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obtain the treasures of God [in the temple,] and on that account was desirous of getting into Antonia, as soon as the cloisters were broken down, he left off his attempt; he then sent for the high-priests, and the sanhedrim, and told then, that he was indeed himself going out of the city, but that he would leave them as large a garrison as they should desire. Hereupon they promised that they would make no innovations, in case they would leave them one band; but not that which had fought with the Jews, because the multitude bore ill-will against that band on account of what they had suffered from it; so he changed the band, as they desired, and, with the rest of his forces, returned to Cæsarea.

CHAP. XVI.

Cestius sends Neopolitanus the tribune to see in what condition the affairs of the Jews were. Agrippa makes a Speech to the people of the Jews, that he may divert them from their intentions of making war with the Romans.

1. HOWEVER Florus contrived another way to oblige the Jews to begin the war, and sent to Cestius, and accused the Jews falsely of revolting [from the Roman government,] and imputed the beginning of the former fight to them, and pretended they had been the authors of that disturbance, wherein they were only the sufferers. Yet were not the governors of Jerusalem silent upon this occasion, but did themselves write to Cestius, as did Berenice also, about the illegal practices of which Florus had been guilty against the city; who, upon reading both accounts consulted with his captains [what he should do.] Now some of them thought it best for Cestius to go up with his army, either to punish the revolt if it was real, or to settle the Roman affairs on a surer foundation, if the Jews continued quiet under them; but he thought it best himself to send one of his intimate friends beforehand, to see the state of affairs, and to give him a faithful account of the intention of the Jews. Accordingly he sent one of his tribunes, whose name was Neopolitanus who met with king Agrippa, as he was returning from Alexandria, at Jamnia, and told him who it was that sent him, and on what errands he was sent.

2. And here it was that the high-priests, and men of power among the Jews, as well as the sanhedrim, come to congratulate the king [upon his safe return,] and after they had VOL. VI.

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paid him their respects, they lamented their own calamities, and related to him the barbarous treatment they had met with from Florus. At which barbarity Agrippa had great indignation, but transferred after a subtile manner, his anger towards those Jews whom he really pitied, that he might beat down their high thoughts of themselves, and would have them believe that they had not been so unjustly treated, in order to dissuade them from avenging themselves. So these great men, as of better understanding than the rest, and desirous of peace, because of the possessions they had, understood that this rebuke which the king gave them was intended for their good; but as to the people they came sixty furlongs out of Jerusalem, and congratulated both Agrippa, and Neopolitanus; but the wives of those that had been slain came running first of all and lamenting. The people also, when they heard their mourning, fell into lamentations also, and besought Agrippa to assist them: they also cried out to Neopolitanus, and complained of the many miseries they had en dured under Florus, and they shewed them, when they were come into the city, how the market-place was made desolate, and the houses plundered. They then persuaded Neopolitanus, by the means of Agrippa, that he would walk round the city, with one only servant, as far as Siloam, that he might inform himself that the Jews submitted to all the rest of the Romans, and were only displeased at Florus by reason of his exceeding barbarity to them. So he walked round, and had sufficient experience of the good temper the people were in, and then went up to the temple, where he called the multitude together, and highly commended them for their fidelity to the Romans, and earnestly exhorted them to keep the peace, and having performed such parts of divine worship at the temple as he was allowed to do, he returned to Cestius.

3. But as for the multitude of the Jews, they addressed themselves to the king, and to the high-priests, and desired they might have leave to send ambassadors to Nero against Florus, and not by their silence afford a suspicion that they had been the occasions of such slaughters as had been made, and were disposed to revolt, alleging that they should seem to have been the first beginners of the war, if they did not prevent the report, by shewing who it was that began it; and it appeared openly, that they would not be quiet, if any body should hinder them from sending such an embassage. Bat Agrippa, although he thought it too dangerous a thing for

them to appoint men to go as the accusers of Florus, yet did he not think it fit for him to overlook them, as they were in a disposition for war. He therefore called the multitude together into a large gallery, and placed his sister Berenice in the house of the Asamoneans, that she might be seen by them," (which house was over the gallery, at the passage to the upper city, where the bridge joined the temple to the gallery,) and spake to them as follows.

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4. * "Had I perceived that you were all zealously disposed to go to war with the Romans, and that the purer and more sincere part of the people did not propose to live in 66 peace, I had not come out to you, nor been so bold as to give you counsel; for all discourses that tend to persuade men to "do what they ought to do is superfluous, when the hearers

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are agreed to do the contrary. But because some are ear- ́ "nest to go to war, because they are young, and without experience of the miseries it brings, and because some are for it, out of an unreasonable expectation of regaining their "liberty, and because others hope to get by it, and are there"fore earnestly bent upon it, that in the confusion of your af

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• In this speech of king Agrippa we have an authentic account of the extent and strength of the Roman empire when the Jewish war began. And this speech, with other circumstances in Josephus, demonstrate how wise, and how great a person Agrippa was, and why Josephus elsewhere calls him avμaoiacaros, a most wonderful, or admirable man, Contr. Ap. 1. 9. He is the same Agrippa who said to Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian, Acts xxvi. 28. and of whom St. Paul said, He was expert in all the customs and questions of the Jews, ver. 3. See another intimation of the limits of the same Roman empire, Of the War, B. iii. ch. v. § 7. vol. v. But what seems to me very remarkable here, is this, that when Josephus, in imitation of the Greeks and Romans, for whose use he wrote the Antiquities, did himself frequently compose the speeches which he put into their mouths; they appear, by the politeness of their composition, and their flights of oratory, to be not the real speeches of the persons concerned, who usually were no orators, but of his own elegant composure: the speech before us is of another nature, full of undeniable facts, and composed in a plain and unartful, but moving way; so it appears to be king Agrippa's own speech, and to have been given Josephus by Agrippa himself, with whom Josephus had the greatest friendship. Nor may we omit Agrippa's constant doctrine here, that this vast Roman empire was raised and supported by divine Providence, and that therefore it was in vain for the Jews or any others to think of destroying it. Nor may we neglect to take notice of Agrippa's solemn appeal to the angels here used; the like appeals to which we have in St. Paul, 1 Tim. v. 22. and by the apostles in general, in the form of the ordination of bishops, Constitut. Apost. viii. 4.

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"fairs they may gain what belongs to those that are too weak "to resist them, I have thought proper to get you all together, "and to say to you what I think to be for your advantage; "that so the former may grow wiser, and change their minds, "and that the best men may come to no harm by the ill con"duct of some others. And let not any one be tumultuous against me, in case what they hear me say do not please "them; for as to those that admit of no cure, but are resolved upon a revolt, it will still be in their power to retain the same sentiments after my exhortation is over; but still my "discourse will fall to the ground even with relation to those "that have a mind to hear me unless you will all keep silence. "I am well aware that they make a tragical exclamation con"cerning the injuries that have been offered you by your procurators, and concerning the glorious advantages of li"berty; but before I begin the inquiry, who you are that "must go to war? and who they are against whom you must "fight? I shall first separate those pretences that are by "some connected together; for if you aim at avenging your"selves on those that have done you injury, why do you pre"tend this to be a war for recovering your liberty? But if you think all servitude intolerable, to what purpose serve "your complaints against your particular governors? for if "they treated you with moderation, it would still be equally an unworthy thing to be in servitude. Consider now the "several cases that may be supposed how little occasion there "is for your going to war. Your first occasion is the accusations you have to make against your procurators; now here "you ought to be submissive to those in authority, and not give them any provocation; but when you reproach men greatly for small offences, you excite those whom you reproach to be your adversaries; for this will only make "them leave off hurting you privately, and with some degree of modesty, and to lay what you have waste openly. "Now nothing so much damps the force of strokes as "bearing them with patience, and the quietness of those who are injured diverts the injurious persons from afilicting. But let us take it for granted, that the Roman "ministers are injurious to you, and are incurably severe; yet are they not all the Romans who thus injure you; nor hath Cæsar, against whom you are going to make war, injured you; it is not by their command that any wicked governor is sent to you; for they who are in the west can

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"not see those who are in the east; nor indeed is it easy for "them there, even to hear what is done in those parts. Now "it is absurd to make war with a great many for the sake of one; to do so with such mighty people, for a small cause; "and this when these people are not able to know of what you complain: nay, such crimes as we complain of may soon be corrected; for the same procurator will not con"tinue for ever; and probable it is that the successors will come with more moderate inclinations. But as for war, if "it be once begun, it is not casily laid down again, nor borne "without calamities coming therewith. However, as to "the desire of recovering your liberty, it is unreasonable to indulge it so late; whereas you ought to have laboured earnestly in old time that you might never have lost it; for "the first experience of slavery was hard to be endured, and "the struggle that you might never have been subject to it "would have been just; but that slave who hath been once brought into subjection, and then runs away, is rather a rcfractory slave, than a lover of liberty, for it was then the proper time for doing all that was possible, that you might never have admitted the Romans [into your city,] when Pompey came first into the country. But so it was, that so our ancestors, and their kings, who were in much better circumstances than we are, both as to money and [strong] bodies, and [valiant] souls, did not bear the onset of a "small body of the Roman army. And yet you, who have now accustomed yourselves to obedience from one genera"tion to another, and who are so much inferior to those who “first submitted, in your circumstance will venture to oppose "the entire empire of the Romans; while those Athenians, who "in order to preserve the liberty of Grecce, did once set fire to "their own city; who pursued Xerxes, that proud prince, "when he sailed upon the land, and walked about the sca, "and could not be contained by the seas, but conducted such an army as was too broad for Europe, and made him run away like a fugitive in a single ship, and brake so great a part of Asia at the Lesser Salamis, are yet at this time ser"vants to the Romans; and those injunctions which are sent "from Italy, become laws to the principal governing city of "Greece. Those Lacedemonians also, who got the great "victories at Thermopyla, and Platea, and had Agesilaus [for their king.] and searched every corner of Asia, are "Contented to admit the same lords. Those Macedonians al

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