Selections from Josephus - Kostenloses Hörbuch

Josephus Parleys with the Roman Officers

So they came and urged him, giving pledges that his life would not be endangered. Their persuasion, however, was unavailing. His suspicions were based not on the natural clemency of those who invited him, but on the penalties which so active an opponent was likely to incur; and the presentiment that he was being summoned to punishment persisted, until Vespasian sent a third tribune, Nicanor, known to, and formerly an intimate associate of, Josephus. He, on his arrival, dwelt on the innate generosity of the Romans to those whom they had once subdued,^[278] assuring him that his valour made him an object rather of admiration, than of hatred, to the commanding officers, and that the general was anxious to bring him up from his retreat, not for punishment—that he could inflict though he refused to come forth—but from a desire to save a brave man. He added that Vespasian, had he intended to entrap him, would never have sent a friend as his emissary, using the noblest of relationships as a cloak for the basest—friendship as a mask for perfidy; nor would he himself have consented to come in order to deceive a friend.

While Josephus was still hesitating even at Nicanor’s persuasions, the soldiers in their rage made a rush to set the cave on fire, but were restrained by the officer,^[279] who was anxious to take the Jewish leader alive. And as Nicanor urgently pressed his proposals, Josephus heard the threats of the hostile crowd; and there came back into his mind those nightly dreams, in which God had foretold to him the impending fate of the Jews and the destinies of the Roman sovereigns. As an interpreter of dreams he had the capacity of extracting a coherent meaning from the ambiguous utterances of the Deity;^[280] a priest himself and of priestly descent, he was, moreover, not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books. At that hour he was inspired to read their meaning, and, recalling the dreadful images of his recent dreams, he offered up a secret prayer to God. “Since it pleases Thee” (so it ran), “who didst create the Jewish nation, that it should now sink into the dust, and fortune has wholly passed to the Romans, and since Thou hast made choice of my spirit to announce the things that are to come, I willingly surrender to the Romans and consent to live; but I appeal to Thee to witness that I go as no traitor, but as Thy minister.”