Section 126
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 95 of unleavened bread, on the eighth of the month of April, about the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone around the altar and the temple, as to seem a bright day. And this con tinued for half an hour. To the ignorant this appeared a good omen, but by the scribes it was immediately judged to refer to the events that took place at the issue. At the same festival also, a cow struck by the priest for sacrifice, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. The eastern gate also, of the inner tem ple, which was of brass and immense weight, and which at eve ning was scarcely shut by twenty men, and resting on ironbound hinges, and secured with bolts very deeply sunk in the ground, was seen in the sixth hour of the night to open of itself. But not many days after the feast, on the twenty-first of the month of Artimisium, (MayVja wonderful spectre was seen, which surpasses all belief. |ind indeed, that which I am about to tell would appear a prodigy, were it not related by those who had seen it, and unless the subsequent miseries had corresponded to the signs. J For before the setting of the sun there were seen chariots and armed troops on high, wheeling through the clouds around the whole region, and surrounding the cities. And at the festival called Pentecost, the priests entering the temple at night according to their custom, to perform the service, said they first perceived a motion and noise, and after this a confused voice saying, " let us go hence." But what follows is still more awful. One Jesus the son of Ananias, a common and ignorant rustic, four years before the war, when the city was most at peace and well regulated, coming to the festival at which it was customary for all to make tabernacles at the temple, to the honour of God, suddenly began to cry out, " A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds. A voice against Jerusa lem and the temple, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against all people." This man went about crying through all the lanes, night and day. But some of the more distinguished citizens, being offended at the ominous cry, and enraged at the man, seized him, and scourged him with many and severe lashes. But without uttering a word for himself or privately to those 11