For the Temple

Excerpt from For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem In all history there is no drama of more terrible interest than that which terminated with the total de struction of Jerusalem. Had the whole Jewish nation joined in the desperate resistance made by a section of it to the overwhelming strength of Rome, the world-would have had no record of truer patriotism than that dis played by this small people in their resistance to the forces of the mistress of the world. Unhappily the re verse of this was the case. Except in the defence of J ota pata and Gamala, it can scarcely be said that the Jewish people as a body ofi'ered any serious resistance to the arms of Rome. The defenders of Jerusalem were a mere frac tion of its population, a fraction composed almost entirely of turbulent characters and robber bands, who fought with the fury of desperation, after having placed themselves beyond the pale of forgiveness or mercy by the deeds of unutterable cruelty with which they had desolated the city before its siege by the Romans. They fought, it is true, with unflinching courage, a courage never sur passed in history, but it was the courage of despair, and its result was to bring destruction upon the whole population as well as upon themselves. Fortunately the narrative of Josephus, an eye-witness of the events which. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.