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"Yet did
they occasion the fulfilment of prophecies relating to
their
country. For there was an ancient oracle that the city
should be taken
and the sanctuary burnt when sedition should affect the
Jews." Josephus
shares the pagan outlook of the Roman historian Tacitus, who
is horrified at the Jewish disregard of the omens and
portents which betokened the fall of their city, and speaks
of them as a people prone to superstition (what we would
call faith) and deaf to divine warnings (what we would call
superstition). Josephus and his friends were looking for
signs and prophecies of the ruin of the people as an excuse
for surrender; the Zealots, men of sterner stuff and of
fuller faith, were resolved to resist to the end, and would
brook no parleying with the enemy."
PREFACE
Josephus hardly merits a place on his own account in a
series of Jewish
Worthies, since neither as man of action nor as man of
letters did he
deserve particularly well of his nation. It is not his
personal
worthiness, but the worth of his work, that recommends him
to the
attention of the Jewish people. He was not a loyal general,
and he was
not a faithful chronicler of the struggle with Rome; but he
had the
merit of writing a number of books on the Jews and Judaism,
which not
only met the desire for knowledge of his nation in his own
day, but
which have been preserved through the ages and still remain
one of the
chief authorities for Jewish history. He lived at the great
crisis of
his people, when it stood at the parting of the ways. And
while in his
life he was patronized by those who had destroyed the
national center,
after his death he found favor with that larger religious
community
which was beginning to carry part of the Jewish mission to
the Gentiles.
For centuries Josephus was regarded by the Christians as the
standard
historian of the Jews, and, though for long he was forgotten
and
neglected by his own people, in modern times he has been
carefully
studied also by them, and his merits and demerits both as
patriot and as
writer have been critically examined. It has been my especial aim in this book to consider
Josephus from the
Jewish point of view. I have made no attempt to extenuate
his personal
conduct or his literary faults. My judgment may appear
somewhat severe,
but it is when tried by the test of faithfulness to his
nation that
Josephus is found most wanting; and I hope that while
extenuating
nothing I have not set down aught in malice. Of the extensive literature bearing on the subject, the
books to which I
am under the greatest obligation are Niese's text of the
collected works
and Schuerer's _History of the Jewish People in the Time of
Jesus_. I
have given in an Appendix a Bibliography, which contains the
names of
most of the works I have referred to. I would mention in
particular
Schlatter's _Zur Topographie und Geschichte Palaestinas_,
which is a
remarkably stimulating and suggestive book, and which
confirmed a view I
had formed independently, that in the _Wars_, as in the
_Antiquities_,
Josephus is normally a compiler of other men's writings, and
constantly
expresses opinions not his own. My greatest debt of thanks, however, is due to the spoken
rather than
the written word. Doctor Buechler, the Principal of Jews'
College,
London, has constantly assisted me with advice, directed me
to sources
of information, and let me draw plentifully from his own
large stores of
knowledge about Josephus; and Doctor Friedlaender, Sabato
Morais
Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, has
done me the
brotherly service of reading my manuscript and making many
valuable
suggestions on it. To their generous help this book owes
more than I can
acknowledge. NORMAN BENTWICH. Cairo, February, 1914.
CONTENTS
-
I. THE JEWS AND THE ROMANS
-
II. THE LIFE OF JOSEPHUS TO THE FALL OF JOTAPATA
-
III. THE LIFE OF JOSEPHUS FROM THE TIME OF HIS
SURRENDER
-
IV. THE WORKS OF JOSEPHUS AND HIS RELATION TO
HIS PREDECESSORS
-
V. THE JEWISH WARS
-
VI. JOSEPHUS AND THE BIBLE
-
VII. JOSEPHUS AND POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH HISTORY
-
VIII. THE APOLOGY FOR JUDAISM
-
IX. CONCLUSION
-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN REFERRING TO THE WORKS OF JOSEPHUS
-
INDEX
-
ILLUSTRATIONS
-
BAS-RELIEF FROM THE ARCH OF TITUS AT ROME _Frontispiece_
-
COINS CURRENT IN PALESTINE (34 B.C.E. to 98 C.E.)
-
RUINS OF AN ANCIENT SYNAGOGUE AT KAFR BIR'IM, UPPER GALILEE
JOSEPHUS
I THE JEWS AND THE ROMANS
The life and works of Flavius Josephus are bound up with the
struggle of
the Jews against the Romans, and in order to appreciate them
it is
necessary to summarize the relations of the two peoples that
led up to
that struggle. It is related in the Midrash that the city of Rome was
founded on the
day Solomon married an Egyptian princess. The Rabbis
doubtless meant by
this legend that the power of Rome was created to be a
scourge for
Israel's backslidings. They identified Rome with the Edom of
the Bible,
representing thus that the struggle between Esau and Jacob
was carried
on by their descendants, the Romans and the Jews, and would
continue
throughout history.[1] Yet the earliest relations of the two
peoples
were friendly and peaceful. They arose out of the war of
independence
that the Maccabean brothers waged against the Syrian Empire
in the
middle of the second century B.C.E., when the loyal among
the people
were roused to stand up for their faith. Antiochus Epiphanes,
anxious to
strengthen his tottering empire, which had been shaken by
its struggles
with Rome, sought to force violently on the Jews a pagan
Hellenism that
was already making its way among them. He succeeded only in
evoking the
latent force of their national consciousness. Rome was
already the
greatest power in the world: she had conquered the whole of
Italy; she
had destroyed her chief rival in the West, the Phoenician
colony of
Carthage; she had made her will supreme in Greece and
Macedonia. Her
senate was the arbiter of the destinies of kingdoms, and
though for the
time it refrained from extending Roman sway over Egypt and
Asia, its
word there was law. Its policy was "divide and rule," to
hold supreme
sway by encouraging small nationalities to maintain their
independence
against the unwieldy empires which the Hellenistic
successors of
Alexander had carved out for themselves in the Orient. [Footnote 1: Lev. R. xiii. (5), quoted in Schechter, Aspects
of Rabbinic
Theology, p. 100.] At the bidding of the Roman envoy, Antiochus Epiphanes
himself,
immediately before his incursion into Jerusalem, had slunk
away from
Alexandria; and hence it was natural that Judas Maccabaeus,
when he had
vindicated the liberty of his nation, should look to Rome
for support in
maintaining that liberty. In the year 161 B.C.E. he sent
Eupolemus the
son of Johanan and Jason the son of Eleazar, "to make a
league of amity
and confederacy with the Romans"[1]: and the Jews were
received as
friends, and enrolled in the class of Socii. His brother
Jonathan
renewed the alliance in 146 B.C.E.; Simon renewed it again
five years
later, and John Hyrcanus, when he succeeded to the high
priesthood, made
a fresh treaty.[2] Supported by the friendship, and
occasionally by the
diplomatic interference, of the Western Power, the Jews did
not require
the intervention of her arms to uphold their independence
against the
Seleucid monarchs, whose power was rapidly falling into
ruin. At the
beginning of the first century B.C.E., however, Rome, having
emerged
triumphant from a series of civil struggles in her own
dominions, found
herself compelled to take an active part in the affairs of
the East.
During her temporary eclipse there had been violent
upheavals in Asia.
The semi-barbarous kings of Pontus and Armenia took
advantage of the
opportunity to overrun the Hellenized provinces and put all
the Greek
and Roman inhabitants to the sword. To avenge this outrage,
Rome sent to
the East, in 73 B.C.E., her most distinguished soldier,
Pompeius, or
Pompey, who, in two campaigns, laid the whole of Asia Minor
and Syria at
his feet. [Footnote 1: I Macc. viii. 7. It is interesting to note that
the sons
had Greek names, while their fathers had Hebrew names.] [Footnote 2: I Macc. xii. 3; xiv. 24.] Unfortunately civil strife was waging in Palestine between
the two
Hasmonean brothers, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, who fought for
the throne
on the death of the queen Alexandra Salome. Both in turn
appealed to
Pompey to come to their aid, on terms of becoming subject to
the Roman
overlord. At the same time, a deputation from the Jewish
nation appeared
before the general, to declare that they did not desire to
be ruled by
kings: "for what was handed down to them from their fathers
was that
they should obey the priests of God; but these two princes,
though the
descendants of priests, sought to transfer the nation to
another form of
government, that it might he enslaved." Pompey, who had resolved to establish a strong government
immediately
subject to Rome over the whole of the near Orient, finally
interfered on
behalf of Hyrcanus. Aristobulus resisted, at first somewhat
half-heartedly, but afterwards, when the Roman armies laid
siege to
Jerusalem, with fierce determination. The struggle was in
vain. On a
Sabbath, it is recorded, when the Jews desisted from their
defense, the
Roman general forced his way into the city, and, regardless
of Jewish
feeling, entered the Holy of Holies. The intrigues of the
Jewish royal
house had brought about the subjection of the nation. As it
is said in
the apocryphal Psalms of Solomon, which were written about
this time: "A
powerful smiter has God brought from the ends of the earth.
He decreed
war upon the Jews and the land. The princes of the land went
out with
joy to meet him, and said to him, 'Blessed be thy way; draw
near and
enter in peace.'" Yet Pompey did not venture, or did not
care, to
destroy or rob the Temple, according to Cicero and
Josephus,[1] because
of his innate moderation, but really, one may suspect, from
less noble
motives. It was the custom of the Roman conquerors to demand
the
surrender, not only of the earthly possessions of the
conquered, but of
their gods, and to carry the vanquished images in the
triumph which they
celebrated. But Pompey may have recognized the difference
between the
Jewish religion and that of other peoples, or he realized
the widespread
power of the Jewish people, which would rise as a single
body in defense
of its religion; for he made no attempt to interfere either
with Jewish
religious liberties, or with a worship that Cicero declared
to be
"incompatible with the majesty of the Empire." [Footnote 1: Cicero, Pro Flacco, 69, and Ant. XVI. iv, 4.] The Jews, however, were henceforth the clients, instead of
the allies,
of Rome. Though Hyrcanus was recognized by Pompey as the
high priest and
ethnarch of Judea, and his wily counselor, the Idumean
Antipater, was
given a general power of administering the country, they
were alike
subject to the governor of Syria, which was now constituted
a Roman
province. Moreover, the Hellenistic cities along the coast
of Palestine
and on the other side of Jordan, which had been subjugated
by John
Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaeus, were restored to
independence, and
placed under special Roman protection, and the Jewish
territory itself
was shortly thereafter split by the Roman governor Gabinius
into five
toparchies, or provinces, each with a separate
administration. The guiding aim of the conqueror was to weaken the Oriental
power (as
the Jews were regarded) and strengthen the Hellenistic
element in the
country. The Jews were soon to feel the heavy hand and
suffer the
insatiate greed of Rome. National risings were put down with
merciless
cruelty, the Temple treasury was spoiled in 56 B.C.E. by the
avaricious
Crassus, one of the triumvirate that divided the Roman
Empire, when he
passed Jerusalem on his way to fight against the Parthians;
even the
annual offering contributed voluntarily by the Jews of the
Diaspora to
the Temple was seized by a profligate governor of Asia. The
Roman
aristocrats during the last years of the Republic were a
degenerate
body; they regarded a governorship as the opportunity of
unlimited
extortion, the means of recouping themselves for all the
gross expenses
incurred on attaining office, and of making themselves and
their friends
affluent for the rest of their lives. And Judea was a fresh
quarry. A happier era seemed to be dawning for the Jews when Julius
Caesar
became dictator. At the beginning of the civil war between
him and
Pompey, Hyrcanus, at the instance of Antipater, prepared to
support the
man to whom he owed his position; but when Pompey was
murdered,
Antipater led the Jewish forces to the help of Caesar, who
was hard
pressed at Alexandria. His timely help and his influence
over the
Egyptian Jews recommended him to Caesar's favor, and secured
for him an
extension of his authority in Palestine, and for Hyrcanus
the
confirmation of his ethnarchy. Joppa was restored to the
Hasmonean
domain, Judea was granted freedom from all tribute and taxes
to Rome,
and the independence of the internal administration was
guaranteed.
Caesar, too, whatever may have been his motive, showed favor
to the Jews
throughout his Empire. Mommsen thinks that he saw in them an
effective
leaven of cosmopolitanism and national decomposition, and to
that intent
gave them special privileges; but this seems a perverse
reason to assign
for the grant of the right to maintain in all its
thoroughness their
national life, and for their exemption from all Imperial or
municipal
burdens that would conflict with it. It is more reasonable
to suppose
that, taking in this as in many other things a broader view
than that of
his countrymen, Caesar recognized the weakness of a
world-state whose
members were so denationalized as to have no strong feeling
for any
common purpose, no passion of loyalty to any community, and
he favored
Judaism as a counteracting force to this peril. His various enactments constituted, as it were, a Magna
Charta of the
Jews in the Empire; Judaism was a favored cult in the
provinces, a
_licita religio_ in the capital. At Alexandria Caesar
confirmed and
extended the religious and political privileges of the Jews,
and ordered
his decree to be inscribed on pillars of brass and set up in
a public
place. At Rome, though the devotees of Bacchus were
forbidden to meet,
he permitted the Jews to hold their assemblies and celebrate
their
ceremonials. At his instance the Hellenistic cities of Asia
passed
similar favorable decrees for the benefit of the Jewish
congregations in
their midst, which invested them with a kind of local
autonomy. The
proclamation of the Sardians is typical. "This decree," it
runs, "was
made by the senate and people, upon the representation of
the praetors: "Whereas those Jews who are our fellow-citizens, and live
with us in
this city, have ever had great benefits heaped upon them by
the people,
and have come now into the senate, and desired of the people
that, upon
the restitution of their law and their liberty by the senate
and people
of Rome, they may assemble together according to their
ancient legal
custom, and that we will not bring any suit against them
about it; and
that a place may be given them where they may hold their
congregations
with their wives and children, and may offer, as did their
forefathers,
their prayers and sacrifices to God:--now the senate and
people have
decreed to permit them to assemble together on the days
formerly
appointed, and to act according to their own laws; and that
such a place
be set apart for them by the praetors for the building and
inhabiting
the same as they shall esteem fit for that purpose, and that
those who
have control of the provisions of the city shall take care
that such
sorts of food as they esteem fit for their eating may be
imported into
the city."[1] [Footnote 1: Ant. XIV. x. 24.] Caesar's decrees marked the culmination of Roman tolerance,
and the Jews
enjoyed their privileges for but a short time. It is related
by the
historian Suetonius that they lamented his death more
bitterly than any
other class.[1] And they had good reason. The Republicans,
who had
murdered him, and his ministers, who avenged him, vied with
each other
for the support of the Jewish princes; but the people in
Palestine
suffered from the burden that the rivals imposed on the
provinces in
their efforts to raise armies. Antipater and his ambitious
sons Herod
and Phasael contrived to maintain their tyranny amid the
constant
shifting of power; and when the hardy mountaineers of
Galilee strove
under the lead of one Hezekiah (Ezekias), the founder of the
party of
the Zealots, to shake off the Roman yoke, Herod ruthlessly
put down the
revolt. But when Antigonus, the son of that Aristobulus who
had been
deprived of his kingdom by Hyrcanus and Pompey, roused the
Parthians to
invade Syria and Palestine, the Jews eagerly rose in support
of the
scion of the Maccabean house, and drove out the hated
Idumeans with
their puppet Jewish king. The struggle between the people
and the Romans
had begun in earnest, and though Antigonus, when placed on
the throne by
the Parthians, proceeded to spoil and harry the Jews,
rejoicing at the
restoration of the Hasmonean line, thought a new era of
independence had
come. [Footnote 1: Suetonius, Caesar, lxxxiv. 7.] The infatuation of Mark Antony for Cleopatra enabled
Antigonus to hold
his kingdom for three years (40-37 B.C.E.). Then Herod, who
had escaped
to Rome, returned to Syria to conquer the kingdom that
Antony had
bestowed on him. He brought with him the Roman legions, and
for two
years a fierce struggle was waged between the Idumeans,
Romans, and
Romanizing Jews on the one hand, and the national Jews and
Parthian
mercenaries of Antigonus on the other. The struggle
culminated in a
siege of Jerusalem. As happened in all the contests for the
city, the
power of trained force in the end prevailed over the
enthusiasm of
fervent patriots. Herod stormed the walls, put to death
Antigonus and
his party, and established a harsher tyranny than even the
Roman
conqueror had imposed. For over thirty years he held the
people down
with the aid of Rome and his body-guard of mercenary
barbarians. His
constitution was an autocracy, supplemented by
assassination. In the
civil war between Antony and Octavian, he was first on the
losing side,
as his father had been in the struggle between Pompey and
Caesar; but,
like his father, he knew when to go over to the victor. The
master of
the Roman Empire, henceforth known as Augustus, was so
impressed with
his carriage and resolution that he not only confirmed him
in his
kingdom, but added to it the territories of Chalcis and
Perea to the
north and east of the Jordan. Throughout his reign Herod
contrived to
preserve the friendship of Rome as effectually as he
contrived to arouse
the hatred of his Jewish subjects. "The Imperial Eagle and
some
distinguished Roman or other," says George Adam Smith,[1]
"were always
fixed in Herod's heaven." He ruled with a strong but
merciless hand. He
insured peace, and while he turned his own home into a
slaughter-house,
he glorified the Jewish dominion outwardly to a height and
magnificence
it had never before attained. Yet the Jewish deputation that
went to
plead before Augustus on his death declared that "Herod had
put such
abuses on them as a wild beast would not have done, and no
calamity they
had suffered was comparable with that which he had brought
on the
nation."[2] Beneath the fine show of peace, splendor, and
expansion, the
passions of the nation were being aroused to the
breaking-point. [Footnote 1: Jerusalem, ii. 504.] [Footnote 2: Ant. XVII. xi. 2.] Augustus himself, following the example of his uncle Julius
Caesar, yet
lacking the same large tolerance, held towards Judaism an
ambiguous
attitude of impartiality rather than of favor. He caused
sacrifices to
be offered for himself at the Temple at Jerusalem,[1] but he
praised his
nephew Gaius for having refrained from doing likewise during
his Eastern
travels.[2] He was anxious that the national laws and
customs of each
nation should be preserved, and he issued a decree in favor
of the Jews
of Cyrene; but he initiated the worship of the Emperors,
which
necessitated a conflict between the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of
Caesar, and in the end destroyed the religious liberty that
Julius
Caesar had given to the Empire. His aim was at once to
foster the
veneration of the Imperial power and establish an Imperial
worship that
should replace the effete paganism of his subjects. He made
no attempt
to force this worship on the Jews, but its existence fanned
the
prejudice against the one nation that refused to
participate. And the
Jews could not but look with distrust on a government that
"derived its
authority from the deification of might, whereof the Emperor
was the
incarnate principle."[3] [Footnote 1: Philo, De Leg. ii. 507.] [Footnote 2: Suetonius, Aug. 93.] [Footnote 3: Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, p.
108.] Marcus Agrippa, the trusted minister of Augustus, was also
an intimate
friend of Herod, and served to link the two courts. But on
the death of
Herod, in 4 C.E., the friendship of Rome for the Idumean
royal house was
modified. Archelaus, who claimed the whole succession, was
appointed
simply as ethnarch of Judea, while Herod's two other sons,
Philip and
Herod Antipas, divided the rest of his dominions. The
Zealots, rid of
the powerful tyrant who had held them down, sought again to
throw off
the hated yoke of Idumea, which, not without reason, they
identified
with the yoke of Rome. With their watchword, "No king but
God," they
attempted to make Judea independent, and a fierce struggle,
known as the
War of Varus, ensued. Jerusalem was stormed once again by
Roman legions
before the Zealots were subdued. Archelaus was deposed by
his masters
after a few years, and the province of Judea was placed
under direct
Roman administration. The Roman procurator was at first less
detested
than the Idumean tyrant, since he interfered less with the
legal
institutions, such as the Sanhedrin and the Bet Din; but his
presence
with the legionaries in the Holy City and his constant,
though often
involuntary, affronts to the religious sentiments of the
people roused
the hostility of the nationalist party, who looked forward
to the day
when Israel should "tread on the neck of the Eagle." The
Pharisees, who
were anxious for the spiritual rather than the political
independence of
the Jews, counseled submission to Rome, and were willing "to
render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's," so long as they were
not compelled
to give up the Torah. But the Zealots desired political as
well as
religious freedom, and they fomented rebellion. They have
been compared
by Merivale to the Montagnards of the French Revolution,
driven by their
own indomitable passion to assert the truths that possessed
them with a
ferocity that no possession could justify. They were
continually rousing
the people to expel the foreign rulers, and in the northern
province of
Galilee, where they found shelter amid the wild tracts of
heath and
mountain, they maintained a constant state of
insurrection.[1] [Footnote 1: It is important to notice that much of our
knowledge of the
Zealots is derived from Josephus, who, as will be seen, set
himself to
misrepresent them, and repeated the calumnies of hostile
Roman writers
against them. The Talmud contains several references to
them, describing
them as Kannaim (the Hebrew equivalent of Zealots), and it
would appear
that they were in their outlook successors of the former
Hasidim,
distinguished as much for their religious rigidity as their
patriotic
fervor. See Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Zealots.] The Romans, on their side, accustomed to the ready
submission of all the
peoples under their sway, could not understand or tolerate
the Jews. To
them this people with its dour manners, its refusal to
participate in
the religious ideas, the social life, and the pleasures of
its
neighbors, its eruptions of passion and violence on account
of abstract
ideas, and its rigid exclusion of the insignia of Roman
majesty from the
capital, seemed the enemies of the human race. In their own
religion
they had freely found a place for Greek and Egyptian
deities, but the
Jewish faith, in its uncompromising opposition to all pagan
worship,
seemed, in the words that Anatole France has put into the
mouth of one
of the Roman procurators, to be rather an _ab_ligion than a
_re_ligion,
an institution designed rather to sever the bond that united
peoples,
than bind them together. Every other civilized people had
accepted their
dominion; the Jews and the Parthians alone stood in the way
of universal
peace. The near-Eastern question, which, then as now,
continually
threatened war and violence, irritated the Romans beyond
measure, and
they came to feel towards Jerusalem as their ancestors had
felt two
hundred years before towards Carthage, the great Semitic
power of the
West, _delenda est Hierosolyma_. As time went on they
realized that this
stubborn nation was resolved to dispute with them for the
mastery, and
every agitation was regarded as an outrage on the Roman
power, which
must be wiped out in blood. It was the inevitable conflict,
not only
between the Imperial and the national principle, but between
the ideas
of the kingdom of righteousness and the ideas of the kingdom
of might. During the reign of Tiberius, however, the Roman governors
were held in
check to some extent by strong central control from Rome,
and their
extortion was comparatively moderate. The worst of them was
Pontius
Pilate, and the _odium theologicum_ has, perhaps, had its
part in
blackening his reputation. Nevertheless, the broad religious
tolerance
initiated by the first Caesar was being continually
impaired. The Jewish
public worship was prohibited in Rome, and the Jews were
expelled from
the city in 19 C.E.; while at Alexandria an anti-Jewish
persecution was
instigated by Sejanus, the upstart freedman, who became the
chief
minister of Tiberius. In Palestine, though we hear of no
definite
movement, it is clear from after-events that the bitterness
of feeling
between the Hellenized Syrians and the Jewish population was
steadily
fomented. The Romans were naturally on the side of the
Greek-speaking
people, whom they understood, and whose religion they could
appreciate.
The situation may best be paralleled by the condition of
Ireland in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when England supported
the
Protestant population of Ulster against the hated Roman
Catholics, who
formed the majority of the people. It had been the aim of Tiberius to consolidate the unwieldy
mass of the
Empire by the gradual absorption of the independent kingdoms
inclosed
within its limits. In pursuance of this policy, Judea,
Chalcis, and
Abilene, all parts of Herod's kingdom, had been placed under
Roman
governors. But when Gaius Caligula succeeded Tiberius in 32
C.E., and
brought to the Imperial throne a capricious
irresponsibility, he
reverted to the older policy of encouraging client-princes,
and doled
out territories to his Oriental favorites. Prominent among
them was
Agrippa, a grandson of Herod, who had passed his youth in
the company of
the Roman prince in Italy. He received as the reward of his
loyal
extravagance not only Judea but Galilee and Perea, together
with the
title of king. He was not, however, given permission to
repair to his
kingdom, since his patron desired his attentions at Rome.
Later he was
detained by a sterner call. Gaius, who had passed from folly
to lunacy,
was not content with the customary voluntary worship paid to
the
Emperors, but imagined himself the supreme deity, and
demanded
veneration from all his subjects. He ordered his image to be
set up in
all temples, and, irritated by the petition of the Jews to
be exempted
from what would be an offense against the first principle of
their
religion, he insisted upon their immediate submission. In
Alexandria the
Greek population made a violent attempt to carry out the
Imperial order;
a sharp conflict took place, and the Jews in their dire need
sent a
deputation, with Philo at its head, to supplicate the
Emperor. In the
East the governor of Syria, Petronius, was directed to march
on
Jerusalem and set up the Imperial statue in the Holy of
Holies, whatever
it might cost. Petronius understood, and it seems respected,
the
faithfulness of the Jews to their creed, and he hesitated to
carry out
the command. From East and West the Jews gathered to resist
the decree;
the multitude, says Philo, covered Phoenicia like a cloud.
Meantime King
Agrippa at Rome interceded with the Emperor for his people,
and induced
him to relent for a little. But the infatuation again came
over Gaius;
he ordered Petronius peremptorily to do his will, and, when
the legate
still dallied, sent to remove him from his office. But, as
Philo says,
God heard the prayer of His people: Gaius was assassinated
by a Roman
whom he had wantonly insulted, and the death-struggle with
Rome, which
had threatened in Judea, was postponed. The year of trial,
however, had
brought home to the whole of the Jewish people that the
incessant moral
conflict with Rome might at any moment be resolved into a
desperate
physical struggle for the preservation of their religion.
And the
warlike party gained in strength. The date of the death of Gaius (Shebat 22) was appointed as
a day of
memorial in the Jewish calendar; and for a little time the
Jews had a
respite from tyranny. Agrippa, who, after the murder of
Gaius, played a
large part in securing for Claudius the succession to the
Imperial
throne, was confirmed in the grant of his kingdom, and,
despite his
antecedents and his upbringing, proved himself a model
national king.
Perhaps he had seen through the rottenness of Rome, perhaps
the trial of
Gaius' mad escapades had deepened his nature, and led him to
honor the
burning faith of the Jews. Whatever the reason, while
remaining dutiful
to Rome, he devoted himself to the care of his people, to
the
maintenance of their full religious and national life, and
to the
strengthening of the Holy City against the struggle he
foresaw. To the
Jews of the Diaspora, moreover, the succession of Claudius
brought a
renewal of privileges. An edict of tolerance was
promulgated, first to
the Alexandrians, and afterwards to the communities in all
parts of the
habitable globe, by which liberty of conscience and internal
autonomy
were restored, with a notable caution against Jewish
missionary
enterprise. "We think it fitting," runs the decree, "to
permit the Jews
everywhere under our sway to observe their ancient customs
without
hindrance; and we hereby charge them to use our graciousness
with
moderation and not to show contempt of the religious
observances of
other people, but to keep their own laws quietly."[1]
Nevertheless the
tolerant principle on which Caesar and Augustus had sought
to found the
Empire was surely giving way to a more tyrannical policy,
which viewed
with suspicion all bodies that fostered a corporate life
separate from
that of the State, whether Jewish synagogue, Stoic school,
or religious
college. [Footnote 1: Ant. XIX, v. 2.] The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem entered on a
bitterer stage when
Agrippa died in 44 C.E. Influenced by his self-seeking band
of
freedmen-counselors, who saw in office in Palestine a golden
opportunity
for spoliation, Claudius placed the vacant kingdom again
under the
direct administration of Roman procurators, and appointed to
the office
a string of the basest creatures of the court, who revived
the
injustices of the worst days of the Republic. From 48-52 C.E. Palestine was under the governorship of
Ventidius
Cumanus, who seemed deliberately to egg on the Jews to
insurrection.
When a Roman soldier outraged the Jewish conscience by
indecent conduct
in the Temple during the Passover, Cumanus refused all
redress, called
on the soldiers to put down the clamoring people, and slew
thousands of
them in the holy precincts.[1] A little later, when an
Imperial officer
was attacked on the road and robbed, Cumanus set loose the
legionaries
on the villages around, and ordered a general pillage. When
a Galilean
Jew was murdered in a Samaritan village, and the Jewish
Zealots, failing
to get redress, attacked Samaria, Cumanus fell on them and
crucified
whomever he captured. Then, indeed, the Roman governor of
Syria, not so
reckless as his subordinate, or, it may be, corrupted by the
man anxious
to step into the procurator's place, summoned Cumanus before
him, and
sent him to Rome to stand his trial for maladministration. [Footnote 1: Ant. XX. v. 3.] But this act of belated justice brought the Jews small
comfort; Cumanus
was succeeded by Felix, an even worse creature. He was the
brother of
the Emperor's favorite Narcissus, "by badness raised to that
proud
eminence," and the husband of the Herodian princess Drusilia,
who had
become a pagan in order to marry him. Tacitus, the Roman
historian,
says[1] that "with all manner of cruelty he exercised royal
functions in
the spirit of a slave." Under his rapacious tyranny the
people were
goaded to fury. Bands of assassins, Sicarii (so called by
both Romans
and Jews because of the short dagger, sica, which they
used), sprang up
over the country. Now they struck down Romans and Romanizers,
and now
they were employed by the governor himself to put out of the
way rich
Jewish nobles whose possessions he coveted. From time to
time there were
more serious risings, some purely political, others led by a
pseudo-Messiah, and all alike put down with cruelty. Roman
governors
were habitually corrupt, grasping, and cruel, but Mommsen
declares that
those of Judea in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, who were
chosen from
the upstart equestrians, exceeded the usual measure of
worthlessness and
oppressiveness. The Jews believed that they had drunk to the
dregs the
cup of misery, and that God must send them a Redeemer. There
were no
prophets to preach as at the time of the struggle with
Babylon and
Assyria, that the oppression was God's chastisement for
their sins. And
it was inconceivable to them that the power of wickedness
should be
allowed to triumph to the end. [Footnote 1: Hist. v. 9.] Steadily the party that clamored for war gained in strength,
and the
apprehensions of the Pharisees who viewed the political
struggle with
misgiving, lest it should end in the loss of the national
center and the
destruction of religious independence, were overborne by the
fury of the
masses. The oppression by Roman governors and Romanizing
high priests
did not diminish when Nero succeeded Claudius. For the rest
of the
Empire the first five years of his reign (the _quinquennium
Neronis_)
were a period of peace and good government, but for the Jews
they
brought little or no relief. The harsh Roman policy toward
the Jews may
have been specially instigated by Seneca, the Stoic
philosopher, who was
Nero's counselor during his saner years, and who entertained
a strong
hatred of Judaism. But we need not look for such special
causes. It had
been the fixed habit of Republican Rome to crush out the
national spirit
of a subject people, "to war down the proud," as her
greatest poet
euphemistically expressed it; and now that spirit was
adopted by the
Imperial Caesars in dealing with the one and only people
resolved to
preserve inviolate its national life and its national
religion. Nero
indeed recalled Felix, and Festus, who was appointed in his
place, made
an attempt to mend affairs, but he died within a year, and
was succeeded
by two procurators that were worthy followers of Felix. The
first of
them was Albinus (62-64), of whom Josephus says that there
was no sort
of wickedness in which he had not a hand. The same authority
says that
compared with Gessius Florus, the governor under whom the
Rebellion
burst out, he was "most just." Florus owed his appointment
to Poppaea,
the profligate wife of Nero, and his conduct bears the
interpretation
that he was deliberately anxious to fill the measure of
persecution to
the brim and drive the nation to war. The very forms of privilege which had been left to the Jews
were turned
to their hurt. The Herodian tetrarchs of Chalcis, to whom
the Romans
granted the power of appointing the high priests, true to
the tradition
of their house, appointed only such as were confirmed
Romanizers, and
the most unscrupulous at that. When Felix was governor, the
high priest
was the notorious Ananias, of whom the Talmud says, "Woe to
the House of
Ananias; woe for their cursings, woe for their serpent-like
hissings."[1] Herod Agrippa II, the son of Agrippa, who held
the
principate from 50-100 C.E., and was the faithful creature
of Rome
throughout the period of his people's stress, proclaiming
himself on his
coins "lover of Caesar and lover of Rome," deposed and
created high
priests with unparalleled frequency as a means of extorting
money and
rewarding the leading informers. There were seven holders of
the office
during the last twenty years of Roman rule, and "he who
carried furthest
servility and national abnegation received the prize." The
high priests
thus formed a kind of anti-national oligarchy; they robbed
the other
priests of their dues, and reduced them to poverty, and were
the willing
tools of Roman tyranny. Together with the Herodian princes,
who indulged
every lust and wicked passion, they undermined the strength
of the
people like some fatal canker, much as the priests and
nobles had done
at the first fall of Jerusalem, or, again, in the days of
the Seleucid
Emperors. Apart from governors, tax-collectors, and high
priests, the
Romans had an instrument of oppression in the Greek-speaking
population
of Palestine and Syria, which maintained an inveterate
hostility to the
Jews. The immediate cause of the great Rebellion actually
arose out of a
feud between the Jewish and the Gentile inhabitants of
Caesarea. The
Hellenistic population outnumbered the Jews in the Herodian
foundations
of Caesarea, Sepphoris, Tiberias, Paneas, etc., as well as
in the old
Greek cities of Doris, Scythopolis, Gerasa, Gadara, and the
rest of the
Decapolis. This population regarded religion only as the
pretext for
public ceremonials and entertainments; it was scornful of
the Jewish
abstention from these things, and was aroused to the
bitterest hatred by
the social aloofness of their neighbors. Violent riots
between Jew and
Gentile were constantly taking place, and whether they were
the
aggressors or merely fighting in self-defense, the Jews were
the
scapegoats for the breaking of the peace. Stung by constant
outrage on
the part of their neighbors, the Jews turned upon them at
Caesarea, and
drove them out of the town. Thereupon Florus called them to
reckoning,
marched on Jerusalem, and plundered the Temple treasury.
This event
happened on the tenth day of Iyar in the year 66 C.E. The
war-party
determined to force the struggle to a final issue. Hitherto
they had
only been able to arouse a section to venture desperate
sporadic
insurrection against the might of Rome. Now they carried the
people with
them to engage in a national rebellion. [Footnote 1: Pesahim, 57a.] Agrippa II, who was amusing himself at Alexandria when the
first
outbreak occurred, hurried back to Jerusalem, and sought to
quiet the
people by impressing upon them the invincible power of Rome.
But he
failed, and the Romanizing priests' party failed, and the
peaceful
leaders of the Pharisees failed, to shake their
determination. Messianic
hopes were rife among the masses, and were invested with a
materialistic
interpretation. The Zealots, it is alleged by the pagan as
well as the
Jewish authorities for the period, believed that the
destined time was
come when the Jews should rule the world. The people looked
for the
realization of the prophecy of Isaiah (41:2), "He shall
raise up the
righteous one from the East, give the nations before Israel,
and make
him rule over kings." The belief in the approach of the Messianic kingdom was
undoubtedly one
of the mainsprings of the revolt. There had been a series of
popular
leaders claiming to be Messiahs, but in the final struggle
it was not
the claim of any individual, but the passionate faith of the
whole
people, that inspired a belief in the coming of a perfect
deliverance.
Some events appeared to favor the fulfilment of their hopes
of temporal
sovereignty, bred though they were of despair. Rome under
the corrupting
influence of Nero seemed to be passing her zenith; national
movements
were stirring in the West, in Gaul and in Germany; in the
East the
Parthians were again threatening the security of the Roman
provinces.
The Jewish cause, on the other hand, seemed to be gaining
ground
everywhere. Its converts, numerous in the West, were still
more numerous
and important in the East. Among those recently brought over
to the true
faith as full proselytes were Helena, the queen of Adiabene,
a kingdom
situate in Mesopotamia, and her son Izates, who built
themselves
splendid palaces at Jerusalem. In Babylon the Jews had made
themselves
almost independent, and waged open war on the Parthian
satraps. A large
section of the people cherished a somewhat simple theodicy.
How could
God allow the wicked and dissolute Romans to prosper and the
chosen
people to be oppressed? The Hellenistic writers of Sibylline
oracles and
the Hebrew writers of Apocalypses, imitating the doom-songs
of Isaiah
and Ezekiel, announced the coming overthrow of evil and the
triumph of
good. Evil had reached its acme in Nero, and the time had
come when God
would break the "fourth horn" of Daniel's vision (ch. 8),
and exalt his
chosen people. The fight for national independence was bound to have come,
for nothing
could have prevented the Romans from their attempt to crush
the spirit
of the Jews, and nothing could have held back the Jews from
making a
supreme effort to obtain their freedom from the hated yoke.
For one
hundred and twenty years Palestine had been ground beneath
the iron heel
of Roman governors and Romanizing tyrants. The conditions of
the foreign
rule had steadily grown more intolerable. At first the
oppression was
mainly fiscal; then it had sought to crush all political
liberty, and
finally it had come to outrage the deepest religious feeling
and menace
the Temple-worship. As Graetz says, "The Jewish people was
like a
captive, who, continually visited by his jailer, rattles at
his fetters
with the strength of despair, till he wrenches them
asunder." It was not
only the freedom of the Jew, but the safety of Judaism that
was
imperiled by the misrule of a Claudius and a Nero. The war
against the
Romans was then not merely a struggle for national liberty,
but, equally
with the wars of the Maccabees against the Seleucids, an
episode in the
more vital conflict between Hebraism and paganism, between
material
force and the ardent passion for religious freedom.
II THE LIFE OF JOSEPHUS TO THE FALL OF JOTAPATA
Josephus was essentially an apologist, and his writings
include not only
an apology for his people, but an apology for his own life.
In contrast
with the greater Jewish writers, he was given to vaunting
his own deeds.
We have therefore abundant, if not always reliable,
information about
the chief events of his career. It must always be borne in
mind that he
had to color the narrative of his own as well as his
people's history to
suit the tastes and prejudices of the Roman conqueror. He
was born in 37
C.E., the first year of the reign of Gaius Caesar, the
lunatic Emperor,
who nearly provoked the Jews to the final struggle. Though
he is known
to history as Josephus Flavius, his proper name was Joseph
ben
Mattathias, Josephus being the Latinized form of the Hebrew
[Hebrew:
Yosef] and his patronymic being exchanged, when he went over
to the
Romans, for the family name of his patrons, Flavius. His
father was a
priest of the first of the twenty-four orders, named
Jehoiarib, and on
his mother's side he was connected with the royal house of
the
Hasmoneans. His genealogy, which he traces back to the time
of the
Maccabean princes, is a little vague, and we may suspect
that he was not
above improving it. But his family was without doubt among
the priestly
aristocracy of Jerusalem, and his father, he says, was
"eminent not only
on account of his nobility, but even more for his
virtue."[1] [Footnote 1: Vita, 2.] He was brought up with his brother Matthias to fit himself
for the
priestly office, and he received the regular course of
Jewish education
in the Torah and the tradition. He says in the _Antiquities_
that "only
those who know the laws and can interpret the practices of
our
ancestors, are called educated among the Jews;" and it is
likely that he
attended in his boyhood one of the numerous schools that
existed in
Jerusalem at the time. According to the Talmud there were
four hundred
and eighty synagogues each with a Bet Sefer for teaching the
written law
and a Bet Talmud for the study of the oral law.[1] From his
silence we
may infer that he did not study Greek at this period, and
Aramaic was
his natural tongue. He was never able to speak Greek
fluently or with
sufficient exactness, because, as he says in the
_Antiquities_, "Our own
nation does not encourage those who learn the language of
many peoples,
and so color their discourses with the smoothness of their
periods: for
they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not
only to
freemen, but to any slave that pleases to learn it."[2]
When, in his
middle age, he set himself to write the history of his
people in Greek,
he was compelled to get the help of friends to correct his
composition
and syntax. [Footnote 1: Yer. Meg. iii. 1.] [Footnote 2: Ant. XX. xi. 2.] As to his Hebrew accomplishments, he tells us, with his
native
immodesty, that he acquired marvelous proficiency in
learning, and was
famous for his great memory and understanding. When he was
fourteen
years of age, he continues, such was his fame that the high
priests and
principal men of the city frequently came to consult him
about difficult
points of the law. His mature works do not show any profound
knowledge
either of the Halakah or of the Haggadah, so that the
statement is not
to be taken strictly. It is probably nothing more than a
grandiloquent
way of saying that he was a precocious child, who impressed
his elders.
Paul, too, claimed that he was "a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
and zealous
beyond those of his own age in the Jews' religion," and yet
he can
hardly be regarded as an authority on the tradition. The
autobiography
of Josephus, it is pertinent to remember, was designed to
impress the
Romans with the greatness of the writer, and its readers
were not
equipped with the means of criticising his Jewish
accomplishments. With
the same object of impressing the Romans, Josephus recounts
that, when
about the age of sixteen, he had a mind to imbue himself
with the tenets
of the three Jewish parties, the Sadducees, the Pharisees,
and the
Essenes. Elsewhere he describes the teaching of these sects for the
benefit of
his Roman readers according to a technical classification
borrowed from
his environment, i.e. he represents them as three
philosophical schools
of the Greek type, each holding different views about fate
and
Providence and the nature of the soul and its immortality.
But just as
this is demonstrably a misleading coloring of the difference
between the
sections of the Jewish people, so is his attempt to
represent that he
attended, as a cultured Greek or Roman of the time would
have done,
three philosophical colleges. He was compelled by the needs
of his
audience to present Jewish life in the form of Greco-Roman
institutions,
however ill it fits the mould, and his remarks about sects
and schools
must always be taken with caution. It is as though a modern
writer
should describe Judaism as a Church, and express its ideas
and
observances in the language of Christian theology. There is, however, no reason to doubt that Josephus made
himself
acquainted with the tenets of the chief teachers of the
time, and he may
conceivably have sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel, then the
chief sage
at Jerusalem. But, anxious to exhibit his catholicity, after
professing
himself a Pharisee, he says that, not content with these
studies, he
became for three years a faithful disciple of one Banus, who
lived in
the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees,
ate no
other food than that which grew wild, and bathed frequently
in cold
water both night and day.[1] The extreme hermit form of the
religious
life was more fashionable in the first century of the
Christian era
among Gentiles than among Jews, and it is not unlikely that
Josephus is
embroidering his idea of life in an Essene community, rather
than
setting down his actual experience. An Essene he never
became, but he
remained throughout his life very partial to certain forms
of the Essene
belief, more especially those which coincided with the
Greco-Roman
superstitions of the time, such as the literal prediction of
future
events, the meaning of dreams, the significance of omens.[2]
These
ideas, handed down from primitive Israel, had lived on among
the masses
of the people, though discarded by the learned teachers, and
Josephus,
finding them in vogue among his masters, readily professed
acceptance of
them. [Footnote 1: Vita, 2.] [Footnote 2: Comp. B.J. II. viii. 12; III. viii. 3; VI. v.
4.] Abandoning apparently the idea of being a hermit, Josephus
at the age of
nineteen returned to Jerusalem, and began to conduct himself
according
to the rules of the Pharisee sect, which is akin, he says,
to the school
of the Stoics. The comparison of the Pharisees with the
Stoics is again
misleading, and based on nothing more than the formal
likeness of their
doctrines about Providence. The Pharisees were essentially
the party
that upheld the whole tradition and the separateness of
Israel. They
numbered in their ranks the most popular teachers, and
politically,
though opposed to Rome and all its ways, they counseled
submission so
long as religious liberty was not infringed. It may be that
Josephus
only professed his attachment to them after his surrender,
because, as
pacifists and believers in moral as against physical force,
they were
favorably regarded by the Romans; but even if as a young and
ambitious
priest he attached himself to their body early in life in
order to gain
influence among the people, he was not a representative
Pharisee. He
obtained a certain acquaintance with the teaching of the
Pharisees, and
partly shared their political views, though not from the
same motives as
their true leaders. Yet the very next step in his life that
he
chronicles marks his outlook as fundamentally different. At the age of twenty-six, after seven years in Jerusalem,
during which
he exercised his priestly functions, he journeyed to Rome.
The cause of
his voyage, on which he was picturesquely wrecked and had to
swim for
his life through the night, was the deliverance from prison
of certain
priests closely related to him, who had been sent there as
prisoners by
Felix, the tyrannical Roman governor. At Rome, through his
acquaintance
with Aliturius, an actor of plays, a favorite of Nero, and
by birth a
Jew, he came into touch with the profligate court. To the
genuine
Pharisee a Jewish play-actor would have been an abomination.
Josephus
used his acquaintance to obtain an introduction to Poppaea
Sabina, the
Emperor's wife for the time. Though a by-word for
shamelessness of life,
she was herself one of "the fearers of the Lord" ([Greek:
sebomenoi]),
who professed adherence to the Jewish creed without
accepting the Jewish
law. Josephus won her favor, and through it procured the
liberation of
the priests. The Imperial city was then at the height of its
material
magnificence, and must have made an immense impression of
power upon the
young Jewish aristocrat. Having acquired a lasting
admiration for Rome
and a desire to enter her society and a conviction of her
invincibility,
he returned to Palestine in triumph--and with the spirit of
an
opportunist. This at least is the picture he draws of
himself, but a
more kindly interpretation might see in the moment of his
return the
indication of a genuine patriotic feeling. When he arrived in Jerusalem, in the year 65 C.E., he found
his country
seething with rebellion. The crisis soon came to a head.
Gessius Florus,
who owed his governorship, as Josephus owed the success of
his errand,
to the favor of the "God-fearing" Poppaea, roused the people
to fury by
his pillage of the Temple, and the moderates could no longer
hold the
masses in check. The Zealots seized the fortress of Antonia,
which
overlooked the Temple, and, having become masters of the
city, murdered
the high priest Ananias. Eleazar, whom Josephus, perhaps
confusedly,
describes as his son, an intense nationalist among the
priests, became
the leader in counsel, and sealed the rebellion by
persuading the people
to discontinue the daily sacrifice offered in the name of
the Roman
Emperor. At the same time the extermination of the Jews in the
Hellenistic
cities, Caesarea, Scythopolis, and Damascus, by the
infuriated Syrians,
who organized a kind of Palestinian Vespers, convinced the
people that
they were engaged in a war to the death. The Herodian party,
as the
royal house and its supporters were called, endeavored to
preserve
peace, by dwelling on the overpowering might of Rome and the
inevitable
end of the insurrection, but in vain. In fear the priests
withdrew to
their duties in the Temple, and did not venture out till the
Zealots
were for a time dislodged. The Roman legate of Syria,
Cestius Gallus,
after the defeat of the Romanizing party by the Zealots,
himself marched
on Jerusalem in the autumn of 68 C.E. with two legions. But
he failed
ignominiously to quell the revolt. The Roman garrison in the
city was
put to the sword, and the legate, while beating a hasty
retreat, was
routed in the defiles of Beth-Horon, where two centuries
before the
Syrian hosts had been decimated by Judas the Maccabee. The
two legions
were cut to pieces. The fierce valor of the untrained
national levies
had broken the serried cohorts of the Roman veterans, and in
the
unexpectedness of this deliverance the party of rebellion
for a time was
triumphant among all sections of the Jewish people. Even those who had been the most determined Romanizers, such
as the
high-priestly circle, were induced, either by a belief in
the chances of
success or from a desire to protect themselves by a seeming
adherence to
the national cause, to throw in their lot with the war
party. It might
have been better for their people, had they, like Agrippa,
joined the
Romans. Half-hearted at best in their support of the
struggle, yet by
their wealth and position able at first to obtain a
commanding part in
the conduct of the war, they used it to temporize with the
foe and to
dull the edge of the popular feeling. Josephus unfortunately
does not
enlighten us as to the inner movements in Judea at this
crisis. He
merely relates that the Sanhedrin became a council of war,
and Palestine
was divided into seven military districts, over most of
which commanders
of the Herodian faction were placed. Joseph the son of
Gorion and
Ananias the high priest, both members of the moderate party,
were chosen
as governors of Jerusalem, with a particular charge to
repair the walls,
and the Zealot leader Eleazar the son of Simon was passed
over. Josephus himself, though he possessed no military
experience, and had
apparently taken no part in the opening campaign, was made
governor of
Lower and Upper Galilee, the most important military post of
all; for
Galilee was the bulwark of Judea, and if the Romans could be
successfully resisted there, the rebellion might hope for
victory. It
lay in a strategic position between the Roman outposts,
Ptolemais (the
modern Acre) on the coast and Agrippa's kingdom in the east.
It was a
country made for defense, a country of rugged mountains and
natural
fastnesses, and inhabited by a hardy and warlike population,
which, for
half a century, had been in constant insurrection. Thence
had come the
founders of the Zealots and the still more violent band of
the Sicarii,
and each town in the region had its popular leader. Josephus
was
expected to hold it with its own resources, for little help
could be
spared from the center of Palestine. Guerrilla fighting was
the natural
resource of an insurgent people, which had to win its
freedom against
well-trained and veteran armies. It had been the method of
Judas
Maccabaeus against Antiochus amid the hills of Judea.
Josephus, however,
made no attempt to practise it, and showed no vestige of
appreciation of
the needs of the case. It is difficult to gather the reason of his appointment,
unless it be
that in his writings he deliberately kept back from the
Romans the more
enthusiastic part he had played at the outset of the
struggle. So far as
his own account goes, neither devotion to the national
cause, nor
experience, nor prestige, nor power of leadership, nor
knowledge of the
country recommended him. His distinguished birth and his
friendship for
Rome were hardly sufficient qualifications for the post. The
influence
of his friend, the ex-high priest Joshua ben Gamala, may
have prevailed,
and one is fain to surmise that those who sent him, as well
as he
himself, were anxious to pretend resistance to Rome, but
really to work
for resistance to the rebellion. At all events, at the end of the autumn of 67, Josephus
repaired to his
command, taking with him two priests, Joazar and Judas, as
representatives of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. In the record
which he
gives of his exploits in the _Wars_, he says that his first
care was to
gain the good-will of the people, drill his troops, and
prepare the
country to meet the threatened invasion. In the _Life_,
which he wrote
some twenty years later, when he had perforce to cultivate a
more
complete servility of mind, and was anxious to convince the
Romans that
he was a double-dealing traitor to his country, he
represents that he
set himself from the beginning to betray the province. The
record of his
actions points to the conclusion that he fell between the
stools of
covert treachery and half-hearted loyalty, that he was
neither as
villainous in design nor as heroic in action as he makes
himself out to
be. He made some show of preparation at the beginning, but
from the
moment the Roman army arrived under Vespasian, and he
realized that Rome
was in earnest, he abandoned all hope of success, and set
himself to
make his own position secure with the conqueror. The chief cities of Galilee were Sepphoris, situated on the
lower spurs
of the hills near the plain of Esdraelon, which divides the
country from
Samaria and Judea; Tiberias, a city founded by Herod Antipas
on the
western borders of the Lake of Gennesareth, and Tarichea,
also an
Herodian foundation, situate probably at the southeast
corner of the
lake. All these Josephus fortified; and he strengthened with
walls other
smaller towns and natural fortresses, such as Jotapata,
Salamis, and
Gamala.[1] He says also that he appointed a Sanhedrin of
seventy members
for the province, and in each town established a court of
seven judges,
as though he were come to exercise a civil government. He
did, however,
get together an army of more than a hundred thousand young
men, and
armed them with the old weapons which he had collected.
Though he
despaired of their standing up against the Romans, he
ordered them in
the Roman style, appointing a large number of subordinate
officers and
teaching them the use of signals and a few elementary
military
movements. His army ultimately consisted of 60,000 footmen,
4,500
mercenaries, in whom he put greatest trust, and 600 picked
men as his
body-guard. He had little cavalry, but as Galilee was a
country of
hills, this deficiency need not have proved fatal, had he
been a
strategist or even a loyalist. During the eight months'
respite that he
enjoyed before the appearance of the Roman army, he spent
most of his
time in civil feud, and succeeded in dividing the population
into two
hostile parties. He boasts that, though he took up his
command at an age
when, if a man has happily escaped sin, he can scarcely
guard himself
against slander, he was perfectly honest, and refrained from
stealing
and peculation[2]; but he is at pains to prove that he threw
every
obstacle in the way of the patriotic party, and did all that
an open
enemy of the Jews could have done to undermine the defense
of the
province. [Footnote 1: B.J. II. xx. 6. His account of his actions in
Galilee is,
however, from beginning to end, open to question; and the
contemporary
account of Justus has unfortunately disappeared entirely. It
is likely
that his rival's narrative would have shown him in a better
light than
his own.] [Footnote 2: Vita, 15.] Before his arrival in the north, the leader of the national
party was
John the son of Levi, a man of Gischala, which was one of
the mountain
fastnesses in Northern Galilee, now known as Jish, near the
town of
Safed.[1] Josephus heaps every variety of violent abuse upon
him in
order, no doubt, to please his patrons. When he introduces
him on the
scene, he describes him as "a very knavish and cunning
rogue, outdoing
all other rogues, and without his fellow for wicked
practices. He was a
ready liar, and yet very sharp in gaining credit for his
fictions. He
thought it a point of virtue to deceive, and would delude
even those
nearest to him. He had an aptitude for thieving," and so
forth. Whenever
the historian mentions the name of his rival, he rattles his
box of
abusive epithets until the reader is wearied by the image of
the monster
conjured up before him. But, unfortunately for his credit,
Josephus also
records John's deeds, and these reveal him as one who, if at
times cruel
and intriguing, yet lived and died for his country, while
his enemy was
thinking of saving himself. [Footnote 1: The Hebrew name of the fortress was [Hebrew:
Nosh Halav],
meaning "clot of cream"; the place was so called because of
the
fertility of the soil on which it stands.] It is not surprising then that John, having eyes only for
the defense of
the land, was not blind to the double-dealing of the
priestly governor,
who had been sent by the Romanizing party to organize
resistance. The
first event that brought about a collision between them was
the
suspicious conduct of Josephus in the matter of some spoil
seized from
the steward of King Agrippa and brought to Tarichea. Agrippa
had
entirely turned his back on the national rising, |
