5. The Jews themselves, however, were in no great favor with the Romans since their impatience of Roman restraint led them to be constantly on the eve of rebellion and sedition, and frequently to break out into deeds of violence against the Roman authority. This lack of favor rendered the power of the Jews unequal to their malice against the church of Christ. 6. The imperious nation, too, whose forefathers had rejected the prophets and at the last had crucified the Son of God with every circumstance of cruelty, crying out in the streets of their holy city, "crucify him, and let his blood be upon us and on our children," [7] were about to meet the calamities which their wickedness called down upon them. The Roman emperor Vespasian {107} [Ves-pa-zhe-an], tired of their repeated seditions, at last sent an army under Titus to subjugate them. The Jews made a stubborn resistance and a terrible war followed. Jerusalem, crowded with people who had come into the city from the surrounding country to attend the Passover, was besieged for six months, during which time more than a million of her wretched inhabitants perished of famine. The city was finally taken, the walls thereof thrown down and the temple so completely destroyed that not one stone was left upon another. Thousands of Jews were cut to pieces and nearly a hundred thousand of those taken captive were sent into slavery.[8] All the calamities predicted by the Messiah[9] befell the city and people. Jerusalem from that time until now has been trodden down of the Gentiles; and will be until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 7. According to Eusebius, the Christians escaped these calamities which befell the Jews; for the whole body of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by divine revelation, given to men of approved piety, removed from Jerusalem before the war and dwelt at Pella, beyond Jordan, where they were secure from the calamities of those times.[10] 8. Persecution by the Romans.--It is more difficult to understand why the Romans should persecute the Christians than it is to see why the Jews did it. The Romans were polytheists, and affected the fullest religious liberty. The author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" claims that this period of Roman history was the golden age of religious liberty. And such was the multitude of deities collected in Rome from various nations, and such the variety of worship to be seen in the great capital of the empire, that Gibbon has said: Rome gradually became the common temple of her subjects; and {108} the freedom of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind.[11] Furthermore, the same high authority says: