Concerning the Destruction of the City of Jerusalem

As the time approached wherein God would at last send forth His wrath against Jerusalem and the Jewish people, even as the Lord Christ Himself had threatened, the entire Jewish kingdom was vexed at every turn. The high priests practiced tyranny against the other priests; there was hatred and jealousy among other officials, and from this mobs and all manner of divisive factions, and much robbery and murder was found in and around Jerusalem. For this reason the Emperor Nero sent Gessius Florus to the Jewish lands. And, compared to him, the Jews were so obstinate in their greed, arrogance and wantonness, the Jews hunted down and killed five thousand of his men. The Jews were also fanatical, because of the will of God, about setting themselves against the Romans and revolting. When the Emperor Nero became aware of this he send Flavius Vespasianus and his son, Titus, to Syria.

Vespatian came to Galilee, which was heavily populated, and laid waste to everything; there being no end of murder, plundering, and fire. Many thousands of Jews were slaughtered, on one occasion as many as fifty thousand valiant men, together with women and children. The soldiers spared neither old nor young, neither the pregnant nor babes in arms. On one occasion Vespatian send six thousand young men as slaves to Achaia, to dig on the Isthmus. Thirty thousand Jewish combatants were sold into bondage. In desperation, five thousand threw themselves off of high cliffs.

At this time there was an admirable man, wise and judicious, a priest among the Jews, and once their leader in war, named Josephus. He had fled with several others to a cave near Jotapata after the first alarm, he had been captured and sent to Vespatian. Since he had prophesied to Vespatian that he would become emperor, he was permitted to live. And this same Josephus has written what we know of this history.

As this was taking place in Galilee, a great crowd of rapacious people, at the instigation of Johannes, one of the great men, came to Jerusalem, so that he might use this rabble to break up the regiment there. There was also much secret murder, robbery and plundering in Jerusalem. It also happened that several high priests were slaughtered, and much blood was spilled, even in the temple. Josephus wrote that twelve thousand of the best and noblest Jews were overtaken in this uproar, and had their houses and possessions given as plunder to the mob and the vulgar and lowly.

So it was, that even before agreeable weather returned, Jerusalem had been plagued with threefold misfortune, namely a war with Rome; with insurrection and all manner of mutiny; and tyranny, which had faction rising against faction, and with the knowledge of the rulers, shedding much blood.

Now, at the beginning of Winter, Vespatian heard that Nero was dead, besieged the city with Roman legions so that he might easily storm and take Jerusalem. Now, since Vespatian was recalled from his legions to become emperor, so that he might go to Egypt, and then to Italy, he gave commend of the Jewish campaign to his son, Titus.

Titus established his encampment hear to Jerusalem, and divided the legions to besiege the city from several sides. Meanwhile, a great host of people from all cities and regions were gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. There were also, as mentioned above, three factions in the city seeking to destroy unity and order. One element was the Temple faction, among these Eleazar, son of Simon, was the leader. The Zealots, an evil, hypocritical lot, hostile to the populace, belonged to this faction. In the lesser faction, Johannes, the source of all misfortune, as mentioned above, held sway. The principal faction was controlled by Simon, with the help of twenty thousand Idumeans, sought to save the city from the wantonness and determined intention of the Zealots. Many would have had these guests somewhere else, but they could not be gotten rid of.

When Titus saw that the city was overcrowded beyond counting, hastily armed and reinforced himself in order to lay siege to the city and, as Christ had foretold, to encircle it with wagons so that hunger might drive them to greater distress and anxiety. When the Jews saw this, they with all their might to hinder and prevent this, and to keep it from happening, but it was completed and they were out of lick; For our Lord God wanted to make an end of them.

The city of Jerusalem was well fortified and had three walls. Therefore the Roman forces approached in full force to storm the city; and after much work, the first and second walls conquered and taken. At this same time, an innumerable multitude of people died of hunger, as Josephus wrote. The best of friends would often come to blows over a small piece of bread; children would often rip food from their parents' mouths. Neither brother nor sister had mercy upon the other. A bushel of corn was more precious than gold. Driven by hunger, some ate manure; some, the cinches of their saddles; some, the leather stripped from their shields; some still had hay in their mouths when their bodies were found; some sought to escape starvation by means of their own filth. So many died of starvation that 115,000 corpses were found in the city and buried. Hegesippus reported that, at one gate alone, several thousand were carried out, and that 600,000 dies because of the siege.

Josephus reported that such a fearful, gruesome event occurred, that future generations would hardly be able to believe it. There was a respected woman, wealthy and well bred, across the Jordan; having fled Jerusalem in fear with some others. Now, since the city had been so grievously beset with hunger, (with what manner of crying and pain, one can only imagine) slaughtered her young child in the cradle, roasted half of it and ate it. When the soldiers came by looking for food, she set the remaining portion before them. The soldiers removed themselves from this gruesome scene, and having mercy upon the miserable woman, revealed this event to the lord of Jerusalem.

The Jews occupied the Castle Antonia, which was a strong fortress; they also occupied the temple compound, from which a stream flowed into the city. It cost more to conquer this fortress than all other the others combined.

Titus, however, fired up his men to storm the fortress by force. When the Romans had taken the castle, the trumpeter sounded a signal and all the Jews who had occupied the castle were slain or thrown from the walls; but some hurriedly escaped to the city in the darkness.

It is said that Titus wanted to spare the temple; but God decreed that it would not be spared. For after men had long walked and worked, and the Jews could not be moved, neither with threats or exhortations, to give up their fortified positions, the soldiers realized that the temple could only be conquered with fire; some of the men it afire. And in that hour the magnificent, exquisite and priceless building, which was celebrated far and wide, burned and was reduced to ashes.

The priests must beg and entreat pitifully to keep themselves alive; but the grace of God and men had run out. Titus, so Hegesippus writes, stated: "Now that their temple and services are gone, the priests are no longer needed." This destruction of the temple occurred on the tenth day of the month of August.

But the Jews that remained, after the destruction of the temple, in the section of the city not conquered by the Romans, thought to surrender themselves and went to Titus. Although they had not waited too long to make peace, and they did petition for peace and freedom because they were starving and in great need, nothing came of it, as it was only a few days since the city had been taken. Meanwhile, uncountable numbers of people, driven by anxiety and the distress of unbearable hunger, ran from the city into the hands of the enemy camp; there they sold themselves cheaply. It was then that the soldiers became aware that a certain Jew was picking gold which he had swallowed our of his own excrement. Thus a rumor began to spread throughout the entire camp. This rumor caused those soldiers who thought about it to believe that they could find gold in all the Jews who had come out of the city to their encampment. More than two thousand Jews were disemboweled in a single night; and many m ore have suffered the same fate had Titus not decreed that the captives should not be killed.

Finally, the entire city of Jerusalem was conquered, neither young nor old were spared. Then a decree went out that all miserable people who were incapable of offering any resistance should be spared. Also, Jerusalem was thoroughly plundered by the foe, razed, burned and left in ruin. Some buildings were left standing, so that a few Roman soldiers might have been able to stand watch there. Only a few devastated buildings and towers were left standing to indicate that a city had once been there.

Thus the city of Jerusalem was destroyed and razed on the eighth day of September, in the fifth month of the siege.

From the host of captives Titus sent seventeen thousand healthy, young and strong men to Alexandria as quarry slaves. Many Jews were sold as cheaply as animals. Two thousand were distributed across the entire roman empire to become players in the spectacles, and to be torn apart by wild beasts in the arenas.

The total number of captives who remained alive came to ninety-seven thousand; however, at the beginning of the siege, ten times one hundred thousand were in the city, the majority of them strangers and not residents, although all were of Jewish descent and blood.

Thus Jerusalem, the most celebrated city in all of the East, came to a miserable and lamentable end, as had been prophesied, in the seventieth year after the birth of Christ our Lord.

Return to Library top page.

Return to Home page.