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[569]
So every one of the other commanders administered the affairs of
his portion with that alacrity and prudence they were masters of; but as
to Josephus, when he came into Galilee, his first care was to gain the
good-will of the people of that country, as sensible that he should thereby
have in general good success, although he should fail in other points.
And being conscious to himself that if he communicated part of his power
to the great men, he should make them his fast friends; and that he should
gain the same favor from the multitude, if he executed his commands by
persons of their own country, and with whom they were well acquainted;
he chose out seventy of the most prudent men, and those elders in age,
and appointed them to be rulers of all Galilee, as he chose seven judges
in every city to hear the lesser quarrels; for as to the greater causes,
and those wherein life and death were concerned, he enjoined they should
be brought to him and the seventy 1
elders.
1 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.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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