THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book IV: Chapter 6
HOW THE ZEALOTS WHEN THEY WERE
FREED FROM THE IDUMEANS, SLEW A GREAT MANY MORE OF THE
CITIZENS; AND HOW VESPASIAN DISSUADED THE ROMANS WHEN
THEY WERE VERY EARNEST TO MARCH AGAINST THE JEWS FROM
PROCEEDING IN THE WAR AT THAT TIME.
1. THE Idumeans complied with these persuasions;
and, in the first place, they set those that were in
the prisons at liberty, being about two thousand of
the populace, who thereupon fled away immediately to
Simon, one whom we shall speak of presently. After
which these Idumeans retired from Jerusalem, and went
home; which departure of theirs was a great surprise
to both parties; for the people, not knowing of their
repentance, pulled up their courage for a while, as
eased of so many of their enemies, while the zealots
grew more insolent not as deserted by their
confederates, but as freed from such men as might
hinder their designs, and plat some stop to their
wickedness. Accordingly, they made no longer any
delay, nor took any deliberation in their enormous
practices, but made use of the shortest methods for
all their executions and what they had once resolved
upon, they put in practice sooner than any one could
imagine. But their thirst was chiefly after the blood
of valiant men, and men of good families; the one sort
of which they destroyed out of envy, the other out of
fear; for they thought their whole security lay in
leaving no potent men alive; on which account they
slew Gorion, a person eminent in dignity, and on
account of his family also; he was also for democracy,
and of as great boldness and freedom of spirit as were
any of the Jews whosoever; the principal thing that
ruined him, added to his other advantages, was his
free speaking. Nor did Niger of Peres escape their
hands; he had been a man of great valor in their war
with the Romans, but was now drawn through the middle
of the city, and, as he went, he frequently cried out,
and showed the scars of his wounds; and when he was
drawn out of the gates, and despaired of his
preservation, he besought them to grant him a burial;
but as they had threatened him beforehand not to grant
him any spot of earth for a grave, which he chiefly
desired of them, so did they slay him [without
permitting him to be buried]. Now when they were
slaying him, he made this imprecation upon them, that
they might undergo both famine and pestilence in this
war, and besides all that, they might come to the
mutual slaughter of one another; all which
imprecations God confirmed against these impious men,
and was what came most justly upon them, when not long
afterward. they tasted of their own madness in their
mutual seditions one against another. So when this
Niger was killed, their fears of being overturned were
diminished; and indeed there was no part of the people
but they found out some pretense to destroy them; for
some were therefore slain, because they had had
differences with some of them; and as to those that
had not opposed them in times of peace, they watched
seasonable opportunities to gain some accusation
against them; and if any one did not come near them at
all, he was under their suspicion as a proud man; if
any one came with boldness, he was esteemed a
contemner of them; and if any one came as aiming to
oblige them, he was supposed to have some treacherous
plot against them; while the only punishment of
crimes, whether they were of the greatest or smallest
sort, was death. Nor could any one escape, unless he
were very inconsiderable, either on account of the
meanness of his birth, or on account of his fortune.
2. And now all the rest of the commanders of the
Romans deemed this sedition among their enemies to be
of great advantage to them, and were very earnest to
march to the city, and they urged Vespasian, as their
lord and general in all cases, to make haste, and said
to him, that "the providence of God is on our side, by
setting our enemies at variance against one another;
that still the change in such cases may be sudden, and
the Jews may quickly be at one again, either because
they may be tired out with their civil miseries, or
repent them of such doings." But Vespasian replied,
that they were greatly mistaken in what they thought
fit to be done, as those that, upon the theater, love
to make a show of their hands, and of their weapons,
but do it at their own hazard, without considering,
what was for their advantage, and for their security;
for that if they now go and attack the city
immediately, they shall but occasion their enemies to
unite together, and shall convert their force, now it
is in its height, against themselves. But if they stay
a while, they shall have fewer enemies, because they
will be consumed in this sedition: that God acts as a
general of the Romans better than he can do, and is
giving the Jews up to them without any pains of their
own, and granting their army a victory without any
danger; that therefore it is their best way, while
their enemies are destroying each other with their own
hands, and falling into the greatest of misfortunes,
which is that of sedition, to sit still as spectators
of the dangers they run into, rather than to fight
hand to hand with men that love murdering, and are mad
one against another. But if any one imagines that the
glory of victory, when it is gotten without fighting,
will be more insipid, let him know this much, that a
glorious success, quietly obtained, is more profitable
than the dangers of a battle; for we ought to esteem
these that do what is agreeable to temperance and
prudence no less glorious than those that have gained
great reputation by their actions in war: that he
shall lead on his army with greater force when their
enemies are diminished, and his own army refreshed
after the continual labors they had undergone.
However, that this is not a proper time to propose to
ourselves the glory of victory; for that the Jews are
not now employed in making of armor or building of
walls, nor indeed in getting together auxiliaries,
while the advantage will be on their side who give
them such opportunity of delay; but that the Jews are
vexed to pieces every day by their civil wars and
dissensions, and are under greater miseries than, if
they were once taken, could be inflicted on them by
us. Whether therefore any one hath regard to what is
for our safety, he ought to suffer these Jews to
destroy one another; or whether he hath regard to the
greater glory of the action, we ought by no means to
meddle with those men, now they are afflicted with a
distemper at home; for should we now conquer them, it
would be said the conquest was not owing to our
bravery, but to their sedition."
3. And now the commanders joined in their
approbation of what Vespasian had said, and it was
soon discovered how wise an opinion he had given. And
indeed many there were of the Jews that deserted every
day, and fled away from the zealots, although their
flight was very difficult, since they had guarded
every passage out of the city, and slew every one that
was caught at them, as taking it for granted they were
going over to the Romans; yet did he who gave them
money get clear off, while he only that gave them none
was voted a traitor. So the upshot was this, that the
rich purchased their flight by money, while none but
the poor were slain. Along all the roads also vast
numbers of dead bodies lay in heaps, and even many of
those that were so zealous in deserting at length
chose rather to perish within the city; for the hopes
of burial made death in their own city appear of the
two less terrible to them. But these zealots came at
last to that degree of barbarity, as not to bestow a
burial either on those slain in the city, or on those
that lay along the roads; but as if they had made an
agreement to cancel both the laws of their country and
the laws of nature, and, at the same time that they
defiled men with their wicked actions, they would
pollute the Divinity itself also, they left the dead
bodies to putrefy under the sun; and the same
punishment was allotted to such as buried any as to
those that deserted, which was no other than death;
while he that granted the favor of a grave to another
would presently stand in need of a grave himself. To
say all in a word, no other gentle passion was so
entirely lost among them as mercy; for what were the
greatest objects of pity did most of all irritate
these wretches, and they transferred their rage from
the living to those that had been slain, and from the
dead to the living. Nay, the terror was so very great,
that he who survived called them that were first dead
happy, as being at rest already; as did those that
were under torture in the prisons, declare, that, upon
this comparison, those that lay unburied were the
happiest. These men, therefore, trampled upon all the
laws of men, and laughed at the laws of God; and for
the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them as
the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets
foretell many things concerning [the rewards of]
virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these
zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of
those very prophecies belonging to their own country;
for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men,
that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary
burnt, by right of war, when a sedition
should invade
the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple
of God. Now while these zealots did not [quite]
disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the
instruments of their accomplishment.
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