it been done by the common fuffrages of the people? If it be ourselves only that have done it, let them name those friends of ours that have been fent as our fervants, to manage this treachery. Hath any one been caught as he went out on this errand, or feized upon as he came back? Are they in poffeffion of our letters? How could he be concealed from fuch a vast number of our fellow citizens, among whom we are converlant every hour, while what is done privately in the country is, it seems, known by the zealots, who are but few in number, and under confinement also, and are not able to come out of the temple into the city. Is this the first time that they are become fenfible how they ought to be punished for their infolent actions? For while these men were free from the fear they are now under, there was no fufpicion raised that any of us were traitors. But if they lay this charge against the people, this must have been done at a public confultation, and not one of the people must have diffented from the rest of the affembly; in which cafe the public fame of this matter would have come to you fooner than any particular indication. But how could that be? Must there not then have been ambassa. dors fent to confirm the agreements ? And let them tell us who this ambaffador was, that was ordained for that purpose. But this is no other than a pretence of fuch men as are loath to die, and are labouring to escape thofe punishments that hang over them: For if fate had determined that this city was to be betrayed into its enemies hands, no other than these men that accufe us falfely could have the impudence to do it, there being no wickednefs wanting to complete their impudent practices but this only, that they became traitors. And now you Idumeans are come hither already with your arms; it is your duty, in the first place to be affifting to your metropolis, and to join with us in cutting off thofe tyrants that have infringed the rules of our regular tribunals, that have trampled upon our laws, and made their fwords the arbitrators of right and wrong; for they have feized upon men of great eminence, and under no accufation, as they flood in the midft of the market-place, and tortured them with putting them into bonds, and without bearing to hear what they had to fay, or what fupplications they made, they deftroyed them. You may, if you please, come into the city, though not in the way of war, and take a view of the marks ftill remaining of what I now fay, and may fee the houses that have been depopulated by their rapacious hands, with thofe wives and families that are in black mourning for their flaughtered relations; as alfo you may hear their groans and lamentations-all the city over: for there is nobody but hath tafted of the incurfions of thele profane wretches, who have proceeded to that degree of madnefs, as not only to have transferred their impudent robberies out of the country, and the remote cities, into this city, the very face and head of the whole nation, but out of the city VOL. III. Kk

into the temple alfo; for that is now made their receptacle and refuge, and the fountain head whence their preparationsare made against us. And this place, which is adored by the habitable world, and honoured by fuch as only know it by report, as far as the ends of the earth, is trampled upon by thele wild beafts born among ourfelves. They now triumph in the defperate condition they are already in when they hear that one people are going to fight against another people, and one city against another city, and that your nation hath gotten an army together against its own bowels. Inftead of which procedure it were highly fit and reafonable, as I faid before, for you to join with us in cutting off thefe wretches, and in particular to be revenged on them for putting this very cheat upon you; I mean, for having the impudence to invite you to affift them, of whom they ought to have flood in fear, as ready to punish them. But if you have fome regard to these men's invitation of you, yet may you lay afide your arms, and come into the city under the notion of our kindred, and take upon you a middle name between that of auxiliaries and of enemies, and fo become judges in this cafe. However, confider what thefe men will gain by being called into judgment before you, for fuch undeniable and fuch flagrant crimes, who would not vouchfate to hear such as had no accufations laid against them to fpeak a word for themselves. However, let them gain this advantage by your coming. But ftill, if you will neither take our part in that indignation we have at thefe men, nor judge between us, the third thing I have to propofe is this, that you let us both alone, and neither infult upon our calamities, nor abide with thefe plotters against their metropolis: For though you fhould have ever so great a fufpicion that fome of us have difcourfed with the Romans, it is in your power to watch the paffages into the city; and in cafe any thing that we have been accufed of is brought to light, then to come, and defend your metropolis, and to inflict punifhment on thofe that are found guilty; for the enemy cannot prevent you, who are fo near to the city. But if, after all, none of thefe propofals feem acceptable and moderate, do not you wonder that the gates are fhut against you, while you bear your arms about you."

4. Thus fpake Jefus ; yet did not the multitude of the Idumeans give any attention to what he said, but were in a rage; becaule they did not meet with a ready entrance into the city. The generals alfo had indignation at the offer of laying down their arms, and looked upon it as equal to a captivity, to throw them away at any man's injunction whom toever. But Simon the fon of Cathias, one of their commanders, with much ado quieted the tumult of his own men, and ftood fo that the high-priests might hear him, and faid as follows: "I can no longer wonder that the patrons of liberty are under cuftody in the temple, fince there are thofe that fhut the gates

of our common city to their own nation, and at the fame time are prepared to admit the Romans into it; nay perhaps are difpofed to crown the gates with garlands at their coming, while they fpeak to the Idumeans from their own towers, and enjoin them to throw down their arms which they have taken up for the prefervation of its liberty. And while they will not intruft the guard of our metropolis to their kindred, profels to make them judges of the differences that are among them! nay, while they accufe fome men of having flain others without a legal trial, they do themfelves condemn a whole nation after an ignominious manner; and have now walled up that city from their own nation, which used to be open to even all foreigners that came to worship there. We have indeed come in great hafte to you, and to a war against our own countrymen: And the reason why we have made fuch hafte is this, that we may preferve that freedom which you are fo unhappy as to betray. You have probably been guilty of the like crimes against thofe whom you keep in cuftody, and have, I fuppofe, collected together the like plaufible pretences againit them alfo, that you make ufe of againft us: After which you have gotten the maftery of thofe within the temple and keep them in cuftody, while they are only taking care of the public affairs. You have alfo ihut the gates of the city in general against nations that are the most nearly related to you: And while you give fuch injurious commands to others, you complain that you have been tyrannized over by them; and fix the name of unjust governors upon fuch as are tyrannized over by yourselves. Who can bear this abufe of your words, while they have a regard to the contrariety of your actions? Unless you mean this, that thofe Idumeans do now exclude you out of your metropolis, whom you exclude from the facred offices of your own country. One may indeed juftly complain of thofe that are befieged in the temple, that when they had courage enough to punish thofe tyrants, which you call eminent men, and tree from any accufations, becaufe of their being your companions in wickedness, they did not begin with you, and thereby cut off beforehand the most dangerous parts of this treafon. But if these men have been more merciful than the public neceflity required, we that are Idumeans will preferve this house of God, and will fight for our common country, and will oppose by war as well thofe that attack them from abroad, as thofe that betray them from within. Here will we abide before the walls in our armour, until either the Romans grow weary in waiting for you, or you become

*This appellation of jerufalem given it here by Simon, the general of the Idumeans, "The common city" of the Idumeans, who were profelytes of juftice, as well as of the original native Jews, greatly confirms that maxim of the Rabbins, here fet down by Reland, that "Jerufalem was not affigned, or appropritaed to the tribe of Benjamin or Judah, but every tribe had equal right to it, (at their coming to worship there at the feveral festivals]. See a little before, chap. iii. § 3

"

friends to liberty, and repent of what you have done against it."

5. And now did the Idumeans make an acclamation to what Simon had laid; but Jefus went away forrowtul, as feeing that the Idumeans were againft all moderate counfels, and that the city was befieged on both fides. Nor indeed were the minds of the Idumeans at reft; for they were in a rage at the injury that had been offered them, by their exclusion out of the city; and when they thought the Zelotes had been ftrong, but faw nothing of theirs to fupport them, they were in doubt about the matter, and many of them repented that they had come thither. But the fhame that would attend them in cafe they returned without doing any thing at all, fo far overcame that their repentance, that they lay all night before the wall, though in a very bad encampment; for there broke out a prodigious ftorm in the night, with the utmost violence, and very frong winds, with the largest fhowers of rain, with continued lightnings, terrible thunderings, and amazing concuffions and bellowings of the earth that was in an earthquake. These things were a manifeft indication that fome deftruction was coming upon men, when the fyftem of the world was put into this diforder, and any one would guess that thefe wonders forefhewed fome grand calamities that were coming.

6. Now the opinion of the Idumeåns and of the citizens was one and the fame. The Idumeans thought that God was angry at their taking arms, and that they would not escape punilament for their making war upon their metropolis. Ananus and his party thought that they had conquered without fighting, and that God acted as a general for them; but truly they proved both ill conjecturers at what was to come, and made thole events to be ominous to their enemies, while they were themselves to undergo the ill effects of them; for the Idumeans lenced one another by uniting their bodies into one band, and thereby kept themfelves warni, and connetting their fhields over their heads, were not fo much hurt by the rain. Butthe - Zelotes were more deeply concerned for the danger these mon were in than they were for themselves, and got together, and looked about them to fee whether they could devife any means of affifting them. The hotter fort of thein thought it belt to force their guards with their arms, and atter that to fall into the midit of the city, and publicly open the gates to those that came to their affiftance; as fuppofing the guards would be in diforder, and give way at fuch an unexpected attempt of theirs efpecially as the greater part of them were unarmed, and unfkilled in affairs of war; and that befides the multitude of the citizens would not be eafily gathered together, but confined to their houtes by the ftorm; and that it there were any hazard in their undertaking, it became them to fuffer any thing whoever then delves rather than to overlook so great a mulutude as were milerably perifhing on their account. But

the more prudent part of them difapproved of this forcible method, because they faw not only the guards about them very numerous, but the walls of the city itfelt carefully watched, by reafon of the Idumeans. They aifo fuppofed that Ananus would be every where, and vifit the guards every hour; which indeed was done upon other nights, but was omitted that night, not by reafon of any flothfulness of Ananus, but by the overbearing appointment of fate, that fo both he might himfelf perith, and the multitude of the guards might perh with him; for truly as the night was far gone, and the torm very terrible, Ananus gave the guards in the cloifters leave to go to fleep; while it came into the heads of the zealots to make ufe of the faws belonging to the temple, and to cut the bars of the gates to pieces. The noife of the wind, and that not inferior found of the thunder, did here alfo confpire with their defigns, that the noise of the faws was not heard by the others.

7. So they fecretly went out of the temple to the wall of the city, and made ufe of their faws, and opened that gate which was over against the Idumeans. Now at firft there came a fear upon the Idumeans themfelves, which difturbed them, as imagining that Ananus and his party were coming to attack them, fo that every one of them had his right hand upon his fword, in order to defend himself; but they foon came to know who they were that came to them, and were entered the city. And had the Idumeans then fallen upon the city, nothing could have hindered them from destroying the people every man of them, fuch was the rage they were in at that time: But as they first of all made hafte to get the Zelotes out of cuftody, which thofe that brought them in earnestly defired them to do, and not to overlook thofe for whole fake they were come, in the midst of their diftreffes, nor to bring them into a fill greater danger; for that when they had once feized on the guards, it would be eafy for them to fall upon the city; but that if the city were once alarmed, they would not then be able to overcome those guards, because as foon as they thould perceive they were there, they would put themfelves in order to fight them, and would hinder their coming into the temple.

CHAP. V.

The cruelty of the Idumeans, when they were gotten into the Temple, during the Storm: And of the Zelotes. Concerning the Slaughter of Ananus, and Jefus, and Zacharias. And how the Idumeans retired home.

T

HIS advice pleafed the Idumeans, and they afcended through the city to the temple. The Zelotes were allo in great expectation of their coming, and earnestly waited for them. When therefore there were entering, they allo came