How similar is this to what St. Paul says, "for we know that if our earthly frame of "this tabernacle were dissolved we have a 66 66 building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, for in this "we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with an house which is from hea66 ven* 66 The remarks of Josephus which have been thought to allude to a transmigration of souls, and their return after a revolution of ages, might have been introduced in accommodation to popular notions prevailing in his time. Vespasian not long after, exhorting his soldiers to the desperate enterprise of scaling the tower of Antonia, animated them by intermingling arguments of vulgar and erroneous superstition with just grounds of appeal to the assurance of the immortality of the soul; which had been fully ratified within the walls of the city which he assailed, saying: "But what man of sense and 66 spirit can be so far ignorant that those "whose souls are released by the sword "from the body, in the ranks of battle, 66 are translated into the pure element * 2 Cor. v. 1, 2. Lardner. "of heaven, and enthroned in the stars, "hence to appear to their posterity as good "and propitious demons. But for those who die in their bed, as we say, or of "some bodily disease, their souls from that "instant are buried in darkness, let them be "never so pure, and their memories are for 66 ever lost *" The description which St. Paul gives of the Athenians, being in all things too superstitious, or rather (as the expression used implies,) addicted to the fear of the gods to excess, is confirmed by Josephus, who represents them to have been the most religious people in Greece. There are passages likewise in Sophocles, particularly in the Edipus Coloneus to the same effect †. There are many other particulars mentioned by Josephus which illustrate the accuracy of the Sacred Writers, but which require too much detail to be noticed here. The representation which Josephus gives of the destruction of Jerusalem verifies in the fullest and most circumstantial manner the completion of our Saviour's denunciations * De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. c. 1. p. 1263. + Lin. 252. 1065, 6. et Joseph. cont. Apion, lib. ii. with respect to that ever memorable event: some particulars, in illustration of this subject, have been already produced, but the whole relation of Josephus is so exact a comment upon the prophecies of Christ, that some further particulars must here be mentioned, and nothing, indeed, can be more interesting than to pursue the subject by comparing the specific declarations of our Lord with the history of their accomplishment. The prophecies were delivered forty years, and recorded by St. Matthew near thirty years before the destruction of the city, and the Evangelists were dead before the events were accomplished, excepting St. John, of whom it had been foretold, that he should not see death. till the things which were to come to pass should be fulfilled. Josephus states, that the Jews were impressed with the apprehension of the subversion of their city; the apprehension, when contrasted with the convictions which they had so long and so firmly entertained with. respect to the eternal duration of their polity, and the immutable character of their institutions, is very remarkable, and argues a conscious sense of the guilt which had been incurred by the nation; and a knowledge of the threats which had been uttered against it. In considering the general ground of this apprehension, and the extent of the Divine wrath, which at this time overshadowed the Jewish nation, it is necessary to include in our view some reference to those threats, which had been uttered from the earliest times by Moses and the prophets against the Jews, and which evidently pointed for their ultimate completion to the period in which their wickedness should be consummated by the condemnation and murder of Christ, and the persecution of his disciples. Josephus seems to have been persuaded, that it was the design of Providence to inflict the punishments which he had predicted against the Jews for their wickedness, and he confesses, with full conviction, that neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, or any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness. It deserves to be noticed that the Jews were excited to the war principally by a confidence in the prophecies relating to the Messiah. * De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. c. 4. 66 The historian informs us that the neighbouring mountains echoed to the groans and lamentations of the people, whose sufferings he describes in words which are very striking, to have been so great, that "it appeared to him, that if all the misfortunes of all men "from the beginning of the world, were compared with those of the Jews, they "would not be so considerable as those which they sustained *;" a remark which cannot` but remind us of the signal declaration of our Lord, that "then there should be great tri 66 66 66 66 66 66 bulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to his [this] time, no, nor ever should be, and that except those days should be shortened, there should no "flesh be saved, but, that for the elect's 66 sake, those days should be shortened." Moses had foretold that unless the Jews should reform, God would avenge his covenant, and bring" a nation against them from 66 far, from the ends of the earth, as swift as "the eagle flieth, coming as the lightning "shineth from the east to the west, a nation "of fierce countenance, which should not regard the person of the old or shew favour to 66 * Præf. ad Bell. Jud. Matt. xxiv. 21, 22. |