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[281]
And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was
round about the holy house, burnt all those places, as also the remains
of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one on the east side,
and the other on the south; both which, however, they burnt afterward.
They also burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity
of money, and an immense number of garments, and other precious goods there
reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the entire
riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people had there
built themselves chambers [to contain such furniture]. The soldiers also
came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer [court of the]
temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed multitude of
the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before Caesar had determined
any thing about these people, or given the commanders any orders relating
to them, the soldiers were in such a rage, that they set that cloister
on fire; by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed
by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burnt in the cloisters
themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with his life. A false prophet
1 was
the occasion of these people's destruction, who had made a public proclamation
in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple,
and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance.
Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants
to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait
for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting,
and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now
a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when
such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those
miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes
of such his deliverance.
1 Reland here takes notice, that these Jews, who had despised the true Prophet, were deservedly abused and deluded by these false ones.
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