nt no severe condemnation at this time; yet was it not long
before he fell into a complicated and almost incurable distemper, and
died miserably. He was not only afflicted in body, but the distemper
in his mind was more heavy upon him than the other; for he was terribly
disturbed, and continually cried out that he saw the ghosts of those
whom he had slain standing before him. Where upon he was not able to
contain himself, but leaped out of his bed, as if both torments and fire
were brought to him. This his distemper grew still a great deal worse
and worse continually, and his very entrails were so corroded, that they
fell out of his body, and in that condition he died. Thus he became as
great an instance of Divine Providence as ever was, and demonstrated
that God punishes wicked men.
5. And here we shall put an end to this our history; wherein we formerly
promised to deliver the same with all accuracy, to such as should be
desirous of understanding after what manner this war of the Romans with
the Jews was managed. Of which history, how good the style is, must be
left to the determination of the readers; but as for its agreement with
the facts, I shall not scruple to say, and that boldly, that truth hath
been what I have alone aimed at through its entire composition.
WAR BOOK 7 FOOTNOTES
[1] Why the great Bochart should say, [De Phoenic. Colon. B. II. ch.
iv.,] that "there are in this clause of Josephus as many mistakes as
words," I do by no means understand. Josephus thought Melchisedek first
built, or rather rebuilt and adorned, this city, and that it was then
called Salem, as Psalm 76:2; afterwards came to be called Jerusalem; and
that Melchisedek, being a priest as well as a king, built to the true
God therein a temple, or place for public Divine worship and sacrifice;
all which things may be very true for aught we know to the contrary. And
for the word, or temple, as if it must needs belong to the great temple
built by Solomon long afterward, Josephus himself uses, for the small
tabernacle of Moses, Antiq. B. III. ch. 6. sect. 4; see also Antiq. B.
lit. ch. 6. sect. 1; as he here presently uses, for a large and splendid
synagogue of the Jews at Antioch, B. VII. ch. 3. sect. 3.
[2] This Tereutius Rufus, as Reland in part observes here, is the same
person whom the Talmudists call Turnus Rufus; of whom they relate, that
"he ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps,
and the mountain of the
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