The Wars of The Jews by Flavius Josephus (essential reading TXT) 📕

(21) Here we have examples of native Jews who were of the equestrian order among the Romans, and so ought never to have been whipped or crucified, according to the Roman laws. See almost the like case in St. Paul himself, Acts 22:25-29.

(22) This vow which Bernice (here and elsewhere called queen, not only as daughter and sister to two kings, Agrippa the Great, and Agrippa junior, but the widow of Herod king of Chalcis) came now to accomplish at Jerusalem was not that of a Nazarite, but such a one as religious Jews used to make, in hopes of any deliverance from a disease, or other danger, as Josephus here intimates.

However, these thirty days’ abode at Jerusalem, for fasting and preparation against the oblation of a proper sacrifice, seems to be too long, unless it were wholly voluntary in this great lady.

It is not required in the law of Moses relating to Nazarites, Numbers 6., and is very different from St. Paul’s time for such preparation, which was but one day, Acts 21:26. So we want already the continuation of the Antiquities to afford us light here, as they have hitherto done on so many occasions elsewhere.

Perhaps in this age the traditions of the Pharisees had obliged the Jews to this degree of rigor, not only as to these thirty days’ preparation, but as to the going barefoot all that time, which here Bernice submitted to also. For we know that as God’s and our Savior’s yoke is usually easy, and his burden comparatively light, in such positive injunctions, Matthew 11:30, so did the scribes and Pharisees sometimes “bind upon men heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne,” even when they themselves “would not touch them with one of their fingers,” Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46. However, Noldius well observes, De Herod. No. 404, 414, that Juvenal, in his sixth satire, alludes to this remarkable penance or submission of this Bernice to Jewish discipline, and jests upon her for it; as do Tacitus, Dio, Suetonius, and Sextus Aurelius mention her as one well known at Rome.—Ibid.

(23) I take this Bezetha to be that small hill adjoining to the north side of the temple, whereon was the hospital with five porticoes or cloisters, and beneath which was the sheep pool of Bethesda; into which an angel or messenger, at a certain season, descended, and where he or they who were the “first put into the pool” were cured, John 5:1 etc. This situation of Bezetha, in Josephus, on the north side of the temple, and not far off the tower Antonia, exactly agrees to the place of the same pool at this day; only the remaining cloisters are but three. See Maundrel, p. 106. The entire buildings seem to have been called the New City, and this part, where was the hospital, peculiarly Bezetha or Bethesda. See ch. 19. sect. 4.

(24) In this speech of king Agrippa we have an authentic account of the extent and strength of the Roman empire when the Jewish war began. And this speech with other circumstances in Josephus, demonstrate how wise and how great a person Agrippa was, and why Josephus elsewhere calls him a most wonderful or admirable man, Contr. Ap. I. 9. He is the same Agrippa who said to Paul,” Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,” Acts 26;28; and of whom St. Paul said, “He was expert in all the customs and questions of the Jews,” yet. 3. See another intimation of the limits of the same Roman empire, Of the War, B. III. ch. 5. sect. 7. But what seems to me very remarkable here is this, that when Josephus, in imitation of the Greeks and Romans, for whose use he wrote his Antiquities, did himself frequently he into their they appear, by the politeness of their composition, and their flights of oratory, to be not the real speeches of the persons concerned, who usually were no orators, but of his own elegant composure, the speech before us is of another nature, full of undeniable facts, and composed in a plain and unartful, but moving way; so it appears to be king Agrippa’s own speech, and to have been given Josephus by Agrippa himself, with whom Josephus had the greatest friendship. Nor may we omit Agrippa’s constant doctrine here, that this vast Roman empire was raised and supported by Divine Providence, and that therefore it was in vain for the Jews, or any others, to think of destroying it. Nor may we neglect to take notice of Agrippa’s solemn appeal to the angels here used; the like appeals to which we have in St. Paul, 1

Timothy 5:22, and by the apostles in general, in the form of the ordination of bishops, Constitut. Apost. VIII. 4.

(25) Julius Caesar had decreed that the Jews of Jerusalem should pay an annual tribute to the Romans, excepting the city Joppa, and for the sabbatical year; as Spanheim observes from the Antiq.

B. XIV. ch. 10. sect. 6.

(26) Of this Sohemus we have mention made by Tacitus. We also learn from Dio that his father was king of the Arabians of Iturea, [which Iturea is mentioned by St. Luke, ch. 3:1.] both whose testimonies are quoted here by Dr. Hudson. See Noldius, No.

371.

(27) Spanheim notes on the place, that this later Antiochus, who was called Epiphaues, is mentioned by Dio, LIX. p. 645, and that he is mentioned by Josephus elsewhere twice also, B.V. ch. 11.

sect. 3; and Antiq. B. XIX. ch. 8. sect. I.

(28) Here we have an eminent example of that Jewish language, which Dr. Wail truly observes, we several times find used in the sacred writings; I mean, where the words “all” or” whole multitude,“etc. are used for much the greatest part only; but not so as to include every person, without exception; for when Josephus had said that “the whole multitude” [all the males] of Lydda were gone to the feast of tabernacles, he immediately adds, that, however, no fewer than fifty of them appeared, and were slain by the Romans. Other examples somewhat like this I have observed elsewhere in Josephus, but, as I think, none so remarkable as this. See Wall’s Critical Observations on the Old Testament, p. 49, 50.

(29) We have also, in this and the next section, two eminent facts to be observed, viz. the first example, that I remember, in Josephus, of the onset of the Jews’ enemies upon their country when their males were gone up to Jerusalem to one of their three sacred festivals; which, during the theocracy, God had promised to preserve them from, Exodus 34:24. The second fact is this, the breach of the sabbath by the seditions Jews in an offensive fight, contrary to the universal doctrine and practice of their nation in these ages, and even contrary to what they themselves afterward practiced in the rest of this war. See the note on Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 2. sect. 4.

(30) There may another very important, and very providential, reason be here assigned for this strange and foolish retreat of Cestius; which, if Josephus had been now a Christian, he might probably have taken notice of also; and that is, the affording the Jewish Christians in the city an opportunity of calling to mind the prediction and caution given them by Christ about thirty-three years and a half before, that “when they should see the abomination of desolation” [the idolatrous Roman armies, with the images of their idols in their ensigns, ready to lay Jerusalem desolate] “stand where it ought not;” or, “in the holy place;” or, “when they should see Jerusalem any one instance of a more unpolitic, but more providential, compassed with armies;”

they should then “flee to the mound conduct than this retreat of Cestius visible during this whole rains.” By complying with which those Jewish Christians fled I siege of Jerusalem; which yet was providentially such a “great to the mountains of Perea, and escaped this destruction. See tribulation, as had not been from the beginning of the world to that time; no, Lit. Accompl. of Proph. p. 69, 70. Nor was there, perhaps, nor ever should be.”—Ibid. p. 70, 71.

(31) From this name of Joseph the son of Gorion, or Gorion the son of Joseph, as B. IV. ch. 3. sect. 9, one of the governors of Jerusalem, who was slain at the beginning of the tumults by the zealots, B. IV. ch. 6. sect. 1, the much later Jewish author of a history of that nation takes his title, and yet personates our true Josephus, the son of Matthias; but the cheat is too gross to be put upon the learned world.

(32) We may observe here, that the Idumeans, as having been proselytes of justice since the days of John Hyrcanus, during about one hundred and ninety-five years, were now esteemed as part of the Jewish nation, and these provided of a Jewish commander accordingly. See the note upon Antiq. B. XIII.. ch. 9.

sect. 1.

(33) We see here, and in Josephus’s account of his own life, sect. 14, how exactly he imitated his legislator Moses, or perhaps only obeyed what he took to be his perpetual law, in appointing seven lesser judges, for smaller causes, in particular cities, and perhaps for the first hearing of greater causes, with the liberty of an appeal to seventy-one supreme judges, especially in those causes where life and death were concerned; as Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 14; and of his Life, sect. 14. See also Of the War, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4. Moreover, we find, sect.

7, that he imitated Moses, as well as the Romans, in the number and distribution of the subaltern officers of his army, as Exodus 18:25; Deuteronomy 1:15; and in his charge against the offenses common among soldiers, as Denteronomy 13:9; in all which he showed his great wisdom and piety, and skillful conduct in martial affairs. Yet may we discern in his very high character of Artanus the high priest, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 2, who seems to have been the same who condemned St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, to be stoned, under Albinus the procurator, that when he wrote these books of the War, he was not so much as an Ebionite Christian; otherwise he would not have failed, according to his usual custom, to have reckoned this his barbarous murder as a just punishment upon him for that his cruelty to the chief, or rather only Christian bishop of the circumcision. Nor, had he been then a Christian, could he immediately have spoken so movingly of the causes of the destruction of Jerusalem, without one word of either the condemnation of James, or crucifixion of Christ, as he did when he was become a Christian afterward.

(34) I should think that an army of sixty thousand footmen should require many more than two hundred and fifty horsemen; and we find Josephus had more horsemen under his command than two hundred and fifty in his future history. I suppose the number of the thousands is dropped in our present copies.

(35) I cannot but think this stratagem of Josephus, which is related both here and in his Life, sect. 32, 33, to be one of the finest that ever was invented and executed by any warrior whatsoever.

BOOK III.