[290]
Now there was one whose name was Ananias (a wicked man he was, and
very mischievous); he proposed that a general religious fast 1
should be appointed the next day for all the people, and gave order that
at the same hour they should come to the same place, without any weapons,
to make it manifest before God, that while they obtained his assistance,
they thought all these weapons useless. This he said, not out of piety,
but that they might catch me and my friends unarmed. Now, I was hereupon
forced to comply, lest I should appear to despise a proposal that tended
to piety. As soon, therefore, as we were gone home, Jonathan and his colleagues
wrote to John to come to them in the morning, and desiring him to come
with as many soldiers as he possibly could, for that they should then be
able easily to get me into their hands, and to do all they desired to do.
When John had received this letter, he resolved to comply with it. As for
myself, on the next day, I ordered two of the guards of my body, whom I
esteemed the most courageous and most faithful, to hide daggers under their
garments, and to go along with me, that we might defend ourselves, if any
attack should be made upon us by our enemies. I also myself took my breastplate,
and girded on my sword, so that it might be, as far as it was possible,
concealed, and came into the Proseucha.
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