The Last Temple (29 page)

Revelation records the first all-out assault of the Beast against the bride lasting approximately three and a half years. Prior to AD 64, the church was persecuted by the woman who rides the Beast (apostate Israel), but shortly after the Great Fire of Rome, the Beast unleashed its full fury against a fledgling Christian church. That Nero started the Great Fire of Rome is historically debatable.
¹
That Nero used it as the catalyst for the first state assault against the emerging Christian church is not.

To quell rumors that he himself was the incendiary, the arsonist-matricide who had ignited the Great Fire that transformed Rome into a smoldering inferno, Nero purposed to make the Christians scapegoats. As the Roman historian Tacitus explains in his
Annals
, “To get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.”
²

In November AD 64, the persecution began in earnest. Dr. Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, provides gut-wrenching color commentary in a documentary novel titled
The Flames of Rome
.
³
Vast numbers of Christians were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. Tacitus records, “Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer.”
⁴

Those who suggest Nero “was a wimpy emperor” who “went down in history as the emperor who fiddled while Rome burned”
⁵
do violence to the collective memories of those who suffered valiantly in the first Roman persecution of the bride of Christ. Nowhere in the annals of credible history is there any evidence for the legend that Nero fiddled. He might have sung or swayed in maniacal madness—but he did not fiddle! Indeed, the violin was not even invented until fourteen centuries after the Great Fire.
⁶

Far from the “wimpy” Nero invented by some scholars, the Nero of history was the very personification of wickedness. The malevolent state massacre of Christians that he instituted continued unabated for some three and a half years. In the end, Peter and Paul themselves were persecuted and put to death at the hands of this Beast. Indeed, this was the only epoch in human history during which the Beast could directly assail the foundation of the Christian church of which Christ himself is the cornerstone. Only with Nero’s death, June 9, AD 68, did the carnage against the bride of Christ finally cease. The “forty-two months” he was given “to make war against the saints” (Revelation 13:5-7) corresponds to the time period in Revelation during which the Beast wreaks havoc on the bride. Those looking for a literalistic interpretation for the ubiquitous three and a half years need look no further.

Moreover, it is no mere coincidence that within a year of Nero’s suicide, the Roman Empire suffered a near-fatal wound. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the century-long dynasty of Julio-Claudian emperors disappeared from the face of the earth. Indeed, AD 69 would go down in history as the year of the four emperors—Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian.

Nero’s death not only brought an end to the Julio-Claudian dynasty but the near extinction of imperial Rome. From the perspective of a first-century historian, it appeared certain that the death of the emperor was tantamount to the death of the empire. Civil war raged in the territories as four Caesars, beginning with Nero, were felled by the sword. Galba, who reigned but a little while (seven months), was decapitated, impaled, and paraded around with grotesque and grisly gestures. Otho, rumored to have been one of Nero’s lovers, stabbed himself to death. And Vitellius, engorged and inebriated, was butchered and dragged by hook into the Tiber.

The very symbols of Roman invincibility—shrines and sacred sites—collapsed in evidence of her near extinction. Says Tacitus in his
Histories
, this was

a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characters at once. . . . Cities in Campania’s richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol itself fired by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned; there was profligacy in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In the capital there were yet worse horrors. . . . Besides the manifold vicissitudes of human affairs, there were prodigies in heaven and earth, the warning voices of the thunder, and other intimations of the future, auspicious or gloomy, doubtful or not to be mistaken. Never surely did more terrible calamities of the Roman People, or evidence more conclusive, prove that the Gods take no thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment.
⁷

For three and a half years, the Beast systematically ravished the persecuted bride and sought the ruin of the prostituted bride. Now the kingdom of the Caesars was itself writhing in the throes of certain death. To friend and foe alike it appeared as though the empire had suffered a mortal wound. Indeed, the imminent collapse of Rome seemed so certain that Vespasian and his son Titus lost all will to advance on Jerusalem in the Jewish wars. Just as all seemed lost, however, an empire tottering on the edge of extinction arose from its funeral dirge with renewed malevolence. General Vespasian was proclaimed emperor and not only succeeded in restoring Roman sovereignty but in rehabilitating the Roman Senate. Therefore, Vespasian “resurrected” the empire and ushered in the Flavian dynasty, which would rule Rome until AD 96.

Finally, while Revelation was inscripturated in the shadow of three and a half years of tribulation, it encompasses the year that will forever stand in infamy. With the resurrection of the Roman beast, Vespasian and his son Titus once again set their sights on Jerusalem. By spring of AD 70, Titus had besieged the city. By summertime he had surrounded it with a wall, relegating the Jews within to either starvation or surrender. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the horror that ensued. Some Jews who had failed to flee to Pella “prowled around like mad dogs, gnawing at anything: belts, shoes, and even the leather from their shields.” In graphic detail he recounts stories such as that of Mary of Bethezuba. “Maddened by hunger, she seized the infant at her breast and said, ‘Poor baby, why should I preserve you for war, famine, and rebellion? Come, be my food—vengeance against the rebels, and the climax of Jewish tragedy for the world.’ With that, she killed her infant son, roasted his body, and devoured half of it, hiding the remainder.”
⁸
Josephus’s words inevitably bring to mind Jesus’ warning a generation earlier: “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!” (Matthew 24:19).

By August, the altar of the Temple was littered with heaps of rotting corpses, and “streams of blood flowed down the steps of the sanctuary.”
⁹
And on August 30, the unthinkable happened. “The very day on which the former temple had been destroyed by the king of Babylon,”
¹⁰
the second Temple was set ablaze. As the Revelator had prophesied, “In one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her” (Revelation 18:8). “While the temple was in flames, the victors stole everything they could lay their hands on, and slaughtered all who were caught. No pity was shown to age or rank, old men or children, the laity or priests—all were massacred.”
¹¹
By September 26, all Jerusalem was in flames. “The total number of prisoners taken during the war was 97,000, and those who died during the siege 1,100,000.”
¹²

So great was the devastation of Jerusalem and its Temple “that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”
¹³
As the starved and shackled survivors slumped out of the smoldering ruins, no doubt more than a few remembered the words of Jesus, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:37-38). Some might even have recalled the scene. As his words still hung in the air, Jesus had turned his back on the place that had tabernacled the Shekinah glory of the Almighty. Sensing the gravity of the moment, his disciples had called his attention to the majesty of the Temple and its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he had responded. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down” (Matthew 24:1-2). An improbable prophecy had become a nightmarish reality.
¹⁴

Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done,) Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side.

This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison, as were the towers also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.

This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.

FROM BOOK SEVEN OF
THE WAR OF THE JEWS
, AS RECORDED BY FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

MATTHEW 24:1-2

This fictional trilogy stays true to the history of the war of the Jews and the fall of the Temple, as given to us in the only firsthand account, written by Josephus.

Just as it is common to describe Patmos as a barren Alcatraz, misidentify the great prostitute as the Roman Catholic Church, or identify the 144,000 as exclusively Jewish male virgins, so too it is common to contend that the book of Revelation was written long after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70. Thus, according to modern-day prophecy pundits, Revelation describes events that will likely take place in the twenty-first century rather than the first century.

Among the reasons we can be certain that Revelation was not written twenty-five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, three tower above the rest. First, just as it is unreasonable to suppose that someone writing a history of the World Trade Center in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, would fail to mention the destruction of the Twin Towers, so too it stretches credulity to suggest that Revelation was written in the aftermath of the devastation of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple and yet makes no mention of this apocalypse.

Furthermore, if John were writing in AD 95, it is incredible to suppose he would not mention the fulfillment of Christ’s most improbable and apocalyptic prophecy (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 21:6). As the student of Scripture well knows, New Testament writers were quick to highlight fulfilled prophecy.

Finally, New Testament documents—including the book of Revelation—speak of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple as intact at the time they were written (for example, Revelation 11:1-2). If Revelation were written
before
AD 70, it is reasonable to assume that the vision given to John was meant to reveal the apocalyptic events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem—events that were still in John’s future but are in our past. According to Scripture, Jesus sent his angel “to show his servants what must soon take place” (Revelation 1:1). Thus, the prophecy concerns a near-future event, not one that took place twenty-five years earlier. This, of course, does not presuppose that
all
the prophecies in Revelation have already been fulfilled. Just as Christ came to earth once to bear the sins of the world, so too he will return again to gather the elect and to usher in the restoration of all things. On that day, the justified will be resurrected to eternal life and the unjustified to eternal conscious torment and separation from the love and grace of God. Paradise lost will become paradise restored, and the problem of sin and Satan will be fully and finally resolved.
¹⁵

The historian Eusebius reported Tertullian’s earlier claims that Emperor Tiberius brought details of Christ’s life before the Roman Senate, apparently for a vote of approval regarding his deity. The Senate then reportedly spurned Tiberius’s own vote of approval, which engendered a warning from the emperor not to attempt actions against Christians.

And when the wonderful resurrection and ascension of our Saviour were already noised abroad, in accordance with an ancient custom which prevailed among the rulers of the provinces, of reporting to the emperor the novel occurrences which took place in them, in order that nothing might escape him, Pontius Pilate informed Tiberius of the reports which were noised abroad through all Palestine concerning the resurrection of our Saviour Jesus from the dead.

He gave an account also of other wonders which he had learned of him, and how, after his death, having risen from the dead, he was now believed by many to be a God. They say that Tiberius referred the matter to the Senate, but that they rejected it, ostensibly because they had not first examined into the matter (for an ancient law prevailed that no one should be made a God by the Romans except by a vote and decree of the Senate), but in reality because the saving teaching of the divine Gospel did not need the confirmation and recommendation of men.

But although the Senate of the Romans rejected the proposition made in regard to our Saviour, Tiberius still retained the opinion which he had held at first, and contrived no hostile measures against Christ.

These things are recorded by Tertullian, a man well versed in the laws of the Romans, and in other respects of high repute, and one of those especially distinguished in Rome.

EUSEBIUS,
THE CHURCH HISTORY

In historical record, the Jewish historian Josephus does not include a description of the Ark of the Covenant as part of the spoils for the Roman soldiers. This is significant by its absence, as he describes in detail that Titus took the vessels from the Temple and brought them to Rome. There are carvings of the lampstand or menorah, the Table of Shewbread, and ritual trumpets on the Triumphant Arch of Titus in Rome. There is no carving of the Ark of the Covenant.

In
The Jewish War
, Josephus writes, “Most of the spoils that were carried were heaped up indiscriminately, but more prominent than all the rest were those captured in the Temple at Jerusalem—a golden table weighing several hundredweight, and a lampstand, similarly made of gold but differently constructed from those we normally use. . . . After these was carried the Jewish Law, the last of the spoils. . . . Vespasian made up his mind to build a temple of Peace. . . . There too he laid up the golden vessels from the Temple of the Jews, for he prided himself on them; but their Law and the crimson curtains of the Inner Sanctuary he ordered to be deposited in the Palace for safe keeping.”
¹⁶

Josephus describes the Holy of Holies as empty. He states, “The innermost chamber measured 30 feet and was similarly separated by a curtain from the outer part. Nothing at all was kept in it; it was unapproachable, inviolable, and invisible to all, and was called the Holy of Holies.”
¹⁷
It seems that there was no Ark of the Covenant in the second Temple when the soldiers desecrated it.

Since its disappearance from the biblical narrative, there have been a number of claims of having discovered or having possession of the Ark, and several possible places have been suggested for its location.

Joseph Ben-Matthias
was captured at Jotapata under extraordinary circumstances, after a siege of forty-seven days as described in the novel. Also as described in
The Last Temple
, when brought before Vespasian and Titus, Ben-Matthias predicted that Vespasian would become emperor. He was not believed, and he spent the next two years in chains in the Roman camp, during which time he began to write about the war. After four emperors died in quick succession—and Vespasian became emperor himself—Ben-Matthias was freed. His actions at the fall of Jerusalem at Titus’s side took place as depicted in the novel. Later, Ben-Matthias was adopted into Vespasian’s family, the Flavians, and so became Flavius Josephus, the name by which we remember him for his chronicles of the history of the Jews, including
The War of the Jews
, which is the only eyewitness record of the fall of Jerusalem.

Titus
and
Queen Bernice
returned to Rome and lived together as though husband and wife. When Titus became emperor after the death of his father, Vespasian, he tried to marry Bernice officially, but the decision was unpopular, and he changed his mind.

Nero
’s final night took place as described. Josephus reports that after Nero stabbed himself in the throat, a military man fitting the description of Vitas tried to stanch the wound and was with Nero as the emperor died.

During the latter part of Nero’s reign,
Nerva
was a godfather to Vespasian’s son Domitian. He later oversaw the emperorships of the Flavian dynasty—Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian—then briefly became emperor himself.

Helius
was paraded in chains by the emperor Galba, then put into a bag and thrown in the Tiber River.

Simon Ben-Gioras
and
John of Gischala
both fled as the Temple was conquered. They were later captured by the Romans and paraded in Rome during a triumph for Titus. Ben-Gioras was subsequently executed, and John of Gischala died in prison.