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1. Now upon John's entry into Jerusalem, the whole body of the
people were in an uproar, and ten thousand of them
crowded about every one of the fugitives that were come to
them, and inquired of them what miseries had happened
abroad, when their breath was so short, and hot, and quick,
that of itself it declared the great distress they were in; yet
did they talk big under their misfortunes, and pretended to say
that they had not fled away from the Romans, but came thither in
order to fight them with less hazard; for that it would be an
unreasonable and a fruitless thing for them to expose themselves
to desperate hazards about Gischala, and such weak cities,
whereas they ought to lay up their weapons and their zeal, and
reserve it for their metropolis. But when they related to them
the taking of Gischala, and their decent departure, as they
pretended, from that place, many of the people understood it to
be no better than a flight; and
especially when the people were told of those that were made
captives, they were in great confusion, and guessed those things
to be plain indications that they should be taken also. But for
John, he was very little concerned for those whom he had left
behind him, but went about among all the people, and persuaded
them to go to war, by the hopes he gave
them. He affirmed that the affairs of the Romans were in a weak
condition, and extolled his own power. He also jested upon the
ignorance of the unskillful, as if those Romans, although they
should take to themselves wings, could never fly over the wall of
Jerusalem, who found such great
difficulties in taking the villages of Galilee, and had broken
their engines of war against their walls.
2. These harangues of John's corrupted a great part of the
young men, and puffed them up for the war; but as to the more
prudent part, and those in years, there was not a man of them but
foresaw what was coming, and made lamentation on that account, as
if the city was already undone; and in this confusion were the
people. But then it must be observed, that the multitude that
came out of the country were at discord before the Jerusalem
sedition began; for Titus went from Gischala to Cesates, and
Vespasian from Cesarea to Jamnia and Azotus, and took them both;
and when he had put
garrisons into them, he came back with a great number of the
people, who were come over to him, upon his giving them his right
hand for their preservation. There were besides
disorders and civil wars in every city; and all those that were
at quiet from the Romans turned their hands one against
another. There was also a bitter contest between those that
were fond of war, and those that were desirous for peace. At the
first this quarrelsome temper caught hold of private families,
who could not agree among themselves; after which those people
that were the dearest to one another brake
through all restraints with regard to each other, and every one
associated with those of his own opinion, and began
already to stand in opposition one to another; so that
seditions arose every where, while those that were for
innovations, and were desirous of war, by their youth and
boldness, were too hard for the aged and prudent men. And, in the
first place, all the people of every place betook themselves to
rapine; after which they got together in bodies, in order to rob
the people of the country, insomuch that for barbarity and
iniquity those of the same nation did no way differ from the
Romans; nay, it seemed to be a much lighter thing to be ruined by
the Romans than by themselves.
3. Now the Roman garrisons, which guarded the cities, partly
out of their uneasiness to take such trouble upon them, and
partly out of the hatred they bare to the Jewish nation, did
little or nothing towards relieving the miserable, till the
captains of these troops of robbers, being satiated with rapines
in the country, got all together from all parts, and became a
band of wickedness, and all together crept into Jerusalem, which
was now become a city without a governor, and, as the ancient
custom was, received without distinction all that belonged to
their nation; and these they then
received, because all men supposed that those who came so fast
into the city came out of kindness, and for their
assistance, although these very men, besides the seditions they
raised, were otherwise the direct cause of the city's destruction
also; for as they were an unprofitable and a useless multitude,
they spent those provisions beforehand which might otherwise have
been sufficient for the fighting men. Moreover, besides the
bringing on of the war, they were the occasions of sedition and
famine therein.
4. There were besides these other robbers that came out of the
country, and came into the city, and joining to them those that
were worse than themselves, omitted no kind of
barbarity; for they did not measure their courage by their
rapines and plunderings only, but preceded as far as
murdering men; and this not in the night time or privately, or
with regard to ordinary men, but did it openly in the day time,
and began with the most eminent persons in the city; for the
first man they meddled with was Antipas, one of the royal
lineage, and the most potent man in the whole city, insomuch that
the public treasures were committed to his care; him they took
and confined; as they did in the next place to Levias, a person
of great note, with Sophas, the son of Raguel, both which were of
royal lineage also. And besides these, they did the same to the
principal men of the country. This caused a terrible
consternation among the people, and everyone contented himself
with taking care of his own
safety, as they would do if the city had been taken in war.
5. But these were not satisfied with the bonds into which they
had put the men forementioned; nor did they think it safe for
them to keep them thus in custody long, since they were men very
powerful, and had numerous families of their own that were able
to avenge them. Nay, they thought the very people would perhaps
be so moved at these unjust proceedings, as to rise in a body
against them; it was therefore resolved to have them slain
accordingly, they sent one John, who was the most bloody-minded
of them all, to do that execution: this man was also called "the
son of Dorcas," in the language of our country. Ten more men
went along with him into the
prison, with their swords drawn, and so they cut the throats of
those that were in custody there. The grand lying pretence these
men made for so flagrant an enormity was this, that these men had
had conferences with the Romans for a
surrender of Jerusalem to them; and so they said they had slain
only such as were traitors to their common liberty. Upon the
whole, they grew the more insolent upon this bold prank of
theirs, as though they had been the benefactors and saviors of
the city.
6. Now the people were come to that degree of meanness
and fear, and these robbers to that degree of madness, that
these last took upon them to appoint high priests. So when
they had disannulled the succession, according to those families
out of which the high priests used to be made, they ordained
certain unknown and ignoble persons for that office, that they
might have their assistance in their wicked
undertakings; for such as obtained this highest of all honors,
without any desert, were forced to comply with those that
bestowed it on them. They also set the principal men at
variance one with another, by several sorts of contrivances and
tricks, and gained the opportunity of doing what they pleased, by
the mutual quarrels of those who might have
obstructed their measures; till at length, when they were
satiated with the unjust actions they had done towards men, they
transferred their contumelious behavior to God himself, and came
into the sanctuary with polluted feet.
7. And now the multitude were going to rise against them
already; for Ananus, the ancientest of the high priests,
persuaded them to it. He was a very prudent man, and had perhaps
saved the city if he could but have escaped the hands of those
that plotted against him. These men made the
temple of God a strong hold for them, and a place whither they
might resort, in order to avoid the troubles they feared from the
people; the sanctuary was now become a refuge,
and a shop of tyranny. They also mixed jesting among the
miseries they introduced, which was more intolerable than what
they did; for in order to try what surprise the people would be
under, and how far their own power extended, they undertook to
dispose of the high priesthood by casting lots for it, whereas,
as we have said already, it was to descend by succession in a
family. The pretense they made for this
strange attempt was an ancient practice, while they said that
of old it was determined by lot; but in truth, it was no better
than a dissolution of an undeniable law, and a cunning
contrivance to seize upon the government, derived from those
that presumed to appoint governors as they themselves
pleased.
8. Hereupon they sent for one of the pontifical tribes, which
is called Eniachim, and cast lots which of it should be the
high priest. By fortune the lot so fell as to demonstrate their
iniquity after the plainest manner, for it fell upon one whose
name was Phannias, the son of Samuel, of the village Aphtha. He
was a man not only unworthy of the high priesthood, but that did
not well know what the high priesthood was, such a mere rustic
was he ! yet did they hail this man, without his own consent, out
of the country, as if they were acting a play upon the stage, and
adorned him with a counterfeit thee; they also put upon him the
sacred garments, and upon every occasion instructed him what he
was to do. This horrid piece of wickedness was sport and pastime
with them, but
occasioned the other priests, who at a distance saw their law
made a jest of, to shed tears, and sorely lament the
dissolution of such a sacred dignity.
9. And now the people could no longer bear the insolence of
this procedure, but did all together run zealously, in order to
overthrow that tyranny; and indeed they were Gorion the son of
Josephus, and Symeon the son of Gamaliel, who
encouraged them, by going up and down when they were
assembled together in crowds, and as they saw them alone, to
bear no longer, but to inflict punishment upon these pests and
plagues of their freedom, and to purge the temple of these bloody
polluters of it. The best esteemed also of the high priests,
Jesus the son of Gamalas, and Ananus the son of Ananus when they
were at their assemblies, bitterly
reproached the people for their sloth, and excited them
against the zealots; for that was the name they went by, as if
they were zealous in good undertakings, and were not rather
zealous in the worst actions, and extravagant in them beyond the
example of others.
10. And now, when the multitude were gotten together to an
assembly, and every one was in indignation at these men's seizing
upon the sanctuary, at their rapine and murders, but had not yet
begun their attacks upon them, (the reason of which was this,
that they imagined it to be a difficult thing to suppress these
zealots, as indeed the case was,) Ananus stood in the midst of
them, and casting his eyes frequently at the temple, and having a
flood of tears in his eyes, he said, "Certainly it had been good
for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many
abominations, or these
sacred places, that ought not to be trodden upon at random,
filled with the feet of these blood-shedding villains; yet do I,
who am clothed with the vestments of the high priesthood, and am
called by that most venerable name [of high priest], still live,
and am but too fond of living, and cannot endure to undergo a
death which would be the glory of my old age; and if I were the
only person concerned, and as it were in a desert, I would give
up my life, and that alone for God's sake; for to what purpose is
it to live among a people
insensible of their calamities, and where there is no notion
remaining of any remedy for the miseries that are upon
them? for when you are seized upon, you bear it! and when you
are beaten, you are silent! and when the people are
murdered, nobody dare so much as send out a groan openly! O
bitter tyranny that we are under! But why do I complain of the
tyrants? Was it not you, and your sufferance of them, that have
nourished them? Was it not you that overlooked those that first
of all got together, for they were then but a few, and by your
silence made them grow to be many; and by
conniving at them when they took arms, in effect armed them
against yourselves? You ought to have then prevented their first
attempts, when they fell a reproaching your relations; but by
neglecting that care in time, you have encouraged these wretches
to plunder men. When houses were pillaged, nobody said a word,
which was the occasion why they carried off the owners of those
houses; and when they were drawn through the midst of the city,
nobody came to their assistance. They then proceeded to put those
whom you have betrayed into
their hands into bonds. I do not say how many and of what
characters those men were whom they thus served; but
certainly they were such as were accused by none, and
condemned by none; and since nobody succored them when
they were put into bonds, the consequence was, that you saw the
same persons slain. We have seen this also; so that still the
best of the herd of brute animals, as it were, have been still
led to be sacrificed, when yet nobody said one word, or moved his
right hand for their preservation. Will you bear, therefore, will
you bear to see your sanctuary trampled on? and will you lay
steps for these profane wretches, upon which they may mount to
higher degrees of insolence? Will not you pluck them down from
their exaltation? for even by this time they had proceeded to
higher enormities, if they had been able to overthrow any thing
greater than the sanctuary. They have seized upon the strongest
place of the whole city; you may call it the temple, if you
please, though it be like a citadel or fortress. Now, while you
have tyranny in so great a degree walled in, and see your enemies
over your heads, to what purpose is it to take counsel? and what
have you to support your minds withal? Perhaps you wait for the
Romans, that they may protect our holy places: are our matters
then brought to that pass? and are we come to that degree of
misery, that our enemies themselves are expected to pity us? O
wretched creatures! will not you rise up and turn upon those that
strike you? which you may observe in wild beasts themselves, that
they will avenge themselves on those that strike them. Will you
not call to mind, every one of you, the calamities you yourselves
have suffered? nor lay before your eyes what afflictions you
yourselves have undergone? and will not such things sharpen your
souls to revenge? Is therefore that most honorable and most
natural of our passions utterly lost, I mean the desire of
liberty? Truly we are in love with slavery, and in love with
those that lord it over us, as if we had received that principle
of subjection from our ancestors; yet did they undergo many and
great wars for the sake of liberty, nor were they so far overcome
by the power of the Egyptians, or the Medes, but that still they
did what they thought fit, notwithstanding their commands to the
contrary. And what occasion is there now for a war with the
Romans? (I meddle not with determining whether it be an
advantageous and profitable war or not.) What pretense is there
for it? Is it not that we may enjoy our liberty? Besides, shall
we not bear the lords of the habitable earth to be lords over us,
and yet bear tyrants of our own country? Although I must say that
submission to foreigners may be borne, because fortune hath
already doomed us to it, while submission to wicked people of our
own nation is too unmanly, and brought upon us by our own
consent. However, since I have had
occasion to mention the Romans, I will not conceal a thing
that, as I am speaking, comes into my mind, and affects me
considerably; it is this, that though we should be taken by them,
(God forbid the event should be so!) yet can we
undergo nothing that will be harder to be borne than what these
men have already brought upon us. How then can we
avoid shedding of tears, when we see the Roman donations in our
temple, while we withal see those of our own nation taking our
spoils, and plundering our glorious metropolis, and slaughtering
our men, from which enormities those Romans themselves would have
abstained? to see those Romans never going beyond the bounds
allotted to profane persons, nor venturing to break in upon any
of our sacred customs; nay, having a horror on their minds when
they view at a distance those sacred walls; while some that have
been born in this very country, and brought up in our customs,
and called Jews, do walk about in the midst of the holy places,
at the very time when their hands are still warm with the
slaughter of their own countrymen. Besides, can any one be afraid
of a war abroad, and that with such as will have comparatively
much greater moderation than our own people have? For
truly, if we may suit our words to the things they represent,
it is probable one may hereafter find the Romans to be the
supporters of our laws, and those within ourselves the
subverters of them. And now I am persuaded that every one of
you here comes satisfied before I speak that these
overthrowers of our liberties deserve to be destroyed, and that
nobody can so much as devise a punishment that they have not
deserved by what they have done, and that you are all provoked
against them by those their wicked actions, whence you have
suffered so greatly. But perhaps many of you are aftrighted at
the multitude of those zealots, and at their audaciousness, as
well as at the advantage they have over us in their being higher
in place than we are; for these circumstances, as they have been
occasioned by your
negligence, so will they become still greater by being still
longer neglected; for their multitude is every day augmented, by
every ill man's running away to those that are like to
themselves, and their audaciousness is therefore inflamed,
because they meet with no obstruction to their designs. And for
their higher place, they will make use of it for engines also, if
we give them time to do so; but be assured of this, that if we go
up to fight them, they will be made tamer by their own
consciences, and what advantages they have in the height of their
situation they will lose by the opposition of their reason;
perhaps also God himself, who hath been
affronted by them, will make what they throw at us return
against themselves, and these impious wretches will be killed by
their own darts: let us but make our appearance before them, and
they will come to nothing. However, it is a right thing, if there
should be any danger in the attempt, to die before these holy
gates, and to spend our very lives, if not for the sake of our
children and wives, yet for God's sake, and for the sake of his
sanctuary. I will assist you both with my counsel and with my
hand; nor shall any sagacity of ours be wanting for your support;
nor shall you see that I will be sparing of my body neither."
11. By these motives Ananus encouraged the multitude to go
against the zealots, although he knew how difficult it would be
to disperse them, because of their multitude, and their youth,
and the courage of their souls; but chiefly because of their
consciousness of what they had done, since they would not yield,
as not so much as hoping for pardon at the last for those their
enormities. However, Ananus resolved to undergo whatever
sufferings might come upon him, rather than
overlook things, now they were in such great confusion. So the
multitude cried out to him, to lead them on against those whom he
had described in his exhortation to them, and every one of them
was most readily disposed to run any hazard
whatsoever on that account.
12. Now while Ananus was choosing out his men, and putting
those that were proper for his purpose in array for fighting, the
zealots got information of his undertaking, (for there were some
who went to them, and told them all that the
people were doing,) and were irritated at it, and leaping out
of the temple in crowds, and by parties, spared none whom they
met with. Upon this Ananus got the populace together on the
sudden, who were more numerous indeed than the
zealots, but inferior to them in arms, because they had not
been regularly put into array for fighting; but the alacrity that
every body showed supplied all their defects on both sides, the
citizens taking up so great a passion as was stronger than arms,
and deriving a degree of courage from the temple more forcible
than any multitude whatsoever; and indeed these citizens thought
it was not possible for them to dwell in the city, unless they
could cut off the robbers that were in it. The zealots also
thought that unless they prevailed, there would be no punishment
so bad but it would be inflicted on them. So their conflicts were
conducted by their passions; and at the first they only cast
stones at each other in the city, and before the temple, and
threw their javelins at a distance; but when either of them were
too hard for the other, they made use of their swords; and great
slaughter was made on both sides, and a great number were
wounded. As for the dead
bodies of the people, their relations carried them out to their
own houses; but when any of the zealots were wounded, he went up
into the temple, and defiled that sacred floor with his blood,
insomuch that one may say it was their blood alone that polluted
our sanctuary. Now in these conflicts the
robbers always sallied out of the temple, and were too hard for
their enemies; but the populace grew very angry, and became more
and more numerous, and reproached those that gave back, and those
behind would not afford room to those that were going off, but
forced them on again, till at length they made their whole body
to turn against their adversaries, and the robbers could no
longer oppose them, but were
forced gradually to retire into the temple; when Ananus and his
party fell into it at the same time together with them. This
horribly affrighted the robbers, because it deprived them of the
first court; so they fled into the inner court
immediately, and shut the gates. Now Ananus did not think fit
to make any attack against the holy gates, although the other
threw their stones and darts at them from above. He also deemed
it unlawful to introduce the multitude into that court before
they were purified; he therefore chose out of them all by lot six
thousand armed men, and placed them as guards in the cloisters;
so there was a succession of such guards one after another, and
every one was forced to attend in his course; although many of
the chief of the city were dismissed by those that then took on
them the government, upon their hiring some of the poorer sort,
and sending them to keep the guard in their stead.
13. Now it was John who, as we told you, ran away from
Gischala, and was the occasion of all these being destroyed. He
was a man of great craft, and bore about him in his soul a strong
passion after tyranny, and at a distance was the adviser in these
actions; and indeed at this time he pretended to be of the
people's opinion, and went all about with Ananus
when he consulted the great men every day, and in the night
time also when he went round the watch; but he divulged
their secrets to the zealots, and every thing that the people
deliberated about was by his means known to their enemies, even
before it had been well agreed upon by themselves. And by way of
contrivance how he might not be brought into
suspicion, he cultivated the greatest friendship possible with
Ananus, and with the chief of the people; yet did this
overdoing of his turn against him, for he flattered them so
extravagantly, that he was but the more suspected; and his
constant attendance every where, even when he was not
invited to be present, made him strongly suspected of
betraying their secrets to the enemy; for they plainly
perceived that they understood all the resolutions taken
against them at their consultations. Nor was there any one whom
they had so much reason to suspect of that discovery as this
John; yet was it not easy to get quit of him, so potent was he
grown by his wicked practices. He was also supported by many of
those eminent men, who were to be consulted
upon all considerable affairs; it was therefore thought
reasonable to oblige him to give them assurance of his
good-will upon oath; accordingly John took such an oath readily,
that he would be on the people's side, and would not betray any
of their counsels or practices to their enemies, and would assist
them in overthrowing those that attacked them, and that both by
his hand and his advice. So Ananus and his party believed his
oath, and did now receive him to their
consultations without further suspicion; nay, so far did they
believe him, that they sent him as their ambassador into the
temple to the zealots, with proposals of accommodation; for they
were very desirous to avoid the pollution of the temple as much
as they possibly could, and that no one of their nation should be
slain therein.
14. But now this John, as if his oath had been made to the
zealots, and for confirmation of his good-will to them, and not
against them, went into the temple, and stood in the midst of
them, and spake as follows: That he had run many hazards o, their
accounts, and in order to let them know of every thing that was
secretly contrived against them by
Ananus and his party; but that both he and they should be cast
into the most imminent danger, unless some providential
assistance were afforded them; for that Ananus made no
longer delay, but had prevailed with the people to send
ambassadors to Vespasian, to invite him to come presently and
take the city; and that he had appointed a fast for the next day
against them, that they might obtain admission into the temple on
a religious account, or gain it by force, and fight with them
there; that he did not see how long they could either endure a
siege, or how they could fight against so many enemies. He added
further, that it was by the
providence of God he was himself sent as an ambassador to them
for an accommodation; for that Artanus did therefore offer them
such proposals, that he might come upon them
when they were unarmed; that they ought to choose one of these
two methods, either to intercede with those that
guarded them, to save their lives, or to provide some foreign
assistance for themselves; that if they fostered themselves with
the hopes of pardon, in case they were subdued, they had
forgotten what desperate things they had done, or could suppose,
that as soon as the actors repented, those that had suffered by
them must be presently reconciled to them; while those that have
done injuries, though they pretend to repent of them, are
frequently hated by the others for that sort of repentance; and
that the sufferers, when they get the power into their hands, are
usually still more severe upon the actors; that the friends and
kindred of those that had been destroyed would always be laying
plots against them; and that a large body of people were very
angry on account of their gross breaches of their laws, and
[illegal] judicatures, insomuch that although some part might
commiserate them, those would be quite overborne by the majority.
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