Julianus ben Sabar (also known as Julian or Julianus ben Sahir and Latinized as Iulianus Sabarides) was a leader of the Samaritans, seen widely as being the Taheb who led a failed revolt against the Byzantine Empire during the early 6th century.
In 529 Julianus led a revolt against the Byzantine Empire ruled by Justinian I, because of legislation outlawing the Samaritan religion, according to Procopius, though Cyril of Scythopolis claimed it was because of tension with Christians. [1]
Julianus declared himself King of Israel, taking Jeroboam as his model, and led a Samaritan army to ravage the cities of Scythopolis, Caesarea Maritima, Neapolis, Bethlehem, and Emmaus. By 530 he had succeeded in capturing virtually all of Samaria. The revolt was marked by large scale slaughter of Christians and destruction of churches. [2]
Justinian enlisted the help of the Ghassanids, and by 531 the rebellion had been put down. [3] Julianus himself was beheaded according to Theophanes the Confessor. Tens of thousands of Samaritans were killed and enslaved and many were sold as slaves throughout the Middle East. [4] Others were sold as far away as the Sasanian Empire, where their descendants would be included in the invasion of the Levant during the Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–628 some eighty-five years later.[ citation needed ]
Julianus' revolt has been compared [5] to the Bar Kokhba revolt 400 years prior. Both revolts against foreign imperial occupation led by a self-proclaimed Messiah/Taheb were initially successful, only to be later brutally quashed. However, unlike the Jews, the Samaritan community never recovered from their ethnic cleansing, and were further reduced to a minority in Samaria after persecutions in the late Middle Ages by the Mamluk Sultanate.
Justinian I, also known as Justinian the Great, was the Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565.
Samaritanism is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Samaritan people, who originate from the Hebrews and Israelites and began to emerge as a relatively distinct group after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the Iron Age. Central to the faith is the Samaritan Pentateuch, which Samaritans believe is the original and unchanged version of the Torah.
The Samaritans, or the Samaritan people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of ancient Israel and Judah that comprises the northern half of today's West Bank. They are naturally adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion that developed alongside Judaism, although the two differ in a number of important aspects in spite of sharing a common foundation in Yahwism.
Samaria is the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron, used as a historical and biblical name for the central region of Israel, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is known to the Palestinians in Arabic under two names, Samirah, and Mount Nablus.
The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah, is the sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existed during the Second Temple period, and constitutes the entire biblical canon in Samaritanism.
Zeno was Eastern Roman emperor from 474 to 475 and again from 476 to 491. Domestic revolts and religious dissension plagued his reign, which nevertheless succeeded to some extent in foreign issues. His reign saw the end of the Western Roman Empire following the deposition of Romulus Augustus and the death of Julius Nepos, but he was credited with contributing much to stabilising the Eastern Empire.
Mount Gerizim is one of two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the Palestinian city of Nablus and the biblical city of Shechem. It forms the southern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the northern side being formed by Mount Ebal. The mountain is one of the highest peaks in the West Bank and rises to 881 m (2,890 ft) above sea level, 70 m (230 ft) lower than Mount Ebal. The mountain is particularly steep on the northern side, is sparsely covered at the top with shrubbery, and lower down there is a spring with a high yield of fresh water. For the Samaritan people, most of whom live around it, Mount Gerizim is considered the holiest place on Earth.
The population of the region of Palestine, which approximately corresponds to modern Israel and the Palestinian territories, has varied in both size and ethnic composition throughout the history of Palestine.
Baba II Rabba, was a notable Samaritan High Priest. He is believed to have lived during the late third and early fourth centuries CE; Jeffrey Cohen puts his birth at 288 and his death at 328.
Al-Ḥārith ibn Jabalah, was a king of the Ghassanids, a pre-Islamic Arab Christian tribe who lived on the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire. The fifth Ghassanid ruler of that name, he reigned from c. 528 to 569, the longest of any Christian Arab ruler and played a major role in the Roman–Persian Wars and the affairs of the Syriac Orthodox Church. For his services to Byzantium, he was made patrikios and vir gloriosissimus.
Byzantine law was essentially a continuation of Roman law with increased Orthodox Christian and Hellenistic influence. Most sources define Byzantine law as the Roman legal traditions starting after the reign of Justinian I in the 6th century and ending with the Fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. Although future Byzantine codes and constitutions derived largely from Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis, their main objectives were idealistic and ceremonial rather than practical. Following Hellenistic and Near-Eastern political systems, legislations were tools to idealize and display the sacred role and responsibility of the emperor as the holy monarch chosen by God and the incarnation of law "nómos émpsychos", thus having philosophical and religious purposes that idealized perfect Byzantine kingship.
The Jewish revolt against Heraclius was part of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 and is considered the last serious Jewish attempt to gain autonomy in Palaestina Prima prior to modern times.
The Battle of the Ascent of Lebonah or Battle with Apollonius was the first battle fought between the Maccabees and the Seleucid Empire in 167 or 166 BCE. The Jewish forces were led by Judas Maccabeus and the Seleucid army force was under the command of Apollonius, described by Josephus as "the strategos (general) of the Samaritan forces".
Palaestina Prima or Palaestina I was a Byzantine province that existed from the late 4th century until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, in the region of Palestine. It was temporarily lost to the Sassanid Empire in 614, but re-conquered in 628.
Palaestina Secunda or Palaestina II was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 390, until its conquest by the Muslim armies in 634–636. Palaestina Secunda, a part of the Diocese of the East, roughly comprised the Galilee, Yizrael Valley, Bet Shean Valley and southern part of the Golan plateau, with its capital in Scythopolis. The province experienced the rise of Christianity under the Byzantines, but was also a thriving center of Judaism, after the Jews had been driven out of Judea by the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries.
Jews were numerous and had significant roles throughout the history of the Byzantine Empire.
This history of the Byzantine Empire covers the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from late antiquity until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. Several events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the transitional period during which the Roman Empire's east and west divided. In 285, the emperor Diocletian partitioned the Roman Empire's administration into eastern and western halves. Between 324 and 330, Constantine I transferred the main capital from Rome to Byzantium, later known as Constantinople and Nova Roma. Under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and others such as Roman polytheism were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. Although the Roman state continued, some historians choose to distinguish the Byzantine Empire from the earlier Roman Empire due to the imperial seat moving from Rome to Byzantium, the Empire’s integration of Christianity, and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin.
The Samaritan revolts were a series of insurrections in Palaestina Prima province, launched by the Samaritans against the Eastern Roman Empire. The revolts were marked by great violence on both sides, and their brutal suppression at the hands of the Byzantines and their Ghassanid allies severely reduced the Samaritan population. The events irreversibly shifted the demographics of the region, making the Christians the only dominant group in the Palaestina Prima province for many decades onward.
Justa was elected by Samaritans as their king during the 484 AD Samaritan revolt. Following his ascent in Samaria, he moved on Caesarea, where a noteworthy Samaritan community lived. There, many Christians were killed and the church of St. Procopius was destroyed. Justa celebrated the victory with games in the circus.