Section 118
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86 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. was then proclaimed sovereign in Judea, receiving the title of em peror from the armies there. Directing his course, therefore, im mediately to Rome, he commits the care of the war against the Jews, into the hands of his son Titus ; for after the ascension of our Saviour, the Jews, in addition to their wickedness against him, were now incessantly plotting mischief against his apostles. First, they slew Stephen by stoning him, next James the son of Zebedee, and the brother of John, by beheading, and finally James, who first obtained the episcopal seat at Jerusalem, aftei the ascension of our Saviour, and was slain in the manner before related. But the rest of the apostles who were harassed in in numerable ways, with a view to destroy them, and driven from the land of Judea, had gone forth to preach the gospel to all na tions, relying upon the aid of Christ, when he said, " Go ye, teach all nations in my name." The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine reve^*** lation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, resoo^ moved from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the » Jordan, called Pella. Here, those that believed in Christ, having removed from Jerusalem, as if holy men had entirely abandoned the royal city itself, and the whole land of Judea ; the divine, justicej,__for_their crimes againstjChrist and his apostles, finally overtook them, totally destroying the whole generation of these eviiHoers from tbe earth. But the number of calamities which then overwhelmed the whole nation ; the extreme misery to which particularly the inhabitants of Judea were reduced, the vast numbers of men, with women and children that fell by the sword and famine, and innumerable other forms of death ; the numerous and great cities of Judea that were besieged, as also the great and incredible distresses that those experienced who took refuge at Jerusalem, as to a place of perfect security ; these facts, as well as the whole tenor of the war, and each particular of its progress, when finally, the abomination of desolation, according to the prophetic declaration, stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, but which now was approaching its total downfal and final destruction by fire ; all this, I say, any one that wishes may see accurately stated in the history written by Josephus,