prived Joseph of the high-priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes, that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons, who had all performed the office of an high-priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high-priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high-priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent: he was also of the sect of the Sadducees,* who are very rigid in judging offenders above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when therefore Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, [Agrippa] desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified: nay,† some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him, that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which account king Agrippa took the high-priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high-priest.

2. Now as soon as Albinus was come to the city of Jerusalem, he used all his endeavours and care that the country might be kept in peace, and this by destroying many of the

* It hence evidently appears, that Sadducees might be high-priests in the days of Josephus, and that these Sadducees were usually very severe and inexorable judges, while the Pharisees were much milder, and more merciful, as appears by Reland's instances in his note on this place, and on Josephus's Life, sect. 34. Vol. III. and those taken from the New Testament, from Josephus himself, and from the rabbins; nor do we meet with any Sadducees later than this highpriest in all Josephus.

+ Of this condemnation of James the Just, and its causes, as also that he did not die till long afterwards, see Prim. Christ. Revived, Vol. III. ch. 43-46. The sanhedrim condemned our Saviour, but could not put him to death without the approbation of the Roman procurator; nor could therefore Ananias and his sanhedrim do more here, since they never had Albinus's approbation for the putting this James to death.

Sicarii. But as for the high-priest Ananias,* he increased in glory every day, and this to a great degree, and had obtained the favour and esteem of the citizens in a signal manner; for he was a great hoarder up of money: he therefore cultivated the friendship of Albinus, and of the high-priest [Jesus], by making them presents; he had also servants who were very wicked, who joined themselves to the boldest sort of the people, and went to the threshing-floors, and took away the tithes that belonged to the priests by violence, and did not refrain from beating such as would not give these tithes to them. So the other high-priests acted in the like manner, as did those his servants, without any one's being able to prohibit them; so that [some of the] priests, that of old were wont to be supported with those tithes died for want of food.

3. But now the Sicarii went into the city by night, just before the festival, which was now at hand, and took the scribe belonging to the governor of the temple, whose name was Eleazar, who was the son of Ananus [Ananias] the high-priest, and bound him, and carried him away with them; after which they sent to Ananias, and said, that they would send the scribe to him if he would persuade Albinus to release ten of those prisoners which he had caught of their party; so Ananias was plainly forced to persuade Albinus, and gained his request of him. This was the beginning of greater calamities; for the robbers perpetually contrived to catch some of Ananias's servants, and when they had taken them alive, they would not let them go, till they thereby recovered some of their own Sicarii. And as they were again become no small number, they grew bold, and were a great affliction to the whole country.

4. About this time it was that king Agrippa built Cesarea Philippi larger than it was before, and in honour of Nero, named it Neronias. And when he had built a theatre at Berytas, with vast expences, he bestowed on them shows, to be exhibited every year, and spent therein many ten thousand [drachmæ]: he also gave the people a largess of corn, and

*This Ananias was not the son of Nebedeus, as I take it, but he who was called Annas or Ananus the elder, the 9th in the catalogue, and who had been esteemed high-priest for a long time; and, besides Caiaphas his son-in-law, had five of his own sons high-priests after him, which were those of numbers 11, 14, 15, 17, 24, in the foregoing catalogue. Nor ought we to pass slightly over what Josephus here says of this Annas or Ananias, that he was high-priest a long time before his children were so; he was the son of Seth, and is set down first for high priest in the foregoing catalogue, under number 9. He was made by Quirinus, and continued till Ismael, the 10th in number, for about 23 years, which long duration of his high-priesthood, joined to the successions of his son-inlaw, and five children of his own, made him a sort of perpetual high-priest, and was perhaps the occasion that former high-priests kept their titles ever afterwards; for I believe it is hardly met with before him.

distributed oil among them, and adorned the entire city with statues of his own donation, and with original images made by ancient hands; nay, he almost transferred all that was most ornamental in his own kingdom thither. This made him more than ordinarily hated by his subjects; because he took those things away that belonged to them, to adorn a foreign city. And now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high-priesthood, which the king had taken from the other; on which account a sedition arose between the high-priests, with regard to one another; for they got together bodies of the boldest sort of the people, and frequently came from reproaches to throwing of stones at each other. But Ananias was too hard for the rest by his riches, which enabled him to gain those that were most ready to receive. Costobarus also, and Saulus did themselves get together a multitude of wicked wretches, and this because they were of the royal family; and so they obtained favour among them, because of their kindred to Agrippa: but still they used violence with people, and were very ready to plunder those that were weaker than themselves. And from that time it principally came to pass, that our city was greatly disordered, and that all things grew worse and worse among us.

5. But when Albinus heard that Cessius Florus was coming to succeed him, he was desirous to appear to do somewhat that might be grateful to the people of Jerusalem; so he brought out all those prisoners who seemed to him to be the most plainly worthy of death, and ordered them to be put to death accordingly. But as to those who had been put into prison on some trifling occasions, he took money of them, and dismissed them; by which means the prisons were indeed emptied, but the country was filled with robbers.

6. Now as many of the Levites,* which is a tribe of ours, as were singers of hymns, persuaded the king to assemble a sanhedrim, and to give them leave to wear linen garments, as well as the priests; for they said, that this would be a work worthy the times of his government, that he might have a memorial of such a novelty, as being his doing. Nor did they fail of obtaining their desire; for the king, with the suffrages of those that came into the sanhedrim, granted the singers of hymns this privilege, that they might lay aside their former garments, and wear such a linen one as they desired; and as a part of this tribe ministered in the temple, he also permitted

*This insolent petition of some of the Levites, to wear the sacerdotal garments when they sung hymns to God in the temple, was very probably owing to the great depression and contempt the haughty high-priests had now brought their brethren the priests into; of which see ch. viii. sect. 8. and ch. ix. sect. 2.

them to learn those hymns as they had besought him for. Now all this was contrary to the laws of our country, which, whenever they have been transgressed, we have never been able to avoid the punishment of such transgressions.

*

So

7. And now it was that the temple was finished. when the people saw that the workmen were unemployed, who were above eighteen thousand, and that they, receiving no wages, were in want, because they had earned their bread by their labours about the temple, and while they were unwilling to keep by them the treasures that were there deposited, out of fear of [their being carried away by] the Romans and while they had a regard to the making provision for the workmen, they had a mind to expend those treasures upon them; for if any one of them did but labour for a single hour, he received his pay immediately; so they persuaded him to rebuild the eastern cloisters. These cloisters belonged to the outer court, and were situated in a deep valley, and bad walls that reached four hundred cubits [in length], and were built of square and very white stones, the length of each of which stones was twenty cubits, and their height six cubits. This was the work of king Solomon,† who first of all built the entire temple. But king Agrippa, who had the care of the temple committed to him by Claudius Cæsar, considering that it is easy to demolish any building, but hard to build it up again, and that it was particularly hard to do it to these cloisters, which would require a considerable time, and great sums of money, he denied the petitioners their request about that matter; but he did not obstruct them when they desired the city might be paved with white stone. He also deprived Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, of the high-priesthood, and gave it to Matthias, the son of Theophilus, under whom the Jews' war with the Romans took its beginning.

СНАР. Х.

An enumeration of the high-priests.

§ 1. AND now I think it proper, and agreeable to this history, to give an account of our high priests; how they began, and who those are which are capable of that dignity, and how many of them there had been at the end of the war.

*Of this finishing, not of the Naos, or holy house, but of the ɛpov, or courts about it, called in general the temple, see the note on B. XVII. ch. x. sect. 2. Vol. III.

Of these Cloisters of Solomon, see the description of the temple ch. xiii. They seem, by Josephus's words, to have been built from the bottom of the valley.

In the first place therefore, history informs us, that Aaron, the brother of Moses, officiated to God as an high-priest, and that, after his death, his sons succeeded him immediately; and that this dignity hath been continued down from them to all their posterity. Whence it is the custom of our country, that no one should take the high-priesthood of God, but he who is of the blood of Aaron, while every one that is of another stock, though he were a king, can never obtain that high-priesthood. Accordingly, the number of all the highpriests from Aaron, of whom we have spoken already, as of the first of them, until Phanas, who was made high-priest ́during the war by the seditious, was eighty-three of whom thirteen officiated as high priests in the wilderness, from the days of Moses, while the tabernacle was standing, until the people came into Judea, when king Solomon erected the temple to God: for at the first they held the high-priesthood till the end of their life, although afterward they had successors while they were alive. Now these thirteen, who were the descendants of two of the sons of Aaron, received this dignity by succession one after another; for their form of government was an aristocracy, and after that a monarchy, and in the third place the government was regal. Now the number of years during the rule of these thirteen, from the' day when our fathers departed out of Egypt, under Moses their leader, until the building of that temple which king Solomon erected at Jerusalem, were six hundred and twelve. After those thirteen high-priests, eighteen took the highpriest-hood at Jerusalem, one in succession to another, from the days of king Solomon, until Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made an expedition against that city, and burnt the temple, and removed our nation into Babylon, and then took Josadek the high-priest captive; the times of these highpriests was four hundred sixty-six years six months and ten days, while the Jews were still under the regal government. But after the term of the seventy years captivity under the Babylonians, Cyrus king of Persia, sent the Jews from Babylon to their own land again, and gave them leave to rebuild their temple; at which time Jesus, the son of Josadek, took the highpriesthood over the captives when they were returned home. Now he and his posterity were in all fifteen, until king Antiochus Eupator, were under a democratical government for four hundred and fourteen years; and then the forementioned Antiochus, and Lysias the general of his army, deprived Onias who was also named Menelaus, of the high-priesthood, and slew him at Berea, and driving away the son [of Onias the third,] put Jacimus into the place of the high-priest, one that was indeed of the stock of Aaron, but not of the family of Onias