Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

their lands. Burn their temple. Destroy
     their cult. Kill their god.
    From his perch in Rome, Vespasian sent word to his son Titus to march at once to Jerusalem
     and spare no expense in bringing the rebellion of the Jews to a swift and decisive
     end. What the emperor could not have known was that the rebellion was on the verge
     of collapsing on its own.
    Not long after Menahem was murdered and the Sicarii banished from Jerusalem, the rebels
     began preparing for the Roman invasion they were certain was on the horizon. The walls
     surroundingthe city were fortified, and preparations were made to gather as much military equipment
     as was available. Swords and arrows were collected, suits of armor forged, catapults
     and ballista balls stacked along the city’s perimeter. Young boys were hurriedly trained
     in hand-to-hand combat. The whole city was in a panic as the rebels manned their positions
     and waited for the Romans to return and reclaim Jerusalem.
    But the Romans never came. The rebels were certainly aware of the devastation taking
     place around them. Every day a horde of bruised and bloodied refugees poured into
     Jerusalem; the city was bursting at its borders. But the Roman reprisals were thus
     far focused solely on the countryside and major rebel strongholds such as Tiberias,
     Gamala, and Gischala. The longer the rebels waited for the Romans to arrive in Jerusalem,
     the more fractured and unstable the city’s leadership became.
    Early on, a transitional government of sorts had been formed, made up mostly of those
     among Jerusalem’s priestly aristocracy who had joined the rebellion, many of them
     reluctantly. This so-called “moderate” faction was in favor of coming to terms with
     Rome, if that was still possible. They wanted to surrender unconditionally, beg for
     mercy, and submit once more to Roman rule. The moderates enjoyed a good deal of support
     in Jerusalem, particularly among the wealthier Jews who were looking for a way to
     preserve their status and property, not to mention their lives.
    But an even larger and more vocal faction in Jerusalem was convinced that God had
     led the Jews into war against Rome and that God would lead them to victory. Things
     may have seemed bleak at the moment, and the enemy invincible. But that was part of
     God’s divine plan. Did not the prophets warn that in the final days “the sown places
     shall appear unsown and the storehouses shall be found empty” (2 Esdras 6:22)? Yet
     if the Jews would only remain loyal to the Lord, then very soon they would see Jerusalem
     clothed in glory. The trumpets would sound and all who heardthem would be struck with fear. The mountains would flatten and the earth would open
     up to swallow God’s enemies. All that was required was faithfulness. Faithfulness
     and zeal.
    At the head of this camp was a coalition of peasants, lower-class priests, bandit
     gangs, and recently arrived refugees who came together to form a distinct revolutionary
     faction called the Zealot Party. Poor, pious, and antiaristocratic, the members of
     the Zealot Party wanted to remain true to the original intention of the revolt: to
     purify the Holy Land and establish God’s rule on earth. They were violently opposed
     to the transitional government and its plans to surrender the city to Rome. This was
     blasphemy. It was treason. And the Zealot Party knew well the punishment for both.
    The Zealot Party took over the Temple’s inner courtyard, where only the priests were
     permitted, and from there unleashed a wave of terror against those they deemed insufficiently
     loyal to the rebellion: the wealthy aristocracy and upper-class Jews; the old Herodian
     nobles and the Temple’s former leadership; the chief priests and all those who followed
     the moderate camp. The leaders of the Zealot Party set up their own shadow government
     and drew lots to determine which of them would be the next high priest. The lot fell
     to an illiterate country peasant named Phanni son of Samuel, who was dressed up in
     the high priest’s gaudy vestments, placed before the entrance of the Holy of Holies,
     and taught how to perform the sacrifices while the remnants of the priestly nobility
     watched from a distance, weeping at what they perceived to be the desecration of their
     holy lineage.
    As the bloodshed and internecine battles between rival groups continued, even more
     refugees began to flood into the city, adding fuel to the fires of