Judæa capta

Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, 1790-1846

Publisher New York, M.W. Dodd

1845

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She was the daughter of Michael Browne, rector of St. Giles's Church and minor canon of Norwich Cathedral, where she was born on 1 Oct. 1790. She married in early life a Captain Phelan of the 60th regiment, and spent two years with him while serving with his regiment in Nova Scotia. They then returned to Ireland, where Phelan owned a small estate near Kilkenny. The marriage was not a happy one, and they separated about 1824. Mrs. Phelan subsequently resided with her brother, Captain John Browne, at Clifton, where she made the acquaintance of Hannah More. She later moved to Sandhurst, and then to London. In 1837 Captain Phelan died in Dublin, and in 1841 his widow married Lewis Hippolytus Joseph Tonna. She died at Ramsgate on 12 July 1846, and was buried there.

JUDJ1A CAPTA, 



CHAPTER I. 

" AGAIN will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, 
O virgin of Israel !" saith the Lord. Evermore 
bearing in mind this promise, regarding it as a bea- 
con of hope, yea, of positive certainty, brightening 
the dark path that we are about to traverse, we 
may the better bear to fix a stedfast gaze on the 
desolations of many generations, to recall, in what 
has been, the painful prelude to what now is ; and 
to relate how, with the stroke of a cruel one the 
holy city was smitten, her spiritual privileges ex- 
tinguished, and her temporal glories buried in the 
dust. 

" Beautiful for situation," that which constituted 
its principal beauty w^as also its main strength. Ju- 
dea is peculiarly a " hill country ;" and in the neigh- 
bourhood of the holy city these mountainous eleva- 
tions are rendered ii conducive to its defence as to 
have furnished King David with an illustration of 
the divine guardianship: "As the mountains are 
round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about 
his people." What the size and aspect of the city 
may have been in the days of its highest splendour, 
1* 



4 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

when Solomon swayed the sceptre of Israel, not 
then disunited from Judah, or even what it may 
have been when Zerubbabel had reared the second 
temple, and Nehemiah rebuilt the walls, it is not our 
present intention to inquire. We come before the 
city of the great king in darker days, intent on de- 
scribing it as seen by the beleaguering hosts of 
Rome, advancing to fix the abomination of desola- 
tion spoken of by Daniel the prophet, in the holy 
place. 

At this time, the position of Jerusalem, as regards 
its natural strength and compact beauty, was, and 
yet was not, what travellers now behold it. The 
everlasting hills do indeed maintain their ancient 
places, but the deep ravines, naturally almost impas- 
sable by ,a hostile force, are now choked up by the 
accumulated ruin and neglect of many centuries, di- 
vesting the site of its otherwise isolated appearance, 
particularly since Zion has been ploughed like a 
field ; and the city of David presents, on its magni- 
ficent external acclivity, little else than a waste of 
desolate ground. Our ideas concerning the place 
are in general extremely confused and errroneous : 
many will speak and write of Zion and Moriah, the 
city of David and the Temple, as though they had 
formed an undistinguished mass, and were converti- 
ble terms. So far is this from being correct, in re- 
ference to the Jerusalem of the Bible, that we re- 
quire to obtain a clear, and in many instances a 
wholly novel, view of its geographical position, be- 
fore we can comprehend even the proceedings of the 
Roman invader. 

We will first speak of its boundaries, as they existed 
eighteen hundred years ago. Northward of the city 



JERUSALEM AS IT WAS. 5 

rose an undulating ground, termed Scopus, which 
stretched away also to the westward, rendering the 
approach in that direction comparatively easy ; it 
was, indeed, the only accessible point, and all the 
enemies who have attacked Jerusalem made it their 
highway. Towards the south-west the ground be- 
gan to deepen into a valley, whence rose in lofty 
grandeur the noble hill of Zion. This was called 
the valley of Gihon, and soon spread into another 
valley, that of Hinnom, running due west and east, 
between the southern foot of Zion and an elevation 
termed the hill of Evil-counsel, from a tradition that 
there had Solomon been misled by his idolatrous 
wives into the sin that polluted the latter part of his 
reign. The valley of Hinnom was met at the south- 
eastern extremity of the city, by another arid a far 
more striking pass, the valley of the Kidron, or Je- 
hosophat; this running along the whole eastern 
course of the city, yielded a bed to the brook Kid- 
ron, and separated Mount Moriah from the Mount 
of Olives. The side of the former was exceedingly 
steep, precipitous, and altogether an unapprochable 
defence. No adequate conception can be formed, 
from its present appearance, of what it was before 
the fall of those immense ruins that have converted 
its decent into a slope, and raised its original level ; 
but it is plain that its whole aspect has been so 
changed. The Mount of Olives, however, remains 
unaltered, a sublime and enduring relic, of interest 
BO thrilling that its very name awakens emotions 
not less deep in the bosom of the Gentile Christian 
than in that of the Jew. This beautiful mountain 
rises like a broad shield over against where the 
Temple of the LORD once stood ; and the traveller 



6 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

who takes up his post on its swelling side beholds 
the holy city spread out, in all its length and breadth, 
at his feet. 

Of that city itself we have now to speak, and of 
its remarkable divisions. Supposing ourselves 
placed on the Mount of Olives at the period referred 
to, its aspect would have been that of three very 
distinct hills, separated one from the other by nar- 
row but deep ravines ; while, towards the north, 
that is, to the right of the spectator, in front, ex- 
tended a fourth division, reaching far over the com- 
paratively level country in that direction. Fust of 
the holy hills, right opposite the Mount of Olives, 
and rising so as to terminate in a broad, square 
platform, was Moriah, on whose summit stood the 
magnificent Temple, within its threefold courts. To 
the south, the hill descended till it reacned the spot 
where the vallies of Hinnom and of the Kidron 
meet, the eastern side of this hill, which here was 
called Ophel, running along the whole ridge of the 
latter, the western terminating in a deep, abrupt 
declivity, called the valley of the Tyropean. The 
sides of Moriah, precipitous on the east, were also 
steep on the west and on the south ; and at the angle 
of these two points a lofty bridge was requisite to 
span the Tyropean, and so to form a communica- 
tion between the Temple and the upper city on 
Mount Zion. 

This hill, rising from the valley of Hinmon on the 
south, and bounded on the east and north by the 
Tyropean, (which thus wound its way through the 
heart of Jerusalem,) was at once the highest, the 
strongest, and the most important of the inhabited 
places round Moriah ; its outlines were so perfectly 



THE SACRED HILLS. 7 

defined, that it might well be called a city in itself, 
apart from and independent of all the rest. The 
third hill, A era, was the site of the ancient Salem, 
which David took from the Jebusites, lying due west 
of the Temple, and north of Zion ; its irregular 
sides sloping towards the Tyropean, and ascending 
the Mount Moriah, while its northern and western 
boundaries were formed by Bezetha, the most recent 
addition to the metropolis. 

Zion is frequently used to designate the whole 
city, as being the principal, the most conspicuous 
part. While the site of the Temple was but a 
threshing-floor, Zion was covered with magnificent 
buildings, and at all subsequent periods it was the 
residence of the princes and chief men. Here 
David fixed his kingly seat, and here, during his 
reign, and for some years after Solomon's accession, 
the Ark of the Lord remained within a tabernacle 
which David had prepared for it. That Zion, where 
corn now waves, and a few flocks find pasturage 
among its beautiful but desolate slopes, presented to 
the eye one vast pile of architectural grandeur and 
military strength. At the time whereof we write, 
such was its character, while that of Acra, venera- 
ble as it was, and famous as having been the seat 
of Melchizedek's kingdom, had become principally 
mercantile ; its numerous intricate and narrow 
streets being densely inhabited by tradesmen, arti- 
zans, and all those who ministered to the luxurious 
dwellers in the palaces of Zion. Bezetha, as it has 
been observed, was a modern addition to the city, 
having been walled in by Agrippa, but by no 
means in so perfect a manner as he had planned to 
do it. Here the population was less crowded, and 



8 JUDJEA CAPTA. 

in every sense it formed the weakest part of Jeru- 
salem. Moriah was altogether occupied by the 
Temple, with its extensive courts and enclosures, 
excepting Ophel, that slip of it which we have no- 
ticed as running southward, parallel with Zion, but 
separated from it by the very abrupt ravine of the 
Tyropean, the remarkable pass which completely 
isolated the stately hill of Zion, but of which in its 
original character as a deep, winding valley in the 
midst of a populous city, we can form but a very im- 
perfect conception now. In fact, in all its lower por- 
tions, the modern Jerusalem is built upon the mass 
of what was rolled down from its heights in the days 
of oft-renewed destruction ; and the Tyropean es- 
pecially became the natural receptacle of these fall- 
ing fragments. Ophel was principally assigned to 
the numerous inferior officers and servants of the 
Temple, who had their dwellings thus within a con- 
venient distance of the Holy House, and were not 
separated from it by any intervening barrier. 

Thus, though imperfectly, we have endeavoured 
to sketch with some accuracy the scene of events 
now to be narrated. It is impossible, however, to 
quit this branch of the subject without remarking to 
what an extent the privilege granted to believers of 
making a spiritual application, suited to individual 
cases, or to that of the church, of what has been 
aforetime written in reference to Israel, has occa- 
sionally been perverted, even to a total oblivion of 
the literal significancy of the words, and to the ex- 
clusion of those to whom they were primarily ad- 
dressed. 

Let us for a moment pause on this. The second 
chapter of Isaiah's prophecy is one much prized by 



MISINTERPRETATIONS. 9 

the Christian believer. It commences with glorious 
promises of a state of future blessedness on earth. 
" And it shall come to pass, in the last days, that the 
mountain of the Lord's house shall be established 
in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted 
above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto 
it." This is frequently taken to indicate a state of 
extraordinary fulness and prosperity enjoyed by the 
Christian church at large, unconfined to any locality, 
but spreading abroad over the whole earth. By 
"the mountain of the Lord's house," the great 
bulk of our commentators understand that kingdom 
described by Daniel, which " becomes a great moun- 
tain, and fills the whole earth," certainly typifying 
the universal dominion of him who shall be King 
over all the earth ; but to this particular passage in 
Isaiah a locality is assigned : the prophet describes 
it as " The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw 
concerning Judah and Jerusalem" To this some 
answer, that in prophetic language Judah means the 
believing people of Christ, and Jerusalem the whole 
church, as a church ; an organized body of men, 
having its offices, its ministers, and so forth. But 
let us turn to the prophecy of Micah (third chapter, 
last five verses.) There, the peculiar transgressions 
of Israel, for which a visitation was pending, are de- 
scribed, ending with these remarkable words : 
" Therefore shall ZION for your sake be plowed as 
a field, and JERUSALEM shall become heaps, and the 
MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE as the high places of the 
forest." 

ZION, the city of David, is now in great measure, 
as we have seen, a ploughed surface, on which corn 
is grown, and a few flocks find pasturage. JERUSA- 



10 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

LEM, the ancient city of the Jebusites, that Salem of 
which Melchizedek was king, now called Acra, once 
the most densely populated of the whole area, has 
been made heaps of ruined buildings, insomuch that 
the existing town at this day stands on the confused 
" heaps " of what formerly was. The rubbish has 
in some places well nigh filled up arid levelled what 
has been a deep valley ; and a builder seeking a 
solid foundation must work through complete strata 
of these accumulations to a depth of many feet be- 
fore he can reach it. THE MOUNTAIN OF THE 
HOUSE, Moriah, where the Temple of the Lord stood, 
is become AS the high places of the forest. Baal, 
and the other idols that proved so often a snare to 
Israel, had their altars always on high places, sur- 
rounded by groves of trees, which God-fearing kings 
from time to time cast down, plucked up, and re- 
moved away ; for they were accursed things, abomi- 
nations, unlawful to Israel, hateful unto God, who 
forbade the approach of his people to their unhal- 
lowed confines. 

What now is the state of Mount Moriah ? It is 
crowned by a mosque, which, being the temple of a 
most false religion, is as a high place of the forest to 
the Jew, who is not only forbidden by his law to set 
foot within the boundary, but is likewise compulso- 
rily excluded by the Moslem usurper and defiler of 
that holy site. It is not a high place of the forest, 
for no idol is there, no altar, no grove, it is as a 
high place of the forest, for it is an abomination 
making desolate, and that which no Israelite can ap- 
proach. So far no one can question the remarkably 
literal fulfilment of a most literal prediction; and 
then no break intervening in the original Hebrew 



THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE. 11 

the Word proceeds : " BUT in the last days it shall 
come to pass that THE MOUNTAIN OF THE HOUSE 
OF THE LORD shall be established in the top of the 
mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, 
and people shall flow unto it. And many nations 
shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the 
house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of 
his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for tbe law 
shall go forth of ZION, and the word of the Lord 
from JERUSALEM." Here we have, in the plainest ex- 
hibition that language can afford, the three moun- 
tains, Zion, ploughed as a field, Acra, reduced to 
heaps, and Moriah, polluted by a false religion, re- 
built, restored, re-sanctified, and become once more 
the resort of voluntary worshippers from every quar- 
ter of the globe. " Thus saith the Lord, I am re- 
turned unto ZION, and will dwell in the midst of 
JERUSALEM ; and Jerusalem shall be called a city of 
truth, and THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD OF HOSTS, 
the holy mountain. . . . Thus saith the Lord of 
Hosts : If it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant 
of this people in these days, should it also be mar- 
vellous in mine eyes? saith the Lord of Hosts. 
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts : Behold I will save 
many people from the east country, and from the 
west country, and I will bring them, and they shall 
dwell in the midst of Jerusalem ; and they shall be 
my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in 
righteousness."* 

Let it not, then, be imagined that with the feel- 
ings of a mere antiquary we call to mind, or would 
bring to the view of our readers, exact localities, 

* Zech. viii. 3, 6, 7, 8. 

2 



12 JUDJ2A CAPTA. 

their names, and peculiar features. All these things 
not only have been, but shall be ; Zion, Acra, Mo- 
riah, shall yet stand forth upon the world's map, not 
only in their indelible outline, but in all the rich 
beauty of such finishing and such tinting as the 
hand of God alone can restore to them. Zion, Jeru 
salem, and the Mountain of the Lord's house, shal 
be familiar to the ears and lips of all men as now 
they are to the thought of the careful student of 
Scripture. 

We have now to notice the walls of the ancient 
city, in connexion with the imperfect sketch of its na- 
tural divisions. Of these we shall have occasion here- 
after to speak more particularly ; and need merely in 
this place observe that they not only perfectly sur- 
rounded the whole city, embracing Moriah, Acra, and 
Bezetha, in one compact line of bulwarks, but also af- 
forded a separate defence to each : for after the first 
and most ancient of them had completely encircled 
Zion. sending out an additional line to encompass 
Ophel and join the massive walls of the Temple, a 
second, thrown out in a simicircular form, defended 
Acra, its extreme points resting on the first ; and a 
third wall, added by Agrippa, took in the suburban 
district of Bezetha, from the northern angle of the 
Temple to the majestic tower of Hippicus, which 
stood where the ancient citadel of David had guarded 
his Zion at the north-western extremity of its sweep. 
Of these walls the strength was prodigious. Built 
of huge stones, the fragments of which cause the 
men of our times to stand amazed ; studded with 
mighty towers, each in itself a fortress, and manned 
by the lion tribe of Judah, well may we enter into the 



SUCH WAS JERUSALEM. 13 

feeling that laughed to scorn the besiegers' menace, 
and proudly reiterated the song for the sons of 
Korah : 

" Walk about Zion, and go round about her, 
Tell ye the towers thereof; 

Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, 
That ye may tell it to the generation following." 



14 JUD^A CAPTA. 



CHAPTER II. 

THERE is no lack of historical notices of what be- 
fel the holy land and its people in the day of their 
terrible visitation ; Josephus is within the reach of 
most readers, while Milman and others have fur- 
nished an abstract of what he recorded. Two 
things, however, are noticeable ; The Jewish his- 
torian evidently wrote not only under Roman pa- 
tronage, but with a keen eye to his own interest, in 
producing what should best please his alien masters ; 
and though a gleam of nationality may here and 
there struggle through the dense cloud of worldly feel- 
ings, principles, and pursuits, it is presently extin- 
guished by the prudential or the egotistical principle, 
and we are compelled to feel that he painted his 
picture under the lion's paw, obliged to exaggerate 
the merits" of brute force, and to lower as much as 
he could whatsoever related to the other combatant. 
The historical accuracy of his general details we 
may admit, the more readily because what they set 
forth had already been traced in the prophetic Word ; 
but we find in him little of the sympathy that might 
be looked for in treating such a subject. That he 
was a Christian we cannot for a moment believe ; 
neither his language nor the themes he most delights 
to dwell on accord with the religion that breathes 
peace on earth, good will towards men. How far 



CHARACTER OF JOSEPHUS. 15 

towards heathenism he may have carried his com- 
pliances to propitiate his patron Csesars, we cannot 
tell. Moses seems to have retained small part in 
him ; and of that spirit which shone so gloriously in 
Moses, that ardent devotedness to the cause of his 
people which renders his character so exquisitely 
lovely and loveable, Josephus possessed not an 
atom. 

On the other hand, our Christian historians have 
written under two impressions, alike unfavourable 
and erroneous. The one was, that Jerusalem had 
been visited with final destruction, her wrecks being 
left merely as monuments of divine vengeance, not 
as providing also materials to re-construct, in sur- 
passing splendour, what was once cast down. The 
other delusion which, whether consciously or not, 
rested, and still, to a great extent, rests, on the minds 
of such historiographers, is that the Jews, as a na- 
tion, are cast off, at least so far as to render any fu- 
ture restoration contingent on their embracing the 
faith of the gospel, one indispensable concomitant 
of which is held to be their abandoning all distinc- 
tive marks, and becoming, in fact, less individualized 
as a people than are the members of any national 
church, or any congregation of consistent dissenters. 
These prejudices interpose a formidable barrier be- 
tween the historian and his subject, occasioning him 
not only to confuse objects, but so to distribute his 
lights and shades as to blend the whole picture into 
one mass of needless perplexities. He dare not 
quote scripture in continuous portions to any extent : 
it is so formidably literal on these points as to scat- 
ter to the winds what men have laboriously essayed 
to build upon it ; and however excellent, however 
2* 



16 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

conscientious, however able a writer may be, we 
very rarely indeed fall in with one of any note who 
has had courage to take his pen under a deep practical 
conviction, that in approaching these subjects he 
must fully act up to the bold declaration of the apos- 
tle : " Yea, let God be true, and every man a liar." 
Human authority is, in every sense of the word, an 
imposing thing : one man in former times has darkly 
trodden a doubtful path, while as yet the heaviest 
gloom of obscurity rested upon it. Others follow in 
single file, blessed by a much clearer light indeed, 
but for the most part apparently solicitous to use it, 
each for the purpose of accurately planting his foot 
in the print of his predecessor's shoe. The beaten 
path is good, so far as scripture sanctions it ; but 
when a discrepancy appears, it is safer to follow the 
guidance of revelation, leaving every other track 
until the same guidance brings us into it again. 

Nothing has happened, either to the holy city or 
to the people who so long possessed it, as a gift from 
the Lord, but what was plainly foretold in the Bible. 
With astonishing minuteness all that has occurred, 
all that will yet take place, has been set forth by holy 
men of old, speaking as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost. The blessings with which the Lord 
would crown a course of obedience were described in 
glowing language ; and with terrible fidelity were 
the curses that should ensue upon a rebellious de- 
parture from the holy law enumerated. Not only as 
a menace, but as a prediction, were those visitations 
described ; for to Him who seeth the end from the 
beginning, all was naked and manifest that should 
come to pass. In reading the awful denunciations 
contained in the twenty-eight chapter of Deuteron- 



ACCURATE PREDICTIONS. 17 

omy, from the fifteenth verse to the end, we are con- 
strained to feel that it never was or could be a con- 
tingency hypothetically set forth : it is a terrible re- 
ality present to the mind of inspiration, not as what 
perhaps might, but as what assuredly would come 
to pass ; increasing in the weight of its inflictions 
proportionably with the foreseen aggravation of Is- 
rael's progressive sins. A blessing would first be 
enjoyed, while the people walked with God, submit- 
ting to his divine ordinances and continuing in the 
way of his commandments. Then would come a 
declension, a determined falling away, that must 
gradually lead them into the settled habit of walk- 
ing contrary to. God, until the whole world should 
resound with the exceeding terribleness of his ven- 
geance upon the holy people ; their punishment 
being* exactly proportioned to the privileges enjoyed 
and abused by them, as says the Lord by Amos, 
" You only have I known of all the families of the 
earth : therefore I will punish you for all your ini- 
quities." 

After this, we find in the thirtieth chapter a pro- 
phetic description of their final repentance and re- 
turn to God, followed again by the multiplication of 
blessings so rich, so varied, so far beyond the stretch 
of man's narrow mind to embrace in their fullness, 
that some who never think of explaining away the 
preceding threats, are tempted to dishonour God by 
calling in question the literal applicability of those 
rich promises to the race concerning whom they 
were spoken, and to surmise that they treat figura- 
tively of things altogether apart from earth ; saying, 
as did Ezekiel's unbelieving hearers, " Doth he not 
speak parables ?" 



18 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

Of events that occurred in preceding years, we do 
not intend to say much : our starting point is the 
final invasion of Judsea by the Roman army under 
Vespasian and his son Titus. The immediate cause 
of their expedition was the slaughter of the troops 
that garrisoned Jerusalem : an act into which the 
Jews were goaded by the really unprovoked wrongs 
and cruelties inflicted on them by the savage Roman 
procurator, Gessius Florus. This man, whose cha- 
racter stands out in bold relief on the page of his- 
tory, as a dire specimen of what Satan can effect in 
assimilating the human mind to his own diabolical 
model, had pursued an undeviating course of treach- 
ery, cruelty, and murder, against the people com- 
mitted to his charge. For a long time they acted on 
a system as peaceably defensive as could be de- 
vised ; and, to the number of three millions, humbly 
petitioned the president of Syria to protect them 
irom his cruelties, but in vain. The first outbreak 
occurred in Csesarea, the government of which was 
suddenly transfeTreTt to alien inhabitants, who were 
raised above the Jews ; and the latter soon found 
their way of access to the synagogue wantonly and 
maliciously obstructed by the building of a Greek 
idolator, against whom they respectfully appealed to 
Florus, and tendered a handsome gift which was ac- 
cepted as the price of his official interference. When 
he, apparently by design, left the place without tak- 
ing any means to stay the interruption, and the 
Greeks, emboldened by his evident connivance, at 
once profaned the sabbath and polluted the syna- 
gogue, by killing birds at the door, in sacrifice to their 
demons : the Jews, after a skirmish with the multi- 
tudes who strove to force them into submission to 



CRUELTIES OF GESSIUS FLORUS. 19 

this abomination, removed their holy books from the 
place, and renewed their appeal to the Roman ty- 
rant. He, instead of redressing the wrong, cast the 
petitioners into prison ; and in the hope of exciting 
a rebellious movement among their brethren in Je- 
rusalem, sent a demand for money from the treasury 
of the Temple, for the service, as he said, of the em- 
peror Nero. This produced the exasperation on 
which he had calculated ; in a tumultuous meeting 
of the Jews, some well-merited epithets were be- 
stowed on Floras, who, immediately, on hearing of 
it, marched upon Jerusalem, and returned the loyal 
and respectful greeting of its inhabitants, whose 
temporary irritation had passed away, by giving 
over a considerable part of the city to be sacked by 
the Roman soldiers. Notwithstanding this barba- 
rous outrage, the inhabitants still declared them- 
selves ready to submit to his authority, as the em- 
peror's representative ; but the infuriated tyrant 
caused between three and four thousand of the Jews 
to be scourged and crucified, including not only 
many of the noblest and best among them, but also 
several who held the rank of Roman citizens. 

Immediately after this wanton massacre, on the 
very nejrt_day, while the chief priests and leading 
men, with dust on their heads and sackcloth on their 
limbs, were quelling by their entreaties the agitation 
of the survivors, the wretched procurator laid ano- 
ther crafty snare for them. He had sent for two 
cohorts from Csesarea, which was certainly the most 
irritating locality so far as the feelings of the Jews 
were concerned, ordering them to advance on Jeru- 
salem : and then commanded the people to go out 
and meet them with a joyous shout of j^fiicome. It 



20 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

required the utmost stretch of the influence pos- 
sessed by their priests and nobles to bring them to 
this cruel test ; and while they were persuading the 
Jews to obey, Florus despatched an order to the co- 
horts to respond to their greeting with insult ; then, 
on the least appearance of resentment or dissatisfac- 
tion on the Jews' part, to put them to the sword. 
This, of course, was done ; and the next act of their 
blood-thirsty oppressor brought matters to a crisis. 
Strengthened by the accession of these troops, he 
attempted to take possession with them of the Tem- 
plej and the city at once rose in arms. The Romans 
were met, fought with, and driven back to their 
strong-hold, Antonia ; the covered way from which 
to the Temple was immediately pulled down by the 
Jews, who stood, to a man, ready to perish in de- 
fence of the holy house. 

At this alarming juncture, Florus appealed to the 
Roman chief, Cestius Gallus, at Csesarea ; and but 
for the interposition of~Q,ueen Bernice, he would 
probably have succeeded in bringing on the imme- 
diate destruction of the city and people. Through her 
means Cestius was apprised of the true particulars ; 
and king Agrippa, soon afterwards arriving at Jeru- 
salem, successfully mediated between the contending 
parties. His address to the Jews is a most splendid 
piece, not so much of oratory as of argument, and 
produced a happy effect. They promised to return 
to obedience, paid up wnat remained due in the 
shape of exacted tribute, and even rebuilt the com- 
munication between Fort Antonia and the Temple. 
But Agrippa went further than the more fiery spirits 
among them could brook : he pleaded for an unlim- 
ited submission to the profane tyrant Florus ; and 



MEDIATION OP AGRIPPA. 21 

for this he was assaulted, and, in fact, expelled from 
the city. Naturally offended at so unreasonable a 
return for his good offices, the king abandoned the 
Jews to their fate, and thenceforth all was discord 
and desolation to the end. The Jews took by stra- 
tagem the strong-hold of Masada, slew the Roman 
garrison : and following the wrong counsel of Elea- 
zar, aTrash young man, son of the high-priest and 
governor of the Temple, they passed a resolution 
that alarmed all the sober-minded among them It 
had long been the custom to accept gifts from Gen- 
tiles of rank, on whose behalf they offered sacrifices 
in the Temple. Eleazar persuaded them to abolish 
this custom, in spite of the remonstrances of their 
principal men, who reminded them that the Lord's 
house was, to a great degree, enriched and adorned 
by such gifts from foreign princes, which their fore- 
fathers never refused, nor denied the intercessory 
service for any who so asked it. Indeed the records 
of Solomon, at the dedication of the first Temple, 
plainly imply as much. " Moreover, concerning the 
stranger which is not of thy people Israel, but is 
come from a far country for thy great name's sake, 
and thy mighty hand and thy stretched out arm ; if 
they come and pray in this house, then hear thou 
from the heavens, even from thy dwelling-place, and 
do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee 
for; that all people of the earth may know thy 
name, and fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and 
may know that this house which I have built is cal- 
led by thy name."* 

The most learned of their priests, men skilled in 
antiquarian research, came forward to attest the 

* 2 Chron. vi. 32, 33. 



22 JUD^A CAPTA. 

truth of these assertions, but in vain ; no man would 
hearken to them : and the unpardonable affront was 
put upon the Roman emperor of refusing any longer 
to do sacrifice for him. 

War was now inevitable ; the leaders saw it, and 
dreading the consequences, sent two embassies, one 
to Florus, the other to Agrippa, both of whom they 
invited to advance, and intimidate the turbulent 
party ere the aggressive movement should embrace 
the whole population. Florus, well pleased at the 
success of his satanic wiles, took no notice, hoping 
to see such a catastrophe as the pleaders apprehen- 
ded ; but Agrippa, in whose character at that period 
shone many noble traits, confirmatory of the favour- 
able impression that we gather from his interview 
with Paul, that he "believed the prophets," and 
therefore truly loved the Jewish people^ immediately 
despatched three thousand horsemen to the help of 
those who were labouring to preserve the country. 
Thus reinforced, the chief men seized on Zion, the 
upper city ; whence they also endeavoured to gain 
Moriah and the Temple. Eleazar, in possession of 
the latter, not only defended it, but daily attempted 
to retake Zion ; and for a whole week the conflict 
never flagged, neither party prevailing. But at the 
end of the week, hostilities, hitherto confined to the 
flinging of stones and darts, assumed a more fearful 
aspect ; fire was introduced, and palaces burned to 
the ground, including, in their destructive progress, 
the most valued archives, the ancient records, and, 
as Josephus says, the nerves of the city. The war- 
like party, misled by Eleazar, thus obtained advan- 
tages fatal to themselves ; they assaulted Fort An-- 
tonia, slew the garrison, and greatly damaged the 



DREADFUL SLAUGHTERS. 23 

citadel with fire ; then beseiged the royal pal- 
ace, where Agrippa's troops had fortified them- 
selves, with some of the Roman soldiers and 
many of the chief men, and endeavoured to batter 
it down. After a while, the besieged capitulated ; 
the Jews with their allies, were permitted to escape, 
but the Romans were hunted and slain without 
mercy, as also was the liigh priest himself. The 
principal perpetrator of these deeds was not Elea- 
zar, but Manahem, an ambitious Galilean, who on 
these successes aspired to kingly state ; and, under 
pretext of worshipping, endeavoured to seize on the 
Temple. He was resisted by Eleazar, his adherents 
routed, and himself slain. Finally, the Roman 
general, Metilius, who with a handful of soldiers 
still held a position, offered to surrender, on condition 
of being allowed to leave the city, unarmed, with his 
men. The turbulent party among the Jews, now 
triumphant over all opposers, consented ; and when 
the soldiers were disarmed, they, according to the 
history, slew every man of them, saving Metilius 
himself; who was spared in consideration of his 
offer to become a proselyte. 

While this took place in Jerusalem, on the very; 
same day, the Greeks and other aliens in Ccesarea 
rose against the Jews there, and, encouraged by 
Floras", massacred in one hour above twenty thou- 
sand helpless victims. Slaughter, to the uttermost 
of their power, on both sides, wherever the hostile 
nations met, became from this time the order of the 
day. The Jj^s jand Syrians maintained against 
each other a war of extermination ; the former being 
also internally divided, and the flame spread far and 
wide. At Alexandria, by the Romans, no fewer than 
_> 



24 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

fifty thousand Jews were put to death without re- 
gard to age or sex ; and in every place the nation, 
whether many or few, was found in arms to avenge 
these acts of butchery. 

At length Cestius Gallus put his army in motion, 
and accompanied by Agrippa himself, advanced 
through the land at the head of a mighty force, de- 
termined to take Jerusalem and end the war. He 
took Zabulon, a strong city of Galilee, with other 
places, among which was Joppa ; and having sub- 
dued the Jews in those parts, passed unresisted 
through Antipatris and Lydda ; not indeed from any 
slackening of the people's zeal against their inva- 
ders, but because all their males were assembled in 
the holy city, keeping the feast of Tabernacles ; 
and finally he pitched his camp within fifty furlongs 
of Jerusalem. Here a fierce sally from the gates 
endangered the whole Roman army ; and though 
ultimately repulsed, the Jews gave the besiegers no 
rest: breaking out upon them, dashing into their 
camp, carrying off their cattle, and other spoil; 
and when Agrippa tried his ancient influence as a 
mediator, they slew one of his ambassadors, and 
drove the other back, who scarcely saved himself by 
flight. This was the act of the turbulent party ; to 
others it occasioned bitter grief, and led to a division, 
in the midst of which Cestius took advantage to ap- 
proach as near as the hill Scopus, where he again 
encamped, only seven furlongs from the city. 
Thence he presently advanced, and took Bezetha, 
and had he followed up his manifest advantage, he 
might have put an immediate end to the war. In- 
stead of this, he suddenly, and without any apparent 
cause, raised the seigej withdrawing his whole army, 



BATTLES IN THE MOUNTAINS. 25 

to whom a great part of the inhabitants were al- 
ready prepared to open the gates, and retreating to 
Scopus. The Jews pursued him, falling on the 
rear, and also on the flank, of the Romans, who, dis- 
pirited by this strange movement of their general, 
were soon thrown into confusion. The retreat be- 
came a rout, the narrow passes and defiles through 
which they were obliged to march were overhung 
by the exulting Hebrews, who cast down upon them 
darts and missiles of every description ; and not only 
so, but in many instances the Jews, well acquainted 
with their country, pressed forward, took possession 
of these passes, and blocked them up mid-way, 
while another division from behind forced the enemy 
onward down the steep declivities, and in the lowest 
depth of those vallies fell upon them, as did their fa- 
thers of old upon the idolatrous nations of Canaan, 
making such fearful havoc that the mountain echos 
of Judea rang to an unwonted sound the cries, and 
wailings, and bitter lamentations of the iron-clad 
legions of Rome. These were again responded to 
by shouts of mingled joy and rage on the part of 
the Jews. It was a parenthesis in the long dark 
tale of their calamitous defeats ; it was as though 
once more it might be said of Israel, " The Lord his 
God is with him, and the shout of a King is amongst 
them." So complete was the rout, that Cestius only 
contrived by stratagem the rescue of his remaining 
forces, leaving as a prey to the victorious Jews those 
formidable engines that were designed to batter 
down the walls of the holy city ; together with an 
immense booty, and not less than five thousand six * 
hundred and eighty Roman warriors dead on the 
field. The Jews, finding it fruitless to pursue 



26 JUD2EA CAPTA. 

farther than Antipatris, returned to Jerusalem, hav- 
ing suffered scarcely any perceptible loss. 

When forewarning his disciples of what should 
come to pass, our Lord used these words : " And 
when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with ar- 
mies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. 
T'hen let them which are in Judea flee to the moun- 
tains, and let them which are in the midst of it de- 
part out, and let not them that are in the countries 
enter thereinto ; for these be the days of vengeance, 
that all things which are written may be fulfilled." 
Seeing how isolated is the position of Jerusalem, 
how conspicuous, and how completely under the eye 
of an encompassing army, a signal miracle would 
have been requisite to the fulfilment of this com- 
mand, unless such an opening as that unconsciously 
afforded by the infatuated Celsius had appeared. 
The Christian Jews in the city amounted to many 
thousands, even long before this time, often enjoying 
a fair measure of religious toleration, as it would 
seem ; for they were all stedfast in the observance 
of their law, as the evangelist tells us that they had 
been from the first, when " they, continuing daily 
with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread 
from house to house, did eat their meat with single- 
ness of heart, praising God, and having favour with 
all the people."* 

It is alike erroneous, though very common, to con- 
sider these believers as a mere handful, and to re- 
gard them as separated from their brethren after the 
flesh. They were exceedingly numerous, and they 
were strict observers of the Mosaic ritual, having 
the same testimony that Paul bore to his inoffensive- 

* Acts ii. 46, 47. 



CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM. 27 

ness, " Neither against the law of the Jews, neither 
against the Temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I 
offended anything at all." Such being their position, 
they were free to act as they saw good ; and when 
they beheld the armies that had compassed Jerusa- 
lem drawn off, and not only an unobstructed passage 
opened, but the warlike population of the city pouring 
out at every gate in hot pursuit of the retreating foe, 
they knew that the hour was come, that they must 
not pause, nor lose a moment's time, but hasten 
away to the more distant mountains. ,Their flight 
was not in the winter, neither was it on the Sabbath 
day, but hasty indeed it must have been ; and with 
what unutterable anguish of spirit must they have 
looked back on the proud, unbroken bulwarks of Zion, 
the streets of Jerusalem, already stained with the gore 
of her children slain in civil warfare, the dazzling 
splendour of that majestic edifice that crowned the 
mountain of the house of the LORD ! Too well they 
knew that the drawn sword of the angel, once sheathed 
at the intercession of David, when there he stood by 
the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, was 
again pointing, suspended over the beloved, the 
guilty city, to smite and to destroy to the uttermost ; 
for now were the days of vengeance come, when 
every lawful prophecy must receive its fulfilment ; 
and, Jews as they were to the inmost core of their 
devoted hearts, how must the laments of the patriot 
prophet Jeremiah have resounded from their lips, 
as weeping they pursued their way. Appalling as 
had been the scenes of the last few months within 
those walls, freely as blood had flowed on every 
side, the hand of many a Hebrew being against 
his brother, still, how dear, how sacred, were the 
3* 



28 JUD^A CAPTA. 



very stones, soon to be thrown down in utter ruin, 
how unutterably precious that stately house of God 
where they had walked in unity, and taken sweet 
counsel together ! Accustomed as we are to witness 
the breaking of all national and domestic ties when 
a Jew believes and is baptized in the name of Jesus 
of Nazareth, we can scarcely conceive what must 
have been the feelings of such a Jew, living in peace 
and harmony in the midst of all his brethren, uniting 
in their daily services, holding sacred all that had 
been of old ordained, keeping holy with their nation 
from all parts of the world the feasts of the LORD, 
and regarding their Zion, " the city of their solem- 
nities," as established to be the joy of the whole 
earth, now leaving it, leaving it for ever, leaving it 
to defilement, to destruction, to the desolations of 
many generations, we have no hearts to sympa- 
thize with them, not entering, as we ought to do, and 
as they did, into the very depths of their divine 
Master's weeping compassion, when he foretold 
what they now beheld : " The days shall come upon 
thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about 
thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on 
every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, 
and thy children within thee ; and they shall not 
leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou 
knewest not the time of thy visitation." 

Yes, they went forth ; and as they went the tow- 
ers of Zion lessened on their backward gaze, the 
burnished gold of the LORD'S house grew dim, the 
circuit of the walls became an indistinct outline, and 
soon, too soon, the swelling hills shut out even that 
faint vision of the holy city. Then burst forth the 
wail that would no longer be hushed, and those poor 



A SAD FAREWELL. 29 

exiles, while humbly rejoicing in the rescuing mercy 
of the Lord, extended to them and to their little ones, 
went on their way, lamenting for her who was to be 
the spoiler's prey. " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 
let my right hand forget !" 



JTJDJEA CAPTA. 



CHAPTER III. 

WHILE the men of Jerusalem were making havoc 
of the Roman army on its retreat, a most flagitious, 
but not unusual act of cowardly revenge was in 
contemplation at Damascus, where ten thousand in- 
offensive, unarmed, and imprisoned Jews were deli- 
berately butchered in cold blood, by the murderous 
knife, in one hour's time. This, of course heightened 
the exasperation of their brethren, who proceeded 
to put Jerusalem and all Judsea into the most defen- 
sive state possible, choosing generals for the various 
provinces, and exhibiting inflexible determination 
to retain that independence, yea, to recover that su- 
periority, which was of old the gift of the Most 
High to the chosen nation. But in the midst of this 
enterprising display, deep sadness possessed the 
minds of the most reflecting portion, while such as 
looked for signs from heaven found many confirma- 
tions of their worst fears. Selfish, rapacious, and 
tyrannical men began as in circumstances of popular 
distress such characters are always found to do to 
gather followers around them, who became har- 
dened by degrees, until they were proof alike against 
the pleadings of religious and of natural feeling, 
seeking their own advantage amid the public wreck. 
Meanwhile the disastrous tidings of Celsus' strange 
mismanagement and defeat, reached the seat of em- 



PREDICTIONS FULFILLED. 31 

pire ; and Nero, satisfied that such a people as the 
Jews had shown themselves to be, would not quail 
before any but extraordinary demonstrations of 
power, gave the command to Vespasian, as the 
bravest and the ablest veteran that Rome could fur- 
nish. Assisted by his son Titus, this general soon 
marshalled an army fully equal to the conquest of a 
much more extensive territory, the capture of a 
stronger city, and the subversion of a more power- 
ful people than those against whom they were sent ; 
insufficient to over-run a rood of Judaea's soil, to shake 
a single stone in the walls of Jerusalem, or to injure a 
hair on the head of a Jewish child, unless the Lord 
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, had been 
wroth with his inheritance, and rejected as repro- 
bate silver his transgressing people, making good 
the menace spoken many ages before, in the pros- 
pect of this day of provocation and overwhelming 
calamity " I will heap mischiefs upon them ; I will 
spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt 
with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and 
with bitter destruction. I will also send the teeth of 
beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the 
dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall 
destroy both the young man and the virgin, the 
suckling also with the man of grey hairs." 

Far be it from the writer, far from every reader 
of these pages, to review with complacent acquies- 
cence the terrible dealings of the Most High with 
his ancient nation. No, judgment is his strange 
work; he has not, nor ever could have, any plea- 
sure in the death of the wicked, and ill indeed does 
it become any one bearing the name of Christian to 
take up as a matter of amusement, or as an indif- 



32 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

ferent thing, or as a pleasing spectacle of divine re- 
tribution, the tale of that over which, in its prospect 
Jesus wept tears of yearning sorrow. Neither is it 
safe so to do ; for in the same sublime song of Mo- 
ses just quoted, we find assurances that the LORD, 
though he deliver up his people for their transgres- 
sions, will yet avenge upon their adversaries the 
cruelties perpetrated against them, with a marked 
distinction in favour of such as extend sympathy to 
his scattered flock. " Rejoice, O ye nations, with his 
people ; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, 
and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and 
will be merciful unto his land and to his people." 
And again is the promise given to the friends of af- 
flicted Judah : " Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be 
glad with her, all ye that love her ; rejoice for joy 
with her all ye that mourn for her, that ye may suck 
and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, 
that ye may milk out and be delighted with the 
abundance of her glory." 

True it is that an awful sense of departure from 
the pure faith of the Holy Scriptures, and from the 
practice resulting therefrom, marked the epoch of 
which we treat, while sin abounded on all sides, and 
in many forms. Still we are fully persuaded that 
all the darker shades of the picture have been grie- 
vously blackened over, first by the foreign influence 
under which Josephus wrote, who supplied the key- 
note to succeeding historians ; and latterly by the 
self-excusing bitterness of chroniclers among the 
earlier Gentile Christians, who had already imbibed, 
with the milk of Rome's semi-pagan Christianity, 
her unswerving hatred of the Jews, gradually souring 
into its present state of papal anti-christianism. We 



CALUMNIES OF JOSEPHUS. 33 

do not credit the half of what is thus handed down 
as history, in reference to the dreadful scenes too 
certainly enacted within the holy city ; we will re- 
tail no more of it than is necessary to the plainly 
authentic narrative of what was accomplished from 
without. We see no practical use in heaping con- 
demnation on a race of our elder brethren long since 
gathered to the dust, and representing them as 
something worse than devils in human form. We 
know that they walked contrary to God, because, 
unless they had done so, the fearful curses already 
referred to would not have come upon them, as they 
did. to the uttermost ; but with the tales of Josephus 
and his successors of the outrageous crimes com- 
mitted, the more than maniac, the truly diabolical 
acts of wanton ferocity perpetrated against them- 
selves in the midst of the besieged city, we cannot 
soil our pages, nor harden our own, and our readers' 
hearts. 

The Roman army was equipped for this expedition 
with all that the consummate skill in manslaughter 
by which the iron empire had established itself upon 
the earth could suggest. It is described in the pro- 
phetic Word as a beast, which, unlike the Assyrian 
lion, the Persian bear,and the Grecian leopard, belong- 
ed to no known race, but was " dreadful and terrible, 
and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth ; 
it devoured, and brake in pieces, and stamped the 
residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from 
all the beasts that were before it." Such, to the 
view of Daniel, was the Roman empire ; such it has 
proved to be, whether regarded in its ancient and 
temporal, or in its modern and spiritual aspect, and 
such, in an especial manner, has it ever been to 



34 JUD^A CAPTA. 

Israel. As a beast to which a man's heart was 
never given, this power has scattered, and still scat- 
ters, the " holy people " of Daniel, the Jews ; and 
it may be interesting to trace the particulars of the 
array in which the army of this beast went forth 
against the couchant lion of Judaea, to hunt and to 
drag him to its imperial den. 

Nothing could be more admirably conceived than 
the arrangement of the Roman troops, already from 
their very infancy inured to every description of mar- 
tial practice, conducted with the most scrupulous re- 
gard to exact discipline, silence, order arid despatch. 
Josephus aptly says that their excejcises might be 
called unbloody battles, and their battles bloody ex- 
ercises. War was to them a science, the first of 
sciences, and the main study of their lives. Men's 
praises formed their earthly heaven, beyond which 
they looked not disgrace in the world's sight the 
only hell they found. When a Roman soldier 
marched forth on a campaign, he believed himself to 
be laudably fulfilling the first end of his existence ; 
and never w r as he so glorious in his own eyes as 
when reeking with the blood of the slain, and bend- 
ing under the weight of spoil rent from the peaceful 
dwellings of an enemy's country, all being his le- 
gitimate enemies who were not tributary to Rome, 
lying still and motionless beneath the imperial hoof. 
His bodily array was excellently adapted for the 
work that he undertook, the foot soldiers being 
armed with cuirass and helmet, on their left side a 
long sword, on their right a dagger. A long buck- 
ler rested on the arm, sufficient to protect their 
bodies from hostile darts, and these bucklers they 
often turned to singular use in assaulting a wall, as 



ENGINES OF DESTRUCTION. 35 

we shall hereafter see ; a keen spear was in their 
hands, and in a basket each man carried a saw, a 
pick-axe, an axe, and a stout throng of leather with 
a hook attached, besides three days' provisions. 
The cavalry were similarly protected by helm and 
cuirass, having a long sword on the right side, a 
shield resting obliquely against the horse's body, a 
quiver containing darts with heads equally broad as 
a spear's point, and a long pole in their hand. Thus 
equipped, the general being at their head, and the 
last of the trumpet-signals having sounded, a crier, 
stationed at the general's right hand, thrice put the 
question, Were they now ready to go forth to war 
or not ? A universal shout of " We are ready," 
then burst forth, accompanied with the elevation of 
their right hands, and under the enthusiastic feeling 
thus excited they set forward. 

Arrived at a suitable position for encamping, the 
order in which they did so was no less striking. 
When on hostile ground, they not only pitched their 
tents with the exactness of a well-planned town, but 
walled the camp around. If the ground presented 
an irregular surface they levelled it, and having 
placed the general's tent, much like a temple, in the 
exact centre, surrounded by those of the inferior 
commanders, they ranged the other tents in streets, 
with mathematical precision ; forming four gates, 
and strengthening the outer wall with towers, be- 
tween which they placed the engines so terribly effi- 
cacious in their campaigns. These consisted princi- 
pally of the battering-ram and the catapult. The 
former was an enormous beam of wood, ai the end 
of which was a solid piece of iron, shaped like a 
ram's head ; and this being slung with considerable 
4 ~ 



art in a suitable framework was pulled back, by the 
united strengh of many men, as far as it would strain^ 
and then allowed to swing forward with an impetus 
that drove the iron head so violently against any op- 
posing substance as quickly to batter down the stout- 
est wall by its rapidly-repeated strokes. The catapult 
was yet more terrible ; resembling an immense cross- 
bow, it had power to hurl with irresistible violence 
not only darts, but huge stones, fragments of rock, 
bars of iron, and every destructive missile that could 
be collected. A shot from one of these deadly en- 
gines could level a tower, and literally dash to frag- 
ments a body of men, scattering them in the air like 
straws. Such were some of the munitions of war 
contained in a Roman camp. When we add to this 
the clock-work regularity with which every order 
was issued, every action performed, every meal 
served up, and even the morning and evening salu- 
tations of officers and men interchanged, it is not 
possible to conceive a more exquisite picture of per- 
fect discipline, comfort, and mutual confidence, than 
that which existed in a Roman camp. It was evi- 
dently formed on the perfection of all models, that 
of Israel in the wilderness. 

When a position was to be abandoned, the men 
having marched out with all their personal equip- 
ments and weapons of every kind, the camp was 
fired, and burnt to the ground ; thus at once ridding 
the army of a considerable incumbrance, saving 
much valuable time, and depriving the enemy of 
such advantages as might result from spoiling, or 
from converting to his own use what had been 
erected. The extent of their encampments, and con- 
sequently the charred ruin that remained, combined 



ROMAN AMBITION. 37 

with the plunder of surrounding districts to supply 
their need, gives singular force to the prophet's de- 
scription : " A fire devoureth before them ; and be- 
hind them a flame burneth ; the land is as the gar- 
den of Eden before them, and behind them a deso- 
late wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape 
them." " It devoured and brake in pieces, and 
stamped the residue with the feet of it." 

Considering the object for which man was made, 
that he might glorify his righteous Creator, whose 
tender mercies are over all his works ; who desireth 
not the death of a sinner, and who never willingly 
afflicts the children of men, it is indeed an awful 
contempletion to trace the triumph of Satan through 
succeeding ages in the most powerful empire that 
ever arose upon earth, making it the one end of 
every man's being to hurt and to destroy his fellow- 
men. Conquest, for its own sake, was the continual 
pursuit of the Romans. A fierce and cruel ambi- 
tion, a desire to wade to the chief places in every 
nation through the blood of its people, a determina- 
tion to endure no equal in the ferocious art of homi- 
cide, and a vaunting confidence in their own unap- 
proachable pre-eminence in that horrid trade, com- 
bined to form the character of the race, who cer- 
tainly deserve to hold the highest rank among the 
destroyers of their kind. We have dwelt on the 
spectacle of their military armaments not for any 
gratification to be derived therefrom. God forbid ! 
but because they and their proceedings were so mi- 
nutely described in various parts of the prophetic 
Word as to render it a commentary on holy writ ; 
more especially when such a host went forth to ex- 
ecute judgment upon a people whose ancient prero- 



38 JUD^A CAPTA. 

gative it was to root out from the face of the earth 
nations defiling it by their abominable idolatries. 
To us it is also interesting, inasmuch as these very 
Romans, commanded by Vespasian, had been mak- 
ing havoc of our own forefathers, and drenching 
Britain in the blood of her children. The ground 
beneath our feet has echoed to the tramp of these 
steel-clad armies ; and in our rural walks we fre- 
quently may trace the well-marked boundary ot 
some such camp as has been here described ; with 
its rampart mound, its external fosse, and other re- 
mains surviving the havoc of eighteen centuries. 
But never did the hosts of Rome go forth to a work 
so fearful as that which led them to make Judsea a 
spoil, and Jerusalem a prey. Josephus, after giving 
a minute account of what we have briefly sketched, 
significantly adds, that he did it "not so much with 
the intention of commending the Romans as of com- 
forting those that have been conquered by them ; 
and for the deterring of others from attempting in- 
novations under their government" We, therefore, 
make due allowance for exaggeration, where the 
proposed object was to show how " dreadful and ter- 
rible, and strong exceedingly," was the Roman 
beast ; but genuine history fully confirms his state- 
ment of their military aspect, order of march, and 
plan of encampment. 

From Antioch, the capital of Syria, Vespasian led 
his army to Ptolemais, where Titus joined him with 
another host ; and they marched at once upon Gali- 
lee in the following order. The auxiliaries, more 
lightly armed than the Roman soldiers, with the 
body of archers, formed the van ; keeping somewhat 
in advance^ that they might carefully explore the 



ORDER OF MARCH. 39 

country, and give notice of any hostile or other ob- 
struction ; searching especially where the nature of 
the ground admitted some possible ambuscade. 
Next came that portion of the army which was clad 
in complete armour; then a company formed by 
drafting ten out of every hundred men, whose busi- 
ness it was to measure out and adjust the camp ; for 
which they carried tj^e requisite implements in ad- 
dition to their arms. Pioneers, prepared to advance 
and level the ground, or otherwise to remove what- 
ever might obstruct the march, formed the next di- 
vision ; after whom came the carriages of the gene- 
ral and subordinate commanders, guarded by a 
company of horsemen 5 and then Vespasian himself, 
with a select escort, immediately followed by his 
own cavalry, a peculiar corps chosen out of every 
legion. After these came the mules, heavily laden 
with those ponderous articles already specified, 
which, when put together, formed the engines for a 
siege. Commanders of cohorts, and tribunes, guarded 
by another picked band, succeeded ; and after them 
the military ensigns, surrounding " the abomination 
of desolation," the imperial Eagle, held most sacred 
by the superstitious pagans, whose vain fables 
armed it with the thunder of their principal demon- 
god. The trumpeters held their station close upon 
these ensigns, immediately preceding the main body 
of the army, formed in squadrons and battalions six 
deep ; a single centurion bringing up the rear. A 
mixed multitude, mercenaries and irregular troops, 
servants, muleteers, and plundering vagrants ready 
to fly upon any spoil, completed this fearful array ; 
and the first place on which they seized was the city 

of the Gadarenes ; the place where, terrified by the 
4* 



40 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

destruction of their swine, the inhabitants had met 
Jesus, and besought him to depart out of their 
coasts. Alas ! a far different visitation had now be- 
fallen them. Vespasian took the place at the first 
onset, and delivered over to the sword the youths, 
women, and children, whom he found therein ; the 
men being nearly all absent, probably being gone 
up to one of the great feasts at Jerusalem. In like 
manner were the surrounding villages pillaged, 
burnt, and covered with slaughtered bodies ; all who 
were not butchered being carried into slavery. It 
seemed a prosperous beginning, and promising him 
an easy conquest of the whole land ; and, elated 
with his success, he marched forward to capture 
Jotapata, a fortified town, which he could not safely 
leave in the rear of his army. 



CITY OF JOTAPATA. 41 



CHAPTER IV. 

THIS city of Jotapata, which besides its natural 
strength of position, was well fortified, and garri- 
soned by a determined body of Jews under Josepkus, 
proved a formidable obstacle in the invader's path. 
For no less than forty-seven days did the heroic de- 
fenders baffle all that Roman might, craft, and vio- 
lence could bring to bear against them. The ut- 
most force of their arms, every stratagem, and every 
conceivable species of barbarity, proved ineffectual 
to conquer the resolution of those devoted Jews. 
When first the enemy placed themselves in triple 
array round the city, with a terrible display of their 
commanding force, the Jews leaped out over the walls, 
fell on them, and maintained a desperate battle till 
night parted them, when they retired within their 
gates ; but on the following morning they again sal- 
lied forth, and in like manner for five days repeated 
the assault on the Roman lines. To estimate aright 
the courage of its defenders, we must bear in mind 
that the city stood on an exceedingly high hill, sur- 
rounded by other mountains that completely en- 
closed it. On all sides this hill was precipitous, ex- 
cepting the north, where a gradual slope terminated 
in a plain ; and some part of the city was built on 
the descent. Josephus had encompassed the lower 
ground with a wall for additional security. It was 



42 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

over this rampart that the Jews flung themselves 
in headlong determination upon the besiegers ; 
while from the upper heights their wives, children, 
parents, were spectators of the deadly combat Ves- 
pasian found it necessary to call a council of war 
for deliberation, which ended in despatching the 
men in all directions to fell the timber on the sur- 
rounding mountains, to collect large stones, and 
bring together whatever might assist in forming a 
bank, and storming the city. In the prosecution of 
this work, the very hillocks were torn down, and 
brought in heaps of earth to the spot, where power- 
ful and expert hands moulded them into an embank- 
ment ; while under cover of hurdles formed of the 
branches of trees just felled, the engines, the batter- 
ing ram, catapult, and other formidable implements 
of assault, were advantageously placed. But the 
Jews were not idle : they hurled large stones and 
framents of rock from their intrenchments upon the 
workmen, breaking the protecting hurdles, and crush- 
ing the men ; or by well directed showers of darts 
drove them from their posts. 

In the face of this opposition, the Romans suc- 
ceeded in planting a hundred and sixty engines 
against the hill, and from these they threw up not 
only stones and ordinary darts, but lances mixed with 
masses of combustible matter ignited, and sent in 
showers upon the wall, whence its defenders were 
presently driven ; but without advantage to the ene- 
my : for now they made separate sallies, coming un- 
expectedly in small bands upon detached parts of 
the outworks, tearing away the hurdles, and slaying 
the workmen. This compelled Vespasian to inter- 
mit the assault, in order to strengthen his works and 



DEFENSIVE STRATAGEM. 43 

accomplish a nearer approach to the walls, while 
the Jews, with equal celerity, improved their de- 
fences. They stretched the flexible hides of newly 
slain oxen upon strong stakes, which, yielding mo- 
mentarily to the blow, allowed the heavy missiles to 
expend their force, and completely protected the 
garrison in their new occupation of raising the wall 
to the height of twenty cubits. Even fire proved 
harmless against the hides ; they were too moist to 
ignite, and in the very teeth of the amazed and mor- 
tified assailants, strong towers were added, with bat- 
tlements along the whole ridge of wall : this being 
done, the sallies were renewed with fresh vigour; 
while Vespasian resolved to remain quiet, acting 
only on the defensive, until the city should be starved 
into a surrender. His principal hope was built on 
the probable failure of water within the walls ; and 
of this there was present danger ; but the children 
of Israel, preferring death in battle to the lingering 
agonies of starvation, by a desperate stratagem de- 
luded the enemy on this point, they saturated their 
garments with fresh water, now becoming scarce, 
and hung them on the battlements to dry. The Ro- 
mans, amazed to see the precious element running 
profusely down the walls, concluded that they had 
some inexhaustible supply, and no longer hoping to 
famish them, renewed the attack. Some daring in- 
dividuals also had contrived to lower themselves 
down a precipice so steep that the besiegers never 
dreamed of guarding its foot, and, covered with 
sheepskins, crept warily through the woods, bring- 
ing home supplies from their brethren in the neigh- 
bouring vallies. The accidental discovery of this 
stratagem convinced Vespasian that he must take 



44 JUD^A CAPTA. 

the city, or lose more time before it than he could 
afford. At this juncture Josephus resolved to get 
away secretly, and provide for his own safety ; but 
his design being discovered, the agony of the peo- 
ple, old men, children, and women with infants in 
their arms, throwing themselves at his feet with bit- 
ter cries and lamentations, imploring him to remain, 
and, as he confesses, leading him to fear that if he 
did not yield he would be detained by force, prevailed 
against his selfish project. He armed himself with 
the general despair, and told them now was the time 
to begin to fight in earnest, when no hope of deliv- 
erence remained. " 'Tis a brave thing," said he, 
" to prefer glory before life, and to set about some such 
noble undertaking as may be remembered by poster- 
ity." It is remembered by posterity, but with how 
different a feeling from that excited by the conduct of 
Nehemiah, or the many ancient worthies of Israel 
who wrought mighty deeds by faith in the God of 
their father Abraham ! Out of his own mouth we 
are compelled to judge this degenerate Hebrew, who 
mocked with the pagan cant of fame and glory the 
ears of his perishing people. After uttering these 
vain words, he headed a sally of unprecedented dar- 
ing. Dispersing the enemy from before the walls, 
they cut their way to the very camp, and tore the 
covering from many tents before they were repulsed. 
In all these encounters the heavy armour of the Ro- 
mans proved an encumbrance to them, enabling the 
Jews, at will, to regain their walls, and take breath 
in the bosom of their mountain home. Their most 
effective assailants were the Arabian archers and Sy- 
rian slingers, the sons of Ishmael inflicted many a 
wound on the children of Isaac. Still the balance 



STORMING OF JOTAPATA. 45 

appeared favourable to the besieged, and Vespasian 
decided on bringing up his last resort, the terrible 
battering-ram. A number of their ordinary engines 
were ranged before the most assailable point of the 
bulwarks ; archers and slingers stood beside them, 
and under their galling discharge the Jews were 
driven behind the battlements ; while, cased in a 
framework of hurdles, and further protected by a 
thick covering of skins, the ram was planted, and 
the first fierce blow of its enormous iron head caused 
that hastily-built wall to totter to its foundation. 
Terror and dismay siezed on the citizens, but the 
garrison speedily devised an adequate defence. 
Filling large sacks with chaff, they slung them 
thickly over the wall, and the strokes of the ram fell 
as powerless upon these soft bodies as had the earlier 
missiles against the fresh hides. The Romans re- 
moved the ram ; the Jews, with equal celerity, dis- 
placed their sacks, and fortified with them whatsoever 
part of the wall was menaced. Then came the 
iron hooks of the soldiery into requisition ; they fixed 
them on long poles, and so tore down the sacks, 
giving full effect to the blows of the deadly engine. 
Immediately the Jews, forsaking the wall, burst out 
in three several places, armed with burning torches ; 
one party setting fire to the banks, another to the 
hurdles, and the third to the machine itself. Sulphur, 
bitumen, and pitch, were among the materials abun- 
dantly used by the assailants, together with vast 
quantities of dry wood. On these the flames seized, 
a gulph of fire interposed between the enemy and 
their most important works, rendering approach im- 
possible, and in one hour the work of many toilsome 
days and nights was consumed to ashes. 



46 JUDJEA CAPTA. 

In the midst of this achievement, Eleazer, a Ga- 
lilean Jew, took so correct an aim from the wall 
with an immense stone, that he broke off the iron 
ram's-head from the beam, then descending, caugh 
it up, and bore it in triumph to the battlements, 
amid a shower of darts. There, mortally wounded, 
he stood exultingly in the face of the enraged be- 
siegers, until, pierced with many shafts, he fell down 
dead, still grasping his trophy. The fire having 
spent itself, they proceeded to repair their loss, and 
again erected the ram against the same point. 
Here Vespasian was slightly wounded, an event 
that stimulated his army to renewed efforts. The 
Jews, meanwhile, though falling dead in heaps, 
ceased not to assail the ram, and those who worked 
it, with stones, darts, fire, and every possible instru- 
ment of offensive warfare. They effected little, and 
suffered much ; the lights that they bore rendered 
them, as night closed, clear marks for hostile archery, 
while darkness, resting on the engines and their 
guards, baffled the assailants' eye. That was a 
fearful night! the thundering strokes of the ram, 
and vollies of immense stones, darts, and human 
bodies continually hurled against the walls, were re- 
sponded to by the cries of terrified women and chil- 
dren, the shrieks of their despair, and the deep 
groans of the dying, who knew that they fell in vain. 
These mingled sounds, swelled by the Roman shout 
of menacing, exulting rage, were caught up by a 
thousand mountain echoes and reverberated again 
and again ; affrighting those once peaceful, once 
happy, once most blessed retreats, where Hebrew 
shepherds were wont to pasture their flocks, and the 
maidens of Israel to breathe in sacred dances, the 



DESPERATE DEFENCE. 47 

praises of the Lord. We cannot dwell on the awfully 
graphic details that follow, we must hasten onward. 
The breach was made, and the Jewish commander, 
preparatory to one last, desperate defensive exploit, 
ordered the women to be shut up in their houses, lest 
the sight of their despairing terror should unman the 
garrison ; for when they saw the walls cast down, 
and the terrible array beyond of armed foes, to whom 
the very name of mercy was unknown, they uttered 
an outcry so piercing that it might well melt into 
more than woman's softness the heart of man. Ay, 
the hearts of Judah's men ; the Roman beast, the 
" dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly," 
had no heart for any plea to move. 

The ladders were planted, all the trumpets gave 
out at once their loudest blast, and on came the iron 
legions in irresistible array, with a shout so overpow- 
ering that the Jews stopped their ears from hearing 
it, while they bent their bodies to elude a volley of 
darts actually intercepting the light of day around 
them by its density. They then burst out once more, 
to encounter the steadily-advancing foe, and choked 
up the pathway with their dead and dying bodies. 
They fell in vain. On came the legions still, and 
all was then lost, had not another daring act of des- 
peration checked their progress. Numbers of the 
Jews flew to their stores, and filling every iron pot they 
could find with oil, heated it to a boiling pitch, and 
poured it on the Romans, flinging the burning ves- 
sels after it. While this unexpected manoeuvre took 
effect on the enemy's van, whose sudden retreat, 
writhing in torture, threw the rest into confusion, the 
Jews mads the most of the interval to cover the steep 
with grease ; so that on rallying to the charge, the 
5 



48 JUDJEA CAPTA. 

heavily-armed assailants were unable to man tain a 
footing on the slippery ground, but fell backward on 
their comrades, and on the engines, and banks, where 
they were slaughtered to a great amount : insomuch 
that Vespasian, instead of planting his ensign on the 
height of Jotopata, was compelled to call in his forces, 
and secure them within their entrenchments ; nor 
did he resume the storming of the city, convinced 
that it would be necessary first to elevate his banks 
above the level of the walls, and to erect towers of 
such commanding height that no weapon from below 
might reach the men stationed on their battlements. 
This occupied some days, and how long the besieged 
might have protracted their intrepid defence none 
can say ; tTJffiCJtoy from within accomplished what 
the mighty armament of Rome could not, in more 
than six weeks' struggle, achieve. A deserter from 
the city betrayed its actual condition, and directed 
Vespasian to take it by surprise. They entered it 
in the night, slaughtered the watch in silence, and 
before day dawned were masters of the place ; unsus- 
pected by the sleeping inhabitants, who woke but to 
perish by the hands of the merciless foe. A strange 
heavy mist overspread the scene, as though that 
work of blood were too piteous for the face of heav- 
en to look upon. Confused in a dense cloud, naked, 
helpless, hopeless, unable to offer any defence, and 
without taking the life of an assailant, the men of 
Jotopata offered their necks to the savage soldiers 
whose weapons glanced on their awakening eyes. 
Not one was spared ; on that day all were put to 
death who could be openly seen, and the victors 
rested to ravage in the spoil. On the following day 
a strict search was instituted into every cavern and 



THE CLOSING MASSACRE. 49 

possible hiding-place, whence many more were drag- 
ged forth and butchered. Josephus himself, and one 
companion were spared. Twelve hundred desolate 
women and little babes were reserved for captivity, 
far, far worse than death. Forty thousand Jewish 
men and youths had shed their blood in the defence, 
and in the massacre that ended it. The city was 
demolished, the wall was razed, and the silence of 
death soon reigned unbroken around. 

" Oh that mine eyes were waters, and my head a 
fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night 
for the slain of the daughter of my people !" 



60 JUDAEA CAPTA. 



CHAPTER V. 

IT is not our purpose to follow the Roman invader 
step by step in his career of blood, nor to trace the 
alternate workings of brute courage and dastardly 
fear in his sanguinary proceedings* We pass over 
the successive outrages perpetrated at Joppa, and in 
Tarichsea ; but at the sea-fight on Genesareth, and its 
results, we must pause for a moment. Tarichsea stood 
upon its borders, and when Titus, to whose lot it fell to 
command there, had desolated it to his satisfaction, 
he found that a great number of the inhabitants had 
fled to their little ships, and were sailing on the lake, 
or sea, of Tiberias, in the vain hope of ultimately 
escaping. On this he despatched a messenger to 
his father, who immediately joined him, directing 
the equipment of a number of vessels for the pursuit. 

Against these vessels, fitted for the purpose and 
manned by Roman soMiery, the poor fugitives could 
not possibly offer any effectual resistance ; they, 
however, did their best, mano3uvring on the water, 
casting stones at the enemy, which harmlessly re- 
bounded from their iron mail, and receiving in their 
own defenceless bodies the Roman darts. When 
some determined crew dared an enemy's crew to the 



MARINE MASSACRE. 51 

fight, the latter caught up long poles, with which 
they reached them, thrust them through, or forced 
them overboard, or, leaping furiously into their frail 
barks, slew them with the sword. Frequently they 
ran down upon one of the " little ships," breaking it 
in the middle by the violence of the shock, and 
when the drowning crew lifted up their hands in 
supplication for mercy, they received such mercy as 
Rome is ever wont to extend, those pleading hands 
were presently chopped off by the savage soldiers, 
and the heads that rose above the blood-stained 
waters were mown like grass by the sweep of the 
glittering sword. Some, wrecked in their shattered 
vessels on the shore, leaped to land ; others gained 
it by swimming, and ere they could recover breath, 
or stand on the defensive, they were slaughtered by 
the troops who thronged the margin of the lake. 
Not one escaped. ^ Six thousand five hundred man-'! 
gled bodies polluted file water, or sweltered in cor-j 
ruption on its banks. Capernaum, one of the love- 
liest and most fertile tracts of country under heaven, 
was rendered loathsome by the exhalations that 
poisoned the air, while the piteous spectacle of those 
ghastly and swollen bodies, outstretched beneath the 
glaring sun, the miserable wrecks of their poor 
broken navy, and the ripple of blood, rather than 
water, upon the verdant shore, gemmed as it was 
with flowers and shrubs of glorious beauty, even to 
the point where that crimson ripple paused, wrung 
exclamations of compassion, it is said, even from 

5* 



52 JUD^A CAPTA. 



the Roman manslayers, whose hands had wrought 
the ruin. 

Tarichsea was peopled, when Titus advanced upon 
it, by a mingled, but not united, population, com- 
posed of its original inhabitants and a body of for- 
eigners whose presence they deprecated. These 
latter had offered the resistance that exasperated 
Titus, while the former showed all willingness to 
submit to the Roman, and even fell unresistingly in 
the slaughter, so that a great number of them were 
spared as having given no offence, and reserved by 
Titus for the decision of his father. Vespasian, after 
witnessing the marine massacre, and ascertaining 
that none survived excepting these captives, as- 
cended the tribunal, surrounded by his chief officers, 
to determine their fate. He seemed somewhat in- 
clined to spare them, but those about him argued, 
first, that nothing could be unjust or impious that 
was perpetrated against Jews ; and, secondly, that ex- 
pediency required their destruction, lest they might 
hereafter revolt and give him trouble. The deed 
suggested that of a promiscuous slaughter, in cold 
blood, of a multitude of innocent, unoffending sup- 
pliants, whose safety he had already guaranteed ap- 
peared too infamous for even a Roman general to 
engage in, while the heart-rending spectacle above 
described lay outspread before them ; he, therefore, 
anxious to avoid rousing the whole country against 
him, used a little dissimulation, leading the victims 
to believe that their lives were given them for o 
prey, and directing them to leave the place, but by 



VESPASIAN'S TREACHERY. 53 

no other road than that which led to Tiberias. The 
poor creatures, rejoicing in their escape, collected 
their moveable property and departed for Tiberias, 
which was immediately surrounded by the army 
who suffered no one to leave it until Vespasian him- 
self arrived, personally to superintend the execution 
of his fiendish plan. He commanded the whole 
body of fugitives to be assembled in the stadium, 
and there directed the immediate murder of the old 
men and such as he deemed useless, in the presence ; 
of their agonized families, to the number of twelve 
hundred; from the young men he selected six 
thousand of the strongest, and sent them to Nero, 
to dig through the isthmus. Thirty thousand four 
hundred he sold for slaves to whosoever would pur- 
chase them, making a present to King Agrippa of a 
large number, his own subjects, with free leave to 
dispose of them, as he pleased ; but Agrippa, to his 
shame and everlasting disgrace, sold these also to 
slavery. 

It is not possible to leave this heart-rending scene 
without recalling the time back, a few years pre- 
viously, when the waters of that lake, Genneserath, 
roused into a storm that threatened the existence of 
some little ships proceeding towards the shores of 
Capernaum, were stilled at once into perfect peace 
at the command of Jesus ; of him who came not to 
destroy men, but to save ; of him who went about 
through all those coasts performing miracles of heal 
ing, forewarning the impenitent of coming woes, and 
teaching the things that pertain to the kingdom of 



54 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

God. Far be it from us to charge upon a distant 
generation the offences of a former race ; further still 
the feeling that could rejoice over the terrible fulfil- 
ment of what was spoken even in the hearing of 
some who lived to fall under the murderous hand of 
the pagan foe. But spoken it was to the Galileans 
of that generation, by the lip of Him whom they re- 
jected, and whose heart yearned towards them in 
tender compassion, while his voice declared the fear- 
ful future that awaited them. "And thou, Caper- 
naum, which art exalted unto heaven, shak be 
brought down to hell : for if the mighty works which 
had been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it 
would have remained until this day. But I say unto 
you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of 
Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." Then 
followed the word of invitation, so gentle, so gra- 
cious, so pleadingly tender ! " Come unto me, all ye 
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; 
for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find 
rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my 
burden is light." Alas, alas, Capernaum ! thou 
didst despise that voice of warning, disregard that 
call, thrust from thee that easy yoke of love and low- 
liness, and what ensued ? Sodom fell, consumed in 
a moment by flaming fire ; her children saw the 
flash, and shrieked, and perished. But her fate was 
tolerable, was enviable to thine. O that thou hadst 
listened to him who in turn would have heard and 



EXTRAORDINARY CONFLICT. 55 

saved what time the storm fell upon thee, unhappy 
Capernaum ! 

The Roman vulture having gorged himself with 
blood and spoil, next polluted with his presence the 
village of Emmaus, having before him an arduous 
feat in the purposed reduction of Gamala ; a place 
naturally more impregnable than Jotapata had been. 
So exceedingly abrupt was its steep acclivity, that the 
houses, standing very thick and close together, ap- 
peared to be built one upon another ; rising to the top 
of the mountain, which, where not quite precipitous, 
was very strongly defended by a deep oblique ditch, 
mines, and a wall. An immensely steep point of rock, 
rising in front of, and above the houses, formed a 
natural citadel to the town behind it, completing the 
resemblance of a camel's back, from whence the city 
takes its name. Here Agrippa had wearied himself 
by a seven months' siege, without producing the 
slightest effect on the place ; and the approach of 
the Romans to his assistance excited no other alarm 
in the minds of the garrison than such as arose from 
the diminution of their provisions and water, where 
supplies would be rendered unattainable. Vespasiap 
immediately commenced his bank, and brouglit up 
three battering rams, which soon overthrew the wall, 
and allowed the soldiers to enter the city, where a 
dreadful retribution waited some yet reeking from 
the murder of their recent victims. The vigorous 
resistance encountered below from the Jews, drove 
the Romans prematurely and in disorder to the up- 
per parts of the town, where the narrow, intricate, 



56 JUD^A CAPTA. 

almost perpendicular streets, so completely embar 
rassed them, hemmed in as they were by men fiercely 
fighting in defence of their lives and liberties at the 
very doors of their own homes, that they had no way 
to turn, and they burst into the houses for refuge. 
These, unable to bear the sudden weight of such an 
armed host, gave way ; each dwelling fell on some 
other below it ; and the scene, unparalleled perhaps 
in history, presented a frightful mass of broken walls, 
great beams of timber, stones, heavy furniture, and 
men imprisoned in their own ponderous armour, fall- 
ing headlong together in one tremendous crash of 
utter destruction. Then were the Jewish inhabi- 
tants to be seen forcing their invaders to leap upon 
the tottering dwellings that they might give way 
and bury them, perhaps with their own wives and 
children, for whom they rightly deemed that such a 
fate was happiness compared with its alternative ; 
and what between the mighty crash that ground them 
into powder, the falls that broke their limbs, or so 
entangled as to tear them from their bodies, and the 
dust that killed them by instantaneous suffocation, 
the Romans suffered more on the mountain steep of 
Gamala than they had done in all their previous 
operations. Added to these, numbers were put to 
death by the inhabitants as they lay stunned or em- 
barrassed by their fall ; not only darts, but stones, 
rafters, and all the w r reck of their own homesteads, 
furnished weapons of destruction to the vengeful 
garrison : while not a few of the warriors, stung by 



GAMALA TAKEN. 57 

such unwonted defeat, stabbed themselves ere an 
enemy could touch them. 

In the midst of this fearful rout, Vespasian found 
himself high up the city, and in most imminent 
danger. The language of Josephus in describing 
his proceeding is most disgraceful to him, a Jew, 
who had just witnessed the butchery and villainy at 
Tiberias. He says that the Roman, " calling to mind 
the actions that he had done from his youth, and rec- 
ollecting his courage, as if he had been excited by 
a divine fury" made a stand, and ultimately es- 
caped. He also records the death of one Ebutius, 
with the high commendation of having in his time 
" done very great mischief to the Jews." He re- 
cords too the speech of condolence made by Ves- 
pasian to his discomfited troops, in which he tells 
them, that "while they had killed so many ten 
thousands of the Jews, they had now paid their 
small share of the reckoning to Fate." Encouraged 
by his oration, the diminished host prepared to renew 
their attempts against the former breaches, which 
were gallantly defended by the little garrison ; and 
some time elapsed before the Romans, by a cautious 
stratagem, and having nearly starved the inhabi- 
tants, undermined a tower, which, eventually, gave 
them possession of the city ; yet did they not dare 
to enter it, until careful observation had assured 
them that no great power of resistance remained 
Then Titus, who had been absent on another ex 
pedition, got stealthily in with a chosen body of 
horse and foot, and proceeded in the work of slaugh 



58 



JUDAEA CAPTA. 



ter : but they were disappointed of more than half 
their recompense ; for they could only butcher four 
thousand men. women, and little babes ; the latter 
of whom they dashed down alive from the citadel, 
to break their tender limbs, and prolong their dying 
agonies : five thousand escaped them ; they stood 
upon the edges of those rocky precipices, men 
clasping their wives, and these their children ; a fu- 
rious wind was blowing at the time, which nearly 
bore them off their feet, and they had no refuge but 
the tender mercies of Rome. Titus approached: 
his blood-hounds were panting for their prey they 
never grasped it. Down, down from that giddy 
height the hunted children of Israel simultaneously 
cast themselves, and found a general tomb in the 
deeper excavations that were sunk in the deep val- 
ley below. Two women only were left ; they con- 
cealed themselves till all was over, and then found 
mercy on the strength of near relationship to a fa- 
mous general in the army of Agrippa, the royal 
slave-merchant. 

Gishala alone remained to be reduced. Here the 
inhabitants, like those of Tarichsea, were desirous 
of peace, being chiefly husbandmen unused to con- 
tention ; but another party existed, aliens and lawless 
characters under the same John who afterwards per- 
formed so conspicuous a part at Jerusalem. Titus 
summoned them to surrender, but John, desirous of 
escaping, pleaded the sacredness of the sabbath, and 
asked a truce from all negotiations till the morrow. 
This Titus granted ; and John used the interval to 



GISCHALA SURRENDERS. 59 

accomplish his escape. He prevailed on a number 
of the citizens to accompany him, with a multitude 
of women and children whom he cruelly deserted on 
the road. These, of course, fell into the hands of 
those who went in pursuit : six thousand of the 
helpless creatures were put to death, and half that 
number brought back, in dreadful captivity to the 
town. Titus is represented as showing great leni- 
ency to the inhabitants, who came out to meet him 
most submissively, casting on John all the blame of 
the deception practised ; and it does not appear 
that any extensive massacre was perpetrated. He 
had a higher prize in immediate prospect : Jerusa- 
lem was next to be invested, and the army expresed 
great impatience to march upon the holy city ; but 
Vespasian, hearing from deserters how great were 
the divisions, and how bitter the internal contests 
carried on there, refused to advance, deeming it ex- 
pedient to allow those breaches to widen, and the 
mischief to proceed as far as possible, before they 
furnished the Jews with a motive of union by at- 
tacking them. There can be no doubt that the wily 
Roman had emissaries in the city, stirring up strife, 
and directing many evil works that appeared to be 
of Jewish origin alone : and Josephus himself, a cap- 
tive, but in high favour and confidence, would afford 
many valuable hints for his patron's guidance. How 
far his patriotism had been subdued, we may gather 
from the complacency with which he details events 
that even at this distance of time, must pierce with 
anguish the heart of every Jew who peruses the 
6 



DU JUDAEA CAPTA. 

tale ; how far his feelings had been paganized, we 
may also discern from the whole tenor of Jiis lan- 
guage, which is that of a Roman, not an Israelite. 
The " divine fury" that he ascribes to Vespasian 
could not, to his view, be as the heaven-born cou- 
rage of Gideon or David ; but the legitimate inspi- 
ration of Rome's warlike demon, Mars. Touches 
do appear of natural feeling, but they are very few, 
and very far between; a glimmer among the 
ashes of what he had laboured to extinguish, 
and where scarcely an expiring spark yet lingered. 
This ought to be borne in mind, when admitting 
as unquestionable the accuracy of one who took 
part in the events that he narrates. Every eye-wit- 
ness is not a true witness ; neither is the report of a 
faithless deserter, such as bore tidings to the Roman 
camp of what occurred within the walls of Jerusa- 
em, above suspicion. This we know, that they 
were days of vengeance when all came upon the 
country and the people, which the prophets had 
foretold ; and whatsoever is borne out by the word 
of prophecy that we are bound to believe. Beyond 
it, we have no sure data on which to build, save in 
the military operations and public events that were 
known to all men. Josephus certainly did not write 
for the Jews ; but for the Romans he certainly did 
write, and through their favour his work is pre- 
served as an invaluable record of what but for it 
would rest on a still more questionable foundation, 
wholly destitute of the local and national features 
that establish its general accuracy beyond dispute. 



THE PROPHETIC BEAST. 61 

The prefatory matter has swelled far beyond our 
purposed limits ; but Jotopata, Tarichese and Gam- 
ala arrest us by the fearful interest of their melan- 
choly details ; while the narrative invests with grim 
and glaring life the prophetic beast, "which was 
diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, 
whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass ; 
which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the 
residue with his feet " 



JUD^A CAPTA. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE fortified places of Judsea being reduced, and 
their gallant defenders slaughtered, or with their 
helpless families carried into slavery, the Roman 
army pressed on their general the desirableness of 
proceeding to Jerusalem; but Vespasian exhorted 
them to patience, representing that their work was 
being more effectually done by means of civil dis- 
sension, commotion, and blood within the city, than 
it could be by their immediate advance. John, who 
had escaped from Gischala, was at the head of a 
lawless party calling themselves zealots, making 
havoc of the more peaceable, and committing dread- 
ful acts, not only in Jerusalem, but by occasional 
excursions to neighbouring places ; while some alien 
bands who had possession of the citadel of Masada, 
not far from Jerusalem, took advantage of the ab- 
sence of the male population at the feast of unleav- 
ened bread to fall on the sarrounding villages, com- 
mitting dreadful barbarities, and carrying off the 
spoil to their fortress ; insomuch that individuals 
frequently made their appearance in the Roman 
camp, inviting Vespasian to advance, and, by com- 
pleting at a blow the work of desolation, put an end 



MORE MURDERS. 63 

to this slow and torturing process. To this he seemed 
to yield, rather than to the wishes of his army ; and 
set forward on his sanguinary expedition in the char- 
acter of a deliverer anxious to extend the protecting 
wing of the Roman Eagle over the whole nation. 
Gadara, the chief city of Peraea, surrendered on their 
approach; the more hostile party having taken to 
flight, on finding that no opposition would be offered 
by the principal citizens. Vespasian despatched one 
of his commanders in pursuit of the fugitives, a body 
of whom they soon overtook, and completely sur- 
rounded, forming with their mail-clad ranks an un- 
broken, impervious wall of iron, against which the 
darts of the Jews were hurled in vain. These stood 
at bay, and fought with desperate courage : but es- 
cape was impossible ; and there like. oh, how like ! 
" a wild bull in a net," they struggled and fell, 
one by one, beneath the practised hands of the ene- 
my, who pierced them at will with their javelins, or 
trampled them beneath their horses' hoofs. This 
took place near a village, into which others had pre- 
viously fought their way through parties of the Ro- 
man horse, and where they made a brave but inef- 
fectual defence. The enemy broke in through the 
slender barriers, where, says Josephus, " the useless 
multitude were destroyed ;" in other words, the aged, 
the weak, and the helpless Jewish women and babes 
had their throats cut; the houses were plundered, 
the village was burnt ; and then the fugitives, aug- 
mented by all who had strength to flee, were hunted 
again on the road to Jericho, into which they hoped 
6* 



64 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

to throw themselves, and repulse the Romans. But 
Placidas, the hostile commander, was too rapid for 
them : he drove them to the side of Jordan, then 
swelled by the rains, and overflowing its banks, and 
here, after an unequal battle, he completed the work 
?/ by slaying fifteen thousand with the sword, selecting 
| twelve hundred for slavery, and compelling the rest 
to leap into the river, over which their fathers passed 
dry-shod when the ark of the LORD rested in mid 
channel. But HE, the God of Abraham, was now 
wroth with His people ; He had forsaken His inher- 
itance, and given them over as a prey into the hands 
of a barbarous foe. We will here cite the words of 
that unnatural apostate, Josephus, who thus coolly 
details the nature and consequences of this savage 
massacre, perpetrated on his own brethren, the peo- 
ple of Israel, the royal tribe of Judah. " Now this 
destruction that fell upon the Jews, as it was not 
inferior to any of the rest in itself, so did it still ap- 
pear greater than it really was. And this because 
not only the whole country through which they fled 
was filled with slaughter, and Jordan could not be 
passed over by reason of the dead bodies that were 
in it ; but because the lake Asphaltites was also full 
of dead bodies that were carried down into it by the 
river. And now Placidas, after this GOOD SUCCESS 
that he had had, fell violently upon the smaller cities 
and villages ; when he took Abila, and Julias, and 
Bezemoth, and all those that lay as far as the lake 
Asphaltites, and put such of the deserters (i. e. trai- 
tors) into them as he thought proper. He then put 



THE SPOILER'S PROGRESS. 65 

his followers on board the ships, and slew such as 
had fled to the lake." 

After this, Vespasian himself advanced upon Jer- 
icho, hoping for a fresh supply of blood and spoil ; 
but though he laid all waste in the way thither, 
he was disappointed at the last, for every one had 
fled, and Jericho was as desolate as though he had 
already swept it with the Roman besom ; and now 
he began in earnest to prepare for the great siege. 
He took Gerasae at a blow, slew all the young men 
who had not escaped, took captive all the families, 
gave their houses to be plundered by his troops, 
then set fire to the place. The whole surrounding 
country being thus completely laid waste, and every 
remaining building garrisoned by his soldiers or 
mercenary allies, the people of Jerusalem had no 
longer the power of making excursions from the 
city walls. The party most opposed to the Roman 
invader carefully watched such as were suspected 
of an intention to desert ; and of the other classes, 
none of course ventured to explore a neighbour- 
hood wholly subdued and overrun by the hostile 
army. 

It was not, however, reserved for Vespasian to 
conclude in person the fearful achievement hitherto 
so successfully prosecuted. That he longed to add 
this blood-stained trophy to the wreaths which he 
had recently won on the shores of our own Eng- 
land, cannot be doubted. It was the Roman fashion 
of those days to affect contempt the most supreme 
for every other people under heaven; and com- 



66 JUDJEA CAPTA. 

mensurate with the gallantry exhibited by an enemy 
was the eagerness of those barbarous legions to 
subdue him. Strong confidence in their own in- 
vincible powers, an assured belief that they could 
not be conquered, upheld them under all reverses, 
and nerved them to such efforts as never failed to 
retrieve a temporary loss ; this urged them onward 
to finish the protracted campaign, so unexpectedly 
lengthened out by the desperate intrepidity of a 
people, who like themselves, but on far, far higher 
grounds, were incapable of realizing the fact of being 
subdued by mortal man. To the importunities of his 
martial followers Vespasian, having so far forced his 
way, was now fully disposed to accede ; but before 
the needful preparations could be made, events took 
a new turn at Rome, the imperial crown itself be- 
coming the property of this experienced slaugh- 
terer ; who, of course, found it necessary to proceed 
with all haste to the seat of universal empire. 

The act of sovereignty recorded by Josephus is 
one that we must carefully bear in mind. The 
Jewish historian had, as we have seen, been cap- 
tured at Jotapata, after heading the garrison of that 
town in a defence as gallant, as protracted, and as 
destructive to the enemy as they had anywhere en 
countered. This, in the eyes of the barbarous con 
querors, merited a cruel death, or at least perpetual 
slavery ; but Vespasian and Titus, won upon, as Jo- 
sephus tells us, by his inspired prediction of their 
both attaining to the imperial dignity, spared his 
life 5 and not only so, for it is evident that, though 



JOSEPHUS PROMOTED. 67 

outwardly in bonds, he accompanied them on their 
march of blood and desolation more on the terms of 
a friend than of a captive. Vespasian now took ad- 
vantage of the high good humour into which the 
army was thrown by his acceptance of the imperial 
diadem, and of the glowing loyalty that all were ea- 
ger to manifest to the monarch of their choice. He 
set Josephus before them, rehearsed his gallant 
deeds, his sufferings, and above all, his happy pro- 
phecy, now fulfilled by themselves ; and appealed to 
them whether it was right that such a man should 
still wear the fetters of a captive. Of course, the 
answer accorded with the emperor's wish ; and then 
Titus, eager to put all possible honour upon this ex- 
traordinary Jew, suggested that the ceremony of 
hacking asunder his bonds should be performed, 
which, according to Roman usage, would remove 
the stigma of having ever worn them. This also 
was done ; and Josephus very complacently informs 
us that he " received the testimony of his integrity 
for a reward; and was moreover esteemed a, person 
of credit as to futurities also." He was regarded as 
a man high in the imperial favour, and secure of 
rising by means of that effectual helping hand that 
kings can give their creatures. 

At this distance of time, with no contemporaneous 
testimony to throw additional light on what he has 
thought proper to reveal, we cannot undertake to 
judge the Jewish historian; but it is impossible to 
avoid remarking, that had he accompanied Vespa- 
sian to Rome, his fame would have worn a brighter 



68 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

aspect, his conduct have admitted of a more favour- 
able interpretation, than either can bear under the 
circumstances of his continuing with Titus, to aid 
and abet that heathen and his host in the destruction 
of the Holy City. When to this we again add the 
fact of his having penned his history under the eye 
of this imperial pair, father and son, subject to the 
keen remarks of those who had destroyed the Lord's 
vineyard, and laid waste His heritage; when we 
trace in it, as we cannot fail to do, an identification 
of feeling and interests with those whose hands, 
whose march, the very streets of whose haughty 
city, were still reeking with the warm life blood of 
Judah, we cannot, we will not take the word of this 
recreant and apostate Jew for any particulars calcu- 
lated to blacken the darkness of Jerusalem in that 
day of her unprecedented anguish. Desolate, in 
captivity, moving to and fro with fettered hands and 
bleeding feet, and a scourge, yea, a sword ever sus- 
pended over their lacerated shoulders, the Jews 
could not sit down to pen a refutation of what their 
treacherous brother, clad in soft clothing and feasted 
at Csesar's table, securely recorded against them. 
Away, then, with his testimony in all that concerns 
the enormities committed within the city : there is no 
warrant in the prophetic scriptures, no evidence in 
credible history, no analogy in nature itself, for the 
atrocities that he charges upon his brethren. Rome 
pagan, no less than Rome papal, needed the forging 
of a considerable number of lying accusations, to 
palliate in some degree the horrors of her own dia 



THE CROWNING SIN. 69 

bolical barbarity against the Jewish people. She 
found a hand, expert and willing in the work of 
calumny; she made the most of it, and after ages 
have swallowed with unquestioning gullibility the 
whole incredible tale. A clearer light is now dawn- 
ing on the world ; and while the Lord God removes 
the covering from all nations, and the vail that is 
cast over all people, He also begins to take away 
the reproach of His own peculiar people in many 
particulars where a false reproach has hitherto rested 
on them ; and soon will all reproach, by His pardon- 
ing mercy and redeeming love, be removed from them 
for ever. 

Yet the Jews of that day were guilty, exceedingly, 
fearfully guilty ; or such overwhelming destruction 
could not have fallen on them, nor would the Lord 
have delivered the dearly-beloved of His soul, bound 
and naked, into the hands of her ferocious enemies. 
What was the crowning sin of the nation we very 
well know : reading by the light of man's instruction 
the words, the inspired words of their own holy pro- 
phets, they had overlooked the important fact of a 
suffering Saviour dying to redeem, and fixed their 
eyes exclusively on the more distant prospect of that 
glorious Redeemer coming to reign. To that por- 
tion of Isaiah's prediction which speaks of him as 
despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, smitten and afflicted ; bruised 
for their sins, wounded for their transgressions, 
scourged that they might be healed ; led as a sheep 
to the slaughter, numbered with the transgressors, 



70 JUD^A CAPTA. 

entombed, and by his righteousness justifying them ; 
to this they closed their eyes, and opened them but 
to behold him coming from Edom, travelling in the 
greatness of his strength, and in the blood of his 
and their enemies, and crowned a glorious King. 

When Daniel forewarned them of a time being 
set " to finish the transgression, and to make an end 
of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and 
to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the 
vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy," 
at which time, Messiah should be cut off, but not for 
himself; they refused to ponder the solemn message, 
and fixed their whole heart on the equally sure word 
that the same Messiah's kingdom should subse- 
quently be established in majesty and might on the 
ruins of the long-continued Gentile usurpations. 
When Zechariah declared that for thirty pieces of 
silver the Lord should be bartered among them, and 
that they should look on Him (the context proving 
a divine person) whom they had pierced, and mourn 
for him in the deepest humiliation of contrite sorrow, 
they threw it aside as a sealed book, laying an eager 
grasp on the triumphant sequel where Israel, restored 
and re-established in his own land, with every an- 
cient privilege confirmed and redoubled, should be- 
hold the nations of the earth coming yearly to Jeru- 
salem to keep with them the feast of Tabernacles. 
In like manner, what God hath joined in the Law 
the Psalms, and the Prophets, an atoning Sacrifice 
and a reigning Deliverer, a Prophet whom all must 
hear and obey on pain of destruction, a PRIEST upon 



WRATH TO THE UTTERMOST. 71 

his throne, they, alas ! misled by blind guides, put 
asunder, and so filled up the measure of the sins of 
many generations. Then, wrath came upon them 
to the uttermost ; the beauty was defaced, the glory 
departed, and Judah was cast out for a long, long 
pilgrimage of suffering and sorrow through the wil- 
derness of cruel nations, whose iniquitous and im- 
pious pleasure it has been to help forward the afflic- 
tion ; daring the awful retribution that must follow 
from that unrevcked assurance given to Israel, " He 
that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye." 

This has been a long digression, but we would 
fain place the matter in its true light. For many 
generations, and in many ways, Israel had pro- 
voked the LORD ; and the fact of their ultimately 
bringing on themselves a dispersion so long, and 
sufferings so bitter, as we know them to have un- 
dergone during the last eighteen centuries, was dis- 
tinctly revealed to, and with terrible exactness set 
forth by Moses, in the books of Leviticus and Deu- 
teronomy. This event at last took place, under the 
circumstances now referred to, and the menaced 
bolt fell. Josephus, evidently a man of most carnal 
mind and darkened understanding, takes upon him- 
self to exalt the national grandeur and prowess of 
the Jews, in order to exalt still higher the glory of 
those who conquered them : he obtained from the 
heathen spoilers the loan of the sacred books, the 
rolls that had been rent from the temple in Jerusa- 
lem, and from them, as from common records, he 
compiled a history of former times. Had he been 
7 



72 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

worthy of the name of Jew, he would have buried 
those holy books deep in the earth, and shed his 
life-blood in vindication of the deed that rescued 
them from foul profanation : but such he was not ; 
and we only note the circumstance as a proof of 
the extinction of all natural feeling in his breast; 
and as a landmark whereby to steer through his ex- 
aggerated descriptions of what he certainly did not 
himself see, nor could he know it but from the re- 
port of spies, deserters, and other traitors continually 
coming from the besieged walls. 

That fearful scenes were enacted there no one 
can doubt: that the city was divided, rent into 
factions, and every division wrought up to madness 
by the secret operation of suborned emissaries from 
the enemy's camp, or hired agents whose instruc- 
tions were thence derived, is obvious. In any 
population the same means would produce similar 
effects; and assuredly we must admit the awful 
fact that the Lord, their own Almighty King, " was 
turned to be their enemy and fought against them,"* 
that because they had walked contrary to Him, He 
at length fulfilled the threat, " I will walk contrary 
to you also in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you 
seven times for your sins. And I will make your cit- 
ies waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desola- 
tion ; and I will not smell the savour of your swee\ 
odours. And I will bring the land into desolation 
and your enemies which dwell therein shall be 
astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the 

Isaiah Ixiii. 10. 



DIVINE THREATENINGS. 73 

heathen, and will draw out a sword after you ; and 
your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste."* 
The fulfilment of this fruitful prediction to the very 
letter, must prepare the mind to receive an impres- 
sion fully commensurate with the prophetic lament, 
that " under the whole heaven hath not been done 
is hath been done upon Jerusalem." 

So far, we may, each for himself, picture the 
mournful, the dreadful state of the devoted city, 
divested of the guardian shield that had so long 
hung over it The angel of the LORD encamped 
no more about her palaces, but left them to be the 
spoiler's prey. The Temple, that spot most holy 
upon earth's wide surface, in the eyes of a Jew, 
was no longer owned by Him who had vouchsafed 
to dwell therein ; and in a furious contest of rival 
parties, Zacharius, the son of Barachius, a man of 
peace, and of the consecrated order, was slain be- 
tween the temple and the altar, a signal that the 
righteous blood shed from the beginning thitherto 
was about to come upon that generation.! Jerusa- 
lem could not have fallen, unless the great majority 
of her inhabitants had forsaken ana provoked the 
LORD to the uttermost ; because, for his own name's 
sake, and for his servant David's sake, did the LORD 
defend that city from of old. Far be it from us, 
while rejecting the malicious details of Josephus, to 
question the extent of prevailing iniquity there ! It 
would be to question the truth of the Most High, to 
arraign his justice, and to rebel against his power 

* L^vit. xxvi. 9. t Matt, xxiii. 35. 



74 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

The language of the Jews, in their synagogues all 
over the world, on the return of that sorrowful anni- 
versary, and indeed in all their services, would 
keenly reprove us; for words cannot express a 
greater depth of contrite humiliation than they are 
accustomed to declare, on the subject of national 
provocation. Terrible in his long-delayed ven- 
geance, still the God of Israel was just ; and even 
in the fierceness of his wrath, He remembered 
mercy. He forgat not the covenants made with 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; but stayed the rough 
wind in the day of his east wind, or what soul 
would have escaped the sanguinary murderers 
without, and their unprincipled tools within the 
devoted city? How would Judah have survived 
and continued, and multiplied, and spread abroad 
to the east and to the west, to the north and to the 
south, and retained within himself all the elements 
of a returning greatness and glory, as it is at this 
day? We proceed to the scene of desolation, ac- 
companying Titus and his homicidal band : and 
with them desiring, " Let our eye look upon Zion," 
but oh ! with what a different sentiment to theirs ! 
Yes, we must go over the heart-rending details of 
her cruel wreck ; but sweetly prominent to our eye 
is still the assured pledge. 

Again I will build thee, 
And thou shalr. be built, O Virgin of Israel : 
Thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, 
And shalt go forth in the dance of them that make merry. 
Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria : 



DIVINE PROMISES. 75 

The planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things. 

For there shall be a day, 

That the watchmen upon the Mount Ephraim shall cry, 

Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion, 

Unto the LORD our God. 

For thus saith the Lord 5 
Sing with gladness for Jacob, 
And shout among the chief of the nations ; 
Publish ye, praise ye, and say, 

Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. 
Behold, I will bring them from the north country, 
And gather them from the coasts of the earth, 
And with them the blind and the lame, 

The woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together. 

A great company shall return thither. 

They shall come with weeping, 

And with supplications will I lead them, 

1 will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, 
In a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble ; 
For I am a father unto Israel, 

And Ephraim is my first born. 

Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, 
And declare it in the isfes afar off, and say, 
He that scattered Israel will gather his own, 
And keep him as a shepherd doth his flock, 
For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, 

And ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he, 
Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, 
And shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, 
For wheat, and for wine, and for oil, 
And for the young of the flock and of the herd j 
And their soul shall be as a watered garden 5 
And they shall not sorrow any more at all, 
Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, 
Both young men and old together : 
For I will turn their mourning into joy, 

And will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. 
And 1 will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, 
And my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD 

Jeremiah xxxi. 4. 

7* 



76 JTJD&A CAPTA. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FROM Alexandria, whence Vespasian set forth for 
Rome, Titus also departed to lay siege to Jerusalem. 
His route possesses a solemn and melancholy inter- 
est; he halted at Zoan, where God of old did mar- 
vellous things for Israel against their first oppres- 
sors. Having crossed the Nile, he proceeded over 
the desert; he entered Syria at Raphin. making 
Gaza his next station. Ascalon, Jamnia, and Joppa, 
in turn afforded a resting place to the Roman de- 
stroyer ; and lastly, he came to Cesarea, the chosen 
rendezvous of all his forces ; the point of concentra- 
tion, from which the collected torrent was to meet 
and overflow the deserted vineyard of the Lord of 
hosts. 

The order of their march into what Josephus is 
not ashamed to call " the enemtfs country," was as 
follows : first went the auxiliary forces, furnished 
by surrounding kings, among whom Agrippa, their 
former ally, mediator, and champion, supplied a por- 
tion ; and with these were a mixed multitude, also 
calling themselves auxiliaries, drawn to the Roman 
standard by a greedy hope of sharing the spoil of 
Zion. The pioneers and artificers of encampments 



THE MARCH INTO JUDEA. 77 

followed, and after them the commander's baggage, 
with its wonted guard. Then Titus, with his picked 
supporters ; the pike-men ; the cavalry of the chosen 
legion ; and next the fatal engines ; the tribunes, 
leaders of cohorts, and their select bodies. The 
trumpeters next preceded the ensigns the ravening 
eagle, the abomination of desolation that should pol- 
lute the holy place. The main body, in ranks six 
deep, followed their standards ; then came the ser- 
vants and the general baggage of the army ; and last 
the mercenaries, with their appointed guards, who 
brought up the rear. Through Samaria they pro- 
ce^ded to Gophna, the desolate wreck of a city al- 
ready sacked by Vespasian ; and here they lay for 
the night. The next day's march brought them 
within thirty furlongs of Jerusalem ; where, in a 
place called the Valley of Thorns, another tempo- 
rary encampment was ordered, with the expectation 
that the next would be a permanent lodgment under 
the walls which the proud Assyrian menaced in vain. 
Meantime Titus, assembling six hundred of his cho- 
sen horsemen, proceeded to reconnoitre the city ; 
curious to ascertain both the extent and strength of 
its defences, and the temper of its inhabitants ; 
whether they were made of like metal with their 
brethren of Jotapata, Gamala, and the other fortified 
towns, eager to give battle and nerved to a desper- 
ate resistance ; or whether they were so exhausted 
by internal dissensions, or so intimidated by the 
near approach of his immense army, as to exhibit 



78 JUD^A CAPTA. 

tokens of a speedy submission. His doubts were 
quickly set at rest. 

It was on the north-western side of the city, that 
all assailants, from David to the Roman general, had 
fixed their camps, that being, indeed, the only ac- 
cessible point. Titus had approached in that direc- 
tion, having before him the most modern suburb, 
Bezetha, which had grown up gradually from the 
increase of population, and possessed none of the 
natural defences enjoyed by the other parts of the 
city : but on this account greater pains had been 
taken to strengthen the walls, incomplete as had 
been left the execution of Agrippa's perfect design. 
There was a strong tower, called Psephinos, flank- 
ing the westward wall, at an angle, nearly parallel 
to where now stands the Damascus gate, and due 
west of it : near to this point. Titus, with his horse- 
men, had been allowed to advance, on the road lead- 
ing to the city, without the appearance of an indi- 
vidual to intercept or oppose him ; but when, encou- 
raged no doubt by such apparent passiveness, he 
altered his course, and swerved obliquely towards 
Psephinos, followed by his band, a sudden and most 
impetuous sally took place, not from any gate, but 
through the windows of some neighbouring towers, 
out of which multitudes of armed Jews suddenly 
leaped, casting themselves in the path of the horse- 
men, so that those who had not yet declined from 
the main road, were intercepted from following those 
who had ; while Titus, with only a few attendants, 
was in like manner cut off from the rest ? and placed 



TITUS ASSAILED. 79 

in great peril, the nature of the ground much en- 
hancing it. Trenches had been dug as a sort of 
sunk fence, to protect the gardens, which in this 
quarter extended from the walls to some distance ; 
those deep trenches ran out obliquely, intermingled 
with strong hedges, together forming a barrier that 
forbade his further advance; return to his men 
seemed impossible, for a dense body of exasperated 
enemies intervened; and the Romans, unconscious 
that their commander was thus separated from them, 
remained in expectation of some order from his lips. 
Titus, moreover, was not armed as for battle ; so Jo- 
sephus says, who declares that he had on neither 
head-piece nor breast-plate ; which, if true, speaks 
little for his military tact and foresight, considering 
the nature of his expedition and his avowed uncer- 
tainty as to the hostile purposes of the besieged. 
The Romanized historian, of course, gives the 
greater credit to his patron, for the intrepidity with 
which he extricated himself from this alarming di- 
lemma, referring also to the providential care of God 
over the persons of kings. He represents the gen- 
eral as cutting his way through his assailants, par- 
rying, with his sword alone, the darts that were 
showered on him from every side ; cutting down 
some, riding over others, and finally escaping with 
his horsemen, two only of whom were slain in the 
combat. This encounter encouraged both parties ; 
the one being elated by having so decidedly put the 
Roman prince to flight, the other by his having so 



80 JTJD^EA CAPTA. 

well escaped a very imminent danger ; which was 
of course interpreted as a happy omen. 

Titus, being further reinforced by a legion from 
Emmaus, advanced on the following day, with his 
assembled host, to the hill, or rather the gently 
swelling plain, called Scopus, seven furlongs only 
distant from the holy city. Here they proceeded, 
with the usual grim deliberation, to measure out the 
ground, to form their squares and streets, and to 
build rather than to pitch their substantial tents; 
planting in the midst the ominous ensign of their 
sanguinary sway. Before them, and clearly seen 
above the walls that intervened between the nu- 
merous towns, rose the magnificent Temple, sheathed, 
as it were, in burnished gold, continually provoking 
that lust of plunder which formed the main-spring 
of Roman enterprize. But between them and this 
splendid prize rose the formidable bulwark of An- 
tonia, guarding with its massive strength the north- 
west angle of the outer court, whence the wall that 
enclosed Acra branched forth, presenting a close 
array of towers bristling with spears and darts, and 
alive with countenances on which, among many 
deep emotions, one universal characteristic was 
traceable the stern resolve to die, if needful, amid 
the ruins of their city, but never, never to surrender 
it into the hands of a pagan foe. On Scopus two 
legions were encamped ; another was stationed 
somewhat further in the rear, that they might fortify 
themselves in greater security, and move at leisure 
under cover of the near camp. A third body, the 



THE TENTH LEGION ROUTED. 81 

tenth Roman legion, were directed to form their 
encampment six furlongs from Jerusalem, on the de- 
scent of the Mount of Olives. 

And now behold the city indeed hemmed in by 
her enemies, encompassed with armies. Josephus, 
whom we are constrained to quote, says that when 
"the seditious" saw these several Roman camps 
suddenly pitched around them, "they began to 
think of an awkward sort of concord," and decided 
on an immediate sally. With them, to resolve was to 
do. The Romans were scattered about in small 
parties, methodically pursuing their famous camp 
architecture, taking it for granted that no one would 
attempt so premature an interruption of the goodly 
work, and persuaded, moreover, that the Jews, be- 
sides the intimidation that their advance must 
strike into them, were too completely disunited, too 
hotly engaged in civil warfare, to plan any offen- 
sive operation. Suddenly, however, a tremendous 
gush, a torrent of armed men, was seen sweeping 
down the declivity from the city wall, and with a. 
tremendous shout ascending the opposite hill, they 
threw themselves upon the astonished Romans, who, 
half armed, and wholly unprepared, sought safety in 
flight; some retreating at their utmost speed from 
the spot, others flying to the place where their weap- 
ons were deposited, but both hotly pursued. Few 
of the latter lived to gird those weapons on ; and 
of the former, on ground so new to them, so perfectly 
familiar to their assailants, great numbers fell be- 
neath the fiery tread of their pursuers. When the 



82 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

Romans rallied, and formed a front, they were pres- 
ently thrown into confusion by the irregular onset 
of the Jews, who, neither knowing nor caring aught 
about the disciplined regularity of warfare to which 
the others were accustomed, fell upon them as did 
Samuel their prophet upon Agag, intent only to 
hew them in pieces. Encouraged and inflamed by 
the spectacle of their brethren's success, the Jews con- 
tinued to pour forth in great numbers, principally at 
the point where the vallies of the Kidron and of Hin- 
nom meet at the south-eastern point of the city, the 
foot of Ophel ; and, after several ineffectual attempts 
to stem the torrent and to turn the battle, the Romans 
were put to shameful flight, abandoning their camp, 
and being themselves in manifest danger of extermi- 
nation. Tidings had, however, been brought to Ti- 
tus of the jeopardy in which the tenth legion were 
placed, and he immediately advanced with sufficient 
reinforcements, rallied the fugitives, reproached them 
with cowardice, and made a fierce attack upon the 
Jews with the fresh troops horsemen, no doubt 
that he had brought up to the rescue. Having 
turned their flank, he pursued his advantage, com- 
pelling them to retreat towards the valley, in which 
they suffered great loss from the enemy in their 
ponderous armour crushing down upon them from 
the steep ; but the remainder having gained once 
more the opposite asoent, turned upon the pursuers, 
and under their beloved walls sustained for hours a 
battle with the Romans, who showered darts and 
lances upon them from the opposite bank. Titus 



EXPLOITS OF THE JEWS. 83 

seeing that nothing was to be gained, stationed his 
fresh cohort to watch against any future sally from 
that point, and ordered the routed legion to a higher 
part of the mountain, there to pitch and to fortify 
their camp. 

But vain were the general's precautions, and 
equally vain his hope of overawing the children of 
Israel. No sooner were the soldiers seen, as in full 
retreat up the mountain, than a Jewish watchman, 
stationed on the wall, exultingly shook his garment ; 
and upon that signal out rushed a fresh multitude 
of the besieged, with such mighty violence, says Jo- 
sephus, " that one might compare it to the running 
of the most terrible wild beasts." Such were not 
the comparisons chosen of old to describe the irre- 
sistible prowess of Judah, when " kings with their 
armies did flee" before him ; but Josephus, as a pa- 
gan, wrote for pagans, so let his language go for 
what it was worth in the sight of his new masters. 
He proceeds, " To say the truth, none of those that 
opposed them could sustain the fury of their attacks ; 
but, as if they were cast out of an engine, they brake 
the enemies' ranks to pieces, who were put to flight, 
and ran away to the mountain." And who were 
these runaways ? Even the doughtiest warriors, 
the picked cohort of an invincible Roman army ! 
Titus had just before selected them from the flower 
of his host, to rescue the routed legion : and having 
done this, he had posted them on the edge of the 
valley to prevent any further egress from the walls 
However, the Jews broke out, and they " ran away 
8 



84 JUD^A CAPTA. 

up the mountain," Titus himself, whose personal 
courage was unquestionable, with a few of his imme- 
diate attendants, being left alone halfway up the steep, 
and finding it no easy matter to resist the importu- 
nities of his friends, who urged him also to flee. It 
appears that he nevertheless made a gallant stand, 
and not only maintained but improved his position. 
The hand of God was certainly over him ; for he, like 
Pharaoh of old, was ordained unconsciously to fulfil the 
decrees of the Most High, and the work allotted to 
him he must accomplish. The utmost confusion 
prevailed among the routed legion ; they concluded 
that Titus also had saved himself by flight, and 
nothing could be more complete than their disgrace- 
ful dispersion, when, peeping from the brow of the hill, 
where the thick olives afforded them some shelter, 
they descried their general engaged, almost single- 
handed, in desperate combat with the victorious Jews. 
This roused them at once ; and loudly proclaiming to 
their scattered comrades the commander's peril, all 
rushed down to rescue him, reproaching arid urging 
one another on, until the force of such a combined 
onset from many different points of higher ground, 
overpowered the Jews, turned them, and drove them 
into the depth of the valley, after a most deter- 
mined resistance ; for they faced about again, and 
fought their way, evidently in good order, until they 
gained once more the bulwarks of their city. 

Josephus has no word of commendation to bestow 
upon the courageous Jews ; but the praise that he 
gives his patron implies no slight testimony to their 



TITUS RESCUES THE LEGION. 85 

prowess and exploits. After stating that Titus, hav- 
ing made all as safe as he could, sent the legion 
again to fortify their camp, he thus concludes the 
chapter : " Insomush, that if I may be allowed nei- 
ther to add anything out of flattery, nor to diminish 
anything out of envy, but to speak the plain truth, 
Caesar did twice deliver that entire legion when it 
was in jeopardy, and gave them a quiet opportunity 
of fortifying their camp." Titus has had his eulo- 
gists, and Josephus his followers, in every age ; but 
we question whether, during eighteen centuries, one 
hand has been found to seize the historic pen with 
a simple purpose of doing impartial justice to the 
calumniated Jews. 

The principal camp, as it has been stated, was 
pitched on Scopus, a fine expansive, slightly-ele- 
vated ground, northward of the holy city. Titus 
now resolved to approach still nearer to the walls, 
and with that view he commenced operations, suffi- 
ciently disheartening to those within. He first 
caused every irregularity of ground between the 
present site of his camp and Bezetha to be levelled, 
paring down the little eminences, and making all 
perfectly flat. In this work the whole army was en- 
gaged, with the exception of a picked and powerful 
body, whom he stationed to watch against and to 
oppose any attempted sally. Now were all the little 
gardens, so carefully cherished by their owners, whos,e 
inheritance they were, even as was the vineyard of 
Naboth his own, dug up and utterly destroyed 
Every landmark was removed, every hedge mown 



86 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

down, every trench filled; and where groves of 
odoriferous trees had spread a cooling shade, where 
branches had bent under their loads of ripening 
fruit, the orange, the vine, the pomegranate, and 
the fig, where flowers of surpassing beauty had 
brightened the green sod, and fountains played for 
the refreshment of each lovely scene, nothing now 
remained but a naked, uptorn plain, a dreary level 
trampled into stone by the ceaseless tread of armed 
men. Even the rocky projections and acclivities 
that diversified the beauteous landscape were de- 
molished with iron instruments, and their fragments 
used to fill the chasms of a rent soil or carried be- 
yond the boundaries. This piteous work of desola- 
tion is briefly described by Josephus, without one 
touch of natural feeling such as one must suppose 
could not but wring the bosom of the most callous 
Jew. This took place during the days of unleav- 
ened bread, when some new dissensions appear to 
have broken out in the city, and rendered the Tem- 
ple once more a scene of strife, which ended in 
the reduction of three contending parties into two : 
but, howsoever engaged among themselves, the 
Jews found time to concert a stratagem against 
the besiegers. 

A certain number of courageous men suddenly 
left the city, as though they had been forcibly thrust 
out by their companions, and stole about the neigh- 
bourhood, with every appearance of being in great 
fear, lest they should fall into the hands of the Ro- 
mans ; and also of distrusting one another. At the 



JEWISH STRATAGEM. 87 

same time those who were supposed to have ejected 
them, stood forward on the walls, loudly crying for 
peace, and claiming protection with security for their 
lives, in which condition they offered to open their 
gates to the enemy. In farther confirmation of this, 
they threw stones at such of the seemingly expelled 
party as were wandering beneath the walls : who in 
return petitioned to be taken back, and exhibited 
such extraordinary disorder of feeling, and uncer- 
tainty of purpose, as completely to deceive the Ro- 
mans, though Josephus says, that Titus suspected a 
stratagem ; because when he had, by means of Jo- 
sephus himself, endeavoured on the preceding day 
to persuade them to capitulate, he, or rather per- 
haps his agent, could not even obtain a civil answer. 
Probably the recollection of Jotapata, combined with 
its intrepid defender's present state of defection from 
the cause of Israel, rendered his mission more odious 
to the Jews than they could endure to contemplate, 
or even to repel with a semblance of courtesy. 
Titus, accordingly, commanded the soldiers to stay 
where they were ; but they, eager for plunder, dis- 
regarded him, and many of them ran towards the 
gates, expecting them to be thrown open. The ex- 
cluded party also hastily retired. Two towers flanked 
the gate, projecting considerably outwards; and 
when the credulous Romans had become wedged 
between these towers, the Jews at once ran out, sur- 
rounded and attacked them in the rear, while darts 
and missiles of every kind assailed them from above. 
Many of the soldiers were slain in this way, and 
8* 



88 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

such as escaped were pursued by the Jews to the 
farthest limit to which they could follow them with- 
out falling in with the main army. Thus expatiates 
the worthy Josephus : " After this, these Jews grew 
insolent upon their good fortune ;" and then he gives 
a speech of Titus, addressed to the offending troops, 
which is strangely at variance with his own account 
of the disunion, mutual hatred, violence, and self- 
slaughtering infatuation that reigned among his 
brethren within the holy city. Titus said, " These 
Jews, which are only conducted by their madness, 
do everything with care and circumspection: they 
contrive stratagems, and lay ambushes ; and fortune 
gives success to their stratagems, because they are 
obedient, and preserve their good-will and fidelity one 
to another" He then menaced with death the 
offenders who had, by acting so unlike the cautious, 
obedient, and united Jews, brought this loss and dis- 
grace on the Roman army. However, their com- 
rades all interceded for them, and they were par- 
doned ; and the general set himself to prosecute the 
war. Four days had sufficed to obliterate every 
trace of cultivation, and to transform the diversified 
suburb into a monotonous level on the north, north- 
west, and partly on the western side of the city ; and 
now he advanced his force closer to the walls, accu- 
mulating its greatest strength on the north : while 
on the west he placed his foot soldiers, seven deep, 
with three ranks of horsemen behind them ; the 
archers, also, seven in depth, occupying the interme- 
diate space. So formidable an array precluded the 



THE SANCTUARY. 89 

possibility of further sallies from the Jews in that 
quarter: and under its cover, the beasts, the lug- 
gage, and the mercenary, disorganized multitude of 
followers, were enabled to take up the ground as- 
signed to them. Titus himself was stationed over 
against Psephinos ; the second division had its head- 
quarters near Hippicus ; and the tenth legion had 
completed their fortifications on the Mount of Olives. 
Alas for the city of David ! for the holy place of 
the Tabernacle of the Most High ! The heart of a 
Gentile fails, and her hand trembles while pursuing 
the mournful tale. Already we behold the deadly 
snare drawn close and strong round the victim : Je- 
rusalem is a besieged city, a lodge in a garden of 
cucumbers. Her sons are as a wild bull in a net, 
foaming in vain within its entangling meshes : her 
daughters lament for the past, shrink for the present, 
and see no rescue, no refuge, no escape from the 
terrible future. Can this be Zion, "beautiful for 
situation, the joy of the whole earth ?" Is this the 
place of which the Eternal said, " Here will I dwell, 
for I have a delight therein ?" Yes, blessed for ever 
be his holy name ! there He dwelt, and there He 
will dwell again, in a glory and a majesty that shall 
lighten the whole earth ; there will He yet beautify 
his sanctuary, and make the place of his feet glo 
rious. 



90 JUDAEA CAPTA. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IN following the operations of the besieging army, 
it may be necessary again to advert to the position 
of the three walls that formed the bulwarks of the 
Holy City. The first, or old wall, was the strong- 
est, having been traced oat by David, after whom 
Solomon and all the kings of Judah successively la- 
boured to strengthen it. Commencing at the south- 
western corner of the Temple's outer court, it sepa- 
rated Zion from Acra by a line nearly straight, 
crossing the interior from east to west with a slight 
northward curve, and comprising within this space 
the strong towers of Mariamne, Pharsalus, and Hip- 
picus. Thence it swept southward round the whole 
hill of Zion, around the ridge of the valley of Hin- 
nom, turned at the corner of Ophel, and terminated 
at the south-western angle of the Temple walls. 
This was, to all appearance, so impregnable a bar- 
rier, that the confidence of the Jews in it was un- 
bounded. The stones were of enormous size ; some 
of the lower portion of the tower of Hippicus now 
remaining, and which there is every reason to be- 
lieve formed a part of the original fort built by 
Herod, measure externally from nine to twelve feet 



THE CITY WALLS. 91 

each. The tower itseif is square, seventy feet by 
fifty-six, and this too is a piece of solid masonry, no 
vacuity being discoverable as far as these great 
stones extend; which confirms the assertion of Jo- 
sephus, that it was solid stonework to the height -jf 
thirty cubits, over which was a reservoir of water, 
then two stories of apartments, with battlements anc 
turrets. Of the other two forts nothing now remains, 
save the mass of ruins that assist to block up the 
pass below, and to reduce almost to a level the sur- 
face of the city, " builded upon her own heap" upon 
the crumbled wrecks- of her ancient strength and 
magnificence. 

The old, or first wall, having terminated at the 
south-eastern angle of the boundary that enclosed 
the Temple, the third, or Agrippa's, commenced to 
the northward of it, thus forming a continuous bar- 
rier along the steep acclivity that overlooked the 
valley of the Kedron ; and then enclosing Bezetha 
as the other encircled Zion, it formed a jutting an- 
gle at the north-west points of the city at the tower 
of Psephinos, where Titus had been so roughly as- 
sailed, whence it took its course back to Hippicus. 
The second, it will be remembered, was an internal 
barrier, extending from an ancient gate, the site of 
which is now unknown, but not far from Hippicus, 
and terminating at Fort Antonia, the great citadel of 
Jerusalem. 

The main strength of the city walls was in their 
towers, each of which, in addition to their immense 
solidity below, furnished accommodation to a large 



92 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

defensive body above, supplying them also with 
water, and being each separately defensible. Of 
such warlike towers, the old wall had sixty, the sec- 
ond had forty, and Agrippa's, or the third wall, had 
ninety. The beauty of these bulwarks was no less 
remarkable than their size and strength. They 
were built of white stone, hewn from the rock in 
blocks of enormous size, and so exactly fitted one 
upon another as to present the appearance rather of 
an unbroken mass of marble than that of ordinary 
architecture. They rose to a great height above 
the walls, and these again being built, on three sides, 
upon the edge of a deep precipice, looked still loftier 
than they really were. 

The king's palace, and other buildings, Josephus 
describes in such terms as to stagger the credulity 
of modern readers : they can unhesitatingly receive, 
and complacently swallow his most exaggerated 
statements of impossible enormities committed by 
the inhabitants against each other ; but when he 
comes to set forth the grandeur and beauty of Jeru- 
salem itself, with which both he and those for whom 
he wrote were intimately acquainted, men become 
cautious, they examine and reject his testimony. We 
will not reverse, though we depart from the received 
plan : we will not perpetuate the latter while dis- 
carding the former branch of his statements. 
Enough for us that all the ancient glory of Jerusa- 
lem shall wax dim and be forgotten before the sur- 
passing magnificence of her latter day brightness 
enough that her sons, scattered and peeled, meted 



MOUNT MORIAH. 93 

out, trodden down, oppressed and maligned as even 
yet they are, shall soon repossess their city, repeople 
their land ; for shame have double, and for confu- 
sion rejoice in their glorious portion. 

We must now, so far as is needful for the correct 
understanding of the heart-rending sequel, enter 
upon a description of the Temple. We shall follow 
Josephus, because, recreant as he was, we think he 
dared not have falsified on that subject. He could 
have no motives so to do ; and the familiar acquaint- 
ance of his Roman contemporaries with the spot 
must have served in some measure as a check on 
him. Recent discoveries have verified several of 
his most suspected statements, as to the size of the 
stones, the beauty of the masonry, and the exqui- 
site character of the workmanship employed in va- 
rious architectural departments. Some excavations, 
undertaken for a different purpose, have brought to 
light these things, buried beneath the desolations of 
many generations ; and the time is not far distant 
when the labours of Jewish restorers will make man- 
ifest the extent of that wreck committed by Gentile 
destroyers. 

Mount Moriah, " the mountain of the LORD'S 
house," was originally not only a steep but a very 
uneven hill, too narrow and too irregular on its sum- 
mit for the extent of ground subsequently occupied 
by the Temple and its consecrated boundaries. To 
the south it descended with an abrupt sweep, run- 
ning parallel with the southern slope of Zion ; but 
eastward the rock was precipitous, forming a deep 



94 JUD^A CAPTA. 

ravine, the bed of the river Kedron. Great labour 
was expended in raising embankments, filling up 
the narrow valley to the west, and extending into a 
plain the limited area ; northward, the natural dif- 
ficulties do not appear to have been great. An ex- 
traordinary fact has been ascertained within the 
past few years, namely, that the holiest part of the 
Temple occupied a small natural elevation on the 
unhewn rock, which at this moment exists, an ob- 
ject of mysterious veneration, in the innermost re- 
cesses of the mosque of Omar. Had a circum- 
stance like this been stated in any ancient, unin- 
spired author, and could it now have been cited in 
the face of such alterations and transformations as 
the hands of nominal Christianity would have wrought 
on that consecrated spot, we should have been 
taught to laugh at the improbable fiction; but until 
the Caliph Omar made choice of that site for his 
mosque, the impious rage of a debased sect of nom- 
inal Christians against everything pertaining to 
the religion of Moses prevailed to heap the area of 
the Temple with the filth of their habitations and of 
the whole city. Thus concealed during the first 
epoch by the profane indignities of one supersti- 
tion, (the Greek,) and jealously guarded throughout 
another by the mistaken piety of an antagonist su- 
perstition, (the Moslem,) we find the ground, the 
very ground as it once upbore the house where the 
presence of the Most High vouchsafed to dwell in 
visible glory, and subsequently to walk and to teach 
in the likeness of sinful flesh, that ground in its 



THE TEMPLE COURTS. 95 

original state remains for the seed of Jacob to iden- 
tify, and to consecrate anew, in a more acceptable 
form than they were of old, to the LORD of hosts, 
the Eternal, their King. 

Of those great buildings that were wrecked by 
the ruthless spoiler, not leaving one stone upon an- 
other that was not cast down, we are told that, in the 
first place, great and strong walls were built up- 
wards on the sides of the hill, forming at their sum- 
mits a square platform perfectly level, which was 
enclosed by adding to the lower walls a range of 
cloisters, that surrounded the outer court, communi- 
cating at one angle with Fort Antonia. This court 
was paved with a variety of stones ; and beyond it, 
enclosed by a second partition of peculiarly elegant 
workmanship, but only three cubits in height, sur- 
mounted by pillars, and ascended to by fourteen 
steps, was the court of the sanctuary, into which no 
Gentile might enter. On the eastern side of the 
second quadrangle was the women's court, where 
the daughters of Zion assembled to worship ; and 
here also stood another range of buildings, the natu- 
ral height of which was not easily discernible from 
without. Four gates on the north, four on the south, 
and two on the east side, led to this court ; the west- 
ern wall was unbroken. Of these gates, nine were 
overlaid with silver and gold ; but the tenth, which 
opened eastward, was far more magnificent, being 
of Corinthian brass, of considerably larger propor- 
tions than the rest, adorned with double splendour, 
having the precious metals more profusely spread 
9 



96 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

upon them, and with more elaborate ornament. 
These gateways were of such depth as to resemble 
towers, admitting of a room on either side within, 
between the outer and the inner door. Some idea 
may be formed of the grandeur of these approaches, 
when it is stated that each door was in height thirty 
cubits, and its breadth fifteen ; while the pillars that 
supported the chambers within the gateway were 
twelve cubits in circumference. The doors of the 
eastern, or " Beautiful gate," which stood over 
against the entrance of the Temple itself, were 
forty cubits high ; but the principal feature of the 
whole pile of sacred edifices was the snowy white- 
ness of the polished stones that formed it; their 
enormous size, and the unbroken surface, presented 
to the eye by means of such exquisite fitting of one 
to another as scarcely allowed any junction to be 
perceptible. Accustomed as they were to worship 
on that spot, and familiarized with the magnificence 
that then surmounted them, the disciples could not 
refrain from exclaiming, " Master, see what manner 
of stones, and what buildings are here !" 

The court of the Gentiles, and of the women, and 
that of the men also, being passed, another ascent 
led to the level of the Temple itself, the particulars 
of which we do not attempt to describe, beyond 
what were visible to the Roman host, whose eyes 
must almost have failed with gazing on it, while 
they computed the value of spoils, such as had never 
before invited their rapacious grasp. The tenth 
legion, encamped on the Mount of Olives could 



THE TEMPLE. 97 

look down into its beauteous recesses, when the 
morning sun-beam rested on those stately pillars, 
and threw into the richest relief the massive foliage 
of vine-leaves, grapes, pomegranates, and other ex- 
quisite tracery that hung upon the snowy structure 
in masses of solid gold. Opening, as it did, to the 
east, and closed from view only in the holiest place, 
which the high-priest alone, once in the year, might 
enter, while a costly veil, profusely embroidered in 
blue, scarlet, and purple, hung before the entrance 
of the sanctuary, revealing, when withdrawn, the al- 
tar of incense, the golden table of shew-bread, and 
the seven-branched candlestick ; all but the most 
distant and mysterious recess, (the spot where for- 
merly rested the visible glory of the Eternal,) was 
frequently laid open, like a dream of imaginary mag- 
nificence, to the astonished view of those who hov 
ered on the opposite heights : the altar of burnt 
offering standing in the open air, surrounded by the 
priests, while all Israel worshipped beyond the light 
and elegant frame-work that encompassed it, com- 
pleted the sublime spectacle. 

That holy spot was then, indeed, polluted by the 
presence of men of strife and blood, contending for 
the possession, with other views and far less sacred 
purposes than a pious Israelite could have enter- 
tained: but its external aspect had undergone no 
change, neither was its sanctity diminished in the 
eyes of many thousands who daily pressed to offer 
the prayers of agonized apprehension in its beloved 
courts. It stood ; and around it rallied those whose 



98 JUD^A CAPTA. 

heart's blood was ready to flow in defence of every 
stone that formed that majestic pile. It stood, even 
where the voice of Omnipotence came from heaven 
unto Abraham, when with outstretched arm he 
poised the knife above his only son, with that im- 
mutable promise and oath by which the blessing of 
all nations through Abraham's seed is still secure : 
on that spot where David's supplication had prevail- 
ed to avert a former judgment from Jerusalem, and 
sheath the sword of a destroying angel, commis- 
sioned to visit for the monarch's sin : on that spot 
where, in Solomon's day, the effulgence of God's 
presence had so filled the former house, as to render 
it untenable by feeble man : on that spot where a 
greater than Solomon had recently made the glory 
of the second Temple surpass the glory of the for- 
mer house ; where David's Son and David's Lord 
bore as an accusation the title that shall yet be his 
glory throughout the universe 5 where Abraham's 
seed, the true and only sacrifice for sin, had verified 
at once the type of Isaac's doom, and sealed the 
promised blessing to the utmost ends of the earth. 
HE never despised, or spoke lightly even of the ma- 
terial structure that crowned the holy mount ; many 
instances may be cited of a directly opposite tenden- 
cy ; as in the expression, " Whoso shall swear by 
the Temple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwell- 
eth therein" " Make not my Father's house an house 
of merchandize ;" and others. In like manner we 
find the apostles, to the latest period of their pro- 
ceedings in Jerusalem, observing the ordinances of 



99 

the LORD'S house ; and Paul energetically clearing 
himself, not only "before the Roman governors in Ju- 
dea, but before the Jews in Rome, of any infraction 
of that rule : " I have committed nothing against 
the people, or customs of our fathers" he says to the 
latter ; and to the former, he reiterates the fact that 
he, as a Jew, was found by the Jews "purified in 
the Temple" in fulfilment of a strictly Jewish vow, 
not disputing or opposing anything connected with 
their worship. We should do well sometimes to call 
to mind the dealings and expressions of the first be- 
lievers, the inspired apostles of our Lord, together 
with his own example, in reference to that which 
was emphatically ordained to be " a house of prayer 
for all nations ;" instead of using means to deaden 
our sympathies, and to encourage ourselves in con- 
temptuous thoughts of that "mountain of the 
LORD'S house," to which, as to an appointed cen- 
tre, all nations shall yet flow. 

The fort Antonia was no part of the original de 
sign the sacred antiquities of the spot. Herod 
built it on a point of rock at the northern verge of 
Moriah, where a deep trench was also carried along 
its base, separating it from Bezetha. To render 
this steep more inaccessible, the rock was artificially 
smoothed, from its foundation upwards, by the ad- 
dition of polished stone laid on its surface, so that 
any one attempting to scale it would find no possi 
billity of fixing his foot there. There rose a wall 
abruptly from this hopeless ascent, and within it the 
tower; a most formidable building, containing in 
9* 



100 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

itself every requisite for the purpose to which it was 
appropriated by its founder. Josephus aptly says 
that whereas the Temple was a fortress that guarded 
the city, so was the tower of Antonia a guard to the 
Temple. It had four turrets at its four corners, the 
south-eastern one being considerably higher than the 
rest, and entirely commanding the whole area of the 
Temple. A Roman legion had always been sta- 
tioned here, and from this high turret they were ac- 
customed to watch the proceedings of the Jews, when 
assembled at their stated festivities ; patrolling also 
around the cloisters, into which they had opened 
communications from the lower part of the tower. 
On a former occasion, the Jews had delivered them- 
selves from this degrading intrusion, by destroying 
the range of buildings that abutted on the tower, 
and so depriving the soldiers of a covered way ; but 
they were compelled to restore them. Subsequently 
the enemy was altogether expelled ; and Antonia 
became the prize of the strongest party among those 
whose contentions so fatally distracted and weak- 
ened the city. The two leaders, Simon and John, 
the latter of whom had possession of the Temple, 
and the former of Zion, or the upper city, continued 
to oppose each other ; and Josephus represents it as 
an act of great kindness on the part of the Romans, 
to subdue the animosity by destroying both parties. 
He says, " The sedition destroyed the city, and the 
Romans destroyed the sedition ; which was a much 
harder thing to do than to destroy the walls." Nev- 
ertheless, the walls gave them some trouble; and 



ATTACK ON BEZETHA. 101 

had not the LORD been wroth with his people, the 
virgin daughter of Zion might have shaken her head 
at those iron legions, and laughed to scorn their bat- 
tering rams, as serenely as she derided the spears 
of the Assyrian. 

Titus, having completed his preparations, now pro- 
ceeded closely to examine the wall, in order to select 
any weak point ; and this, unhappily, he was enabled 
to do. In that part of Bezetha which was most 
thinly inhabited, the builders of Agrippa's wall left 
the work in an imperfect state at its junction with 
the old wall, which here was also lower and more 
assailable. To this quarter the general ordered up 
his engines, and received a further stimulus to his 
zeal from the mischief that befell his friend Nicanor. 
Josephus, it appears on his own evidence, was prowl- 
ing about under the walls, seeking to persuade his 
countrymen into a surrender, as " a person known to 
them." Known he had been as an illustrious Jew, 
and as an intrepid warrior ; but he was also now 
known to them as a traitor, an apostate, and a de- 
ceitful tool of the enemy, worthy of no oth<3r reply 
from them than was conveyed in the shower of darts 
with which they greeted his insidious approach. 
By one of these weapons Nicanor was wounded in 
the shoulder, and Titus, despairing of treachery 
within, resolved to press most vigorously the assault 
from without. He gave his soldiers leave to fire the 
suburbs, as an earnest, perhaps, of the desolation that 
they might hope to carry to the utmost ; he also di 
rected them to raise banks of timber against the city, 



102 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

placing his archers in the midst of the workmen, and 
drawing out in their front a number of the engines, 
from which stones, javelins, and other missiles were 
continually cast, to deter the besieged from attempt- 
ing a sally, and to drive from the walls those who 
were prepared to obstruct their operations. 

And now every remaining tree available for their 
purpose was cut down ; not only the gardens and 
fragrant groves, but the stately growth of many an 
age, fell beneath the alien axe " the fir tree, and 
the pine tree, and the box together ;" not, alas ! to 
beautify the place of the Lord's sanctuary, but to 
aid in the work of its destruction. It was a bitter 
spectacle for the inhabitants of Jerusalem to behold 
their beautiful land laid waste, and the trees under 
which their fathers' fathers had reposed, trees that 
had seen the bright days of Judah, when no alien 
vexed her borders, dragged heavily along the dis- 
figured plain to form a huge embankment against 
them. They were not idle. They had not ceased 
to hope, and hoping to be strong and of good cour- 
age in contesting every stone of their sacred walls. 
They assembled towards the point of attack, bring- 
ing up such engines as they had, being spoils taken 
from Cestius, and from the lately-expelled garrison 
of Roman soldiers. Josephus speaks contemptu- 
ously of their unskilfulness in the use of these ma- 
chines, having had little practice or instruction in the 
art ; but he admits that they frequently ran out, in 
defiance of the Roman batteries, and finally attacked 
the men at the banks, who, covering themselves with 



THE. WALLS ASSAULTED. 103 

hurdles, as at Jotapata, and, defended by their en- 
gines and archers, suffered but little obstruction. 
Josephus speaks with satisfaction of the havoc made 
by some extraordinary catapults belonging to the 
tenth legion, which threw masses of rock, the weight 
of a talent, to a great distance, and with such terri- 
hle force as to overthrow whole ranks of men. The 
Jews for a time baffled these ; not only the noise of 
the engine, but the shining whiteness of those stones 
of Zion, gave notice of their approach : the watch- 
men stationed on their towers uttered a warning 
cry, those around prostrated themselves behind 
their battlements, and the instrument of death passed 
harmless over them. The Romans perceiving this, 
blackened the stones, thus rendering them less visi- 
ble, and by this means destroyed many at one blow. 
Nevertheless, their operations were incessantly inter- 
rupted by the Jews, who harassed them day and 
night, and scarcely permitted them to complete tho 
banks. 

The work was at length completed, the interven- 
ing ground measured, and the dreadful engines ad- 
vanced to the very walls 5 and from three different 
quarters at the same moment, with a thundering 
noise, the attack was made. A great cry was heard 
within the city, whether of terror or defiance, or both, 
the narrator does not state, but he admits that they 
suspended their quarrels, and united in defence of 
their bulwarks. Seizing lighted torches, they ran 
round the walls, hurling them at the engines, shoot- 
ing, at the same time, their darts at those who 



104 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

worked them. A battering-ram of the fifteenth 
legion actually moved the corner of a tower, and 
inspired hopes that a breach would be effected ; but 
no further damage was done by it, and a furious 
sally of the Jews, who leaped down upon the hurdles 
that covered the machines, tore them in pieces, and 
attacked the men belonging to them. Titus found 
great difficulty in repelling these assaults, though 
he made the most of his horsemen and archers, and 
ultimately beat back the gallant defenders, who 
brought fire to the very framework of the engines, 
and fought as did their fathers of old. But alas ! 
" their Rock had sold them and the LORD had shut 
them up." 



JEWISH STRATAGEM. 



CHAPTER IX. 

AFTER the impression just noticed had been made 
an the upper part of a tower, the Jews suddenly 
suspended their efforts. They discontinued the sal- 
lies, and withdrew within their fortifications, lead- 
ing the assailants to conclude that they were either 
so wearied out by continued exertion, or so intimi- 
dated by the formidable aspect of the besieging 
army, and the shaking of one of Z ion's bulwarks, as 
to have yielded to despondency, and forborne the 
hopeless fight. The Romans hereupon encouraged 
themselves, and hastened the completion of their 
plan, each camp being the scene of eager bustle and 
preparation for renewed assaults, while every man 
found somewhat to occupy him in the military works. 
Quietly and unsuspected, the defenders collected 
their force, and availing themselves of a small pri- 
vate gateway at the tower of Hippicus, they passed 
out, each man being provided with fire, and came 
so suddenly up to the very banks that the enemy 
were fortifying, that the Roman warriors were con- 
strained to cry out to their dispersed comrades for 
help. These advanced from all parts of the camp 
to the rescue, hastily forming in their usual excel- 



106 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

lent order ; but neither numbers nor discipline avail- 
ed them against the valour of the Jews. Josephus 
is obliged to confess this, however unwillingly, and 
that for a long time new succours only came up to 
be routed, while one party struggled to fire the 
works and destroy the engines, the other to preserve 
them. " The Jews," says this recreant, " were now 
too hard for the Romans by the furious assaults they 
made, like madmen." On a former occasion Jose- 
phus had done the same, and probably he would 
have thought it hard to stigmatize the heroes of 
Jotapata as furious wild beasts and madmen, when 
contending for their homes, their wives, their chil- 
dren, their own good land, and their own lives ; pro- 
bably if to these had been added the Temple of the 
Lord in Jerusalem, and Mount Zion, the holy city 
itself, he would have used such an argument to fire 
the courage of his comrades into tenfold ardour. 
But Josephus was now the sordid craven tool of the 
pagan foe, the hireling sycophant, so sold to work 
iniquity against his own people, that he could assist 
to batter down those sacred bulwarks ; and even 
after beholding the utter, the unprecedented, the 
heart-withering destruction that came upon the chil- 
dren of Israel at the hands of savage barbarians, he 
could coolly sit down and cull degrading epithets 
wherewith to cast a stain upon the memory of his 
butchered brethren. Yet this too is overruled for 
good : out of his own mouth we judge the traitor, 
and measure by the standard of his irrepressible ma- 



DESPERATE STRUGGLE. 107 

lignity the extent of his calumnious charges against 
them. 

To return to the " madmen :" they succeeded in 
setting fire to the works, and for some time the Ro- 
man machinery was in imminent danger of being 
reduced to ashes. A select band from Alexandria, 
concerning whom the historian hints that theii 
martial prowess had not previously been very con- 
spicuous, succeeded, however, in staying the impet- 
uous progress of the Jews, while many on both 
sides fell around the fatal engines. At length Titus, 
predestined to destroy as did the heathen kings of 
old whenever the Lord was provoked to sell his peo- 
ple into the hand of their enemies advanced at the 
head of his irresistible horsemen, and, according to 
Josephus, slew with his own hand twelve of " the 
enemy" that is to say, of the foremost Jews, who 
were offering themselves willingly for the defence of 
their sacred citadel. When the rest saw their lead- 
ers fall by a single arm, and that the arm of him 
who had brought the abomination of desolation to 
the verge of their holy place, they seem to have 
been struck with a panic, a consciousness that they 
were delivered to the destroyer, and under this influ- 
ence they retreated into the city. One man alone 
was taken alive, and he, by the orders of the merci- 
less Titus, was crucified before the walls, " to see," 
says Josephus. " whether the rest would be affrighted, 
and abate of their obstinacy" We quote this lan- 
guage to justify the loathing disgust with which we 
cannot but contemplate his character, and to exhibit 
10 



108 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

his true feeling towards, or rather against, his af- 
flicted nation. It does not appear that any intimida- 
tion was effected by this act of cowardly ferocity, 
but on the following night an extraordinary panic 
seized the Roman host, in which, though their scribe 
records it not, they probably did some execution one 
upon another. 

Titus had commanded the erection of three 
towers, each fifty cubits high, for the double pur- 
pose of overlooking the defences and of driving from 
the walls all who should advance to man them. At 
midnight, while the Jews within were in consider- 
able agitation at the death of John, the general of 
the Idumeans, who had been shot by an Arabian 
after the battle, when standing in seeming security, 
conversing on the wall, and whose loss filled Jerusa- 
lem with lamentation ; and while the Romans qui- 
etly reposed in their camps, one of these towers sud- 
denly fell down, with a terrible crash, leading the 
army to suppose that the Jews were upon them 
again. Great confusion ensued among the legions ; 
each man suspected his neighbour to be a foe ; on all 
sides the watchword was demanded, and tumult 
reigned throughout the host, for, seeing no enemy 
among them, treachery was generally surmised. It 
was not without great difficulty, and probably blood- 
shed, that Titus succeeded in explaining the inci- 
dent and allaying the storm. 

To these fatal towers the Romans owed their con- 
quest ; they rendered resistance una vailing. Covered 
with plates of iron, they defied the agency of fire, 



MELANCHOLY PROSPECTS. 109 

hitherto so effective against the Roman works ; their 
altitude secured the archers and slingers from all 
weapons levelled at them from the walls, while en- 
abling them to take a sure and deadly aim at those 
below. Besides, the Romans had made them suffi- 
ciently strong to bear the lighter engines, and thus 
they directed whole vollies against the garrison, 
who were compelled to retire, leaving the enormous 
rams to deal unobstructedly their fearful blows 
against the rampart walls. 

What heart can conceive the terrors of this season, 
as experienced by those who were surrounded, see- 
ing no way of escape ! We speak not of Jewish men 
so much as of the poor, weak, tender women and 
little ones, and of the very aged, some of whom had 
heard the thrilling sounds of compassionate warning, 
when, melted into sorrow, they followed the steps of 
the holy Sufferer, who bore his cross along the proud 
and stately streets of the city, and bewailed the 
cruel death to which He was ignorantly doomed. 

" Daughters of Jerusalem," He said, " weep not 
for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 
For behold, the days are coming in the which they 
shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs 
that never bare, and the paps which never gave 
suck. Then shall they begin to say to the moun- 
tains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us." Surely 
such must have been the language, secret, if not ut- 
tered, of the terrified females, as they stole a glance 
at the tremendous array of those camps, swarming 
with a horde of fierce, brutal, sanguinary, licentious 



110 JUD/EA CAPTA. 

devil-worshippers, who never knew what pity meant, 
and who were lured to the enterprise by nothing 
but the prospect of fully satiating all their vilest and 
most ferocious passions. Surely such must have 
been the mother's moan, as she looked on her beau- 
teous children, and pictured to herself the horrors of 
a life-long slavery, with all its hideous concomitants, 
including the torturing deaths reserved for multi- 
tudes in the gladiatorial and other murderous spec- 
tacles of Rome. Imagination faints beneath the ef- 
fort to realize for one moment what those endured 
who were now pent in by the tottering walls and 
towers of Jerusalem. 

On the fifteenth day of the siege was the imper- 
fect wall of Agrippa surmounted, and Bezetha 
taken. The Jews had retired within the more pow- 
erful bulwarks of their second wall, having the north- 
ern division of the city, which was indeed but a 
modern suburb to ancient Jerusalem, for their occu- 
pation. Josephus attributes their abandonment of 
it to laziness and ill-concerted counsels ; though he 
had just before proved the impossibility of their with- 
standing the method of assault adopted by the enemy, 
who had in him an accurate informant on every 
point ; an experienced soldier, perfectly able to direct 
their operations against the city of his God ; and as 
consummate a traitor as ever stabbed the bosom 
which had given him suck. He, of course, would 
have preferred that the Jews had remained to be 
slaughtered in the indefensible streets of Bezetha $ 
instead of which, he found himself with his employ 



FORMER TIMES. Ill 

ers, established on a spot most memorable for the 
destruction of their ancient predecessors they oc- 
cupied now the ground where Rabshakeh had 
pitched his camp, shortly before the divine vengeance 
which followed them thence overtook the host of the 
Assyrian, and slew in one night by invisible means a 
hundred and eighty-five thousand men. Dearly as 
were all their national deliverances cherished by the 
Jews, no doubt many thought on this, and looked for 
a similar miracle to rescue Jerusalem ; they would 
call to mind the words spoken of old, in reference to 
the Assyrian invader, " He shall not come into this 
city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor cast a bank 
against it. By the way that he came, by the same 
shall he return, and shall not come into this city, 
saith the LORD. For I will defend this city to save 
it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's 
sake." The progress of the Roman arms had not 
yet extended beyond the point of the Assyrian's ad- 
vance, and it is very probable that in suddenly re- 
tiring to their ancient limits the garrison had in view 
this fact. Their true unbroken wall still encom- 
passed the city of Melchizedek, (the ancient Jebus,) 
the city of David, and Mount Moriah : in scripture 
language, Jerusalem, Zion. and the Mountain of the 
Lord's house ; and it is remarkable that such are the 
limits named in the promises of future exaltation to 
the holy city. Confined within a narrower compass, 
suffering much more from the strictness of the siege, 
and having a nearer, a much more formidable view 
of the enemy, still the daughter of Zion sat as a 
10* 



112 JTJD.EA CAPTA. 

queen within the uninvaded circuit of her original 
domain ; and the utmost demolition effected by the 
Romans in the northern quarter of the city was but 
the renewal of what Cestius had previously done. 
From this period, every advantage obtained by f he 
besiegers was indeed against Jerusalem. 

The camp being thus far advanced, and all the 
battering engines brought up, the attack was, of 
course, upon the wall that stretched from the tower 
of Antonia to that of Hippicus, sweeping round 
Acra, and enclosing the busiest, the most crowded 
part of the whole city. Here were the shops and 
markets ; here the artizans resided, and business of 
all kinds was transacted. The streets were narrow, 
steep, and intricate, rising towards the Temple by 
causeways and flights of steps, arid descending again 
into the Tyropean pass, which it must always be 
borne in mind was then a deep ravine, an exceed- 
ingly narrow and abrupt valley, intersecting the 
three mounts, Moriah, Zion, and Acra. To judge 
of ancient Jerusalem by the position of its surface 
in our day, is merely to mislead ourselves ; for the 
very outlines are in many places lost j and the inte- 
rior details present an appearance wholly unlike its 
former aspect. " Built upon its own heap," parts of 
the city now stands on foundations overtopping the 
summit of lofty buildings that once occupied the 
same site, as regards mere measurement from given 
points 5 and when we talk of hills arid passes, we re- 
fer to places where at this moment perhaps a level 
plain extends beneath the incredulous eye. Many 



CHANGES OF ASPECT. 113 

who visit the spot with minds correctly impressed 
from scripture with the real aspect of the city of 
David, and its surrounding localities, are perplexed, 
disappointed, and almost tempted to doubt the accu- 
racy of the inspired description ; while, in like man- 
ner, the inquirer into such historical records as this 
of Josephus is led to account many things fabulous, 
because his modern plan of Jerusalem tends to con- 
tradict them. No other place under heaven has 
known such marvellous changes ; no other country 
has undergone so strange a succession of desolating 
and transforming vicissitudes ; but in despite of all, 
we may recall every event of her memorable his- 
tory in connexion with the very spot on which it oc- 
curred ; and sweet to those who love her will be the 
task, when the days of her mourning are ended ! 

While Titus marshalled his bands for a fresh at- 
tack, having also opened, by his recent advance, a 
much nearer communication with the camp on 
Mount Olivet, the Jews also disposed their force to 
the best advantage. John of Gischala occupied the 
tower of Antonia, and the northern range of clois- 
ters : while Simon, his rival, manned the wall, where 
it stretched in a crescent form, bending back to an 
old gate, near the tower of Hippicus, for its course 
was like a bent bow, almost semicircular, bulging 
out to the north-west; and then meeting the old 
wall, in its course westward from the temple. Di- 
vided into several bodies, the Jews planted them- 
selves on this line of wall, and most gallantly de- 
fended it, throwing darts at the enemy. They also 



114 JTJD^A CAPTA. 

made frequent sallies, from which they were speed- 
ily driven back, by the vast superiority of the Roman 
army, in weapons, discipline, and generalship ; but 
on the walls they proved too much for their adver- 
saries, and often repulsed them. The battle raged 
from day to day, without any other perceptible ad- 
vantage than that which the besiegers gained from 
the increasing misery and privations of the besieged. 
Josephus says, that the combat was persevered in 
with equal obstinacy on both sides ; commencing 
with the morning's light, and " night itself had 
much ado to part them." A sleepless watch, with- 
out and within, with eager impatience for the mor- 
row, occupied the hours of darkness ; the Romans 
hoping by some mighty effort to overcome their gal- 
lant opposers, and to grasp the prey : the Jews still 
looking for deliverance from Him who had of old 
put their enemies to shameful flight, and who had, 
" as birds flying," protected his Jerusalem. Neither 
Dut off their armour during the night, but lay ready 
to start up at earliest dawn ; the great ambition 
among the Jews being to secure the post of greatest 
danger. This Josephus admits ; at the same time 
telling us it was done to gratify their commander. 
A motive worthy to be imputed to them by one who 
only lived to please Titus ; and whose debased soul 
could now conceive of no higher incentive than the 
patronizing smile of a master; even though that 
master was an idolatrous heathen, steeped to the 
lips in the blood of Israel. 

Immediately after this contemptible endeavour to 



VALOUR OF THE JEWS. 115 

derogate from the patriotic valour of his own nation, 
and proving that the hope of gaining the favour of Ti- 
tus really was the principal stimulus of the Romans, he 
admits that death itself seemed a small matter to 
any Jew, if he could but kill one of the enemy. In 
other words, they fought for their home ; for the city 
of their fathers and the Temple of their God ; and 
happy did he account himself who diminished, even by 
one individual, the host arrayed against them, though 
in the act he yielded his own life. If anything had 
been wanting to prove how factitious were the vaunt- 
ed honour and magnanimity of these Roman heroes, 
behold the fact of their permitting, yea, employing a 
treacherous deserter thus to slander the dead, whose 
courageous self-devotion in the cause of their own 
country would have moved any honourable foe to 
respect their memories and applaud their valour. 
But we are constantly reminded of the prophetic 
character of the fourth Beast : it not only devoured 
and broke in pieces ; it " stamped the residue with 
the feet of it." 

Titus having brought one of his battering-rams to 
bear on a central tower in the northern part of the 
second wail, a device was practised, showing at once 
the cool self-possession of those whom the historian 
calls madmen, and the fertility of their minds in discov- 
ering hindrances to stay the enemy's progress. Pent 
in as they were, suffering all the horrors of famine, 
and without hope of succour from man, these con- 
trivances prove the perseverance of their expecta- 



116 JUDvEA CAPTA. 

tion that the God of Israel would yet show himself 
mindful of his suffering people, and rebuke the de- 
stroyer for their sakes. It is plain, they could not 
persuade themselves that Jerusalem, so long the 
throne of God's promise, and the Temple where He 
once delighted to dwell, would really become the 
prey of those exterminating enemies: they hoped 
that, after sorely afflicting them, perhaps He would 
yet repent and return, and bestow a blessing ; and 
thus hoping, they deemed every hour's delay of im- 
portance to be purchased at any price. A Jew, 
named Castor, taking with him ten more, formed an 
ambush in the tower now assailed by the ram ; all the 
rest having withdrawn from the aim of the Roman 
marksmen. They lay still until the tower began to 
shake, then showed themselves, and Castor, crying 
for mercy, implored that Titus would receive their 
submission and ensure their safety in the usual way, 
by giving his right hand. The general, whose great 
object was to gain as much as he could by treachery 
on the other side, so sparing the lives of his own 
troops, lent a willing ear, commanded the ram to be 
stopped, and encouraged Castor to proceed with his 
overtures. The Jew (having privately sent word 
to Simon that he would amuse the enemy for some 
time, to allow him more space for consultation upon 
the defence,) protested his readiness to descend from 
the tower, and deliver himself and his companions 
up on condition of the afore-mentioned pledge. Ti- 
tus assented, expressing his desire to extend the se- 



A NLW STRATAGEM. 117 

curity to the whole city, if all its inhabitants could 
be brought to the same mind. 

While these compliments were passing, five of the 
ten men burst out into vehement protestations that 
they would sooner die than agree to the proposed 
submission ; the others pretended to reason with 
them, and a long altercation ensued, during which 
the Romans stood idly by, hoping to gain more by 
this defection, than by the strokes of their battering- 
ram. The pretended debate grew apparently to a 
quarrel : Castor was exhorting the objectors to yield, 
and they in return brandishing their swords, arid, 
finally, appearing to stab themselves, and to fall 
down slain, to the great admiration of Titus and his 
men ; removed as they were to a distance, from 
which they could not clearly ascertain what passed. 
A dart was, however, shot at Castor, and stuck in 
his face : he drew it forth, and appealed to Titus 
against the unfairness of the proceeding, on which 
the archer was reprimanded. It may readily be sup- 
posed that all this occupied some precious time. Jo- 
sephus, standing by his patron, was desired to go to 
Castor, with the right hand of security, hut he pru- 
dently declined : suspecting the sincerity of his 
brethren's treason, he also withheld others who would 
have gone. Castor, however, continued to call for 
some one to come and receive his money, which 
tempted another renegade, less cautious than Jose- 
phus, to hasten towards hi'm. He was saluted by 
the hurling of a heavy stone from Castor's hand, 
which missed him, but wounded another person. 



*1 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

Titus now saw the real object of the parley, and, as 
Josephus remarks, " perceived that mercy in war is 
a pernicious thing ; because such cunning tricks 
have less exercise under greater severity." He ac- 
cordingly ordered the battering to be resumed more 
vigorously than before ; but as soon as the tower be- 
gan to tremble, Castor and his companions set it on 
fire, leaping into the flames, to the great admiration 
of the Romans, by whom suicide was held in the 
highest esteem ; but Josephus says they only leaped 
into a hidden vault, through which they escaped. 
How he ascertained the fact must remain doubtful ; 
but the stratagem itself, with all the falsifying partic- 
ulars that he was sure to interweave in his narra- 
tive, in deterioration of the Jewish character, goes 
far to prove that real treachery was exceedingly rare 
among the besieged, though most eagerly sought 
after by the assailants. 

Before we recount the further progress of the ene- 
my, it is needful to remind the reader that within 
the city were two classes : one comprising the help- 
less, weak, unarmed civilians, many of whom no 
doubt were led, in this extremity, to recognise the 
hand of the Lord, and to humble themselves under 
it ; while others, seeing the utter hopelessness of re- 
sistance, saw no possible way of escape from indis- 
criminate slaughter, save in an immediate and un- 
conditional surrender: and with these were doubt- 
less many who, in the extremity of fear and suffering, 
would have bartered their right both in the holy 
place and in the chosen nation, for deliverance from 



CHARACTER OF THE SEDITION. 119 

present misery. The other class, called by Josephus 
the seditious, because they rebelled against the sov- 
ereign will of Rome, consisted of the fighting men 
those who were resolved to perish amid the ruins 
of their city, rather than connive at the advance of a 
hostile footstep within its sacred boundaries. We 
have already seen by what cruel aggressions the 
Jews were originally goaded into hostile measures, 
at first purely defensive, but amounting at length to 
the forcible expulsion of a powerful people, who had 
long held them tributary. They had fully recog- 
nised the Roman government, had long seen their 
cities garrisoned by Roman troops, and relinquished 
all claim to independent legislation or self-govern- 
ment. " It is not lawful for us to put any man to 
death :" " We have no king but Caesar." 

These were voluntary declarations of a state in 
which the sceptre had departed from Judah, and the 
Lawgiver from between his feet ; and, strictly speak- 
ing, they were guilty of insurrection against regu- 
larly instituted authorities. In former years, God 
had vouchsafed to send them prophets and deliverers, 
commissioned to break the yoke from off their necks, 
which their iniquities had provoked Him to lay on 
them : now, there had been no voice of prophecy to 
direct, no anointed champion to lead, a movement of 
the kind. Had it been otherwise, the Roman power 
would have broken arid crumbled beneath them, and 
its fragments scattered like the chaff of the summer 
thrashing floor. As it was, those who struggled for 
freedom bore the brand of sedition ; and so, with some 
11 



120 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

colour of reason, though every feeling of the heart in_ 
voluntarily rises against it, the wily Josephus charac- 
terizes all who withstood the re-occupation of Jerusa- 
lem by the alien power of Rome. Let it, however 
be also borne in mind, that matters had gone too far 
to admit the faintest hope of mercy oi> the part of 
their tyrants, if again ascendant ; and in contending 
for their city, the Jews were contending for their 
lives, as opposed to the most cruel deaths that fiends 
in human form could invent ; and for their libertiesj 
as opposed to tortured and fettered slavery in a 
foreign land, where men, like beasts of prey, revelled 
in blood. No marvel, then, if, as Josephus asserts, 
the garrison threatened, and even inflicted, capital 
punishment on such as proposed to surrender the 
city. Expecting, as some did, a divine interposition, 
and resolved, as others were, to resist to their last 
gasp the torrent of desolation that menaced Jerusa- 
lem, there was no alternative. 

The Romans greatly dreaded these warlike Jews, 
while affecting to despise them ; and having so val- 
uable a specimen of a purchased traitor in Josephus 
himself, Titus hoped, by a fair show of leniency to 
the more timid portion of the inhabitants, to unite 
them on his behalf against the garrison. Beyond 
the second wall lay Acra, inhabited by the most 
peaceable classes; its narrow streets, running ob- 
liquely from the wall, were peopled by braziers, 
dealers and workers in wool, and such like ; the 
cloth market also being there, and shops of every 
kind. If Titus could but obtain quiet possession of 



PLAN TO CARRY ACRA. 121 

this commercial quarter, he might safely calculate 
on reducing the remainder with little sacrifice of time, 
trouble, or life ; for here too were the few provisions 
that remained in store, and from hence he might 
carry on his operations against the Temple in front, 
and the upper city on his right hand. The breach, 
therefore, made in the second wall, was most impor- 
tant ; he did not stay to widen it, for he hoped by fair 
words, and restraining his soldiers from any violence, 
to ensure a welcome, or at least to meet no resistance 
while taking up a new position on this advanced 
ground ; but he had more to learn. 



122 JUD^A CAPTA. 



CHAPTER X. 



ALTHOUGH Titus had, according to Josephus, just 
before perceived that " mercy in war is a pernicious 
thing," it is surprising with what dove-like intentions 
this Roman eagle entered through the breach into 
the lower city, as set forth in the next paragraph of 
his history. His purpose was to do the Jews a kind- 
ness, not to afflict them more than was needful ; to 
make them ashamed of their obstinacy, by the mag- 
nanimity of his forbearance. He forbade his soldiers 
to kill the tradespeople, or to fire their houses ; nay, 
he gave " the seditious" leave to fight, without in- 
volving their fellow-townsmen in the consequences 
of their timerity. All this must have sounded very 
generous in the ears of the braziers and weavers ; 
but they were Jews the spot was Jerusalem the 
invader was a worshipper of stocks and stones, and 
his right-hand man, his chief adviser, was a degraded 
apostate from the cause of Israel Having once 
more proclaimed the word Death to the Jew who 
should speak of surrender those whom Titus had so 
courteously permitted to fight, proceeded to do so, 
and never ceased until they had driven him with all 



THE LOWER CITY. 123 

his routed host back through the breach at which 
they entered. 

In the first place, a body of the Jews made a sud- 
den sally from the upper gates, falling on the enemy 
outside the walls, with such effect, that the guards 
posted by Titus on the towers and battlements, 
leaped down in a panic and fled to their camps, 
shouting with a great cry of alarm and distress, on 
account of their general and comrades within, to 
whom they could afford no succour. The cry was 
echoed by the latter, who found themselves en- 
compassed on all sides, driven through narrow 
streets and cross lanes wholly new to them, while 
to their pursuers every turning was familiar. En- 
tangled in the narrowest passes, hunted down the 
steep descents, or pursued up their acclivities by far 
more practised feet ; assailed from the houses, and 
not knowing how to regain the spot where they had 
entered, the Roman force, consisting of a thousand 
choice warriors, might all have fallen, had not Titus 
gained the breach, the narrow dimensions of which 
he too late regretted, and by a careful disposition of 
his archers, in some measure covered the retreat 
How many escaped we are not informed ; but the 
loss must have been great, and the rout complete 
for the time. The bitter reviling with which Jose- 
phus mingles his forced admission of the bravery of 
his own people, leads to a supposition that he coun- 
selled this abortive attempt. Howsoever that may 
be, the fact is acknowledged, that when the Romans 
in full force returned to the breach, the Jews made 
11* 



124 JUD^A CAPTA. 



a wall of their own bodies in place of the stones 
that had been thrown down ; and in this way, for 
three entire days, bade defiance to the utmost efforts 
of the Roman army. 

What a spectacle was this ! " A people terrible 
from their beginning hitherto," once so invincible 
that not only the armies of opposing nations, but the 
very elements themselves were made to flee before 
them. The sea fled, and Jordan was driven back, 
that a way might be made for the ransomed to pass 
over. It was not their power nor the might of their 
arm that wrought deliverances of old, but it was the 
presence of the Eternal their God, who scattered 
their every enemy, and caused every obstacle to 
melt away as they advanced. Long they rebelled, 
and vexed His Holy Spirit ; long they made Him to 
serve with their sins, wearied Him with their iniqui- 
ties, slew the messengers of His mercy, and finally 
refused even that Messenger of the Covenant whose 
coming they longed for, who came suddenly into the 
Temple, and brought salvation unto Zion, and was 
despised, rejected, and slain. The glory departed 
from Israel ; the power of the Most Highest upheld 
them no longer. Yet so accustomed were they to 
miraculous interpositions, so utterly unable to con- 
vince themselves of the awful truth that Jerusalem 
must now sit down in the dust, so unable to conceive 
how a host of idolatrous barbarians should have li- 
cense given to pollute the city of the Great King, that 
they dared even to the verge of a miraculous mani- 
festation of mortal energy, and piled themselves, the 



DEFEAT OF THE JEWS. 125 

living and the dead, in an impenetrable mass of 
fleshly bulwarks before their beloved Zion ! Hate- 
ful to God must be the feeling, and hateful to man 
it ought to be, that hardens itself against the peo- 
ple whom the LORD so heavily smote ; that dwells 
on this tale as a mere matter of exciting amusement, 
or historical information, and does not lament and 
grieve over the branches of the LORD'S fair vine- 
yard, thus mangled and torn, and trodden down in 
the mire by men more cruel than ravenous beasts 
of prey. Even Josephus, whose book is a glaring 
monument of his own perfidious infamy and false- 
hood, says, " they made a wall of their own bodies 
over against that part of the wall which was cast 
down ;" the breach whereby the Romans had once 
entered, and through which they were driven out. 
But on the fourth day the darts and spears, the cat- 
apult and battering-rams prevailed ; and the rem- 
nant of Israelites retreated, leaving the entrance 
free. It was not to themselves, but to God with 
them, and God in them, that their fathers owed and 
attributed their marvellous victories. " Some trust 
in chariots, and some in horses," said the conquering 
David, "but we will remember the name of the 
LORD our God." Nor was it a mere remembrance 
of that name, or its repetition that helped them, but 
a realizing of the Divine Presence in all its majesty 
and might. They were alike accustomed to attempt 
by deeds of daring the most marvellous achieve- 
ments, and to " stand still, and see the salvation of 
the LORD." 




126 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

Joshua by the sound of rams' horns, Gideon with 
his pitchers and lamps, Samson with the jaw-bone 
of an ass, David with a pebble from the brook, con- 
quered as surely, as fully, as did the numerous hosts 
who went forth to war with sword and spear. In 
every combat the victory was the LORD'S ; and no 
pious Israelite ever dreamed of arrogating to himself 
the glory of his conquests. We have no inspired 
record of the last dreadful siege, but in the book of 
Jeremiah are abundant proofs of the state of defec- 
tion into which Judah must have fallen, as regarded 
the spiritual worship of the Most High, before He 
could have wholly given up His sanctuary to be so 
polluted, his people to be so destroyed. The service 
books now in use by the Jews all over the world 
were so to a great extent previous to the present 
dispersion ; and many of their lamentations were 
originally composed during the Babylonian captiv- 
ity. That, however, was as nothing compared with 
the Roman, and the LORD must have been far more 
grievously displeased with His people at the latter 
than at the former period. Yet they had carefully 
abstained from their ancient provocations ; they had 
kept themselves free from idolatry, and in every par- 
ticular had shown themselves zealous of the law. 
How, then, had they drawn upon themselves this 
terrible visitation ? Isaiah prophetically declares it 
in his twenty-ninth chapter, which contains both the 
purposed wrath and the purposed mercy, in very 
distinct and striking sequence. He there says, 
" Wherefore, the Lord says, Inasmuch as this peo- 



AGRA TAKEN. 127 

pie draw near me with their mouth, and with their 
lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far 
from me, and their fear towards me is taught by the 
precept of men : therefore, behold I will proceed to 
do a marvellous work and a wonder : for the wisdom 
of their wise men shall perish, and the understand- 
ing of their prudent men shall be hid." By the 
divine commandment every Israelite ought himself 
to be instructed and to teach his children, out of the 
law, as given by Moses, and out of the inspired wri- 
tings of the prophets ; but, gradually, they had ex- 
changed this practice for a blind submission to one 
particular class of men, who undertook to guide 
them, and to whose guidance they surrendered 
themselves. These were their wise men whose 
wisdom perished ; their prudent men whose under- 
standing was hid ; and these in the day of their 
calamity profited them nothing ; less than nothing, 
for, by putting their own interpretations between the 
scriptures and those for whom the scriptures were 
written, they blinded them to the clear fulfilment of 
predictions therein contained, and so brought upon 
them the last and deepest of all their afflictions. 
The fear of God the whole sum and substance of 
religion was taught by the precepts of men : those 
mere human precepts became to them instead of 
that opening of the eyes by the Lord himself which 
David prayed for ; and thus was darkness permitted 
to fall upon the LORD'S dear heritage ; and thus 
were they led to trust to the arm of flesh to them- 
selves and their leaders and in bitter anguish of 



128 JUD^A CAPTA. 

soul they withdrew from the fatal breach, leaving 
the whole extent of Acra, in addition to Bezetha, in 
the hand of the enemy. Titus provided against 
another expulsion by completely demolishing the 
sacred wall; then strengthened as best he might 
the threatened quarters, and permitted his forces to 
rest, while he took a leisurely survey, and matured 
his plans for the next attack. He had learned some 
caution by what was past ; and also entertained a 
hope that the loss of the sacred wall, and increasing 
scantiness of their supplies, would induce the gar- 
rison to listen to his proposals, and by admitting the 
army to become unresisting victims. To further 
this design, he contrived a most intimidating spec- 
tacle, calculated at once to inflate the pride of his 
vain-glorious followers, and to dishearten the pent- 
up Israelites. 

The usual day for paying the troops having ar- 
rived, the whole camp was put in motion. Each 
commander had orders to draw up his own men in 
battle-array, fully armed, their polished cuirasses 
displayed, their weapons glittering in the sunshine ; . 
the horses in their proudest trappings, each led by 
a man in splendid mail, and, in short, the grandest 
possible parade of that magnificent and formidable 
host. Thus equipped, they marched slowly past, 
each receiving in turn his subsistence money : and 
so numerous were the legions that four days were 
occupied in paying them. The north wall of the 
Temple, the forts, and all the upper part of the re- 
maining wall were covered with Jews contemplating 



ROMAN PLANS. 129 

the scene ; and very marvellous it appeared to Jose- 
phus that not one among them gave any indication 
of turning traitor. Neither the power nor the wealth, 
neither the savage menaces nor oily persuasions of 
the Roman, might overcome the constancy of those 
who garrisoned Jerusalem. This their unworthy 
calumniator attributes to their consciousness of hav- 
ing committed such crimes and cruelties against the 
more peaceable citizens as could never be forgiven 
by the Romans, whose meek and merciful nature 
must, of course, have revolted at any instance of 
barbarity. He also attributes their obstinacy in part 
to the decree of a certain heathen power called Fate, 
whose will, he says, it was that the innocent should 
suffer with the guilty. Such is the language of one 
who is reputed to have been a Christian when he 
wrote this narrative ! 

The Roman general was fully aware, alike of the 
advantages gained and the difficulties that still beset 
his path. During the four days' rest so artfully im- 
proved to the furtherance of his object, he had 
matured his plans. The point where he was sure to 
meet with the most desperate resistance was, of 
course, the holy mount, the Temple, while Zion 
appeared an easier prey. To keep possession of it, 
however, would be difficult so long as the second 
citadel was in the hands of those who believed that 
its possession was a pledge of their ultimate triumph 
over every foe. Accordingly he resolved to recom- 
mence the attack at two several points, assailing fort 
Antonia, as a key to the Temple, and at the same 



130 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

time endeavouring to carry the upper city at a point 
called John's monument. He was vigorously and 
effectually resisted at both, John defending the 
tower, and Simon, with the Idumeans, the city wall. 
It appears that they had, by continual practice, be- 
come expert in the use of those engines their awk- 
wardness at which Josephus had formerly ridiculed ; 
and having forty catapults of their own for hurling 
stones, three hundred for shooting forth darts, all 
ranged advantageously on the wall and towers, they 
presented a more formidable front than Titus wished 
to encounter. He proceeded with his banks; but 
still hoping to come in peaceably, and obtain the 
place by flatteries, he deputed Josephus to harangue 
them in their own language, thinking the sooner to 
persuade them by means of one who knew how to 
strike the master-chord of Jewish hearts. Four folio 
pages are filled with that oration, as reported by its 
author, from which we shall extract a few speci- 
mens. He first went round to select a place where 
the darts from their hands could not reach him, 
while his words, more sharp than swords, albeit 
smoother than oil, might take full effect on them ; 
and having so ensconced himself, he hegan by exalt- 
ing the liberalism of Rome in matters of faith, es- 
pecially their reverence for the Jewish rites, their in- 
vincible prowess in arms, and that claim on the con- 
tinued submission of the Jews which a long course 
of dominion. over them established. He set forth the 
universal sway of the Romans in these blasphemous 
terms : " Evident it is that Fortune is on all hands 



HARANGUE OP JOSEPHUS. 131 

gone over to them, and that GOD, when he had 
gone round the nations with this dominion, is now 
settled in Italy." To the knowledge of this assumed 
fact he attributed the submission of their fathers to 
the Roman arm ; laying it down, also, as a law of 
God, universally recognized, that the weaker must 
always submit quietly to those who are stronger in 
war. Had this principle been acted upon by Israel 
of old, had they feared or faltered when led to assail 
nations greater and mightier than themselves, in 
possession of that very land of Canaan, had Judah 
shrunk from following his warrior kings when they 
went forth to battle against multitudes that could 
not be numbered, the very memory of their name 
had long before perished from the earth. Well 
might the Jews scoff, as he tells us they did, at his 
heathenish nonsense. However, he went on, repre- 
senting the sure destruction that awaited them from 
famine, even if their remaining walls withstood the 
Roman power awhile, expatiating on the advanta- 
ges of an immediate surrender, and full reliance on 
the clemency of Titus, until the jeers, the reproaches, 
and the darts that were flung against him convinced 
him how hopeless was that line of argument. He 
then ceased to talk as a pagan, and assailed them 
on the ground of their own nationality, the history 
of the past, and the present melancholy contrast. 
The Most High God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
and of Jacob, whom he had just before profanely 
represented as having set up his dominion in Italy, 
among the obscene demon-gods of the Pantheon, he 
12 



132 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

now thought fit to exalt, as the only shield and 
strength of Israel in days past. " I even tremble 
myself," said he, " in declaring the works of God be- 
fore your ears, that are so unworthy to hear them." 
He proceeded to remind them how Abraham, their 
father, when the king of Egypt seized " Queen 
Sarah," instead of marshalling his great army to re- 
take her by force, only spread out his hands towards 
the Temple of Jerusalem, (not quite nine hundred 
years before it was founded,) on which the queen 
was sent back in safety, and the Egyptian monarch 
fled, adoring the holy place which they were now 
defiling by bloodshed. After this monstrous fable, 
he recounted their deliverances from Egypt, from 
the Assyrians, and from Babylon, and reminded them 
of the judgments at various times brought upon 
Israel by their transgressions ; drawing the inference 
that self-defence was not lawful to the Jews when as- 
sailed from without, seeing that their calamities and 
their deliverances had always come from God him- 
self. 

Whether Josephus really thought as he spoke we 
cannot determine ; but if he did the conviction must 
have forced itself upon his mind subsequently to his 
own memorable defence of Jotapata. Then followed 
some reproaches against those whom he was ad- 
dressing for their impiety and wickedness, with sar- 
castic remarks on their worthiness to be delivered, as 
was Hezekiah of old a parallel drawn between their 
ancient Assyrian enemies and the Romans, very 
much to the advantage of the latter bold assertions 



HISTORY- PERVERTED. 133 

that former generations had been delivered only be- 
cause of their righteousness, which proved the speak- 
er's utter ignorance of the scriptures ; for there is 
not a declaration more frequently repeated, from 
Moses to the last prophet, than that not for their 
sakes, not fbr their righteousness, but for his holy 
Name's sake, that it should not be polluted among 
the heathen, in whose sight He had brought them 
out, did the LORD continue to interpose and to save 
his people ; and that in like manner, and for the same 
cause, He will yet finally gather, restore, exalt, and 
save them. 

Josephus, if he rightly reports himself, went on re- 
proving and reproaching his brethren at great 
length ; " hard-hearted wretches," " insensible crea- 
tures, and more stupid than stones," are among his 
persuasive epithets. He finishes by denying that the 
necessary involving of his own family, his mother, 
wife, and children, who were, it seems, in the city, 
in their common ruin, had led him to address them ; 
he gives permission to the Jews to kill them, and 
himself also, if they doubt his disinterestedness ; at 
the same time carefully shielding himself from the 
darts that were cast at him by his exasperated hear- 
ers. He spoke with a loud voice, but to no purpose ; 
neither to fraud nor force would they yield their city. 

There were, notwithstanding, many individual de- 
sertions ; many, hoping to escape the last miseries 
of the crisis which they foresaw, swallowed their 
gold, as the only practicable plan of concealment, 



134 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

and flea to the Romans. Josephus says that Titus 
allowed " a great many of them" to go where they 
pleased about the country, from which we must infer 
that there were some, and probably the bulk of the 
number, who experienced his tender mercies in pres- 
ent death, or more cruel slavery. Even the privi- 
lege of wandering through the land was only that of 
falling into the power of those barbarous legions 
who now wholly occupied it. We cannot doubt that 
some, brought back to God by the fearful calamities 
that they had endured, were so delivered, and found 
refuge under the covert of His wings whose faithful- 
ness and truth are a shield and buckler to all that 
trust in Him. As to the barbarities perpetrated by 
the armed garrison on the defenders and citizens, 
which Josephus gives in more full and horrifying de- 
tail after they had rejected with contempt and indig- 
nation his specious interference, we say nothing. 
The testimony is altogether that of a bitter, a morti- 
fied, a conscience-stricken enemy, to whom their per- 
severing constancy must have been a keen reproach ; 
but of the sufferings endured by all in that straitly- 
besieged city there can be no question; the most 
heart-rending details cannot have exaggerated the 
reality. The only incredible thing is one which, 
nevertheless, we are compelled to believe, that one 
of their own nation, of their own kindred, one who 
had been a champion of their cause, and had also 
suffered in like manner in defending a far less sacred 
post, should have witnessed it all, have taken par 



INCREDIBLE RECITALS. 135 

with their merciless butchers, and at last nave sat 
down coolly to record the tale in a spirit o the deep- 
est injustice towards them, and of the most fawning 
sycophancy towards their blood-stained destroyers. 
12* 



136 



CHAPTER XL 

THE horrors that befell the besieged might be de- 
tailed in other language, but in none so touching as 
that of inspiration, and to that we will principally 
confine ourselves. The words of the prophet Jere- 
miah are not historical only, they are clearly pro- 
phetic, and as such the Jews apply them to the more 
recent desolation of their city, the destruction of a 
Temple that was to lie waste for many generations. 
But still farther back, even before the children of 
Israel had seen the promised land, we find a terri- 
ble description of what was in the far distant future, 
the immediate precursor of a dispersion and a des- 
olation of a long, long continuance. It is very aw- 
ful to read ; alas ! how awful to know that to the strict- 
est letter of the uttermost denunciation it has been 
actually fulfilled ! 

In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy is 
the following description of what, nearly fifteen hun- 
dred years afterwards, was inflicted on the children 
of Israel under the proud standard of the Roman 
eagle : " The LORD shall bring a nation against thee 
from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle 
flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not under- 



AWFUL PREDICTIONS. 137 

stand, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not 
regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the 
young : and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and 
the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed ; which 
also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or 
the increase of thy kine, or the flocks of thy sheep, 
until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege 
thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls 
come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all 
thy land which the LORD thy God hath given thee." 

This perfectly describes the devastating march of 
the Roman enemy, who last came from Britain, the 
farthest end of the then known world. As they 
passed along the country of Judoea, their consump- 
tion of its produce, their conquest of its fenced cities 
one after another, the pitiless barbarity with which 
they slaughtered the aged, and doomed the young 
to sufferings more cruel, because more protracted 
than immediate death, together with the crafty 
policy that systematically left a wilderness behind 
them by carefully destroying all the fruit trees, and 
burning to its roots the produce of the ground. Then 
follows their final conquest over the last attempt at 
self-defence in Jerusalem. 

" And thou shalt eat the fruits of thine own body, 
the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which 
the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege and 
in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall dis- 
tress thee : so that the man that is tender among 
you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward 
his brethren, and toward the wife of his bosom, and 



138 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

toward the remnant of his children which he shall 
have ; so that he will not give to any of them of the 
flesh of his children whom he shall eat : because he 
hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the strait- 
ness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in 
all thy gates. The tender and delicate woman among 
you, which would not endure to set the sole of her 
foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, 
her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her 
bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, 
and toward her young one that cometh out from be- 
tween her feet, and toward her children which she 
Bhall bear : for she shall eat them for want of all 
things, secretly, in the siege and straitness, where- 
with thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates." 

Better in the LORD'S own solemn words to describe 
what He had foreshown, than to dwell on the appal- 
ling details of their exact fulfilment, by one who 
looked on the smitten flock with the eye of an 
enemy. We need no evidence to assure us that 
every particular prediction was accomplished; for 
what word of the Most High ever fell or can fall to 
the ground ? That it was a literal and not a figu- 
rative description, we have abundant proof; and, 
blessed be the holy name of the Eternal ! we surely 
know that literal and not figurative are the glorious 
promises yet to be fulfilled to the same Israel ! 

Jeremiah thus grievingly laments over the vision 
of past and future calamities blended in one : 

" The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine 



PROPHETIC LAMENTATION. 139 

gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the 
work of the hands of the potter ! 

" Even the sea-monsters draw out the breast ; they 
give suck to their young ones : 

" The daughter of my people is become cruel, like 
the ostrich in the wilderness. 

" The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the 
roof of his mouth for thirst : 

" The young children ask bread, and no man 
breaketh it unto them. 

" They that did feed delicately are desolate in the 
streets ; 

" They that were brought up in scarlet embrace 
dunghills. 

' For the punishment of the iniquity of the daugh- 
ter of my people is greater than the punishment of 
the sin of Sodom, 

" That was overthrown in a moment, and no hands 
stayed on her. 

" Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were 
whiter than milk, 

" They were more ruddy in body than rubies, 
their polishing was of sapphire : 

" Their visage is blacker than a coal ; they are 
not known in the streets : 

" Their skin cleaveth to their bones : it is withered 
it is become like a stick. 

" They that be slain with the sword are better 
than they that be slain with hunger 

" For these pine away, stricken through for want 
of the fruits of the field. 



. 40 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

" The hands of the pitiful women have sodden 
their own children : 

" They were their meat in the destruction of the 
daughter of my people> 

" The LORD hath accomplished his fury ; He hath 
poured out his fierce anger, 

" And hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath de- 
voured the foundations thereof. 

" The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants 
of the world would not have believed, 

" That the adversary and the enemy should have 
entered into the gates of Jerusalem." 

Such is the strain of an inspired Jew, sensible of 
the sin of his people, and justifying the LORD for all 
the terrible things that He had done upon them ; we 
cannot place beside it the language of an apostate 
Jew, whose heart was steeled by pride, covetousness. 
and ambition, to look upon the agonizing spectacle, 
and insult the victims. Suffice it, then, to say, that 
to this extremity were the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
reduced when Titus proceeded, with his extensive 
embankment, to encircle the remaining wall. And 
now we have to record an instance of such hideous 
cruelty and wrong as never, perhaps, stained the 
pages of any history. Multitudes of the poorest, the 
most peaceable, the most helpless class within the 
city, being reduced to absolute starvation, were 
driven to the desperate venture of stealing out of the 
gates to gather a little of the herbage, and such re- 
fuse as they could find beyond the walls, with which 
to feed their famishing parents or children. They 



FIENDISH BARBARITY. 141 

had no intention to desert, preferring to cast in their 
lot to the last with their nation, and to abide by 
the stones of Zion ; but they were frequently dis- 
covered and seized by the savage soldiery, against 
whom they would have defended themselves and es- 
caped back to the city, but they were too weak for 
the struggle. " So," says Josephus, " they were first 
whipped, then tortured with all sorts of tortures be- 
fore they died, and then crucified before the wall of 
the city." He adds, that Titus greatly pitied them ; 
but they caught five hundred or more every day, 
and because he neither thought it prudent to let 
them go, nor could afford a sufficient guard to keep 
them safe, he sanctioned it all. It would naturally 
be asked, Why, then, not slay them at once, with a 
speedy death? Josephus answers, "that he hoped 
the Jews might, perhaps, yield at that sight, out of 
fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable 
to the same cruel treatment." He adds, concerning 
his new allies, patrons, friends, and companions, the 
Romans, that out of their wrath and hatred against 
the Jews, they invented new ways of nailing them 
up, by way of jest, when the multitude was so great 
that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses 
for bodies. All this was superintended by Titus ; a 
wretch whom it is the fashion for historians to exalt 
as a very model of all magnanimous virtues ; the 
emperor who, when he had done no good deed since 
morning, is said to have wept over a lost day ! He 
could look upon a spectacle like this, the utmost ex~ 
tremity of unutterable torture inflicted on fathers 



142 JUD^A CAPTA. 

who came forth to glean a handful of grass or weeds 
to stay the cries of their famishing children sons 
who so adventured their lives to prolong for a day 
the existence of an aged mother and, no doubt, 
women and children also ; for when did Rome, pa- 
gan or papal, spare age or sex ? Least of all, when 
did she show mercy to a Jew ? Her blood-stained 
hands had crucified the King ; and now on the same 
spot, she crucified the subjects who, alas ! had re- 
jected his gentle rule, who would have delivered 
them from her, and from every foe. Not that the 
individuals, who suffered these enormities, could, to 
any extent, have been accessary to the deed ; for 
that generation must have well nigh passed away ; 
and out of them an immense multitude had been 
brought to believe in Him. Crucifixion was a Ro- 
man death ; Rome was the executioner ; and in the 
day of the Lord's vengeance against the Daughter 
of Babylon, that scene of horror will not be for- 
gotten. 

The impression produced on those within the city 
was what any rational mind must have foreseen. 
The walls were thronged with the multitudes who 
came, and who brought their less resolute fellows, to 
witness what would be the fate of such as should fall 
into the hands of enemies who knew not what mercy 
meant. That spectacle nerved them to endure the 
utmost extremities of suffering, famine, pestilence, 
and the sword, rather than yield themselves and their 
little ones into the hands of the Roman. Some, in- 
deed, there still were, who deluded themselves with 



EFFECT ON THE JEWS. 143 

the idle hope of finding pity among those iron le- 
gions ; and, in the agonies of hunger, they placed 
themselves within their grasp ; preferring, if so it 
must be, the tortures of an hour, to the wasting death 
of days. Titus, however, devised a new species of 
punishment for these ; he ordered their hands to be 
cut off, and so rendering them incapable of any fur- 
ther defensive operations, sent them back to the com- 
manders, Simon and John, with this exhortation, 
That they would now at length leave off their mad- 
ness, and not force him to destroy the city ; promis- 
ing, that by so doing, they should enjoy the advan- 
tage of saving their own lives, and preserving their 
fine city, and that Temple which was peculiarly 
theirs. What confirmation the bleeding stumps of 
their mangled brethren might add to this idle mes- 
sage, it is hard to say. Titus certainly never 
dreamed of mercy to the Jews ; but of course he 
wished to capture the city in all its proud beauty ; 
and to enshrine some of his demon-gods within the 
magnificent courts of the LORD'S house. What 
heart but must rejoice that the impious pagan was 
baffled, though, thereby, not one stone was left upon 
another of all that gorgeous and hallowed pile ! 

With all the impatience of a hungry vulture 
wheeling round its destined prey, this Titus now 
made the circuit of the city, examining his banks, 
and hastening the willing labourers. At every point 
he was assailed with tones of defiance from the 
walls. The Israelites told him that they did well in 
preferring death to slavery; and would to the last 
13 



144 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

persevere in resisting his bands-, doing them all the 
mischief in their power. For their own city, they 
said, they had no concern, since he told them that 
they, the nation, were themselves to be destroyed : 
and that God had, in the world itselfj a nobler tem- 
ple than that on Mount Moriah. To this they added, 
that, nevertheless, the Temple would be preserved 
by Him who inhabited it, who was still their help ; 
and their confidence in whom enabled them to laugh 
at all his threatenings. So far their words were 
made good, that into no enemy's hand was that sa- 
cred Temple given : no power of man did, or could, 
or can, prevail to make Israel cease from being a 
nation before God ; and the happy issue out of all 
affliction which they fondly hoped, in their own per- 
sons, to experience, is reserved for their children's 
children, after many generations. As individuals, 
alas ! the LORD had forsaken them : as a nation, He 
never, never will. 

The Roman embankment was completed after 
seventeen days' incessant labour, consisting of four 
great lines, the principal of which was against the 
tower Antonia ; and here the engines were about to 
be brought, with the certainty of speedily accom- 
plishing, by them, the downfall of the bulwarks, shel- 
tered as they would be by the banks. Meanwhile 
the Jews had prosecuted, from within, a plan of 
which the assailants little dreamed. John directed 
a mine to be carried out from the vicinity of the 
tower to the distance at which the enemy were pre- 
paring to erect their heavy works j and this he ceiled 



ROME BAFFLED AGAIN. 145 

with "beams of timber, to afford it a temporary sta- 
bility, while he filled the interior with combustibles 
of every kind. The Romans, exulting in the com- 
pletion of their preparations, stood ready for the as- 
sault, when suddenly a subterranean fire seized on 
the treacherous foundations of their vaunted handy- 
work ; the ground clave asunder, and in that yawn- 
ing chasm their banks disappeared, amid a cloud of 
smoke, and ashes, and whirling dust that for a time 
smothered the flame ; but this, fed by the timber 
that with so much toil they had collected to pile 
against the royal city, speedily burst forth, in one 
broad, bright, intense sheet of glowing fire so strange, 
so inexplicable in its origin, that the superstitious 
legions recoiled in dismay, and Rome's proud war- 
riors stood aghast before the terrific apparition. 
Even when the stratagem became evident, no at- 
tempt was made on their part to extinguish the 
flames, for they had nothing to rescue. The trunks 
of Judea's stately trees, dragged by their sacrilegi- 
ous hands to act against the parent mountain, were 
already ascending in sparkles of triumphant fire, or 
hurling their ignited fragments into the enemy's 
camp. Their banks were fallen ; many of their mur- 
derous machines shared the same fate ; and they 
could but scowl upon the Jews, and curse them by 
their gods, and whet to the keenest edge their venge- 
ful purposes against the prey thus again for a while 
delivered out of their teeth. 

In another quarter, however, the enemy had suc- 
ceeded in commencing their assault, causing the an- 



146 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

cient wall to tremble beneath their strokes : here no 
mine had been prepared, nor was any defensive 
operation practicable, so far as the assailants could 
calculate, but again were their calculations set at 
naught by the impetuous daring of the Jews. Three 
individuals, Tephtheus, a Galilean, Megassarus, and 
Chagiras, seeing the impression made by the battering- 
rams, seized torches, and sallying from the wall, ran 
directly up to the Roman host, " not," says Josephus, 
" as if they were enemies, but friends : without fear 
or delay." Rushing violently through the midst of 
the soldiers, who seemed to have been rendered 
powerless by astonishment, and perhaps somewhat 
unnerved by the recent catastrophe of the mine, 
they reached the engines, and set them in a blaze. 
By this time the enemy had so far recovered from 
their strange panic as to assail the gallant triumvi- 
rate with sword, spear, and dart ; but in vain ; no- 
thing moved, nothing daunted them : they held fast 
by the machines, and ignited them in various places, 
until such a flame went up, as brought the Romans 
in great force from their camp to quench it ; while 
the Jews, with equal alacrity, hastened to the help 
of their brethren. A desperate conflict ensued, car- 
ried on in the very fire ; for the light hurdles that 
covered the engines were in a blaze, together with 
the wood-work of the machines; and the very iron 
became heated to an intensity that rendered it dan- 
gerous to touch ; yet on this heated metal the heroic 
Jews mantamed their grasp, while, nearly suffocated 
with dust and smoke, and no doubt unpleasantly a 



EXPLOITS OF THE JEWS. 147 

fected by the scorching heat communicated to their 
iron mail, the Romans bent all their strength to drag 
away the frames of their machines from the confla- 
gration. The battering-rams were the principal ob- 
jects of this extraordinary contest : they had caused 
the towers of Zion's wall to shake, and this fact ren- 
dered them by far the most important prize, alike to 
those who sought to save, and to those who laboured 
to destroy. 

The conflict waxed fiercer: success inspired the 
Jews with an ardour that nothing might withstand; 
and the Romans, confounded by the nature of the 
attack, blinded with the sparkling flames, which now 
almost surrounded them, as one engine after another 
was caught by the devouring element, at length re- 
treated towards their camp. This was the signal 
for renewed efforts on the part of the defenders of 
the holy city ; they rushed down in greater numbers 
from the walls, and never pausing in their career 
until they reached the verge of the camp, fought 
hand to hand with the guards who were there posted 
in advance. Josephus, who had no word of pity for 
the famishing sufferers, his own brethren tortured to 
death by those same ferocious soldiers at the rate of 
five hundred a day, pathetically notices the hard 
case of the murderers, who, by Rome's martial law, 
were compelled, on peril of a military execution, to 
hold their posts ; and who, therefore, had to sustain 
the onset of those fiery Jews, not daring to run away. 
It cannot be doubted that many of them fell under 
the impetuous assault ; and sympathy for them drew 
13* 



148 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

out reinforcements from the panic-stricken host, 
whom the Jews also engaged, laughing to scorn 
alike the cuirass, the shield, and the spear, that 
vainly sought to withstand the power of their arms, 
who were comparatively naked. O Israel, who was 
like unto thee, when of old the LORD thy God was 
with thee, and the shout of a King was amongst 
thee ! Forsaken as thou wert, in that day of venge- 
ful calamity, there were still gleams and flashes of 
a fire that once burned brightly and gloriously, suf- 
ficient to prove what thine arm could have wrought, 
if that blessing had then been upon thee which 
caused thine enemies, that rose up against thee, to 
be smitten before thy face. " They shall come out 
against thee one way, and flee before thee seven 
ways." 

Titus, the evil angel of Judah, commissioned to 
destroy, now arrived on the field of battle, and found 
his host hard beset in defending their own walls, in- 
stead of pursuing the destruction of those which 
they came to overthrow. He, as usual, reproached 
them, rousing to the utmost the diabolical spirit of 
pride and vain-glory, that formed the main-spring of 
Roman action ; at the same time, with his fresh 
squadron of selected warriors, he turned the flank of 
the Israelites, and attacked them in their rear. They 
instantly faced round, and threw themselves upon 
these new assailants ; continuing the fight with un- 
abated courage. Josephus acknowledges that, sur- 
rounded as now they were, "the Jews did not 
flinch." It is amazing to contemplate the scene j a 



JEWISH HEROISM. 149 

handful of half-famished men, whose days had been 
passed in weariness, their nights in watching ; who 
had beheld their isolated city, the only one of all 
Judea's stately bulwarks yet standing, encompassed 
by an enemy that had subdued the world, and al- 
ready having her threefold barrier reduced to a sin- 
gle line of fortifications such a band as this, volun- 
tarily forsaking their protecting wall, and giving bat- 
tle to the whole host of the enemy, with Titus at 
their head ! How comes it that, while each calum- 
nious tale recorded by the hireling of the foe, cal- 
culated to excite horror against the defenders of 
Jerusalem, is so preserved and circulated that every 
child has it by rote ; we scarcely hear of what, in 
any other name, would be the theme of universal 
admiration and respect the unbounded self-devo- 
tion of these dauntless Jews ? Among the myriad 
pilgrims, who throng the holy city, how comes it 
that we hear from none of any search after the spot 
where John's mine swallowed up the Roman banks, 
or where the three bold brethren fired the battering- 
rams, and routed the Roman host, and carried, the 
battle into the Roman camp 1 But it is vain to ask: 
the mouth of the LORD had spoken a sentence of 
long-continued odium and contempt to rest upon his 
ancient people ; and what He had so spoken He 
hath so fulfilled. But another word remains to re- 
ceive its full accomplishment; and in despite of 
every effort that man may make to perpetuate it, the 
rebuke of his people will He now take away from 
off the face of all the earth. 



150 JTJD.EA CAPTA. 

The battle raged long and sternly after Titus had 
assumed the command : smoke, and fire, and dust so 
confused the eyes, while a discord of loud, fierce 
tones bewildered the hearing of the combatants, 
that all order was lost : and it is plain, from the 
cautious account of Josephus, that the Romans did 
considerable execution upon each other in that con- 
fused melee. The banks were demolished, the en- 
gines damaged to a great extent ; and the Jews, 
having succeeded to the utmost of their most san- 
guine desires, withdrew within their walls, buoyed 
up, no doubt, with hopes that, alas for Zion ! were not 
to be realized. 

A council of war was called, the result of which 
was in accordance with the suggestion of Titus, and 
displays, in a striking point of view, at once the mul- 
titude, the strength, the resources, and the ardour 
of those who fought aga:nst Jerusalem. It was de- 
termined to encompass the whole city with a wall, 
carried round at a short distance from that which 
defended her ; and thus to preclude the possibility 
of escape from within, or of supplies from without 
Josephus describes the soldiers B.S being seized with 
a certain " divine " fury ; and for a specimen of that 
which in the historian's mind was regarded as di- 
vine, we will give his own description of this pecu- 
liar inspiration. " Each soldier was ambitious to 
please his decurion; each decurion his centurion; 
each centurion his tribune ; and the ambition of the 
tribune was to please their superior commanders, 
while Caesar himself took notice of, and rewarded 



AFFLICTED AND DESOLATE. 151 

the like contention in those commanders." Titus, 
the invader of his country, the murderer of his kin- 
dred, was, indeed, the god of Josephus : Judaism in- 
dignantly disclaims the heartless apostate ; and if, 
after all that has been culled, and all that is yet to 
cull, from his book, Christianity chooses to adopt 
him, we can only enter our most strenuous protest 
against it, as one of the foulest blots that can be cast 
upon our most holy faith. 

Under the " divine " inspiration, claimed for them 
by their eulogist, the Romans actually accomplished 
in three days what might well have been the work 
of months, and built their fatal wall. It commenced 
at the camp of Titus, now pitched in front of the 
tower Antonia, and crossing the valley of the Ke- 
dron, ran southward along the Mount of Olives ; 
thence recrossed the valley at Siloam ; bent round 
Zion, and returned again to the general's camp. 
Garrisoned at convenient distances, and patrolled by 
alternate watches throughout the night, while by 
day it commanded an unbroken view of every 
stone in Jerusalem's last fortification, this enclosure 
quenched the only surviving hope in the breasts of 
the unhappy Jews, save as many among them still 
looked for the stretching forth of that Almighty arm 
which had so often crushed the pride of Israel's foes, 
and caused their most formidable power to melt 
away in a moment. The scene that ensued, when 
no foot could pass the beleaguered wall of their 
city,, when no morsel could be cropped, even of the 
rank grass and herbage that sprung up beneath its 



152 



JUD/GA CAPTA. 



shadow, nourished by the human decomposition 
evermore going on, where death> in every possible 
shape, stalked abroad the terrible reality of literal 
fulfilment; where the language of prophecy would 
seem most highly figurative all this we will pass 
over in silence. Let those, in whose bosoms exists 
a portion of the spirit of Edom, of Babylon, of thrice- 
accursed Rome, pause on the terrible spectacle, the 
outpouring of God's wrath upon a people scourged 
beyond all others, because beyond all others they 
were beloved and favoured. We will not prowl the 
streets, nor pry into the dwellings of thy agonized 
children, O Jerusalem, when thou drankest at the 
hand of the Lord the dregs of the cup of his fury ; 
rather will we take our seat beneath some lonely 
olive, on that overhanging mountain, and weep 
where Jesus wept : for the day is come ; thine ene 
mies have cast a trench about thee, and now they 
compass thee round and keep thee in on every side ; 
and presently they will lay thee even with the 
ground, and thy children within thee ; yea, they 
sshall not leave in thee one stone upon another, be- 
cause thou knewest not the day of thy visitation ! 



THE ENCOMPASSING WALL. 153 



CHAPTER XII. 

OF those who perished in the famine, Josephus 
records that every one of them " died with their 
eyes fixed upon the Temple." Their black and 
shrunken bodies were necessarily cast out, no room 
being left to bury them, and there they lay piled up 
in the valleys of Jehoshaphat and of Hinnom. A 
story is then told of the merciless Titus, that must 
not be passed over : he had overruled the opinions 
of others in the council of war, who recommended 
a sudden storming of the city by the whole host, 
and carried his own project of this encompassing 
wall, on the express grounds that by so shutting in 
the inhabitants they should destroy them by famine ; 
BO avoiding the hazard to themselves of a military 
assault, and hastening the inevitable fall of the de- 
populated city. This is recorded by Josephus, in 
the preceding page to that in which he tells how 
Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, see- 
ing them choked up with dead bodies, and thick 
streams of putrefaction rolling over the ground, ut- 
tered a groan : and spreading out his hands to hea- 
ven, called GOD to witness that this was not his 
doing. Unhappy wretch ! had he reluctantly ful 



154 JUD^A CAPTA.. 

filled his dire commission, had he even mingled with 
its terrible offices a touch of pity, employing the un- 
bounded influence that he exercised over his army 
to restrain, in some measure, the savage wantonness 
of their barbarity, some credit might be given to this 
burst of feeling, as the genuine expression of regret 
at what he could not wholly prevent : but we have 
seen him as he was, even when decked out by his 
fulsome flatterer, whose utmost art could not wholly 
conceal the hideous features of his sanguinary char- 
acter ; and if this exclamation really escaped his 
lips, if the obtestation was addressed, not to one of 
the Roman demons, but to the God of Israel, surely 
it was wrung forth by some terrible, though but mo- 
mentary vision of the future, when He, whose holy 
presence once made that mount so glorious, shall 
call to a fearful account those of every age, and of 
every form of worship, who have found their own 
pleasure in helping forward the affliction of Israel. 

In the judgment of that day. many a mighty 
prince, and potentate, and pontiff, shall stand side 
by side with Titus, to receive a doom, aggravated 
in proportion to the light enjoyed by each ; and this 
we must concede, that the blind and barbarous pa- 
gan may advance a mitigating plea untenable by 
many others. When he came up against them, 
they were still a mighty and a warlike people, en- 
closed by towers and battlements, and dwelling in 
fortresses by nature almost impregnable. He as- 
sailed not, nor opposed them, as a poor weak, scat- 
tered remnant, spread abroad over the whole earth, 



A SOLEMN CONTRAST. 155 

not one spot of which they could call their own : he 
pursued them not with that Bible in his hand, or 
with the knowledge of it in his mind, which declares 
the love of God unto them from of old, and his future 
purposes of everlasting mercy on them. He slaugh- 
tered them not with the faith of Christ on his lips ; 
nor coveted their Holy City that he might make it 
the seat of foul idolatry in the name of Him to whom 
all idolatry is an abomination. To the stern Roman 
murderer must belong the judgment without mercy 
denounced on him who hath showed no mercy. But 
what shall be said to the herd of kings, and emper- 
ors, and popes, who in hypocritical wickedness, or 
sinful ignorance, have trodden down the remnant of 
God's suffering people in the name of Him whose 
law can only be fulfilled by love ; and who has 
taught us, before all others, to love and to serve the 
Jew? 

. But to return. Notwithstanding the tender com- 
miseration of their general, we are told that the 
Romans were very joyful ; and that having great 
abundance of provision from Syria, and from the 
neighbouring provinces, they would bring and 
spread it out near the wall, in the sight of the starv- 
ing, dying Jews, by such a horrible refinement of 
cruelty to aggravate their sufferings. But it pro- 
duced no visible effect : the thought of yielding 
never seems to have entered their minds ; and Ti- 
tus, impatient at the protracted defence, set his fol- 
lowers to work in reconstructing embankments over 
against the tower of Antonia, the key to the whole 
14 



156 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

city. This was not easily done, for the trees around 
Jerusalem had already fallen under the Roman axe, 
and yielded fuel to the conflagrations of the daring 
Jews. However, they managed to collect a suffi- 
cient number by desolating the country at a wider 
range ; and thus, in barbarous ignorance, while ful- 
filling the doom long before denounced on the LORD'S 
heritage, they also inflicted that of sterility on the 
land, which still lieth desolate in the enjoyment of 
her long, long sabbaths. 

A plot was laid by an inferior commander named 
Judas, to deliver the tower into the enemy's hands : 
they, however, could not believe that in reality a 
Jew was so disposed, and fearing a stratagem, neg- 
lected to avail themselves of the offer, until the 
spectacle of the execution of the intended betrayers 
by Simon, who had discovered the conspiracy, and 
who threw the dead bodies down among them, too 
late convinced the Romans of what they had lost. 
Meantime Josephus, taking his turn as a patrol round 
the city, was wounded in the head by a stone cast 
at him from the walls ; and the joy and exultation 
that ensued on the supposition of his death for he 
had been rescued and borne away senseless by some 
of his pagan allies, just as the Jews thought to seize 
on him prove in what abhorrence his treason was 
held. This incident also, no doubt, sharpened the 
edge of his hostility against his brethren, for he ex- 
patiates largely on the alleged crimes of their 
leaders, and of the whole body of the " seditious" as 
he terms all who preferred death to the surrender ot 



MORE ENORMITIES. 157 

their city. We pass this over, to relate one more 
instance of what they had to expect who deser ted 3 
and threw themselves upon the honour, humanity, or 
good faith of the Romans. 

Some unhappy deserters, having made up their 
minds to so desperate a venture, and knowing that 
gold was the surest key to Roman favour, swallowed 
as much as they could of the precious, but now in 
Jerusalem useless metal, which they hoped to turn 
to good account among the enemy. The sequel 
may be readily anticipated : a discovery of the con- 
trivance in one instance led to the immediate ripping 
open of all who had come for protection ; and Jose- 
phus says, that in one night two thousand of these 
poor creatures were thus horribly butchered. They 
were chiefly Syrians ; and had escaped by jumping 
down from the wall, with great stones in their hands, 
as though about to make an attack on the enemy ; to 
whom they ran for protection when beyond the reach 
of the Jewish darts. Great numbers died at once, 
through the ravenous hunger that led them to de- 
vour whatever was placed before them ; their fam- 
ished state rendering such repletion presently fatal ; 
they were less to be commiserated than the survivors, 
reserved to a most dreadful death, under the hands 
of the noble Romans, whom our Christian youth are 
instructed to regard as rare models of all that is 
grand and glorious in man ! Josephus, it is true, 
fastens the chief guilt of this enormity on the Ara- 
bians and Syrians ; but he admits that the Roman 
soldiers were implicated also ; and Titus was obli- 



158 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

ged to menace with death such as should be found 
guilty of it : not so much for the barbarity of the 
thing, as because it showed that their allies were 
enriching themselves at their own pleasure ; but hia 
prohibition was of little avail; the practice con- 
tinued, and became the means of checking the de- 
sertion. 

John, it appears, who had possession of the Tem- 
ple, now committed what Josephus describes as a 
horrible sacrilege : he took some of the sacred stores 
of wine and oil, and distributed them among the 
perishing people. Whether this was or was not a 
justifiable proceeding is not for us to determine : un- 
der an emergency not approaching within a degree 
of comparison with this, David took and distributed 
to his followers the bread which it was only lawful 
for the priests to eat. He did so with the full con- 
sent of the presiding priest, and no censure is re- 
corded. John also is stated to have melted down 
for his own use some of the golden vessels presented 
by Gentile princes to the Temple : what benefit he 
expected to derive from it, when no sum could pur- 
chase a mouthful of food, it is hard to say ; but the 
pious indignation of Josephus is so kindled by it, that 
he says, if the Romans had made any longer delay 
in coming against these villains, the city would have 
been swallowed up by an earthquake, or else been 
overflowed with water, or destroyed by such thun- 
der as Sodom perished by. He also relates that 
the deaths by starvation among the poor became so 
numerous, that they were no longer able to throw 



EVIL OVERRULED. 159 

them over the wall, but laid them on heaps in large 
houses, and shut them up. He says, after enumerating 
some dreadful effects of famine, " When the Romans 
barely heard all this, they commiserated their case ; 
while the seditious, who saw it also, did not repent, 
but suffered the same distress to come upon them- 
selves." As to the extent of Roman commiseration, 
we leave that for the reader to determine ; the sim- 
ple fact, as regarded the Jews, was, that they prefer- 
red death by hunger to the horrible tortures inflicted 
by these Romans on all whom they took captive : 
tortures proportioned to the courage and constancy 
of an enemy which, had they possessed one atom of 
the virtues imputed to them, would have commanded 
their respect. Added to this preference was a fond 
hope that the LORD would yet interpose, even in 
their uttermost extremity, on behalf of the city and 
the people so long called by his name. 

We now approach the last sad scenes of this dire- 
ful tragedy, and must strive to repress the bitter 
indignation that will rise while following the cool 
description given by this apostate Jew of events that 
it is scarcely possible to contemplate even in the 
faintest outline that can be sketched. We must bear 
in mind that but for the almost miraculous harden- 
ing of this man's heart against his own brethren, 
and the utter alienation of his spirit from the land 
of his fathers, in defence of which he had once 
fought gallantly, and the prostration of his every 
feeling of independence under the heel of a Pagan 
whose favour he gained by the most grovelling syc- 
14* 



160 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

ophancy, but for this, Josephus would have died in 
the battle, a champion for Israel, and we should pos- 
sess no record whatever of what is now being brought 
with singular force to all men's minds. A Roman 
historian would have related it just as any other 
war, siege, conquest, and desolation carried on by the 
great and terrible Beast is recorded ; and we could 
not have associated with the tale those touching 
minutiae that identify it wholly with the city of our 
God ; the race of Abraham ; and the awful predic- 
tions that were then so marvellously fulfilled. 

Pestilence, as a necessary consequence, followed 
upon the havoc made by famine. From the dead 
bodies without the walls, not only the numbers cast 
over them from the city, but the thousands of victims 
murdered by the cowardly Romans, an effluvia must 
have arisen sufficient to engender disease through- 
out the whole region : but when to this we add the 
ghastly piles of dead enclosed in Z ion's desolate 
palaces, together with those who lay unburied and 
trampled down in every street of the city, now, alas ! 
too truly and in too many ways, " the rebellious city ? 
the bloody city," we may conceive the effects, in that 
warm climate, as being horrible indeed. What 
must that knowledge of the Roman barbarity have 
been that could render death by hunger in a hideous 
charnel-house preferable to any chance of life from 
a successful foe ! 

Titus now hastened the completion of his em- 
bankment, heretofore frustrated by the enterprising 
determination of the besieged ; now securely per- 



THE LAND LYING DESOLATE. 161 

fected under shelter of the newly-built wall. To 
procure timber for the work was a difficult matter 
requiring excursions far into the surrounding dis- 
tricts ; for all that lay near had already been de- 
nuded of its groves. The narrator thus describes 
the prospect, and in so doing accounts for the pres- 
ent appearance of that land, so unlike the scene 
presented to the mind's eye of him who has only 
known the Jerusalem and Judsea of the Bible : for 
that land will not, cannot, shall not yield her fruit- 
fulness, nor resume the verdant robes of her pristine 
beauty for any but the seed of Jacob. While they 
are outcast and despised, she lies barren, desolate, 
and bare. While they mourn, she will not smile ; 
neither will she exchange her wilderness garment 
for that of the garden of Eden, until from the high- 
est heaven the promised word shall go forth : " But 
ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your 
branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel ; 
for they are at hand to come. For behold, I am 
for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be 
tilled and sown : and I will multiply upon you all 
the house of Israel, even all of it ; and the cities 
shall be inhabited and the wastes shall be builded : 
and I will multiply upon you man and beast ; and 
they shall increase and bring forth fruit : and I will 
Bettle you after your old estates, and will do better 
unto you than at your beginnings : and ye shall 
know that 1 am the LORD." O GOD of Israel the 
covenant-keeping God ! Redeemer of Jacob ! has- 
ten the fulfilment of this blessed word, that we, even 



162 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

we, now and in our own day, may behold thy re- 
turn to Zion with mercy ! 

Thus writes the eye-witness of Judaea's over- 
throw : " Truly the very view of the country was a 
melancholy thing ; for those places which were be- 
fore adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were 
now become a desolate country every way ; and its 
trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner 
that had formerly seen Judaea, and the most beauti- 
ful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but 
lament and mourn sadly at so great a change, for the 
war had laid all the signs of beauty quite waste. 
Nor if any one that had known the place before had 
come on a sudden to it now, would he have known 
it again ; but though he were at the city itself, yet 
would he have inquired for it notwithstanding." 
How illustrative is this remarkably simple and art- 
less description of the word that God spake by Jere- 
miah : "All that pass by clap their hands at thee ; 
they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of 
Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call 
the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole 
earth?" 

The completion of the banks occasioned not less 
uneasiness to the Romans than to the Jews ; for 
while the latter saw a formidable step gained to- 
wards the reduction of their city, the former were in 
perpetual dread of some new exploit by which their 
work might again be destroyed ; and such destruc- 
tion would now be an irreparable loss, since they had 
exhausted every remaining resource in the erection 



THE ENEMY DISCOURAGED. 163 

of these last banks. Moreover, " they found," says 
Josephus, " the fighting men of the Jews to be not 
at all mollified among such their sore afflictions, 
while they had themselves perpetually less and less 
hopes of success ; and their banks were forced to 
yield to the stratagems of the enemy ; their engines 
to the firmness of their wall ; and their closest fights 
to the boldness of their attacks. And, what was the 
greatest discouragement of all, they found the Jews' 
courageous souls to be superior to the multitude of 
the miseries they were under by their sedition, their 
famine, and the war itself." 

But the decree had gone forth, and Jerusalem 
must fall. The first indication of approaching suc- 
cess to the enemy seems to have been an apparent 
falling off in the ardour and unanimity of the sally ; 
for when John led his forces out with torches to as- 
sail these banks, they advanced in detached parties ; 
Josephus says, " After a slow manner, timorously , 
and, to say all in a word, without a Jewish courage." 
The probability is, that they were so exhausted by 
famine, by incessant fatigue, interminable watching, 
and the dreadful forms in which death had hourly 
cut down their dearest connections around them, 
that the physical strength was wanting to manifest 
that unsubdued courage. However, their compara- 
tive languor infused new resolution into the despond- 
ing Romans : they armed themselves in their most 
complete mail, and by forming a compact body, an 
unbroken line, before the banks, they covered them 
effectually ; at the same time bringing their gigantic 



164 JUD^A CAPTA. 

slinging machinery to bear upon the Jews, while yet 
under the walls of the city, sweeping them down 
with darts and stones, and great fragments of rock, 
until, disheartened by the strength of the living pha- 
lanx before them, and the loss of so many comrades, 
the Jews retreated without accomplishing anything. 

This fired the Romans to new efforts ; they 
brought up their engines, and assailed the tower of 
Antoma, not only by their means, but by working 
away to undermine its foundations with their iron 
implements ; covering themselves, as best they could } 
with their shields, from the darts and other missiles 
cast down upon them by the defenders. Four mas- 
sive stones were in this way removed from the base 
of the tower, when night put a temporary end to the 
conflict ; but before dawn both parties were startled 
by an unexpected event ; for, just where John had 
before carried out his mine to destroy the first banks, 
the wall, weakened perhaps by that proceeding, and 
now much shaken by the battering-rams, fell to the 
ground. A joyful surprise to the enemy! They 
hastened to make good an entrance at the breach, 
and great was their disappointment on finding their 
way barred by a second wall, which the Jews had 
secretly built in case of such an event. 

To scale this new wall was pronounced an easy 
exploit, yet not one of Rome's warriors durst take 
the lead in it. Titus therefore considered it a fitting 
juncture for one of his orations, and assembling the 
flower of his army he addressed them at great length, 
urging all the wonted heathen arguments, and 



RETROSPECTIONS. 165 

making many admissions of the courage, constancy, 
and perseverance exhibited by the Jews, whom he, 
of course, represented as being infinitely beneath 
them. He ended his speech in these words : " As 
for that person who first mounts the wall, I should 
blush for shame if I did not make him to be envied 
of others by those rewards I would bestow upon 
him. If such an one escape with his life, he shall 
have tne command of others that are now but his 
equals, although it be true also that the greatest re- 
wards will accrue to such as die in the attempt." 

But all the eloquence of their popular leader, his 
promises of reward, his laboured incitement of their 
every ferocious passion, availed not, not one Ro- 
man hero was found valiant enough to lead so peril- 
ous an enterprise. A Syrian, contemptibly mean in 
aspect, weak in body, and despised as one deficient 
in courage, stepped forth, and volunteered to head 
the storming party. Often in the old time had the 
famous generals and mighty kings of Syria advanced 
against Israel, and fled away discomfited by the far 
mightier warriors whom the LORD girded to the bat- 
tle. The very name recalls many a stirring scene in 
sacred history, and among them that magnificent 
though momentary vision of things unseen by the 
veiled eye of mortality, when, terrified by the proud 
array of the Syrian army, Elisha j s servant almost 
forgot the impregnable shield spread over his in- 
spired master, and was permitted to look upon the 
heavenly host that filled the surrounding heights 
with horses and chariots of fire. Alas ! that shield 



166 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

was now withdrawn from the LORD'S mountain, and 
the meanest of a degenerate Syrian race might ven- 
ture to attack the holy place of the Tabernacle of 
the Most High ! The incident, merely noticed by 
Josephus as a remarkable instance of unexpected 
boldness in a person generally despised, is one of 
deep, sad interest, when viewed as tending to con- 
trast the past with the present, the days of Jerusa- 
lem's glorious dominion with those of her chastise- 
ment and consuming plagues. 

Strange to say, only eleven men of all the Roman 
host could muster sufficient resolution to follow this 
Sabinus, who, after a desperate struggle, succeeded 
in mounting the wall at their head. The Jews, not 
supposing but that the Roman army were all pour- 
ing in upon them, fled ; but returning immediately, 
they slew the daring Syrian, dashed three of his 
companions to pieces in a moment, and so wounded 
the remaining eight that they were with difficulty 
dragged back by their comrades below, and carried 
to the camp. 

Two days afterwards, twelve foot-soldiers of the 
vanguard, two horsemen, a standard-bearer, and a 
trumpeter, secretly approached, under cover of night, 
or in the morning twilight, and clambering over the 
ruins of the fallen wall, reached the tower of Antonia, 
surprised the first guard, whom they slew in their 
sleep, and having gained the wall, sounded their 
trumpet. Fatal note ! 

The Jews, roused from their short repose, started 
and fled, for they believed that the whole host was 



FOR THE TEMPLE! 167 

upon them. These, electrified by the well-known 
signal, sprang to their arms, and ere the besieged had 
time to rally or to reflect, the host was indeed upon 
them. Titus first, and after him his selected band, 
ascended the tower, whence they beheld the sacred 
courts of God's Temple spread beneath, and the peo- 
ple of Israel fleeing to its sanctuary. They pursued, 
and once more the lion heart of Judah was roused. 
Should the blood-stained enemy pollute the hallowed 
spot ? No : as one man they turned, and never had 
the battle raged between them as that day it raged,' 
the Romans pressing onward over the holy mount, 
the Jews, as a living rock, hurling back each wave 
of war as it swelled and rolled upon them. There 
was no dart thrown, no stone flung, no engine 
brought to bear on either side in that tremendous 
struggle ; sword in hand they fought, mixed in one 
mass of mutual slaughter. From the camp rein- 
forcements perpetually came up through the now un- 
guarded tower ; from the city of David new cham- 
pions, roused even from the bed of death, and stagger- 
ing under the weight of their own weapons, rushed 
on and on, and flung themselves into the fight, for the 
prize of that terrible contest was THE TEMPLE. 

Judah prevailed ; Rome could not sustain the bat- 
tle, unaided by her own infernal machinery of cata- 
pult, and ram, and crossbow. The enemy retreated, 
driven step by step from the sacred ground, and Titus 
was glad to fortify himself where, on yester-eve, he 
little expected so soon to gain a footing, in the tower 
ofAntonia. The battle had lasted from the ninth 
15 



168 JUD^A CAPTA. 

hour of the night to the seventh hour of the day, and 
both parties had put forth the utmost of their strength, 
their energy, and courage. The reverse sustained 
by the Jews was indeed terrible, and an omen of 
speedy defeat, for Antonia was the very key-stone 
of their arch; but the Temple had been assailed 
the Temple was saved ; and in the gladness of their 
hearts for that rescue they almost overlooked the 
greatness of their losses. 

While thus they exulted, a new assailant appeared 
in the person of a centurion, a man of great bodily 
prowess and extraordinary daring, who seems to 
have been desirous of wiping off from his own name 
the blot of that pusilanimity which could not but 
attach to those who had shrank from assailing the 
slender wall recently erected by John. This Julian, 
seeing the Romans flying in disorder from their pur- 
suers, leaped out from the tower, into which they 
were pressing for shelter, and by the vigour of his 
unexpected onset turned the Jews back. Clad in 
full panoply, and possessed, as it would appear, with 
the fury of a maniac, he rushed into the crowd of 
mingled soldiers and citizens, and committed much 
slaughter, until, having reached the corner of the 
inner court of the Temple, his career was abruptly 
stopped. 

We have here a specimen of the theology of Jo- 
sephus which must not be passed over. As a Jew, 
he might well have thought that the God whom his 
fathers worshipped had once more interposed on be- 
half of that hallowed spot ; but in true pagan style, 



JULIAN THE CENTURION. 169 

he says of the Roman pursuer, " However, he was 
himself pursued by Fate, which it was not possible 
that he, who was but a mortal man, should escape." 
The inner court of the Temple, which he had now 
gained, was curiously paved with polished marble, and 
on this his feet, cased as they were in shoes studded 
thickly with iron nails, soon slipped. He fell on his 
back; and was immediately surrounded by the Jews, 
who, after a long and terrible struggle, succeeded in 
despatching him. From the tower the Romans be- 
held this unequal contest, but none among them ven- 
tured to their champion's aid. The few stragglers 
lingering outside were presently attacked and driven 
in by the Jews, who thus remained masters of the 
sacred precincts to their utmost boundary. 



170 JUD^A CAPTA. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ON the seventeenth day of Tamuz the daily sacri- 
fice ceased. Men were wanting to offer it ; so fear- 
fully had the sacred order been thinned by the rav- 
ages of famine, pestilence, and the sword. It was a 
day of mourning and bitter lamentation in Jerusa- 
lem, a day of gloominess and thick darkness to those 
who had until then refused to believe that the God 
of Israel would indeed give over hig heritage to the 
spoiler. In the midst of the wreck, or just three 
years and a half from the commencement of the 
war by Vespasian, did the prince that came to de- 
stroy the city and the sanctuary " cause the sacrifice 
and the oblation to cease," exactly as the angel who 
spake to Daniel had predicted ;* and yet, alas ! 
Israel did not perceive, would not consider, that in 
this there was a testimony given to the fact that 
Messiah had already been cut off. Who shall tell 
the anguish of mind with which the Jews beheld 
their altar destitute, its divinely-appointed ordinance 
rendered impracticable, its multitudes of ministering 
priests diminished to a feeble few, who, with gar- 
ments rent, and dust upon their heads, bewailed a 

* Dan. ix. 25, 27. 



A PARLEY. 171 

calamity the possible occurrence of which had 
seemed to them an idle dream. We do not drink 
sufficiently deep of the spirit of Judaism, such as it 
appears in the Holy Scriptures, to realize, even as 
we ought to do, the bitterness of this cup of wrath 
and woe. Edom-like, we have accustomed ourselves 
to stand on the other side, " in the day that the 
strangers carried away his forces, and foreigners en- 
tered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem." 
Yes, we take up the history, and look upon our 
brother's affliction in the day of his calamity with 
the cold observance of those who have no concern 
in his sorrows, instead of so making his cause our 
own that we should be constrained to cry mightily 
unto the Lord, yea, to give him no rest until He turn 
away his fierce anger, and pardon his heritage, and 
gather his people, and once more establish and 
make Jerusalem a praise in the whole earth. 

The daily sacrifice ceased, and Titus, prompted 
no doubt by his crafty ally, who knew full well into 
what consternation the fearful event would throw 
the Jews, deputed him, Josephus, to demand a par- 
ley, and to make the most of the crisis for subduing 
the stubborn spirits who extorted so heavy a price 
of time, and labour, and blood, from their cruel in- 
vaders for every advantage gained. The orator be- 
gan with a mock ; he implored the people, using at 
the same time the sacred language, " to spare their 
city, to prevent the fire that was about to seize upon 
the Temple, and to offer the usual sacrifices to God 
therein." Deep sadness of heart kept the afflicted 
15* 



172 JUD/EA CAPTA. 

Jews silent for awhile; but they presently broke 
into keen reproaches against him for his base deser- 
tion of his country, and the daring impiety of his 
present course in coming up against the Temple of 
the LORD as an enemy. To this Josephus replied in 
a strain of railing accusation and bitter taunts that 
it is almost marvellous that he should have left on 
record. He also adduced, as a scriptural example, 
something which is nowhere to be found in the 
Scriptures ; and after protesting his truth as a Jew, 
acknowledges himself deserving of all the reproaches 
that had been cast upon him, because he was then 
acting in opposition to Fate by striving to save 
those whom God had condemned. He proceeded to 
show that prophecy was about to be fulfilled in their 
utter destruction; and certainly, however hard he 
might have studied for language the best suited at 
once to exasperate and to harden them, he could 
not have succeeded better in producing an ha- 
rangue to that effect. He wept and groaned, and 
sobbed, so that, as he tells us, the Romans could not 
but wonder at and pity him, while the Jewish garri- 
son were stirred up to greater indignation, and 
strove to lay hold on him. Some few, however, de- 
serted on the strength of his persuasions, and these, 
he says, were kindly received by Titus, and sent 
away to a small city called Gophna,,with many prom- 
ises of future favour. Their entire disappearance, 
meanwhile, naturally gave rise to a belief within 
the city that they had been murdered like their pred- 
ecessors ; and this conviction deterred others from 



PREPARATIONS FOR STORMING. 173 

following their example, until they were recalled 
and paraded round the walls under the escort of Jo- 
sephus, to add their persuasions to his that the city 
might be quietly surrendered to the enemy. The 
consequence of this address from several of their 
own high priests and nobles was strange, if Jose- 
phus reports it truly ; for, according to him, the peo- 
ple who were just before mourning bitterly the ces- 
sation of their daily sacrifice, suddenly attacked the 
Temple itself with darts, stones, javelins, and what- 
ever their engines could hurl against it. A great 
slaughter is described as taking place at the same 
time within the holy courts, and that of Jews, by 
Jewish hands. The story is inexplicable, unless 
some plot was even then ripening among one party 
to deliver up the Temple to the Romans. Titus was 
exceedingly enraged at the proceeding, which ren- 
ders this conjecture more probable ; and he addressed 
a vehement remonstrance to the assailing party, 
headed by John ; but this producing no effect, he re- 
solved on storming, that very night, the holy place 
which he professed himself so anxious to save. The 
near view that his present position commanded of 
its costly magnificence no doubt rendered him dou- 
bly solicitous to secure so precious a spoil before its 
beauty could be marred, or its value lessened, by the 
hands of those whose stern resolve it was that he 
should never grasp it. 

Seated on the highest turret of the tower of An- 
tonia, the Roman prince looked on while the very 
flower of his host, chosen men arrayed under chosen 



174 JUD^A CAPTA. 

leaders, to the number of several thousands, as 
many as the narrow space would permit to act with 
freedom, stole, under cover of the night, to surprise 
in their sleep the guards of the Temple. They 
found them wakeful, watchful, and prepared to 
spring upon them sword in hand. A most desperate 
battle ensued, which lasted from the ninth hour of 
the night to the fifth hour of the day ; the Romans 
being loudly cheered on by their comrades and their 
general, on the summit of the tower, while the Jews 
fought with undiminished courage and determina- 
tion. No advantage was gained; blood was shed 
like water, and the courts of the Temple again wore 
the appearance of a slaughter-house ; but not a foot 
of its precincts was ceded to the foe. They retired 
to the tower : and the Jews set their guard as be- 
fore, in grim, and ghastly, and resolute array. Fam- 
ine had wasted their flesh, and wrinkled their skins, 
and blackened their countenances : sorrow had deep- 
ened every furrow, and despair was striving to un- 
man the heart that never shrunk from peril ; but the 
tread that involuntarily pressed the mangled corpse 
of a parent, a son, or a bosom friend, was firm and 
unfaltering still. The city of David and the mount- 
ain of the LORD'S house, were yet under their keep- 
ing ; and what Hebrew heart could flinch from 
guarding such a trust '? 

Titus, meanwhile, had kept his army employed in 
demolishing the foundations of fort Antonia, so as to 
form a broad and easy passage from the camp with- 
out to the court of the Gentiles 3 the outermost en- 



NEW EMBANKMENTS. 175 

closure of the Temple. Here, opposite the northern 
and western fronts, and at the angle, and over 
against the cloisters, they raised embankments, with 
great toil and difficulty ; for the distance from which 
they had to fetch wood was fatiguing, and the oppo- 
sition of the Jews incessant. No stratagem, no feat 
of daring, was left untried to obstruct these works, 
and to harass where they could not slay the arti- 
ficers. Sallies, bolder than before, were constantly 
planned ; and the horses of the Romans seized while 
their masters were fetching wood, or foraging for 
provender. They also, to interrupt the communica- 
tion, set fire to the north-west cloister, where it ex- 
tended to the tower, and gradually destroyed much 
of this portion of the sacred edifices, as a means of 
better protecting, by such isolation, the Temple it- 
self. No day passed without skirmishing, few with- 
out hard fighting ; and this at least may be said, 
that Jerusalem, forsaken of her God, and garrisoned 
by a band of dying men, proved a harder conquest 
to the Roman than ever he had essayed to grasp. 
So wonderful are the natural defences of that glo- 
rious city such as she was while her own tribes 
possessed her as their inheritance ; so great was the 
strength of her ancient ramparts, the wall that 
Israel's monarchs first raised, and the pious Nehe- 
miah repaired, and round which the LORD had 
spread the shield of his omnipotence, until now that 
the time was come to lay her in the dust, that the 
baffled enemy had long ere then yielded to despair, 
and withdrawn from the hopeless enterprise, if the 



176 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

mysterious influence had not prevailed, which told 
him that he must yet succeed. 

Among the stratagems practised by the Jews to 
drive the soldiers from their work upon the banks, 
was the following. The western cloister of the 
court of the Gentiles was over-against one of these 
new embankments, and here the Jews brought bitu- 
men and pitch, and various dry combustible mate- 
rials, with which they filled the space between the 
beams and roof. Having done this, they feigned a 
eudden retreat, as though suffering under great 
fatigue, and thus induced the Romans to mount the 
cloisters and pursue them. When a large number 
had ascended by ladders, so that the buildings were 
nearly filled and covered with them, the Jews set fire 
to the train : and by this manoeuvre they slew the 
greater part of them ; for such as escaped the flames, 
by leaping down within, fell into their hands, while 
those who cast themselves in the other direction, 
were killed by the depth of the fall. Many perished 
by fire, and some by their own swords. Josephus, 
in true Roman style, especially commends the sui- 
cides ; and laments, with his wonted adherence to 
the alien cause, over all who fell in fighting against 
Jerusalem. 

It was at this period that the event took place 
which marks the calamities as of the LORD'S es- 
pecial inflicting, since the prediction was thereby 
fulfilled that Moses had recorded. Josephus takes 
no notice of this prophecy, while relating its awful 
accomplishment, but he names the woman, Mary, 



PROPHECY FULFILLED. 177 

the daughter of Eleazar, as being " eminent for her 
family and her wealth ;" thus identifying " the ten- 
der and delicate woman among you, which would 
not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the 
ground for delicateness and tenderness." The sad 
tale is well known : she killed and roasted her babe, 
ate a portion, and concealed the remainder. Not 
one jot or one tittle failed of all the LORD had fore- 
shown. Josephus puts a speech into her mouth, 
evidently his own invention, in which she throws the 
guilt of her deed more upon her own suffering 
nation than upon the Romans, and garnishes the 
fearful tale with his accustomed licence ; but the sim- 
ple fact is enough. 

The month of Ab was now come : on the tenth 
day of that month had Jerusalem formerly fallen be- 
fore the arms of the Babylonian king ; and this day 
was always observed as one of fasting, of humilia- 
tion, and bitter mourning among the Jews. From 
the second to the eighth day, a continued but inef- 
fectual assault had been made upon the walls of the 
inner court, by means of the usual engines : on the 
eighth, a new bank was completed, and Titus order- 
ed up the battering-ram, but even this proved too 
weak for the purpose. The stones that composed 
the wall were of such an enormous size, and the 
strength of those gigantic bulwarks so prodigious, 
that the only process to which they yielded was the 
tedious, and almost impracticable one, of removing 
them piecemeal by manual labour. In this way the 
soldiers succeeded in taking down the external foun- 



178 JUD^A CAPTA. 

dations of the northern gate ; but they found them- 
selves foiled by the solidity of the inner portion, 
which upheld it as firmly as before. Thus baffled, 
and despairing of success by any other means than 
storming the place sword in hand, the Romans 
brought ladders, and fixed them against the clois- 
ters, to which they began to mount Thus far they 
had proceeded without molestation from the Jews ; 
but no sooner did the Roman helms appear above 
the level of that sacred enclosure than an onset was 
made from within, which hurled them back, and slew 
or cast them headlong, encumbered as they were 
with their heavy mail, and before they had time to 
advance their shields. A long ladder, on which 
these assailants clustered like bees, was often seized 
by the Jews at its summit, and flung violently down, 
crushing the soldiers in its fall. The very ensigns, 
the proud eagle standards of Rome, were so endan- 
gered, that those who bare could scarcely preserve 
them from being captured ; and the engines, which 
with so much labour they had brought to bear upon 
the walls, were actually taken by the people of Is- 
rael. It was a signal defeat, and a marvellous one. 
The Romans now brought fire, and applied it to 
the gates that were within their reach. The silver 
that covered them was heated until it ignited the 
wood ; and by this means a body of flame suddenly 
burst forth, catching on either side the cloisters, from 
which the enemy had been repulsed. There was a 
natural reluctance to destroy what would, in its un- 
injured state, be a most costly prize ; and this led 



THE OUTER COURT TAKEN. 179 

the Romans to reserve, as a last resource, the appli- 
cation of the destructive element. Dismay seized 
on the unhappy Jews, when they beheld their holy 
edifices blazing around them, and no effectual effort 
was made to stay the progress of the conflagration, 
which prevailed during that and the following day : 
the strength of the building being such, that they 
could only be destroyed by the very tardy progress 
of fire continually renewed and rekindled. 

The court of the Gentiles was to be finally con- 
tested, in the midst of these smoking ruins. On the 
northern and the western sides it was defenceless, 
the Romans being now able to pour in upon it, over 
the broken charred fragments of its lofty and beaute- 
ous fabrics. Titus issued orders to quench the re- 
maining fire, while he summoned his six principal 
commanders to a consultation, touching the destruc- 
tion or preservation of the Temple. Their voices 
were for the former, but his wish of course prevailed 
over their opinions : and he resolved to spare the 
magnificent trophy, as a proud monument of pagan 
triumph, and to be the desecrated fane of some de- 
mon-god. Strict orders were, therefore, given to 
save the Temple unhurt; and for the work before 
them a careful selection was made of the bravest 
and the best warriors from the whole host ; and to 
these was committed the task of making their way 
over the still smouldering ruins, to quench them 
wholly, and to take possession of the court of the 
Gentiles. This was done : so weary and dispirited 
were the Jews, that they offered no resistance while 
16 



180 JUD^A CAPTA. 

the Romans set their guard, in formidable force, 
within the long-contested wall ; but on the follow- 
ing morning they rallied again, and in a desperate 
onset slew many of the foe ; they would have driven 
them from that hard-won ground, had not Titus, who 
overlooked every thing from his lofty post, sent rein- 
forcements sufficient to repulse the Jews, who were 
compelled to retreat; and, finally, to fortify them- 
selves in the second court the court of Israel. So 
closed the day. 

"I saw the LORD standing upon the altar: and 
He said, Smite the lintel of the door that the posts 
may shake : and cut them in the head, all of them : 
and I will slay the last of them with the sword : he 
that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that 
escapeth of them shall not be delivered."* 

Terrible is the LORD in his judgments, righteous ia 
his dealings towards the children of men. Our heaKs 
will bleed, and our eyes will overflow, when contem- 
plating the dire visitation of wrath on his people, his 
own peculiar treasure, Judah his inheritance, ar^d 
the Mount Zion which he loved ; but we must nut 
forget that He who doth not afflict willingly, nor 
grieve the children of men, who calls judgment h!s 
strange work, and delights in mercy that HE it wi& 
who compassed Jerusalem with armies, and pourc d 
out upon her the fierceness of that indignation whit h 
never burns without a cause. Turning to the touching 
services appointed for that day, and observed by aJi 
Israel in every part of the world, in weeping, at 1 

* Amos ix. 1. 



SAD COMMEMORATION. 181 

mourning, and lamentation ; in fasting, and in dust 
and ashes, in darkness arid in prostration, no less of 
body than of soul, we find a memorial that speaks 
volumes, as to the spirit in which the children of Is- 
rael in our day review those scenes. Too little do 
Gentiles know, too little do they care, about these 
things : but the time is come when they who desire 
to rejoice and joy with Jerusalem, must learn to 
mourn for her more feelingly than now they do. 

At nightfall, on the eve of this sad day, the con- 
gregations of Israel throughout the world assemble 
in their synagogues : every light is extinguished, 
save the faint glimmer that is needful to enable the 
officiating minister to read the appointed scripture 
while, seated on the ground, in the deep gloom of 
such visible darkness, the assembly listen with what 
emotions it is not for us to say to the opening por- 
tion, the 137th Psalm. " By the rivers of Babylon 
there we sat, yea, we wept when we remembered 
Zion." After some ascriptions of praise, and dwell- 
ing on the promises of future mercy, they proceed in 
the following strain : 

" This night have I for generations appointed for 
mourning and lamentation: I therefore will weep 
and sit down dejected, and will not smell the fra- 
grant spices. I am grieved bitterly, because mine 
iniquities have caused mine afflictions to prevail 
over me, when the holy city was burnt, by the Crea- 
tor of the light of the fire Behold, there 

is none to comfort us, for the fierce enemy is inex- 
orable : and from the time of the ninth of Ab we 



182 JUD^A CAPTA. 

have been as orphans who are fatherless. From 
the day that they lifted up their voice, our ancestors 
on this night committed trespass : I have therefore 
appointed it for to weep, mourn, and lament. Our 
fathers have sinned, and are not, and how shall we 
bear their iniquity ? O thou, who dwellest in heaven, 
are the children to be put to death for the fathers ? 
Rise up with thy mercy, O our God, and compas- 
sionate us ; O turn our mourning into joy, for with 
our whole heart do we hope in thy salvation, O 
Lord ! O comfort the mourners of Jerusalem, who 
wait for thy redemption and salvation : turn the 
captivity of the children of Israel, and let the Re- 
deemer come to Zion !" 

The whole congregation repeat, " Turn the cap- 
tivity of the children of Israel, and let the Redeemer 
come to Zion !" 

After this, the Lamentations of Jeremiah are read 
throughout; some more affecting prayers put up, 
and the closing strain runs thus, the response of the 
people at every sentence being, " For the glory of the 
renowned city of Zion I will weep day and night." 

" For the sake of my Temple, and the glory of 
the renowned city of Zion, will I weep day and 
night. The enemy hath made my glorious house 
desolate ; he hath driven me into the hands of Na- 
bioth and Shamah ; for which I will continually 
weep with a doleful voice. I will continually weep 
for the repeated destruction of the delectable land, 
and the city of Jerusalem, and for her people which 
are gone into captivity. O mourn thou Law, for thy 



LAMENTATIONS. 1 83 

glory is profaned : tny crown is fallen since the day 
that thy house was made desolate ; take up a lamen- 
tation for Aholibah and Aholah." 

This is but a prose translation of the most lofty 
Hebrew poetry. It is not possible to select from the 
exquisitely pathetic service of the day itself any- 
thing like an adequate specimen of the whole : but 
a few short passages may be given illustrative at 
once of the depth of their sorrow, and their readi- 
ness to justify the severe dealings of -he LORD. 

" The beautiful climate, the joy of the whole 
earth, the city wherein the chosen people dwelt, is 
become w^aste and desolate, a proverb, and a bye- 
word : all her people sigh, for they find no mercy. 
Her mighty men are confounded, because of the 
destructive sword ; Jachin and Boaz are plucked up 
from the threshing-floor of Arauna : strangers have 
trodden and roared in the place where the Divine 
Shechinah rested. 

" The Divine Shechinah crieth aloud, because of 
their wickedness, saying, Children, turn ; cease to do 
evil ; for the bed is too short for one to stretch him- 
self out at length. When the proud ones placed an 
idol in my habitation, the Divine glory departed from 
the inner Temple, and said, I will go, and return to 
my own dwelling, until they acknowledge their tres- 
pass and seek my presence." 

All is in the same style : the portions of prophetic 

scripture are read which most clearly set forth what 

should come, and what then did come, upon Judah 

and Jerusalem, so giving glory to God for the fulfil- 

16* 



184 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

ment of his own word. How many among our read- 
ers, who owe their spiritual all to Israel, have turned 
aside from the paths of pleasure or of business, to 
keep this sorrowful anniversary with their brethren ? 
and to respond with a fervent amen to their prayer, 
" Turn the captivity of the children of Israel, and 
let the Redeemer come to Zion !" 

Titus retired for the night into the tower of An- 
tonia, purposing at early dawn to lead his whole 
army to the storming of the Temple, and to surround 
the holy house with his camp. Surely it was a 
sleepless vigil that the royal vulture kept, glaring 
down, through the dim light afforded by casual fires, 
upon his splendid prey. We have already described 
the tower of Antonia as guarding the north-west an- 
gle of the Temple's enclosure, and here he might 
command a prospect, wonderful in all its details ; 
unequalled, not even resembled, by any place upon 
earth. Towards the north and the west of his watch- 
tower, all was in the spoiler's hand : his camp occu- 
pied the ruins of Bezetha and Acra, while its outer- 
most borders stretched far into the regions beyond 
On the eastern side rose the Mount of Olives abruptly 
from the deep valley of the Kedron, studded with his 
tents, which gave a hostile aspect to what had ever 
smiled in verdant beauty, and waved its dark bright 
olive boughs in peaceful homage towards the holy 
city. Due south, at his very feet, lay the courts of 
the Lord's house, the outermost of which, a defiled 
heap of ruins, was occupied by his guards. Beyond 
it, and concealed by the majestic fabric, the hill 



BRUTALITY OF TITUS. 185 

Ophel descended to the valley of Hinnom ; and 
broadly swelling to the south-west, crowned with 
palaces, and towers, and stately dwellings, now the 
abode of misery and privation unspeakable, rose 
Zion, the proud site of the city of David, as yet un- 
trod by hostile step ; and confident of ultimate de- 
liverance, while the Temple of the LORD remained 
untouched. 

What were the thoughts of Titus, as he looked 
around? Did no compunction touch him for the 
cruelties that he had already perpetrated, nor one 
merciful impulse plead within his bosom for pity on 
the famishing thousands, the extremity of whose 
wretchedness was well known to him ? Was he, the 
proud and daring warrior, insensible to the claim on his 
martial sympathies established by the heroic defend- 
ers, for such, however great their transgressions, they 
unquestionably were, who had set, even to Romans, 
an example of courage, fortitude, and patriotism, that 
might shame their own most vaunted records ? Of 
all this we know nothing : but this we do know, that 
a more remorseless slaughterer than Titus proved 
himself to be towards the Jewish nation never dis- 
graced the human form. His desire to spare the 
goodly house of the LORD arose avowedly from ava- 
ricious motives : coveting, as he did, so gorgeous a 
trophy, and so inexhaustible a spoil. The wealth of 
that house was prodigious. Gold, silver, and fine 
brass ; the costliest of wood, and the rarest of pre- 
cious stones ; all were there in profusion as un- 
bounded, as was the exquisite workmanship that 



186 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

shaped them into lovely forms unrivalled throughout 
the world. 

In other matters Josephus may and does exagger- 
ate ; but here he scarcely can do so : for the Temple 
of the LORD at Jerusalem was enriched, not only 
with all that its own worshippers could, in the pride 
alike of their hearts and of their wealth, lavish upon 
it, but kings of every nation had thither sent their 
costly gifts ; and inasmuch as it fell short of the 
glory of Solomon's, by so much it surpassed every 
other edifice, in the grandeur of its architecture, and 
the magnitude of its treasures. To-morrow, and the 
Roman would march over the slain bodies of its 
children, to seize and to appropriate the prize, that 
glowed and glistened even through the darkness of 
that hour whensoever but the glance of a torch fell 
on its surface of snow-white marble interspersed 
with burnished gold. The very spikes, that warned 
the passing bird from resting where no pollution 
might come, were of that precious metal. Oh ! how 
unlike was the imperial spoiler, the dark destroyer of 
God's forsaken heritage, watching to seize his prey, 
to the angel, the bright though terrible angel, who 
once, on that very spot, stretched a drawn sword 
over the threshing-floor of Araunah, towards the 
menaced city of Jerusalem ! There was a time 
when God himself vouchsafed to chastise his rebei~ 
lious Israel : but now, direst of all calamities ! He 
had delivered them into the hands of men. 

There is an appearance of confusion in the narra- 
tive of Josephus, just at this point : it would seem as 



THE TEMPLE FIRED. 187 

though some Jewish feeling, not utterly annihilated, 
had overpowered him at the moment, when he re- 
called the scene where he had been, if not an actor, 
an acquiescent spectator ; when the Temple of the 
LORD, whither the tribes of Israel had been wont, for 
so many ages, to go up with songs of joy and rever- 
ential praise, was stormed and destroyed by the sav- 
age hands of idolatrous barbarians. We gather, 
however, from his somewhat confused and hurried 
notice of the first movements on that fatal day, that 
the Jews, encouraged by seeing Titus retire into the 
tower, had only rested for a little space ; during 
which the fire had crept along, bursting out anew in 
the inner court, and then, before morning dawned, 
they made another attack on the Romans who occu- 
pied the court of the Gentiles, and whose orders were 
to extinguish every remaining spark of the recent 
conflagration. Regardless of the danger that threat- 
ened the holy house by this near approximation of 
the fire, the Jews broke forth, and, after a short con- 
flict, were repulsed by the guard ; who, pressing 
close upon their retreating steps, entered with them 
the confines where Gentile foot was forbidden to 
tread, and fulfilled, not the will of their leader, but 
the mighty purpose of the God of heaven. A soldier, 
" hurried on by a certain divine fury," snatched a 
blazing fragment from the surrounding ruin ; and 
being raised on the shoulders of a comrade, he thrust 
it through the golden frame-work of a rich window, 
opening from the northern range of those chambers 
that encircled the Temple. A few moments, and 



188 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

the flames burst forth that told the fearful tale ; the 
house itself, the holy and beautiful house was burn- 
ing the chosen place of the habitation of the Most 
High was wreathed in clouds not as those which of 
old bespoke the visible presence of Israel's Almighty 
shield, but clouds of smoke, and sparkles of fire that 
proclaimed the arrival of the dreaded end. A terrible 
outcry burst from the agonized Jews ; they darted 
away from the battle, and surrounded the sacred 
building, utterly reckless of their own lives, and 
united in one sole purpose that of staying the 
flames. Meanwhile a messenger hastened to apprize 
Titus of this unexpected event, and immediately he 
was on his way to the spot, followed by his officers, 
and they by the whole army, who, in one tremendous 
rush, bore down all opposition, trampled on the Jews 
and on each other, and many fell, yelling with agony, 
into the burning mass of the ruined cloisters, there 
to perish unheeded : altogether was presented a 
spectacle of such demoniac fury, madness, and vio- 
lence, that it surely seemed as though all hell were 
called together to rejoice and revel over the awful 
scene. 

In vain did Titus command, in vain did he 
threaten and implore ; in vain was each imaginable 
method tried by the agitated leaders to reduce into 
something like subordination the maddened multi- 
tude so wisely trained to order and obedience. Each 
legion was like a legion of evil spirits, intent only 
on perpetrating every possible outrage against that 
which, uninjured, would have enriched them al^ 



THE HOLY MOUNT. 189 

while its destruction was a general loss. Each who 
could gain access to the sanctuary was eager to 
lend his aid in feeding the flame that now wrapped 
it round. The altar was there, and piled on heaps 
on every side of it lay the slaughtered Jews. They 
could offer no other resistance than their bleeding 
bodies to the polluting approach of those heathen 
spoilers ; and so they walled it round, and fell in a 
great heap of slaughter about it, and formed a pile 
upon its top, and rolled in their gore upon the hal- 
lowed pavement, and covered, literally covered to a 
great depth, the whole surface of the mount of the 
LORD'S house. Not alone the armed men who were 
marshalled in its defence, but the poor famished 
citizens rushed into the press, and offered their de- 
fenceless throats to the Roman knife, and died with 
arms outstretched towards the burning Temple of 
the LORD. Zion awoke in all her streets, and in all 
her sorrowful houses, and looked forth in terror. 
Alas ! alas ! the LORD who in the fire of his majesty 
descended on Sinai, and spake to their fathers, and 
gave them a covenant of peace the LORD who had 
oft, in the fire of his glory, shone upon Moriah, and 
with the beauty of his Shechinah brightness caused 
the sunbeam to fade and disappear the LORD had 
now kindled upon the holy hill the fire of his wither- 
ing wrath ; and as the dark red flames shot up to- 
wards heaven, and the thick black smoke streamed 
heavily along the twilight sky, and the roar and 
rush of the crackling mass of fire at times prevailed 
even above the roar and rush of infuriated armies. 



190 JUDJ2A CAPTA. 

and the cries of dying men, Zion looked forth from 
her battlements, and knew that the crown had fallen 
from her head, and that her GOD had forsaken her. 

Terrible, most terrible, was the scene ! The high 
elevation on which that holy house was planted ren- 
dered it visible from every quarter, and imagination 
may toil in vain to grasp the horrors of that hour. 
Many in the city who were already so far gone in 
their last agonies of death by famine and pestilence 
as to have been long time speechless, unclosed their 
ghastly lips to utter an expiring outcry of lamenta- 
tion and woe for the house of the LORD. The whole 
slope of Zion was overhung with faces, gazing, 
some in the stupefaction of horror, others distorted 
with anguish and rage, on the soul-harrowing pros- 
pect. Was that the Temple towards whose gleam- 
ing beauty they were wont at early dawn to turn 
and pray? Was that the consecrated spot within 
whose guarded precincts even the pagan rulers of a 
tributary race presumed not to set a foot, but hum- 
bly sent their costly gifts to be laid by Jewish hands 
wheresoever they saw meet to place them ? 

Fiercely and more fiercely still raged the spread- 
ing sea of fire, as the very innermost recess, the 
holy of holies, now yielded to the burning flame. 
There were strange deeds done in the midst of the 
fire. Some of the priests mounted the roof, and 
tearing thence the golden spikes, the bases of which 
were of lead, they shot them as arrows at the sacri- 
legious foe. Two of the chief men among them. 
Meirus and Joseph, completed their work by casting 



THE SPREADING FLAMES. 191 

themselves into the burning mass, deeming it a priv- 
ilege to die by the fire that consumed the holy 
place. Titus and his fellows had forced their way 
to the inner sanctuary ere yet the destruction 
reached it, and caught a hasty view of the magnif- 
icence that never should be theirs to lord it over. 
During the interval, much spoil, however, was se- 
cured ; among the rest, the golden candlestick, the 
table of shew-bread, and many costly vessels of 
gold, were seized, together with the sacred rolls, 
the oracles of God, to adorn the barbarous triumph 
of the imperial homicides ; but from all the pol- 
lution that it had undergone the house was purged 
by fire, and in that fire it was swallowed up. The 
very hill was heated to such a pitch as to scorch 
the bodies of the dying who covered the surface, 
trodden down by the enemy in masses ; the iron- 
bound shoes of the Romans, with their sharp nails, 
at once crushing and piercing the writhing heap 
over which they ran to new slaughters. 

In the remaining cloister of the outer court, six 
thousand people, chiefly women and children, had 
enclosed themselves, as a place of refuge. This 
building was at once set oil fire by the savage sol- 
diery, who suffered not one of that large number to 
escape with life. The slaughter of that day cannot 
be told, even such as was confined to the Mount 
Moriah alone ; and when all was completed, when 
none remained on whom to glut their ferocity, nor 
any ruin that they could farther deface by fire, 
when the remnant of the garrison had retreated, 
17 



192 JUD^A CAPTA. 

with Simon and John their leaders, over the "bridge 
that crossed the Tyropeon from the south-western 
corner of the Temple wall to Zion, when the 
echoes of the mountains had ceased to reverberate 
with Judah's terrible cries of anguish, and despair, 
and death, and the burning heat of the paved courts 
had been somewhat slaked by the blood that first 
flowed, then curdled and coagulated, blending in one 
hideous mass of gore the mangled bodies that 
formed its covering, then the abomination of deso- 
lation was literally set up in the holy place. The 
soldiers brought their ensigns choice objects of their 
impious worship ! and planted them where Solomon 
had spread forth his hands towards the Holy One 
of Israel, whose presence then filled the house with 
a glory before which none could stand. Yes, in the 
sight of Zion, beneath the gaze of her agonized 
citizens, was this foul dishonour consummated. The 
Roman eagles were set over against the eastern 
gate, and incense was burned, and adoration paid to 
the senseless idols ; and again the mountain echoes 
awoke to send back the thundering shouts and ac- 
clamations of that heathen host, intoxicated with 
blood, and overburdened with spoil. 

Josephus was there. No greater condemnation 
can be written against him, and we add no comment 
on the words. 

There was one wall of the holy house still inac- 
cessible to the enemy, and on it a company of the 
priests remained for five days, pining with famine, 
and probably unmolested by the soldiers 3 that their 



A PARLEY. 193 

sufferings might be prolonged. At the end of this 
time they came down and besought mercy of Titus, 
only asking that their lives might be spared. The 
tyrant mockingly replied that their time of pardon 
was over, that the very holy house on whose account 
only they could justly hope to be preserved, was de- 
stroyed, and that it was agreeable to their priestly 
office to perish with the house to which they be- 
longed. He then ordered them to be murdered. 
From this speech we are tempted to surmise that, 
had he succeeded in preserving the Temple, he 
would have compelled the Jewish priesthood to con- 
tinue their service before the demons with whose 
filthy images he intended to pollute it. How mer- 
ciful, then, in the midst of judgment, was the Holy 
One of Israel, who here, even here, in this terrible 
visitation of seemingly unmeasured wrath, so wrought 
for his great Name's sake that he would not give 
over his ancient sanctuary, or his ancient people, to 
such blasphemous abominations ! 

It now remained for a parley to be held between 
the Jewish commanders and the Roman conqueror. 
The bridge just before mentioned was the scene of 
their conference, and the former asking mercy; the 
latter giving them a specimen of his oratorical abili- 
ties. He began by vaunting the prowess of the Ro- 
mans, intermingling his boasts with much abusive 
crimination of those whom he addressed ; and end- 
ing a string of mean reproaches by demanding that 
they should lay down their arms, and surrender 
themselves to his mercy. To this they answered, 



194 JUDJ2A CAPTA. 

that they were bound by an oath never to do so ; 
but if he would permit them, with their wives and 
little ones, to go forth through his encompassing 
wall, they would repair to the desert, and leave the 
city to him. This proposal he scornfully rejected, 
and ordered the soldiers to burn and plunder the 
city. Acra alone was in their hands as yet, and 
here they destroyed the repository of the archives, 
the council-house, and whatever remained to under- 
go a more perfect wreck ; but they gained not much 
plunder, the Jews having carried their more valua- 
ble effects into the upper city. Instead of being in- 
timidated by the spectacle of the burning town, the 
people put on cheerful countenances, saying that 
their miseries were now about to be terminated by 
death. Josephus tried again and again so to work 
on their fears, or so to excite their hopes, as to in- 
duce them to surrender unconditionally ; but he was, 
as formerly, met with taunts and well-deserved re- 
proaches. He revenges himself by a fresh burst of 
accusations against his countrymen, whom he inva- 
riably represents as the veriest monsters of tyran- 
nous cruelty against their partners in affliction ; and 
as an apologetic preface, no doubt, to the enormities 
of his heathen allies, still to be detailed, he repre- 
sents the destruction of the remaining Jews as an 
interposition to save them from wanton cannibal- 
ism ! 

Fain would we pass lightly over these harrowing 
particulars of the closing scene. Ten days elapsed 
from the destruction of the Temple ere Titus could 



DISHEARTENING SPECTACLE. 195 

proceed to raise banks against the city of David ; 
and then eighteen days' labour was required so far 
to complete them as to allow of planting their en- 
gines. They were opposed to the last in these oper- 
ations, but more faintly and by a diminished num- 
ber ; for what heart could endure, or what hand be 
strong in the day when God was manifestly dealing 
with his offending people, and fulfilling upon them 
the denunciations with which they were familiar, 
though, while the holy mount was uninjured, they 
could not believe that on them was the weight of the 
arrow to fall? Hitherto, one look towards the LORD'S 
house (" our holy and beautiful house, where our 
fathers worshipped") was sufficient to inspire every 
bosom with fresh ardour ; for even where the spirit 
of national devotion was not, the power of national 
pride, and confidence in their peculiar privileges, and 
the obstinate habit of reiterating the boast denoun- 
ced by the prophet, " The evil shall not overtake nor 
prevent us,"* all prevailed to inspire them with reso- 
lution that nothing could quell. But now, what saw 
they, when, habitually and involuntarily, they turned 
to the site of their glorious Temple ? A mass of 
black and shapeless ruin, from the midst of which 
arose the accursed fumes of incense, probably the 
very incense stored for the service of the sanctuary, 
now burning before the idol abomination, the stand- 
ard that was reared aloft to mock the desolation 
wrought by its worshippers. No, the Jewish heart 
could not endure, the Jewish hand could not be 

* Amos ix. 10. 



196 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

strong, in so dark a day of rebuke and blasphemy. 
Accordingly the survivors, who had laughed to scorn 
all that Rome could do, now enclosed themselves, 
some in the citadel, others in the subterranean vaults 
and caverns, the entrances to which are now closed 
up, and hills of ruins heaped where the deepest gul- 
ly of the interior pass then cleft the city in twain, 
between Zion and Ophel. A few only persevered 
in manning the walls, and obstructing the work of 
the enemy : these, elated by their recent triumphs, 
wrought cheerfully and energetically, as men who 
have but one more feeble obstacle to surmount. 

It was upon the weaker part of the wall, which 
crested the Tyropean valley, that an impression was 
at length made. Titus had gained possession of 
Ophel when he took the Temple, and consequently 
was within that part of the ancient wall which ex- 
tended southward to the valley of Hinnom, and then 
stretched eastward as far as Siloam. Some of the 
slighter towers in this partition wall gave way be- 
ibre his engines ; and had the garrison retired to 
their impregnable strong-holds, Hippicus, Mariamne. 
Phasaelus, and the other similar towers, they might 
still have bade defiance to the utmost power of the 
foe, and have held out while famine spared them ; 
but a panic seized them all, and on the raising of a 
false alarm that the western wall of Zion had fallen, 
they burst from the city, and madly endeavoured to 
force a passage through the Roman wall below Si- 
loam. Failing in this, they yielded to utter despair, 
and fled to subterranean passages and caverns, per- 



ZION TAKEN. 197 

haps to be again laid open to the eyes of their de- 
scendants, when they who come of them shall repair 
to Zion, to rebuild, to restore, to clothe in tenfold 
beauty what Gentiles have long trampled down, but 
never have been permitted to raise up. That bless- 
ing is reserved for Judah alone. 

Thus, and not by the failure of its ancient defences, 
was Zion taken. The hills yet stood about Jerusa- 
lem, the towers and bulwarks of Zion still frowned 
defiance on the hostile band, and her palaces rose 
proudly from the swelling ground, " beautiful for 
situation " as when the pious David laid their strong 
foundations in the rocky soil. But alas ! the Lord 
no longer stood around his people ; the Highest had 
forsaken them, the Saviour of Israel had been as a 
wayfaring man that tarrieth but for a night and de- 
parteth. Scarcely could the Roman host believe that 
Judah's arm had at length fallen powerless, and that 
the prey round which they had for months in fierce 
impatience vainly prowled, was theirs, and lay de- 
fenceless at their mercy Roman mercy ! Josephus 
says that the soldiers went in numbers through the 
lanes of the city, slaying without mercy whomsoever 
they found. They broke into the stately palaces, 
and noble mansions, and were driven thence by the 
loathsome discovery of their being treasure-houses of 
the dead ; their spacious apartments were filled with 
corrupting bodies, for whom no offices of devout care 
due from the living to the departed had been per- 
formed; for whose withering remains no place of 
burial, no hands to bury them, could be found. 



198 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

Neither this nor any other spectacle of human woe 
could move the iron hearts of those evil and cruel men ; 
they butchered all who came within their grasp, set fire 
to the houses, and in the lower grounds actually saw 
those fires quenched by the streams of human blood 
that flowed down upon them. The ways of Zion 
mourned, for her sons and her daughters, the old man 
and the suckling fell in one mass of indiscriminate 
carnage. Titus, the clement Titus, as history loves 
to call him, cordially sanctioned this diabolical cruelty, 
amusing himself the while by inspecting the impreg- 
nable towers which he confessed he never could 
have overthrown by means of men or of machinery ; 
acknowledging that to the last despairing sally of 
the self-devoted Jews he owed his conquest. 

When the soldiers were entirely fatigued with 
slaughter, and desired rest, the hapless remnant of 
Zion were subjected to the further anguish of being 
conducted to the courts of the Temple, paved as it 
was with death, and fearfully desecrated by idol 
worship. Here a ruffian, named Fronto, was deputed 
to decide the doom of all. The old men were butch- 
ered, together with all such as, by mutual or other 
accusation, could be pointed out as having contrib- 
uted to the defence. A number of the goodliest 
young men were reserved for the tyrant's triumph 
in Rome. Of those above seventeen years old, he 
sent one numerous portion to the Egyptian mines, to 
suffer more, far more than ever did their fathers in 
the land of their first oppression ; many others were 
sent into the provinces, " as a present to them," says 



GREAT SUFFERING. 199 

the shameless apostate Josephus, " that they might 
be destroyed upon their theatres, by the sword, and 
by wild beasts ; but those that were under seventeen 
years of age were sold for slaves. Now, during the 
days when Fronto was distinguishing these men, 
there perished, for want of food, eleven thousand : 
some of which did not taste any food through the 
hatred their guards bore to them ; and others would 
not take in any when it was given them." The 
heartless relator does not add that these last were 
but obeying one of the strictest precepts of their di- 
vine law, in rejecting the unclean, polluted offal that 
the blood-stained hands of their heathen murderers 
tendered ; offered, probably, before their faces to the 
idols that stood in the holy place. 

He then tells us that the extraordinary number of 
those shut up in the siege was owing to the circum- 
stance of the army closing upon them during the 
days of unleavened bread, when all the males were 
assembled there. This produced famine, pestilence, 
and all the dreadful aggravations of suffering that 
we have been compelled to contemplate ; as it also 
mournfully marks the withdrawal from them of the 
mercy which had decreed and promised that while 
they remained true to their covenant with the Eter- 
nal, no man should desire their land, or take advan- 
tage of their absence during the solemn assemblies 
in Jerusalem. Under any other circumstances, the 
statement would be incredible that sets forth the 
greatness of the multitude who perished in and after 
this fearful siege ; but this explains and confirms it. 



200 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

Simon and John concealed themselves until hun- 
ger compelled them to sue for mercy : the latter was 
condemned to perpetual imprisonment, which, under 
such gaolers, could not be of very long continuance ; 
and Simon was reserved to drag his chains after the 
triumphal car of the haughty Roman, and then to be 
tortured to death in the streets of the imperial city, 
while the conqueror paused in his march until the 
base and cowardly deed was done. Having left 
none in Jerusalem to slaughter, nor more plunder to 
seize, Titus commanded the ruins of the Temple to 
be entirely demolished, with those of the city, leav- 
ing only the towers of Phasaelus, Hippicus, and 
Mariamne, with a portion of the western wall, stand- 
ing. He then celebrated a great sacrifice to his de- 
mons, feasted, flattered, decorated, and otherwise re- 
warded his followers in proportion to the sanguinary 
fame that they had won and departed. 



THE CLEMENT TITUS. 201 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SHALL we follow the imperial savage on his home- 
ward way, with the sad remnant of Zion's captive 
children ? He repaired to the place whence he set 
forth, Csesarea, and the birthday of his brother 
Domitian shortly after occurring, he celebrated it, 
after what Josephus calls a splendid manner, by in- 
flicting, in his honour, a portion of the cruelties re- 
served for the helpless and inoffensive Jews ; for, be 
it ever borne in mind, they had already put to 
death all whom they could accuse of having in any 
way resisted their arms, and those who remained 
alive were the men and matrons, the youths and vir- 
gins of Israel, captured in the city of David, where, 
according to Josephus himselfj they were compelled 
to remain by the party whom he calls seditious ; and 
who all, except John and Simon, had been slaugh- 
tered. Of these most pitiable victims, the clement 
Titus took more than two thousand five hundred, and 
on this day caused them to be slain by fighting with 
wild beasts, or with each other, or being burnt alive, 
or in some other horrible way : for Josephus remarks, 
"Yet did all this seem to the Romans, when they 
were thus destroyed, ten thousand several ways, to 



202 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

be a punishment beneath their deserts." Upon his 
father's birthday, shortly after, at Berytus, another 
and a greater multitude of the captives were, by the 
same merciful Titus, in like manner tortured to 
death. At Antioch most cruel and terrible enormi- 
ties were committed against the peaceable Jewish 
inhabitants, on charges that were afterwards proved 
to be false. Among these outrages, the forcible abo- 
lition of their sabbath was resorted to ; and such as 
would not sacrifice to idols, which included nearly 
the whole body, were on one occasion put to death. 
This was done by a Greek tyrant, by means of Ro- 
man soldiers, whom Titus sent to him for the pur- 
pose. The progress of the prince through Syria was 
marked by numerous halts at all the chief cities, 
where he constantly regaled the inhabitants with the 
spectacle of tortured, mangled Jews. After reject- 
ing, in his royal caprice, the application of the peo- 
ple of Antioch against the Hebrews still remaining 
among them, he proceeded ; and in his circuitous 
march again, passed by Jerusalem, where once more 
the army made a brief but diligent search among 
the gory ruins for any treasure that might remain ; 
and some they dug up. 

Titus came to Rome. It is altogether sickening 
to read the description, as penned by this unworthy, 
this contemptible sycophant, Josephus, of his ovation 
there. The arch of Titus stands a frowning monu- 
ment of what has been, a stern attestor of what, in 
the course of divine retribution, is yet to come. 
Hoisted on high, in a gorgeous car of triumph, the 



BARBARIAN TRIUMPH. 203 

proud destroyers, father and son, received the hom- 
age of a people, concerning whom it may truly be 
said that they and their rulers were worthy of each 
other. There was a splendid show, including all 
that art or arms could bring together, with many 
images of the demons worshipped by Rome ; and 
pictures of sacked towns, and burning palaces, and 
smiling landscapes turned into utter desolation ; and 
every calamity that had befallen the land and the 
people of Israel during this dreadful war. But this 
was not all a pictorial illusion ; for on the summit of 
each representative group was placed the highest in 
command among the surviving captives, reserved to 
torture and to death, as the recompense of his cour- 
ageous patriotism. 

But how was the rear of these sad trophies 
brought up ? The spoils of every other land and, 
city sank into nothingness before the grandeur and 
the worth of what came last. The golden candle- 
stick with its seven bright lamps, that had shed their 
lustre on the walls of thy glorious Temple, O Jeru- 
salem ! the golden table, reserved for the shew- 
bread, that also dwelt within that hallowed sanctu- 
ary ; and, greatest of all of worth more precious 
than the whole material globe, the Law, the living 
word of the Most High God, wrapped in its richest 
coverings, and borne as a trophy, the worth of which 
could only be estimated by the anguish of those 
who saw it rent from its sacred repository. The cap- 
tives of Judah were there, but the conscience-stricken 
Josephus says nothing of them, save that among 
18 



204 JUD^A CAPTA. 



them, Simon was led, with a rope about his head, 
violently drawn and deliberately tortured as he went 
along ; till, arriving at the forum, his miseries were 
terminated by a bloody death ; on the official intima- 
tion of which to the imperial rulers, the sacrifices of 
thankfulness commenced, (" the things which the 
heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice unto devils, not unto 
God,") prayers were offered to those who had ears 
and heard not ; the populace were feasted ; and the 
memory of their disastrous work of desolation was 
decreed to be perpetuated in a coin, of which many 
specimens remain to this day, sadly attesting the 
reality and the prolonged continuance of Judaea's 
desolate captivity. 

We hasten to turn from this scene of proud pomp, 
and sanguinany cruelty, and debasing idolatry ; from 
the seven-hilled city, ruling over the kings of the 
earth; from Rome, the unchanged and unchangea- 
ble enemy of God and his people ; Rome, the daugh- 
ter of Babylon, that is to be destroyed, even as she, 
in all her changes of government and religion, has 
been the universal destroyer : we leave her to bide 
her time, assured that the judgment of God over- 
hangs her infamous fanes, and temples of impeni- 
tent idolatry, to seek once more the blighted hills 
and deserted plains of Judaea. Is this Jerusalem ? 
Alas, 

" How doth the city sit solitary that was full of 
people ! 

" How is she become as a widow, she that was 
great among nations !" 



SCENES OF DESOLATION. 205 

Shall we take our seat upon the springing grass 
that scantily begins to sprout, where the fire of the 
departing legion, burning their now useless camp, 
ran up the slope of the mount, destroyed the verdant 
blade, and scorched the olive branches that had not 
been spared in the general wreck, but for the luxuri- 
ous shade that they afforded to weary and baffled, 
and irritated soldiers? They are gone, and, too 
richly fertilized by the life-blood of many a victim, 
slaughtered here in the first fiery conflict, and subse- 
quently in the wanton malice of revenge, the soil 
has begun to put forth its vegetation ; yet timidly, 
tardily, and as though fearing that the iron hand of 
hostile men would again suddenly crush it. 

The loneliness of the spot is fearful, for it is not 
the loneliness of some retired and solitary hill, where 
the busy hum of population has never intruded, where 
the mountain kid has browsed, and the light gazelle 
has bounded, and the wild coney burrowed, and the 
birds have made their nests undisturbed, and sung 
among the branches : no, it is the loneliness of death, 
the harsh reign of stern and vengeful desolation. 
Of all that rendered Zion the joy of the whole earth, 
of all that marked Jerusalem as the city of the Great 
King, of all that ravished the eyes of the ascending 
tribes, when in festal pomp they came up to keep 
holiday in the courts of the LORD'S house, what now 
remains ? Far off, at the opposite western extremity 
of the city, a portion of the wall is seen ; it had been 
left standing as a shelter to the legion who, for a 
space, were commanded to encamp without it ; keep- 



206 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

ing guard, as though the very ghost of slaughtered 
Israel might rise and re-occupy the beloved city. 
At one point rises a massive tower, that ol Hippicus 
and nearer to the eye another, and another yet, 
three melancholy watchers looking down upon their 
dead. This, and this only, remains of the tumultu- 
ous city of Israel's solemnities. All beside is one 
confused, undistinguished ruin ; but such a ruin ! the 
very stones of Zion, disjointed, broken, and hurled 
on heaps, are statelier than the palaces of other 
lands. Immense in size, of alabaster whiteness, pol- 
ished, and gleaming beneath the burning ray, they 
are so beautiful that the eye is not satisfied with 
gazing, nor the heart weary of asking who did, who 
could accomplish such an overthrow? Nigh unto 
the foot of this mountain, the graceful Olivet, rises a 
platform, the symmetrical proportions of which can- 
not wholly be concealed, though fragments of mighty 
dimensions, where black charcoal intermingles with 
the dazzling white of their pure marble, and fitful 
gleams betray that a strip of burnished gold has 
here and there escaped the plunderer's eye, and as 
now perchance washed by the kindly rain-drops from 
the coating gore that long disguised it, form a heap 
more strange and wild than in other quarters : and 
down, down into what must erewhile have been a 
valley of considerable depth, and where a streamlet 
evidently wandered, have been hurled such wrecks 
as would rebuild a city of palaces, rising almost to 
a level with the lofty site of what once was the 
Temple of the* God of the whole earth. 



WRECKS OF SPLENDOUR. 207 

And while we gaze the loneliness is broken, for 
from beneath the temporary caverns formed by shat- 
tered columns and prostrate arches, peers forth the 
beast of prey, darting from one dark recess to another, 
with the short rude growl that speaks of unwelcome 
disturbance, perchance from a stronger or fiercer 
than himself. Alas ! beneath those mighty wrecks 
of architecture there still remain the lingering relics 
of human flesh and bone, to tempt the jackal, and the 
wolf, and the lion from Jordan's swell, to prowl amid 
the desolations that man, more savage, has prepared 
for them to dwell in ; and there they have found 
shelter, and there in a royal and a hallowed den they 
have already brought forth their young. The vul- 
ture, long accustomed to follow the march of the 
Roman caterer, is even yet wheeling round, above 
these few, scathed olives, with a screaming inquiry 
whether more prey is at hand ; and the cormorant, 
the bittern, and the owl, cry out from the windows 
of those desolate towers, that they alone dwell there. 

The city is utterly broken, her ancient landmarks 
are destroyed. Builders may come to repair the 
ruin, and credulous superstition may lay her finger 
on conjectured sites, and say, " Here will I build me 
a church, and there will I raise a monument, and 
over such a spot shall an inscription be graven ;" 
but all is idle, all is folly and vanity. Zion, Jerusa- 
lem, Moriah, these shall stand, distinct and utterly 
incapable of obliteration by all that man can do. 
The valley of Jehoshaphat shall sink, the Mount of 
Olives shall rise, and the waters of Siloam shall go 
18* 



208 JUD.EA CAPTA. 

softly through the lapse of ages during which the 
land must enjoy her Sabbaths, and Jerusalem be 
trodden under foot by Gentile usurpation ; but be- 
yond these grand, these everlasting outlines, man 
must be content to grope his way by dubious guess- 
work, and to form devices that shall end in nothing. 
Jerusalem must become the spoil of many nations ; 
she may pass from the clutch of a heathen Roman 
emperor into that of a nominally Christian Greek : 
she may be seized by the bold Saracen, then rent 
from him by Rome, the wolf of old, now mantled in 
sheepskin, and masked under another name, but not 
one whit less bloodily wolfish than of yore ; then 
re-conquered by the wild sons of Ishrnael ; then 
snatched for a little space by Egypt, and relinquished 
again. She may be trodden down of other masters 
yet, and the banners of all nations may wave on her 
diminished walls, but the city of God she shall never 
be again, till her warfare is accomplished, her in- 
iquity pardoned, and the Redeemer, her own Mes- 
siah, comes to reign over the restored tribes of her 
inheritance ; for, 

" Thus saith the LORD God : 

" Remove the diadem, and take off the crown ; 

" This shall not be the same : 

" Exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. 

" I will overturn, overturn, overturn it ; 

" And it. shall be no more, until He come whose 
right it is ; 

And I will give it HIM."* 

* Ezek. xxi. 26, 27. 



SCRIPTURAL HOPE. 209 

The overturning has not ceased ; nay, it is in full 
operation now, and the horns that have scattered 
Judah are pushing in all directions in this our day. 
They that have robbed him, they that have perse- 
cuted him, they that have made themselves drunk 
with his blood, and kept him a homeless wanderer 
on the world's surface, while they fought for the 
prize of his desolate land and ruined cities, these, 
as nations, live and are mighty still. The hour of 
their judgment is not come ; the carpenters who are 
to fray the horns have not been revealed ; the dry 
bones of Israel, though greatly stirred, and in some 
degree united, with growing sinews and deepening 
flesh, have not yet received life to stand on their feet 
and to go forward. Till this takes place, till the 
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, and the set time for 
the Lord to favour Zion be fully come, vain are 
man's conjectures, and vain will be his plans. Can 
he fertilize the barren soil, and turn the dry land into 
springs of water ? If so, let him proceed, and there 
set the hungry, and build them cities to dwell in. 
But he cannot ; it is the prerogative of the Omnipo- 
tent arm that hath smitten and scattered to bind up 
and re-assemble the flock of his ancient pasture, the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel ! 

They know this, and they put no confidence in 
man's devices for their weal ; they wait for a signal 
from above, for which we also profess to wait, even 
the manifestation of Messiah, their King. Thus 
they pray : " O comfort the mourners of Jerusalem, 
who wait for thy redemption and salvation ; turn the 



210 JITD^A CAPTA. 

captivity of the children of Israel, and let the Re- 
deemer come to Zion !" 

Not a threat recorded in the twenty-sixth chapter 
of the Book of Leviticus, from the fourteenth verse 
to the fortieth, but has been, and still is, literally ful- 
filled upon the people and on the land of Israel. 
Who shall dare to pause at this point, and not pro- 
ceed as the LORD proceeds, in the same breath, on 
the same subject, and with the same literal sig- 
nificancy? "If they shall confess their iniquity, 
and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass 
which they trespassed against me, and that also 
they have walked contrary unto me, and that I also 
have walked contrary unto them, and have brought 
them into the land of their enemies, if then their 
uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then ac- 
cept of the punishment of their iniquity ; then will 
I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my 
covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with 
Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the 
land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall 
enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without 
them ; and they shall accept of the punishment of 
their iniquity, because, even because they despised 
my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my 
statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the 
land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, 
neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, 
and to break my covenant with them, for I am the 
LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remem- 
ber the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought 



NATIONAL BLESSINGS. 211 

forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the 
heathen, that 1 might be their God. I am the 
LORD." 

Again, in the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book 
of Deuteronomy, from the fifteenth verse to the end, 
the afflictions that should overtake the people when 
once they had provoked the LORD to pour upon them 
the full cup of wrath, are detailed in language that 
makes the heart of man quail while he listens to it ; 
every particular even of the final siege, and of the 
terrible gloom of the captives, offered for sale to 
their enemies in such numbers that buyers could not 
be found, which was the case when the Romans pre- 
vailed over them. In the thirtieth chapter, from the 
first to the tenth verse, the promise of final blessing 
is given. Who shall reverse it? Who shall say 
that Israel, sinning nationally, punished nationally, 
scattered nationally, and by an amazing miracle 
nationally preserved, shall not as a nation receive 
the fulfilment of what is here set forth ? " And it 
shall come to pass, when all these things are come 
upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have 
set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind 
among all the nations whither the LORD thy God 
hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the LORD thy 
God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that 
I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with 
all thine heart, and with all thy soul ; that then the 
LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and will have 
compassion upon thee, and will return and gather 
thee from all the nations whither the LORD thy God 



212 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out into 
the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the 
LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he 
fetch thee : and the LORD thy God will bring thee 
into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou 
ehalt possess it ; and he will do thee good, and mul- 
tiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy 
God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy 
seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart 
and with all thy soul ; that thou mayest live. And 
the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon 
thine enemies, and on them that hated thee, which 
persecuted thee. And thou shalt return and obey 
the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments 
which I command thee this day. And the LORD thy 
God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine 
hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy 
cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good; for 
the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he 
rejoiced over thy fathers, if thou shalt hearken unto 
the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his com- 
mandments and his statutes, which are written in 
this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the 
LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy 
soul." 

There is no dubiousness here. In both instances, 
the wrath that was threatened perfectly describes, 
with historical exactness, not only what the annals 
of Gentile lands declare to have been done upon 
Judah and Jerusalem at and after the last siege of 
the city by Titus, but also what in our own day we 



VISIBLE FULFILMENT. 213 

see to be in most parts of the world the actual con- 
dition of the people; while the desolatian of the 
land, and the ruined aspect of the city, Zion 
ploughed like a field, Jerusalem become heaps, and 
the mountain of the LORD'S house as a high place 
of the forest. are testified by eye-witnesses, and 
have been beheld by not a few of ourselves. In both 
instances this wrath is described as being followed 
by repentance and a turning to the LORD on the part 
of the whole house of Judah and of Israel combined: 
the pardoning mercy of their God, and a full resti- 
tution to all the privileges that of old were theirs, 
including the covenanted grant of the fruitful land, 
which remains barren arid waste, as an appointed 
sign that Israel is not yet forgiven and " at hand to 
come." Strange indeed is the ingenuity that can, 
and far too daring is the boldness that will, attempt 
to explain away what God hath not only spoken but 
still confirms by great signs and wonders before us, 
by the truly miraculous preservation of the Jewis 1 
people, sifted among all nations, yet never mingled 
with any ; retaining the seal of the covenant ; keep- 
ing unchanged their sabbath days; and observing 
their peculiar ordinances even now in many places, 
and sometimes every where, at the hazard of their 
lives. Not to dwell on the no less miraculous fact, 
that a land the richest in the whole world has never 
been brought into cultivation by any of the various 
lords who, through eighteen centuries, have succes- 
sively been permitted to rule over it. It has been 
often remarked that infidelity is the highest stretch 



214 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

of credulity, and in reference to this subject we musr 
needs acknowledge that so it appears. The man 
who in the face of all this evidence asserts that the 
Jewish people are not to be nationally restored, im- 
plies that what God hath spoken He will not so per- 
form; and he who admits that daring negation i 
credulous enough to believe anything. 



MOURNFUL CONTRASTS. 215 



CHAPTER XV. 

THERE is not a more touching passage in the Jew- 
ish service-books, which amount to several volumes, 
than one of the mournful chants appointed for the 
ninth day of Ab. It will probably be new to the 
greater part of our readers ; for our ignorance of 
what passes in the synagogues, and among the Jews 
generally, is profound. Were it otherwise, we might 
perhaps attain to a more scriptural understanding 
of their position in reference to other things ; but we 
pass on to give the poetical antithesis, which loses 
much, very much, by its transmutation into another 
tongue from the majestic Hebrew of the original. 

" Joy as fire burnt within me, when I reflected on 
my going forth from Egypt ; 

" But now I am awakened to lamentation, when 1 
remember my going forth from Jerusalem. 

" Then Moses sang the song which shall never be 
forgotten, when I came forth from Egypt. 

" But Jeremiah lamented with sorrow, lamenta- 
tion, and woe, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" My house was prepared, and the cloud abode 
thereon, when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But the wrath of God rested on me as a cloud 
when I went forth from Jerusalem. 
19 



216 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

" The waves of the sea roared, and stood up as a 
wall, when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But the waters overflowed my head, and over- 
whelmed me, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" Corn descended from heaven, and the rock issued 
forth water, when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" Bat I was satiated with wormwood and gall, and 
bitter waters, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" 1 arose early and continued until even, around 
Mount Horeb, when I came forth from Egypt; 

"But I was called to mourn by the waters of 
Babylon when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" The glory of the Lord was visible as a consum- 
ing fire before me when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But I was doomed to slaughter by the sharpened 
sword when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" Sacrifice, meat-offering, and the anointing oil, 
were prepared, when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But the peculiar people were taken and led as 
sheep to the slaughter, when I went forth from Jeru- 
salem. 

" Sabbaths and festivals were instituted, signs and 
wonders performed, when I came forth from Egypt : 

" But fasting, mourning, and vexatious pursuit, 
when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" How goodly were the tents, and the four stand- 
ards, when I came forth from Egypt ! 

"But it was the tents of Ishmaelites, and the 
camps of the uncircumcised, when I went forth from 
Jerusalem. 

"The jubilee and year of release for the land 



MOURNFUL CONTRASTS. 217 

to rest were instituted when I came forth from 
Egypt; 

" But I was sold for ages, and cut off with severity, 
when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" The mercy-seat, ark, and the stones of memorial, 
were prepared, when I came forth from Egypf ; 

" But sling-stones, and destructive weapons, when 
1 went forth from Jerusalem. 

" There were Levites, priests, and seventy elders, 
when 1 came forth from Egypt ; 

" But taskmasters, oppressors, sellers, and buyers, 
when 1 went forth from Jerusalem. 

" Moses fed me, and Aaron led me, when I came 
forth from Egypt ; 

" But Nebuchadnezzar and the Emperor Hadrian 
oppressed me when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" When we prepared for battle the Lord was there, 
when I came forth from Egypt. 

" But He was removed far from us, and was not 
near us, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" The secret place within the veil, and the order 
of shew-bread, when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But wrath poured on me, covered me as a thicket, 
when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" Burnt-offerings, peace-offerings, and sacrifices by 
fire for a sweet savour, when I came forth from Egypt; 

" But the precious children of Zion were thrust 
through with the sword, when I went forth from 
Jerusalem. 

" Bonnets of honour were appointed to be worn 
for respect when I came forth from Egypt ; 



218 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

" But it was hissing, shouting, shame and vexation 
that I experienced when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" The plate of gold, with dominion and power, 
were conferred on me, when I came forth from 
Egypt; 

" But there was none to help, and the crown was 
down, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" Sanctification, the spirit of prophecy, and the 
tremendous Divine presence, was I blessed with 
when I came forth from Egypt ; 

"But filthy and polluted with the unclean spirit 
was I, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" I had song, salvation, and the sounding trumpets, 
when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But the cries of the children, and the groans of 
the wounded, when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" The table, candlestick, whole burnt-offerings and 
incense, when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" But idols, abominations, and graven images, 
when I went forth from Jerusalem. 

" Thanksgiving offerings, the testimony, and the 
order of Temple service, when I came forth from 
Egypt; 

" But the want of the Talmud, and the discontin- 
uance of the daily sacrifice, when I went forth from 
Jerusalem. 

"The LORD God of Hosts showed us wonders, 
when I came forth from Egypt ; 

" And He will cause his Divine presence, and his 
service, to return to the midst of Jerusalem." 

How dearly do the children of Israel cleave to the 



THE SECOND TEMPLE. 219 

promise of future restoration ! It was uppermost in 
the thoughts of their brethren, who, forewarned of 
the desolations that should come on the city, and 
the Temple, and the land, still made it the subject 
of the very last inquiry that they were permitted to 
address to their Divine Master upon earth : " LORD, 
wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to 
Israel ?" The answer was in the spirit of the pro- 
phetic word, " though it tarry, wait for it ;" for Jesus 
replied, " It is not for you to know the times and the 
seasons which my Father hath put in his own power." 
Yet, in despite even of this testimony, we often hear 
the Jew condemned as a carnal speculatist, because 
he confidently looks forward to the same event, not 
knowing the time or the season, but perfectly certain 
that they are decreed and settled, and will arrive at 
the end of the appointed days. 

The desolation, the utter destruction of the Tem- 
ple, is a most striking incident indeed when we look 
back to the time of Ezra, and glance along the term 
of its duration. Ezra says, " And the elders of the 
Jews builded, and they prospered through the proph- 
esying of Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah, the 
son of Iddo." HaggaPs language is exceedingly 
beautiful, calculated above measure to stimulate and 
encourage his enterprising brethren : 

" Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, 

" And build the house ; and I will take pleasure 
in it. 

" And I will be glorified, saith the LORD." 
19* 



220 jtm^EA CAPTA. 



And again, in the same magnificent strain, he pre- 
dicts the result : 

" Who is left among you 

" That saw this house 

" In her first glory ? 

" And how do ye see it now ? 

" Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as no- 
thing ? 

" Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the 
LORD ; 

c And be strong, O Joshua, the son of Josedech the 
high priest ; 

" And be strong, all ye people of the land, saith 
the LORD, and work : 

u For I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts : 

" According to the word that I covenanted with you 

" When ye came out of Egypt, 

" So my spirit remaineth among you : 

" Fear ye not. 

" For thus saith the LORD of hosts ; 

"Yet once, it is a little while, 

" And I will shake the heavens, and the earth, 

" And the sea, and the dry land ; 

" And I will shake all nations, 

" And the desire of all nations shall come : 

" And I will fill this house with glory, saith the 
LORD of hosts. 

" The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,. 

" Saith the LORD of hosts : 

" The glory of this latter house shall be greater 
than of the former, 



THE GLORY OF THE HOUSE. 221 

" Saith the LORD of hosts: 

" And in this place will I give peace, 

" Saith the LORD of hosts." 

The heart trembles in reading such words, and 
faints to think that it was upon this same sacred 
house, which the LORD deigned so to encourage his 

servants to build, the fire of desolation was kindled 

1 > 

and the abominable pollution of the grossest heathen 
idolatry was perpetrated amidst its ruins ; and that 
now, after the ploughshare had torn up its founda- 
tions, a Moslem mosque occupies the hallowed site. 
Did, then, the word of the LORD fail? We know 
that there was no visible manifestation of the Divine 
presence as in the former house, the chief glory of 
which was in the Shechinah, the bright cloud that 
rested on the mercy-seat, and at times had filled the 
whole building. Neither was there the ark of the 
covenant, nor the tables of the Law, nor Aaron's 
budded rod, nor the pot of manna, the angel's food 
with which he fed his people in the wilderness. 
How, then, was the glory of that house made to 
surpass the glory of the former? How did the 
LORD in an especial manner give peace, where war, 
the fiercest, bloodiest, most dreadfully destructive 
war that ever raged among men, sent rivers of blood 
over the ruins of that goodly house ? There is not, 
there cannot be any answer to this, save in repeat- 
ing that One greater than the Temple, greater than 
Solomon who builded the first and most glorious 
Temple, was there. That the Desire of all nations, 
the Prince of peace, came with the offer of peace, 



222 JUD^A CAPTA. 

and would have gathered Jerusalem's children into 
a secure hiding-place from every enemy, even when 
the Roman had already established his iron rule 
upon her sacred hills. From the eighth day of his 
infancy, when Simeon and Anna welcomed him, 
" the glory of his people Israel," unto that holy habi- 
tation, even to the eve of his cruel betrayal and 
more cruel death, that Temple was the loved resort 
of Israel's acknowledged Messiah ; and by his pres- 
ence it was glorified beyond all former glory, and in 
its courts he taught his doctrine, and bestowed the 
gift of peace. His Name is made hateful to the 
Jews through the abominable idolatries, the mur- 
ders, the profanations of holy places and holy things, 
and the iniquitous persecutions that have been 
heaped upon themselves, under the false assumption 
of that name by evil men ; and the bringing in 
of equally evil systems under the same false pre- 
tence ; so that the plainest meaning of their own 
prophetic books is set aside rather than they will ac- 
knowledge that they point to what is presented be- 
fore their eyes as Christianity. Do we condemn 
them for thus turning away from a portion of the 
Divine revelation? Let us also fear, lest many 
among ourselves be found involved in the same 
charge ; for, assuredly, there is nothing more clearly, 
more forcibly, more unequivocally set forth in scrip- 
ture than is the eternal, immutable promise of the 
Most High to bring back the nation of Israel, to 
cause them, as such, again to inherit the places now 
long desolate, and to fulfil to the letter, no less than 



MISCHIEVOUS ERRORS. 223 

in its spiritual signification, the covenant ratified to 
Abraham concerning the gift of the land of Canaan 
to his descendants for ever. Spiritualize as we may, 
in reference to the Old Testament prophecies, we 
cannot, as Christians, evade the force of the apostle's 
exposition of them in the eleventh chapter of his 
Epistle to the Romans. On the Continent, the im- 
pression prevails that it is an integral part of Chris- 
tianity to hate and to persecute the Jew ; here } 
where all odious and cruel prejudice against them is 
rapidly dying away, they find that the great test of 
religious zeal on their behalf appears to be the ear- 
nest desire to rob them of their nationality, and to 
blend them in an undistinguished mass with the 
Gentiles around them ; while at the same time that 
we press on them the saving truth of their Messiah 
having once appeared as a victim, to put away s'm 
by the offering of himself, we dispute another sacred 
and inseparable truth held firmly, in strong faith and 
enduring hope, by them, that the Messiah shall yet 
again come, in visible glory, as a King over all the 
earth, and more especially as the King of Israel, to 
reign. The old divines among us were fond of the 
saying, " No cross, no crown ;" our creed, as heldup 
to the Jews, appears to consist in the assertion, " A 
cross, but no crown." 

Blessed be the LORD God of Israel ! the number 
of those who remain under this impression is daily 
diminishing, and the clear, strong, piercing light of 
revelation is shining more and more through break- 
ing clouds, soon to roll away, and leave its lustre 



224 JUD^A CAPTA. 

unimpeded. There was, we freely admit ; a need for 
the spreading of this vail over the nations ; for with- 
out it, how should the scriptures have been fulfilled, 
that decreed to Judah a lot of universal sorrow, and 
shame, and obloquy ? How could the people of the 
LORD have become " an astonishment, a proverb, 
and a by- word among all nations ;" how could it 
have been that among the nations they should find 
no ease, neither the sole of their foot have had any 
rest ; but a trembling of heart, and failing of eyes, 
and sorrow of mind, and none assurance of life, from 
generation to generation, had not the predicted de- 
lusion fallen upon the Gentile world to say, " The 
two families which the Lord hath chosen, he hath 
even cast them off?" But for this, Christians in 
every age would have combined their efforts to bring 
about the work of restoration before the set time was 
even approaching; and the outcast of Israel, the 
dispersed of Judah, would have been regarded as 
exiled kings, whose diadem had been taken away 
for a short season, to be restored in tenfold splen- 
dour. The LORD hath overruled all things to the 
furtherance of his own sovereign purposes, hitherto 
of wrath ; now of returning mercy : and surely it 
ill becomes us, when He would withdraw the cover- 
ing from our eyes, to grasp it with perverse tenacity, 
and in act, if not in word, to declare that we will 
not see. 

We have looked upon Jerusalem as it was. when 
the Roman host advanced to compass it round ; and 
upon Jerusalem, as it also was when the work of 



DAWNING MERCIES. 225 

desolation had been completed, and the destroying 
army withdrawn from its lonely ruins. Jerusalem as 
it is presents an object of most surpassing, thrilling 
interest, through the astonishing change that in the 
course of a few years is observable, first in the 
minds and intents of those who visit the holy city, 
and secondly in the result of their investigations. 
The Christian religion, in its purity, seems to have 
prevailed there just while the church of the circum- 
cision, a small band of those who had escaped to 
Pella, found a refuge among the ruins of Zion, and 
clung to the mouldering stones of their beloved city 
and Temple. They were, however, disturbed in 
their desolate retreat by the Roman tyrants, who, 
fearful lest one of David's royal house might yet es- 
cape to claim the kingdom, invaded even this harm- 
less band, and murdered their chief pastor. From 
the period of Hadrian's Roman town, raised upon 
her holy hills, even to this day, has Jerusalem been 
a cage of unclean birds : never more so than when 
those who called themselves Christians held sway 
over her. Superstition, the most grovelling that can 
be imagined, and the most fearfully opposed to the 
word of God, with one hand heaped defilement on 
the mountain of the LORD'S house, and with the 
other groped for miraculous crosses, found or feigned 
legends It at enabled her to fix on this and that spot 
as distinguished by some event in gospel history, and 
reared an idol fane upon each fabulous site. The 
ncoler Turk made choice of the mountain which 
God had delighted to hallow, and ignorant man 



226 JUD^A CAPTA. 



to profane ; and there he built his mosque, and 
fenced again the ancient platform of the Temple 
courts, and, divinely, though unconsciously in- 
structed, he guards it to this day, alike from friend 
and foe. 

Now, instead of digging for impossible mementoes 
of events that left no merely material trace behind 
them, to mar their deep spiritual significancy, our 
Christian tourists approach Jerusalem intent on the 
discovery of national antiquities, and to connect the 
present era with her past majesty and power. To 
this momentous revolution in the public mind we 
are indebted for the formation of a link that we hes- 
itate not to say were essentially necessary to a right 
view of the LORD'S work ; for by it we are gradually 
establishing the identity of sites which, as they are 
set forth with the most perfect topographical exacti- 
tude in prophetic Scripture, we must necessarily 
keep in view, while looking for its fulfilment Let 
any simple-minded believer in the inspired character 
of the sacred writings read the following declaration, 
with a full regard to its closing words, and he cannoi 
but enter into our meaning, nor, we should think, fail 
to arrive at the same conclusion. 

" Thus saith the LORD, 

" Which giveth the suri for a light by day, 

" And the ordinances of the moon and of the stars 
for a light by night, 

" Which divideth the sea where the waves thereof 
roar; 

" The LORD of hosts is his name ! 



SACRED PROMISES. 227 

" If those ordinances depart from before me, saith 
the LORD, 

" Then the seed of Israel also shall cease 
"From being a nation before me for ever. 
" Thus saith the LORD ; 
" If heaven above can be measured, 
" And the foundations of the vjarth searched be- 
neath, 

c; I also will cast off all the seed of Israel, 
" For all that they have done, saith the LORD. 
" Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, 
" That the city shall be built to the LORD, 
" From the tower of flannaneel unto the gate of 
the corner, 

" And the measuring line shall yet go forth 
" Over against it upon the hill Gareb, 
" And shall compass about to Goath, 
" And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of 
the ashes, 

" And all the fields unto the brook of Kedron, 
" Unto the corner of the horse gate toward the 
east, 

" Shall be holy unto the LORD ; 
" It shall not be plucked up^ 
" Nor be thrown down any more FOR EVER."* 
The whole of this, and the preceding chapter of 
Jeremiah, if read consecutively, and without a break, 
bears upon the subject with a force, that if not irre- 
sistibly convincing, must be met with a power of re- 
pulsion that we should tremble to possess. That 

* Jeremiah xxxi. 3540. 

20 



228 JUD^A CAPTA. 

the prediction is yet unfulfilled, one glance at the 
two concluding lines must prove ; and immediately 
preceding the above passage is the promise of a new 
covenant, in virtue of which the Law shall be writ- 
ten in the hearts of the house of Israel. It was of 
old addressed to their ears, with the covenant, " Do 
this, and live ;" but that law, so pure in its nature, 
and so strict in its requirements, they could not ful- 
fil : they failed in their part of the covenant, and so 
brake it. But better things are in reserve for Israel. 
the LORD will write that holy law not on tables of 
stone, but in their inward parts ; and they shall ren- 
der the willing service of loving, obedient sons, where 
as bondsmen, ruled by fear, they were not able to 
bear the yoke of observances, into the deep spiritual 
tendency of which their hearts could not enter. The 
passage is so important, and has withal, by some un- 
discriminating believers, been so grievously per- 
verted from its true meaning by a confounding of 
" the law" with " the covenant," that we cannot do 
better than cite it here. 

"Behold the days come, saith the LORD, 

" That I will make a new covenant 

" With the house of Israel, and with the house of 
Judah ; 

" Not according to the covenant that I made with 
their fathers, 

" In the day that I took them by the hand 

" To bring them forth out of the land of Egypt , 

" Which my covenant they brake, 



WHAT SHALL BE. 229 

" Although I was an husband unto them, saith the 
LORD : 

" But this shall he the COVENANT 

" That 1 will make with the house of Israel ; 

" After those days, saith the LORD, 

;: I will put my LAW into their inward parts, 

" And write it in their hearts ; 

" And I will be their God, 

" And they shall be my people. 

" And they shall teach no more 

" Every man his neighbour, arid every man his 
brother, 

" Saying, Know the LORD : 

u For they all shall know me, 

" From the least of them unto the greastest of 
them, saith the LORD : 

" For I will forgive their iniquity, 

" And I will remember their sin no more."* 

And then, without a break, follows the gracious 
and glorious declaration before quoted. 

What a solemn interest does all this attach to the 
recent discoveries of learned and godly men, who 
have made it their business and delight to explore 
the ancient boundaries, and to set up again the long 
forgotten landmarks of the holy city ! The tower of 
Hippicus is now identified; and springing from a 
piece of ancient masonry, single stones of which 
reach to the enormous length of twenty-four feet, 
has been found the commencement of an arch, that 
evidently formed part of the bridge from the Temple 

* Jeremiah xxxi. 31. 



230 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

to the city of David. Nay, the very mosque itself 
nas been subjected to the eager gaze of enterprising 
Englishmen, arid discoveries made that justify the 
belief in the existence of foundations, over which, 
indeed, the plough has passed, though above, not 
one stone was left upon another. Who could prevail 
to dig up the subterranean relics of that stupendous 
architecture ? The press teems with discoveries, 
adding perpetually to the store of local information 
already possessed ; and we cannot choose but look 
upon Jerusalem not merely as the dwindled skeleton 
of what once was, but as the swelling germ, half 
rising from its earthy bed in promise of what is to be. 
Once more, from the Mount of Olives, we will in 
imagination look down, and contemplate the existing 
scene : and truly we may still apply the lamenting 
apostrophe, " How doth the city sit solitary, that was 
full of people !" for an immense track of ground lies 
before us, destitute of a single building, not even a 
hovel or a shed appearing, where stately streets and 
crowded marts once attested the populousness of the 
mighty Jerusalem. The present walls enclose a 
mere fraction of it : they pass over the brow of Zion, 
leaving to the plough and to the browsing flock the 
greater proportion of the ground where David's city 
stood. Ophel, the long, narrow descent, reaching 
from the Temple wall to the valley of Hinnom, 
bounded on the west by the Tyropean, and on the 
east by the valley of Kedron, and appropriated to 
the multitude who served the Temple, bears not a 
dwelling on its desolate slope : nor can the eye dis- 



JERUSALEM AS IT IS. 231 

tinguish the point whence rose the wall that girt it 
in. For a precipitous descent into the valley be- 
neath, we now behold a swelling mass of ground, 
the accumulation of many centuries, where no doubt 
lies hidden a deep substratum of giant ruins, block- 
ing up the entrance to subterranean caves. The site 
of fort Antonia is occupied by the house of the Turk- 
ish governor, arid a slender minaret marks the mem- 
orable area, forming, as in olden time, the north-west 
corner of the enclosure where stands the alien occu- 
pant of a spot that long was, and ere long again 
shall be. most holy unto the LORD. We look with 
something like toleration, if with complacency we 
cannot look, on Ishmael's strong grasp of Isaac's 
sacred mountain ; for though he there worships a 
god whom his fathers knew not, he has purged the 
place of idols; and we must needs rejoice that the 
impious mummeries enacted in other parts of the 
city, are sternly held aloof from contaminating the 
threshing-floor of Araunah. 

An irregular line of unequal fortification, excUi- 
ding the greater part of Bezetha, and other tracks 
that lay within the ancient city, runs straggling out 
and in, embracing the melancholy mass of broken 
buildings that loiter where the hands of different 
generations have placed them, bearing no resem- 
blance to what was, and probably destined to con- 
tribute but little portion to what is about to be. Un- 
til within a few short years, animal life was at a low 
ebb in Jerusalem ; intellectual life at a lower, and 
spiritual life there was none ; this was Zion, whom 
20* 



232 JUD^A CAPTA. 

no man sought after ; but now from every part of 
the world the Gentiles congregate, they scarcely 
know for what, in her gloomy streets; and, "like 
doves to their windows," her own exiled race flock 
unto her, their hopes rekindling under an influence 
that never yet moved the seed of Jacob in vain. 

While Gentiles of all climes and creeds plan, each 
after the model that his own imagination approves* 
as best, the LORD God of Israel still keeps silence ; 
and they who know his name, feel that their voca- 
tion is to watch, to pray, to wait. The whole Bible 
is one manual of prayer for such as look for the ap- 
pearing of Israel's Messiah in power and great glory, 
to conquer and to reign. He went into a far coun- 
try, far beyond the ken of mortal eye, to receive for 
himself a kingdom, arid to return. Long has he been 
gone, and long and sore have been the afflictions of 
those whom He alone can comfort. Zion has been 
desolate and a widow, her children moving to and 
fro, crushed under a dispensation of unequalled 
wrath. Those of every other kindred, and people, 
and nation, and tongue, to whom he hath graciously 
extended the covenant of peace, and admitted to a 
spiritual participation in the blood-bought blessings 
of his grace, have likewise formed a small and a 
scattered remnant, through much tribulation enter- 
ing the kingdom of heaven. While he is absent, all 
the foundations of the earth are out of course, vanity 
is written on its possessions, and pollution on its joys. 
W r e wait, we watch, we wrestle in strong supplica- 
tion for the signs that shall herald his approach, tell 



COMING MERCIES. 233 

ing us in language not to be misunderstood, the 
Lord is at hand. 

Very imperfectly have we followed through the sa< 
stages of its mournful fall, the city, concerning which 
the LORD once said that He had chosen it, yea, de- 
sired it for his habitation. We have seen how Judsea 
was laid waste, Jerusalem made a heap, and the 
children of the covenant slaughtered, or carried 
away into the cruellest captivity, the most wide and 
prolonged dispersion ever known among men. 
Shall we then say, in the language of unbelieving 
doubt " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? Hath 
He cast off for ever ?" No, we know that the fulness 
of the cup of troubling of which Jerusalem hath 
drank the dregs, and wrung them out, is a sure 
earnest of the abundance of that cup of blessing re- 
served for her when the days of her mourning are 
ended. The city shall be builded again, and the 
desolate wastes inhabited, and the people shall feed 
and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 

" Sing, O daughter of Zion ; 

" Shout, O Israel : 

" Be glad and rejoice with all the heart, 

" O daughter of Jerusalem. 

" The LORD hath taken away thy judgment, 

" He hath cast out thine enemy ; 

" The King of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst 
of thee ; 

" Thou shalt not see evil any more. 

" In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear 
thou not; 



234 JUDAEA CAPTA. 

" And to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. 

" The LORD thy God, in the midst of thee, is 
mighty ; 

" He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy ; 

" He will rest in his love ; He will joy over thee 
with singing. 

" I will gather them that are sorrowful for the 
solemn assembly, 

" Who are of thee, 

"To whom the reproach of it was a burden. 

" Behold, at that time, I will undo all that afflict 
thee : 

" And I will save her that halteth, and gather her 
that was driven out, 

" And I will get them praise and fame 

" In every land where they have been put to shame. 

" At that time will I bring you again, 

" Even in the time that I gather you: 

" For I will make you a name and a praise 

" Among all the people of the earth, 

" When I turn back your captivity before your 
eyes, 

" SAITH THE LORD."* 

* Zeph. iii. H 



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them in smaller volumes. 

(7) 



Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 

JUD/EA CAPTA. 

'Judaea Capta,' the last offering from the pen of this gifted and pop- 
ular writer, will be esteemed as one of her best works. It is a graphic 
narrative of the invasion of Judea by the Roman legions under Vespa- 
sian and Titus, presenting affecting views of the desolation of her towns 
and cities, by the ravages of iron-hearted, bloodthirsty soldiers, and of 
the terrible catastrophe witnessed in the destruction of Jerusalem 
The narrative is interspersed with the writer's views of the literal ful 
filment of prophecy concerning the Jews, as illustrated in their extra- 
ordinary history, and with remarks contemplating their returning pros- 
perity. Her occasional strictures on the history of the apostate Josephus, 
who evidently wrote to please his imperial masters, appear to have 
been well merited. The work is issued in an attractive and handsome 
volume." Christian Observer. 

"If the present should prove to be Charlotte Elizabeth's last work, 
she could not desire to take her departure from the field of literature 
with a better grace ; and we doubt not that it will be considered, if not 
the best, yet among the best of her productions. It is full of scripture 
truth, illustrated by the charm of a most powerful eloquence ; and no 
one, we should suppose, could read it without feeling a fresh interest 
in behalf of the Jewish nation, and a deeper impression of the truth 
and greatness, and ultimate triumph of Christianity." Albany Daily 
Advertiser. 

" This volume contains a description of some of the most terrific 
scenes of which this earth has been the theatre. Rut instead of con 
templating them merely as a part of the world's history, it takes into 
view their connection with the great scheme of Providence, and shows 
how the faithful and retributive hand of God is at work amidst the 
fiercest tempest of human passion. The work contains no small por- 
tion of history, a very considerable degree of theology, and as much 
beautiful imagery and stirring eloquence as we often find within the 
same limits. Those who have the other works from the same pen, 
will purchase this almost of course : and they need have no fear that 
it will disappoint any expectation which its predecessors may have 
awakened." Albany Religious Spectator. 

Also just published 

*THE CHURCH VISIBLE IN ALL AGES." 

A work, making attraction to the youthful as well as the 
more mature mind, a deeply interesting and important subject.