The Wars of the Jews Part 29

[12] It is very remarkable that t.i.tus did not people this now desolate country of Judea, but ordered it to be all sold; nor indeed is it properly peopled at this day, but lies ready for its old inhabitants the Jews, at their future restoration. See Literal Accomplishment of Prophecies, p. 77.

[13] That the city Emmaus, or Areindus, in Josephus and others which was the place of the government of Julius Africa.n.u.s were slain, to the number of one thousand seven hundred, as were the women and the children made slaves. But as Ba.s.sus thought he must perform the covenant he had made with those that had surrendered the citadel, he let them go, and restored Eleazar to them, in the beginning of the third century, and which he then procured to be rebuilt, and after which rebuilding it was called Nicopolis, is entirely different from that Emmaus which is mentioned by St. Luke 24;13; see Reland's Paleestina, lib. II. p. 429, and under the name Ammaus also. But he justly thinks that that in St.

Luke may well be the same with his Ammaus before us, especially since the Greek copies here usually make it sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, as does St. Luke, though the Latin copies say only thirty.

The place also allotted for these eight hundred soldiers, as for a Roman garrison, in this place, would most naturally be not so remote from Jerusalem as was the other Emmaus, or Nicopolis.

[14] Pliny and others confirm this strange paradox, that provisions laid up against sieges will continue good for a hundred ears, as Spanheim notes upon this place.

[15] The speeches in this and the next section, as introduced under the person of this Eleazar, are exceeding remarkable, and oil the n.o.blest subjects, the contempt of death, and the dignity and immortality of the soul; and that not only among the Jews, but among the Indians themselves also; and are highly worthy the perusal of all the curious. It seems as if that philosophic lady who survived, ch. 9. sect. 1, 2, remembered the substance of these discourses, as spoken by Eleazar, and so Josephus clothed them in his own words: at the lowest they contain the Jewish notions on these heads, as understood then by our Josephus, and cannot but deserve a suitable regard from us.

[16] See B. II. ch. 20. sect. 2, where the number of the slain is but 10,000.

[17] Reland here sets down a parallel aphorism of one of the Jewish Rabbins, "We are born that we may die, and die that we may live."

[18] Since Josephus here informs us that some of these Sicarii, or ruffians, went from Alexandria [which was itself in Egypt, in a large sense] into Egypt, and Thebes there situated, Reland well observes, from Vossius, that Egypt sometimes denotes Proper or Upper Egypt, as distinct from the Delta, and the lower parts near Palestine. Accordingly, as he adds, those that say it never rains in Egypt must mean the Proper or Upper Egypt, because it does sometimes rain in the other parts. See the note on Antiq. B. II. ch. 7. sect. 7, and B. III. ch. 1. sect. 6.

[19] Of this temple of Onias's building in Egypt, see the notes on Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 3. sect. 1. But whereas it is elsewhere, both of the War, B. I. ch. 1. sect. 1, and in the Antiquities as now quoted, said that this temple was like to that at Jerusalem, and here that it was not like it, but like a tower, sect. 3, there is some reason to suspect the reading here, and that either the negative particle is here to be blotted out, or the word entirely added.

[20] We must observe, that Josephus here speaks of Antiochus who profaned the temple as now alive, when Onias had leave given them by Philometer to build his temple; whereas it seems not to have been actually built till about fifteen years afterwards. Yet, because it is said in the Antiquities that Onias went to Philometer, B. XII. ch.

9. sect. 7, during the lifetime of that Antiochus, it is probable he pet.i.tioned, and perhaps obtained his leave then, though it were not actually built or finished till fifteen years afterward.