In Autumn of AD 66 , Cestius Gallus, the governor and general of Syria, led his army to attack Jerusalem to suppress a rebellion. But Cestius unexpectedly retreated from the city.
Cestius marched into Jerusalem with Legio XII Fulminata, auxiliary infantry, and cavalry all the while setting fire to villages around Jerusalem including Bezetha (Hebrew: בית זיתא), called by Josephus the New City, was a suburb of Jerusalem during the late Second Temple period.
Cestius camped on Mount Scopus, which overlooked the Temple from the northeast. Cestius took over the suburbs and began to chip away at the wall of the city. He was about to enter the Temple when he stopped and retreated from the city.
Cestius’ retreat became disorderly and chaotic when he was attacked on his way to the coast. There are some theories why Cestius retreated.
GESSIUS FLORUS
One theory is that he was bribed by Gessius Florus who was the Procurator in AD 64—66. Josephus said, Florus was a big antagonist to the Jewish population, and and was the catalyst of the First Jewish-Roman war.
Another theory is that Cestius was concerned by winter coming and his supply line was not secured.
Either way it was fortuitous for the Body of Christ, by divine intervention. Because the large group of Messianic-Christians who remembered the Words of Christ (Matthew 24) fled Jerusalem by the time General Titus arrived in AD 70.
Even though there was persecution towards the Jewish-Christians, they were a formidable number that created relative tolerance. But when the Messianic sect left Jerusalem caused such a riff has lasted two thousand years because the Jews felt that the Jewish-Christians had abandoned them and the Holy City.
RABBI ZAKKAI
During this period we also see the rise of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, (30 BC — AD 90) a teacher of the oral law and a sage of the Mishnah during the late Second Temple period who devised a modified creed to weed out Jewish-Christians for excommunication.
LOOSING OUR JEWISHNESS
This bred anti-Christian and antisemitism between the two groups. Later Constantine furthered the great divide by making the persecution of Christians illegal — this is where the Body of Christ lost much of its Jewishness and thus, much of the understanding of the blessing of Abraham, we were to enjoy in Christ.