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[124]
Now Titus was deeply affected with this state of things, and reproached
John and his party, and said to them, "Have not you, vile wretches
that you are, by our permission, put up this partition-wall before your
sanctuary? Have not you been allowed to put up the pillars thereto belonging,
at due distances, and on it to engrave in Greek, and in your own letters,
this prohibition, that no foreigner should go beyond that wall. 1
Have not we given you leave to kill such as go beyond it, though he were
a Roman? And what do you do now, you pernicious villains? Why do you trample
upon dead bodies in this temple? and why do you pollute this holy house
with the blood of both foreigners and Jews themselves? I appeal to the
gods of my own country, and to every god that ever had any regard to this
place; (for I do not suppose it to be now regarded by any of them;) I also
appeal to my own army, and to those Jews that are now with me, and even
to yourselves, that I do not force you to defile this your sanctuary; and
if you will but change the place whereon you will fight, no Roman shall
either come near your sanctuary, or offer any affront to it; nay, I will
endeavor to preserve you your holy house, whether you will or not."
2
1 Of this partition-wall separating Jews and Gentiles, with its pillars and inscription, see the description of the temples, ch. 15.
2 That these seditious Jews were the direct occasions of their own destruction, and of the conflagration of their city and temple, and that Titus earnestly and constantly labored to save both, is here and every where most evident in Josephus.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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