posal of all things to God: and then only to
disregard the assistance of men, when they re-
sign themselves up to their arbitrator, who is
above. As for you, what have you done of
those things that are recommended by our le-
gislator? and what have you not done of those
things that he hath condemned? How much
more impious are you than those which were
so quickly taken? You have not avoided so
much as those sins that are usually committed
in secret: I mean thefts, treacherous plots
against men, and adulteries.
You are quar-
relling about rapines and murders, and invent
strange ways of wickedness. Nay, the tem-
ple itself is become the receptacle of all. And
this divine place is polluted by the hands of
those of our own country which place hath
been reverenced by the Romans, when it was
at a distance from them; when they have
suffered many of their own customs to give
place to our law. And, after all this, do you
expect Him whom you have so impiously
abused to be your supporter? To be sure then
you have a right to be petitioners; and to call
upon Him to assist you; so pure are your
hands! Did your king Hezekiah lift up such
hands in prayer to God against the king of
Assyria, when he destroyed that great army
in one night? And do the Romans commit
such wickedness as did the king of Assyria,
that you may have reason to hope for the like
vengeance upon them? Did not that monarch
accept of money from our king on this condi-
tion, that he should not destroy the city; and
yet, contrary to the oath he had taken, he
came down to burn the temple? While the
Romans demand no more than that accustom-

(to pass over what you have done within the city; which I am not able to describe, as your wickedness deserves ;) you abuse me, and throw darts at me, who only exhort you to save yourselves, as being provoked when you are reminded of your sins, and cannot bear the very mention of those crimes, which you every day perpetrate. For another example: when* Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, lay before this city, and had been guilty of many indignities against God, and our forefathers met him in arms: they then were slain in the battle; this city was plundered by our enemies, and our sanctuary made desolate for three years and six months. And what need I bring any more examples? Indeed, what can it be that hath stirred up an army of the Romans against our nation? Is it not the impiety of the inhabitants? Whence did our servitude commence ? Was it not derived from the seditions that were among our forefathers, when the madness of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and our mutual quarrels, brought Pompey upon this city; and when God reduced those under subjection to the Romans, who were unworthy of the liberty they had enjoyed? After a siege, therefore, of three months, they were forced to surrender themselves: although they had not been guilty of such offences with regard to our sanctuary and our laws as you have. And this while they had much greater advantages to go to war than you have. Do not we know what end Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, came to, under whose reign God provided that this city should be taken again, upon account of the people's offences? When Herod, the son of Antipater, brought upon us Sosius, and So-ed tribute, which our fathers paid to their ansius brought upon us the Roman army, they were then encompassed and besieged for six months, till, as a punishment for their sins, they were taken, and the city was plundered by the enemy. Thus it appears that arms were never given to our nation; but that we are always given up to be fought against, and to be taken. For I suppose that such as inhabit this holy place ought to commit the dis

* Josephus says here, that Antiochus Epiphanes was fought against by the Jews, and that he took Jerusalem by force as he had done before: I. 1, and as it is, 2 Maccabees x. 3. Yet does he directly contradict it in

cestors and if they but once obtained that, they neither aim to destroy this city, nor to touch this sanctuary. Nay, they will grant you, besides, that your posterity shall be free, and your possessions secured to you, and will preserve your holy laws inviolate. And it is actual madness to expect that God should appear as well disposed toward the wicked as towards the righteous; since he knows when it

his later and exacter work, the Antiquities, XII. 5. The number three years and six months should also be corrected to just three years, for this profanation of the temple.

is

CHAP. X.

OF THE ATTEMPTS OF MANY OF THE PEOPLE TO DESERT
TO THE ROMANS; THE CALAMITIES WHICH THOSE THAT

STAID BEHIND SUFFERED BY FAMINE; AND THE SAD
CONSEQUENCES THEREOF..

S thus, a

of whether they had any or not was taken
from the bodies of these miserable wretches:
which if they were in good case, they sup-
posed they were in no want of food; but if
they were wasted away, they walked off, with-
out searching any farther. Nor did they think
it proper to kill such as these; because they
there were, indeed, who sold what they had
would Many
for one measure: it was of wheat, if they were
of the richer sort; but of barley, if they
were poorer.
When these had so done,
they shut themselves up in the hindmost rooms
of their houses, and ate the corn they had got-
ten. Some did it without grinding it,
son of the extremity of the want they were
in and others baked bread of it, according
as necessity and fear dictated to them. A
was no where laid for a distinct

A Josephus was speaking would weither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to alter their conduct. But as for the people, they had great inclination to desert to the Romans. Accordingly some of them sold what they had, and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by them, for a very small matter: and swallowed pieces of gold, that they might not be found out by the robbers. And when they had escaped to the Romans, they had where-table withal to provide plentifully for themselves. meal: but they snatched the bread out of For Titus let a great number of them go away the fire, half baked, and devoured it very into the country, whither they pleased. And hastily. the main reasons why they were so ready to desert were these; that now they should be freed from those miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet should not be in slavery to the Romans. However, John and Simon, with their factions, did more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming in of the Romans. And if any one did but afford the least shadow of suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.

It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food: while the more powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting for want of it. But the famine was too hard for all other passions: and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised. Insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their mouths; and, what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants, And when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives. And while they

But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether they staid in the city, or attempted to get out of it: for they were equally destroyed in both cases. For every such person was put to death under pretence that they were going to desert; but in reality that the robbers might get what they had. The mad-ate after this manner, yet were they not conness of the seditious did also increase, together with their famine, and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and more. For there was no corn which any where appeared publicly; but the robbers came running into, and searched, men's private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them because they had denied they had any and if they found none, they tormented them worse because they supposed they had more carefully concealed it. The indication they made use

cealed in so doing. But the seditious every where came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others. For when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food: whereupon they brake open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost out of their very throats, and this by force. The old men, who held their food fast, were beaten and if the women hid what they

And

had within their hands, their hair was torn for were resolved to desert to the enemy. so doing. Nor was there any commiseration he who was utterly despoiled of what he had shewn either to the aged or to the infants: by Simon, was sent back again to John: as but they lifted up children from the ground, of those who had been already plundered by as they hung upon the morsels they had got-John, Simon got what remained. Insomuch ten, and shook them down upon the floor.* that they drank the blood of the populace to But still were they more barbarously cruel to one another, and divided the bodies of the those that had prevented their coming in, and poor creatures between them. So that alhad actually swallowed down what they were though, on account of their ambition after dogoing to seize upon, as if they had been un- minion, they contended with each other; yet justly defrauded of their right. They also did they very They also did they very well agree in their wicked pracinvented terrible methods of torments, to dis- tices. For he that did not communicate what cover where any food was; and a man was he got, by the miseries of others, to the other forced to bear what is terrible even to hear, tyrant, seemed to be too little guilty, and in in order to make him confess that he had but one respect only; and he, that did not parone loaf of bread; or that he might discover take of what was so communicated to him, a handful of barley-meal that was concealed. grieved, as at the loss of what was a vaAnd this was done when these tormentors luable thing, that he had no share in such were not themselves hungry; for the thing barbarity. had been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it. But this was done to keep their madness in use; and as making preparation of provisions for themselves for the following days. These men went also to meet those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild. And when those people thought they had got clear of the enemy, these snatched from them what they had brought with them; even while they had frequently entreated them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God, to give them back some part of what they had brought: though these would not give them the least morsel. And they were to be well contented that they were only plundered, and not slain

at the same time.

Such were the afflictions which the lower sort of the people suffered from these tyrants' guards. But for the men that were in dignity, and withal were rich, they were carried before the tyrants themselves. Some of them were falsely accused of laying treacherous plots, and so were destroyed; others were charged with designs of betraying the city to the Romans; but the readiest way of all was to suborn somebody to affirm that they

* Vide Psalm cxxxvii. S. Such instances of cruelty serve to shew to what inhumanity the human mind may be brought. Anciently the claims of pity were denied

It is impossible, indeed, to go distinctly over every instance of these men's iniquity. I shall, therefore, speak my mind here at once briefly; that neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries; nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was from the beginning of the world. Finally, they brought the Hebrew nation into contempt: that they might themselves appear comparatively less impious, with regard to strangers. They confessed what was true, that they were the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive offspring, of our nation; while they overthrew the city themselves, and forced the Romans, whether they would or no, to gain a melancholy reputation by acting gloriously against them; and did almost draw that fire upon the temple, which they seemed to think came too slowly. indeed, when they saw that temple burning, from the upper city, they were neither troubled at it, nor did they shed any tears on that account; while yet these passions were discovered among the Romans themselves: which circumstances we shall speak of hereafter, in their proper place.

And,

in the persecution of war, which too frequently was made the engine of vengeance. B.

CHAP.

CHAP. XI.

hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest; when their multitude was so great that room was

MANY OF THE JEWS ARE CRUCIFIED BEFORE THE WALLS wanting for the crosses; and crosses wanting

OF THE CITY. CONCERNING ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, AND
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BANKS THAT HAD BEEN
RAISED BY THE ROMANS.

for the bodies.

But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight, that, on the contrary, TITUS'S banks were now advanced a they made the rest of the multitude believe great way, notwithstanding his soldiers otherwise. For they brought the relations of had been very much distressed from the wall. those that had deserted upon the wall, with He then sent a party of horsemen, and order-such of the populace as were very eager to go ed they should lay ambushes for those that went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were, indeed, fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine. But the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations. For they could not hope to escape, together with their wives and children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account. Nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out. So nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers, they should be taken by the enemy. And when they were going to be taken they were forced to defend themselves, for fear of being punished; as, after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy. So they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died. and were then * crucified before the wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them: while they caught every day five hundred Jews: nay, some days they caught more. Yet did it not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force to go their way; and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and

* 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

over upon the security offered them, and shewed them what miseries those underwent who fled to the Romans: and told them that those which were caught were supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight kept many of those within the city, who were eager to desert, till the truth was known. Yet did some of them run away immediately, as unto certain punishment: esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus commanded that the hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off, that they might not be thought deserters, and might be credited on account of the calamity they were under, and sent them in to John and Simon: with this exhortation, that "They would now at length leave off their madness, and not force him to destroy the city: whereby they would have these advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would preserve their own lives, and so fine a city, and that temple which was their peculiar." He then went round about the banks that were cast up, and hastened them; in order to shew that his words should in no long time be followed by his deeds. In answer to which the seditious cast reproaches upon Cæsar himself, and upon his father also; and cried out with a loud voice, that "They contemned death, and did well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the mischief to the Romans they could, while they had breath in them; and that for their own city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed, they had no concern about it: and that the

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.