c
proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get
upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of
their deliverance. Now there was then a great number of false prophets
suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to
them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in
order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up
above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does
easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him
believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress
him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his
deliverance.

3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such
as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the
signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future
desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or
minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to
them. Thus there was a star [20] resembling a sword, which stood over
the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before
the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war,
when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened
bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [21] [Nisan,] and at
the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and
the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for
half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful,
but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events
that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer,
as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb
in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [22]
[court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had
been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed
with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which
was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own
accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in
the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told
him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty
was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to