high priest. By fortune the lot so fell as to demonstrate their
iniquity after the plainest manner, for it fell upon one whose
name was Phannias, the son of Samuel, of the village Aphtha. He
was a man not only unworthy of the high priesthood, but that did
not well know what the high priesthood was, such a mere rustic
was he ! yet did they hail this man, without his own consent, out
of the country, as if they were acting a play upon the stage, and
adorned him with a counterfeit thee; they also put upon him the
sacred garments, and upon every occasion instructed him what he
was to do. This horrid piece of wickedness was sport and pastime
with them, but
occasioned the other priests, who at a distance saw their law
made a jest of, to shed tears, and sorely lament the
dissolution of such a sacred dignity.

9. And now the people could no longer bear the insolence of
this procedure, but did all together run zealously, in order to
overthrow that tyranny; and indeed they were Gorion the son of
Josephus, and Symeon the son of Gamaliel, (6) who
encouraged them, by going up and down when they were
assembled together in crowds, and as they saw them alone, to
bear no longer, but to inflict punishment upon these pests and
plagues of their freedom, and to purge the temple of these bloody
polluters of it. The best esteemed also of the high priests,
Jesus the son of Gamalas, and Ananus the son of Ananus when they
were at their assemblies, bitterly
reproached the people for their sloth, and excited them
against the zealots; for that was the name they went by, as if
they were zealous in good undertakings, and were not rather
zealous in the worst actions, and extravagant in them beyond the