03-CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

"But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: . . . Your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. The LORD will smite you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.” —The Predictions of Moses, Duet. 28:15, 26-29; NASU AT this time John (of Gischala) began to rise in arrogance, and thinking it beneath him to stand on an equality with the other seditious leaders, he united to himself the very wickedest of all parties, and breaking off from the rest of the faction, set up for himself. Some submitted to him through fear, some were enticed by his cunning, and others thought they should be more safe if all were joined under one leader, instead of so many. His activity was great, his guards numerous; and he was evidently aiming at monarchy. Yet he had a large party of antagonists, who dreaded his arriving at supreme power. So the sedition was divided into two parts: John reigned in opposition to his adversaries, and both parties fought against the people, contending who should bring home the greatest spoil.

Thus the city struggled with war, tyranny, and sedition; and war seemed the least evil of the three. Many of the people, indeed, ran away to the Romans and obtained that protection from their enemies which was denied them by their own countrymen. And now there arose still another war in Jerusalem. There was one Simon, a son of Giora, who rose to power by joining himself with a band of robbers, of whom he became the leader. His power becoming quite formidable, many of the populace united with him, and obeyed him as a king. Marching suddenly with a considerable force into Idumea, he took the city of Hebron, where he found considerable booty. After this, he succeeded in overrunning all Idumea. His forces increasing, he finally commanded an army of forty thousand, and such was his hatred to the Idumeans that he almost depopulated their country. This success of Simon excited the anger of the zealots; but being afraid to fight him openly, they set ambushes to watch for him in the passes of the mountains. These men, lying in wait, seized the wife of Simon with her attendants, and came back rejoicing, as though they had taken Simon himself, supposing he would lay down his arms and make supplication to them for her. But Simon, being in a great fury at the capture of his beloved wife, came like a wild beast to the walls of Jerusalem. He seized upon the poor unarmed people who went out to gather herbs and sticks; these he tormented and slew. He also cut off the hands of numbers and sent them into the city to astonish his enemies, and induce the people to take up arms against those who had seized his wife. He sent word into the city that unless his wife was restored he would break down the wall, and spare neither innocent nor guilty. These threats so affrighted them that they sent back his wife.

Simon, having now recovered his wife, he turned to complete the work of desolation in Idumea; and driving the people before him, he compelled many of them to take refuge in Jerusalem. Thither he followed them, and encompassed the city with his army of robbers.

Now this Simon, who was without the wall, became a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves, and the zealots within were worse than both the others put together. John’s party in the mean time, who were chiefly Galileans, became the most desperate set of wretches on the face of the earth. Arraying themselves in the apparel of women, they went out and fell unexpectedly upon the people; and drawing out their instruments of death from under their finely died cloaks, they ran every body through whom they pleased. Every resource for the wretched inhabitants was now cut off: they were hunted down by John within the walls, and their only hope, that of flying to the Romans, was cut off by Simon, who butchered them as soon as they ventured without the walls. The Idumeans, envying the power and hating the cruelty of John, now separated from him, and attempted to destroy him. They slew many of the zealots, and drove them into the temple, and plundered John’s effects, which he had obtained by his enormities. But the zealots, who had been dispersed over the city, came together into the temple to John, who had now become so furious it was feared he would set fire to the city. So the people, with the high priest, assembled to consult together what should be done. But God overruled their counsel, so that the remedy they devised turned out worse than the disease itself. For, in order to overthrow John, they determined to admit Simon, and sent Matthias, the high priest, to invite him to come in. Accordingly, he, in an arrogant manner, granted them his lordly protection, and came into the city to deliver it from the zealots. The people received him with joyful acclamations as a deliverer; but after he had taken care to secure his own authority, he looked upon those who invited him in as no less his enemies than those against whom they invited him to come.

Thus did Simon and his party get possession of Jerusalem in the third year of the war, while John and his zealots beheld his entry with despair. Simon now ordered an assault to be made upon the temple. His troops were also assisted by the people. But John’s party defended themselves from the cloisters and battlements, and threw arrows down upon their assailants, among whom they made considerable slaughter. They had also erected four very large towers, from which they fought with much advantage. The assault of Simon became more faint, though from his superior numbers it was still kept up.

About this time the government of the Roman empire became very unsettled. Nero had been deposed and slain; Galba succeeded him for a very short time, and was in his turn succeeded by Otho. Otho was soon deprived of the empire by Vitellius, whose vices, extravagance, and gluttony rendering him odious to the Roman people, the army in Judea proclaimed Vespasian emperor. The legions in Alexandria confirming the act of those in Judea, Vespasian, after presenting Josephus with his liberty, left the army under the command of Titus, and went to Rome to attend to the administration of the government. Josephus still continued with the Roman army, acting as interpreter between Titus and the Jews.

“Eleazar, the son of Simon, who made the first separation of the zealots from the people, and made them retire into the temple, appeared very angry at John’s insolent attempts, which he made every day upon the people; for this man never left off murdering: but the truth was, that he could not bear to submit to a tyrant who set up after him. So, being desirous of gaining the entire power and dominion to himself, he revolted from John, and took to his assistance Judas the son of Chelcias, and Simon the son of Ezron, who were among the men of greatest power. There was also with him Hezekiah, the son of Chobar, a person of eminence.

“Each of these was followed by a great many of the zealots; these seized upon the inner court of the temple, and laid their arms upon the holy gates, and over the holy front of that court (this appears to be the first time that the zealots ventured to pollute this most sacred court of the temple). And because they had plenty of provisions, they were of good courage; for there was a great abundance of what was consecrated to sacred uses, and they scrupled not the making use of them; yet were they afraid on account of their small number, and when they had laid up their arms there, they did not stir from the place they were in. Now, as to John, what advantage he had above Eleazar in the multitude of his followers, the like disadvantage he had in the situation he was in, since he had his enemies over his head; and as he could not make any assault upon them without some terror, so was his anger too great to let him be at rest; nay, although he suffered more mischief from Eleazar and his party than he could inflict upon them, yet would he not leave off assaulting them, insomuch that there were continual sallies made one against another, as well as darts thrown at one another, and the temple was defiled everywhere with murders.

“But now the tyrant Simon, the son of Gioras, whom the people had invited in, out of the hopes they had of his assistance in the great distress they were in, having in his power he upper city, and a great part of the lower, did now make more vehement assaults upon John and his party, because they were fought against from above also; yet was he beneath their situation, when he attacked them, as they were beneath the attacks of the others above them. Whereby it came to pass, that John did both receive and inflict great damage, and that easily, as he was fought against on both sides; and the same advantage that Eleazar and his party had over him, since he was beneath them, the same advantage had he, by his higher situation, over Simon. On which account he easily repelled the attacks that were made from beneath by the weapons thrown from their hands only; but was obliged to repel those that threw their darts from the temple above him by his engines of war; for he had such engines as threw darts, and javelins, and stones, and that in no small number, by which he did not only defend himself from such as fought against him, but slew moreover many of the priests as they were about their sacred ministrations. For, notwithstanding these men were mad with all sorts of impiety, yet did they still admit those that desired to offer their sacrifices, although they took care to search the people of their own country beforehand, and both suspected and watched them; while they were not so much afraid of strangers, who, although they had gotten leave of them, how cruel soever they were, to come into that court, were yet often destroyed by this sedition; for those darts that were thrown by the engines came with that force that they went over all the buildings, and reached as far as the altar, and the temple itself, and fell upon the priests, and those that were about the sacred offices; insomuch that many persons who came thither with great zeal from the ends of the earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated place, which was esteemed holy by all mankind, fell down before their own sacrifices themselves, and sprinkled that altar which was venerable among all men, both Greeks and barbarians, with their own blood; till the dead bodies of strangers were mingled together with those of their own country, and those of profane persons with those of the priests, and the blood of all sorts of dead carcasses stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves. And now, ‘O most wretched city, what misery so great as this didst thou suffer from the Romans, when they came to purify thee from thy intestine hatred? for thou couldst be no longer a place fit for God, nor couldst thou long continue in being, after thou hadst been a sepulchre for the bodies of thy own people, and hadst made the holy house itself a burying place in this civil war of thine. Yet mayest thou again grow better, if perchance thou wilt hereafter appease the anger of that God who is the author of thy destruction.’ But I must restrain myself from these passions by the rules of history, since this is not a proper time for domestic lamentations, but for historical narrations I therefore return to the operations that follow in this sedition.

“And now there were three treacherous factions in tho city, the one parted from the other. Eleazar and his party, that kept the sacred first-fruits, came against John. Those that were with John plundered the populace, and went out with zeal against Simon. This Simon had his supply of provisions from the city in opposition to the seditious. When, therefore, John was assaulted on both sides, he made his men turn about, throwing his darts upon those citizens that came up against him from the cloisters he had in his possession, while he opposed those that attacked him from the temple by his engines of war. And if at any time he was freed from those that were above him, which happened frequently, from their being drunk and tired, he sallied out with a great number upon Simon and his party; and this he did always in such parts of the city as he could come at, till he set on fire those houses that were full of corn, and of all other provisions.¹The same thing was done by Simon, when, upon the other’s retreat, he attacked the city also; as if they had on purpose done it to serve the Romans, by destroying what the city had laid up against the siege, and by thus cutting off the nerves of their own power. Accordingly, it so came to pass, that all the places that were about the temple were burned down, and were become an intermediate desert space, ready for fighting on both sides of it; and that almost all that corn was burned which would have been sufficient for a siege of many years. So they were taken by means of the famine, which it was impossible they should have been unless they had thus prepared the way for it by this procedure.

“And now, as the city was engaged in a war on all sides, from these treacherous crowds of wicked men, the people of the city between them were like a great body torn in pieces. The aged men and the women were in such distress by their internal calamities that they wished for the Romans, and earnestly hoped for an external war, in order to their delivery from their domestic miseries. The citizens themselves were under a terrible consternation and fear; nor had they any opportunity of taking counsel, and of changing their conduct; nor were there any hopes of coming to an agreement with their enemies; nor could such as had a mind flee away; for guards were set at all places, and the heads of the robbers, although they were seditious one against another in other respects, yet did they agree in killing those that were for peace with the Romans, or were suspected of an inclination to desert to them, as their common enemies. They agreed in nothing but this, to kill those that were innocent. The noise also of those that were fighting was incessant both by day and by night; but the lamentations of those that mourned exceeded the other; nor was there ever any occasion for them to leave off their lamentations, because their calamities came perpetually, one upon another, although the deep consternation they were in prevented their outward wailing; but being constrained by their fear to conceal their passions, they were inwardly tormented, without daring to open their lips in groans. Nor was any regard paid to those that were still alive by their relations; nor was there any care taken of burial for those that were dead: the occasion of both which was this, that every one despaired of himself: for those that were not among the seditious had no great desires of any thing, as expecting for certain that they should very soon be destroyed; but for the seditious themselves, they fought against each other while they trod upon the dead bodies as they lay heaped one upon another, and taking up a mad rage from those dead bodies that were under their feet, became the fiercer thereupon. They, moreover, were still inventing somewhat, or other that was pernicious against themselves; and when they had resolved upon any thing, they executed it without mercy, and omitted no method of torment or of barbarity. Nay, John abused the sacred materials, and employed them in the construction of his engines of war; for the people and the priests had formerly determined to support the temple, and raise the holy house twenty cubits higher; for King Agrippa had, at a very great expense, and with very great pains, brought thither such materials as were proper for that purpose, being pieces of timber very well worth seeing, both for their straightness and their largeness; but the war coming on, and interrupting the work, John had them cut and prepared for the building him towers, he finding them long enough to oppose his adversaries that fought him from the temple that was above him. He also had them brought and erected behind the inner court, over against the west end of the cloisters, where alone he could erect them; whereas the other side of the court had so many steps as would not let them come nigh enough to the cloisters.²

“Thus did John hope to be too hard for his enemies by these engines, constructed by his impiety; but God himself demonstrated, that his pains would prove of no use to him, by bringing the Romans upon him before he had reared any of his towers; for Titus, when he had gotten together part of his forces about him, and had ordered the rest to meet him at Jerusalem, marched out of Caesarea. He had with him those three legions that had accompanied his father when he laid Judea waste, together with that twelfth legion which had been formerly beaten with Gestius; which legion, as it was otherwise remarkable for its valor, so did it march on now with greater alacrity to avenge themselves on the Jews. Of these legions he ordered the fifth to meet him by going through Emmaus, and the tenth to go up by Jericho: he also moved himself together with the rest, besides which, marched those auxiliaries that came from the kings, being now more in number than before, together with a considerable number that came to his assistance from Syria. Those also that had been selected out of these four legions, and sent with Mucianus to Italy against Vitellius, had their places filled up out of those soldiers that came out of Egypt with Titus; which were two thousand men, chosen out of the armies at Alexandria. There followed him also three thousand drawn from those that guarded the river Euphrates: as also there came Tiberius Alexander, who was a friend of his, most valuable both for his good will to him, and for his prudence. He had formerly been governor of Alexandria, but was now thought worthy to be general of the army under Titus. The reason of this was, that he had been the first who encouraged Vespasian very lately to accept this his new dominion, and joined himself to him with great fidelity when,things were uncertain, and fortune had not yet declared for him. He also followed Titus as a counselor, very useful to him in this war both by his age, and skill in such affairs.”