taking, it became them to suffer any thing whatsoever themselves,
rather than to overlook so great a multitude as were miserably perishing
on their account. But the more prudent part of them disapproved of this
forcible method, because they saw not only the guards about them very
numerous, but the walls of the city itself carefully watched, by reason
of the Idumeans. They also supposed that Ananus would be every where,
and visit the guards every hour; which indeed was done upon other
nights, but was omitted that night, not by reason of any slothfulness
of Ananus, but by the overbearing appointment of fate, that so both he
might himself perish, and the multitude of the guards might perish with
him; for truly, as the night was far gone, and the storm very terrible,
Ananus gave the guards in the cloisters leave to go to sleep; while it
came into the heads of the zealots to make use of the saws belonging to
the temple, and to cut the bars of the gates to pieces. The noise of the
wind, and that not inferior sound of the thunder, did here also conspire
with their designs, that the noise of the saws was not heard by the
others.

7. So they secretly went out of the temple to the wall of the city, and
made use of their saws, and opened that gate which was over against the
Idumeans. Now at first there came a fear upon the Idumeans themselves,
which disturbed them, as imagining that Ananus and his party were coming
to attack them, so that every one of them had his right hand upon his
sword, in order to defend himself; but they soon came to know who they
were that came to them, and were entered the city. And had the Idumeans
then fallen upon the city, nothing could have hindered them from
destroying the people every man of them, such was the rage they were in
at that time; but as they first of all made haste to get the zealots out
of custody, which those that brought them in earnestly desired them to
do, and not to overlook those for whose sakes they were come, in the
midst of their distresses, nor to bring them into a still greater
danger; for that when they had once seized upon the guards, it would
be easy for them to fall upon the city; but that if the city were once
alarmed, they would not then be able to overcome those guards, because
as soon as they should perceive they were there, they would put
themselves in order to fight them, and would hinder their coming into
the temple.

CHAPTER V.

The Cruelty Of The Idume