A refined lady turned cannibal? Horrors, no! we recoil. Surely not. But in the years AD 66-70 it happened just as Moses predicted long ago.
In his day, Moses warned the Jews and their descendants: Deuteronomy 28:47 - Because you did not serve the LORD…v. 49 The LORD will bring a nation against you.…v. 52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land…v. 53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you….vv.56-57 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you--so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot--will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter. 57…For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege ….(emphasis mine)
It is interesting that Josephus reluctantly gives us an account of the fulfillment of this prophecy of a distinguished lady acting shamelessly as he relates the terrible conditions within Jerusalem as the Roman armies starve out the rebellious resistance within her walls. He even gives us her name, Mary. (The Wars of the Jews, Book 6, chapter 3:4/201-219) A modern paraphrase describes the situation for us:
The number perishing from famine continued to grow daily; war broke out over every piece of available food. The people’s hunger was so great they were forced to chew anything they could find--belts, shoes, the leather from their shields, wisps of old hay.
[The survivors were too weak to bury the dead. They were piled up in houses or tossed over the walls of the city.]
A certain wealthy woman named Mary had fled to Jerusalem earlier during the war….Everything she had brought with her from Perea had been stolen from her; now it was impossible for her to obtain even a scrap of food. In despair, Mary took up her infant son, who she felt had no future except that of a slave, and killed him. She then proceeded to roast him and eat half of his body, hiding away the rest. Smelling the meat cooking, some robbers came into her house to demand it from her. When she offered what was left to the robbers, they backed away in horror. She taunted them for being weaklings who couldn’t bring themselves to do what a woman had done. Word of Mary’s actions spread throughout Jerusalem, horrifying everyone in the city and making many wish they were already dead so they wouldn’t know of these horrid deeds.1
When the Roman Prince Titus heard this news, he excused himself of all guilt before God because he had offered the Jews peaceful terms of surrender, but they refused. Eusebius closed this chapter of his summary of Josephus with this comment: “Such was the reward which the Jews received for their wickedness and impiety against the Christ of God.” (III:6:32)
No wonder Jesus told the weeping women of Jerusalem not to cry about his unjust walk toward Calvary but to weep for their children instead. “For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” Luke 23:31
It is interesting that Eusebius says the Christians fled Jerusalem to Perea for safety; Mary fled Perea for Jerusalem for safety. In the Olivet Discourses of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, Jesus had instructs his disciples to flee Jerusalem when the armies start encircling her. In The Church History of Eusebius, Book III, Ch. 5:3 tells us that the Christian church in Jerusalem was warned by a revelation to escape Jerusalem to Pella in Perea. After it seemed all holy men had left, “the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.” [AD 70]
Eusebius then devotes an entire chapter to the predictions of Christ concerning Jerusalem’s fall, citing Matt. 24:19-22, Luke 19:42-44; 21:23-24; 23:23-24. (III, 7:1-10) He breaks into praise for Jesus:
If anyone compares the words of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian [Josephus] concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly divine and marvelously strange. (III:7:7)
The great church historian then speaks of the patient mercy of God just before Jerusalem’s fall. Just as God left the door of the ark open for an additional seven days for last minute repentance, He was kind to Jerusalem and “held back their destruction full forty years after their crime against Christ” and even “furnished wonderful signs of the things which were about to happen to them if they did not repent.” (III, 7:9)
What were these “wonderful signs”? (1) A sword-shaped star hung over the city. (2) A year-long comet appeared. (3) A bright-as-day light once began shining at night in the temple. (4) A sacrificial cow delivered a lamb. (5) The massive eastern gate of the temple opened by itself although it usually took twenty men to open it (6) Chariots and armed soldiers were seen riding mid-air about the cities. (7) In the temple on Pentecost was heard the voice of multitude saying, “Let us go hence.” (8) Four years before any war broke out, a common countryman named Jesus, son of Ananias, would not cease preaching against the city throughout the alleys; when he was whipped, he kept repeating “Woe, woe unto Jerusalem.” (Eusebius, III, 8:7-9)
One final “sign” mentioned was misinterpreted. “This generation” - the generation of Jesus’s contemporaries - could interpret the appearance of the sky but could not interpret the signs of the times. (Matt. 16:3; Luke 12:56) Another example of their failure to know what time they were living in is found in Josephus & Eusebius.
Josephus & his peers missed it; Eusebius got it right. Daniel 2 teaches world history before it happened, listing successive world powers--Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. Daniel 2:44 seems to be what was meant by the “sacred writings” described by Josephus in Book 6, 5:4 “about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.” [Daniel 2:34-35, 44] The vain, evil, ambitious thugs who were leading the Jewish resistance within Jerusalem thought surely that prophecy referred to them. After their defeat, Josephus gives us his “take” on its interpretation:
The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now, this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. The Wars of the Jews, Book 6, 5:4/312
After hearing news of Emperor Nero’s death, Vespasian’s troops had voted him in as emperor during his campaign against the Jews. When he left Judea to head for Rome, he left Prince Titus there to finish the job. (Daniel 9:26) But Eusebius says Daniel is speaking of Jesus, not Vespasian. He argues:
But Vespasian did not rule the whole world, but only that part of it which was subject to the Romans. With better right could it be applied to Christ; to whom it was said by the Father, “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession.” [Ps. 2:8] At that very time, indeed, the voice of his holy apostles “went throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” [Ps. 19:4] (Ibid, Book III, ch. 8:11)
Paul offers this commentary on the blindness of the Jews. “The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.” (Acts 13:27) The sad statistics of the consequences of Jerusalem’s rejection of their Christ read something like this: total taken captive 97,000; total dying during the siege 1.1 million; age 17+ sent to work as slaves in Egyptian mines; under age 17, sold as slaves; great number sent to provinces to provide amusement in the theaters.2
Jesus wept over this spiritual blindness in Luke 19:41-44:
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (emphasis mine)
May we have eyes to see God’s timetable in our day.
1Josephus, Thrones of Blood. A History of the Times of Jesus 37 B.C. to A. D. 70. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 1988, pp. 222-23
2 Ibid, p. 230.
See slide show below.