This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[387]
But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son of Thebuthus,
whose name was Jesus, upon his having security given him, by the oath of
Caesar, that he should be preserved, upon condition that he should deliver
to him certain of the precious things that had been reposited in the temple
1 came
out of it, and delivered him from the wall of the holy house two candlesticks,
like to those that lay in the holy house, with tables, and cisterns, and
vials, all made of solid gold, and very heavy. He also delivered to him
the veils and the garments, with the precious stones, and a great number
of other precious vessels that belonged to their sacred worship. The treasurer
of the temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on, and showed Titus
the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great quantity of purple and
scarlet, which were there reposited for the uses of the veil, as also a
great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large quantity of other sweet
spices, 2
which used to be mixed together, and offered as incense to God every day.
A great many other treasures were also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments
of the temple not a few; which things thus delivered to Titus obtained
of him for this man the same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted
of their own accord.
1 What became of these spoils of the temple that escaped the fire, see Josephus himself hereafter, B. VII. ch. 5. sect. 5, and Reland de Spoliis Templi, p. 129-138.
2 These various sorts of spices, even more than those four which Moses prescribed, Exodus 31:34, we see were used in their public worship under Herod's temple, particularly cinnamon and cassia; which Reland takes particular notice of, as agreeing with the latter testimony of the Talmudists.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.