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And now in truth the sceptre departed from Judah (Gen. xlix.10), and the kingdom of David and Solomon, of the famous Asmonean house and of Herod, sank into the form of a Roman province229, and was annexed to the prefecture of Syria. This office was now conferred on P.Sulpicius Quirinus, but the immediate government of Judæa and Samaria was given to a procurator, Coponius230, a man of equestrian rank, who had a body231 of troops at his command, and was entrusted in certain cases with the power of life and death232.

Quirinus, as we have seen above233, had in all probability been already governor of Syria, and in this capacity had conducted the preliminary enrolment of names preparatory to a general census. This census he was now entrusted to carry out234, and with it a levying of imposts and rates in money. This was regarded by the Jews as the last and most degrading mark of their subjection to a foreign power. The whole country was in a ferment, and though the energy of the high-priest Joazar235 repressed any actual outbreak at Jerusalem, the popular feeling could not be restrained in the provinces. At the head of the disaffected appeared one Judas of Gamala236 in Gaulanitis.