Section 127
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.73% accurate
96 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. present, he still persisted in the cries he had before uttered. The magistrates, therefore judging, what it really was, a more than ordinary divine movement in the man, conducted him to the Roman governor. Then, though he was scourged to the bone, he neither entreated nor shed a tear. But lowering his voice in as mournful a tone as was possible, he answered to every blow, " Alas, alas, for Jerusalem." The same historian relates a fact still more remarkable. He says, " that an oracular passage was found in the sacred writings, declaring that about this time a cer tain one proceeding from that region would obtain the sove reignty of the world. This prediction, he supposed, was fulfilled in Vespasian. He, however, did not obtain the sovereignty over the whole world, but only over the Romans. More justly, therefore, would it be referred to Christ, to whom it was said by the Father, " Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." Of whom, indeed, at this very time, " the sound of the holy apostles went throughout all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." CHAPTER IX. Of Josephus and the works he has left. SINCE we have referred to this writer, it may be proper also to notice Josephus himself, who has contributed so much to the history in hand, whence and from what family he sprung. He shows this, indeed, in his own works, as follows. " Josephus the son of Mattathias, a priest of Jerusalem, who at first himself fought against the Romans, and at whose affairs he was after ward of necessity present," was a man most distinguished, not only among his own countrymen the Jews, but also among the Romans ; so that they honoured him with the erection of a statue at Rome, and the books that he composed, with a place in the public library. He wrote the whole Antiquities of the Jews, in