CHAPTER XXVI

THE JEWS WERE AFFLICTED WITH INNUMERABLE EVILS, AND FINALLY COMMENCED A WAR WITH THE ROMANS

JOSEPHUS in his account of the great distresses that seized the Jewish nation, relates also, in his writings, that beside many others, vast numbers also of those that were of the first rank among the Jews, were scourged with rods, and nailed upon the cross at Jerusalem, by Florus. For he, happened to be procurator of Judea at the commencement of the war, in the twelfth year of Nero’s reign. “Then,” says he, “throughout all Syria a tremendous commotion seized upon the inhabitants, in consequence of the revolt of the Jews. Every where did the inhabitants of the cities destroy the Jews without mercy. So that you could see the cities filled with unburied corpses, and the dead bodies of the aged mixed with those of children, and women not even having the necessary covering of their bodies. The whole province, indeed, was filled with indescribable distresses. But greater still than the crimes already endured, was the anticipation of those that threatened.” Such is the statement of Josephus, and such was the condition of the Jews at this time.