CHAPTER I.
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND APOSTASY OF THE EARLY CHURCH.
INJUSTICE OF ROMAN GOVERNORS—NERO EMPEROR—VESPASIAN AND TITUS SENT TO JUDEA—FORTIFICATIONS OF JERUSALEM—TITUS OFFERS TERMS OF PEACE—HORRORS OF THE SIEGE—WOMEN DEVOUR THEIR OWN CHILDREN—TEMPLE BURNED—CITY DESTROYED—DISPERSION OF THE JEWS—UNIVERSAL APOSTASY—PRIESTHOOD NO MORE—IDEAS OF GOD PERVERTED—WORSHIP CORRUPTED WITH HEATHEN RITES—PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS—EMPEROR CONSTANTINE—RISE OF MONASTIC ORDER.
According to the best records that have come down to us, the last book of the New Testament (commonly called the Apocalypse of St. John) was written about sixty years after the ascension of our Savior.
At that time the gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached in all the principal cities and countries of the known world. Numerous branches of the primitive church had been planted in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.
In the meantime the awful doom which the Savior predicted against Jerusalem had been literally fulfilled. Shortly after the crucifixion and ascension of the Savior, Judea became the theatre of many cruelties and oppressions arising from contentions between the Jewish priests, the depredations of numerous bands of robbers, which infested the country; but more than all from the injustice and avarice of the Roman governors.
The last of these governors was Gessius Floras, whom Josephus represents as a monster in wickedness and cruelty, and whom the Jews regarded rather as a bloody executioner, sent to torture, than as a magistrate to govern them.
Jerusalem.
During the government of Felix, his predecessor, a dispute having arisen between the Jews and Syrians about the city of Caesarea, their respective claims were referred to the emperor, Nero, at Rome. The decision was in favor of the Syrians, and the Jews immediately took up arms to avenge their cause.