persuaded him to rebuild the eastern cloisters. These cloisters belonged to the outer court, and were situated in a deep valley, and had 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.

CHAP. X.

An Enumeration of the High Priests.

In

§ 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. the first place, therefore, history informs us, that Aaron, the brother of Moses. officiated to God as a 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, and 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 high priests 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 taber. nacle 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 hun. dred and twelve. After those thirteen high priests, eighteen took the high priesthood 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 Josedek the high priest captive; the times of these high priests 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 Josedek, took the high priesthood over the captives when they were returned home. Now he and his posterity, who were in all fifteen, until king Antiochus Eupator, were under a democratical government for four hundred and fourteen years; and then

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

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. On which account Onias, who was the nephew of Onias that was dead, and bore the same name with his father, came into Egypt, and got into the friend. ship of Ptolemy Philometer, and of Cleopatra his wife, and persuaded them to make him the high priest of that temple which he built to God in the prefecture of Heliopolis, and this in imitation of that at Jerusalem; but as for that temple which was built in Egypt, we have spoken of it frequently already. Now when Jacimus had retained the high priesthood three years, he died, and there was no one that succeeded him, but the city continued seven years without a high priest; but then the posterity of the sons of Asamoneus, who had the government of the nation conferred upon them, when they had beaten the Macedonians in war, ap. pointed Jonathan to be their high priest, who ruled over them seven years. And when he had been slain by the treacherous contrivance of Trypho, as we have related somewhere, Simon his brother took the high priesthood; and when he was destroyed at a feast by the treachery of his son-in-law, his own son, whose name was Hyrcanus, succeeded him, after he had held the high priesthood one year longer than his brother. This Hyrcanus enjoyed that dignity thirty years, and died an old man, leaving the succession to Judas, who was also called Aristobulus, whose brother Alexander was his heir; which Judas died of a sore distemper, after he had kept the priesthood, together with the royal authority, for this Judas was the first that put on his head a diadem, for one year. And when Alexander had been both king and high priest twenty-seven years, he departed this life, and permitted his wife Alexandra to appoint him that should be high priest; so she gave the high priesthood to Hyrcanus, but retained the kingdom herself nine years, and then departed this life. The like duration [and no longer] did her son Hyrcanus enjoy the high priesthood; for after her death his brother Aristobulus fought against him, and beat him, and deprived him of his principality; and he did himself both reign, and perform the office of high priest to God. But when he had reigned three years and as many months, Pompey came upon him, and not only took the city of Jerusalem by force, but put him and his children in bonds, and sent them to Rome. He also restored the high priesthood to Hyrcanus, and made him governor of the nation, but forbade him to wear a diadem. This Hyrcanus ruled, besides his first nine years, twenty-four years more, when Barzapharnes and Pacorus, the generals of the Parthians, passed over Euphrates, and fought with Hyrcanus, and took him alive, and made Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, king; and when he had reigned three years and three months, Sosius and Herod besieged him, and took him, when Antony had him brought to Antioch, and slain there. Herod was then made king by the Romans, but did no longer appoint high priests out of the family of Asan neus; but made certain men to be so that were of no eminent families, but barely of those that were priests, excepting that he once gave that dignity to Aristobulus; for when he had made this Aristobulus, the grandson of that Hyrcanus who was taken by the Parthians, and had taken his sister Mariamne to wife, he thereby aimed to win the good will of the people, who had a kind remembrance of Hyr. canus [his grandfather.] Yet did he afterward, out of his fear lest they should all bend their inclinations to Aristobulus, put him to death, and that by contriving how to have him suffocated, as he was swimming at Jericho, as we have already related that matter; but after this man he never intrusted the high priesthood to the posterity of the sons of Asamoneus. Archelaus also, Herod's son, did like his father in the appointment of the high priests, as did the Romans also, who took the government over the Jews into their hands afterward. Accordingly the number of the high priests, from the days of Herod until the day when Titus took the temple and the city, and burned them, were in all twenty-eight; the time also,

Some of these were the

that belonged to them was a hundred and seven years. political governors of the people under the reign of Herod, and under the reign of Archelaus his son, although after their death the government became an aris tocracy, and the high priests were intrusted with a dominion over the nation. And thus much may suffice to be said concerning our high priests.

CHAP. XI.

Concerning Florus the Procurator, who necessitated the Jews to take up Arms against the Romans. The Conclusion.

1. Now Gessius Florus, who was sent as successor to Albinus by Nero, filled Judea with abundance of miseries. He was by birth of the city Clazomenæ, and brought along with him his wife Cleopatra (by whose friendship with Poppea, Nero's wife, he obtained this government,) who was no way different from him in wickedness. This Florus was so wicked, and so violent in the use of his authority, that the Jews took Albinus to have been [comparatively] their benefactor; so excessive were the mischiefs that he brought upon them. For Albi. nus concealed his wickedness, and was careful that it might not be discovered to all men; but Gessius Florus, as though he had been sent on purpose to show his crimes to every body, made a pompous ostentation of them to our nation, as never omitting any sort of violence, nor any unjust sort of punishment; for he was not to be moved by pity, and never was satisfied with any degree of gain that came in his way; nor had he any more regard to great than to small acquisitions, but became a partner with the robbers themselves. For a great many fell then into that practice without fear, as having him for their security, and depending on him, that he would save them harmless in their particular robberies; so that there were no bounds set to the nation's miseries; but the unhappy Jews, when they were not able to bear the devastations which the robbers made among them, were all under a necessity of leaving their own habitations, and of flying away, as hoping to dwell more easily any where else in the world among foreigners [than in their own country.] And what need I say any more upon this head ? since it was this Florus who necessitated us to take up arms against the Romans, while we thought it better to be destroyed at once, than by little and little. Now this war began in the second year of the government of Florus, and the twelfth year of the reign of Nero. But then what actions we were forced to do, or what miseries we were enabled to suffer, may be accurately known by such as will peruse those books which I have written about the Jewish War.

2. I shall now, therefore, make an end here of my Antiquities; after the conclusion of which events, I began to write that account Of the War; and these Antiquities contain what hath been delivered down to us from the original crea tion of man, until the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, as to what hath befaller. us Jews, as well in Egypt as in Syria, and in Palestine, and what we have suf fered from the Assyrians and Babylonians, and what afflictions the Persians and Macedonians, and after them the Romans, have brought upon us; for I think I may say that I have composed this history with sufficient accuracy in all things. I have attempted to enumerate those high priests that we have had during the interval of two thousand years; I have also carried down the succession of our kings, and related their actions, and political administration, without [considerable] errors, as also the power of our monarchs; and all according to what is written in our sacred books; for this it was that I promised to do in the beginning of this history. And I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely per fected the work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he were a Jew or a foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to it, could so accu.

rately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is done in these books. For those of my own nation freely acknowledge, that I far exceed them in the learning be. longing to Jews; I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learn ing of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment * common, not only to all sorts of freemen, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man, who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavours with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.

3. And now it will not be perhaps an invidious thing, if I treat briefly of my own family, and of the actions of my own life, while there are still living such as can either prove what I say to be false, or can attest that it is true; with which accounts I shall put an end to these Antiquities; which are contained in twenty books, and sixty thousand verses. And if God* permit me, I will briefly run over this war again, with what befell us therein to this very day, which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Cæsar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth year of my own life. I have also an intention to write three books concerning our Jewish opinions about God and his essence, and about our laws; why, according to them, some things are permitted us to do, and others are prohibited.

What Josephus here declares his intention to do, if God permitted, to give the public again an abridgment of the Jewish War, and to add, what befell them further to that very day, the 13th of Domitian, or A. D. 93, is not, that I have observed, taken distinct notice of by any; nor do we ever hear of it elsewhere, whether he performed what he now intended or not. Some of the reasons of this design of his might possibly be his observation of the many errors he had been guilty of in the two first of those seven books of the War, which were written when he was comparatively young, and less acquaint ed with the Jewish Antiquities than he now was, and in which abridgment we might have hoped to find those many passages which himself, as well as those several passages which others refer to, as written by him, but which are not extant in his present works. However, since many of his own references to what he had written elsewhere, as well as most of his own errors, belong to such early times as could not well come into this abridgment of the Jewish war; and since none of those that quote things not now extant in his works, including himself as well as others, ever cite any such abridgment, i am forced rather to suppose that he never did publish any such work at all, I mean as distinct from his own life, written by himself, for an Appendix to these Antiquities, and this at least above seven years after these Antiquities were finished. Nor indeed does it appear to me, that Josephus ever published that other work here mentioned, as intended by him for the public also. I mean the three or four books concerning God and his essence, and concerning the Jewish laws; why, according to them, some things were permitted the Jews, and others prohibited; which last seems to be the same work which Josephus had also promised, if God permitted, at the conclusion of his preface to these Antiquities; nor do I suppose that he sver published any of them. The death of all his friends at court, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and the coming of those he had no acquaintance with to the crown, I mean Nerva and Trajan, together with kis removal from Rome to Judea, with what followed it, might easily interrupt such his intentions, and prevent his publication of those works.

THE

LIFE

Ог

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS.

1. THE family from which I am derived is not an ignoble one, but bath descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among several people is of a different origin, so, with us, to be of the sacerdotal dignity is an indication of the splendour of a family. Now I am not only sprung from a sacerdotal fa. mily in general, but from the first of the twenty-four courses:* and as among us there is not only a considerable difference between one family of each course and another, I am of the chief family of that first course also; nay, farther, by my mother I am of the royal blood; for the children of Asamoneus, from whom that family was derived, had both the office of the high priesthood, and the dignity of a king, for a long time together. I will accordingly set down my progenitors in order. My grandfathers's father was named Simon, with the addition of Psellus: he lived at the same time with that son of Simon the high priest, who first of all the high priests was named Hyrcanus. This Simon Psellus had nine sons, one of which was Matthias, called Ephlias; he married the daughter of Jonathan the high priest, which Jonathan was the first of the sons of Asamoneus, who was high priest, and was the brother of Simon the high priest also. This Matthias had a son called Matthias Curtus, and that in the first year of the government of Hyrcanus; his son's name was Joseph, born in the ninth year of the reign of Alexandra: his son Matthias was born in the tenth year of the reign of Arche. laus; as was I born to Matthias on the first year of the reign of Caius Cæsar. I have three sons; Hyrcanus the eldest was born on the fourth year of the reign of Vespasian, as was Justus born on the seventh, and Agrippa on the ninth. Thus have I set down the genealogy of my family as I have found it described in the public records,† and so bid adieu to those who calumniate me [as of a lower original.]

2. Now my father Matthias was not only eminent on account of his nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of his righteousness, and was in great reputation in Jerusalem, the greatest city we have. I was myself brought up with my brother, whose name was Matthias, for he was my own brother, by both father and mother; and I made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding.

We may hence correct the error of the Latin copy of the second book against Apion, sect. 7, 8 (for the Greek is there lost,) which says, there were then only four tribes or courses of the priests, instead of Liverty-four. Nor is this testimony to be disregarded, as if Josephus there contradicted what he had af firmed here; because even the account there given better agrees to twenty-four than to four courses; while he says, that each of those courses contained above 5000 men, which, multiplied by only four, will make not many more than 20,000 priests; whereas the number 120.000, as multiplied by twenty-four. seems much the most probable, they being about one-tenth of the whole people, even after the captivity. See Ezra, ii. 36-39, Nehem. vii. 33-42; 1 Esd. v. 24, 25; with Ezra, ii. 64; Nehem. vii. 66; 1 Esi . 41. Nor will this common reading or notion of but four courses of priests agree with Josephus's own farther assertion elsewhere, Antiq. B. vii. ch. xiv. sect. 7, that David's partition of the priests into twenty-four courses had continued to that day.

An eminent example of the care of the Jews about their genealogies, especially as to the priests. Ser Contr. Ap. B. i. chap. vii,