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[377]
And now the commanders joined in their approbation of what Vespasian
had said, and it was soon discovered how wise an opinion he had given.
And indeed many there were of the Jews that deserted every day, and fled
away from the zealots, although their flight was very difficult, since
they had guarded every passage out of the city, and slew every one that
was caught at them, as taking it for granted they were going over to the
Romans; yet did he who gave them money get clear off, while he only that
gave them none was voted a traitor. So the upshot was this, that the rich
purchased their flight by money, while none but the poor were slain. Along
all the roads also vast numbers of dead bodies lay in heaps, and even many
of those that were so zealous in deserting at length chose rather to perish
within the city; for the hopes of burial made death in their own city appear
of the two less terrible to them. But these zealots came at last to that
degree of barbarity, as not to bestow a burial either on those slain in
the city, or on those that lay along the roads; but as if they had made
an agreement to cancel both the laws of their country and the laws of nature,
and, at the same time that they defiled men with their wicked actions,
they would pollute the Divinity itself also, they left the dead bodies
to putrefy under the sun; and the same punishment was allotted to such
as buried any as to those that deserted, which was no other than death;
while he that granted the favor of a grave to another would presently stand
in need of a grave himself. To say all in a word, no other gentle passion
was so entirely lost among them as mercy; for what were the greatest objects
of pity did most of all irritate these wretches, and they transferred their
rage from the living to those that had been slain, and from the dead to
the living. Nay, the terror was so very great, that he who survived called
them that were first dead happy, as being at rest already; as did those
that were under torture in the prisons, declare, that, upon this comparison,
those that lay unburied were the happiest. These men, therefore, trampled
upon all the laws of men, and laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles
of the prophets, they ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet did
these prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue,
and [punishments of] vice, which when these zealots violated, they occasioned
the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country;
for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should
then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition
should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of
God. Now while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions,
they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment.
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