Note 56 — Chapter LXIV · The Destruction of Jerusalem

—page 531. Josephus gives a somewhat detailed account of the final struggle and of the burning of the Temple. After sharp conflict and setting fire to the doors and outer courts of the Temple, Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and “resolved to storm the Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house.” The Jews, however, after a little, attacked the Romans, who drove back those that were quenching the fire in the inner court of the Temple, and those that guarded the holy house, and pursued them as far as the Holy Place itself. The record is that at this time, on the tenth day of the month Ab, the day on which it was formerly burned by the king of Babylon, “one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window or lattice, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing, for whose sake it was that kept guard about it.”