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Introductory Essays to the Works of
Josephus
By David Chilton
1987
FROM PARADISE RESTORED
A Biblical Theology of Dominion
Dominion Press Tyler, Texas
© 1st 1985 & 6th 1999
JOSEPHUS ON THE FALL OF JERUSALEM
…Accordingly it appears to me, that the
misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if
they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so
considerable as they were….
So wrote Flavius Josephus in the Preface to his classic,
The Wars of the Jews, his astonishing record of the Great
Tribulation of Israel. Again and again, his history of those terrible
years parallels the biblical Prophecies of Jerusalem's destruction.
The reader of the following excerpts would do well to become familiar with
the basic texts on the judgment of Israel, especially Deuteronomy 28,
the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), and the Book of
Revelation.
The works of Josephus are available in several editions.
I like the four-volume set published by Baker Book House (Grand
Rapids, 1974). Gaalya Cornfeld has edited a beautiful new translation
of Josephus: The Jewish War (Grand Rapids: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1982), with many photographs and an extensive scholarly
commentary; anyone wishing to study Josephus in depth should certainly
consult this volume (although it is flawed by numerous typographical
errors). The excerpts quoted below are from the standard Whiston
translation. I have added my own subheads for each excerpt, and have
divided some of the longer passages into paragraphs for easier
reading; but the numbering of each section corresponds to the original. I
have also inserted some explanatory footnotes. While these do help
tie the quotations together, this appendix is not intended to be a
continuous narrative, but merely a collection of excerpts illustrating a
major argument of this book: that the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was
the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy in the Olivet Discourse.
The excerpts begin by describing some of the background
to the Jewish Revolt, and end with the suicide at Masada in A.D. 74.
Factions and False Prophets
(ii:xiii:2-6)
2. Nero therefore bestowed the kingdom of the Lesser
Armenia upon Aristobulus, Herod's(1) son, and
he added to Agrippa's kingdom four cities, with the toparchies to them
belonging; I mean Abila, and that Julias which is in Perea, Tarichea also,
and Tiberias of Galilee; but over the rest of Judea he made Felix
procurator. This Felix took Eleazar the arch-robber, and many that were with
him, alive, when they had ravaged the country for twenty years together, and
sent them to Rome; but as to the number of the robbers whom he caused to be
crucified, and of those who were caught among them, and whom he brought to
punishment, they were a multitude not to be enumerated.
3. When the country was purged of these, there sprang up
another sort of robbers in Jerusalem, which were called Sicarii, who slew
men in the day time, and in the midst of the city; this they did chiefly at
the festivals, when they mingled themselves among the multitude, and
concealed daggers under their garments, with which they stabbed those that
were their enemies; and when any fell down dead, the murderers became a part
of those that had indignation against them; by which means they appeared
persons of such reputation, that they could by no means be discovered. The
first man who was slain by them was Jonathan the high priest, after whose
death many were slain every day, while the fear men were in of being so
served was more afflicting than the calamity itself; and while every body
expected death every hour, as men do in war, so men were obliged to look
before them, and to take notice of their enemies at a great distance; nor,
if their friends were coming to them, durst they trust them any longer; but,
in the midst of their suspicions and guarding of themselves, they were
slain. Such was the celerity of the plotters against them, and so cunning
was their contrivance.
4. There was also another body of wicked men gotten
together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their
intentions, which laid waste the happy state of the city no less than did
these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the people
under pretense of Divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and
changes of the government; and these prevailed with the multitude to act
like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that
God would there show them the signals of liberty. But Felix thought this
procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and
footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them.
5. But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the
Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be
a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by
him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was
called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force
from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the
people, he intended to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards
of his that were to break into the city with him. But Felix prevented his
attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers, while all the people assisted
him in his attack upon them, insomuch that when it came to a battle, the
Egyptian ran away, with a few others, while the greatest part of those that
were with him were either destroyed or taken alive; but the rest of the
multitude were dispersed every one to their own homes, and there concealed
themselves.
6. Now when these were quieted, it happened, as it does
in a diseased body, that another part was subject to an inflammation; for a
company of deceivers and robbers got together, and persuaded the Jews to
revolt, and exhorted them to assert their liberty, inflicting death on those
that continued in obedience to the Roman government, and saying, that such
as willingly chose slavery ought to be forced from such their desired
inclinations; for they parted themselves into different bodies, and lay in
wait up and down the country, and plundered the houses of the great men, and
slew the men themselves, and set the villages on fire; and this till all
Judea was filled with the effects of their madness. And thus the flame was
every day more and more blown up, till it came to a direct war.
The Tyranny of Gessius Florus (2)
(ii:xiv:2)
2. And although such was the character of Albinus, yet
did Gessius Florus, who succeeded him, demonstrate him to have been a most
excellent person, upon the comparison; for the former did the greatest part
of his rogueries in private, and with a sort of dissimulation; but Gessius
did his unjust actions to the harm of the nation after a pompons manner; and
as though he had been sent as an executioner to punish condemned
malefactors, he omitted no sort of rapine, or of vexation; where the case
was really pitiable, he was most barbarous, and in things of the greatest
turpitude he was most impudent. Nor could any one outdo him in disguising
the truth; nor could any one contrive more subtle ways of deceit than he
did. He indeed thought it but a petty offense to get money out of single
persons; so he spoiled whole cities, and ruined entire bodies of men at
once, and did almost publicly proclaim it all the country over, that they
had liberty given them to turn robbers, upon this condition, that he might
go shares with them in the spoils they got. Accordingly, this his greediness
of gain was the occasion that entire toparchies were brought to desolation,
and a great many of the people left their own country, and fled into foreign
provinces.
Massacre in Jerusalem
(ii:xiv:8-9)
8. Now at this time Florus took up his quarters at the
palace; and on the next day he had his tribunal set before it, and sat upon
it, when the high priests, and the men of power, and those of the greatest
eminence in the city, came all before that tribunal; upon which Florus
commanded them to deliver up to him those that had reproached him, and told
them that they should themselves partake of the vengeance to them belonging,
if they did not produce the criminals; but these demonstrated that the
people were peaceably disposed, and they begged forgiveness for those that
had spoken amiss; for that it was no wonder at all that in so great a
multitude there should be some more daring than they ought to be, and, by
reason of their younger age, foolish also; and that it was impossible to
distinguish those that offended from the rest, while every one was sorry for
what he had done, and denied it out of fear of what would follow: that he
ought, however, to provide for the peace of the nation, and to take such
counsels as might preserve the city for the Romans, and rather for the sake
of a great number of innocent people to forgive a few that were guilty, than
for the sake of a few of the wicked to put so large and good a body of men
into disorder.
9. Florus was more provoked at this, and called out aloud
to the soldiers to plunder that which was called the Upper Market-place, and
to slay such as they met with. So the soldiers, taking this exhortation of
their commander in a sense agreeable to their desire of gain, did not only
plunder the place they were sent to, but forcing themselves into every
house, they slew its inhabitants; so the citizens fled along the narrow
lanes, and the soldiers slew those that they caught, and no method of
plunder was omitted; they also caught many of the quiet people, and brought
them before Florus, whom he first chastised with stripes, and then
crucified. Accordingly, the whole number of those that were destroyed that
day, with their wives and children, (for they did not spare even the infants
themselves,) was about three thousand and six hundred. And what made this
calamity the heavier was this new method of Roman barbarity; for Florus
ventured then to do what no one had done before, that is, to have men of the
equestrian order whipped, and nailed to the cross before his tribunal; who,
although they were by birth Jews, yet were they of Roman dignity
notwithstanding.(3)
"The Day-Time Was Spent in the Shedding of Blood"(4)
(ii:xviii:1-5)
1. NOW the people of Cesarea had slain the Jews that were
among them on the very same day and hour [when the soldiers were slain],
which one would think must have come to pass by the direction of Providence;
insomuch that in one hour's time above twenty thousand Jews were killed, and
all Cesarea was emptied of its Jewish inhabitants; for Florus caught such as
ran away, and sent them in bonds to the galleys. Upon which stroke that the
Jews received at Cesarea, the whole nation was greatly enraged; so they
divided themselves into several parties, and laid waste the villages of the
Syrians, and their neighboring cities, Philadelphia, and Sebonitis, and
Gerasa, and Pella, and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara, and Hippos; and
falling upon Gaulonitis, some cities they destroyed there, and some they set
on fire, and then went to Kedasa, belonging to the Tyrians, and to
Ptolemais, and to Gaba, and to Cesarea; nor was either Sebaste [Samaria] or
Askelon able to oppose the violence with which they were attacked; and when
they had burnt these to the ground; they entirely demolished Anthedon and
Gaza; many also of the villages that were about every one of those cities
were plundered, and an immense slaughter was made of the men who were caught
in them.
2. However, the Syrians were even with the Jews in the
multitude of the men whom they slew; for they killed those whom they caught
in their cities, and that not only out of the hatred they bare them, as
formerly, but to prevent the danger under which they were from them; so that
the disorders in all Syria were terrible, and every city was divided into
two armies, encamped one against another, and the preservation of the one
party was in the destruction of the other; so the day time was spent in
shedding of blood, and the night in fear, which was of the two the more
terrible; for when the Syrians thought they had ruined the Jews, they had
the Judaizers in suspicion also; and as each side did not care to slay those
whom they only suspected on the other, so did they greatly fear them when
they were mingled with the other, as if they were certainly foreigners.
Moreover, greediness of gain was a provocation to kill the opposite party,
even to such as had of old appeared very mild and gentle towards them; for
they without fear plundered the effects of the slain, and carried off the
spoils of those whom they slew to their own houses, as if they had been
gained in a set battle; and he was esteemed a man of honor who got the
greatest share, as having prevailed over the greatest number of his enemies.
It was then common to see cities filled with dead bodies, still lying
unburied, and those of old men, mixed with infants, all dead, and scattered
about together; women also lay amongst them, without any covering for their
nakedness: you might then see the whole province full of inexpressible
calamities, while the dread of still more barbarous practices which were
threatened was every where greater than what had been already perpetrated.
3. And thus far the conflict had been between Jews and
foreigners; but when they made excursions to Scythopolis, they found Jew
that acted as enemies; for as they stood in battle-array with those of
Scythopolis, and preferred their own safety before their relation to us,
they fought against their own countrymen; nay, their alacrity was so very
great, that those of Scythopolis suspected them. These were afraid,
therefore, lest they should make an assault upon the city in the night time,
and, to their great misfortune, should thereby make an apology for
themselves to their own people for their revolt from them. So they commanded
them, that in case they would confirm their agreement and demonstrate their
fidelity to them, who were of a different nation, they should go out of the
city, with their families to a neighboring grove; and when they had done as
they were commanded, without suspecting any thing, the people of Scythopolis
lay still for the interval of two days, to tempt them to be secure; but on
the third night they watched their opportunity, and cut all their throats,
some as they lay unguarded, and some as they lay asleep. The number that was
slain was above thirteen thousand, and then they plundered them of all that
they had.
4. It will deserve our relation what befell Simon; he was
the son of one Saul, a man of reputation among the Jews. This man was
distinguished from the rest by the strength of his body, and the boldness of
his conduct, although he abused them both to the mischieving of his
countrymen; for he came every day and slew a great many of the Jews of
Scythopolis, and he frequently put them to flight, and became himself alone
the cause of his army's conquering. But a just punishment overtook him for
the murders he had committed upon those of the same nation with him; for
when the people of Scythopolis threw their darts at them in the grove, he
drew his sword, but did not attack any of the enemy; for he saw that he
could do nothing against such a multitude; but he cried out after a very
moving manner, and said, "O you people of Scythopolis, I deservedly suffer
for what I have done with relation to you, when I gave you such security of
my fidelity to you, by slaying so many of those that were related to me.
Wherefore we very justly experience the perfidiousness of foreigners, while
we acted after a most wicked manner against our own nation. I will therefore
die, polluted wretch as I am, by nine own hands; for it is not fit I should
die by the hand of our enemies; and let the same action be to me both a
punishment for my great crimes, and a testimony of my courage to my
commendation, that so no one of our enemies may have it to brag of, that he
it was that slew me, and no one may insult upon me as I fall." Now when he
had said this, he looked round about him upon his family with eyes of
commiseration and of rage (that family consisted of a wife and children, and
his aged parents); so, in the first place, he caught his father by his grey
hairs, and ran his sword through him, and after him he did the same to his
mother, who willingly received it; and after them he did the like to his
wife and children, every one almost offering themselves to his sword, as
desirous to prevent being slain by their enemies; so when he had gone over
all his family, he stood upon their bodies to be seen by all, and stretching
out his right hand, that his action might be observed by all, he sheathed
his entire sword into his own bowels. This young man was to be pitied, on
account of the strength of his body and the courage of his soul; but since
he had assured foreigners of his fidelity [against his own countrymen], he
suffered deservedly.
5. Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities
rose up against the Jews that were among them; those of Askelon slew two
thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two thousand, and put not a
few into bonds; those of Tyre also put a great number to death, but kept a
greater number in prison; moreover, those of Hippos, and those of Gadara,
did the like while they put to death the boldest of the Jews, but kept those
of whom they were afraid in custody; as did the rest of the cities of Syria,
according as they every one either hated them or were afraid of them; only
the Antiochtans the Sidontans, and Apamians spared those that dwelt with
them, and would not endure either to kill any of the Jews, or to put them in
bonds. And perhaps they spared them, because their own number was so great
that they despised their attempts. But I think the greatest part of this
favor was owing to their commiseration of those whom they saw to make no
innovations. As for the Gerasans, they did no harm to those that abode with
them; and for those who had a mind to go away, they conducted them as far as
their borders reached.
50,000 Jews Slaughtered in Alexandria (A.D. 66)
(ii:xviii:8)
8. Now when he(5) perceived
that those who were for innovations would not be pacified till some great
calamity should overtake them, he sent out upon them those two Roman legions
that were in the city, and together with them five thousand other soldiers,
who, by chance, were come together out of Libya, to the ruin of the Jews.
They were also permitted not only to kill them, but to plunder them of what
they had, and to set fire to their houses. These soldiers rushed violently
into that part of the city that was called Delta, where the Jewish people
lived together, and did as they were bidden, though not without bloodshed on
their own side also; for the Jews got together, and set those that were the
best armed among them in the forefront, and made a resistance for a great
while; but when once they gave back, they were destroyed unmercifully; and
this their destruction was complete, some being caught in the open field,
and others forced into their houses, which houses were first plundered of
what was in them, and then set on fire by the Romans; wherein no mercy was
shown to the infants, and no regard had to the aged; but they went on in the
slaughter of persons of every age, till all the place was overflowed with
blood, and fifty thousand of them lay dead upon heaps; nor had the remainder
been preserved, had they not be-taken themselves to supplication. So
Alexander commiserated their condition, and gave orders to the Romans to
retire; accordingly, these being accustomed to obey orders, left off killing
at the first intimation; but the populace of Alexandria bare so very great
hatred to the Jews, that it was difficult to recall them, and it was a hard
thing to make them leave their dead bodies.
John of Gischala(6)
(ii:xxi:1)
1. Now, as Josephus was thus engaged in the
administration of the affairs of Galilee, there arose a treacherous person,
a man of Gischala, the son of Levi, "whose name was John. His character was
that of a very cunning and very knavish person, beyond the ordinary rate of
the other men of eminence there, and for wicked practices he had not his
fellow any where. Poor he was at first, and for a long time his wants were a
hinderance to him in his wicked designs. He was a ready liar, and yet very
sharp in gaining credit to his fictions: he thought it a point of virtue to
delude people, and would delude even such as were the dearest to him. He was
a hypocritical pretender to humanity, but where he had hopes of gain, he
spared not the shedding of blood: his desires were ever carried to great
things, and he encouraged his hopes from those mean wicked tricks which he
was the author of. He had a peculiar knack at thieving; but in some time he
got certain companions in his impudent practices; at first they were but
few, but as he proceeded on in his evil course, they became still more and
more numerous. He took care that none of his partners should be easily
caught in their rogueries, but chose such out of the rest as had the
strongest constitutions of body, and the greatest courage of soul, together
with great skill in martial affairs; as he got together a band of four
hundred men, who came principally out of the country of Tyre, and were
vagabonds that had run away from its villages; and by the means of these he
laid waste all Galilee, and irritated a considerable number, who were in
great expectation of a war then suddenly to arise among them.
Galilee "Filled With Fire and Blood"(7)
(iii:iv:1)
1. …nor did the Romans, out of the anger they bore at
this attempt, leave off, either by night or by day, burning the places in
the plain, and stealing away the cattle that were in the country, and
killing whatsoever appeared capable of fighting perpetually, and leading the
weaker people as slaves into captivity; so that Galilee was all over filled
with fire and blood…
The Destruction of Jotapata(8)
(iii:vii:36)
36. And on this day it was that the Romans slew all the multitude that
appeared openly; but on the following days they searched the hiding-places,
and fell upon those that were under ground, and in the caverns, and went
thus through every age, excepting the infants and the women, and of these
there were gathered together as captives twelve hundred; and as for those
that were slain at the taking of the city, and in the former fights, they
were numbered to be forty thousand. So Vespasian(9)
gave order that the city should be entirely demolished, and all the
fortifications burnt down. And thus was Jotapata taken, in the thirteenth
year of the reign of Nero, on the first day of the month Panemus [Tamuz].
The Sea Turns to Blood
(iii:ix:2-4)
2. In the mean time, there were gathered together as well
such as had seditiously got out from among their enemies, as those that had
escaped out of the demolished cities, which were in all a great number, and
repaired Joppa, which had been left desolate by Cestius, that it might serve
them for a place of refuge; and because the adjoining region had been laid
waste in the war, and was not capable of supporting them, they determined to
go off to sea. They also built themselves a great many piratical ships, and
turned pirates upon the seas near to Syria, and Phoenicia, and Egypt, and
made those seas unnavigable to all men. Now as soon as Vespasian knew of
their conspiracy, he sent both footmen and horsemen to Joppa, which was
unguarded in the night time; however, those that were in it perceived that
they should be attacked, and were afraid of it; yet did they not endeavor to
keep the Romans out, but fled to their ships, and lay at sea all night, out
of the reach of their darts.
3. Now Joppa is not naturally a haven, for it ends in a
rough shore, where all the rest of it is straight, but the two ends bend
towards each other, where there are deep precipices, and great stones that
jut out into the sea, and where the chains wherewith Andromeda(10)
was bound have left their footsteps, which attest to the antiquity of that
fable. But the north wind opposes and beats upon the shore, and dashes
mighty waves against the rocks which receive them, and renders the haven
more dangerous than the country they had deserted. Now as those people of
Joppa were floating about in this sea, in the morning there fell a violent
wind upon them; it is called by those that sail there "the black north
wind," and there dashed their ships one against another, and dashed some of
them against the rocks, and carried many of them by force, while they strove
against the opposite waves, into the main sea; for the shore was so rocky,
and had so many of the enemy upon it, that they were afraid to come to land;
nay, the waves rose so very high, that they drowned them; nor was there any
place whither they could fly, nor any way to save themselves; while they
were thrust out of the sea, by the violence of the wind, if they staid where
they were, and out of the city by the violence of the Romans. And much
lamentation there was when the ships were dashed against one another, and a
terrible noise when they were broken to pieces; and some of the multitude
that were in them were covered with waves, and so perished, and a great many
were embarrassed with shipwrecks. But some of them thought that to die by
their own swords was lighter than by the sea, and so they killed themselves
before they were drowned; although the greatest part of them were carried by
the waves, and dashed to pieces against the abrupt parts of the rocks,
insomuch that the sea was bloody a long way, and the maritime parts were
full of dead bodies; for the Romans came upon those that were carried to the
shore, and destroyed them; and the number of the bodies that were thus
thrown out of the sea was four thousand and two hundred. The Romans also
took the city without opposition, and utterly demolished it.
4. And thus was Joppa taken twice by the Romans in a
little time; but Vespasian, in order to prevent these pirates from coming
thither any more, erected a camp there, where the citadel of Joppa had been,
and left a body of horse in it, with a few footmen, that these last might
stay there and guard the camp, and the horsemen might spoil the country that
lay round it, and might destroy the neighboring villages and smaller cities.
So these troops overran the country, as they were ordered to do, and every
day cut to pieces and laid desolate the whole region.
"Slain on Every Side"
(iii:x:3)
3. …Vespasian had also sent both Antonius and Silo, with
two thousand archers, and had given it them in charge to seize upon the
mountain that was over against the city,(11)
and repel those that were upon the wall; which archers did as they were
commanded, and prevented those that attempted to assist them that way; And
now Titus(12) made his own horse march first
against the enemy, as did the others with a great noise after him, and
extended themselves upon the plain as wide as the enemy which confronted
them; by which means they appeared much more numerous than they really were.
Now the Jews, although they were surprised at their onset, and at their good
order, made resistance against their attacks for a little while; but when
they were pricked with their long poles, and overborne by the violent noise
of the horsemen, they came to be trampled under their feet; many also of
them were slain on every side, which made them disperse themselves, and run
to the city, as fast as every one of them were able. So Titus pressed upon
the hindmost, and slew them; and of the rest, some he fell upon as they
stood on heaps, and some he prevented, and met them in the mouth, and run
them through; many also he leaped upon as they fell one upon another, and
trod them down, and cut off all the retreat they had to the wall, and turned
them back into the plain, till at last they forced a passage by their
multitude, and got away, and ran into the city.
The Son of Galilee "Full of Dead Bodies"(13)
(iii:x:9)
9. …Now these which were driven into the lake could
neither fly to the land, where all was in their enemies' hand, and in war
against them; nor could they fight upon the level by sea, for their ships
were small and fitted only for piracy; they were too weak to fight with
Vespasian's vessels, and the mariners that were in them were so few, that
they were afraid to come near the Romans, who attacked them in great
numbers. However, as they sailed round about the vessels, and sometimes as
they came near them, they threw stones at the Romans when they were a good
way off, or came closer and fought them; yet did they receive the greatest
harm themselves in both cases. As for the stones they threw at the Romans,
they only made a sound one after another, for they threw them against such
as were in their armor, while the Roman darts could reach the Jews
themselves; and when they ventured to come near the Romans, they became
sufferers themselves before they could do any harm to the ether, and were
drowned, they and their ships together.
As for those that endeavored to come to an actual fight,
the Romans ran many of them through with their long poles. Sometimes the
Romans leaped into their ships, with swords in their hands, and slew them;
but when some of them met the vessels, the Romans caught them by the middle,
and destroyed at once their ships and themselves who were taken in them. And
for such as were drowning in the sea, if they lifted their heads up above
the water, they were either killed by darts, or caught by the vessels; but
if, in the desperate case they were in, they attempted to swim to their
enemies, the Romans cut off either their heads or their hands; and indeed
they were destroyed after various manners every where, till the rest being
put to flight, were forced to get upon the land, while the vessels
encompassed them about [on the sea]: but as many of these were repulsed when
they were getting ashore, they were killed by the darts upon the lake; and
the Romans leaped out of their vessels, and destroyed a great many more upon
the land: one might then see the lake all bloody, and full of dead bodies,
for not one of them escaped.
And a terrible stink, and a very sad sight there was on
the following days over that country; for as for the shores, they were full
of shipwrecks, and of dead bodies all swelled; and as the dead bodies were
inflamed by the sun, and putrefied, they corrupted the air, insomuch that
the misery was not only the object of commiseration to the Jews, but to
those that hated them, and had been the authors of that misery. This was the
upshot of the sea-fight. The number of the slain, including those that were
killed in the city before, was six thousand and five hundred.
The Edomites Desolate the Temple(14)
(iv:v:1-4)
1. This advice pleased the Idumeans, and they ascended
through the city to the temple. The zealots were also in great expectation
of their coming, and earnestly waited for them. When therefore these were
entering, they also came boldly out of the inner temple, and mixing
themselves among the Idumeans, they attacked the guards; and some of those
that were upon the watch, but were fallen asleep, they killed as they were
asleep; but as those that were now awakened made a cry, the whole multitude
arose, and in the amazement they were in caught hold of their arms
immediately, and betook themselves to their own defense; and so long as they
thought they were only the zealots who attacked them, they went on boldly,
as hoping to overpower them by their numbers; but when they saw others
pressing in upon them also, they perceived the Idumeans were got in; and the
greatest part of them laid aside their arms, together with their courage,
and betook themselves to lamentations.
But some few of the younger sort covered themselves with
their armor, and valiantly received the Idumeans, and for a while protected
the multitude of old men. Others, indeed, gave a signal to those that were
in the city of the calamities they were in; but when these were also made
sensible that the Idumeans were come in, none of them durst come to their
assistance, only they returned the terrible echo of wailing, and lamented
their misfortunes. A great howling of the women was excited also, and every
one of the guards were in danger of being killed. The zealots also joined in
the shouts raised by the Idumeans; and the storm itself rendered the cry
more terrible; nor did the Idumeans spare any body; for as they are
naturally a most barbarous and bloody nation, and had been distressed by the
tempest, they made use of their weapons against those that had shut the
gates against them, and acted in the same manner as to those that
supplicated for their lives, and to those that fought them, insomuch that
they ran through those with their swords who desired them to remember the
relation there was between them, and begged of them to have regard to their
common temple.(15)
Now there was at present neither any place for flight,
nor any hope of preservation; but as they were driven one upon another in
heaps, so were they slain. Thus the greater part were driven together by
force, as there was now no place of retirement, and the murderers were upon
them; and, having no other way, threw themselves down headlong into the
city; whereby, in my opinion, they underwent a more miserable destruction
than that which they avoided, because that was a voluntary one. And now the
outer temple was all of it overflowed with blood; and that day, as it came
on, they saw eight thousand five hundred dead bodies there.
2. But the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by these
slaughters; but they now betook themselves to the city, and plundered every
house, and slew every one they met; and for the other multitude, they
esteemed it needless to go on with killing them, but they sought for the
high priests, and the generality went with the greatest zeal against them;
and as soon as they caught them they slew them, and then standing upon their
dead bodies, in way of jest, upbraided Ananus(16)
with his kindness to the people, and Jesus(17)
with his speech made to them from the wall. Nay, they proceeded to that
degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial,
although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they
took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before
the going down of the sun. I should not mistake if I said that the death of
Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the city, and that from this
very day may be dated the overthrow of her wall, and the ruin of her
affairs, whereon they saw their high priest, and the procurer of their
preservation, slain in the midst of their city.
He was on other accounts also a venerable, and a very
just man; and besides the grandeur of that nobility, and dignity, and honor
of which he was possessed, he had been a lover of a kind of parity, even
with regard to the meanest of the people; he was a prodigious lover of
liberty, and an admirer of a democracy in government; and did ever prefer
the public welfare before his own advantage, and preferred peace above all
things; for he was thoroughly sensible that the Romans were not to be
conquered. He also foresaw that of necessity a war would follow, and that
unless the Jews made up matters with them very dexterously, they would be
destroyed; to say all in a word, if Ananus had survived, they had certainly
compounded matters; for he was a shrewd man in speaking and persuading the
people, and had already gotten the mastery of those that opposed his
designs, or were for the war. And the Jews had then put abundance of delays
in the way of the Romans, if they had had such a general as he was.
Jesus was also joined with him; and although he was
inferior to him upon the comparison, he was superior to the rest; and I
cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to
destruction, as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge his sanctuary by
fire, that he cut off these their great defenders and well-wishers, while
those that a little before had worn the sacred garments, and had presided
over the public worship; and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt
on the whole habitable earth when they came into our city, were cast out
naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts. And I cannot but
imagine that virtue itself groaned at these men's case, and lamented that
she was here so terribly conquered by wickedness. And this at last was the
end of Ananus and Jesus.
3. Now after these were slain, the zealots and the
multitude of the Idumeans fell upon the people as upon a flock of profane
animals, and cut their throats; and for the ordinary sort, they were
destroyed in what place soever they caught them. But for the noblemen and
the youth, they first caught them and bound them, and shut them up in
prison, and put off their slaughter, in hopes that some of them would turn
over to their party; but not one of them would comply with their desires,
but all of them preferred death before being enrolled among such wicked
wretches as acted against their own country. But this refusal of theirs
brought upon them terrible torments; for they were so scourged and tortured,
that their bodies were not able to sustain their torments, till at length,
and with difficulty, they had the favor to be slain.
Those whom they caught in the day time were slain in the
night, and then their bodies were carried out and thrown away, that there
might be room for other prisoners; and the terror that was upon the people
was so great, that no one had courage enough either to weep openly for the
dead man that was related to him, or to bury him; but those that were shut
up in their own houses could only shed tears in secret, and durst not even
groan without great caution, lest any of their enemies should hear them; for
if they did, those that mourned for others soon underwent the same death
with those whom they mourned for. Only in the night time they would take up
a little dust, and throw it upon their bodies; and even some that were the
most ready to expose themselves to danger would do it in the day time: and
there were twelve thousand of the better sort who perished in this manner.
4. And now these zealots and Idumeans were quite weary of
barely killing men, so they had the impudence of setting up fictitious
tribunals and judicatures for that purpose; and as they intended to have
Zacharias(18) the son of Baruch, one of the
most eminent of the citizens, slain, - so what provoked them against him
was, that hatred of wickedness and love of liberty which were so eminent in
him: he was also a rich man, so that by taking him off, they did not only
hope to seize his effects, but also to get rid of a mall that had great
power to destroy them. So they called together, by a public proclamation,
seventy of the principal men of the populace, for a show, as if they were
real judges, while they had no proper authority. Before these was Zacharias
accused of a design to betray their polity to the Romans, and having
traitorously sent to Vespasian for that purpose. Now there appeared no proof
or sign of what he was accused; but they affirmed themselves that they were
well persuaded that so it was, and desired that such their affirmation might
he taken for sufficient evidence.
Now when Zacharias clearly saw that there was no way
remaining for his escape from them, as having been treacherously called
before them, and then put in prison, but not with any intention of a legal
trial, he took great liberty of speech in that despair of his life he was
under. Accordingly he stood up, and laughed at their pretended accusation,
and in a few words confuted the crimes laid to his charge; after which he
turned his speech to his accusers, and went over distinctly all their
transgressions of the law, and made heavy lamentation upon the confusion
they had brought public affairs to: in the mean time, the zealots grew
tumultuous, and had much ado to abstain from drawing their swords, although
they designed to preserve the appearance and show of judicature to the end.
They were also desirous, on other accounts, to try the judges, whether they
would be mindful of what was just at their own peril.
Now the seventy judges brought in their verdict that the
person accused was not guilty, as choosing rather to die themselves with
him, than to have his death laid at their doors; hereupon there arose a
great clamor of the zealots upon his acquittal, and they all had indignation
at the judges for not understanding that the authority that was given them
was but in jest. So two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the
middle of the temple, and slew him; and as he fell down dead, they bantered
him, and said, "Thou hast also our verdict, and this will prove a more sure
acquittal to thee than the other." They also threw him down from the temple
immediately into the valley beneath it. Moreover, they struck the judges
with the backs of their swords, by way of abuse, and thrust them out of the
court of the temple, and spared their lives with no other design than that,
when they were dispersed among the people in the city, they might become
their messengers, to let them know they were no better than slaves.
How the Zealots Fulfilled Prophecy(19)
(iv:vi:3)
3. …and indeed many there were of the Jews that deserted
every day, and fled away from the zealots, although their flight was very
difficult, since they had guarded every passage out of the city, and slew
every one that was caught at them, as taking it for granted they were going
over to the Romans; yet did he who gave them money get clear off, while he
only that gave them none was voted a traitor. So the upshot was this, that
the rich purchased their flight by money, while none but the poor were
slain. Along all the roads also vast numbers of dead bodies lay in heaps,
and even many of those that were so zealous in deserting at length chose
rather to perish within the city; for the hopes of burial made death in
their own city appear of the two less terrible to them.
But these zealots came at last to that degree of
barbarity, as not to bestow a burial either on those slain in the city, or
on those that lay along the roads; but as if they had made an agreement to
cancel both the laws of their country and the laws of nature, and, at the
same time that they defiled men with their wicked actions, they would
pollute the Divinity itself also, they left the dead bodies to putrefy under
the sun; and the same punishment was allotted to such as buried any as to
those that deserted, which was no other than death; while he that granted
the favor of a grave to another would presently stand in need of a grave
himself. To say all in a word, no other gentle passion was so entirely lost
among them as mercy; for what were the greatest objects of pity did most of
all irritate these wretches, and they transferred their rage from the living
to those that had been slain, and from the dead to the living. Nay, the
terror was so very great, that he who survived called them that were first
dead happy, as being at rest already; as did those that were under torture
in the prisons, declare, that, upon this comparison, those that lay unburied
were the happiest.
These men, therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men,
and laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they
ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets foretell
many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice,
which when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those
very prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a certain
ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the
sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews,
and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now while these zealots
did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the
instruments of their accomplishment.
Simon's "Perpetual Bloodshedding"(20)
(iv:ix:7-8)
7. …Thence did Simon make his progress over all Idumen,
and did not only ravage the cities and villages, but lay waste the whole
country; for, besides those that were completely armed, he had forty
thousand men that followed him, insomuch that he had not provisions enough
to suffice such a multitude. Now, besides this want of provisions that he
was in, he was of a barbarous disposition, and bore great anger at this
nation, by which means it came to pass that Idumea was greatly depopulated;
and as one may see all the woods behind despoiled of their leaves by
locusts, after they have been there, so was there nothing left behind
Simon's army but a desert. Some places they burnt down, some they utterly
demolished, and whatsoever grew in the country, they either trod it down or
fed upon it, and by their marches they made the ground that was cultivated
harder and more untractable than that which was barren. In short, there was
no sign remaining of those places that had been laid waste, that ever they
had had a being.
8. This success of Simon excited the zealots afresh; and
though they were afraid to fight him openly in a fair battle, yet did they
lay ambushes in the passes, and seized upon his wife, with a considerable
number of her attendants; whereupon they came back to the city rejoicing, as
if they had taken Simon himself captive, and were in present expectation
that he would lay down his arms, and make supplication to them for his wife;
but instead of indulging any merciful affection, he grew very angry at them
for seizing his beloved wife; so he came to the wall of Jerusalem, and, like
wild beasts when they are wounded, and cannot overtake those that wounded
them, he vented his spleen upon all persons that he met with.
Accordingly, he caught all those that were come out of
the city gates, either to gather herbs or sticks, who were unarmed and in
years; he then tormented them and destroyed them, out of the immense rage he
was in, and was almost ready to taste the very flesh of their dead bodies.
He also cut off the hands of a great many, and sent them into the city to
astonish his enemies, and in order to make the people fall into a sedition,
and desert those that had been the authors of his wife's seizure. He also
enjoined them to tell the people that Simon swore by the God of the
universe, who sees all things, that unless they will restore him his wife,
he will break down their wall, and inflict the like punishment upon all the
citizens, without sparing any age, and without making any distinction
between the guilty and the innocent. These threatenings so greatly
affrighted, not the people only, but the zealots themselves also, that they
sent his wife back to him;—when he became a little milder, and left off his
perpetual blood-shedding.
"God Turned Their Opinions to the Worst Advise"
(iv:ix:10-11)
10. …now this Simon, who was without the wall, was a
greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves, as were the zealots
who were within it more heavy upon them than both of the other; and during
this time did the mischievous contrivances and courage [of John] corrupt the
body of the Galileans; for these Galileans had advanced this John, and made
him very potent, who made them suitable requital from the authority he had
obtained by their means; for he permitted them to do all things that any of
them desired to do, while their inclination to plunder was insatiable, as
was their zeal in searching the houses of the rich; and for the murdering of
the men, and abusing of the women, it was sport to them. They also devoured
what spoils they had taken, together with their blood, and indulged
themselves in feminine wantonness, without any disturbance, till they were
satiated therewith; while they decked their hair, and put on women's
garments, and were besmeared over with ointments; and that they might appear
very comely, they had paints under their eyes, and imitated not only the
ornaments, but also the lusts of women, and were guilty of such intolerable
uncleanness, that they invented unlawful pleasures of that sort.
And thus did they roll themselves up and down the city,
as in a brothel-house, and defiled it entirely with their impure actions;
nay, while their faces looked like the faces of women, they killed with
their right hands; and when their gait was effeminate, they presently
attacked men, and became warriors, and drew their swords from under their
finely dyed cloaks, and ran every body through whom they alighted upon.
However, Simon waited for such as ran away from John, and was the more
bloody of the two; and he who had escaped the tyrant within the wall was
destroyed by the other that lay before the gates, so that all attempts of
flying and deserting to the Romans were cut off, as to those that had a mind
so to do.
11. Yet did the army that was under John raise a sedition
against him, and all the Idumeans separated themselves from the tyrant, and
attempted to destroy him, and this out of their envy at his power, and
hatred of his cruelty; so they got together, and slew many of the zealots,
and drove the rest before them into that royal palace that was built by
Grapte, who was a relation of Izates, the king of Adiabene; the Idumeans
fell in with them, and drove the zealots out thence into the temple, and
betook themselves to plunder John's effects; for both he himself was in that
palace, and therein had he laid up the spoils he had acquired by his
tyranny. In the mean time, the multitude of those zealots that were
dispersed over the city ran together to the temple unto those that fled
thither, and John prepared to bring them down against the people and the
Idumeans, who were not so much afraid of being attacked by them (because
they were themselves better soldiers than they) as at their madness, lest
they should privately sally out of the temple and get among them, and not
only destroy them, but set the city on fire also. So they assembled
themselves together, and the high priests with them, and took counsel after
what manner they should avoid their assault.
Now it was God who turned their opinions to the worst
advice, and thence they devised such a remedy to get themselves free as was
worse than the disease itself. Accordingly, in order to overthrow John, they
determined to admit Simon, and earnestly to desire the introduction of a
second tyrant into the city; which resolution they brought to perfection,
and sent Matthias, the high priest, to beseech this Simon to come ill to
them, of whom they had so often been afraid. Those also that had fled from
the zealots in Jerusalem joined in this request to him, out of the desire
they had of preserving their houses and their effects. Accordingly he, in an
arrogant manner, granted them his lordly protection, and came into the city,
in order to deliver it from the zealots. The people also made joyful
acclamations to him, as their savior and their preserver; but when he was
come in, with his army, he took care to secure his own authority, and looked
upon those that had invited him in to be no less his enemies than those
against whom the invitation was intended.
Lakes of Blood in the Temple
(v:i:3-5)
3. But now the tyrant Simon, the son of Gioras, whom the
people had invited in, out of the hopes they had of his assistance in the
great distresses they were in, having in his power the upper city, and a
great part of the lower, did now make more vehement assaults upon John and
his party, because they were fought against from above also; yet was he
beneath their situation when he attacked them, as they were beneath the
attacks of the others above them. Whereby it came to pass that John did both
receive and inflict great damage, and that easily, as he was fought against
on both sides; and the same advantage that Eleazar and his party had over
him, since he was beneath them, the same advantage had he, by his higher
situation, over Simon.
On which account he easily repelled the attacks that were
made from beneath, by the weapons thrown from their hands only; but was
obliged to repel those that threw their darts from the temple above him, by
his engines of war; for he had such engines as threw darts, and javelins,
and stones, and that in no small number, by which he did not only defend
himself from such as fought against him, but slew moreover many of the
priests, as they were about their sacred ministrations. For notwithstanding
these men were mad with all sorts of impiety, yet did they still admit those
that desired to offer their sacrifices, although they took care to search
the people of their own country beforehand, and both suspected and watched
them; while they were not so much afraid of strangers, who, although they
had gotten leave of them, how cruel soever they were, to come into that
court, were yet often destroyed by this sedition; for those darts that were
thrown by the engines came with that force, that they went over all the
buildings, and reached as far as the altar, and the temple itself, and fell
upon the priests, and those that were about the sacred offices; insomuch
that many persons who came thither with great zeal from the ends of the
earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated place, which was esteemed holy
by all mankind,(21) fell down before their own
sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which was venerable among
all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, with their own blood; till the dead
bodies of strangers were mingled together with those of their own country,
and those of profane persons with those of the priests, and the blood of all
sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves.(22)
And now, "O must wretched city, what misery so great as
this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify thee from
thy intestine hatred! 'For thou couldst be no longer a place fit for God,
nor couldst thou long continue in being, after thou hadst been a sepulcher
for the bodies of thy own people, and hadst made the holy house itself a
burying-place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayst thou again grow better,
if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the
author of thy destruction." But I must restrain myself from these passions
by the rules of history, since this is not a proper time for domestical
lamentations, but for historical narrations; I therefore return to the
operations that follow in this sedition.
4. And now there were three treacherous factions in the
city, the one parted from the other.(23)
Eleazar and his party, that kept the sacred first-fruits, came against John
in their cups. Those that were with John plundered the populace, and went
out with zeal against Simon. This Simon had his supply of provisions from
the city, in opposition to the seditious. When, therefore, John was
assaulted on both sides, he made his men turn about, throwing his darts upon
those citizens that came up against him, from the cloisters he had in his
possession, while he opposed those that attacked him from the temple by his
engines of war. And if at any time he was freed from those that were above
him, which happened frequently, from their being drunk and tired, he sallied
out with a great number upon Simon and his party; and this he did always in
such parts of the city as he could come at, till he set on fire those houses
that were full of corn, and of all other provisions. The same thing was done
by Simon, when, upon the other's retreat, he attacked the city also; as if
they had, on purpose, done it to serve the Romans, by destroying what the
city had laid up against the siege, and by thus cutting off the nerves of
their own power.
Accordingly, it so came to pass, that all the places that
were about the temple were burnt down, and were become an intermediate
desert space, ready for fighting on both sides of it; and that almost all
that corn was burnt, which would have been sufficient for a siege of many
years. So they were taken by the means of the famine, which it was
impossible they should have been, unless they had thus prepared the way for
it by this procedure.
5. And now, as the city was engaged in a war on all
sides, from these treacherous crowds of wicked men, the people of the city,
between them, were like a great body torn in pieces. The aged men and the
women were in such distress by their internal calamities, that they wished
for the Romans, and earnestly hoped for an external war, in order to their
delivery from their domestical miseries. The citizens themselves were under
a terrible consternation and fear; nor had they any opportunity of taking
counsel, and of changing their conduct; nor were there any hopes of coming
to an agreement with their enemies; nor could such as had a mind flee away;
for guards were set at all places, and the heads of the robbers, although
they were seditious one against another in other respects, yet did they
agree in killing those that were for peace with the Romans, or were
suspected of an inclination to desert them, as their common enemies. They
agreed in nothing but this, to kill those that were innocent.
The noise also of those that were fighting was incessant,
both by day and by night; but the lamentations of those that mourned
exceeded the other; nor was there ever any occasion for them to leave off
their lamentations, because their calamities came perpetually one upon
another, although the deep consternation they were in prevented their
outward wailing; but being constrained by their fear to conceal their inward
passions, they were inwardly tormented, without daring to open their lips in
groans. :Nor was any regard paid to those that were still alive, by their
relations; nor was there any care taken of burial for those that were dead;
the occasion of both which was this, that every one despaired of himself;
for those that were not among the seditious had no great desires of any
thing, as expecting for certain that they should very soon be destroyed; but
for the seditious themselves, they fought against each other, while they
trod upon the dead bodies as they lay heaped one upon another, and taking up
a mad rage from those dead bodies that were under their feet, became the
fiercer thereupon. They, moreover, were still inventing somewhat or other
that was pernicious against themselves; and when they had resolved upon any
thing, they executed it without mercy, and omitted no method of torment or
of barbarity….
"The SON Is Coming!"(24)
(v:vi:3)
3. …The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared
for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones
belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw
stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only
repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the
walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent,(25)
and were carried two furlongs(26) and further.
The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood
first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As
for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a
white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it
made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly
the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was
let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own
country language, "THE SON COMETH:"(27) so
those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the
ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone
fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent that
by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success, when the
stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they
destroyed many of them at one blow…
Josephus Rebukes the Jews(28)
(v:ix:4)
4. While Josephus was making this exhortation to the
Jews, many of them jested upon him from the wall, and many reproached him;
nay, some threw their darts at him: but when he could not himself persuade
them by such open good advice, he betook himself to the histories belonging
to their own nation, and cried out aloud, "O miserable creatures! are you so
unmindful of those that used to assist you, that you will fight by your
weapons and by your hands against the Romans? When did we ever conquer any
other nation by such means? and when was it that God, who is the Creator of
the Jewish people, did not avenge them when they had been injured? Will not
you turn again, and look back, and consider whence it is that you fight with
such violence, and how great a Supporter you have profanely abused? Will not
you recall to mind the prodigious things done for your forefathers and this
holy place, and how great enemies of yours were by him subdued under you? I
even tremble myself in declaring the works of God before your ears, that are
unworthy to hear them; however, hearken to me, that you may be informed how
you fight not only against the Romans, but against God himself.
In old times there was one Necao, king of Egypt, who was
also called Pharaoh; he came with a prodigious army of soldiers, and seized
queen Sarah, the mother of our nation. What did Abraham our progenitor then
do? Did he defend himself from this injurious person by war, although he had
three hundred and eighteen captains under him, and an immense army under
each of them? Indeed he deemed them to be no number at all without God's
assistance, and only spread out his hands towards this holy place, which you
have now polluted, and reckoned upon him as upon his invincible supporter,
instead of his own army. Was not our queen sent back, without any
defilement, to her husband, the very next evening?—while the king of Egypt
fled away, adoring this place which you have defiled by shedding thereon the
blood of your own countrymen; and he also trembled at those visions which he
saw in the night season, and bestowed both silver and gold on the Hebrews,
as on a people beloved by God.
Shall I say nothing, or shall I mention the removal of
our fathers into Egypt, who, when they were used tyrannically, and were
fallen under the power of foreign kings for four hundred ears together, and
might have defended themselves by war and by fighting, did yet do nothing
but commit themselves to God! Who is there that does not know that Egypt was
overrun with all sorts of wild beasts, and consumed by all sorts of
distempers? how their land did not bring forth its fruit? how the Nile
failed of water? how the ten plagues of Egypt followed one upon another? and
how by those means our fathers were sent away under a guard, without any
bloodshed, and without running any dangers, because God conducted them as
his peculiar servants?
Moreover, did not Palestine groan under the ravage the
Assyrians made, when they carried away our sacred ark? as did their idol
Dagon, and as also did that entire nation of those that carried it away, how
they were smitten with a loathsome distemper in the secret parts of their
bodies, when their very bowels came down together with what they had eaten,
till those hands that stole it away were obliged to bring it back again, and
that with the sound of cymbals and timbrels, and other oblations, in order
to appease the anger of God for their violation of his holy ark. It was God
who then became our General, and accomplished these great things for our
fathers, and this because they did not meddle with war and fighting, but
committed it to him to judge about their affairs.
When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, brought along with him
all Asia, and encompassed this city round with his army, did he fall by the
hands of men? were not those hands lifted up to God in prayers, without
meddling with their arms, when an angel of God destroyed that prodigious
army in one night? when the Assyrian king, as he rose the next day, found a
hundred fourscore and five thousand dead bodies, and when he, with the
remainder of his army, fled away from the Hebrews, though they were unarmed,
and did not pursue them. You are also acquainted with the slavery we were
under at Babylon, where the people were captives for seventy years; yet were
they not delivered into freedom again before God made Cyrus his gracious
instrument in bringing it about; accordingly they were set free by him, and
did again restore the worship of their Deliverer at his temple.
And, to speak in general, we can produce no example
wherein our fathers got any success by war, or failed of success when
without war they committed themselves to God. When they staid at home, they
conquered, as pleased their Judge; but when they went out to fight, they
were always disappointed: for example, when the king of Babylon besieged
this very city, and our king Zedekiah fought against him, contrary to what
predictions were made to him by Jeremiah the prophet, he was at once taken
prisoner, and saw the city and the temple demolished. Yet how much greater
was the moderation of that king, than is that of your present governors, and
that of the people then under him, than is that of you at this time! for
when Jeremiah cried out aloud, how very angry God was at them, because of
their transgressions, and told them they should be taken prisoners, unless
they would surrender up their city, neither did the king nor the people put
him to death; but for you, (to pass over what you have done within the city,
which I am not able to describe as your wickedness deserves,) you abuse me,
and throw darts at me, who only exhort you to save yourselves, as being
provoked when you are put in mind of your sins, and cannot bear the very
mention of those crimes which you every day perpetrate. For another example,
when Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, lay before this city, and had been
guilty of many indignities against God, and our forefathers met him in arms,
they then were slain in the battle, this city was plundered by our enemies,
and our sanctuary made desolate for three years and six months.(29)
And what need I bring any more examples? Indeed what can
it be that hath stirred up an army of the Romans against our nation? Is it
not the impiety of the inhabitants? Whence did our servitude commence? Was
it not derived from the seditions that were among our forefathers, when the
madness of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and our mutual quarrels, brought Pompey
upon this city, and when God reduced those under subjection to the Romans
who were unworthy of the liberty they had enjoyed? After a siege, therefore,
of three months, they were forced to surrender themselves, although they had
not been guilty of such offenses, with regard to our sanctuary and our laws,
as you have; and this while they had much greater advantages to go to war
than you have. Do not we know what end Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus,
came to, under whose reign God provided that this city should be taken again
upon account of the people's offenses? When Herod, the son of Antipater,
brought upon us Sosius, and Sosius brought upon us the Roman army, they were
then encompassed and besieged for six months, till, as a punishment for
their sins, they were taken, and the city was plundered by the enemy.
Thus it appears that arms were never given to our nation,
but that we are always given up to be fought against, and to be taken; for I
suppose that such as inhabit this holy place ought to commit the disposal of
all things to God, and then only to disregard the assistance of men when
they resign themselves up to their Arbitrator, who is above. As for you,
what have you done of those things that are recommended by our legislator?
and what have you not done of those things that he hath condemned? How much
more impious are you than those who were so quickly taken! You have not
avoided so much as those sins that are usually done in secret; I mean
thefts, and treacherous plots against men, and adulteries. You are
quarrelling about rapines and murders, and invent strange ways of
wickedness. Nay, the temple itself is become the receptacle of all, and this
Divine place is polluted by the hands of those of our own country; which
place hath yet been reverenced by the Romans when it was at a distance from
them, when they have suffered many of their own customs to give place to our
law.(30)
And, after all this, do you expect Him whom you have so
impiously abused to be your supporter? To be sure then you have a right to
be petitioners, and to call upon Him to assist you, so pure are your hands!
Did your king [Hezekiah] lift up such hands in prayer to God against the
king of Assyria, when he destroyed that great army in one night? And do the
Romans commit such wickedness as did the king of Assyria, that you may have
reason to hope for the like vengeance upon them? Did not that king accept of
money from our king on this condition, that he should not destroy the city,
and yet, contrary to the oath he had taken, he came down to burn the temple?
while the Romans do demand no more than that accustomed tribute which our
fathers paid to their fathers; and if they may but once obtain that, they
neither aim to destroy this city, nor to touch this sanctuary; nay, they
will grant you besides, that your posterity shall be free, and your
possessions secured to you, and will preserve our holy laws inviolate to
you.
And it is plain madness to expect that God should appear
as well disposed towards the wicked as towards the righteous, since he knows
when it is proper to punish men for their sins immediately; accordingly he
brake the power of the Assyrians the very first night that they pitched
their camp. Wherefore, had he judged that our nation was worthy of freedom,
or the Romans of punishment, he had immediately inflicted punishment upon
those Romans, as he did upon the Assyrians, when Pompey began to meddle with
our nation, or when after him Sosius came up against us, or when Vespasian
laid waste Galilee, or, lastly, when Titus came first of all near to this
city; although Magnus and Sosius did not only suffer nothing, but took the
city by force; as did Vespasian go from the war he made against you to
receive the empire; and as for Titus, those springs that were formerly
almost dried up when they were under your power since he is come, run more
plentifully than they did before; accordingly, you know that Siloam, as well
as all the other springs that were without the city, did so far fail, that
water was sold by distinct measures; whereas they now have such a great
quantity of water for your enemies, as is sufficient not only for drink both
for themselves and their cattle, but for watering their gardens also. The
same wonderful sign you had also experience of formerly, when the
forementioned king of Babylon made war against us, and when he took the
city, and burnt the temple; while yet I believe the Jews of that age were
not so impious as you are.
Wherefore I cannot but suppose that God is fled out of
his sanctuary, and stands on the side of those against whom you fight. Now
even a man, if he be but a good man, will fly from an impure house, and will
hate those that are in it; and do you persuade yourselves that God will
abide with you in your iniquities, who sees all secret things, and hears
what is kept most private? Now what crime is there, I pray you, that is so
much as kept secret among you, or is concealed by you? nay, what is there
that is not open to your very enemies? for you show your transgressions
after a pompous manner, and contend one with another which of you shall be
more wicked than another; and you make a public demonstration of your
injustice, as if it were virtue.
However, there is a place left for your preservation, if
you be willing to accept of it; and God is easily reconciled to those that
confess their faults, and repent of them. O hard-hearted wretches as you
are! cast away all your arms, and take pity of your country already going to
ruin; return from your wicked ways, and have regard to the excellency of
that city which you are going to betray, to that excellent temple with the
donations of so many countries in it. Who could bear to be the first that
should set that temple on fire? who could be willing that these things
should be no more? and what is there that can better deserve to be
preserved? O insensible creatures, and more stupid than are the stones
themselves!
And if you cannot look at these things with discerning
eyes, yet, however, have pity upon your families, and set before every one
of your eyes your children, and wives, and parents, who will be gradually
consumed either by famine or by war. I am sensible that this danger will
extend to my mother, and wife, and to that family of mine who have been by
no means ignoble, and indeed to one that hath been very eminent in old time;
and perhaps you may imagine that it is on their account only that I give you
this advice; if that be all, kill them; nay, take my own blood as a reward,
if it may but procure your preservation; for I am ready to die, in case you
will but return to a sound mind after my death."
The Horrors of Famine
(v:x:3)
3. It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would
justly bring tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the
more powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want
of it.] But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is
destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy
of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the
very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and
what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants;
and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they
were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve
their lives: and while they ate after this manner, yet were they not
concealed in so doing; but the seditious every where came upon them
immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others;
for when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the
people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and
ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their very
throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were
beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair
was torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the
aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they
hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor.
But still they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their
coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize
upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right.
They also invented terrible methods of torments to
discover where any food was, and they were these to stop up the passages of
the privy parts of the miserable wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up
their fundaments; and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even to
hear, in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or
that he might discover a handful of barley-meal that was concealed; and this
was done when these tormentors were not themselves hungry; for the thing had
been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it; but this was done to
keep their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of provisions for
themselves for the following days.
These men went also to meet those that had crept out of
the city by night, as far as the Roman guards, to gather some plants and
herbs that grew wild; and when those people thought they had got clear of
the enemy, they snatched from them what they had brought with them, even
while they had frequently entreated them, and that by calling upon the
tremendous name of God, to give them back some part of what they had
brought; though these would not give them the least crumb, and they were to
be well contented that they were only spoiled, and not slain at the same
time.
The Worst Generation
(v:x:5)
5. It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every
instance of these men's iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at
once briefly:—That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor
did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this
was, from the beginning of the world….
The Rate of Crucifixions: 500 Per Day
(v:xi:1-2)
1. So now Titus's banks were advanced a great way,
notwithstanding his soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He
then sent a party of horsemen, and ordered they should lay ambushes for
those that went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were
indeed fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine;
but the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from
deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations; for they
could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and children,
without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think of leaving
these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account; nay, the
severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so nothing remained
but that, when they were concealed from the robbers, they should be taken by
the enemy; and when they were going to be taken, they were forced to defend
themselves for fear of being punished; as after they had fought, they
thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy; so they were first
whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died,
and were then crucified before the wall of the city.
This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them,
while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught
more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken
by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to
make such as great deal them useless to him. The main reason why he did not
forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at
that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to
the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they
bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another
after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so
great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the
bodies.
2. But so far were the seditious from repenting at this
sad sight, that, on the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude
believe otherwise; for they brought the relations of those that had deserted
upon the wall, with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon
the security offered them, and showed them what miseries those underwent who
fled to the Romans; and told them that those who were caught were
supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight kept
many of those within the city who were so eager to desert, till the truth
was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto certain
punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet departure, if
compared with that by famine….
"With Their Eyes Fixed Upon the Temple"
(v:xii:3-4)
3. So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews,
together with their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine
widen its progress, and devoured the people by whole houses and families;
the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine,
and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the
children also and the young men wandered about the market-places like
shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their
misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves
were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were deterred
from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and by the
uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves; for many died as
they were burying others, and many went to their coffins before that fatal
hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made under these calamities,
nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the famine confounded all
natural passions; for those who were just going to die looked upon those
that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes and open mouths.
A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had
seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than
these miseries were themselves; for they brake open those houses which were
no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had;
and carrying off the coverings of their bodies, went out laughing, and tried
the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove what
metal they were made of they thrust some of those through that still lay
alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to lend them their
right hand and their sword to despatch them, they were too proud to grant
their requests, and left them to be consumed by the famine. Now every one of
these died with their eyes fixed upon the temple, and left the seditious
alive behind them. Now the seditious at first gave orders that the dead
should be buried out of the public treasury, as not enduring the stench of
their dead bodies. But afterwards, when they could not do that, they had
them cast down from the walls into the valleys beneath.
4. However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those
valleys, saw them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running
about them, he gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called
God to witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of the
city itself. But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the seditious
could now make sallies out of the city, because they were themselves
disconsolate, and the famine already touched them also. These Romans besides
had great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of Syria, and out of the
neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand near to the wall of the
city, and show the people what great quantities of provisions they had, and
so make the enemy more sensible of their famine, by the great plenty, even
to satiety, which they had themselves.
However, when the seditious still showed no inclinations
of yielding, Titus, out of his commiseration of the people that remained,
and out of his earnest desire of rescuing what was still left out of these
miseries, began to raise his banks again, although materials for them were
hard to he come at; for all the trees that were about the city had been
already cut down for the making of the former banks. Yet did the soldiers
bring with them other materials from the distance of ninety furlongs, and
thereby raised banks in four parts, much greater than the former, though
this was done only at the tower of Antonia….
The Murder of the Chief Priest
(v:xiii:1)
1. Accordingly Simon would not suffer Matthias, by whose
means he got possession of the city, to go off without torment. This
Matthias was the son of Boethus, and was one of the high priests, one that
had been very faithful to the people, and in great esteem with them; he,
when the multitude were distressed by the zealots, among whom John was
numbered, persuaded the people to admit this Simon to come in to assist
them, while he had made no terms with him, nor expected any thing that was
evil from him. But when Simon was come in, and had gotten the city under his
power, he esteemed him that had advised them to admit him as his enemy
equally with the rest, as looking upon that advice as a piece of his
simplicity only; so he had him then brought before him, and condemned to die
for being on the side of the Romans, without giving him leave to make his
defense. He condemned also his three sons to die with him; for as to the
fourth, he prevented him by running away to Titus before. And when he begged
for this, that he might be slain before his sons, and that as a favor, on
account that he had procured the gates of the city to be opened to him, he
gave order that he should be slain the last of them all; so he was not slain
till he had seen his sons slain before his eyes, and that by being produced
over against the Romans; for such a charge had Simon given to Artanus, the
son of Bamadus, who was the most barbarous of all his guards. He also jested
upon him, and told him that he might now see whether those to whom he
intended to go over would send him any succors or not; but still he forbade
their dead bodies should be buried.
After the slaughter of these, a certain priest, Ananias,
the son of Masambalus, a person of eminency, as also Aristens, the scribe of
the anhedrim, and born at Emmaus, and with them fifteen men of figure among
the people, were slain. They also kept Josephus's father in prison, and made
public proclamation, that no citizen whosoever should either speak to him
himself, or go into his company among others, for fear he should betray
them. They also slew such as joined in lamenting these men, without any
further examination.
"It Wad God Who Condemned the Whole Nation"
(v:xiii:4-6)
4. Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way,
leaped down from the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the
city with stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon they fled away
to the Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had
found within the city; and they met with a quicker despatch from the too
great abundance they had among the Romans, than they could have done from
the famine among the Jews; for when they came first to the Romans, they were
puffed up by the famine, and swelled like men in a dropsy; after which they
all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty, and so
burst asunder, excepting such only as were skillful enough to restrain their
appetites, and by degrees took in their food into bodies unaccustomed
thereto.
Yet did another plague seize upon those that were thus
preserved; for there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person
who was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews'
bellies; for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we told
you before, when they came out, and for these did the seditious search them
all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city, insomuch that as
much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for twelve Attic [drams], as was sold
before for twenty-five. But when this contrivance was discovered in one
instance, the fame of it filled their several camps, that the deserters came
to them full of gold. So the multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians,
cut up those that came as supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does
it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than
this, since in one night's time about two thousand of these deserters were
thus dissected.
5. When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked
practice, he had like to have surrounded those that had been guilty of it
with his horse, and have shot them dead; and he had done it, had not their
number been so very great, and those that were liable to this punishment
would have been manifold more than those whom they had slain. However, he
called together the commanders of the auxiliary troops he had with him, as
well as the commanders of the Roman legions, (for some of his own soldiers
had been also guilty herein, as he had been informed,) and had great
indignation against both sorts of them, and said to them, "What! have any of
my own soldiers done such things as this out of the uncertain hope of gain,
without regarding their own weapons, which are made of silver and gold?
Moreover, do the Arabians and Syrians now first of all begin to govern
themselves as they please, and to indulge their appetites in a foreign war,
and then, out of their barbarity in murdering men, and out of their hatred
to the Jews, get it ascribed to the Romans?" for this infamous practice was
said to be spread among some of his own soldiers also. Titus then threatened
that he would put such men to death, if any of them were discovered to be so
insolent as to do so again; moreover, he gave it in charge to the legions,
that they should make a search after such as were suspected, and should
bring them to him. But it appeared that the love of money was too hard for
all their dread of punishment, and a vehement desire of gain is natural to
men, and no passion is so venturesome as covetousness; otherwise such
passions have certain bounds, and are subordinate to fear. But in reality it
was God who condemned the whole nation, and turned every course that was
taken for their preservation to their destruction.
This, therefore, which was forbidden by Caesar under such
a threatening, was ventured upon privately against the deserters, and these
barbarians would go out still, and meet those that ran away before any saw
them, and looking about them to see that no Roman spied them, they dissected
them, and pulled this polluted money out of their bowels; which money was
still found in a few of them, while yet a great many were destroyed by the
bare hope there was of thus getting by them, which miserable treatment made
many that were deserting to return back again into the city.
6. But as for John, when he could no longer plunder the
people, he betook himself to sacrilege, and melted down many of the sacred
utensils, which had been given to the temple; as also many of those vessels
which were necessary for such as ministered about holy things, the caldrons,
the dishes, and the tables; nay, he did not abstain from those pouring
vessels that were sent them by Augustus and his wife; for the Roman emperors
did ever both honor and adorn this temple; whereas this man, who was a Jew,
seized upon what were the donations of foreigners, and said to those that
were with him, that it was proper for them to use Divine things, while they
were fighting for the Divinity, without fear, and that such whose warfare is
for the temple should live of the temple; on which account he emptied the
vessels of that sacred wine and oil, which the priests kept to be poured on
the burnt-offerings, and which lay in the inner court of the temple, and
distributed it among the multitude, who, in their anointing themselves and
drinking, used [each of them] above an hin of them. And here I cannot but
speak my mind, and what the concern I am under dictates to me, and it is
this:
I suppose, that had the Romans made any longer delay in
coming against these villains, that the city would either have been
swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been overflowed by water,
or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom perished by,
for it had brought forth a generation of men much more atheistical than were
those that suffered such punishments; for by their madness it was that all
the people came to be destroyed.
Jerusalem Becomes a Wilderness
(vi:i:1)
1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and
worse every day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the
calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves,
after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses
that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a
pestilential stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies
out of the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in
battle-array, who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must
tread upon those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they
terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they
deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves;
but as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their
own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners, they
seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow
in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they had any
hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner in that despair of
deliverance they were already in.
And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed
in getting together their materials, raised their banks in one and twenty
days, after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that
adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about, as I have
already related. And truly the very view itself of the country was a
melancholy thing; for those places which were before adorned with trees and
pleasant gardens were now become a desolate country every way, and its trees
were all cut down: nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and
the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but
lament and mourn sadly at so great a change: for the war had laid all the
signs of beauty quite waste: nor if any one that had known the place before,
had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again; but though he
were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it notwithstanding.
"It Is God Himself Who IS Bringing This Fire"
(vi:ii:1)
1. And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were
with him to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a
ready passage for his army to come up; while he himself had Josephus brought
to him, (for he had been informed that on that very day, which was the
seventeenth day of Panemus, [Tamuz,] the sacrifice called "the Daily
Sacrifice" had failed, and had not been offered to God, for want of men to
offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled at it,) and commanded
him to say the same things to John that he had said before, that if he had
any malicious inclination for fighting, he might come out with as many of
his men as he pleased, in order to fight, without the danger of destroying
either his city or temple; but that he desired he would not defile the
temple, nor thereby offend against God. That he might, if he pleased, offer
the sacrifices which were now discontinuned by any of the Jews whom he
should pitch upon. Upon this Josephus stood in such a place where he might
be heard, not by John only, but by many more, and then declared to them what
Caesar had given him in charge, and this in the Hebrew language. So he
earnestly prayed them to spare their own city, and to prevent that fire
which was just ready to seize upon the temple, and to offer their usual
sacrifices to God therein. At these words of his a great sadness and silence
were observed among the people. But the tyrant himself cast many reproaches
upon Josephus, with imprecations besides; and at last added this withal,
that he did never fear the taking of the city, because it was God's own
city.
In answer to which Josephus said thus with a loud
voice:—"To be sure thou hast kept this city wonderfully pure for God's sake;
the temple also continues entirely unpolluted! Nor hast thou been guilty of
ally impiety against him for whose assistance thou hopest! He still receives
his accustomed sacrifices! Vile wretch that thou art! if any one should
deprive thee of thy daily food, thou wouldst esteem him to be an enemy to
thee; but thou hopest to have that God for thy supporter in this war whom
thou hast deprived of his everlasting worship; and thou imputest those sins
to the Romans, who to this very time take care to have our laws observed,
and almost compel these sacrifices to be still offered to God, which have by
thy means been intermitted! Who is there that can avoid groans and
lamentations at the amazing change that is made in this city? since very
foreigners and enemies do now correct that impiety which thou hast
occasioned; while thou, who art a Jew, and wast educated in our laws, art
become a greater enemy to them than the others. But still, John, it is never
dishonorable to repent, and amend what hath been done amiss, even at the
last extremity. Thou hast an instance before thee in Jechoniah, the king of
the Jews, if thou hast a mind to save the city, who, when the king of
Babylon made war against him, did of his own accord go out of this city
before it was taken, and did undergo a voluntary captivity with his family,
that the sanctuary might not be delivered up to the enemy, and that he might
not see the house of God set on fire; on which account he is celebrated
among all the Jews, in their sacred memorials, and his memory is become
immortal, and will be conveyed fresh down to our posterity through all ages.
This, John, is an excellent example in such a time of danger, and I dare
venture to promise that the Romans shall still forgive thee.
And take notice that I, who make this exhortation to
thee, am one of thine own nation; I, who am a Jew, do make this promise to
thee. And it will become thee to consider who I am that give thee this
counsel, and whence I am derived; for while I am alive I shall never be in
such slavery, as to forego my own kindred, or forget the laws of our
forefathers. Thou hast indignation at me again, and makest a clamor at me,
and reproachest me; indeed I cannot deny but I am worthy of worse treatment
than all this amounts to, because, in opposition to fate, I make this kind
invitation to thee, and endeavor to force deliverance upon those whom God
hath condemned.
And who is there that does not know what the writings of
the ancient prophets contain in them,—and particularly that oracle which is
just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city—for they foretold
that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter
of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and the entire temple now
full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God, therefore, it is God
himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means
of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your
pollutions."
A Mother Becomes a Cannibal(31)
(vi:iii:3-4)
3. Now of those that perished by famine in the city, the
number was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable; for
if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did any where appear, a war was
commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a fighting one with
another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports of
life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food, but the
robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest any one should have
concealed food in their bosoms, and counterfeited dying; nay, these robbers
gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering along like mad dogs,
and reeling against the doors of the houses like drunken men; they would
also, in the great distress they were in, rush into the very same houses two
or three times in one and the same day. Moreover, their hunger was so
intolerable, that it obliged them to chew every thing, while they gathered
such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to eat
them; nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very
leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very
wisps of old hay became food to some; and some gathered up fibres, and sold
a very small weight of them for four Attic [drachmae].
But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the
famine brought on men in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to
relate a matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, either among
the Greeks or Barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it, and incredible when
heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I might
not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity, but that I have
innumerable witnesses to it in my own age; and besides, my country would
have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries that she
underwent at this time.
4. There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan,
her name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which
signifies the house of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and her
wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and
was with them besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this woman
had been already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of
Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as also
what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the
rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that
purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the
frequent reproaches and imprecations she east at these rapacious villains,
she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them, either out of
the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of commiseration of
her case, would take away her life; and if she found any food, she perceived
her labors were for others, and not for herself; and it was now become
impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced
through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion was fired to a
degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with any thing but with
her passion and the necessity she was in.
She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching
up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, "O thou
miserable infant! For whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine,
and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our
lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that
slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than
both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these
seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now
wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews." As soon as she had said
this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him,
and kept the other half by her concealed.
Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling
the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her
throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready.
She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and
withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a
horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she
said to them, "This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own
doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you
pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a
mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as
I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also." After
which those men went out trembling, being never so much aftrighted at any
thing as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of
that meat to the mother.
Upon which the whole city was full of this horrid action
immediately; and while every body laid this miserable case before their own
eyes, they trembled, as if this unheard of action had been done by
themselves. So those that were thus distressed by the famine were very
desirous to die, and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they
had not lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.
The Temple is Burned
(vi:iv:5-7)
5. So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and
resolved to storm the temple the next day, early in the morning, with his
whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house. But as for that house,
God had, for certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day
was come, according to the revolution of ages; it was the tenth day of the
month Lous, [Ab,] upon which it was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon;(32)
although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves, and were
occasioned by them; for upon Titus's retiring, the seditious lay still for a
little while, and then attacked the Romans again, when those that guarded
the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire that was burning the
inner [court of the] temple; but these Romans put the Jews to flight, and
proceeded as far as the holy house itself.
At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for
any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an
undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched
somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by
another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a
passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side
of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so
mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they
spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered any thing to restrain their
force, since that holy house was perishing, for whose sake it was that they
kept such a guard about it.
6. And now a certain person came running to Titus, and
told him of this fire, as he was resting himself in his tent after the last
battle; whereupon he rose up in great haste, and, as he was, ran to the holy
house, in order to have a stop put to the fire; after him followed all his
commanders, and after them followed the several legions, in great
astonishment; so there was a great clamor and tumult raised, as was natural
upon the disorderly motion of so great an army. Then did Caesar, both by
calling to the soldiers that were fighting, with a loud voice, and by giving
a signal to them with his right hand, order them to quench the fire. But
they did not hear what he said, though he spake so loud, having their ears
already dimmed by a greater noise another way; nor did they attend to the
signal he made with his hand neither, as still some of them were distracted
with fighting, and others with passion. But as for the legions that came
running thither, neither any persuasions nor any threatenings could restrain
their violence, but each one's own passion was his commander at this time;
and as they were crowding into the temple together, many of them were
trampled on by one another, while a great number fell among the ruins of the
cloisters, which were still hot and smoking, and were destroyed in the same
miserable way with those whom they had conquered; and when they were come
near the holy house, they made as if they did not so much as hear Caesar's
orders to the contrary; but they encouraged those that were before them to
set it on fire.
As for the seditious, they were in too great distress
already to afford their assistance [towards quenching the fire]; they were
every where slain, and every where beaten; and as for a great part of the
people, they were weak and without arms, and had their throats cut wherever
they were caught. Now round about the altar lay dead bodies heaped one upon
another, as at the steps going up to it ran a great quantity of their blood,
whither also the dead bodies that were slain above [on the altar] fell down.
7. And now, since Caesar was no way able to restrain the
enthusiastic fury of the soldiers, and the fire proceeded on more and more,
he went into the holy place of the temple, with his commanders, and saw it,
with what was in it, which he found to be far superior to what the relations
of foreigners contained, and not inferior to what we ourselves boasted of
and believed about it. But as the flame had not as yet reached to its inward
parts, but was still consuming the rooms that were about the holy house, and
Titus supposing what the fact was, that the house itself might yet he saved,
he came in haste and endeavored to persuade the soldiers to quench the fire,
and gave order to Liberalius the centurion, and one of those spearmen that
were about him, to beat the soldiers that were refractory with their staves,
and to restrain them; yet were their passions too hard for the regards they
had for Caesar, and the dread they had of him who forbade them, as was their
hatred of the Jews, and a certain vehement inclination to fight them, too
hard for them also.
Moreover, the hope of plunder induced many to go on, as
having this opinion, that all the places within were full of money, and as
seeing that all round about it was made of gold. And besides, one of those
that went into the place prevented Caesar, when he ran so hastily out to
restrain the soldiers, and threw the fire upon the hinges of the gate, in
the dark; whereby the flame burst out from within the holy house itself
immediately, when the commanders retired, and Caesar with them, and when
nobody any longer forbade those that were without to set fire to it. And
thus was the holy house burnt down, without Caesar's approbation.(33)
Jerusalem Under the Ban(34)
(vi:v:1-2)
1. While the holy house was on fire, every thing was
plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were
slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of
gravity, but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were
all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men,
and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication
for their lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame
was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of
those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the
temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on
fire. Nor can one imagine any thing either greater or more terrible than
this noise; for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were
marching all together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now
surrounded with fire and sword.
The people also that were left above were beaten back
upon the enemy, and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the
calamity they were under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in
this outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those
that were worn away by the famine, and their mouths almost closed, when they
saw the fire of the holy house, they exerted their utmost strength, and
brake out into groans and outcries again: Pera did also return the echo, as
well as the mountains round about [the city,] and augmented the force of the
entire noise.
Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this
disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the
temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that
the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain
more in number than those that slew them; for the ground did no where appear
visible, for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over
heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them.
And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were
thrust out [of the inner court of the temple by the Romans,] and had much
ado to get into the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the
remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court. As for
the priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that
were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them at
the Romans instead of darts. But then as they gained nothing by so doing,
and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall that was eight
cubits broad, and there they tarried; yet did two of these of eminence among
them, who might have saved themselves by going over to the Romans, or have
borne up with courage, and taken their fortune with the others, throw
themselves into the fire, and were burnt together with the holy house; their
names were Meirus the son of Belgas, and Joseph the son of Daleus.
2. And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to
spare what was round about the holy house, burnt all those places, as also
the remains of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one on the
east side, and the other on the south; both which, however, they burnt
afterward. They also burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an
immense quantity of money, and an immense number of garments, and other
precious goods there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it
was that the entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the
rich people had there built themselves chambers [to contain such furniture].
The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that
were in the outer [court of the] temple, whither the women and children, and
a great mixed multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand.
But before Caesar had determined any thing about these people, or given the
commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage,
that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that
some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some
were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with
his life.
A false prophet was the occasion of these people's
destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day,
that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should
receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great
number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people,
who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God;
and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be
buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity
does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him
believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him,
then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his deliverance.
Chariots in the Clouds
(vi:v:3)
3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these
deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor
give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell
their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to
see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to
them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city,
and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews'
rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the
people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the
eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the
night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it
appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light
seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the
sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon
it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest
to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.
Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the]
temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty
shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts
fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire
stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the
night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the
captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not
without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared
to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them
the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the
security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the
gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly
declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon
them.
Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one
and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and
incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be
a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events
that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals;
for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were
seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at
that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into
the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their
sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a
quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a
great multitude, saying, "Let us remove hence."(35)
But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus,
the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the
war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and
prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to
make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A
voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a
voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms
and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as
he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city.
However, certain of the most eminent among the populace
had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave
him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing
for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still
went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers,
supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in
the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his
bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor
shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible,
at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And
when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and
whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to
what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus
took him to be a madman, and dismissed him.
Now, during all the time that passed before the war
began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them
while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it
were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill
words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that
gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a
melancholy presage of what was to come.
This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he
continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing
hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his
presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was
going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to
the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he
added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one
of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was
uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.
The Burning of Jerusalem
(vi:vi:3)
3. …So he gave orders to the soldiers both to burn and to
plunder the city; who did nothing indeed that day; but on the next day they
set fire to the repository of the archives, to Acra, to the council-house,
and to the place called Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as
the palace of queen Helena, which was in the middle of Acra; the lanes also
were burnt down, as were also those houses that were full of the dead bodies
of such as were destroyed by famine.
Hiding In the Caves and Among the Rocks(36)
(vi:vii:1-3)
1. And now the seditious rushed into the royal palace,
into which many had put their effects, because it was so strong, and drove
the Romans away from it. They also slew all the people that had crowded into
it, who were in number about eight thousand four hundred, and plundered them
of what they had. They also took two of the Romans alive; the one was a
horseman, and the other a footman. They then cut the throat of the footman,
and immediately had him drawn through the whole city, as revenging
themselves upon the whole body of the Romans by this one instance. But the
horseman said he had somewhat to suggest to them in order to their
preservation; whereupon he was brought before Simon; but he having nothing
to say when he was there, he was delivered to Ardalas, one of his
commanders, to be punished, who bound his hands behind him, and put a riband
over his eyes, and then brought him out over against the Romans, as
intending to cut off his head. But the man prevented that execution, and ran
away to the Romans, and this while the Jewish executioner was drawing out
his sword. Now when he was gotten away from the enemy, Titus could not think
of putting him to death; but because he deemed him unworthy of being a Roman
soldier any longer, on account that he had been taken alive by the enemy, he
took away his arms, and ejected him out of the legion whereto he had
belonged; which, to one that had a sense of shame, was a penalty severer
than death itself.
2. On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of
the lower city, and set all on fire as far as Siloam. These soldiers were
indeed glad to see the city destroyed. But they missed the plunder, because
the seditious had carried off all their effects, and were retired into the
upper city; for they did not yet at all repent of the mischiefs they had
done, but were insolent, as if they had done well; for, as they saw the city
on fire, they appeared cheerful, and put on joyful countenances, in
expectation, as they said, of death to end their miseries. Accordingly, as
the people were now slain, the holy house was burnt down, and the city was
on fire, there was nothing further left for the enemy to do.
Yet did not Josephus grow weary, even in this utmost
extremity, to beg of them to spare what was left of the city; he spake
largely to them about their barbarity and impiety, and gave them his advice
in order to their escape; though he gained nothing thereby more than to be
laughed at by them; and as they could not think of surrendering themselves
up, because of the oath they had taken, nor were strong enough to fight with
the Romans any longer upon the square, as being surrounded on all sides, and
a kind of prisoners already, yet were they so accustomed to kill people,
that they could not restrain their right hands from acting accordingly. So
they dispersed themselves before the city, and laid themselves in ambush
among its ruins, to catch those that attempted to desert to the Romans;
accordingly many such deserters were caught by them, and were all slain; for
these were too weak, by reason of their want of food, to fly away from them;
so their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs.
Now every other sort of death was thought more tolerable
than the famine, insomuch that, though the Jews despaired now of mercy, yet
would they fly to the Romans, and would themselves, even of their own
accord, fall among the murderous rebels also. Nor was there any place in the
city that had no dead bodies in it, but what was entirely covered with those
that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion; and all was full of
the dead bodies of such as had perished, either by that sedition or by that
famine.
3. So now the last hope which supported the tyrants, and
that crew of robbers who were with them, was in the caves and caverns under
ground; whither, if they could once fly, they did not expect to be searched
for; but endeavored, that after the whole city should be destroyed, and the
Romans gone away, they might come out again, and escape from them. This was
no better than a dream of theirs; for they were not able to lie hid either
from God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these under-ground
subterfuges, and set more places on fire than did the Romans themselves; and
those that fled out of their houses thus set on fire into the ditches, they
killed without mercy, and pillaged them also; and if they discovered food
belonging to any one, they seized upon it and swallowed it down, together
with their blood also; nay, they were now come to fight one with another
about their plunder; and I cannot but think that, had not their destruction
prevented it, their barbarity would have made them taste of even the dead
bodies themselves.
A Surplus of Jewish Slaves(37)
(vi:viii:2)
2. …Yet could not that garrison resist those that were
deserting; for although a great number of them were slain, yet were the
deserters many more in number. They were all received by the Romans, because
Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing them, and
because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and because they hoped
to get some money by sparing them; for they left only the populace, and sold
the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, and every one of
them at a very low price, and that because such as were sold were very many,
and the buyers were few….
"The Power of God Exercised Upon These Wicked Wretches"
(vi:viii:4-5)
4. …Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down,
and certain of the towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams,
those that opposed themselves fled away, and such a terror fell upon the
tyrants, as was much greater than the occasion required; for before the
enemy got over the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for
flying away. And now one might see these men, who had hitherto been so
insolent and arrogant in their wicked practices, to be cast down and to
tremble, insomuch that it would pity one's heart to observe the change that
was made in those vile persons.
Accordingly, they ran with great violence upon the Roman
wall that encompassed them, in order to force away those that guarded it,
and to break through it, and get away. But when they saw that those who had
formerly been faithful to them had gone away, (as indeed they were fled
whithersoever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee,) as
also when those that came running before the rest told them that the western
wall was entirely overthrown, while others said the Romans were gotten in,
and others that they were near, and looking out for them, which were only
the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their sight, they fell upon
their face, and greatly lamented their own mad conduct; and their nerves
were so terribly loosed, that they could not flee away. And here one may
chiefly reflect on the power of God exercised upon these wicked wretches,
and on the good fortune of the Romans; for these tyrants did now wholly
deprive themselves of the security they had in their own power, and came
down from those very towers of their own accord, wherein they could have
never been taken by force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine.
And thus did the Romans, when they had taken such great
pains about weaker walls, get by good fortune what they could never have
gotten by their engines; for three of these towers were too strong for all
mechanical engines whatsoever, concerning which we have treated above.
5. So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather
they were ejected out of them by God himself, and fled immediately to that
valley which was under Siloam, where they again recovered themselves out of
the dread they were in for a while, and ran violently against that part of
the Roman wall which lay on that side; but as their courage was too much
depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force, and their power was
now broken with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the guards, and
dispersing themselves at distances from each other, went down into the
subterranean caverns.
So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they
both placed their ensigns upon the towers, and made joyful acclamations for
the victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much
lighter than its beginning; for when they had gotten upon the last wall,
without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be true;
but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an unusual
solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the
city with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook without and
set fire to the houses whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in
them, and laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to
the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men,
and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is, of such as died by the
famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without
touching any thing. But although they had this commiseration for such as
were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were
still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and
obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city
run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the
houses was quenched with these men's blood.
And truly so it happened, that though the slayers left
off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night; and as
all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul] upon
Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries during this
siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first
foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the world. Nor did it
on any other account so much deserve these sore misfortunes, as by producing
such a generation of men as were the occasions of this its overthrow.
The Last Passover "Sacrifice"(38)
(vi:ix:3-4)
3. Now the number of those that were carried captive
during this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the
number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred
thousand, the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the
citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself; for they were
come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a
sudden shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a
straitness among them, that there came a pestilential destruction upon them,
and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly.
And that this city could contain so many people in it, is
manifest by that number of them which was taken under Cestius, who being
desirous of informing Nero of the power of the city, who otherwise was
disposed to contemn that nation, entreated the high priests, if the thing
were possible, to take the number of their whole multitude. So these high
priests, upon the coming of that feast which is called the Passover, when
they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the eleventh, but so
that a company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice, (for it is not
lawful for them to feast singly by themselves,) and many of us are twenty in
a company, found the number of sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six
thousand five hundred; which, upon the allowance of no more than ten that
feast together, amounts to two millions seven hundred thousand and two
hundred persons that were pure and holy; for as to those that have the
leprosy, or the gonorrhea, or women that have their monthly courses, or such
as are otherwise polluted, it is not lawful for them to be partakers of this
sacrifice; nor indeed for any foreigners neither, who come hither to
worship.
4. Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of
remote places, but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in prison,
and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded with
inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished
exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the
world; for, to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew some
of them, some they carried captives, and others they made a search for under
ground, and when they found where they were, they broke up the ground and
slew all they met with.
There were also found slain there above two thousand
persons, partly by their own hands, and partly by one another, but chiefly
destroyed by the famine; but then the ill savor of the dead bodies was most
offensive to those that lighted upon them, insomuch that some were obliged
to get away immediately, while others were so greedy of gain, that they
would go in among the dead bodies that lay on heaps, and tread upon them;
for a great deal of treasure was found in these caverns, and the hope of
gain made every way of getting it to be esteemed lawful. Many also of those
that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now brought out; for they
did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the very last: yet did God
avenge himself upon them both, in a manner agreeable to justice.
As for John, he wanted food, together with his brethren,
in these caverns, and begged that the Romans would now give him their right
hand for his security, which he had often proudly rejected before; but for
Simon, he struggled hard with the distress he was in, fill he was forced to
surrender himself, as we shall relate hereafter; so he was reserved for the
triumph, and to be then slain; as was John condemned to perpetual
imprisonment. And now the Romans set fire to the extreme parts of the city,
and burnt them down, and entirely demolished its walls.
Caesar's Birthday Party
(vii:iii:1)
1. While Titus was at Cesarea, he solemnized the birthday
of his brother Domitian] after a splendid manner, and inflicted a great deal
of the punishment intended for the Jews in honor of him; for the number of
those that were now slain in fighting with the beasts, and were burnt, and
fought with one another, exceeded two thousand five hundred. Yet did all
this seem to the Romans, when they were thus destroyed ten thousand several
ways, to be a punishment beneath their deserts. After this Caesar came to
Berytus, which is a city of Phoenicia, and a Roman colony, and staid there a
longer time, and exhibited a still more pompous solemnity about his father's
birthday, both in the magnificence of the shows, and in the other vast
expenses he was at in his devices thereto belonging; so that a great
multitude of the captives were here destroyed after the same manner as
before.
Suicide at Masada(39)
(vii:ix:1)
1. Now as Eleazar was proceeding on in this exhortation,
they all cut him off short, and made haste to do the work, as full of an
unconquerable ardor of mind, and moved with a demoniacal fury. So they went
their ways, as one still endeavoring to be before another, and as thinking
that this eagerness would be a demonstration of their courage and good
conduct, if they could avoid appearing in the last class; so great was the
zeal they were in to slay their wives and children, and themselves also!
Nor indeed, when they came to the work itself, did their
courage fail them, as one might imagine it would have done, but they then
held fast the same resolution, without wavering, which they had upon the
hearing of Eleazar's speech, while yet every one of them still retained the
natural passion of love to themselves and their families, because the
reasoning they went upon appeared to them to be very just, even with regard
to those that were dearest to them; for the husbands tenderly embraced their
wives, and took their children into their arms, and gave the longest parting
kisses to them, with tears in their eyes. Yet at the same time did they
complete what they had resolved on, as if they had been executed by the
hands of strangers; and they had nothing else for their comfort but the
necessity they were in of doing this execution, to avoid that prospect they
had of the miseries they were to suffer from their enemies. Nor was there at
length any one of these men found that scrupled to act their part in this
terrible execution, but every one of them despatched his dearest relations.
Miserable men indeed were they! whose distress forced them to slay their own
wives and children with their own hands, as the lightest of those evils that
were before them.
So they being not able to bear the grief they were under
for what they had done any longer, and esteeming it an injury to those they
had slain, to live even the shortest space of time after them, they
presently laid all they had upon a heap, and set fire to it. They then chose
ten men by lot out of them to slay all the rest; every one of whom laid
himself down by his wife and children on the ground, and threw his arms
about them, and they offered their necks to the stroke of those who by lot
executed that melancholy office; and when these ten had, without fear, slain
them all, they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves, that he
whose lot it was should first kill the other nine, and after all should kill
himself. Accordingly, all these had courage sufficient to be no way behind
one another in doing or suffering; so, for a conclusion, the nine offered
their necks to the executioner, and he who was the last of all took a view
of all the other bodies, lest perchance some or other among so many that
were slain should want his assistance to be quite despatched, and when he
perceived that they were all slain, he set fire to the palace, and with the
great force of his hand ran his sword entirely through himself, and fell
down dead near to his own relations. So these people died with this
intention, that they would not leave so much as one soul among them all
alive to be subject to the Romans.
Yet was there an ancient woman, and another who was of
kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in prudence and learning, with
five children, who had concealed themselves in caverns under ground, and had
carried water thither for their drink, and were hidden there when the rest
were intent upon the slaughter of one another. Those others were nine
hundred and sixty in number, the women and children being withal included in
that computation. This calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of
the month Xanthicus [Nisan].
NOTES
- Herod of Chalcis, the grandson of King Herod; the event spoken of
here took place in A.D. 52.
- Florus was the Roman procurator of Judea from A.D. 64-66.
- The members of the "equestrian order" were the Jewish nobility who
held Roman status; this event took place on 3 June, A.D. 66.
- Because of Florus's tyranny, the Jews revolted against Gentiles, and
the Gentiles brought reprisals against the Jews; thus began a series of
countermassacres between them.
- Tiberius Alexander, governor of Alexandria.
- John of Gischala was the leader of a powerful faction of Zealots.
The Zealots were a revolutionary Jewish sect of the first century;
Josephus uses the term loosely, without explaining the ideological
differences among the various revolutionary factions.
- In the spring Of A.D. 67, after Nero had received news of the Judean
revolt, he appointed Vespasian commander of the Roman forces to subdue
the rebellion. (Vespasian became the Roman Emperor in A.D. 69, after the
turmoil following Nero's death.) The event described here refers to
Vespasian's reprisals against an attempt by Jewish forces to capture the
city of Sepphoris from the Romans.
- This important stronghold of the Jewish rebels was destroyed by the
Romans on 20 July, A.D. 67.
- See Note 7.
- According to Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of Kepheus,
king of Ethiopia. She had been bound to a rock in order to be devoured
by a sea monster, but was rescued in the nick of time by the hero
Perseus.
- The city was another important rebel base, Tarichaeae (also called
Magdala, the home of Mary Magdalene).
- Titus was the older son of Vespasian, who assisted his father in the
Jewish War. Later, when Vespasian became emperor, Titus took over the
direction of the campaign.
- The Sea of Galilee was also called Lake Gennesareth. The massacre
recorded here resulted from the Romans' attempt to catch and destroy the
Jews who were trying to escape from Tarichaeae. This battle took place
in late September 67.
- During the civil strife in Jerusalem, the rebellious Zealots
barricaded themselves in the Temple against the pro-Roman citizens, who
surrounded the Temple with armed guards. A few Zealots escaped in the
night and made their way to the camp of the Edomites (Idumeans) who had
surrounded the city with 20,000 men. By telling them (falsely) that the
priests were planning to surrender the city to the Romans, the Zealots
persuaded the Edomites to liberate their comrades from the Temple and
then to attack the rest of the city. That night, before the Edomites
went on the rampage, was the last opportunity for people to escape from
the city with safety.
- The Edomites were descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother (Gen. 25:30;
36:8-43), and thus related to the Israelites.
- Ananus was the High Priest.
- Jesus, son of Gamalus, was a chief priest, second under Ananus.
- Cf. Matt. 23:35.
- Realizing they had been tricked, most of the Edomites left the city.
Meanwhile, the Romans continued their slow advance through Judea,
counting on the internal warfare in Jerusalem to weaken the rebellion.
Many Jews tried to escape from the coming holocaust; most were
unsuccessful.
- Simon was the leader of a powerful faction of rebels in Jerusalem,
in competition with the Zealots led by Eleazar, son of Gion, and the
Galilean followers of John of Gischala.
- As Josephus mentions several times in his narrative, people all over
the world knew of the Temple in Jerusalem: it was "esteemed holy by all
mankind."
- Cf. Luke 13:1-9.
- Eleazar's forces occupied the sanctuary. John's followers controlled
the outer Temple area (while trying to overthrow Eleazar), and Simon's
men held most of the rest of the city while fighting against John.
- By this time the Romans under Titus had surrounded the city.
Eleazar's Zealots had combined with John's forces under John's
leadership, and there were now two main factions in the city. The Romans
began assaulting the city with catapults.
- About 90 lbs.
- About 1200 feet.
- After reviewing the various theories on this strange passage, J.
Stuart Russell offers the following explanation:
It could not but be well known to the Jews that the
great hope and faith of the Christians was the speedy coming of the Son.
It was about this very time, according to Hegesippus, that St. James,
the brother of our Lord, publicly testified in the temple that "the Son
of man was about to come in the clouds of heaven," and then sealed his
testimony with his blood. It seems highly probable that the Jews, in
their defiant and desperate blasphemy, when they saw the white mass
hurtling though the air, raised the ribald cry, "The Son is coming," in
mockery of the Christian hope of the Parousia, to which they might trace
a ludicrous resemblance in the strange appearance of the missile. (J.
Stuart Russell, The Parousia [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1887, 19831, p. 482. Hegesippus's statement about James can be found in
The Ante-Nicene Fathers [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970
reprint] vol. 8, p. 763.)
- Josephus was trying to persuade the Jews to surrender to the Romans
(or, at the very least, he wrote passages such as this one to convince
the Romans of his loyalty). This section is important as a summary of
God's historical judgments against Israel.
- Note: 42 months. The period from Nero's appointment of Vespasian
until the destruction of the Temple (30 August, A.D. 70) was also about
42 months.
- Cf. note 21 above.
- Cf. Deut. 28:53-57; 2 Kings 6:26-29; Jer. 19:9; Lam. 4:10; Ezek.
5:10.
- Josephus here draws attention to the fact that, under the Providence
of God, the Temple was destroyed by the Romans on the tenth day of Ab-the
very same date on which the first Temple had been burned by the
Babylonians in 586 B.C. (see Jer. 52:12-13).
- According to this passage in Josephus, Titus tried to prevent the
soldiers from destroying the Temple. It is possible, however, that
Josephus was trying to defend the Romans against the Jewish charge that
it had been a matter of deliberate policy. The early Church historian
Sulpitius Severus, following Tacitus, wrote:
Titus himself thought that the temple ought
especially to be overthrown, in order that the religion of the Jews and
of the Christians might more thoroughly be subverted; for that these
religions, although contrary to each other, had nevertheless proceeded
from the same authors; that the Christians had sprung up from among the
Jews; and that, if the root were extirpated, the offshoot would speedily
perish. Thus, according to the divine will, the minds of all being
inflamed, the temple was destroyed…. (The Sacred History of Sulpitius
Severus, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of
the Christian Church [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973 reprint], Second
Series, vol. 11, p. Ill. Cf. Michael Grant, The Twelve Caesars
[New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 19751, pp. 228f.)
- Cf. Mal. 4:6.
- This event is also reported by the Roman historian Tacitus:
In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict,
of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up
the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman
voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the
same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure. (Tacitus,
The Histories, translated by Kenneth Wellesley [New York: Penguin
Books, 1964, 19751, p. 279.)
- Cf. Isa. 2:10-12; Hos. 10:8; Luke 23:28-30; Rev. 6:15-17.
- Cf. Deut. 28:68.
- Whiston comments at this point: "What is here chiefly remarkable is
this, that no foreign nation ever came thus to destroy the Jews at any
of their solemn festivals, from the days of Moses till this time, but
came now upon their apostasy from God, and from obedience to him." God
had promised protection during the festivals (Ex. 34:23-24). The fact
that God did not observe this promise any longer is another indication
that Israel had been excommunicated from the covenant.
- The last stronghold of the Zealots was atop the lonely limestone
crag of Masada, towering 1,700 feet high near the western shore of the
Dead Sea. Led by Eleazar, son of Jairus (not the Eleazar who led the
Zealots in Jerusalem), the Masada Zealots were able to hold off the
Romans for about four years after the fall of Jerusalem. When Eleazar
saw, however, that the Romans would soon succeed in taking his fortress,
he urged his followers to commit mass suicide rather than submit to the
dishonor of capture by the Romans. Eternal life and glory, he assured
them, would be their reward. The tragedy occurred on the 15th of Nisan,
A.D. 74- Passover.
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