watched, by reason of the Idumeans. They also supposed that
Ananus would be every where, and visit the guards every
hour; which indeed was done upon other nights, but was
omitted that night, not by reason of any slothfulness of
Ananus, but by the overbearing appointment of fate, that so both
he might himself perish, and the multitude of the guards might
perish with him; for truly, as the night was far gone, and the
storm very terrible, Ananus gave the guards in the cloisters
leave to go to sleep; while it came into the heads of the zealots
to make use of the saws belonging to the temple, and to cut the
bars of the gates to pieces. The noise of the wind, and that not
inferior sound of the thunder, did here also conspire with their
designs, that the noise of the saws was not heard by the others.

7. So they secretly went out of the temple to the wall of the
city, and made use of their saws, and opened that gate which was
over against the Idumeans. Now at first there came a fear upon
the Idumeans themselves, which disturbed them, as imagining that
Ananus and his party were coming to attack them, so that every
one of them had his right hand upon his sword, in order to defend
himself; but they soon came to know who they were that came to
them, and were entered
the city. And had the Idumeans then fallen upon the city,
nothing could have hindered them from destroying the
people every man of them, such was the rage they were in at
that time; but as they first of all made haste to get the zealots
out of custody, which those that brought them in earnestly
desired them to do, and not to overlook those for whose
sakes they were come, in the midst of their distresses, nor to
bring them into a still greater danger; for that when they had