Latest / Wars of the Jews / 63 - Wars of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Transcript

63 - Wars of the Jews by Flavius Josephus · Wars of the Jews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Books six, Chapter five of the Wars of the Jews.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The Wars of the Jews by Josephus,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: translated by William Wiston. Chapter five, The great distress the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Jews were in upon the conflagration of the Holy House
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: concerning a false prophet, and the signs that preceded this destruction. One,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: while the Holy House was on fire, everything was plundered
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: were caught were slain. Nor was there a commiseration of
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: any age, or any reverence of gravity. But children and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: old men, and profane persons and priests were all slain
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in the same manner, so that this war went round
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: all sorts of men and brought them to destruction, and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: as well those that made supplication for their lives, as
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame was also
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: carried a long way and made an echo together with
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the groans of those that were slain. And because this
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: hill was high and the works of the temple were
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: very great, one would have thought the whole city had
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything either greater
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: or more terrible than this noise. For there was at
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching altogether,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: surrounded with fire and sword. The people also that were
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: left above were beaten back upon the enemy and under
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: they were under. The multitude also that was in the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: city joined in this outcry with those that were upon
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the hill, And besides many of those that were worn
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: away by the famine, and their mouths almost closed. When
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: they saw the fire of the Holy House, they exerted
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: their utmost strength and break out into groans and outcries. Again.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Para did also return the echo, as well as the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: mountains round about the city, and augmented the force of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the entire noise. Footnote This Pureea, if the word be
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: not mistaken in the copies, cannot well be that Perea,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: which was beyond Jordan, whose mountains were at a considerable
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: distance from Jordan, and much too remote from Jerusalem, to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: join in this echo. At the conflagration of the temple.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: But Perea must be rather some mountains beyond the brook Kedron,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: as was the Mount of Olives, or some others, about
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: such a distance from Jerusalem, which observation is so obvious
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that it is a wonder our commentators here take no
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: notice of it. And footnote. Yet, was the misery itself
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: more terrible than this disorder? For one would have thought
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that the hill itself on which the temple stood was
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and those that were slain were more in number than
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: those that slew them. For the ground did nowhere appear
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: visible for the dead bodies that lay on it. But
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies as they
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: ran upon, such as fled from them. And now it
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of the inner court of the temple by the Romans,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and had much ado to get into the outward court,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and from thence into the city, while the remainder of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: As for the priests, some of them plucked up from
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the Holy House the spikes that were upon it with
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: at the Romans instead of darts. Footnote. Reland, I think
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: here judges well when he interprets these spikes of those
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that stood on the top of the Holy House with
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: sharp points. They were fixed into lead to prevent the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: birds from sitting there and defiling the Holy House. For
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: such spikes there were now upon it, as Josephus himself
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: hath already assured us and footnote. But then as they
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: gained nothing by so doing, and as the fire burst
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: out upon them, they retired to the wall that was
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: eight cubits broad, and there they tarried. Yet did two
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: of these of eminence among them, who might have saved
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: themselves by going over to the Romans, or have borne
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: up with courage and taken their fortune with the others,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: throw themselves into the fire and were burnt together with
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the Holy House. Their names were Marius the son of Belgus,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and Joseph the son of Dalius. Two. And now the Romans,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: judging that it was in vain to spare what was
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: round about the Holy House, burnt all those places, as
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: also the remains of the cloisters and the gates two excepted,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the one on the east side and the other on
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the south, both which, however, they burnt afterward. They also
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: quantity of money, and an immense number of garments and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: other precious goods there reposited, and to speak all in
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: a fa few words. There it was that the entire
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: rich people had there built themselves chambers to contain such furniture.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: that were in the outer court of the temple, whither
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the women and children, in a great mixed multitude of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the people fled, in number about six thousand. But before
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Caesar had determined anything about these people, or given the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: such a rage that they set that cloister on fire,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: by which means it came to pass that some of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: of them escape with his life. A false prophet was
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the occasion of these people's destruction, who had made a
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: public proclamation in the city that very day that God
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Footnote. Greeland
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: here takes notice that these Jews who had despised the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: true prophet were deservedly abused and deluded by these false ones.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And footnote Now there was then a great number of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: people who denounced this to them, that they should wait
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: for deliverance from God. And this was in order to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: up above fear and care by such hopes. Now, a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: For when such a seducer makes him believe that he
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: shall be delivered from these miseries which oppress him, then
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it is that the patient is full of hopes of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: such his deliverance. Three. Thus were the miserable people persuaded
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself. While
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: they did not attend nor give credit to the signs
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: that were so evident and did so plainly foretell their
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: future desolation, But like men in actuated without either eyes
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to see or minds to consider, did not regard the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: a comet that continued a whole year. Footnote Whether Josephus
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: means that this star was different from that comet which
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: lasted a whole year, I cannot certainly determine his words,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: most favor their being different one from another. And footnote Thus,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: also before the Jew's rebellion, and before those commotions which
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: preceded the war, when the people were come in great
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: crowds to the feast of unleavened bread on the eighth
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: day of the month Xanthechis Nissan, and at the ninth
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: hour of the night, so great a light shone round
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the altar and the holy house that it appeared to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: be bright daytime, which lasted for half an hour. Footnote.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Since Josephus still uses the Syro Macedonian month Xanthechis for
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the Jewish month Nissan, this eighth or as no sepphoris
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: reads it. This ninth of Xantheicus or Nissan, was almost
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a week before the passover on the fourteenth, about which
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: time we learned from Saint John that many used to
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: go quote out of the country to Jerusalem to purify
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: themselves end quote John eleven, verse fifty five, with Chapter twelve,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: verse one, in agreement with Josephus. Also Book five, Chapter three,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: section one. And it might well be that in the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: sight of these this extraordinary light might appear and footnote.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes as to
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: same festival, also a heifer, as she was led by
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of the inner court of the temple footnote. This here
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: seems to be the court of the priests and footnote,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: which was of bread and vastly heavy, and had been
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: into the firm floor. Which was there made of one
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now, those
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: that kept watching the temple came here upon, running to
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the captain of the temple, and told him of it,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: who then came up thither, and, not without great difficulty,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: But the men of learning understood it that the security
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and that the gate was opened for the advantage of
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshadowed
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: few days after the feast, on the one and twentieth
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: day of the month ar to me, Missus Jayar, a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared. I suppose the account
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: of it would seem to be a fable, were it
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: not related by those that saw it, and were not
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the events that followed it of so considerable a nature
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: as to deserve such signals. For before sun setting chariots
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: about among the clouds and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: that feast, which we call Pentecost, as the priests were
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: going by night into the inner court of the Temple,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: as their custom was to perform their sacred ministrations, they
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: said that in the first place they felt a quaking
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and heard a great noise, and after that they heard
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a sound as of a great multitude, saying, quote, let
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: us remove hence end quote. But what is still more terrible.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: There was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and a husbandman, who four years before the war began,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and at a time when the city was in very
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: great peace and prosperity, came to that feast, whereon it
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: God in the temple. Footnote. Both Rieland and Havercamp in
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: this place alter the natural punctuation and sense of Josephus,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and this contrary to the opinion of Valacyllus and doctor Hudson.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Lest Josephus should say that the Jews built booths or
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: tents within the temple at the feast of tabernacles, which
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the latter Rabins will not allow to have been the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: ancient practice. But then, since it is expressly told us
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in Nehemiah chapter eight, verse sixteen that in still elder times, quote,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the Jews made booths in the courts of the House
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of God end quote at that festival, Josephus may well
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: be permitted to say the same. And indeed the modern
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Rabins are of very small authority on all such matters
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: of remote antiquity and footnote. Began on a sudden to
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: cry aloud, quote, a voice from the east, a voice
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: from the west, a voice from the four winds, a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: voice against Jerusalem and the Holy House, a voice against
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: whole people. And this was his cry as he went
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: about by day and by night in all the lanes
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and took up the man and gave him a great
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: number of severe stripes. Yet did not he either say
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: anything for himself or anything peculiar to those that chastised him,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: but still went on with the same words which he
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: cried before. Here upon our rulers, supposing as the case
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: proved to be, that this was a sort of divine
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: lamentable tone possible at every stroke of the whip, his
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: answer was woe, woe to Jerusalem. And when Albinus, for
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: he was, then our procurator, asked him who he was,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and whence he came, and why he uttered such words,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: he made no manner of reply to what he said,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty till
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Albinus took him to be a madman and dismissed him. Now,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: during all the time that passed before the war began,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: this man did not go near any of the citizens,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: nor was seen by them while he said so. But
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: were his premeditated vow, woe woe to Jerusalem. Nor did
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: he give ill words to any of those that beat
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: him every day, nor good words to those that gave
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: him food. But this was his reply to all men,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: was to come. This cry of his was the loudest
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: at the festivals. And he continued this ditty for seven
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: years and five months without growing horse or being tired.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Therewith till the very time that he saw his pressage
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: in earnest fulfilled in our siege when it ceased, for
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: as he was going round upon the wall, he cried
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: out with his utmost force, woe woe to the city again,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and to the people, and to the Holy House. And
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: just as he added at the last, woe woe to myself.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Also there came a stone out of one of the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: engines and smote him and killed him immediately. And as
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: he was uttering the very same presages, he gave up
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the ghost. Four. Now, if any one considered these things,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: he will find that God takes care of mankind, and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: by always possible foreshadows to our race what is for
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: their preservation, but that men perish by these miseries which
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves. For the Jews,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: by demolishing the Tower of Antonia, had made their temple
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: for a square, while at the same time they had
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: it written in their sacred oracles quo that then should
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: their city be taken as well as their holy house,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: when once their temple should become for square end quote.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: But now what did the most elevate them in undertaking
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: this war was an ambiguous oracle that was also found
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: in their sacred writings. How quote about that time one
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: from their country should become governor of the habitable earth
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: end quote. The Jews took this prediction to belong to
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle certainly denoted
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. However,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: it is not possible for men to avoid fate although
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: these signals according to their own pleasure, and some of
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: them they utterly despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: by the taking of their city and their own destruction.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And of Books six, Chapter five