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knowledge of their several properties. God also enabled him. to learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative to him. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons so that they never return: and this method of cure is of great force unto this day, for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal, in the presence of Vespasian and his sons and his captains and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this: He put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the man fell down immediately, he adjured him to return into him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed. And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such power, he set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man; and when this was done, the skill and wisdom of Solomon was showed very manifestly.

ALEXANDER'S CONQUEST OF PALESTINE.

ABOUT this time (333 B.C.) it was that Darius heard how Alexander had passed over the Hellespont, and had beaten his lieutenants in the battle of Granicum, and was proceeding farther; whereupon he gathered together an army of horse and foot, and determined that he would meet the Macedonians before they should assault and conquer all Asia. So he passed over the river Euphrates, and came over Taurus, the Cilician mountain ; and at Isis of Cilicia he waited for the enemy, as ready there to give him battle. Upon which Sanballet was glad that Darius was come down; and told Manasseh that he would suddenly perform his promises to him, and this as soon as ever Darius should come back, after he had beaten his enemies; for not he only, but all those that were in Asia also, were persuaded that the Macedonians would not so much as come to a battle with the Persians, on account of their multitude. But the event proved otherwise than they expected, for the king joined

battle with the Macedonians, and was beaten, and lost a great part of his army. His mother also, and his wife and children, were taken captives, and he fled into Persia. So Alexander came into Syria, and took Damascus; and when he had obtained Sidon, he besieged Tyre, when he sent an epistle to the Jewish high priest, "To send him some auxiliaries, and to supply his army with provisions; and that what presents he formerly sent to Darius he would now send to him, and choose the friendship of the Macedonians, and that he should never repent of so doing." But the high priest answered the messengers, that he had given his oath to Darius not to bear arms against him;" and he said that "he would not transgress them while Darius was in the land of the living." Upon hearing this answer, Alexander was very angry; and though he determined not to leave Tyre, which was just ready to be taken, yet as soon as he had taken it he threatened that he would make an expedition against the Jewish high priest, and through him teach all men to whom they must keep their oaths. So when he had, with a great deal of pains during the siege, taken Tyre, and had settled his affairs, he came to the city of Gaza, and besieged both the city and him that was governor of the garrison, whose name was Babemeses. . . . Now Alexander, when he had taken Gaza, made haste to go up to Jerusalem; and Jaddaa the high priest, when he heard that, was in an agony and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians, since the King was displeased at his foregoing disobedience. He therefore ordained that the people should make supplications, and should join with him in offering sacrifices to God, whom he besought to protect that nation, and to deliver them from the perils that were coming upon them: whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that "he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the King in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent." Upon which, when he rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced, and declared to all the warning he had received from God. According to which dream he acted entirely, and so waited for the coming of the King. . . . For Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and

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scarlet clothing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did altogether, with one voice, salute Alexander and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio. alone went up to him, and asked him "How it came to pass that when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews!" To whom he replied: "I do not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his highpriesthood: for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is, that having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.” And when he said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city: and when he went up into the temple he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's directions; and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests. And when the book of Daniel was showed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended; and as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present, but the next day called them to him, and bade them ask what favors they pleased of him; whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers, and might pay no tribute on the seventh year. He granted all they desired. And when they entreated him that he would permit the Jews in Babylon and Media to enjoy their own laws also, he willingly promised to do hereafter what they desired.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM.

(From the "Jewish Wars.")

WHILE the sanctuary [in Jerusalem] was in flames, everything that fell in their way became a prey to rapine, and prodigious was the slaughter of those found there. To no age was pity shown, to no rank respect; but children and old men, secular persons and priests, were overwhelmed in one common ruin. All ranks were inclosed in the embrace of war, and hunted down; as well those who sued for mercy, as those who made defense.

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Their destruction was caused by a false prophet, who had on that day proclaimed to those remaining in the city, that "God commanded them to go up to the Temple, there to receive the signs of their deliverance." Thus it was that the impostors and pretended messengers of heaven at that time beguiled the wretched people, while the manifest portents that foreshowed the approaching desolation they neither heeded nor credited; but as if confounded and bereft alike of eyes and mind, they disregarded the immediate warnings of God. Thus it was when a star resembling a sword stood over the city, and a comet which continued for a year. Thus also it was when, prior to the revolt and the first movements of the war, at the time when the people were assembling for the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth of the month Xanthicus, at the ninth hour of the night, so vivid. a light shone round the altar and the sanctuary that it seemed to be bright day; and this lasted half an hour. By the inexperienced this was deemed favorable; but by the sacred scribes it was at once pronounced a prelude of that which afterwards happened. At the same festival also, a cow having been led by some one to the sacrifice, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the court of the Temple.

Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner court- which was of brass and extremely massive, and when closed towards evening could scarcely be moved by twenty men, and which was fastened with bars shod with iron, and secured by bolts sunk to a great depth in a threshold which consisted of one stone throughout-was observed, about the sixth hour of the night, to have opened of its own accord. The guards of the Temple ran and informed the captain, who having repaired to the spot could scarcely succeed in shutting it. This again to the un

learned seemed a most auspicious omen; for God, they thought, had unfolded to them the gate of blessings: but the learned considered that the security of the Temple was dissolving of its own accord, and the gate opened for the advantage of the enemy; and explained it among themselves as a sign of impending desolation.

Not many days after the festival, on the twenty-first of the month Artemisius, there appeared a phenomenon so marvelous as to exceed credibility. What I am about to relate would, I conceive, be deemed a mere fable, had it not been related by eyewitnesses, and attended by calamities commensurate with such portents. Before sunset, were seen around the whole country chariots poised in the air, and armed battalions speeding through the clouds and investing the cities. And at the feast which is called Pentecost, the priests having entered the inner court of the Temple by night, as was their custom, for discharge of their ministrations, their attention was drawn at first, they said, by a movement and a clanging noise, and after this by a voice as of a multitude, "We are departing hence."

But a story more fearful still remains. Four years prior to the war, while the city was enjoying the utmost peace and prosperity, there came to the feast in which it is the custom for all to erect tabernacles to God, one Jesus, son of Ananus, a rustic of humble parentage, who, standing in the temple, suddenly began to call aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against all the people!" Day and night he traversed all the streets with this cry. Some citizens, incensed at so ominous a voice, apprehended the man, and severely scourged him. But without uttering a word in his own behalf, nor anything privately to those who beat him, he continued his cry as before. At length the rulers-supposing, and justly so, that the man was under some supernatural impulse conducted him to the presence of the Roman procurator, where, though lacerated with scourges to the very bone, he neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear; but modulating his voice to a tone the most mournful that was possible, repeated at every stroke, "Woe! woe! unto Jerusalem." Albinus the procurator, demanding who he was, and whence, and why he uttered these words, he made no manner of reply; desisting not from his lamentation over the city, until Albinus concluding that he was a maniac, set him at

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