United States or Australia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The writer confesses that he was weary of his task, but felt impelled to wind it up. The palace intrigues do not fill the stage so exclusively, and some of the digressions carry us into byways of Jewish history. At the very outset Josephus devotes a chapter to a fuller delineation than he has given in any other place of the various sects that flourished at the time.
The Antiquities comprised a summary of the whole of Jewish history, as well that which was set out in the books of the Bible as that which had taken place in the post-Biblical period down to his own day. Some of his predecessors had elaborated only the former part of the story, and that, it is probable, not nearly so fully as Josephus.
The woman had a son, a boy about ten years old, and Josephus having handed him a three-cornered crystal, which he had with him, bade the youth secretly to look into it, and then declare, in his mother's hearing, that he could see in the crystal three very terrible demons going on foot.
Josephus, who, to suit the Roman taste, identifies religion and ritual, declares that the fall of the city and the ruin of the nation are to be dated from that day, and upon Ananias he passes a eulogy that is likewise written with an eye to Roman predilections: "He was a prodigious lover of liberty and of democracy; he ever preferred the public welfare before his own advantage, and he was thoroughly sensible that the Romans were invincible.
Josephus maketh remembrance of this history and telleth us that this worthy man was named Calixtus. King Arthur was in the little house beside the chapel, and had heard the voice of the sweet Mother of God and the angels. Great joy had he, and was right glad of the good man's soul that was borne thence into Paradise. The King had slept right little the night and was all armed.
Origen likewise probably knew Josephus only at second hand, and the inference is that both the Alexandrian ecclesiastics derived their citations and their interpolation in the text of Josephus from a pious Christian abstract and improvement.
If it wa'n't for ow, Josephus Henry! for this rheumatiz, I'd be aboard the Benn this minute with a marlinespike in my hand, and op'nin' a fresh package of language." "But you ain't fit for the sea no longer," mumbled One-arm Jerry through one corner of the mouth that paralysis had drawn awry. "That's what I told the owners of the Benn when I fit 'em off'm me and resigned," agreed the Cap'n.
Sylvia has returned, and Miss Lavinia has gone to her, Lucy and the portly cook having arrived from New York last night, in company with Josephus, confined in a large hamper borrowed from the fishmonger, in the top of which a ventilator had been introduced.
But still, as an answer to all objections, he insisted on the solitary fact, that he had pledged the Roman faith for the security of their lives; 'and to offer violence, after he had given them his right hand, was what he could not bear to think of. Such are the simple words of Josephus. In the end, overpowered by his council, Vespasian made a sort of compromise.
All that can be collected upon these subjects from Josephus seems to be but a comment on this chapter.
Word Of The Day