extreme famine, with the civil dissension, oppressed them within the walls; a forcible enemy assailed them without. The Idumeans also, who lay in wait for the destruction of the Jews' kingdom, thrust themselves into the city of purpose to betray it; who also burnt the temple when Nabuchodonosor took it. And to be short, there perished of all sorts, from the first besieging to the consummation of the victory, heleven hundred thousand souls; and the city was so beaten down and demolished, as those which came afterwards to see the desolation thereof, could hardly believe that there had been any such place or habitation: only the three Herodian towers (works most magnificent, and overtopping the rest) were spared, as well for lodgings for the Roman garrisons, as that thereby their victory might be the more notorious and famous: for by those buildings of strength and state remaining, after-ages might judge what the rest were; and their honour be the greater and more shining that there-over became victorious.

After this, such Jews as were scattered here and there in Judæa, and other provinces, began again to inhabit some part of the city; and by degrees to rebuild it, and strengthen it as they could, being then at peace, and tributaries to the Roman state; but after sixty-five years, when they again offered to revolt and rebel, Ælius Adrianus, the emperor, slaughtered many thousands of them, and overturned those three Herodian towers, with all the rest, making it good which Christ himself had foretold, That there should not stand one stone upon another of that ungrateful city. Afterwards, when his fury was appeased, and the prophecy accomplished, he took one part without the wall, wherein stood mount Calvary and the sepulchre of Christ, and excluding of the rest the greatest portion, he again made it a city of great capacity, and called it after his own name, Ælia Capitolia. In the gate toward Bethel, he caused a sow to be cut in marble, and set in the front thereof, which he did in despite of the Jews' nation; making an

h Esd. 1. c. 4. 45.

edict, that they should not from thenceforth ever enter into the city, neither should they dare so much as to behold it from any other high place overtopping it.

But the Christian religion flourishing in Palæstina, it was inhabited at length by all nations, and especially by Christians; and so it continued five hundred years.

It was afterwards, in the 636th year after Christ, taken by the Egyptian Saracens, who held it 400 and odd years.

In the year 1099 it was regained by Godfrey of Bouillon, by assault, with an exceeding slaughter of the Saracens, which Godfrey, when he was elected king thereof, refused to be crowned with a crown of gold, because Christ, for whom he fought, was therein crowned with thorns. After this recovery, it remained under the successors of Godfrey eighty-eight years; till in the year 1197 it was regained by Saladine of Egypt: and lastly, in the year 1517, in the time of Selim, the Turks cast out the Egyptians, who now hold it, and call it Cuzumobarec, or the holy city. Neither was it Jerusalem alone that hath so oftentimes been beaten down and made desolate, but all the great cities of the world have with their inhabitants, in several times and ages, suffered the same shipwreck. And it hath been God's just will, to the end others might take warning, if they would, not only to punish the impiety of men by famine, by the sword, by fire, and by slavery; but he hath revenged himself of the very places they possessed, of the walls and buildings; yea, of the soil, and the beasts that fed thereon.

For even that land, sometime called holy, hath in effect lost all her fertility and fruitfulness; witness the many hundreds of thousands which it fed in the days of the kings of Juda and Israel; it being at this time all over, in effect, exceeding stony and barren. It also pleased God, not only to consume with fire from heaven the cities of the Sodomites; but the very soil itself hath felt, and doth feel, the hand of God to this day. God would not spare the beasts

i Gul. Tyr. Bell. Sac. 1. 14. c. 12. k Onnph. Chron.

1 Gul. Tyr. 1. 8. c. 5. 18, 19, &c.

that belonged to Amalek, no not any small number of them, to be sacrificed to himself; neither was it enough that Achan himself was stoned, but that his moveables were also consumed and brought to ashes.

SECT. IV.

Of the vain and malicious reports of heathen writers touching the ancient Jews.

OF the original of the Jews, profane writers have conceived diversely and injuriously. Quintilian speaks infamously of them, and of their leader; who, saith he, gathered together a pernicious nation. Diodore and Strabo make them Egyptians. Others affirm, that while Isis governed Egypt, the people were so increased, as Jerosolymus and Judas led thence a great multitude of that nation, with whom they planted the neighbour regions; which might be meant by Moses and Aaron: for the name of Moses was accidental, because he was taken up and saved out of the waters. But m Justin, of all other most malicious, doth derive the Jews from the Syrian kings; of whom Damascus, saith he, was the first; and to him succeeded Abraham, Moses, and Israel. He again supposeth (somewhat con- · trary to himself) that Israel had ten sons, among whom he divided the land of Juda; so called of Judas his eldest, who had the greatest portion. The youngest of the sons of Israel he calleth Joseph; who being brought up in Egypt, became learned in magical arts, and in the interpretations of dreams and signs prodigious; and this Joseph, saith he, was father to Moses; who with the rest, by reason of their foul diseases, and lest they should infect others, were banished Egypt. Further, he telleth how these men thus banished, when in the deserts they suffered extreme thirst and famine, and therein found relief the seventh day, for this cause ever after observed the seventh day, and kept it holy; making it a law among themselves, which afterwards became a branch of their religion. He addeth also, that they might not marry out of their own tribes, lest discovering their uncleanness they might also be expelled by m Justin. 1. 36.

other nations, as they were by the Egyptians. These and like fables hath Justin.

Cornelius Tacitus doth as grossly belie them in affirming, that in the inmost oratory of their temple they had the golden head of an ass, which they adored. But herein Tacitus forgetteth himself, having in the fifth book of his own history truly confessed of the Jews, that they worshipped one only God; and thought it most profane to represent the Deity by any material figure, by the shape of a man or any other creature; and they had therefore in their temples no image or representation, no not so much as in any city by them inhabited. Somewhat like this hath Alexander Polyhistor, in Stephanus; who also makes Judas with Idumæa the first parents of the Jews.

n Claudius Iolaus draws them from Judæus, whose parents were Sparton and Thebis; whence it came, that the Spartans or Lacedæmonians challenged kindred of the Hebrews: but they did it as descended of Abraham, saith Josephus. Some of these reports seem to have been gathered out of divine letters, though wrested and perverted according to the custom of the heathen. For so have they obscured and altered the story of the creation, of paradise, of the flood; and given new names to the children of Adam in the first age; to Noah and his sons in the second; and so to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, and the rest of the fathers and leaders of the Hebrews; all which feignings, as touching the Jews and their originals, Josephus against Appion and Tertullian have sufficiently answered. For that the Hebrews were the children of Arphaxad and Heber, no man doubteth: and so Chaldeans, originally taking name either of Heber the son of Sale, or else, saith Montanus, of wandering, as is before remembered. And therefore doth Stephanus, the Greek grammarian, derive the Hebrews or Jews from PAbrabon; having mistaken the name of Abraham, who was the son of Heber, in the sixth descent. Their ancient names were first changed by the two grandchildren of Abram; for after Jacob, otherwise Israel, the chief part n Cited by Stephanus in Judæa. • Tert. in Apol. P Caleb. f. 63.

were called Israel, another part after Esau, or Edom, Edomites; at length the remnant of Jacob, being most of the tribe of Juda, honoured the name of Judas, the son of Jacob, and became Judeans or Jews; as also for a time in the name of Ephraim the son of Joseph, the chief of the patriarchs of the ten tribes, the rest of the ten tribes were comprehended, but were first rooted out when the kingdom of Israel fell. The Judeans continued their names, though they suffered the same servitude not long after, under Nabuchodonosor.

The government which this nation underwent was first paternal; which continued till they served the Egyptians. They were secondly ruled by their captains and leaders, Moses and Joshua, by a policy divine. Thirdly, they subjected themselves to judges. Fourthly, they desired a king, and had Saul for the first; of whom and his successors before we entreat, we are first to speak of their government under judges, after the death of Joshua; with somewhat of the things of fame in other nations about these times.

CHAP. XIII.

Of the memorable things that happened in the world from the death of Joshua to the war of Troy; which was about the time of Jephtha.

SECT. I.

Of the interregnum after Joshua's death; and of Othoniel.

WHEN Joshua was now dead, who with the advice of the seventy elders and the high priest held authority over the people, and ordered that commonweal; it pleased God to direct the tribe of Juda (in whom the kingdom was afterwards established) to undertake the war against the Canaanites, over whom (with God's favour, and the assistance of Simeon) they became victorious.

In the first attempt which they made, they not only slew 10,000, but made Adonibezek prisoner; the greatest and