Every day the zealots, although holed up within the inner court of the Temple, fought off the Roman soldiers who were at the gates and on the banks. Then, on the 27th day of Tamuz (mid-July), the zealots hatched yet another plot. They filled the western cloister with dried material, and then in sight of the Romans, retreated from the cloister. When some of the soldiers rushed in to take the cloister to pursue the zealots, the zealots set the cloister on fire, and soon the flames engulfed the soldiers who had rushed in.
Meanwhile in the city, the famine got only worse. Friends began to turn on each other for the smallest morsel of bread and many began to chew and eat anything that was available to them, whether it be unclean animals like rats and other vermin, or shoes, sandals, and the leather straps on shields.
An Abominable Child Sacrifice
It was in these late stages of the famine that one of the most horrific things in all the war had occurred. It was committed by one of the Jewish women trapped in the city. Her name was Mary, the daughter of Eleazar of Bethezub. She was a woman of great wealth, had fled to Jerusalem during the early stages of the war, but along with so many other Jews, soon found herself trapped in the city and at the mercy of the zealots. As the siege dragged on, it became a routine habit for the zealots to break into her home, take the food and supplies in her house as needed, and often abuse her as well. By the late stages of the siege, she had drifted off into madness and despair. And so, one evening, she took her nursing infant, killed him with her knife, then roasted his body and ate half of it for her supper.
Soon, when the smell of roasted meat had wafted out into the street, the zealots burst into her house and threatened to cut her throat if she didn’t hand over whatever food she had come upon. She simply smiled at them and said, “Oh most certainly! In fact, I saved the best portion just for you!” And then she uncovered what was left of her son. This was too much for even the hardened zealots who had committed so many atrocities during the siege. As they recoiled, she continued to implore them to have something to eat: “Yes, this is my own son, and yes, this was my doing. But please, come and eat! I’ve eaten some of him myself! Don’t pretend that you are more tender than a woman, or that you have more compassion than a mother. But if you are going to have scruples now over my sacrifice and will not eat anything, would you be so kind to leave the rest for me?”
The zealots rushed out of the house in utter horror and never again set foot in Mary’s house. Soon news of this horrific act had spread throughout the city, and everyone sank further into despair. Many, in fact, bemoaned the fact that at least those who had already died did not have to witness the depths of depravity and misery that those who were left alive had to endure.
When the news of this reached the Roman camp, many of the soldiers could not believe it. Some of the soldiers were actually filled with pity for the innocent civilians trapped in the city, whereas others simply became more enraged with hatred for the whole lot of them. For his part, Titus called his army together and swore before God that bore no responsibility for such misery: he had proposed peace and had offered liberty to the Jews, and yet the zealots had stubbornly persisted in their rebellion. Instead of peace, they had chosen sedition, famine, and death.
Titus Prepares His Assault on the Temple
By the eighth day of Ab (mid/late July), the Roman banks were finally completed. Titus ordered the battering rams to be brought to the western edifice of the inner Temple. The Romans then began to dig up the foundations of the Temple gates, but the gate stood strong because it was held in place by the inner stones. When it became obvious that their attempts to upend the gates, Titus then ordered that the gates be set on fire. In the course of the day, though, the fire spread from the gates to a number of the other cloisters in the Temple area. Even though the Temple itself was not yet on fire, the mere sight of parts of the Temple complex going up in flames astonished the Jews, many of whom just sunk to the ground in disbelief.
In the meantime, Titus called his commanders together—Tiberius Alexander, the commander of the whole army; Sextus Cerealis, the commander of the 5th legion; Larcius Lepidus, the commander of the 10th legion; Titus Frigius, the commander of the 15th legion; Eternius, the leader of the two legions from Alexandria; and Marcus Antonius Julianus, the procurator of Judea—to discuss what should be done with the Temple. Some said that they should follow the rules of warfare and completely demolish it—for as long as it remained standing, the Jews would use it as a rallying point for further rebellions. Some said that Titus should make an offer to the Jews that if they dropped their weapons and left the Temple complex, that he would spare the Temple; but if they attempted to take up their weapons and fight, that he would have no choice but to burn it down and destroy it. Titus resolved, though, that he would try to save the Temple at all costs, even if the Jews continued to fight.
And sure enough, the zealots continued to fight. The very next day, at the second hour (8 am), as worn down as they were, the zealots amassed their remaining forces and stormed the east gate that what being guarded by Roman soldiers. For three hours, the zealot forces fought to push the Romans back from the gates, but eventually had to pull back themselves back into the inner courts. At the end of the day, Titus retired to Antonia and made his plans to storm the Temple early the next day—the tenth day of Ab, the very day that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had burned down Solomon’s Temple over 600 years early, in 587 BC.
The Destruction of the Temple of God
The day finally came—the day that Josephus was later to call “that fateful day, according to the revolution of the ages.” Soon the Roman soldiers were able to storm the gates and encircle the Temple, while the remaining zealots had retreated further into the Holy House. Once the area around the Temple was secured, Titus ordered his soldiers to try to put out the remaining fires in the cloisters. Their efforts, though, were hampered because the zealots continued to attempt to shoot at them as they were putting out the fires.
It was at that point that one of the Roman soldiers, out of sheer frustration and anger, snatched some of the burning material in the cloisters and, with the help of another soldier, set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms around the north side of the Temple. The fire caught the curtains and quickly started to spread to the main Temple. When the zealots saw the Temple itself start to be engulfed in flames, they despaired, and utter chaos was unleashed. Some fled, some stopped attacking the Romans and sought to put out the fire to the Temple, and others were simply killed in the mayhem.
When Titus was alerted that the Temple itself had caught fire, he and his men ran to the holy house and called for his commanders to order all Roman efforts be focused on putting out the fire in the Temple. Yet chaos had erupted throughout the Temple complex—some soldiers heeded his orders, others focused on pursuing the zealots who were in complete disarray, and still others, out of sheer hatred of the Jews, proceeded to encourage the fire and plunder anything they could out of the Temple. Soon, the altar out in front of the Temple was filled with the slain bodies of zealots and Jewish civilians alike. As Josephus wrote, “Round about the altar lay dead bodies heaped one upon another; as at the steps going up to it ran a great quantity of their blood, whither also the dead bodies that were slain above and on the altar fell down.”
It was at this point, when it was clear that the Temple would not be able to be saved, but before it was completely engulfed in flames, that Titus and his commanders went into the holy house, and even the holy of holies, to see for themselves the interior beauty of the Temple that no Gentile had ever seen. Titus found it more beautiful than he had imagined it could be. For all the fiery chaos that was going on outside, Titus and his commanders walked silently throughout the Temple in complete awe. Yet when they drew the curtain to the holy of holies aside and walked in to the holiest of sites, Titus and his commanders were astonished to find it empty—the heart of the Temple was empty. Titus said under his breath, “Their God truly has left this place.”
As he came out of the Temple, after being convinced that there indeed was no hope that the Temple could be spared, Titus gave the order for the Roman soldiers go in and save as much as they could from the Temple, so they could display it during the Triumph in Rome when they would celebrate the taking of Jerusalem. And so, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed 1,130 years, seven months, and fifteen days after King Solomon had laid its first foundations; and 639 years and 45 days after the laying of the foundation of the second Temple during the days of Haggai, two years after King Cyrus of Persia had declared that the Temple could be rebuilt.
The Temple was no more, and Mount Zion had become an abomination of desolation.
Thank you for writing this series. It is really helpful in fleshing out what little I knew of events. Even allowing that Josephus was a biased observer and painted the Romans in a favorable light, it gives a frightening picture of the horrors of war and the depravity of man.