27/51 5.] [Footnote 7: Jos., _Ant._, l. XVIII.] Continual seditions, excited by the zealots of Mosaism, did not cease, in fact, to agitate Jerusalem during all this time.[1] The death of the seditious was certain; but death, when the integrity of the Law was in question, was sought with avidity. To overturn the Roman eagle, to destroy the works of art raised by the Herods, in which the Mosaic regulations were not always respected[2]--to rise up against the votive escutcheons put up by the procurators, the inscriptions of which appeared tainted with idolatry[3]--were perpetual temptations to fanatics, who had reached that degree of exaltation which removes all care for life. |