On the Destruction of Jerusalem 5.53

So, the situation being desperate, Eleazar, the author of the disturbances, seeing that no protection remained, began a speech which we have not passed over, but have given in rhetorical fashion as a kind of lamentable epilogue to close the work. “What are we to do, children of Abraham, royal race of men, invincible in the strength of priestly grace? For courage is seen not from the outcome of victory, which is often uncertain, but from constancy of purpose. Hence one may plainly gather that to subdue the enemy is a matter of fortune, not to change one's mind is a matter of courage. Rightly, then, would I call you invincible, if no fear of death has yet conquered you. But not so did father Abraham teach you: what he taught in his only son was not his death but the immortality to come if he were sacrificed for religion. Why should I proclaim Josiah, than whom no one was a better interpreter of religion, a despiser of death, a champion of liberty? For he, set on that royal throne where he might put off death, nevertheless, because he saw that the captivity of the people of Israel would come for their grave sins, involved himself in another's war and fled from life. Necho cried out: ‘I have not been sent against you, but against the king of Israel’; yet he did not withdraw until he felt the deadly stroke of an arrow. Laid low by this wound, he is a proof to us whether merit or chance weighs more in war. Josiah, the restorer of the ancient rites, was conquered; Necho, the most wicked of all, conquered; but the one, conquered, is now with the angels; the other, victor, is in torments. For who does not know that reward is not laid up for men in this life, but after the completion of this contest? For here we run, so that there we may reach the palm: here is the contest, there the prize. So there is no favor here in a long age. Indeed Abel was killed early, Cain survived: so death belonged to innocence, and life to misery. From that time we have succeeded to the same lot, that to live has become most wretched and to die blessed. For what is life but a prison of the soul, which is shut within this workhouse and clings to the fellowship of the flesh? By its weaknesses it is shaken, by labor afflicted, by anger worn down, kindled by desires, harassed by fury; nor can it easily raise itself up, bound to the ground, clotted with dust, held fast by a chain, entangled in sinews. Yet its power is no small one, that it gives life to the body and pours the vigor of sense into insensible matter; and this each person's soul confers on him invisibly, and governs the whole man, and carries him beyond mortal frailty, so that he gains knowledge of heavenly secrets and turns his mind to the future. So, in the image and likeness of its Prince, it is not seen, though it is placed in the body; it is not discerned by bodily eyes; neither its entrance nor its exit is caught by any sight, representing a kind of likeness of the divine gift. When it enters, it pours in life; when it departs from the body, it brings about death. Where the soul is, there is life; where it is lacking, there is death. Whatever it visits it rouses; whatever it leaves at once falls apart and immediately withers: by the inpouring of the soul the dead rises again; by its departure the living is left lifeless. Who then would doubt that a working of immortality seems to be in that which has the power to turn death away? Yet it is a burden to itself, though it overflows in usefulness to others; and what it gives to the body it takes from itself: for it is weighed down and as it were bent toward the earth with this mortal body. So the life of the body is the death of the soul, and again the death of the body seems the freedom of the soul: for while we are in this body, our soul serves, and with a wretched servitude, by which it is exiled from paradise and is a pilgrim away from its Prince. But when it has been released from the chains of this flesh, it flies back to that pure and bright and higher place, and is present with the Lord its God, and enjoys the dwellings of the saints and rejoices in the fellowship of the blessed: because it no longer has any partnership with what is dead and has left the companionship of corpses, heavenly grace breathes upon it, and no disturbance of human cares troubles it. Sleep is a proof to us of how great a grace the soul regains through the death of the body: for when the body is asleep, and its desires and all its movements as it were dead, we often converse with the saints; we receive back those we have lost, so that the absent are present to us, the dead live, and all grief rests. Let us draw near and talk with God; let us know the future. Let there be rest for the afflicted, freedom for slaves. What, then, we dream when asleep, this we obtain when dead; and what in sleep is an image, in death is the experience of truth and the grace of freedom. Hence it is the custom of some nations to attend the births of men with weeping and their deaths with rejoicing, because they grieve that the former are born to misery and congratulate the latter on having returned to blessedness; they groan that the souls of the former have come into servitude and rejoice that those of the latter have been sent back to freedom. The wise men of the Indians too are said, when they have taken on the desire to die, to declare that they wish to depart, and that no one should hinder them. Then, when the preparation for death has gone forward, they leap joyfully onto the burning pyre and bid farewell to those standing by; the women grieve as if bereft of support, or because little children are left behind; others bless them and do not begrudge them that they hasten to better inhabitants, to brighter places and purer company. What else, then, can I say of you, when even for barbarian nations death is the means of pursuing freedom? I have long known you very well, and ready to answer to the institutions of our fathers, in that you think one must serve neither the Romans nor any nation, but God alone, who alone is the just and true Lord of all. The day has come which demands that we prove our will by deeds, and not dishonor the renown of our ancient nature, so that, born in freedom, you should subject yourselves to the domination of men; especially since you could formerly have served even without danger, but now it is necessary to undergo harsh punishments together with servitude. If we offer ourselves to serve the rule of the Romans, whom we first of all provoked in war and last of all still hold off in arms, shall we, who did not give our hands to the emperor when he offered peace, give them to Silva when he threatens bitterness? O wretched men, for what hope of this life have we kept ourselves? Grant that the enemy pardons: what good will it do, when God's displeasure is plain? The fires the enemy turned against us; the wind changed course, the flames were turned back, so that our defenses were burned. Who will be able to live with God against him? No place of pardon remains, but a manifest command of voluntary death. For why did night come between, except that the enemy should not forestall us, nor, the protection of the wall having been burned, break in at once; but that time might be kept for us to carry out our mutual death, and that we might be allowed to die with our children and kin, so that we should not see breathless old men and old women dragged off by the Romans, our dearest wives seized for the victor's lust? Let us die together with our homeland, so that we may not survive the reproach of such disgrace. Where then shall we flee from the face of God, or where shall we go when the Lord of heaven is hostile to us? If the mountains fall upon us and hide us in hollow caves, how could we still escape the indignation of so great a power? For where shall we go where God is not, since he is everywhere? Are the examples small by which we are taught that he who formerly protected us has long been hostile to our nation because of our sins? Who would doubt it, when he sees that our hands have been turned against ourselves, and that domestic sedition has destroyed more than war? I will not grant the Romans that they conquered, nor do they claim it themselves, who know that almost all of us perished by our own arms rather than by others'. What Roman arms did the Jews living in Caesarea see? On the sabbath day, when they were at rest, amid the solemn worship of our rites, the multitude of the Gentiles of Caesarea, in a sudden attack, inflamed by a fury sent from above, destroyed twenty thousand and put all to flight, so as to empty the whole city of them. Did not madness fill the whole of Syria, so that Jews and Gentiles living in the same cities, and formerly bound to one another by the bond of common residence, afterward clashed with one another in arms, so that a ford for future victory was laid down for the Romans? For what shall I say of Scythopolis, where the Jews had first contended to forestall the Gentile people, lest they should plot anything against our own after the example of the other cities? So those whom it would have been right to join forces against foreigners and fight it out in war, the Jews on the contrary decided this against themselves, that part of them should fight against their kinsmen and neighbors; then they themselves, as the price of their labor and the blood they had spent, were killed by the Gentiles, because they had themselves prevented this from being done to the Gentiles. The people of Damascus, with no cause existing, laid low eight thousand Jews; the people of Ascalon two thousand five hundred; in the city named Ptolemais two thousand were slain. At Alexandria there was an old hatred between the Jews and the Gentile peoples, from the time Alexander the Great used the zeal of the Jews to subdue the Egyptians; hence, when the city was founded, privileges were assigned equally to Jews and Egyptians, and separate dwellings, so that their worship should not be mixed, since the Jews wished to keep their purifications without any contamination. From this there were frequent conflicts between them; quarrels arose; judgment was sought. Yet it is clear that nothing of so great a king's favors was violated, but that afterward, when a tumult arose among the Gentiles, and some of the Jews were killed and others held for punishment, the people of the Jews, moved by the injury, rose up against the authors of the injury; and when they wished more stubbornly to avenge themselves on the citizens, the Roman army was brought in, which cut down sixty thousand Jews within the city. But why do I linger on lighter things, when we must lament the destruction of the whole world in the ruin of one city? Where is that greatest city Jerusalem? Where is the beautiful Zion, where the wonderful temple, where that second tabernacle, the sanctuary of holiness, into which once a year the chief priest alone used to enter, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sin of the people? It has been profaned by the Gentiles; those who destroyed it live in the remains of the city. Where are you, I say, city filled with peoples, venerable to kings, acceptable to God, seat of grace? Your pavements were of marble, your walls shining with marble, your roofs gleamed with precious marble, your gates flashing with gold, others shining with silver. All are slain, both those who dwelt in you continually and those who came to you from all parts of the world, so that there is no doubt that the whole world perished in you. Everything is laid bare, burned from the roofs, torn down from the foundations: your habitation has become desolate, and there is no one to dwell in your tents. And does anyone still wish to live, and not regret having lived? Hard are the eyes that can see these things; cruel the minds that can wish it, so that something stands proud amid such griefs: not because disasters have failed, but because there is now no rest. For where shall we turn our eyes, or what shall we delight to see? The whole city is a tomb of the dead; only ashes meet the onlookers; the streets are empty of the living and full of corpses. Wretched old men, their white hair ashen and their clothing torn, sit upon the remains of the dead, covering bare bones, to protect them from birds and beasts. A few women unharmed, whom the impious soldier has kept for shame, not for life. Who, seeing these things and thinking of a postponement of living, would dare to lift his eyes to heaven? Who is so forgetful of his homeland, so hostile to his own, so estranged from piety, so devoid of sweetness, whose spirit is so soft and half a man's? Who so timid as not to be ashamed to be kept alive for this? Would that we had died long ago, or, if life remained, that the light of our eyes had perished, before we saw the holy city destroyed by the hands of enemies, and the temple consecrated to God by our forefathers so impiously burned with flames, or saw the priests lying slain in the temple! Let us then make amends for having survived these evils, so that we may seem to have put off death not from love of life but from the aim of virtue. The enemy has surrounded the whole fortification; nothing is left except either ourselves or our wives. Already they are putting our sons up for auction among themselves and contending with one another over who shall carry off whose wife: whether they are to be distributed by the merits of rank or the orders of persons, or the wretched women made to submit to lots. For us too prodigies of punishment are being prepared, the most exquisite tortures; not only burning flames or various deaths by the stroke of the victor's axe (a harsh punishment indeed, after chains, after prison, after the yoke, but more bearable to men if it is free of mockery), but also limbs torn from the living, and above all hands cut off. And not without reason, because they failed their duty when they could have helped themselves. We must undergo also the bites of beasts for the spectacle of the victors, which is already celebrated in the various arenas of the cities: it ought to be shameful to us even as an example, or pitiable as a mockery, that men be kept either for beasts or to fight against their brothers. Why then do we delay? It is no longer open to us to escape what we fear. If we do not wish to kill our children out of mercy, or ourselves out of courage, it will be necessary for us to be killed by brother or kin through a crime: affection urges the one, the victors demand the other. If we will not carry out the ministry of love, we shall be forced to undergo the mockery of a parricidal procession. Let us undertake, then, what will benefit our children and wives: if we are the weaker, let us take them away from the tortures to come; if we are the stronger, let us conquer the compassion of parents and the affections of kinship, and in this let us conquer the enemy, when we take away his plunder. Courage demands this; shame urges it. Not to fear death is courage. For we are all born to death, and we beget children to death; their death is assigned to nature, their captivity counted a disgrace. Those, then, whom we could not snatch from danger, let us snatch from mockery. Have pity, then, fathers, on your children, husbands on your wives; let us all have pity on the little ones, which is our chief concern, while we have the power to show pity; let us show pity from what is ours, so that we may not seem to have been born and kept for disgrace. For who could endure that fathers be killed before the faces of their sons, sons in the sight of their parents? That weary old men be dragged by their white hair, either to death or, what is worse, to slavery; that women with loosened hair be led in the sight of their husbands and violently dragged to shame? To hear the voice of a little child wailing and calling his father to help him in his plea, when you would hear it in vain, your hands bound, and your neck put under the yoke of captivity? So, while our hands are still free, while we grasp the sword, let us undertake a work which the victorious enemy will wonder at. Let our wives receive the last gift of conjugal love as a dowry inheritance. We return these keys to them with a new testimony of blood, so that they may be the heirs of our freedom. They themselves urge it; certainly they deserve it, those who wish it; those who shrink must be compelled; nor will the little ones fear the sword, which by their age they do not know, which they ought to receive from loving parents, so that they may truly become free. For us too, what will be more excellent? If we strip the fortress first, let us nevertheless keep the grain, lest they think we were driven by hunger rather than invited by zeal for virtue to seize the ministry of mutual death. Let us give them food full of blood; and if the flames burn it up, the very smell of the burned grain will be proof to the besiegers that the besieged perished though they had abundance. After this let each man offer himself to the wound, and, about to die, cover his homeland and die in a last embrace. Let the homeland, which was the dwelling of dignity, become for us the tomb of freedom: this mound befits our deaths, that we may be covered by the enclosure of virtue.” Kindled by such a speech, the rest held their swords drawn, gave kisses to their wives, took up their children in their arms, weeping and at the same time hastening, so that the enemy would be forestalled. “These, unhappy pledges of love, we give you as the rewards of last necessity”; and, manfully suppressing affection, they shut out emotion and carried out the deed: the women offered themselves fearlessly to the wound for the preservation of their chastity, and had themselves put on the mind of their husbands. So, having slain their kin and their children too, they chose vigorous men to carry out the rest of the slaughter. So all fell, nine hundred sixty with the little children and women: one woman alone survived, who hid five children in an aqueduct while the rest were intent on their last necessities; roused by the shouting when the Romans arrived at dawn, she revealed what had been done. Their wealth the fire they themselves had set beforehand had consumed.