106 A History of Judaism
Among the causes of the rebellion singled out by Josephus was a dis-
tinctive philosophy preached in 66 ce, at the time of the first Roman
census, by two teachers called Judas and Saddok who encouraged Jews
to believe that ‘God alone should be their leader and master,’ so that
they were quite prepared to face death ‘if only they may avoid calling
any man master’. Josephus described this doctrine in his Antiquities as
‘an intrusive fourth school of philosophy’, and an innovation in con-
trast to the three ancient philosophies of the Pharisees, Sadducees and
Essenes (see Chapter 6), but it is worth noting here that Josephus’
detailed narrative of the five decades immediately preceding the out-
break of war in 66 ce singularly fails to identify any of the individuals
and groups involved in insurrection as subscribing to this Fourth Phil-
osophy. Similarly, Josephus’ reference in the Jewish War to widespread
belief in ‘an ambiguous oracle ... found in their sacred scriptures, to the
effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of
the world’ is not reflected in descriptions of the leaders of the revolt as
messianic figures. The one exception may be Simon son of Gioras, who
served eventually in 70 ce as the commander- in- chief of the rebels and
was accordingly given the dubious distinction of ritual execution at the
culmination of the triumph in Rome of Vespasian and Titus. When
Simon surrendered to Roman soldiers during the sack of Jerusalem, he
was dressed in white tunics and a purple mantle. Josephus wrote that
this was intended to frighten the Romans, but it is possible Simon
thought such imperial clothing reflected his status as a messianic ruler.^28
The seriousness of the revolt became clear to the Romans in 66 ce
only after the unexpected defeat of the forces of Cestius Gallus, gov-
ernor of Syria, who marched south to sort out the disturbances in
Judaea and reached Jerusalem with an impressive show of strength but
failed to protect his baggage- train sufficiently during his return to the
Mediterranean coast. It is quite possible that the leaders of the provi-
sional government, of whom many came from the high priestly families
which had been favoured by Rome over half a century, imagined that
they might be allowed independence of a Roman governor while
remaining within the Roman empire. After all, Agrippa I had been
appointed king of Judaea by the emperor Claudius only a quarter of a
century before.^29
In the event, Rome responded to the loss of Cestius’ troops, the heav-
iest defeat to befall a Roman army within a pacified province in the
history of the early Roman empire, by mobilizing a huge army to enforce
the total surrender of the rebels. The campaign was slow, in part because