81. A.D. 64 to 70

A.D. 64 to 70

Chapter V

Timeline View:

1. The condition of the country became so deplorable, that a great number of the well-disposed inhabitants sought in foreign countries that peace which was denied them in their own. The land was distracted by tumult, and overrun by robbers, who, professing to be actuated by zeal for liberty and religion, plundered, without mercy, the defenceless towns and villages which refused to give in their adhesion to what was called the patriot cause. Meanwhile justice was sold by the Roman governor, and even the sacred office of the high-priesthood was offered to the highest bidder. Hence those who got that dignity were often profligate wretches, who, having obtained the office by bribes, used it for their own purposes, and maintained themselves in it by the darkest iniquities. Being of different sects and parties, of which there was now a great number, they, and the leading men of the nation, acted with all the animosity of sectarianism against each other. With such examples in their superiors, the ordinary priests and the scribes became, in the highest degree, dissolute and unprincipled; while the mass of the people abandoned themselves to all evil; and seditious, Exodus tortions, and robberies, were matters of every day occurrence. The bands of society were loosened; and it became clear that the nation was fast ripening for destruction.

2. Some transactions at Caesarea gave occasion for the actual outbreak. That place, the seat of the Roman governor, was built by Herod, and had a mixed population of Syrians and Jews. It was disputed between these two classes, to which of them the city really belonged. The dispute had been referred to the emperor, and about this time the decree was announced in favor of the Syrians, whose boundless exultation greatly exasperated all the Jews, who had felt a prodigious interest in the question. This, with insults on religion, of which the governor refused to take cognizance, fanned into a flame the smouldering embers of revolt. Acting upon the impulse thus given, a party of hotbrained young men surprised a Roman garrison at Massada, near the Dead Sea, and put all the soldiers to the sword. The act was recognised at Jerusalem, where the leaders of the nation openly threw off their allegiance, by the refusal of the priests any longer to offer up the usual sacrifices for the prosperity of the Roman empire. There also the popular party rose upon and slew the Roman garrison; and the palace and the public offices were destroyed by fire. Indescribable barbarities were also committed by the “patriot” party upon the quietly-disposed citizens. This example produced a general insurrection, in which the Jews on the one side, and the Romans and Syrians on the other, attacked each other with the greatest fury; and in every city there was war, massacre, and spoliation.

8. On the first news of this revolt, the president of Syria, Cestius Gallus, marched a powerful army into Judaa, and advanced against Jerusalem. Strange to say, he was defeated by the insurgents with great slaughter; and the military engines which fell into the hands of the victors, were of great use to them in the subsequent defence of the city. The honor of Rome was now engaged to avenge this disgrace, and no thinking man for a moment doubted the result. Nero sent the able and experienced Vespasian into Syria (who was accompanied by his son Titus), with the quality of president, to take the conduct of the war.

4. Vespasian commenced operations in the spring of a.d. 67, with an army of 60,000 men. Instead of going at once to Jerusalem, be employed himself in reducing Galilee, and in recovering the fortresses which had been taken by the insurgents. In this he met with considerable resistance, and had many occasions of witnessing the desperate valour of the insurgents. At Jotapata he was opposed by Josephus, the historian of the war, to whom the provisional Jewish government had confided the defence of Galilee. The fortress fell, and Josephus was taken alive. He was at first treated rather roughly, but afterwards with consideration and respect. At the commencement of the campaign, the Romans behaved with great severity wherever they came. No mercy was shown to age or sex; but cities, towns, and villages were cruelly ravaged and destroyed. Nor were these desolations confined to Judaea; for in many foreign cities in which Jews were settled, they were slaughtered in multitudes by the Roman soldiers and the other inhabitants. Some idea of these dreadful massacres may be formed from the facts, that above 20,000 Jews were slain in one day at Caesarea, 13,000 in one night at Scythopolis, 50,000 at Alexandria, 8000 at Joppa, and above 10,000 at Damascus. Nor need we wonder at such extent of destruction among a people who were so infatuated as to rush into a warfare, in which, according to Josephus, the odds were so fearfully against them.

5. Though the war was steadily prosecuted, Vespasian evinced no haste to march against Jerusalem; and when urged by his impatient officers, be told them that it was better to let the Jews destroy one another. In fact, he knew well how destructively the factions were raging against each other in Jerusalem. There were three of these factions, afterwards reduced to two, holding possession of different parts of the city. They wasted their strength in cruel conflicts with each other; in which they even destroyed the storehouses of corn and provisions which formed the only resource against famine in the threatened siege. In one thing, however, they all agreed—in harassing, plundering, and destroying the citizens and nobles who did not enter into their views. Thus they obtained little real benefit from the respite which arose from the attention of the Roman army being diverted for a while from them by the revolution which at this time happened in imperial Rome, in consequence of the death of Nero. Galba, Otho, Vitellius, were invested with the purple in quick succession; and at length, with general approbation, Vespasian himself was declared emperor by the army in Judaea. He then departed for Rome, leaving the conduct of the war to his son Titus.

6. At the feast of the Passover, in the ensuing year, when the city of Jerusalem was, as usual at that time, crowded with people from all quarters, the Roman army appeared before the walls. It was probably his anxiety to save the city and the Temple, that induced Titus to commence the siege at this season; as it might have been expected, that where such multitudes were shut up in an ill-provisioned city, famine alone would soon make a surrender inevitable. The besieged were very earnestly invited to open their gates to the Romans, and were with all sincerity assured of their liberty and safety. Josephus was also commissioned to harangue them, and to point out to them the folly of supposing that they could hold out against, or successfully resist, the might of Rome. But all warning and counsel were treated with insult and scorn; and the factions expressed the resolution of defending the place to the very last, in the confidence that God would not permit his Temple and city to fall before the heathen. Such repeated refusals of mercy and compassion, and the very desperate defence made by the besieged, compelled Titus, much against his own will, to become the unconscious instrument of accomplisbing that doom of the city and the Temple, which Christ had nearly forty years before denounced. The folly of resistance was so clear to Titus, that he became exasperated at the unpleasant task which their obstinacy imposed upon him. Resolved that none of them should escape, but such as surrendered to him, be raised around the city a strong wall of circumvallation, strengthened with towers. This great work was accomplished in the short space of three days.

7. The city was very strong, being enclosed by three walls, one within another; and then there was the Temple, which itself was an exceedingly strong fortress. All these defences were successively carried by the Romans, although every step was desperately contested by the besieged.