Kitabı oku: «The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem», sayfa 51

CHAPTER 9

How The People That Were In The Fortress Were Prevailed On By The Words Of Eleazar, Two Women And Five Children Only Excepted And All Submitted To Be Killed By One Another.

1. Now as Eleazar was proceeding on in this exhortation, they all cut him off short, and made haste to do the work, as full of an unconquerable ardor of mind, and moved with a demoniacal fury. So they went their ways, as one still endeavoring to be before another, and as thinking that this eagerness would be a demonstration of their courage and good conduct, if they could avoid appearing in the last class; so great was the zeal they were in to slay their wives and children, and themselves also! Nor indeed, when they came to the work itself, did their courage fail them, as one might imagine it would have done, but they then held fast the same resolution, without wavering, which they had upon the hearing of Eleazar's speech, while yet every one of them still retained the natural passion of love to themselves and their families, because the reasoning they went upon appeared to them to be very just, even with regard to those that were dearest to them; for the husbands tenderly embraced their wives, and took their children into their arms, and gave the longest parting kisses to them, with tears in their eyes. Yet at the same time did they complete what they had resolved on, as if they had been executed by the hands of strangers; and they had nothing else for their comfort but the necessity they were in of doing this execution, to avoid that prospect they had of the miseries they were to suffer from their enemies. Nor was there at length any one of these men found that scrupled to act their part in this terrible execution, but every one of them despatched his dearest relations. Miserable men indeed were they! whose distress forced them to slay their own wives and children with their own hands, as the lightest of those evils that were before them. So they being not able to bear the grief they were under for what they had done any longer, and esteeming it an injury to those they had slain, to live even the shortest space of time after them, they presently laid all they had upon a heap, and set fire to it. They then chose ten men by lot out of them to slay all the rest; every one of whom laid himself down by his wife and children on the ground, and threw his arms about them, and they offered their necks to the stroke of those who by lot executed that melancholy office; and when these ten had, without fear, slain them all, they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves, that he whose lot it was should first kill the other nine, and after all should kill himself. Accordingly, all these had courage sufficient to be no way behind one another in doing or suffering; so, for a conclusion, the nine offered their necks to the executioner, and he who was the last of all took a view of all the other bodies, lest perchance some or other among so many that were slain should want his assistance to be quite despatched, and when he perceived that they were all slain, he set fire to the palace, and with the great force of his hand ran his sword entirely through himself, and fell down dead near to his own relations. So these people died with this intention, that they would not leave so much as one soul among them all alive to be subject to the Romans. Yet was there an ancient woman, and another who was of kin to Eleazar, and superior to most women in prudence and learning, with five children, who had concealed themselves in caverns under ground, and had carried water thither for their drink, and were hidden there when the rest were intent upon the slaughter of one another. Those others were nine hundred and sixty in number, the women and children being withal included in that computation. This calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan].

2. Now for the Romans, they expected that they should be fought in the morning, when, accordingly, they put on their armor, and laid bridges of planks upon their ladders from their banks, to make an assault upon the fortress, which they did; but saw nobody as an enemy, but a terrible solitude on every side, with a fire within the place, as well as a perfect silence. So they were at a loss to guess at what had happened. At length they made a shout, as if it had been at a blow given by the battering ram, to try whether they could bring any one out that was within; the women heard this noise, and came out of their under-ground cavern, and informed the Romans what had been done, as it was done; and the second of them clearly described all both what was said and what was done, and this manner of it; yet did they not easily give their attention to such a desperate undertaking, and did not believe it could be as they said; they also attempted to put the fire out, and quickly cutting themselves a way through it, they came within the palace, and so met with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was.

CHAPTER 10

That Many Of The Sicarii Fled To Alexandria Also And What Dangers They Were In There; On Which Account That Temple Which Had Formerly Been Built By Onias The High Priest Was Destroyed.

1. When Masada was thus taken, the general left a garrison in the fortress to keep it, and he himself went away to Cesarea; for there were now no enemies left in the country, but it was all overthrown by so long a war. Yet did this war afford disturbances and dangerous disorders even in places very far remote from Judea; for still it came to pass that many Jews were slain at Alexandria in Egypt; for as many of the Sicarii as were able to fly thither, out of the seditious wars in Judea, were not content to have saved themselves, but must needs be undertaking to make new disturbances, and persuaded many of those that entertained them to assert their liberty, to esteem the Romans to be no better than themselves, and to look upon God as their only Lord and Master. But when part of the Jews of reputation opposed them, they slew some of them, and with the others they were very pressing in their exhortations to revolt from the Romans; but when the principal men of the senate saw what madness they were come to, they thought it no longer safe for themselves to overlook them. So they got all the Jews together to an assembly, and accused the madness of the Sicarii, and demonstrated that they had been the authors of all the evils that had come upon them. They said also that "these men, now they were run away from Judea, having no sure hope of escaping, because as soon as ever they shall be known, they will be soon destroyed by the Romans, they come hither and fill us full of those calamities which belong to them, while we have not been partakers with them in any of their sins." Accordingly, they exhorted the multitude to have a care, lest they should be brought to destruction by their means, and to make their apology to the Romans for what had been done, by delivering these men up to them; who being thus apprized of the greatness of the danger they were in, complied with what was proposed, and ran with great violence upon the Sicarii, and seized upon them; and indeed six hundred of them were caught immediately: but as to all those that fled into Egypt 18 and to the Egyptian Thebes, it was not long ere they were caught also, and brought back, whose courage, or whether we ought to call it madness, or hardiness in their opinions, every body was amazed at. For when all sorts of torments and vexations of their bodies that could be devised were made use of to them, they could not get any one of them to comply so far as to confess, or seem to confess, that Caesar was their lord; but they preserved their own opinion, in spite of all the distress they were brought to, as if they received these torments and the fire itself with bodies insensible of pain, and with a soul that in a manner rejoiced under them. But what was most of all astonishing to the beholders was the courage of the children; for not one of these children was so far overcome by these torments, as to name Caesar for their lord. So far does the strength of the courage [of the soul] prevail over the weakness of the body.

2. Now Lupus did then govern Alexandria, who presently sent Caesar word of this commotion; who having in suspicion the restless temper of the Jews for innovation, and being afraid lest they should get together again, and persuade some others to join with them, gave orders to Lupus to demolish that Jewish temple which was in the region called Onion, 19 and was in Egypt, which was built and had its denomination from the occasion following: Onias, the son of Simon, one of the Jewish high priests fled from Antiochus the king of Syria, when he made war with the Jews, and came to Alexandria; and as Ptolemy received him very kindly, on account of hatred to Antiochus, he assured him, that if he would comply with his proposal, he would bring all the Jews to his assistance; and when the king agreed to do it so far as he was able, he desired him to give him leave to build a temple some where in Egypt, and to worship God according to the customs of his own country; for that the Jews would then be so much readier to fight against Antiochus who had laid waste the temple at Jerusalem, and that they would then come to him with greater good-will; and that, by granting them liberty of conscience, very many of them would come over to him.

3. So Ptolemy complied with his proposals, and gave him a place one hundred and eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. 20 That Nomos was called the Nomos of Hellopolis, where Onias built a fortress and a temple, not like to that at Jerusalem, but such as resembled a tower. He built it of large stones to the height of sixty cubits; he made the structure of the altar in imitation of that in our own country, and in like manner adorned with gifts, excepting the make of the candlestick, for he did not make a candlestick, but had a [single] lamp hammered out of a piece of gold, which illuminated the place with its rays, and which he hung by a chain of gold; but the entire temple was encompassed with a wall of burnt brick, though it had gates of stone. The king also gave him a large country for a revenue in money, that both the priests might have a plentiful provision made for them, and that God might have great abundance of what things were necessary for his worship. Yet did not Onias do this out of a sober disposition, but he had a mind to contend with the Jews at Jerusalem, and could not forget the indignation he had for being banished thence. Accordingly, he thought that by building this temple he should draw away a great number from them to himself. There had been also a certain ancient prediction made by [a prophet] whose name was Isaiah, about six hundred years before, that this temple should be built by a man that was a Jew in Egypt. And this is the history of the building of that temple.

4. And now Lupus, the governor of Alexandria, upon the receipt of Caesar's letter, came to the temple, and carried out of it some of the donations dedicated thereto, and shut up the temple itself. And as Lupus died a little afterward, Paulinus succeeded him. This man left none of those donations there, and threatened the priests severely if they did not bring them all out; nor did he permit any who were desirous of worshipping God there so much as to come near the whole sacred place; but when he had shut up the gates, he made it entirely inaccessible, insomuch that there remained no longer the least footsteps of any Divine worship that had been in that place. Now the duration of the time from the building of this temple till it was shut up again was three hundred and forty-three years.

CHAPTER 11

Concerning Jonathan, One Of The Sicarii, That Stirred Up A Sedition In Cyrene, And Was A False Accuser [Of The Innocent].

1. And now did the madness of the Sicarii, like a disease, reach as far as the cities of Cyrene; for one Jonathan, a vile person, and by trade a weaver, came thither and prevailed with no small number of the poorer sort to give ear to him; he also led them into the desert, upon promising them that he would show them signs and apparitions. And as for the other Jews of Cyrene, he concealed his knavery from them, and put tricks upon them; but those of the greatest dignity among them informed Catullus, the governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, of his march into the desert, and of the preparations he had made for it. So he sent out after him both horsemen and footmen, and easily overcame them, because they were unarmed men; of these many were slain in the fight, but some were taken alive, and brought to Catullus. As for Jonathan, the head of this plot, he fled away at that time; but upon a great and very diligent search, which was made all the country over for him, he was at last taken. And when he was brought to Catullus, he devised a way whereby he both escaped punishment himself, and afforded an occasion to Catullus of doing much mischief; for he falsely accused the richest men among the Jews, and said that they had put him upon what he did.

2. Now Catullus easily admitted of these his calumnies, and aggravated matters greatly, and made tragical exclamations, that he might also be supposed to have had a hand in the finishing of the Jewish war. But what was still harder, he did not only give a too easy belief to his stories, but he taught the Sicarii to accuse men falsely. He bid this Jonathan, therefore, to name one Alexander, a Jew [with whom he had formerly had a quarrel, and openly professed that he hated him]; he also got him to name his wife Bernice, as concerned with him. These two Catullus ordered to be slain in the first place; nay, after them he caused all the rich and wealthy Jews to be slain, being no fewer in all than three thousand. This he thought he might do safely, because he confiscated their effects, and added them to Caesar's revenues.

3. Nay, indeed, lest any Jews that lived elsewhere should convict him of his villainy, he extended his false accusations further, and persuaded Jonathan, and certain others that were caught with him, to bring an accusation of attempts for innovation against the Jews that were of the best character both at Alexandria and at Rome. One of these, against whom this treacherous accusation was laid, was Josephus, the writer of these books. However, this plot, thus contrived by Catullus, did not succeed according to his hopes; for though he came himself to Rome, and brought Jonathan and his companions along with him in bonds, and thought he should have had no further inquisition made as to those lies that were forged under his government, or by his means; yet did Vespasian suspect the matter and made an inquiry how far it was true. And when he understood that the accusation laid against the Jews was an unjust one, he cleared them of the crimes charged upon them, and this on account of Titus's concern about the matter, and brought a deserved punishment upon Jonathan; for he was first tormented, and then burnt alive.

4. But as to Catullus, the emperors were so gentle to him, that he underwent no severe condemnation at this time; yet was it not long before he fell into a complicated and almost incurable distemper, and died miserably. He was not only afflicted in body, but the distemper in his mind was more heavy upon him than the other; for he was terribly disturbed, and continually cried out that he saw the ghosts of those whom he had slain standing before him. Where upon he was not able to contain himself, but leaped out of his bed, as if both torments and fire were brought to him. This his distemper grew still a great deal worse and worse continually, and his very entrails were so corroded, that they fell out of his body, and in that condition he died. Thus he became as great an instance of Divine Providence as ever was, and demonstrated that God punishes wicked men.

5. And here we shall put an end to this our history; wherein we formerly promised to deliver the same with all accuracy, to such as should be desirous of understanding after what manner this war of the Romans with the Jews was managed. Of which history, how good the style is, must be left to the determination of the readers; but as for its agreement with the facts, I shall not scruple to say, and that boldly, that truth hath been what I have alone aimed at through its entire composition.

WAR BOOK 7 FOOTNOTES

2 (return)

[ This Tereutius Rufus, as Reland in part observes here, is the same person whom the Talmudists call Turnus Rufus; of whom they relate, that "he ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high Idaces of a forest;" which was long before foretold by the prophet Micah, ch. 3:12, and quoted from him in the prophecies of Jeremiah, ch. 26:18.]

3 (return)

[ See Ecclesiastes 8:11.]

4 (return)

[ This Berytus was certainly a Roman colony, and has coins extant that witness the same, as Hudson and Spanheim inform us. See the note on Antiq. B. XVI: ch. 11. sect. 1.]

5 (return)

[ The Jews at Antioch and Alexandria, the two principal cities in all the East, had allowed them, both by the Macedonians, and afterwards by the Romans, a governor of their own, who was exempt from the jurisdiction of the other civil governors. He was called sometimes barely "governor," sometimes "ethnarch," and [at Alexandria] "alabarch," as Dr. Hudson takes notice on this place out of Fuller's Miscellanies. They had the like governor or governors allowed them at Babylon under their captivity there, as the history of Susanna implies.]

6 (return)

[ This Classicus, and Civilis, and Cerealis are names well known in Tacitus; the two former as moving sedition against the Romans, and the last as sent to repress them by Vespasian, just as they are here described in Josephus; which is the case also of Fontellis Agrippa and Rubrius Gallup, i, sect. 3. But as to the very favorable account presently given of Domitian, particularly as to his designs in this his Gallic and German expedition, it is not a little contrary to that in Suetonius, Vesp. sect. 7. Nor are the reasons unobvious that might occasion this great diversity: Domitian was one of Josephus's patrons, and when he published these books of the Jewish war, was very young, and had hardly begun those wicked practices which rendered him so infamous afterward; while Suetonius seems to have been too young, and too low in life, to receive any remarkable favors from him; as Domitian was certainly very lewd and cruel, and generally hated, when Suetonius wrote about him.]

7 (return)

[ Since in these latter ages this Sabbatic River, once so famous, which, by Josephus's account here, ran every seventh day, and rested on six, but according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. 31. II, ran perpetually on six days, and rested every seventh, [though it no way appears by either of their accounts that the seventh day of this river was the Jewish seventh day or sabbath,] is quite vanished, I shall add no more about it: only see Dr. Hudson's note. In Varenius's Geography, i, 17, the reader will find several instances of such periodical fountains and rivers, though none of their periods were that of a just week as of old this appears to have been.]

8 (return)

[ Vespasian and his two sons, Titus and Domitian.]

9 (return)

[ See the representations of these Jewish vessels as they still stand on Titus's triumphal arch at Rome, in Reland's very curious book de Spoliis Ternpli, throughout. But what, things are chiefly to be noted are these: [1.] That Josephus says the candlestick here carried in this triumph was not thoroughly like that which was used in the temple, which appears in the number of the little knobs and flowers in that on the triumphal arch not well agreeing with Moses's description, Exodus 25:31-36. [2.] The smallness of the branches in Josephus compared with the thickness of those on that arch. [3.] That the Law or Pentateuch does not appear on that arch at all, though Josephus, an eye-witness, assures us that it was carried in this procession. All which things deserve the consideration of the inquisitive reader.]

10 (return)

[ Spanheim observes here, that in Graceia Major and Sicily they had rue prodigiously great and durable, like this rue at Machaerus.]

11 (return)

[ This strange account of the place and root Baaras seems to have been taken from the magicians, and the root to have been made use of in the days of Josephus, in that superstitious way of casting out demons, supposed by him to have been derived from king Solomon; of which we have already seen he had a great opinion, Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 2. sect. 5. We also may hence learn the true notion Josephus had of demons and demoniacs, exactly like that of the Jews and Christians in the New Testament, and the first four centuries. See Antiq. B. I. ch. 8. sect. 2; B. XI, ch. 2. sect. 3.]

12 (return)

[ It is very remarkable that Titus did not people this now desolate country of Judea, but ordered it to be all sold; nor indeed is it properly peopled at this day, but lies ready for its old inhabitants the Jews, at their future restoration. See Literal Accomplishment of Prophecies, p. 77.]

13 (return)

[ That the city Emmaus, or Areindus, in Josephus and others which was the place of the government of Julius Africanus were slain, to the number of one thousand seven hundred, as were the women and the children made slaves. But as Bassus thought he must perform the covenant he had made with those that had surrendered the citadel, he let them go, and restored Eleazar to them, in the beginning of the third century, and which he then procured to be rebuilt, and after which rebuilding it was called Nicopolis, is entirely different from that Emmaus which is mentioned by St. Luke 24;13; see Reland's Paleestina, lib. II. p. 429, and under the name Ammaus also. But he justly thinks that that in St. Luke may well be the same with his Ammaus before us, especially since the Greek copies here usually make it sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, as does St. Luke, though the Latin copies say only thirty. The place also allotted for these eight hundred soldiers, as for a Roman garrison, in this place, would most naturally be not so remote from Jerusalem as was the other Emmaus, or Nicopolis.]

14 (return)

[ Pliny and others confirm this strange paradox, that provisions laid up against sieges will continue good for a hundred years, as Spanheim notes upon this place.]

15 (return)

[ The speeches in this and the next section, as introduced under the person of this Eleazar, are exceeding remarkable, and of the noblest subjects, the contempt of death, and the dignity and immortality of the soul; and that not only among the Jews, but among the Indians themselves also; and are highly worthy the perusal of all the curious. It seems as if that philosophic lady who survived, ch. 9. sect. 1, 2, remembered the substance of these discourses, as spoken by Eleazar, and so Josephus clothed them in his own words: at the lowest they contain the Jewish notions on these heads, as understood then by our Josephus, and cannot but deserve a suitable regard from us.]

16 (return)

[ See B. II. ch. 20. sect. 2, where the number of the slain is but 10,000.]

17 (return)

[ Reland here sets down a parallel aphorism of one of the Jewish Rabbins, "We are born that we may die, and die that we may live."]

18 (return)

[ Since Josephus here informs us that some of these Sicarii, or ruffians, went from Alexandria [which was itself in Egypt, in a large sense] into Egypt, and Thebes there situated, Reland well observes, from Vossius, that Egypt sometimes denotes Proper or Upper Egypt, as distinct from the Delta, and the lower parts near Palestine. Accordingly, as he adds, those that say it never rains in Egypt must mean the Proper or Upper Egypt, because it does sometimes rain in the other parts. See the note on Antiq. B. II. ch. 7. sect. 7, and B. III. ch. 1. sect. 6.]

19 (return)

[ Of this temple of Onias's building in Egypt, see the notes on Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 3. sect. 1. But whereas it is elsewhere, both of the War, B. I. ch. 1. sect. 1, and in the Antiquities as now quoted, said that this temple was like to that at Jerusalem, and here that it was not like it, but like a tower, sect. 3, there is some reason to suspect the reading here, and that either the negative particle is here to be blotted out, or the word entirely added.]

20 (return)

[ We must observe, that Josephus here speaks of Antiochus who profaned the temple as now alive, when Onias had leave given them by Philometer to build his temple; whereas it seems not to have been actually built till about fifteen years afterwards. Yet, because it is said in the Antiquities that Onias went to Philometer, B. XII. ch. 9. sect. 7, during the lifetime of that Antiochus, it is probable he petitioned, and perhaps obtained his leave then, though it were not actually built or finished till fifteen years afterward.]