But a further portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace and prosperity, there came to the feast at which it is the custom of all Jews to erect tabernacles to God,[324] one Jesus, son of Ananias, a rude peasant, who suddenly began to cry out in the Temple, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against all the people.” Day and night he went about all the alleys with this cry on his lips. Some of the leading citizens, incensed at the fellow’s ill-omened words, laid hands on him and severely chastised him. But he, without uttering a word on his own behalf or for the private ear of those who smote him, continued his cries as before. Thereupon, the rulers, supposing, as was indeed the case, that the man was under some supernatural impulse, brought him before the Roman governor, where, although flayed to the bone with scourges, he neither begged for mercy nor shed a tear, but, merely introducing the most mournful of variations into his ejaculation, responded to each stroke with “Woe to Jerusalem!” When Albinus, the governor, asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these words, he made no reply whatever to his questions, but never ceased reiterating his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go. During all that period up to the outbreak of war he neither approached nor was seen talking to any of the citizens, but, as if it were a prayer on which he had pondered, daily repeated his lament, “Woe to Jerusalem!” He neither cursed any of those who beat him day after day nor blessed those who offered him food; to all that melancholy and ominous refrain was his one reply. At the festivals his cries were loudest. So for seven years and five months he continued his wail, his voice never flagging nor his strength exhausted, until during the siege, after witnessing the verification of his presage, he ceased. For, while going his round on the wall, shouting in piercing tones “Woe once more to the city and to the people and to the Temple,” as he added a last word, “And woe to myself also,” a stone shot from the military engine[325] struck and killed him instantaneously. So with those ominous words still on his lips he passed away. * * * * *