The Fall of Jerusalem

So after Nero was gone, Galba seized the government, and before long, when Galba had been killed, Otho took it. Then Vitellius came from Gaul, relying on the armies he commanded, entered the city, killed Otho, and took the sovereignty. Afterward it passed to Vespasian, and although that was done by evil means, it had the good effect of rescuing the state from the hands of the wicked. While Vespasian was besieging Jerusalem, he took the imperial power. As the custom is, the army hailed him as emperor and a diadem was placed on his head. He made his son Titus Caesar and gave him a part of the forces, together with the task of carrying on the siege of Jerusalem. Vespasian set out for Rome and was received with the greatest favor by the senate and people; and when Vitellius killed himself, his hold on the sovereign power was fully secured. [a]

Meanwhile the Jews were closely besieged. Since they were given no chance of either peace or surrender, they were at last dying of hunger, and the streets everywhere began to fill with corpses, because the duty of burying them could no longer be carried out. They even ventured to eat all kinds of the most loathsome things, and did not keep their hands off human bodies, except those that rot had already taken hold of and so made useless as food. So the Romans rushed in on the exhausted defenders of the city. It so happened that the whole multitude from the countryside and from the other towns of Judea had gathered there at that time for the day of the Passover: no doubt because it pleased God that the ungodly race should be handed over to destruction at the very time of year at which they had crucified the Lord. For a time the Pharisees held their ground most boldly in defense of the temple, and at last, with their minds stubbornly set on death, they threw themselves into the flames of their own accord. The number of those who died is said to have been eleven hundred thousand, and a hundred thousand were taken captive and sold.

Titus is said to have called a council and first to have deliberated whether he should destroy the temple, a building of such extraordinary workmanship. Some thought that a sacred building, more distinguished than any other human achievement, ought not to be destroyed, since if it were preserved it would bear witness to Roman moderation, but if it were destroyed it would stand forever as a proof of Roman cruelty. But on the other side, others, and Titus himself, thought that the temple above all ought to be overthrown, so that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might be more completely uprooted. These religions, they said, though opposed to each other, had nevertheless come from the same founders; the Christians had sprung up from among the Jews; and if the root were torn out, the shoot would quickly die. So, by the will of God, everyone’s mind was set on fire, and the temple was destroyed, three hundred and thirty-one years ago.

And this last overthrow of the temple, and this final captivity of the Jews, by which they are seen as exiles from their homeland, scattered over the whole world, give the world daily proof that they have been punished for no other reason than for the ungodly hands they laid on Christ. For though at other times they were often handed over to captivity because of their sins, they never paid the penalty of slavery for longer than seventy years.