and recorded by Josephus as occurring under the procuratorship of Felix:

There also came out of Egypt about this time to Jerusalem one that said he was a prophet. He was a cheat and impostor, and yet got credited as a prophet, and came into Judea, and got together thirty thousand deluded men, whom he led round from the wilderness to the Mount which was called the Mount of Olives, which lay opposite the city at five furlongs distance: for he said he wished to show them from thence, how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down.1 Felix attacked and dispersed the multitude. The Egyptian escaped and disappeared. His followers believed his deliverance and escape to have been miraculous, and hoped for his return. This hope is reflected in the question directed to Paul by the chief captain at the time of Paul's arrest in the temple."

A. D. 60-62. UNDER PORCIUS FESTUS

And Festus sent forces both of horse and foot to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they suffered from, if they would but follow him as far as the wilder

ness. 3

Here, again, we could wish that Josephus had given fuller information. His interest is more in the act of Festus than in the significance of the occasion of the act. But even by his few words the scene and its meaning rise before the mind. It fulfils the forecast of Jesus. "Days will come, when ye shall desire to see" may be compared with "promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they suffered from."

A. D. 64-66. UNDER GESSIUS FLORUS

In the meantime one Manahem, the son of Judas who was called the Galilean, (who was a very cunning sophist, and had formerly reproached the Jews in the days of Quirinius, because after God they were subject to the Romans) took some influential persons with him, and went to Masada, . and returned with the state of a king to Jerusalem, and became the leader of the sedition, and directed the siege.4

It is the purely regal rather than prophetic phase that Josephus reports in connection with Manahem. It may be that in his case the religious motive receded in favor of a larger emphasis upon the political. But it must be believed that Manahem was a true son of his father, and 1 Antiquities, xx, 8, §6; War, ii, 13, 85.

2 Acts 21:38; compare Eusebius, Hist. eccl., ii, 21. 3 Antiquities, xx, 8, §10.

4 War, ii, 17, §8.

that he gained his large following by an appeal to the religious hope. Certain it is that other Jewish leaders, keen for political freedom only, found the movement under Manahem intolerable. Hence the rank and file, persistently faithful to Manahem, may be regarded as having placed a special emphasis upon the personal messianic worth of the leader. This is reflected in Josephus' characterization of Manahem as a "sophist," and in the expected effect of his death upon his body of followers:

And when Eleazar and his party fell violently upon him, so did also the rest of the people, and taking up stones to attack him with they threw them at the sophist, for they thought if he were once killed that the entire sedition would fall to the ground.'

"Innovation" and "sedition" are favorite words with Josephus in his description of the war against Rome, words calculated to please his Roman readers by the judgment they passed upon the Jewish uprising. His choice of the title "sophist" for Manahem separates him from the average leader in the rebellion, and places him, we may conclude, in the class of those who won their following by an appeal to a special theory and motive, the messianic claim.

A. D. 66-70. PERIOD OF THE JEWISH WAR

Having described the death by fire of six thousand people who had taken to the portico of the outer temple upon the entrance of Titus into Jerusalem, Josephus adds:

A false prophet was the cause of these people's destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to ascend up to the temple, and that they should there receive miraculous signs of their deliverance.2

The promise of "miraculous signs" was a steady accompaniment of prophetic and messianic claims in this troubled period. This individual instance of the prophet, who was the cause of the death of such a large number in the last days of the attack, was chosen from many of like kind which Josephus might have cited had he cared to enumerate. This he makes clear from a summary statement concerning this period:

Now many prophets were suborned by the tyrants at this time to impose on the people, who announced to them that they should wait for deliverance from I War, ii, 17, §§8, 9. a War, vi, 5, §2.

God, and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man in adversity quickly listens to such comfort; and whenever a deceiver makes him believe that he shall be delivered from the miseries which oppress him, then the sufferer is full of hope. Thus were the miserable people led astray by these deceivers, who falsely said they were sent by God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident and so plainly foretold their future desolation, but like men stupefied, without either eyes to see or mind to consider, did not regard the public intimations that God gave them.1

A. D. 73. MONTH OF APRIL

The last stronghold of the rebellion to be taken by the Romans was the fortress of Masada. This held out for three years after the fall of Jerusalem, and yielded only after long and persistent attack. It is significant that the commander of Masada was

Eleazar, an able man, and a descendant of that Judas who had persuaded no few of the Jews, as I before stated, not to submit to the census, when Quirinius was sent into Judea to take it.2

Thus, the Zealot movement, which sprang up in the youth of Jesus, X gave the first and the last resistance to Rome. Eleazar proudly refers to this in the address made to his associates before their voluntary death:

We, long ago, my brave friends, resolved never to be slaves to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just lord of mankind. We were the very first of all that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them.3

Josephus does not record prophetic or messianic claims as made by Eleazar. If we infer such, it will be on the basis of his inheritance from his kinsmen. Perhaps this is a reasonable inference. Or again, may be that by the time of the close of this fierce and bitter struggle the religious motive was wholly lost from sight, at least in so far as it took personal forms of expression.

it

SUBSEQUENT TO THE JEWISH WAR

The tendency toward the rise of false claimants, which had held with such vigor during the years between the death of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem, did not exhaust itself in Palestine. Josephus makes record of an uprising of like nature in Cyrene:

1 War, vi, 5, §§2, 3.

2 War, vii, 8, §1.

3 War, vii, 8, §6.

For one Jonathan, a very vile person, and by trade a weaver, escaped there, and prevailed upon no small number of the poorer sort to give ear to him, and led them into the desert, promising them that he would show them signs and apparitions.1

This uprising in Cyrene, coming after the destruction of Jerusalem, has bearing upon our present problem only as a testimony to a tendency, and as showing the forms of promise which the leaders of that tendency held out to the multitudes.

From this survey of the testimony of Josephus for the period from the death of Jesus to the destruction of Jerusalem, we are able to conclude:

I. That these years were marked by the rise of numerous men who claimed to be the representatives of God with a special mission to solve contemporary problems.

2. That these men did not hesitate to designate themselves as the prophets of God. We cannot affirm from the words of Josephus, in connection with any one of them, that the specific messianic claim was put forward. But knowing his fixed purpose, formed apparently because he wrote for Roman readers, to avoid mention of this phase of his people's hope, and having in mind his summary statement that this particular hope was the sole cause of the war, we may find definite messianic claims in those cases where the details are suitable to such a claim.

3. That these false prophets and false Messiahs obtained large ← influence over the masses of the people, sometimes numbering personal adherents by the thousands.

4. That their strength lay in their ready promises to alleviate the distressing social, political, or economic conditions which held during the period of the conflict with Rome.

5. That the wilderness was the favorite place of resort for these men when they had gathered a following. In the last months, when flight from the city was impossible because of siege, these false prophets and false Messiahs were most aggressively active within that faction of the besieged which held the inner temple under control.

6. That the methods of alleviation promised by these false prophets and false Messiahs were not normal, and did not have their 1 War, vii, 11, §1.

basis in the ordinary processes of nature and of men. They made promise of "manifest wonders and signs," "miraculous signs of deliverance," "signs and apparitions," "signs of freedom." By their word they would divide rivers, and cause massive walls to fall to the ground.

7. That those of these men who were active at the acute crisis of the siege found their strength with the people in the assurance they gave that deliverance from the hands of the Romans would come by the direct intervention of God-"they should wait for deliverance from God."

With these results of a study of the forecast by Jesus as to the rise of messianic claimants, and of the records of Josephus as to the historical facts about these movements, we may pass to a consideration of certain other words of Jesus on this subject as these stand in this discourse on the future.

Of the above exhibit, the portion A is the opening statement of the discourse; the portions C and D are the continuation of that reference to messianic claimants which has already been examined in part. It is important to observe such changes or additions as were made by the evangelists in taking over the portion A from document MK. Luke adds in portion B a saying of the claimants which may probably be