The Fall of Jerusalem and The Roman Conquest of Judea
PREFACE
One of the most stirring
episodes in the history of the world is furnished by the siege
of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus, its capture, and its
destruction. Not only does it command our attention from the
valour displayed by the besiegers, and the desperate resolution
of the besieged; from the numerous pathetic incidents which
marked the course of the great struggle, and which have been
recorded with so much eloquence by Josephus; but we are
impressed by the fact that the downfall of the Holy City was the
fulfilment of a distinct prophecy, and the last unmistakable
sign that the old order had changed, giving place to the
new—that the Old Dispensation had passed away, to be succeeded
by the religion of Christ.
A story so
striking in itself, and so suggestive, cannot fail to interest
the reader, however plainly told. In the following pages an
attempt has been made to condense it within moderate limits,
while, it is hoped, preserving its most salient points. It is
here preceded, moreover, by a rapid summary of the events which
culminated in this one supreme event, and followed by a brief
narrative of the final subjugation of Judaea. In the main it is
founded upon Josephus; but some illustrative particulars have
been gathered from other sources, and recourse has also been had
to the modern works of Merivale and Milman.
The writer
therefore hopes that in its present form the " old, old story "
will continue to interest the youthful reader; and that in many
a " Sunday Library " his unpretending volume will be allowed to
occupy a " place of honour."
THE CITY
Let the reader
carry back his imagination to a time immediately preceding our
Saviour's death; to the day when, seated on the green slope of
the Mount of Olives, with his apostles gathered around him, the
Author of our Faith looked down upon the great Jewish
metropolis—" the Holy City "—glowing in the gold and purple of
the sunset.
It was evening,
says Dean Milman, and the whole irregular line of the famous
capital, as it soared from the deep valleys encircling it on
three of its sides, might be clearly traced. Behind the western
hills " slow sank the setting sun"—the "significant emblem of
the great Fountain of moral light, to which Jesus and his faith
have been perpetually compared"—his last gleams of glory resting
on the castled height of Mount Zion—on the magnificent palace of
Herod the King—on the square tower, the " Antonia," at the
corner of the Temple—and on that Temple itself, the centre of
the Jewish faith, the home of the Old Revelation, blazing all
over with spikes of gold, which glittered in the sun like shafts
of fire. Below, its colonnades and its massive gates flung their
broad, heavy shadows over the courts, and so produced that
magical contrast of light and shade, which is not only important
in an artistic point of view, but in its singular influence on
the spectator's imagination. Further around mounted roof after
roof in long succession, partly enveloped in the long volumes of
smoke which rose from the evening sacrifice; and against the
distant horizon towered the blue masses of the mountains, as if
to fence in from the outer world a scene so glorious, so sacred,
and so fair.
In truth, a
glorious scene; for Jerusalem at that epoch surpassed all the
other cities of the known world in grandeur. A Latin writer,
some few years later, spoke of it as " longe clarissima urbium
Orientis, non Judasse modo,"—as by far the most splendid, not
simply of the cities of Judsea, but of the Bast. Herod the Great
had enriched it with stately structures, whose magnificence
could not be equalled even in Imperial Rome itself. Its
gymnasiums and its theatres, its pillared porticoes and its
forums, were of the most precious materials and of the noblest
proportions. All the shrines and sanctuaries of Rome could have
been enclosed within the precincts of the Temple, which had been
rebuilt on the holiest site in the Holy City, and enlarged with
an outer court of much greater dimensions. For fifty years, says
Merivale, marble had been piled upon marble in constructing it.
It occupied the whole summit of the hill of Moriah—next to Zion,
the most prominent quarter of the city—and rising upon enormous
substructions from the deep valleys beneath, seemed like one
immense citadel, the Sanctuary of the Jewish nation.
" On the rival
summit of Mount Zion," continues the historian, " the highest
elevation in Jerusalem, was planted the royal residence; no
modest mansion for the most eminent of Roman senators, but a
Palace worthy of the name; an abode befitting an Oriental
potentate, erected not by the contributions of the populace, but
by confiscation of the estates of the great and powerful of the
land. Surrounded with lofty walls and towers, springing, like
the Temple, from the depths of the gorges beneath, containing
vast halls and ample corridors, its courts filled with trees and
grass-plots, with reservoirs, fountains, and running streams, it
was a palace, a villa, and a fortress all in one. Zion and
Moriah faced each other across the deep and narrow trench of the
Tyropceon, and the Temple and the Palace were connected by a
bridge or causeway, across which the sovereign marched above the
heads of his subjects, as the sun passes in the heavens from
cloud to cloud."
It was while
gazing on this magnificent city that out Lord delivered his
solemn prophecy of its approaching downfall. His disciples,
their hearts burning with patriotic fervour, not unnaturally
began to praise its exceeding beauty, and especially to dwell
with fond affection on the superb character of its Temple,—" how
it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts." They saw it as it
was; they had no thought of its future, or what thought they had
was probably connected with its greater glory as, at some later
time, the head-quarters of the New Revelation preached to them
by their Divine Master. But he, piercing the clouds which
obscured the human view, dispelled in a moment all their
visions, and overwhelmed with sorrow their boastful minds. " As
for these things which ye behold," he exclaimed, " the days will
come in the which there shall not be left one stone upon
another, that shall not be thrown down." We can imagine the
consternation with which the disciples listened to this terrible
prediction, and the panic fear which led them to inquire, "
Master, but when shall these things be ? Will no sign be
vouchsafed to us before so awful a destruction falls upon
Jerusalem ? "
The reader may
perhaps wonder why this doom was preordained for the Holy City;
why the capital of Judaea —the city of David and Solomon, of the
kings and the prophets, the common centre of God's chosen
people— should have been marked out for so signal a calamity.
But it was stained with the blood of the just and the true— its
streets had witnessed the sufferings of saints: its inhabitants,
rejoicing in their wealth and prosperity, had turned a deaf ear
to the warnings of the Most High . . .
