The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem

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CHAPTER 13.

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
Xanthieus, [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.

WAR BOOK 5 FOOTNOTES

(1) 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) The Levites.

(3) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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) 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.

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