and, without setting him at liberty, bestowed favors on him, and made him easy about his future. Such was the end of the military career of Josephus. [Footnote 1: Jer. 23: 16-17.] [Footnote 2: A charitable explanation of this self-debasing account of Josephus is that he was driven to invent some story to extenuate his resistance to the Romans, and had to blacken his reputation as a patriot to save his skin. The fact that he was kept prisoner some time by Vespasian suggests that he was not so big a traitor as he pretends.] The Talmud relates that Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, the head of the Pharisees, was carried in a coffin outside the walls of Jerusalem by his disciples, and was brought to the Roman camp, where he hailed Vespasian as Emperor and Caesar, and thereby gained his favor. If not apocryphal, the event must have happened in 69 C.E., when the Roman commander was generally expected to aim at the Imperial throne, then the object of strife between rival commanders. The rabbi belonged to the peace party, and from the beginning had opposed the war. And though his action was disapproved by the later generations, it was justified by his subsequent conduct; for it was he who, by founding the famous college at Jabneh, kept alive the Jewish spirit after the fall of the nation. For him surrender was a valid means to the preservation of the nation. The action of Josephus hardly bears the same justification. His desire for self-preservation was natural enough, but his manner of effecting it was not honorable. He was a general who, having taken a lead in the struggle for independence, had seen all his men fall, and had at the end invited the last of his comrades to kill each other, and he saved his life by sacrificing his honor. His mind was from the beginning of the struggle subjugated to Rome, but unhappily he accepted the most responsible post in the national defense and betrayed it. His address to Vespasian was mere flattery, designed to impose on a superstitious man's credulity; for the ear of Vespasian, says Merivale, "was always open to pretenders to supernatural knowledge." Lastly Josephus used his safety, not for the purpose of preserving the Jewish heritage, but for personal ends. He became a flunkey of the Flavian house, and straightway started on the transformation from a Jewish priest and soldier into a Roman courtier and literary hireling. Hard circumstances compelled him to choose between a noble and an ignoble part, between heroic action and weak submission. He was a mediocre man, and chose the way that was not heroic and glorious. Posterity gained something by his choice; his own reputation was fatally marred by it. III THE LIFE OF JOSEPHUS FROM THE TIME OF HIS SURRENDER