example of others.

10. And now, when the multitude were gotten together to an
assembly, and every one was in indignation at these men's seizing
upon the sanctuary, at their rapine and murders, but had not yet
begun their attacks upon them, (the reason of which was this,
that they imagined it to be a difficult thing to suppress these
zealots, as indeed the case was,) Ananus stood in the midst of
them, and casting his eyes frequently at the temple, and having a
flood of tears in his eyes, he said, "Certainly it had been good
for me to die before I had seen the house of God full of so many
abominations, or these
sacred places, that ought not to be trodden upon at random,
filled with the feet of these blood-shedding villains; yet do I,
who am clothed with the vestments of the high priesthood, and am
called by that most venerable name [of high priest], still live,
and am but too fond of living, and cannot endure to undergo a
death which would be the glory of my old age; and if I were the
only person concerned, and as it were in a desert, I would give
up my life, and that alone for God's sake; for to what purpose is
it to live among a people
insensible of their calamities, and where there is no notion
remaining of any remedy for the miseries that are upon
them? for when you are seized upon, you bear it! and when you
are beaten, you are silent! and when the people are
murdered, nobody dare so much as send out a groan openly! O
bitter tyranny that we are under! But why do I complain of the
tyrants? Was it not you, and your sufferance of them, that have
nourished them? Was it not you that overlooked those that first
of all got together, for they were then but a few, and by your