Note 48 — Chapter L · After the Struggle

—page 387. It is to the honor of Titus that he made earnest and repeated efforts to save the Temple as well as to prevent its desecration by the Jews themselves. After the destruction of Antonia and before his final assault upon the defenses of the Temple, he made a last experiment of clemency. According to the historian, many accepted his offer of mercy; and when the rest had fled to Zion and the Temple, he sent to Josephus to offer them free egress if they would come out and fight, rather than see the sanctuary polluted. His words, uttered in their own language, were beginning to make some impression, when his old enemy, John, sternly interrupted him, declaring that he feared not the taking of the city, for God would protect His own: and Josephus narrowly escaped capture. The captives just admitted to quarter, including many of the chief priests, next appeared before the Temple gate to entreat the zealots to save the house of God from ruin; but the merciless John, who had already butchered many of their relatives, answered with a shower of missiles, which—says Josephus—strewed the ground with bodies as thickly as the places where the slaves were thrown out unburied. Titus himself pleaded the inconsistency of filling with arms and blood the courts of the Holy Place, nay, even the Holy of Holies, which they had always guarded with jealousy. “I call on your gods,” said he, “I call on my whole army—I call on the Jews who are with me—I call on yourselves—to witness that I do not force you to this crime. Come forth, and fight in any other place, and no Roman shall violate your sacred edifice.” But the zealots, in their judicial blindness, rejected all offers of mercy, and waited for God to save the Temple by miracle.