The Plot from Jerusalem

Now there was a certain Joseph, the son of a woman physician, who stirred up a great many brazen young men to join him. He turned on the leading men of Gamala and urged them to revolt from the king and take up arms, assuring them that by this means they would win back their liberty. Some they forced into the cause, and those who would not go along with their plans they killed. They also killed Chares, and with him Jesus, one of his relatives, and a sister of Justus of Tiberias, as I have already said. The people of Gamala also wrote to me, asking me to send them a force of armed men and workmen to raise walls for their city, and I refused neither request. [a]

The region of Gaulanitis also revolted from the king, as far as the village of Solyma. I built walls around Seleucia and Sogane, villages that were very strong by nature, and in the same way I walled several villages of Upper Galilee, though they were very rocky in themselves; their names are Jamnia, Meroth and Achabare. In Lower Galilee I fortified the cities of Tarichaeae, Tiberias and Sepphoris, and the villages: the cave of Arbela, Bersobe, Selame, Jotapata, Capharecho, Sigo, Japha and Mount Tabor. In these places I also stored up a great quantity of grain, and arms as well, for their security afterward.

But the hatred that John son of Levi bore me now grew more violent, since he could not bear my success. He resolved to get me out of the way by any means at all. He built walls for Gischala, his native town, and then sent his brother Simon and Jonathan son of Sisenna, with about a hundred armed men, to Jerusalem, to Simon son of Gamaliel. They were to urge him to persuade the community of Jerusalem to take the command of Galilee away from me and vote that authority to John. This Simon was a native of Jerusalem, of a very distinguished family, and of the party of the Pharisees, who are reputed to surpass the others in their exact knowledge of their ancestral laws. He was a man full of understanding and good judgment, able by his own wisdom to set right affairs that had gone badly. He was also an old friend and close companion of John, but at that time he was at odds with me. So, having received this request, he tried to persuade the high priests Ananus and Jesus son of Gamala, and some others of their party, to cut me down while I was still growing, and not to stand by while I rose to the very height of glory. He told them it would be to their advantage if I were removed from Galilee, and he urged Ananus and his friends not to delay, for fear that I might learn of it first and come against the city with a large army. That was Simon’s advice. But Ananus the high priest showed them that the thing would not be easy. Many of the high priests and leaders of the people, he said, bore witness that I was a good general; and to bring an accusation against a man of whom they could say nothing just was the work of base men. [c]

When Simon heard this from Ananus, he asked them to keep quiet and not let the matter spread among many people, for he would see to it himself, he said, that I was removed from Galilee very soon. Then he called John’s brother and instructed him to send gifts to Ananus and his friends; perhaps in this way, he said, they could be persuaded to change their minds. And in the end Simon accomplished what he had set out to do. Ananus and those with him were corrupted by the money and agreed to drive me out of Galilee, without any of the other citizens knowing of it. They decided to send men who differed in their birth but were alike in their learning. Two of them, Jonathan and Ananias, were from the common people and Pharisees by party; the third, Jozar, was of priestly family and also a Pharisee; and Simon, from a high-priestly family, was the youngest of them. Their orders were these: when they reached the crowds of Galileans, they were to ask them why they loved me. If the Galileans said it was because I came from Jerusalem, they were to answer that all four of them came from there too. If they said it was because I was well versed in the laws, they were to reply that they themselves were not ignorant of their ancestral customs either. And if they said they loved me because I was a priest, they were to answer that two of them were priests as well. [e]

Having given Jonathan and his companions these instructions, they gave them forty thousand pieces of silver out of the public funds. And when they heard that a certain Galilean named Jesus was then staying in Jerusalem with a company of six hundred armed men around him, they sent for him, gave him three months’ pay, and ordered him to follow Jonathan and his companions and obey them. They also gave money to three hundred citizens of Jerusalem for the upkeep of the whole party, and ordered them too to follow the envoys. When these had agreed and were ready for the march, Jonathan and his companions set out with them, taking along John’s brother and a hundred armed men. The orders they had received from those who sent them were these: if I laid down my arms willingly, they were to send me alive to the city of Jerusalem; but if I resisted, they were to kill me and fear nothing, since it was their command. They had also written to John to get ready for war against me, and they ordered the people of Sepphoris and Gabara and Tiberias to send reinforcements to John. [g]

My father wrote me an account of all this; Jesus son of Gamala, a friend and companion of mine who had been present in that very council, had told him of it. I was deeply grieved to learn that my fellow citizens had proved so ungrateful toward me as to order out of envy that I be killed, and grieved too that my father in his letter begged me earnestly to come to him, for he longed, he said, to see his son before he died. I told my friends these things, and that in three days I would leave their country and go home. All who heard it were filled with sorrow, and with tears they begged me not to abandon them to destruction, for so they thought they would be if they were deprived of my command. But when I did not give in to their pleas and was concerned for my own safety, the Galileans were afraid that once I was gone they would be easy prey for the robbers, and they sent messengers throughout all Galilee to make known my decision to leave. As soon as they heard it, people gathered in great numbers from everywhere, with their wives and children. They did this, it seems to me, not so much out of longing for me as out of fear for themselves, for as long as I stayed with them they supposed they would suffer no harm. So they all came into the great plain where I was living; its name is Asochis.

That very night I saw a wonderful dream. I had gone to bed grieved and troubled by what had been written to me, and it seemed to me that someone stood beside me and said, “Stop grieving in your soul, my friend, and put away all fear. What grieves you now will make you very great and in every way most fortunate. You will succeed not only in this but in many other things as well. Do not lose heart. Remember that you must also fight against the Romans.” When I had seen this dream, I got up, eager to go down to the plain. At the sight of me the whole crowd of Galileans, among whom were women and children, threw themselves on their faces and with tears begged me not to abandon them to their enemies, nor to go away and leave their country to be trampled by their foes. When their pleas did not move me, they bound me with oaths to stay among them, and they heaped abuse on the people of Jerusalem for not letting their country live in peace. [h]

When I heard this and saw the dejection of the people, I was moved to pity, and I thought it right to face even open dangers for the sake of so great a multitude. So I agreed to stay. I ordered five thousand of them to come to me armed and bringing their own provisions, and sent the rest away to their homes. When the five thousand had arrived, I took them, together with the three thousand soldiers I already had with me and eighty horsemen, and marched to the village of Chabolo, on the border of Ptolemais. There I kept my forces together, on the pretext of preparing for war with Placidus. Placidus had come with two cohorts of infantry and one squadron of cavalry, sent by Cestius Gallus to burn the villages of Galilee that lay near Ptolemais. While he was throwing up a palisade in front of the city of Ptolemais, I pitched my own camp about seven and a half miles from the village. We often led out our forces as if for battle, but did nothing more than skirmish at a distance; for the more Placidus saw that I was eager for a battle, the more he was alarmed and held back. Yet he did not move away from Ptolemais. [j]