THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book IV: Chapter 5
THE CRUELTY OF THE IDUMEANS WHEN
THEY WERE GOTTEN INTO THE TEMPLE DURING THE STORM; AND
OF THE ZEALOTS. CONCERNING THE SLAUGHTER OF ANANUS,
AND JESUS, AND ZACHARIAS; AND HOW THE IDUMEANS RETIRED
HOME.
1. THIS advice pleased the Idumeans, and they
ascended through the city to the temple. The zealots
were also in great expectation of their coming, and
earnestly waited for them. When therefore these were
entering, they also came boldly out of the inner
temple, and mixing themselves among the Idumeans, they
attacked the guards; and some of those that were upon
the watch, but were fallen asleep, they killed as they
were asleep; but as those that were now awakened made
a cry, the whole multitude arose, and in the amazement
they were in caught hold of their arms immediately,
and betook themselves to their own defense; and so
long as they thought they were only the zealots who
attacked them, they went on boldly, as hoping to
overpower them by their numbers; but when they saw
others pressing in upon them also, they perceived the
Idumeans were got in; and the greatest part of them
laid aside their arms, together with their courage,
and betook themselves to lamentations. But some few of
the younger sort covered themselves with their armor,
and valiantly received the Idumeans, and for a while
protected the multitude of old men. Others, indeed,
gave a signal to those that were in the city of the
calamities they were in; but when these were also made
sensible that the Idumeans were come in, none of them
durst come to their assistance, only they returned the
terrible echo of wailing, and lamented their
misfortunes. A great howling of the women was excited
also, and every one of the guards were in danger of
being killed. The zealots also joined in the shouts
raised by the Idumeans; and the storm itself rendered
the cry more terrible; nor did the Idumeans spare any
body; for as they are naturally a most barbarous and
bloody nation, and had been distressed by the tempest,
they made use of their weapons against those that had
shut the gates against them, and acted in the same
manner as to those that supplicated for their lives,
and to those that fought them, insomuch that they ran
through those with their swords who desired them to
remember the relation there was between them, and
begged of them to have regard to their common temple.
Now there was at present neither any place for flight,
nor any hope of preservation; but as they were driven
one upon another in heaps, so were they slain. Thus
the greater part were driven together by force, as
there was now no place of retirement, and the
murderers were upon them; and, having no other way,
threw themselves down headlong into the city; whereby,
in my opinion, they underwent a more miserable
destruction than that which they avoided, because that
was a voluntary one. And now the outer temple was all
of it overflowed with blood; and that day, as it came
on, they saw eight thousand five hundred dead bodies
there.
2. But the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by
these slaughters; but they now betook themselves to
the city, and plundered every house, and slew every
one they met; and for the other multitude, they
esteemed it needless to go on with killing them, but
they sought for the high priests, and the generality
went with the greatest zeal against them; and as soon
as they caught them they slew them, and then standing
upon their dead bodies, in way of jest, upbraided
Ananus with his kindness to the people, and Jesus with
his speech made to them from the wall. Nay, they
proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away
their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews
used to take so much care of the burial of men, that
they took down those that were condemned and
crucified, and buried them before the going down of
the sun. I should not mistake if I said that the death
of Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the
city, and that from this very day may be dated the
overthrow of her wall, and the ruin of her affairs,
whereon they saw their high priest, and the procurer
of their preservation, slain in the midst of their
city. He was on other accounts also a venerable, and a
very just man; and besides the grandeur of that
nobility, and dignity, and honor of which he was
possessed, he had been a lover of a kind of parity,
even with regard to the meanest of the people; he was
a prodigious lover of liberty, and an admirer of a
democracy in government; and did ever prefer the
public welfare before his own advantage, and preferred
peace above all things; for he was thoroughly sensible
that the Romans were not to be conquered. He also
foresaw that of necessity a war would follow, and that
unless the Jews made up matters with them very
dexterously, they would be destroyed; to say all in a
word, if Ananus had survived, they had certainly
compounded matters; for he was a shrewd man in
speaking and persuading the people, and had already
gotten the mastery of those that opposed his designs,
or were for the war. And the Jews had then put
abundance of delays in the way of the Romans, if they
had had such a general as he was. Jesus was also
joined with him; and although he was inferior to him
upon the comparison, he was superior to the rest; and
I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed
this city to destruction, as a polluted city, and was
resolved to purge his sanctuary by fire, that he cut
off these their great defenders and well-wishers,
while those that a little before had worn the sacred
garments, and had presided over the public worship;
and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt on
the whole habitable earth when they came into our
city, were cast out naked, and seen to be the food of
dogs and wild beasts. And I cannot but imagine that
virtue itself groaned at these men's case, and
lamented that she was here so terribly conquered by
wickedness. And this at last was the end of Ananus and
Jesus.
3. Now after these were slain, the zealots and the
multitude of the Idumeans fell upon the people as upon
a flock of profane animals, and cut their throats; and
for the ordinary sort, they were destroyed in what
place soever they caught them. But for the noblemen
and the youth, they first caught them and bound them,
and shut them up in prison, and put off their
slaughter, in hopes that some of them would turn over
to their party; but not one of them would comply with
their desires, but all of them preferred death before
being enrolled among such wicked wretches as acted
against their own country. But this refusal of theirs
brought upon them terrible torments; for they were so
scourged and tortured, that their bodies were not able
to sustain their torments, till at length, and with
difficulty, they had the favor to be slain. Those whom
they caught in the day time were slain in the night,
and then their bodies were carried out and thrown
away, that there might be room for other prisoners;
and the terror that was upon the people was so great,
that no one had courage enough either to weep openly
for the dead man that was related to him, or to bury
him; but those that were shut up in their own houses
could only shed tears in secret, and durst not even
groan without great caution, lest any of their enemies
should hear them; for if they did, those that mourned
for others soon underwent the same death with those
whom they mourned for. Only in the night time they
would take up a little dust, and throw it upon their
bodies; and even some that were the most ready to
expose themselves to danger would do it in the day
time: and there were twelve thousand of the better
sort who perished in this manner.
4. And now these zealots and Idumeans were quite
weary of barely killing men, so they had the impudence
of setting up fictitious tribunals and judicatures for
that purpose; and as they intended to have Zacharias
the son of Baruch, one of the most eminent of the
citizens, slain, - so what provoked them against him
was, that hatred of wickedness and love of liberty
which were so eminent in him: he was also a rich man,
so that by taking him off, they did not only hope to
seize his effects, but also to get rid of a mall that
had great power to destroy them. So they called
together, by a public proclamation, seventy of the
principal men of the populace, for a show, as if they
were real judges, while they had no proper authority.
Before these was Zacharias accused of a design to
betray their polity to the Romans, and having
traitorously sent to Vespasian for that purpose. Now
there appeared no proof or sign of what he was
accused; but they affirmed themselves that they were
well persuaded that so it was, and desired that such
their affirmation might he taken for sufficient
evidence. Now when Zacharias clearly saw that there
was no way remaining for his escape from them, as
having been treacherously called before them, and then
put in prison, but not with any intention of a legal
trial, he took great liberty of speech in that despair
of his life he was under. Accordingly he stood up, and
laughed at their pretended accusation, and in a few
words confuted the crimes laid to his charge; after
which he turned his speech to his accusers, and went
over distinctly all their
transgressions of the law,
and made heavy lamentation upon the confusion they had
brought public affairs to: in the mean time, the
zealots grew tumultuous, and had much ado to abstain
from drawing their swords, although they designed to
preserve the appearance and show of judicature to the
end. They were also desirous, on other accounts, to
try the judges, whether they would be mindful of what
was just at their own peril. Now the seventy judges
brought in their verdict that the person accused was
not guilty, as choosing rather to die themselves with
him, than to have his death laid at their doors;
hereupon there arose a great clamor of the zealots
upon his acquittal, and they all had indignation at
the judges for not understanding that the authority
that was given them was but in jest. So two of the
boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of
the temple, and slew him; and as he fell down dead,
they bantered him, and said, "Thou hast also our
verdict, and this will prove a more sure acquittal to
thee than the other." They also threw him down from
the temple immediately into the valley beneath it.
Moreover, they struck the judges with the backs of
their swords, by way of abuse, and thrust them out of
the court of the temple, and spared their lives with
no other design than that, when they were dispersed
among the people in the city, they might become their
messengers, to let them know they were no better than
slaves.
5. But by this time the Idumeans repented of their
coming, and were displeased at what had been done; and
when they were assembled together by one of the
zealots, who had come privately to them, he declared
to them what a number of wicked pranks they had
themselves done in conjunction with those that invited
them, and gave a particular account of what mischiefs
had been done against their metropolis. - He said that
they had taken arms, as though the high priests were
betraying their metropolis to the Romans, but had
found no indication of any such treachery; but that
they had succored those that had pretended to believe
such a thing, while they did themselves the works of
war and tyranny, after an insolent manner. It had been
indeed their business to have hindered them from such
their proceedings at the first, but seeing they had
once been partners with them in shedding the blood of
their own countrymen, it was high time to put a stop
to such crimes, and not continue to afford any more
assistance to such as are subverting the laws of their
forefathers; for that if any had taken it ill that the
gates had been shut against them, and they had not
been permitted to come into the city, yet that those
who had excluded them have been punished, and Ananus
is dead, and that almost all those people had been
destroyed in one night's time. That one may perceive
many of themselves now repenting for what they had
done, and might see the horrid barbarity of those that
had invited them, and that they had no regard to such
as had saved them; that they were so impudent as to
perpetrate the vilest things, under the eyes of those
that had supported them, and that their wicked actions
would be laid to the charge of the Idumeans, and would
be so laid to their charge till somebody obstructs
their proceedings, or separates himself from the same
wicked action; that they therefore ought to retire
home, since the imputation of treason appears to be a
Calumny, and that there was no expectation of the
coming of the Romans at this time, and that the
government of the city was secured by such walls as
cannot easily be thrown down; and, by avoiding any
further fellowship with these bad men, to make some
excuse for themselves, as to what they had been so far
deluded, as to have been partners with them hitherto.
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