The Great Slaughters And Sacrilege That Were In Jerusalem.
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 sanhedrim, 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.
2. Now when Judas, the son of Judas, who was one of Simon's under officers, and a person intrusted by him to keep one of the towers, saw this procedure of Simon, he called together ten of those under him, that were most faithful to him, [perhaps this was done partly out of pity to those that had so barbarously been put to death, but principally in order to provide for his own safety,] and spoke thus to them: "How long shall we bear these miseries? or what hopes have we of deliverance by thus continuing faithful to such wicked wretches? Is not the famine already come against us? Are not the Romans in a manner gotten within the city? Is not Simon become unfaithful to his benefactors? and is there not reason to fear he will very soon bring us to the like punishment, while the security the Romans offer us is sure? Come on, let us surrender up this wall, and save ourselves and the city. Nor will Simon be very much hurt, if, now he despairs of deliverance, he be brought to justice a little sooner than he thinks on." Now these ten were prevailed upon by those arguments; so he sent the rest of those that were under him, some one way, and some another, that no discovery might be made of what they had resolved upon. Accordingly, he called to the Romans from the tower about the third hour; but they, some of them out of pride, despised what he said, and others of them did not believe him to be in earnest, though the greatest number delayed the matter, as believing they should get possession of the city in a little time, without any hazard. But when Titus was just coming thither with his armed men, Simon was acquainted with the matter before he came, and presently took the tower into his own custody, before it was surrendered, and seized upon these men, and put them to death in the sight of the Romans themselves; and when he had mangled their dead bodies, he threw them down before the wall of the city.
3. In the mean time, Josephus, as he was going round the city, had his head wounded by a stone that was thrown at him; upon which he fell down as giddy. Upon which fall of his the Jews made a sally, and he had been hurried away into the city, if Caesar had not sent men to protect him immediately; and as these men were fighting, Josephus was taken up, though he heard little of what was done. So the seditious supposed they had now slain that man whom they were the most desirous of killing, and made thereupon a great noise, in way of rejoicing. This accident was told in the city, and the multitude that remained became very disconsolate at the news, as being persuaded that he was really dead, on whose account alone they could venture to desert to the Romans. But when Josephus's mother heard in prison that her son was dead, she said to those that watched about her, That she had always been of opinion, since the siege of Jotapata, [that he would be slain,] and she should never enjoy him alive any more. She also made great lamentation privately to the maid-servants that were about her, and said, That this was all the advantage she had of bringing so extraordinary a person as this son into the world; that she should not be able even to bury that son of hers, by whom she expected to have been buried herself. However, this false report did not put his mother to pain, nor afford merriment to the robbers, long; for Josephus soon recovered of his wound, and came out, and cried out aloud, That it would not be long ere they should be punished for this wound they had given him. He also made a fresh exhortation to the people to come out upon the security that would be given them. This sight of Josephus encouraged the people greatly, and brought a great consternation upon the seditious.
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 20 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.
7. And, indeed, why do I relate these particular calamities? while Manneus, the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time, and told him that there had been carried out through that one gate, which was intrusted to his care, no fewer than a hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty dead bodies, in the interval between the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] when the Romans pitched their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus [Tamuz]. This was itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was not himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to pay the public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was obliged of necessity to number them, while the rest were buried by their relations; though all their burial was but this, to bring them away, and cast them out of the city. After this man there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens, and told him the entire number of the poor that were dead, and that no fewer than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates, though still the number of the rest could not be discovered; and they told him further, that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the poor, they laid their corpses on heaps in very large houses, and shut them up therein; as also that a medimnus of wheat was sold for a talent; and that when, a while afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, by reason the city was all walled about, some persons were driven to that terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old dunghills of cattle, and to eat the dung which they got there; and what they of old could not endure so much as to see they now used for food. When the Romans barely heard all this, they commiserated their case; while the seditious, who saw it also, did not repent, but suffered the same distress to come upon themselves; for they were blinded by that fate which was already coming upon the city, and upon themselves also.
1 (return)
[ This appears to be the
first time that the zealots ventured to pollute this most sacred court of
the temple, which was the court of the priests, wherein the temple itself
and the altar stood. So that the conjecture of those that would interpret
that Zacharias, who was slain "between the temple and the altar" several
months before, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4, as if he were slain there by these
zealots, is groundless, as I have noted on that place already.]
2 (return)
[ The Levites.]
3 (return)
[ This is an excellent
reflection of Josephus, including his hopes of the restoration of the Jews
upon their repentance, See Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 46, which is the
grand "Hope of Israel," as Manasseh-ben-Israel, the famous Jewish Rabbi,
styles it, in his small but remarkable treatise on that subject, of which
the Jewish prophets are every where full. See the principal of those
prophecies collected together at the end of the Essay on the Revelation,
p. 822, etc.]
4 (return)
[ This destruction of such a
vast quantity of corn and other provisions, as was sufficient for many
years was the direct occasion of that terrible famine, which consumed
incredible numbers of Jews in Jerusalem during its siege. Nor probably
could the Romans have taken this city, after all, had not these seditious
Jews been so infatuated as thus madly to destroy, what Josephus here
justly styles, "The nerves of their power."]
5 (return)
[ This timber, we see, was
designed for the rebuilding those twenty additional cubits of the holy
house above the hundred, which had fallen down some years before. See the
note on Antiq. B. XV. ch. 11. sect. 3.]
6 (return)
[ There being no gate on the
west, and only on the west, side of the court of the priests, and so no
steps there, this was the only side that the seditious, under this John of
Gischala, could bring their engines close to the cloisters of that court
end-ways, though upon the floor of the court of Israel. See the scheme of
that temple, in the description of the temples hereto belonging.]
7 (return)
[ We may here note, that
Titus is here called "a king," and "Caesar," by Josephus, even while he
was no more than the emperor's son, and general of the Roman army, and his
father Vespasian was still alive; just as the New Testament says
"Archelaus reigned," or "was king," Matthew 2:22, though he was properly
no more than ethnarch, as Josephus assures us, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 11.
sect. 4; Of the War, B. II. ch. 6. sect. 3. Thus also the Jews called the
Roman emperors "kings," though they never took that title to themselves:
"We have no king but Caesar," John 19:15. "Submit to the king as supreme,"
1 Peter 2:13, 17; which is also the language of the Apostolical
Constitutions, II. II, 31; IV. 13; V. 19; VI. 2, 25; VII. 16; VIII. 2, 13;
and elsewhere in the New Testament, Matthew 10:18; 17:25; 1 Timothy 2:2;
and in Josephus also; though I suspect Josephus particularly esteemed
Titus as joint king with his father ever since his divine dreams that
declared them both such, B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9.]
8 (return)
[ This situation of the
Mount of Olives, on the east of Jerusalem, at about the distance of five
or six furlongs, with the valley of Cedron interposed between that
mountain and the city, are things well known both in the Old and New
Testament, in Josephus elsewhere, and in all the descriptions of
Palestine.]
9 (return)
[ Here we see the true
occasion of those vast numbers of Jews that were in Jerusalem during this
siege by Titus, and perished therein; that the siege began at the feast of
the passover, when such prodigious multitudes of Jews and proselytes of
the gate were come from all parts of Judea, and from other countries, in
order to celebrate that great festival. See the note B. VI. ch. 9. sect.
3. Tacitus himself informs us, that the number of men, women, and children
in Jerusalem, when it was besieged by the Romans, as he had been informed.
This information must have been taken from the Romans: for Josephus never
recounts the numbers of those that were besieged, only he lets us know,
that of the vulgar, carried dead out of the gates, and buried at the
public charges, was the like number of 600,000, ch. viii. sect. 7.
However, when Cestius Gallus came first to the siege, that sum in Tacitus
is no way disagreeable to Josephus's history, though they were become much
more numerous when Titus encompassed the city at the passover. As to the
number that perished during this siege, Josephus assures us, as we shall
see hereafter, they were 1,100,000, besides 97,000 captives. But Tacitus's
history of the last part of this siege is not now extant; so we cannot
compare his parallel numbers with those of Josephus.]
10 (return)
[ Perhaps, says Dr.
Hudson, here was that gate, called the "Gate of the Corner," in 2
Chronicles 26:9. See ch. 4. sect. 2]
11 (return)
[ These dove-courts in
Josephus, built by Herod the Great, are, in the opinion of Reland, the
very same that are mentioned by the Talmudists, and named by them "Herod's
dove courts." Nor is there any reason to suppose otherwise, since in both
accounts they were expressly tame pigeons which were kept in them.]
12 (return)
[ See the description of
the temples hereto belonging, ch. 15. But note, that what Josephus here
says of the original scantiness of this Mount Moriah, that it was quite
too little for the temple, and that at first it held only one cloister or
court of Solomon's building, and that the foundations were forced to be
added long afterwards by degrees, to render it capable of the cloisters
for the other courts, etc., is without all foundation in the Scriptures,
and not at all confirmed by his exacter account in the Antiquities. All
that is or can be true here is this, that when the court of the Gentiles
was long afterward to be encompassed with cloisters, the southern
foundation for these cloisters was found not to be large or firm enough,
and was raised, and that additional foundation supported by great pillars
and arches under ground, which Josephus speaks of elsewhere, Antiq. B. XV.
ch. 11. sect. 3, and which Mr. Maundrel saw, and describes, p. 100, as
extant under ground at this day.]
13 (return)
[ What Josephus seems here
to mean is this: that these pillars, supporting the cloisters in the
second court, had their foundations or lowest parts as deep as the floor
of the first or lowest court; but that so far of those lowest parts as
were equal to the elevation of the upper floor above the lowest were, and
must be, hidden on the inside by the ground or rock itself, on which that
upper court was built; so that forty cubits visible below were reduced to
twenty-five visible above, and implies the difference of their heights to
be fifteen cubits. The main difficulty lies here, how fourteen or fifteen
steps should give an ascent of fifteen cubits, half a cubit seeming
sufficient for a single step. Possibly there were fourteen or fifteen
steps at the partition wall, and fourteen or fifteen more thence into the
court itself, which would bring the whole near to the just proportion. See
sect. 3, infra. But I determine nothing.]
14 (return)
[ These three guards that
lay in the tower of Antonia must be those that guarded the city, the
temple, and the tower of Antonia.]
15 (return)
[ What should be the
meaning of this signal or watchword, when the watchmen saw a stone coming
from the engine, "The Stone Cometh," or what mistake there is in the
reading, I cannot tell. The MSS., both Greek and Latin, all agree in this
reading; and I cannot approve of any groundless conjectural alteration of
the text from ro to lop, that not the son or a stone, but that the arrow
or dart cometh; as hath been made by Dr. Hudson, and not corrected by
Havercamp. Had Josephus written even his first edition of these books of
the war in pure Hebrew, or had the Jews then used the pure Hebrew at
Jerusalem, the Hebrew word for a son is so like that for a stone, ben and
eben, that such a correction might have been more easily admitted. But
Josephus wrote his former edition for the use of the Jews beyond
Euphrates, and so in the Chaldee language, as he did this second edition
in the Greek language; and bar was the Chaldee word for son, instead of
the Hebrew ben, and was used not only in Chaldea, etc. but in Judea also,
as the New Testament informs us. Dio lets us know that the very Romans at
Rome pronounced the name of Simon the son of Giora, Bar Poras for Bar
Gioras, as we learn from Xiphiline, p. 217. Reland takes notice, "that
many will here look for a mystery, as though the meaning were, that the
Son of God came now to take vengeance on the sins of the Jewish nation;"
which is indeed the truth of the fact, but hardly what the Jews could now
mean; unless possibly by way of derision of Christ's threatening so often
made, that he would come at the head of the Roman army for their
destruction. But even this interpretation has but a very small degree of
probability. If I were to make an emendation by mere conjecture, I would
read instead of, though the likeness be not so great as in lo; because
that is the word used by Josephus just before, as has been already noted
on this very occasion, while, an arrow or dart, is only a poetical word,
and never used by Josephus elsewhere, and is indeed no way suitable to the
occasion, this engine not throwing arrows or darts, but great stones, at
this time.]
16 (return)
[ Josephus supposes, in
this his admirable speech to the Jews, that not Abraham only, but Pharaoh
king of Egypt, prayed towards a temple at Jerusalem, or towards Jerusalem
itself, in which were Mount Sion and Mount Moriah, on which the tabernacle
and temple did afterwards stand; and this long before either the Jewish
tabernacle or temple were built. Nor is the famous command given by God to
Abraham, to go two or three days' journey, on purpose to offer up his son
Isaac there, unfavorable to such a notion.]
17 (return)
[ Note here, that
Josephus, in this his same admirable speech, calls the Syrians, nay, even
the Philistines, on the most south part of Syria, Assyrians; which Reland
observes as what was common among the ancient writers. Note also, that
Josephus might well put the Jews in mind, as he does here more than once,
of their wonderful and truly miraculous deliverance from Sennacherib, king
of Assyria, while the Roman army, and himself with them, were now encamped
upon and beyond that very spot of ground where the Assyrian army lay seven
hundred and eighty years before, and which retained the very name of the
Camp of the Assyrians to that very day. See chap. 7. sect. 3, and chap.
12. sect. 2.]
18 (return)
[ This drying up of the
Jerusalem fountain of Siloam when the Jews wanted it, and its flowing
abundantly when the enemies of the Jews wanted it, and these both in the
days of Zedekiah and of Titus, [and this last as a certain event well
known by the Jews at that time, as Josephus here tells them openly to
their faces,] are very remarkable instances of a Divine Providence for the
punishment of the Jewish nation, when they were grown very wicked, at both
those times of the destruction of Jerusalem.]
19 (return)
[ Reland very properly
takes notice here, how justly this judgment came upon the Jews, when they
were crucified in such multitudes together, that the Romans wanted room
for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies of these Jews, since they had
brought this judgment on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.]
20 (return)
[ Josephus, both here and
before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4, esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of
the lake Asphaltites, or under its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus
also took the same notion from him, Hist. V. ch. 6. 7, which the great
Reland takes to be the very truth, both in his note on this place, and in
his Palestina, tom. I. p. 254-258; though I rather suppose part of that
sea, but perhaps not the whole country.]
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg