powerful, and had numerous families of their own that were able
to avenge them. Nay, they thought the very people would perhaps
be so moved at these unjust proceedings, as to rise in a body
against them; it was therefore resolved to have them slain
accordingly, they sent one John, who was the most bloody-minded
of them all, to do that execution: this man was also called "the
son of Dorcas," (3) in the language of our country. Ten more men
went along with him into the
prison, with their swords drawn, and so they cut the throats of
those that were in custody there. The grand lying pretence these
men made for so flagrant an enormity was this, that these men had
had conferences with the Romans for a
surrender of Jerusalem to them; and so they said they had slain
only such as were traitors to their common liberty. Upon the
whole, they grew the more insolent upon this bold prank of
theirs, as though they had been the benefactors and saviors of
the city.

6. Now the people were come to that degree of meanness
and fear, and these robbers to that degree of madness, that
these last took upon them to appoint high priests. (4) So when
they had disannulled the succession, according to those families
out of which the high priests used to be made, they ordained
certain unknown and ignoble persons for that office, that they
might have their assistance in their wicked
undertakings; for such as obtained this highest of all honors,
without any desert, were forced to comply with those that
bestowed it on them. They also set the principal men at
variance one with another, by several sorts of contrivances and
tricks, and gained the opportunity of doing what they pleased, by