The New Gospel

And so he convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others.  He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.

The administration of Albinus [procurator of Judea, [62-64], who followed Festus [60-62], was of another order; there was no form of villainy which he omitted to practice.  Not only did he, in his official capacity, steal and plunder private property and burden the whole state with extraordinary taxes, but he accepted ransoms from their relatives on behalf of those who had been imprisoned … and the only persons left in gaol as malefactors were those who failed to pay the price.

Such was the character of Albinus [62-64], but his successor, Gessius Florus [64-66], made him appear by comparison a paragon of virtue.  The crimes of Albinus were, for the most part, perpetuated in secret and with dissimulation; Gessius, on the contrary, ostentatiously paraded his outrages upon the nation and, as though he had been sent as hangman of condemned criminals, abstained from no form of robbery or violence.

Deeply as one must mourn for the most marvelous edifice which we have ever seen or heard of, whether we consider its structure, its magnitude, the richness of its every detail, or the reputation of its Holy Places … While the temple blazed, the victors plundered everything that fell in their way and slaughtered wholesale all who were caught … The Romans, now masters of the walls, planted their standards on the towers, and with clapping of hands and jubilation raised a paean in honor of their victory.  Pouring into the alleys, sword in hand, they massacred indiscriminately all whom they met … The Romans now set fire to the outlying quarters of the town and razed the walls to the ground … those who perished during the siege from first to last, [numbered] one million one hundred thousand.

Caesar [Titus] ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground … leaving only the loftiest towers … and the portion of the wall enclosing the city on the west … the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited.  Such was the end to which the frenzy of revolutionaries brought Jerusalem, that splendid city of worldwide renown.

Honor to parents the Law ranks second only to honor to God, and if a son does not respond to the benefits received by them—for the slightest failure in his duty towards them—it hands him over to be stoned … The mere intention of doing wrong to one’s parents or of impiety against God is followed by instant death.

Starting from the very beginning with the food of which we partake from infancy and the private life of the home, he [Moses] left nothing, however insignificant, to the discretion and caprice of the individual.  What meats a man could abstain from, and what he may enjoy; with what persons he should associate; what period should be devoted respectively to strenuous labor and to rest—for all this our leader made the Law the standard and rule, that we might live under it as under a father and master, and be guilty of no sin through willfulness or ignorance … [By comparison] most [other] men, so far from living in accordance with their own laws, hardly know what they are … But, should anyone of our nation be questioned about the laws, he would repeat them all more readily than his own name … [the Laws], as it were, [are] engraven on our souls.  A transgressor is a rarity; evasion of punishment by excuses an impossibility.  

The Law orders all the offspring to be brought up, and forbids women either to cause abortion or to make away with the fetus; a woman convicted of this is regarded as an infanticide, because she destroys the soul and diminishes the race.