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1. The Idumeans complied with these persuasions; and, in the
first place, they set those that were in the prisons at liberty,
being about two thousand of the populace, who thereupon
fled away immediately to Simon, one whom we shall speak of
presently. After which these Idumeans retired from
Jerusalem, and went home; which departure of theirs was a great
surprise to both parties; for the people, not knowing of their
repentance, pulled up their courage for a while, as eased of so
many of their enemies, while the zealots grew more insolent not
as deserted by their confederates, but as freed from such men as
might hinder their designs, and plat some stop to their
wickedness. Accordingly, they made no longer any delay, nor took
any deliberation in their enormous practices, but made use of the
shortest methods for all their executions and what they had once
resolved upon, they put in practice sooner than any one could
imagine. But their thirst was chiefly after the blood of valiant
men, and men of good families; the one sort of which they
destroyed out of envy, the other out of fear; for they thought
their whole security lay in leaving no potent men alive; on which
account they slew Gorion, a person eminent in dignity, and on
account of his family also; he was also for democracy, and of as
great
boldness and freedom of spirit as were any of the Jews
whosoever; the principal thing that ruined him, added to his
other advantages, was his free speaking. Nor did Niger of Peres
escape their hands; he had been a man of great valor in their war
with the Romans, but was now drawn through
the middle of the city, and, as he went, he frequently cried
out, and showed the scars of his wounds; and when he was drawn
out of the gates, and despaired of his preservation, he besought
them to grant him a burial; but as they had
threatened him beforehand not to grant him any spot of
earth for a grave, which he chiefly desired of them, so did
they slay him [without permitting him to be buried]. Now when
they were slaying him, he made this imprecation upon them, that
they might undergo both famine and pestilence in this war, and
besides all that, they might come to the mutual slaughter of one
another; all which imprecations God
confirmed against these impious men, and was what came
most justly upon them, when not long afterward. they tasted of
their own madness in their mutual seditions one against another.
So when this Niger was killed, their fears of being overturned
were diminished; and indeed there was no part of the people but
they found out some pretense to destroy
them; for some were therefore slain, because they had had
differences with some of them; and as to those that had not
opposed them in times of peace, they watched seasonable
opportunities to gain some accusation against them; and if any
one did not come near them at all, he was under their suspicion
as a proud man; if any one came with boldness, he was esteemed a
contemner of them; and if any one came as aiming to oblige them,
he was supposed to have some
treacherous plot against them; while the only punishment of
crimes, whether they were of the greatest or smallest sort, was
death. Nor could any one escape, unless he were very
inconsiderable, either on account of the meanness of his birth,
or on account of his fortune.
2. And now all the rest of the commanders of the Romans
deemed this sedition among their enemies to be of great
advantage to them, and were very earnest to march to the city,
and they urged Vespasian, as their lord and general in all cases,
to make haste, and said to him, that "the providence of God is on
our side, by setting our enemies at variance against one another;
that still the change in such cases may be sudden, and the Jews
may quickly be at one again, either because they may be tired out
with their civil miseries, or repent them of such doings." But
Vespasian replied, that they were greatly mistaken in what they
thought fit to be done, as those that, upon the theater, love to
make a show of their hands, and of their weapons, but do it at
their own hazard, without considering, what was for their
advantage, and for their security; for that if they now go and
attack the city immediately, they shall but occasion their
enemies to unite together, and shall convert their force, now it
is in its height, against themselves. But if they stay a while,
they shall have fewer enemies, because they will be consumed in
this
sedition: that God acts as a general of the Romans better than
he can do, and is giving the Jews up to them without any pains of
their own, and granting their army a victory without any danger;
that therefore it is their best way, while their enemies are
destroying each other with their own hands, and falling into the
greatest of misfortunes, which is that of sedition, to sit still
as spectators of the dangers they run into, rather than to fight
hand to hand with men that love
murdering, and are mad one against another. But if any one
imagines that the glory of victory, when it is gotten without
fighting, will be more insipid, let him know this much, that a
glorious success, quietly obtained, is more profitable than the
dangers of a battle; for we ought to esteem these that do what is
agreeable to temperance and prudence no less
glorious than those that have gained great reputation by their
actions in war: that he shall lead on his army with greater force
when their enemies are diminished, and his own army refreshed
after the continual labors they had undergone. However, that this
is not a proper time to propose to
ourselves the glory of victory; for that the Jews are not now
employed in making of armor or building of walls, nor indeed in
getting together auxiliaries, while the advantage will be on
their side who give them such opportunity of delay; but that the
Jews are vexed to pieces every day by their civil wars and
dissensions, and are under greater miseries than, if they were
once taken, could be inflicted on them by us. Whether
therefore any one hath regard to what is for our safety, he
ought to suffer these Jews to destroy one another; or whether he
hath regard to the greater glory of the action, we ought by no
means to meddle with those men, now they are afflicted with a
distemper at home; for should we now conquer them, it would be
said the conquest was not owing to our bravery, but to their
sedition."
3. And now the commanders joined in their approbation of what
Vespasian had said, and it was soon discovered how
wise an opinion he had given. 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.
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