The address of the York Rabbi is evidently a digest of Eleazar’s
speeches in the fort of Masada. After the destruction of Jerusalem
(A.D. 72), a great number of the Jews entrenched themselves in that
fort, and for some time defended themselves so bravely, that it cost
the Romans one bloody battle more. However, when the besieged beheld
that in consequence of the fire which the Roman engines sent into their
fortress, its further defence was impossible, the whole garrison, at
the instigation of Eleazar, their commander, surrendered themselves to
a voluntary death, slaying first their wives and children, and then each
other, to the number of 960, that they might not fall into the hands of
the hated besiegers. As the awful tragedies are so strikingly alike, it
may not be uninteresting to the reader to take a view of both leaders’
addresses at the same time; I therefore give here the speeches of
Eleazar, long though they are:――
“Since we long ago, my generous friends, resolved never to be servants
to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the
true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to
make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring
a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction; while we formerly
would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but
must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are
intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the Romans once
reduce us under their power while we are alive. We were the very first
that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them;
and I cannot but esteem it as a favour that God hath granted us, that it
is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which
hath not been the case of others who were conquered unexpectedly. It is
very plain that we shall be taken within a day’s time; but it is still
an eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our
dearest friends. This is what our enemies themselves cannot by any means
hinder, although they be very desirous to take us alive. Nor can we
propose to ourselves any more to fight them, and beat them. It had been
proper, indeed, for us to have conjectured at the purpose of God much
sooner, and at the very first, when we were so desirous of defending
our liberty, and when we received such sore treatment from one another,
and worse treatment from our enemies; and to have been sensible that the
same God who had of old taken the Jewish nation into his favour, had now
condemned them to destruction; for had he either continued favourable,
or been but in a lesser degree displeased with us, he had not overlooked
the destruction of so many men, or delivered his most holy city to be
burned and demolished by our enemies. To be sure we weakly hoped to have
preserved ourselves, and ourselves alone, still in a state of freedom,
as if we had been guilty of no sins ourselves against God, nor been
partners with those of others: we also taught other men to preserve
their liberty. Wherefore, consider how God hath convinced us that our
hopes were in vain, by bringing such distress upon us in the desperate
state we are now in, and which is beyond all our expectations; for
the nature of this fortress, which was in itself unconquerable, hath
not proved a means of our deliverance; and even while we have still
abundance of food, and a great quantity of arms and other necessaries
more than we want, we are openly deprived by God himself of all hope of
deliverance; for that fire which was driven upon our enemies did not, of
its own accord, turn back upon the wall which we had built: this was the
effect of God’s anger against us for our manifold sins, which we have
been guilty of in a most insolent and extravagant manner with regard to
our own countrymen; the punishment of which let us not receive from the
Romans, but from God himself, as executed by our own hands, for these
will be more moderate than the other. Let our wives die before they are
abused, and our children before they have tasted of slavery; and after
we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another
mutually, and preserve ourselves in freedom, as an excellent funeral
monument for us. But first let us destroy our money and the fortress
by fire; for I am well assured that this will be a great grief to the
Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies, and shall
fail of our wealth also: and let us spare nothing but our provisions;
for they will be a testimonial when we are dead, that we were not
subdued for want of necessaries; but that, according to our original
resolution, we have preferred death before slavery.”
The above address was not at first approved of by all, and consequently
a second impetuous speech was elicited, which is the following:――
“Truly, I was greatly mistaken when I thought to be assisting to brave
men who struggled hard for their liberty, and to such as were resolved
either to live with honour, or else to die; but I find that you are such
people as are no better than others, either in virtue or in courage, and
are afraid of dying, though you be delivered thereby from the greatest
miseries, while you ought to make no delay in this matter, nor to await
any one to give you good advice; for the laws of our country, and of God
himself, have, from ancient times, and as soon as ever we could use our
reason, continually taught us――and our forefathers have corroborated the
same doctrine by their actions, and by their bravery of mind――that it is
life that is a calamity to men, and not death; for this last affords our
souls their liberty, and sends them, by a removal, into their own place
of purity, where they are to be insensible of all sorts of misery; for
while souls are tied down to a mortal body, they are partakers of its
miseries; and really, to speak the truth, they are themselves dead; for
the union of what is divine to what is mortal is disagreeable. It is
true the power of the soul is great, even when it is imprisoned in a
mortal body; for by moving it after a way that is invisible, it makes
the body a sensible instrument, and causes it to advance farther in its
actions than mortal nature could otherwise do. However, when it is freed
from that weight which draws it down to the earth, and is connected with
it, it obtains its own proper place, and does then become a partaker
of that blessed power and those abilities, which are then every way
incapable of being hindered in their operation. It continues invisible,
indeed, to the eyes of men, as does God himself; for certainly it is not
itself seen while it is in the body, for it is there after an invisible
manner, and when it is freed from it it is still not seen. It is this
soul which hath one nature, and that an incorruptible one also; but yet
it is the cause of the change that is made in the body; for whatsoever
it be which the soul touches, that lives and flourishes; and from
whatsoever it is removed, that withers away and dies: such a degree is
there in it of immortality. Let me produce the state of sleep as a most
evident demonstration of the truth of what I say, wherein souls, when
the body does not distract them, have the sweetest rest depending on
themselves, and conversing with God, by their alliance to him; they
then go everywhere, and foretell many futurities beforehand. And why are
we afraid of death, while we are pleased with the rest that we have in
sleep?――and how absurd a thing it is to pursue after liberty while we
are alive, and yet to envy it to ourselves where it will be eternal! We,
therefore, who have been brought up in a discipline of our own, ought
to become an example to others of our readiness to die; yet if we do not
stand in need of foreigners to support us in this matter, let us regard
those Indians who profess the exercise of philosophy; for these good
men do but unwillingly undergo the time of life, and look upon it as a
necessary servitude, and make haste to let their souls loose from their
bodies; nay, when no misfortune presses them to it, nor drives them upon
it, these have such a desire of a life of immortality, that they tell
other men beforehand that they are about to depart; and nobody hinders
them, but every one thinks them happy men, and gives them letters to
be carried to their familiar friends (that are dead); so firmly and
certainly do they believe that souls converse with one another (in the
other world). So when these men have heard all such commands that are
to be given them, they deliver their body to the fire; and in order to
their getting their soul a separation from the body, in the greatest
purity, they die in the midst of hymns of commendation made to them;
for their dearest friends conduct them to their death more readily than
do any of the rest of mankind conduct their fellow-citizens when they
are going a very long journey, who, at the same time, weep on their own
account, but look upon the others as happy persons, as so soon to be
made partakers of the immortal order of beings. Are not we, therefore,
ashamed to have lower notions than the Indians; and by our own cowardice
to lay a base reproach upon the laws of our country, which are so
much desired and imitated by all mankind? But put the case that we had
been brought up under another persuasion, and taught that life is the
greatest good which men are capable of, and that death is a calamity;
however, the circumstances we are now in ought to be an inducement to
us to bear such calamity courageously, since it is by the will of God
and by necessity that we are to die; for it now appears that God hath
made such a decree against the whole Jewish nation, that we are to
be deprived of this life, which (he knew) we would not make a due use
of; for do not you ascribe the occasion of your present condition to
yourselves, nor think the Romans are the true occasion that this war
we have had with them is become so destructive to us all: these things
have not come to pass by their power, but a more powerful cause hath
intervened, and made us afford them an occasion of their appearing to
be conquerors over us. What Roman weapons, I pray you, were those by
which the Jews of Cesarea were slain? On the contrary, when they were
no way disposed to rebel, but were all the while keeping their seventh
day festival, and did not so much as lift up their hands against the
citizens of Cesarea; yet did those citizens run upon them in great
crowds, and cut their throats, and the throats of their wives and
children, and this without any regard to the Romans themselves, who
never took us for their enemies till we revolted from them. But some may
be ready to say, that truly the people of Cesarea had always a quarrel
against those that lived among them, and that when an opportunity
offered itself, they only satisfied the old rancour they had against
them. What, then, shall we say to those of Scythopolis, who ventured to
wage war with us on account of the Greeks? Nor did they do it by way of
revenge upon the Romans, when they acted in concert with our countrymen.
Wherefore you see how little our good will and fidelity to them profited
us; while they were slain, they and their whole families, after the most
inhuman manner, which was all the requital that was made to them for the
assistance they had afforded the others; for that very same destruction
which they had prevented from falling upon the others, did they suffer
themselves from them, as if they had been ready to be the actors against
them. It would be too long for me to speak, at this time, of every
destruction brought upon us; for you cannot but know that there was
not any one Syrian city which did not slay their Jewish inhabitants,
and were not more bitter enemies to us than were the Romans themselves;
nay, even those of Damascus, when they were able to allege no tolerable
pretence against us, filled their city with the most barbarous slaughter
of our people; and cut the throats of eighteen thousand Jews, with their
wives and children. And as to the multitude that was slain in Egypt, and
that with torments also, we have been informed they were more than sixty
thousand; those, indeed, being in a foreign country, and so naturally
meeting with nothing to oppose against their enemies, were killed in the
manner forementioned.
“As for all those of us who have waged war against the Romans in our
own country, had we not sufficient reason to have sure hopes of victory?
For we had arms, and walls, and fortresses so prepared, as not to be
easily taken, and courage not to be moved by any dangers in the cause of
liberty, which encouraged us all to revolt from the Romans. But, then,
these advantages sufficed us but for a short time, and only raised our
hopes, while they really appeared to be the origin of our miseries;
for all we had, hath been taken from us, and all hath fallen under our
enemies, as if these advantages were only to render their victory over
us the more glorious, and were not disposed for the preservation of
those by whom these preparations were made. And as for those that are
already dead in the war, it is reasonable we should esteem them blessed,
for they are dead in defending, and not in betraying their liberty; but
as to the multitude of those that are now under the Romans, who would
not pity their condition? And who would not make haste to die, before
he would suffer the same miseries with them? Some of them have been put
upon the rack, and tortured with fire and whippings, and so died. Some
have been half devoured by wild beasts, and yet have been reserved alive
to be devoured by them a second time, in order to afford laughter and
sport to our enemies; and such of those as are alive still, are to be
looked on as the most miserable, who, being so desirous of death, could
not come at it. And where is now that great city, the metropolis of the
Jewish nation, which was fortified by so many walls round about, which
had so many fortresses and large towers to defend it, which could hardly
contain the instruments prepared for the war, and which had so many ten
thousands of men to fight for it? Where is this city that was believed
to have God himself inhabiting therein? It is now demolished to the very
foundations, and hath nothing but that monument of it preserved, I mean
the camp of those that have destroyed it, which still dwells upon its
ruins. Some unfortunate old men also lie upon the ashes of the temple,
and a few women are there preserved alive by the enemy for our bitter
shame and reproach. Now, who is there that revolves these things in his
mind, and yet is able to bear the sight of the sun, though he might live
out of danger? Who is there so much his country’s enemy, or so unmanly,
and so desirous of living, as not to repent that he is still alive? And
I cannot but wish that we had all died before we had seen that holy city
demolished by the hands of our enemies, or the foundations of our holy
temple dug up after so profane a manner. But since we had a generous
hope that deluded us, as if we might, perhaps, have been able to avenge
ourselves on our enemies on that account, though it be now become
vanity, and hath left us alone in this distress, let us make haste to
die bravely. Let us pity ourselves, our children, and our wives, while
it is in our power to show pity to them, for we are born to die, as well
as those were whom we have begotten; nor is it in the power of the most
happy of our race to avoid it. But for abuses and slavery, and the sight
of our wives led away after an ignominious manner, with their children,
these are not such evils as are natural and necessary among men;
although such as do not prefer death before those miseries, when it is
in their power so to do, must undergo even then on account of their own
cowardice. We revolted from the Romans with great pretensions to courage;
and when, at the very last, they invited us to preserve ourselves, we
would not comply with them. Who will not, therefore, believe that they
will certainly be in a great rage at us, in case they can take us alive?
Miserable will, then, be the young men who will be strong enough in
their bodies to sustain many torments; miserable also will be those of
elder years, who will not be able to bear those calamities which young
men might sustain! One man will be obliged to hear the voice of his son
imploring help of his father, when his hands are bound! But certainly
our hands are still at liberty, and have a sword in them. Let them, then,
be subservient to us in our glorious design; let us die before we become
slaves under our enemies; and let us go out of the world, together with
our children and our wives, in a state of freedom. This it is that our
laws command us to do; this it is that our wives and children crave at
our hands; nay, God himself hath brought this necessity upon us; while
the Romans desire the contrary, and are afraid any of us should die
before we are taken. Let us, therefore, make haste, and instead of
affording them so much pleasure as they hope for in getting us under
their power, let us leave them an example which shall at once cause
their astonishment at our death, and their admiration of our hardiness
therein.”
This second harangue had the desired effect. The Romans having scaled
the walls, apprehended some treachery, by reason of the death-like
silence that prevailed around the fortress; but soon discovered the
slaughtered bodies and learned the dreadful occurrence from the mouths
of two women and five children, who, by concealing themselves, had
escaped the fulfilment of the fatal compact.――_Josephus’ Wars_, Book
vii., Chaps. 8, 9.