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| The Jews, afflicted with Innumerable Evils, commenced the Last War Against the Romans.
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Chapter
XXVI.—The Jews, afflicted with
Innumerable Evils, commenced the Last War Against the
Romans.
1. Josephus again, after relating many things in connection
with the calamity which came upon the whole Jewish nation, records,557
| 557 Josephus, B. J. II. 14. 9. He relates that Florus, in order
to shield himself from the consequences of his misrule and of his
abominable extortions, endeavored to inflame the Jews to rebel against
Rome by acting still more cruelly toward them. As a result many
disturbances broke out, and many bitter things were said against
Florus, in consequence of which he proceeded to the severe measures
referred to here by Eusebius. | in addition to many other circumstances,
that a great many558
| 558 μυρίους
ὅσους. Josephus gives
the whole number of those that were destroyed, including women and
children, as about thirty-six hundred (no doubt a gross exaggeration,
like most of his figures). He does not state the number of noble Jews
whom Florus whipped and crucified. The “myriads” of
Eusebius is an instance of the exaggerated use of language which was
common to his age, and which almost invariably marks a period of
decline. In many cases “myriads” meant to Eusebius and his
contemporaries twenty, or thirty, or even less. Any number that seemed
large under the circumstances was called a
“myriad.” | of the most
honorable among the Jews were scourged in Jerusalem itself and then
crucified by Florus.559
| 559 Gessius Florus was a Greek whose wife, Cleopatra, was a friend of
the Empress Poppæa, through whose influence he obtained his
appointment (Jos. Ant. XX. 11. 1). He succeeded Albinus in 64
a.d. (see above, chap. 23, note 35), and was
universally hated as the most corrupt and unprincipled governor Judea
had ever endured. Josephus (B. J. II. 14. 2 sqq. and Ant.
XX. 11. 1) paints him in very black colors. | It happened that he
was procurator of Judea when the war began to be kindled, in the
twelfth year of Nero.560
| 560 Josephus (B. J. II. 14. 4) puts the beginning of the war in
the twelfth year of the reign of Nero (i.e. a.d. 66) in the month of Artemision, corresponding to the
month Iyar, the second month of the Jewish year. According to Josephus
(Ant. XX. 11. 1) this was in the second year of Gessius Florus.
The war began at this time by repeated rebellious outbreaks among the
Jews, who had been driven to desperation by the unprincipled and
tyrannical conduct of Florus,—though Vespasian himself did not
appear in Palestine until the spring of 67, when he began his
operations in Galilee. |
2. Josephus says561
| 561 Jos.
B. J. II. 18. 2. | that at that time a
terrible commotion was stirred up throughout all Syria in consequence
of the revolt of the Jews, and that everywhere the latter were
destroyed without mercy, like enemies, by the inhabitants of the
cities, “so that one could see cities filled with unburied
corpses, and the dead bodies of the aged scattered about with the
bodies of infants, and women without even a covering for their
nakedness, and the whole province full of indescribable calamities,
while the dread of those things that were threatened was greater than
the sufferings themselves which they anywhere endured.”562
Such is the account of Josephus; and such
was the condition of the Jews at that time.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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