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Rh exhausted garrison were killed or enslaved. Josephus, whose pretences had postponed the final assault, hid in a cave with forty men. His companions refused to permit him to surrender and were resolved to die. At his suggestion they cast lots, and the first man was killed by the second and so on, until all were dead except Josephus and (perhaps) one other. So Josephus saved them from the sin of suicide and gave himself up to the Romans. He had prophesied that the place would be taken—as it was—on the forty-seventh day, and now he prophesied that both Vespasian and his son Titus would reign over all mankind. The prophecy saved his life, though many desired his death, and the rumour of it produced general mourning in Jerusalem. By the end of the year (67) Galilee was in the hands of Vespasian, and John of Giscala had fled. Agrippa celebrated the conquest at Caesarea Philippi with festivities which lasted twenty days.

In accordance with ancient custom Jerusalem welcomed the fugitive Zealots. The result was civil war and famine. Ananus incited the people against these robbers, who arrested, imprisoned and murdered prominent friends of Rome, and arrogated to themselves the right of selecting the high priest by lot. The Zealots took refuge in the Temple and summoned the Idumaeans to their aid. Under cover of a storm, they opened the city-gates to their allies and proceeded to murder Ananus the high priest, and, against the verdict of a formal tribunal, Zacharias the son of Baruch in the midst of the Temple. The Idumaeans left, but John of Giscala remained master of Jerusalem.

40. The Fall of Jerusalem.—Vespasian left the rivals to consume one another and occupied his army with the subjugation of the country. When he had isolated the capital and was preparing to besiege it, the news of Nero’s death reached him at Caesarea. For a year (June 68-June 69) he held his hand and watched events, until the robber-bands of Simon Bar-Giora (son of the proselyte) required his attention. But, before Vespasian took action to stop his raids, Simon had been invited to Jerusalem in the hope that he would act as a counterpoise to the tyrant John. And so, when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in fulfilment of Josephus’ prophecy, and deputed the command to Titus, there were three rivals at war in Jerusalem—Eleazar, Simon and John. The temple sacrifices were still offered and worshippers were admitted; but John’s catapults were busy, and priest and worshippers at the altar were killed, because Eleazar’s party occupied the inner courts of the Temple. A few days before the passover of 70 Titus advanced upon Jerusalem, but the civil war went on. When Eleazar opened the temple-gates to admit those who wished to worship God, John of Giscala introduced some of his own men, fully armed under their garments, and so got possession of the Temple. Titus pressed the attack, and the two factions joined hands at last to repel it. In spite of their desperate sallies, Jerusalem was surrounded by a wall, and its people, whose numbers were increased by those who had come up for the passover, were hemmed in to starve. The famine affected all alike—the populace, who desired peace, and the Zealots, who were determined to fight to the end. At last John of Giscala portioned out the sacred wine and oil, saying that they who fought for the Temple might fearlessly use its stores for their sustenance. Steadily the Romans forced their way through wall after wall, until the Jews were driven back to the Temple and the daily sacrifices came to an end on the 17th of July for lack of men. Once more Josephus appealed in vain to John and his followers to cease from desecrating and endangering the Temple. The siege proceeded and the temple-gates were burned. According to Josephus, Titus decided to spare the Temple, but—whether this was so or not—on the 10th of August it was fired by a soldier after a sortie of the Jews had been repelled. The legions set up their standards in the temple-court and hailed Titus as imperator.

Some of the Zealots escaped with John and Simon to the upper city and held it for another month. But Titus had already earned the triumph which he celebrated at Rome in 71. The Jews, wherever they might be, continued to pay the temple-tax; but now it was devoted to Jupiter Capitolinus. The Romans had taken their holy place, and the Law was all that was left to them.

41. From 70 to  135.—The destruction of the Temple carried with it the destruction of the priesthood and all its power. The priests existed to offer sacrifices, and by the Law no sacrifice could be offered except at the Temple of Jerusalem. Thenceforward the remnant of the Jews who survived the fiery ordeal formed a church rather than a nation or a state, and the Pharisees exercised an unchallenged supremacy. With the Temple and its Sadducean high priests perished the Sanhedrin in which the Sadducees had competed with the Pharisees for predominance. The Sicarii or Zealots who had appealed to the arm of flesh were exterminated. Only the teachers of the Law survived to direct the nation and to teach those who remained loyal Jews, how they should render to Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and to God what belonged to God. Here and there hot-headed Zealots rose up to repeat the errors and the disasters of their predecessors. But their fate only served to deepen the impression already stamped upon the general mind of the nation. The Temple was gone, but they had the Law. Already the Jews of the Dispersion had learned to supplement the Temple by the synagogue, and even the Jews of Jerusalem had not been free to spend their lives in the worship of the Temple. There were still, as always, rites which were independent of the place and of the priest; there had been a time when the Temple did not exist. So Judaism survived once more the destruction of its central sanctuary.

When Jerusalem was taken, the Sicarii still continued to hold three strongholds: one—Masada—for three years. But the commander of Masada realized at length that there was no hope of escaping captivity except by death, and urged his comrades to anticipate their fate. Each man slew his wife and children; ten men were selected by lot to slay the rest; one man slew the nine executioners, fired the palace and fell upon his sword. When the place was stormed the garrison consisted of two old women and five children who had concealed themselves in caves. So Vespasian obtained possession of Palestine—the country which Nero had given him—and for a time it was purged of revolutionaries. Early Christian writers assert that he proceeded to search out and to execute all descendants of David who might conceivably come forward as claimants of the vacant throne.

In Egypt and in Cyrene fugitive Zealots endeavoured to continue their rebellion against the emperor, but there also with disastrous results. The doors of the Temple in Egypt were closed, and its sacrifices which had been offered for 243 years were prohibited. Soon afterwards this temple also was destroyed. Apart from these local outbreaks, the Jews throughout the empire remained loyal citizens and were not molested. The general hope of the nation was not necessarily bound up with the house of David, and its realization was not incompatible with the yoke of Rome. They still looked for a true prophet, and meanwhile they had their rabbis.

Under (q.v.) the Pharisees established themselves at Jamnia. A new Sanhedrin was formed there under the presidency of a ruler, who received yearly dues from all Jewish communities. The scribes through the synagogues preserved the national spirit and directed it towards the religious life which was prescribed by Scripture. The traditions of the elders were tested and gradually harmonized in their essentials. The canon of Scripture was decided in accordance with the touchstone of the Pentateuch. Israel had retired to their tents to study their Bible.

Under Vespasian and Titus the Jews enjoyed freedom of conscience and equal political rights with non-Jewish subjects of Rome. But Domitian, according to pagan historians, bore hardly on them. The temple-tax was strictly exacted; Jews who lived the Jewish life without openly confessing their religion and Jews who concealed their nationality were brought before the magistrates. Proselytes to Judaism were condemned either to death or to forfeiture of their property. Indeed it would seem that Domitian instituted a persecution of the Jews, to which Nerva his successor put an end. Towards the end of Trajan’s reign (114–117) the Jews of Egypt and Cyrene rose against their Greek neighbours and set up a king. The rebellion spread to Cyprus; and when Trajan advanced from Mesopotamia into Parthia the Jews of Mesopotamia revolted. The massacres they perpetrated were avenged in kind and all the insurrections were quelled when Hadrian succeeded Trajan.

In 132 the Jews of Palestine rebelled again. Hadrian had forbidden circumcision as illegal mutilation: he had also replaced Jerusalem by a city of his own, Aelia Capitolina, and the temple of Yahweh by a temple of Jupiter. Apart from these bitter provocations—the prohibition of the sign of the covenant and the desecration of the sacred place—the Jews had a leader who was recognized as Messiah by the rabbi Aqiba. Though the majority of the rabbis looked for no such deliverer and refused to admit his claims, (q.v.) drew the people after him to struggle for their national independence. For three years and a half he held his own and issued coins in the name of Simon, which commemorate the liberation of Jerusalem. Some attempt was apparently made to rebuild the Temple; and the Jews of the Dispersion, who had perhaps been won over by Aqiba, supported the rebellion. Indeed even Gentiles helped them, so that the whole world (Dio Cassius says) was stirred. Hadrian sent his best generals against the rebels, and at length they were driven from Jerusalem to Bethar (135). The Jews were forbidden to enter the new city of Jerusalem on pain of death.