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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.
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." 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.
4. Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God
takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our
race what is for their preservation; but that men perish by those
miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves;
for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their
temple four-square, while at the same time they had it written in
their sacred oracles, "That then should their city be taken, as
well as their holy house, when once their temple should become
four-square." But now, what did the most elevate them in
undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found
in their sacred writings, how," about that time, one from their
country should become governor of the habitable earth." The Jews
took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and
many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their
determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government
of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is
not possible for men to avoid fate, although they see it
beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals
according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly
despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the
taking of their city and their own destruction.
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