y would cut her throat
immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She
replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and
withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized
with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight,
when she said to them: "This is mine own son, and what hath been done
was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food, for I have eaten of it
myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman or more
compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous and do
abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest
be reserved for me also." After which those men went out trembling,
being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and
with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon
which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and
while everybody laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they
trembled, as if this unheard-of action had been done by themselves. So
those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die,
and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived
long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.

This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not
believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under;
but there were many of them who were hereby induced to a more bitter
hatred than ordinary against our nation. But for Caesar, he excused
himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed
peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their
former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen
sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a
famine. That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that
Temple which we have preserved hitherto, and that therefore they
deserved to eat such food as this was. That, however, this horrid action
of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their
very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city upon the
habitable earth to be seen by the sun wherein mothers are thus fed,
although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat
of, since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us,
after they have undergone such miseries as these. And at the same time
that he said