But Cestius Gallus, finding more resistance than he had anticipated, retreated and the retreat was turned into flight to the great jubilation of the Zealots, who saw in this victory a sign of divine help.
In those days, between the first and second assault, when already the double abomination had contaminated the city, the Christians of Jerusalem, obeying the prophecy of Jesus, fled to Pela, beyond the Jordan. But Rome had no intention of giving way to the Jews. The command of the punitive expedition was given to Titus Flavius Vespasian, who, gathering an army at Ptolemais in 67, advanced against Galilee and conquered it. While the Romans were taking up winter quarters, John of Gischala, one of the heads of the Zealots, having taken refuge in Jerusalem at the head of a band of Idumeans, overturned the aristocratic government and the city was full of uproar and blood.
Vespasian, going to Rome to become Emperor, gave the command to his son Titus, who on Easter Day in the year 70, came up before Jerusalem and began the siege. Horrible days began. Even at the height of danger, the Zealots, carried away by wild frenzy, quarreled among themselves, and split up into factions, who fought for the control of the city.
John of Gischala occupied the Temple, Simon Bar Giora the city, and their partisans cut the throats of those whom the Romans had not yet killed. In the meantime Titus had taken possession of two lines of wall and of a part of the city: on the fifth of July the Tower of Antonia fell into his power. To the horror of fratricidal massacre and of the siege was added that of hunger. The famine was so great that mothers were seen, so says Josephus, to kill their children and eat them. On the 10th of August the Temple was taken and burned, the Zealots succeeding in shutting themselves up into the upper city, but conquered by hunger they were obliged to surrender on the 7th of September.
The prophecies of Jesus had been fulfilled: the city by Titus’ order was laid waste: and of the Temple already swept by fire, there remained not one stone upon another. The Jews who had survived hunger and the swords of the Sicarii were massacred by the victorious soldiery. Those who still remained were deported into Egypt to work in mines, and many were killed for the amusement of the crowd in the Amphitheaters of Cæsarea and Berytus. Some hundreds of the handsomest were taken prisoners to Rome to figure in the triumphal procession of Vespasian and Titus, and there Simon Bar Giora and other heads of the Zealots were executed before the idols which they hated.
“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” It was the seventieth year of the Christian era and His generation had not yet gone down into the tomb when these things happened. One at least of those who heard Him on the Mount of Olives, John, was witness of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the ruin of the Temple. Within the destined time the words of Jesus were fulfilled, syllable by syllable, with atrocious exactness, by a story of blood and fire.
THE PARUSIA
The end of the god-killing people, the partial and local ending, had taken place. According to the sentence of Christ, the statues of the Temple were scattered among the ruined walls and the faithful of the Temple had met their death by torture or were scattered among other nations.
The second prophecy is left. When shall the Son of Man come on the clouds of Heaven, preceded by darkness, announced by angels’ trumpets? Jesus says that no one can be sure of the day of His coming. The Son of Man is likened to lightning which flashes suddenly in the east, to a thief who comes by stealth in the night, to a master who has gone far away and returns suddenly to take his servants by surprise. We must be vigilant and ready. Purify your hearts, because you do not know when He may come; and woe to him who is not ready to appear before Him. Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life; and so that day come upon you unawares, for as a snare shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
But if Jesus does not announce the day, He tells us what things must be fulfilled before that day. These things are two: the Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached to all the nations and the Gentiles shall no longer tread down Jerusalem. These two conditions are fulfilled in our own time and perhaps the great day approaches. There are no longer in the world any civilized nations or barbarous tribes where the descendants of the Apostles have not preached the Gospel: since 1918 the Moslems have no longer trodden down Jerusalem and there is talk of a reëstablishment of the Jewish State. According to the words of Hosea, the end of the time shall be near when the sons of Israel, left so long without altar and without King, shall be converted to the Son of David and shall turn, trembling, towards God’s goodness.