(21) Pompey. Of Jerusalem itself we find nothing of consequence, till it was taken by Pom pey in the summer of B. C. 63, and on the very day observed by the Jews as one of lamentation and fasting, in commemoration of the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Twelve thou sand Jews were massacred in the temple courts, including many priests, who died at the very altar rather than suspend the sacred rites (Joseph. Antiq. xiv:1-4). On this occasion Pompey, at tended by his generals, went into the temple and viewed the sanctuary; but he left untouched all its treasures and sacred things. while the walls of the city itself were demolished. From this time the Jews are to be considered as under the dominion of the Romans (Joseph. Antiq. xiv: 5)• (22) Crassus. The treasures which Pompey had spared were seized a few years after (B. C. 51) by Crassus. In the year B. C. 43, the walls of the city, which Pompey had .demolished, were rebuilt by Antipater, the father of that Herod the Great under whom Jernsalem was destined to as sume the new and more magnificent aspect which it bore in the time of Christ, and which consti tuted the Jerusalem which Josephus describes.
(23) Herod the Great. The temple itself was taken down and rebuilt by Herod the Great, with a magnificence exceeding that of Solomon's (Alark xiii it ; John :20). (See TEMPLE.) It was in the courts of the temple as thus rebuilt, and in the streets of the city as thus improved, that the Savior of men walked up and down. Here he taught, here he wrought miracles, here he st,ffered; and this was the temple whose 'goodly stones' the Apostle admired (Mark xiii:1), and of which Jesus foretold that ere the existing generation had passed away not one stone should be left upon another.
(24) Destruction of the City by Titus. Je rusalem seems to have been raised to this great ness as if to enhance the misery of its overthrow. So soon as the Jews had set the seal to their for mal rejection of Christ, by putting him to death, and invoking the responsibility of his blood upon the heads of themselves and of their children (Alatt. xxvii:25), the city's doom went forth. Titus, a young, brave and competent Roman gen eral, with an army of sixty thousand trained, vic torious warriors, appeared before the city in April, 7o A. D., and the most disastrous siege of all history began. It was Passover week. crowds from the whole land had come to the great annual gathering, and were hopelessly surrounded by the itnmense army, and driven into the city, swelling the total population to at least a million and a quarter of souls. Theassault was commenced on the north and west walls, where, after fifteen days of battering and fighting, a breach was made in the wall of the new city. The Roman army en tered and laid siege to the second wall, which was far heavier and stronger than the outer one al ready passed. Here a most stubborn resistance was made, and the assaulting forces were for 'a time defeated.
Titus called to his aid the most dreadful of all enemies, that of famine. He encompassed the entire city with a wall five miles in length, which was built within three days. This, with the strictest watch-care, utterly prohibited any food from reaching the doomed city. The distress was so severe that many were crazed by the gnawings of hunger. Alary, daughter of Eleazar, from Perea, a lady of rank, killed her infant child and cooked it for food. The prophecy of Moses, ut
tered more than fifteen hundred years before, was fulfilled to the letter. "Her children which she shall bear. . . . she shall eat them for want of all things. . . . in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall dis tress thee in thy gates" (Deut. xxviii:57, etc.). Bezetha, Akra, Zion, the castle of Antonia, and finally the temple, one by one, all fell before the strong legions of Titus. For three years and a half this most memorable siege continued. Around the great altar of sacrifice lay dead bodies heaped one upon another, and blood flowed into the con duits where before that of the sacrifices ran. Alan was the victim now, and the temple, sanctified by the blood of innocence, was defiled by the blood of the guilty. Titus entered the "Holy of Holies," but the Shekinah was gone. He carried away the golden candlestick, and some of the rich furni ture; the temple was burned, and thus ended the greatest of sanctuaries.
On the same (lay of the month, August r5, six hundred and sixty-one years before, Nebuchad nezzar destroyed the holy house, but now the very foundations were razed, after standing eleven hundred and thirty-seven years. The search for gold and.silver which haci melted in the fire caused the soldiers to dig away the very foundations, until "not one stone was left upon another that was not thrown down." The stronghold of Zion, the city of David, was.the last to fall. Then came the order to utterly demolish the walls, leaving three towers, Phasaelus, Hippicus, and Al ariamne, as monuments to show the strength with which Titus contended. Alicah (iii :12) said: "There fore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps." Thirty-eight years after the Jews haa led Christ away to crucify him an avenging army led away as captives all who had cried against the Son of God. Their house was a desolate, a charred ruin, the scepter had departed, the daily sacrifices ceased, the day of vengeance came, and not one tittle of the prophecy of the Divine Master had failed. Over a million persons had perished; ninety-seven thousand were led away as captives, multitudes were sent to the Egyptian mines, thou sands were reserved for the triumph of Titus .tt Rome, and the records on the triumphal arch show us the golden table, the seven-branch golden candlestick, silver trumpets, and other spoils from the temple. Since then the Holy City has lain at the mercy of the Gentiles, and will so remain 'un til the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.' 4. Ancient Jerusalem. Every rea.der of Scripture feels a natural anxiety to form some notion of the appearance and condition of Je rusalem, as it existed in the time of Jesus, or rather as it stood before its destruction by the Romans. There are unusual difficulties in the way of satisfying this desire, although it need not be left altogether ungratified. The principal sources of these difficulties have been indicated by different travelers. It is a tantalizing circum stance, however, for the traveler who wishes to recognize in his walks the site of particular build ings, or the scenes of memorable events, that the greater part of the objects mentioned in the de scription, both of the inspired and of the Jewish historian, are entirely razed from their founda tion, without leaving a single trace or name be hind to point out where they stood.