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[169]
Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberius, sent
by night those images of Caesar that are called ensigns into Jerusalem.
This excited a very among great tumult among the Jews when it was day;
for those that were near them were astonished at the sight of them, as
indications that their laws were trodden under foot; for those laws do
not permit any sort of image to be brought into the city. Nay, besides
the indignation which the citizens had themselves at this procedure, a
vast number of people came running out of the country. These came zealously
to Pilate to Cesarea, and besought him to carry those ensigns out of Jerusalem,
and to preserve them their ancient laws inviolable; but upon Pilate's denial
of their request, they fell 1
down prostrate upon the ground, and continued immovable in that posture
for five days and as many nights.
1 We have here, in that Greek MS. which was once Alexander Petavius's, but is now in the library at Leyden, two most remarkable additions to the common copies, though declared worth little remark by the editor; which, upon the mention of Tiberius's coming to the empire, inserts first the famous testimony of Josephus concerning Jesus Christ, as it stands verbatim in the Antiquities, B. XVIII. ch. 3. sect. 3, with some parts of that excellent discourse or homily of Josephus concerning Hades, annexed to the work. But what is here principally to be noted is this, that in this homily, Josephus having just mentioned Christ, as "God the Word, and the Judge of the world, appointed by the Father," etc., adds, that "he had himself elsewhere spoken about him more nicely or particularly."
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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