pretty good at launching rebellions. The first Jewish-Roman War kicked off in 67 AD when the Roman governor of Judea decided to raid the Jewish temple to raise money for his army. In response, the Jews revolted and expelled the Romans from Jerusalem. When the Romans sent Legion XII Fulminata from Syria to respond, the Jewish rebels ambushed it. In the Battle of Beth Horon, they annihilated the Twelfth Legion and captured its aquila, or legionary eagle. This was one of only about a dozen times in the history of the empire that a Roman legion would lose its aquila (some of the losses are controversial). Now, the Romans had gotten their noses bloodied before, but it was always in the course of a civil war or a war with another major power. To suffer that kind of defeat at the hands of a small rebel province was humiliating. The rebellion would have been even more successful had the Jews not descended into civil war between the Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Sicarii. All three factions were led by men who claimed to be the messiah. While the Romans eventually put down the revolt, it took them six legions to do so, even though the Jews were fighting amongst themselves. It also cost them thousands of lives. As part of their response, they destroyed the Second Temple, as I already mentioned. In 115 AD, the Jews rebelled again in the Second Jewish-Roman War. The Romans were busy at the time, fighting the Parthian Empire in defense of the Kingdom of Armenia, which was a Roman client state. The Jewish rebels were led by a man named Lukuas, who also claimed to be the messiah. His armies destroyed Roman supply depots, crippling their war effort against the Parthians. They marched south around the Mediterranean and ultimately sacked Alexandria in Egypt, desecrating the tomb of Pompey.
To defeat them, the emperor Trajan had to recall his legions from Parthia. The revolt was put down by the new emperor Hadrian shortly after Trajan’s death. But he was forced to make a peace deal with the Parthians, which left him with a grudge against the Jews.
In 130 AD, Hadrian ordered Jerusalem rebuilt and renamed it Aelia Capitolina. In the process, he ordered a temple to Jupiter built on the remains of the Second Temple. Needless to say, this desecration of their most sacred site was unacceptable to the Jewish people. In 132, they rebelled again in the Third Jewish-Roman War, this time led by another messiah, Simon Bar Kokhba. They defeated the Legio XXII Deiotariana so utterly that it disappears from the historical record after this war. Not only did they successfully expel the Roman legions from Judea, but they managed to hold them at bay for two years. In that time, they declared Bar Kokhba as king and struck their own coinage.
Bar Kokhba shekel. The front says “Shimon” (Simon), and the back says “to the glory of Jerusalem”. Overall, the Romans needed 10 legions to reconquer Judea this time around. In the process, they razed every fortified town to the ground and killed or expelled almost the entire population.

TL;DR: Three civil wars and two annihilated legions convinced the Romans that as long as Judea remained Jewish, it would never be a secure Roman province. So they expelled the surviving population and renamed the province to remove its Jewish identity.

EDIT: I don't mean any disrespect by using the term “the Jews”. I'm referring to a historical nation, much as I'd refer to “the Parthians” or “the Chinese”. The Jewish people are a historical nation like any other, and deserve the respect of being referred to as such.