THE cry rang through the city of Jerusalem, "His blood be upon us!"
It was not the voice of the common people, who had "heard him gladly." A well-organized minority secured the condemnation of Jesus. The religious leaders determined to put a stop to his teaching. They said he taught the people to "transgress the traditions of the elders," the customs of the church. Jesus answered, "Why do ye also transgress the commandments of God by your tradition?" Matt. 15:3.
He had taught only the old, old truths of the Word of God, which they professed to follow, but which they had made void by human tradition. And because of his loyalty to the divine law, they condemned him by their human law.
The Jewish leaders disguised their enmity under high-sounding phrases. It was a mere matter of civil procedure. The law of the land must be enforced. "We have a law," they said to Pilate, "and by our law he ought to die." The Roman magistrate saw through the injustice of religious prejudice. But at the threat of accusation to Cæsar—an ancient form of applying political pressure—he yielded at last.
How little those Jewish leaders realized the meaning of the cry, "His blood be upon us"! Graetz, a Jewish historian, evidently looking upon Jesus as a reformer who was unjustly condemned, says:—
How great was the woe caused by that one execution! . . . He is the only mortal of whom one can say without exaggeration that his death was more effective than his life. . . . Strange that events fraught with so vast an import should have created so little stir at the time of their occurrence at Jerusalem!—"History of the Jews," Vol. IV, page 165.
The round of social activities ran on, business was brisk in the city, money was to be made, daily bread to be earned, and political rivalries were keen. The people generally could not stop to notice. Yet at that time the doom of Jerusalem was sealed.
For a long time before the first advent, tumult and strife had filled Judea. As the time of Christ's ministry drew near, there was a change. As plainly as if by the visible hand of Providence, elements of disorder were repressed, the winds of strife were held. In that quiet interval the voice of Jesus was heard up and down Judea. But quickly after his crucifixion and ascension, the storm burst again in fury over the land. In his warning of coming judgment, Christ had said: "All these things shall come upon this generation."
The blow was terrible when it fell. Jerusalem had been so blessed that when its light became darkness, how great was that darkness! Standing so high, it fell so low! It chose the evil one as its leader, and turned away from the protection of the Almighty. Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, says in the preface to his "Wars of the Jews":—
Of all the cities which came under the Roman sway, Jerusalem arrived at a higher degree of felicity than any other; and then it fell into a lower depth of calamity. It appears to me that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, are not to be compared with those of the Jews.
And in the body of the history he says:—
In one word, and to speak in brief the whole truth, never did any other city endure such tribulations; and never from the beginning of time was any generation more prolific of evil.—Book 5, chap. 10.
What a testimony to the fulfilment of the woes pronounced by the voices of the prophets through the ages of warning and entreaty, which Jesus said would come upon that generation.11
Josephus tells of portents that startled Jerusalem before the end. A countryman appeared, who cried in the streets and lanes, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" He was severely punished; but to no avail. Especially at feasts the disquieting cry would be raised, "Woe to Jerusalem!" This continued, Josephus says,—until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased. For, as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house." And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also," there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately.—"Wars," book 6, chap. 5.
It was in A. D. 66 that the Roman army, under Cestius, appeared before Jerusalem. Soon there was fighting about the temple itself. The Romans "attempted to break into the temple at the northern quarter of it; but the Jews beat them off from the cloisters." The cloisters were parts of the temple buildings. Then, placing their shields together in the "tortoise-back" formation to protect themselves from darts shot from the wall above, the Roman soldiers "undermined the wall, . . . and got all things ready for setting fire to the gate of the temple."
In his prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, Jesus had said to his disciples:—
"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. . . . But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Matt. 24: 15-20.
The Roman standards about the temple itself were a signal to the Christians to flee. Those in the fields or villages round about could easily do so; but how could those in the city escape, with the Roman army encompassing the walls? —An overruling Providence made the way of escape. Josephus says that just as Cestius had the wall undermined and all in readiness for the attack, suddenly—
he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any reason in the world [italics ours].—Book 2, chap. 19.
Those Christian believers, watching for the signal that the Saviour had foretold thirty years before, must have known well the meaning of the sudden, unexplainable retreat. As the Jews rushed out to attack the retreating Romans, the moment for the flight of the Christians had come. Though the next siege was deferred several years, the time for flight was that day when the Jewish forces rushed from the city.
As the fanatical Zealots came back exulting from slaying the rearguard of Cestius's army, they came to take possession of affairs in Jerusalem, and to organize every force for the next attack. Christian believers attempting then to get away would doubtless have met no mercy. James Morrison says of conditions that developed in Jerusalem:—
The Zealots created and maintained a "reign of terror" akin to that of the French Revolution, only more dreadful, and, considering the available scope and compass, more bloody.—"Comments on Matthew," page 471.
Four years later the Roman army returned to the siege. Jerusalem seemed drunken with fury. At the last Passover ever celebrated in Jerusalem, while Titus and his army were compassing the walls, rival factions of Jews fought and slew one another about the sacrificial altars of the temple. Satan was in full command. The hardened Roman besiegers were astonished at the suicidal rashness of the people. Titus tried to persuade them to save at least the temple. Remonstrating with their leaders, he said:—
Why do you pollute this holy house with the blood both of foreigners and Jews themselves? I appeal to the gods of my own country, and to every god that ever had any regard to this place (for I do not suppose it to be now regarded by any of them); I also appeal to my own army, and to those Jews that are now with me, and even to you yourselves, that I do not force you to defile this your sanctuary; and if you will but change the place wherein you will fight, no Roman shall either come near your sanctuary nor offer any affront to it; nay, I will endeavor to preserve you your holy house whether you will or not.—"Wars," book 6, chap. 2.
But Christ had said of the temple: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Matt. 24: 2. Titus's effort to save the temple in spite of the Jews, failed, and the house went down in ruins.
This Roman commander and future emperor felt impressed that there was something supernatural about the forces of destruction let loose. Josephus says that as Titus made the rounds one day,—he gave a groan; and spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing.—"Wars," book 5, chap. 12.
When Christ foretold the coming destruction, the disciples could not see how it was possible for such walls as those of the temple and towers to be thrown down. They said to him: "Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!" After the city fell, and Titus had examined these walls and towers, he exclaimed:—
We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications.—"Wars," book 6, chap. 9.
The destruction that came upon Jerusalem was but the fruit of its own ways. When God's protection was thrust finally aside, even he could not save from the judgments bound in justice to fall upon persistent transgression.
The witness to the living God is borne by the fulfilment of prophecies of judgment as well as by the happier prophecies of deliverance. This sad story of the fall of Jerusalem is one of the lessons of Bible history "written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10: 11.
Jerusalem fell because it knew not the message of God for that day and generation, even though the "sure word of prophecy" had plainly declared it, and the Scriptures of truth were fulfilled before the eyes of all. Many in Jerusalem saw and believed, and found refuge. But for every man and generation the solemn witness is borne that Jerusalem fell because it knew not the time of its visitation. "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day."
"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right,—
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light."
W. A. S.