raged them, by going up and
down when they were assembled together in crowds, and as they saw them
alone, to bear no longer, but to inflict punishment upon these pests
and plagues of their freedom, and to purge the temple of these bloody
polluters of it. The best esteemed also of the high priests, Jesus the
son of Gamalas, and Ananus the son of Ananus when they were at their
assemblies, bitterly reproached the people for their sloth, and excited
them against the zealots; for that was the name they went by, as if they
were zealous in good undertakings, and were not rather zealous in the
worst actions, and extravagant in them beyond the example of others.

10. And now, when the multitude were gotten together to an assembly, and
every one was in indignation at these men's seizing upon the sanctuary,
at their rapine and murders, but had not yet begun their attacks upon
them, [the reason of which was this, that they imagined it to be a
difficult thing to suppress these zealots, as indeed the case was,]
Ananus stood in the midst of them, and casting his eyes frequently at
the temple, and having a flood of tears in his eyes, he said, "Certainly
it had been good for me to die before I had seen the house of God full
of so many abominations, or these sacred places, that ought not to be
trodden upon at random, filled with the feet of these blood-shedding
villains; yet do I, who am clothed with the vestments of the high
priesthood, and am called by that most venerable name [of high priest],
still live, and am but too fond of living, and cannot endure to undergo
a death which would be the glory of my old age; and if I were the only
person concerned, and as it were in a desert, I would give up my life,
and that alone for God's sake; for to what purpose is it to live among
a people insensible of their calamities, and where there is no notion
remaining of any remedy for the miseries that are upon them? for when
you are seized upon, you bear it! and when you are beaten, you are
silent! and when the people are murdered, nobody dare so much as send
out a groan openly! O bitter tyranny that we are under! But why do I
complain of the tyrants? Was it not you, and your sufferance of them,
that have nourished them? Was it not you that overlooked those that
first of all got together, for they were then but a few, and by your
silence made them grow to be many; and by conniving at them when they
took arms, in effect armed them against yourselves?