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| The Predictions of Christ.
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Chapter VII.—The Predictions of Christ.
1. It
is fitting to add to these accounts the true prediction of our Saviour
in which he foretold these very events.
2. His words are as follows:644
“Woe unto them that are with child,
and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight
be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For there shall be
great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to
this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
3. The historian, reckoning the
whole number of the slain, says that eleven hundred thousand persons
perished by famine and sword,645
| 645 Josephus, B. J. Bk. VI. chap. 9, §3. Josephus simply
says that the whole number of those that perished during the siege was
1,100,000; he does not specify the manner of their death. On the
accuracy of the numbers which he gives, see above, chap. 5, note
13. | and that the rest
of the rioters and robbers, being betrayed by each other after the
taking of the city, were slain.646
But the tallest of
the youths and those that were distinguished for beauty were preserved
for the triumph. Of the rest of the multitude, those that were over
seventeen years of age were sent as prisoners to labor in the works of
Egypt,647
| 647 εἰς τὰ κατ᾽
῎Αιγυπτον
žργα. The works meant are
the great stone quarries of Egypt (commonly called the mines of Egypt),
which furnished a considerable part of the finest marble used for
building purposes in Rome and elsewhere. The quarries were chiefly in
the hands of the Roman government, and the work of quarrying was done
largely by captives taken in war, as in the present case. | while still more were scattered through
the provinces to meet their death in the theaters by the sword and by
beasts. Those under seventeen years of age were carried away to be sold
as slaves, and of these alone the number reached ninety thousand.648
| 648 Josephus does not say that the number of those sold as slaves was
upward of 90,000, as Eusebius asserts, but simply (ibid.
§3) that the number of captives taken during the whole war was
97,000, a number which Eusebius, through an error, applies to the one
class of prisoners that were sold as slaves. |
4. These things took place in
this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian,649
| 649 In
B. J. Bk. VI. 8. 5 and 10. 1 Josephus puts the completion of the
siege on the eighth of the month Elul (September), and in the second
passage he puts it in the second year of Vespasian. Vespasian was
proclaimed emperor in Egypt July 1, 69, so that Sept. 8 of his second
year would be Sept. 8, a.d. 70. (Cf.
Schürer, N. T. Zeitgesch. p. 347.) | in accordance with the prophecies of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who by divine power saw them beforehand
as if they were already present, and wept and mourned according to the
statement of the holy evangelists, who give the very words which he
uttered, when, as if addressing Jerusalem herself, he said:650
5. “If thou hadst known,
even thou, in this day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now
they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that
thine enemies shall cast a rampart about thee, and compass thee round,
and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee and thy children
even with the ground.”
6. And then, as if speaking
concerning the people, he says,651
“For there
shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And
they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive
into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles,
until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” And again:652
“When ye shall see Jerusalem
compassed
with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is
nigh.”
7. If any one compares the words
of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian concerning the
whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the
foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly divine and
marvellously strange.653
| 653 It
is but right to remark that not merely the negative school of critics,
but even many conservative scholars (e.g. Weiss) put the composition of
the Gospel of Luke after the year 70, because its eschatological
discourses seem to bear the mark of having been recorded after the
fulfillment of the prediction, differing as they do in many minor
particulars from the accounts of the same discourses in Matthew and
Mark. To cite a single instance: in the passage quoted just above
from Luke xxi. 20, the armies encompassing Jerusalem are mentioned, while in
parallel passages in the other Gospels (Matt. xxiv. 15 and Mark xiii.
14)
not armies, but “the abomination of desolation standing in the
holy place” is spoken of as the sign. Compare the various
commentaries upon these passages. |
8. Concerning those calamities,
then, that befell the whole Jewish nation after the Saviour’s
passion and after the words which the multitude of the Jews uttered,
when they begged the release of the robber and murderer, but besought
that the Prince of Life should be taken from their midst,654
it is not necessary to add anything to the
account of the historian.
9. But it may be proper to
mention also those events which exhibited the graciousness of that
all-good Providence which held back their destruction full forty years
after their crime against Christ,—during which time many of the
apostles and disciples, and James himself the first bishop there, the
one who is called the brother of the Lord,655
| 655 See
above, Bk. I. chap. 12, note 14. | were
still alive, and dwelling in Jerusalem itself, remained the surest
bulwark of the place. Divine Providence thus still proved itself
long-suffering toward them in order to see whether by repentance for
what they had done they might obtain pardon and salvation; and in
addition to such long-suffering, Providence also furnished wonderful
signs of the things which were about to happen to them if they did not
repent.
10. Since these matters have
been thought worthy of mention by the historian already cited, we
cannot do better than to recount them for the benefit of the readers of
this work.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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