Take up, then, and read what is set forth by him in the sixth book of the Histories, in these words: “The wretched people, indeed, were at that time misled by deceivers who lied in the name of God; while to the manifest portents that foretold the coming desolation they neither gave heed nor believed, but, as though thunderstruck and having neither eyes nor mind, they disregarded the proclamations of God.”
“Thus it was when a star stood over the city, resembling a sword, and a comet that continued for a year; and again, when, before the revolt and the stirring up to war, while the people were gathering for the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth of the month Xanthicus, at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round about the altar and the temple that it seemed to be bright day; and this lasted for half an hour. To the inexperienced this seemed to be a good sign, but by the sacred scribes it was at once judged to portend what afterwards came to pass.”
“And the eastern gate of the inner court, which was of bronze and most massive, and was with difficulty closed toward evening by twenty men, resting upon iron-bound bars and having bolts let down to a great depth, was seen at the sixth hour of the night to have opened of its own accord.”
“And not many days after the feast, on the twenty-first of the month Artemisius, a certain demonic apparition was seen, too great for belief. And what is to be told would have seemed a fable, were it not recorded by those who witnessed it, and were not the sufferings that followed worthy of the signs. For before sunset there were seen, throughout all the country, chariots aloft and armed battalions hurtling through the clouds and encompassing the cities.”
“And at the feast which is called Pentecost, the priests, having entered by night into the inner temple, as was their custom, for the ministrations, said that they first perceived a movement and a din, and after this a voice as of a multitude, saying, ‘We are departing hence.’”
“But more fearful than these: a certain Jesus, son of Ananias, an uncultured rustic, four years before the war, when the city was at its most peaceful and prosperous, came to the feast at which it was the custom for all to make booths to God, and suddenly began to cry out in the temple: ‘A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the temple, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against all the people.’ This he went about crying, by day and by night, through all the lanes.”
“Some of the more notable citizens, indignant at the ill-omened cry, seized the man and beat him with many stripes. But he, uttering nothing on his own behalf, nor privately to those present, continued to cry out the same words as before.”
“The rulers, supposing — as indeed was the case — that the man's behaviour was something more than human, brought him before the governor appointed by the Romans. There, though torn with scourges to the bone, he neither entreated nor wept, but, straining his voice into a mournful tone so far as he could, answered at each stroke, ‘Woe, woe to Jerusalem!’”
The same writer relates another thing yet more marvellous than this, saying that a certain oracle was found in the sacred writings, declaring that at that time one from their country should rule the inhabited world. This he himself took to have been fulfilled in Vespasian.
But this man ruled not over the whole world, nor over that part only which was under the Romans; it would more justly be referred to Christ, to whom it was said by the Father, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth.” And it was at that very time that the sound of his holy apostles went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the inhabited world.