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[288]
Now the opinion of the Idumeans and of the citizens was one and the
same. The Idumeans thought that God was angry at their taking arms, and
that they would not escape punishment for their making war upon their metropolis.
Ananus and his party thought that they had conquered without fighting,
and that God acted as a general for them; but truly they proved both ill
conjectures at what was to come, and made those events to be ominous to
their enemies, while they were themselves to undergo the ill effects of
them; for the Idumeans fenced one another by uniting their bodies into
one band, and thereby kept themselves warm, and connecting their shields
over their heads, were not so much hurt by the rain. But the zealots were
more deeply concerned for the danger these men were in than they were for
themselves, and got together, and looked about them to see whether they
could devise any means of assisting them. The hotter sort of them thought
it best to force their guards with their arms, and after that to fall into
the midst of the city, and publicly open the gates to those that came to
their assistance; as supposing the guards would be in disorder, and give
way at such an unexpected attempt of theirs, especially as the greater
part of them were unarmed and unskilled in the affairs of war; and that
besides the multitude of the citizens would not be easily gathered together,
but confined to their houses by the storm: and that if there were any hazard
in their undertaking, it became them to suffer any thing whatsoever themselves,
rather than to overlook so great a multitude as were miserably perishing
on their account. But the more prudent part of them disapproved of this
forcible method, because they saw not only the guards about them very numerous,
but the walls of the city itself carefully watched, by reason of the Idumeans.
They also supposed that Ananus would be every where, and visit the guards
every hour; which indeed was done upon other nights, but was omitted that
night, not by reason of any slothfulness of Ananus, but by the overbearing
appointment of fate, that so both he might himself perish, and the multitude
of the guards might perish with him; for truly, as the night was far gone,
and the storm very terrible, Ananus gave the guards in the cloisters leave
to go to sleep; while it came into the heads of the zealots to make use
of the saws belonging to the temple, and to cut the bars of the gates to
pieces. The noise of the wind, and that not inferior sound of the thunder,
did here also conspire with their designs, that the noise of the saws was
not heard by the others.
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