Vessel of Singular Devotion - THE PURIFICATION OF MARY

THE FAIREST FLOWER OF PARADISE - CONSIDERATIONS ON THE LITANY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN, ENRICHED WITH EXAMPLES DRAWN FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS BY Very Rev. ALEXIS M. LEPICIER, O. S. M.

"And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His Mother: Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thine own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed." (Luke, ii, 34, 35.)

ACCORDING to the law of Moses, the woman who had brought into the world a man-child, was to abstain from going into the Temple for forty days. After which time, she was to journey to Jerusalem, and there offer for her purification a lamb with a pigeon or turtle-dove; or by concession, if she were poor, a pair of turtle-doves or pigeons. (Lev. xii, 8.)

The conception of Christ in the womb of our blessed Lady was the work of the Holy Ghost, and hence Mary was not subject to this law in as much as it implied satisfaction for any fault whatever. But that same spirit of humility which had induced Jesus, though immune from all stain of origin, to obey the law of circumcision, impelled Mary also to submit to the law of purification.

The Holy of Holies having come upon earth to take away the sins of the world, (John, i, 29.) chose to appear among us as a sinner. It was therefore befitting that His Immaculate Mother, destined to cooperate with Him in the work of our redemption, should teach the world, by her submission to the law of purification, this great truth, that humility is the beginning of our salvation, as pride has been the root of our ruin. And just as Jesus willed to be born in poverty, so also Mary appeared in the Temple stripped of the goods of this world, for which reason she made to God the offering of the poor.

O holy humility, how pleasing art thou in the sight of the Most High, since it was to teach us lowliness, that the Word of God came down upon earth!

Mary went to the Temple of Jerusalem not only to be purified in accordance with the Law, but also to offer to God the Child Jesus, her new-born Son: Ut sisterent eum Domino" (Luke, ii, 22.)

The Law commanded that all newly born male children should be consecrated to the Lord. This precept was designed to recall to the Hebrews the memory of the passage of the destroying-Angel, who slew the first-born of Egypt, but spared the children of the Israelites. Later on however, God having, in place of the first-born of the Hebrews, set apart for the priesthood the entire tribe of Levi, the custom was introduced that the parents should immediately ransom their first-born at the price of five shekels. Mary and Joseph offered therefore this mystic ransom at the Temple, in a spirit of obedience.

But to what purpose was Jesus thus ransomed? Why, having been once offered to God, was He restored again to His parents? Ah, it is because He was the victim destined for the sacrifice of Golgotha, and it was necessary that the victim should be kept for the day of its immolation. Mary and Joseph are well aware of this. Being fully acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, they know that the Messias must accomplish the work of redemption by His death.

But, in order that the designs of God may be brought home to them with greater force, behold the Prophet Simeon, inspired by the Holy Spirit comes into the Temple, takes into his arms the Divine Infant and, blessing God, turns to Mary, foretelling her the bitter sorrow which, like a sharp sword, must one day pierce her sinless soul.

The holy old man Simeon knew well that the Messias was born only of Mary, and that to her alone would one day belong the offering up of Jesus upon Calvary. Therefore, though his benediction equally included St. Joseph, yet it was to the Mother of God alone that he addressed the prophetic utterance. These words were, for the heart of the Immaculate Virgin, a cause of unspeakable grief, though at the same time of exceeding joy.

In fact, Mary perceived that if Jesus was to be a contradicted sign, it was by reason of the envy of men, which would drive them to such a pitch of malice, as to become guilty of dei-cide. She understood that this persecution must of necessity include herself also, the true Mother of the Redeemer.

But if the Saviour is to be for many an occasion of perdition, He will also prove, for those who are ready and willing to accept His teaching, a source of grace, so that in His name and by His power they will become victors over sin and death. This thought sufficed to console Mary and to animate her for the fulfilment of her mission.

Example The devotion of Pope Clement viii to The Blessed Virgin

Among the Sovereign Pontiffs who have nourished a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, particular mention must be made of Clement VIII, through whom the picture of Our Lady, venerated in St. Mary Major's at Borne and known as St. Luke's picture, became a center of great devotion.

As soon as he was crowned Pope, he proclaimed a jubilee to all who should visit the chapel where the picture is preserved, and, desiring to give an example of true devotion to the Mother of God, he himself went thrice in procession to visit the shrine, followed by the Sacred College of Cardinals, the Pontifical Court, and a large body of the faithful.

When his nephew, John Francis Aldobrandini was about to set out with an army to help the Hungarians against the Turks, the Holy Pontiff wished to put the valiant soldier under the protection of Our Lady, of whom we read that she is splendid as the sun, beautiful as the moon, and terrible as an army in battle array. To this end he held a solemn ceremony in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, during which, under the motherly regard of our blessed Lady, he appointed Francis general, giving him the banner under which the Christian name was to triumph.

But what especially distinguished the devotion of this Pontiff to our blessed Lady was his custom of going every morning on foot with one of the pontifical household to venerate this shrine in the Church of St. Mary Major. On arriving there, he was wont to go up the steps leading to the Basilica, on his knees, out of reverence for the Mother of God. He used to remain there humbly waiting for the "Angelus" to be rung, at which hour the Basilica would be opened. Then he recited the "Angelus" thus honoring her who is known as the heavenly dawn; after which, he went to prostrate himself before the Sacred Picture, which he contemplated in ecstasy, breathing forth the love of his heart for Mary.

Paul V, who succeeded Clement VIII in the Chair of St. Peter, wished to perpetuate the devotion of his predecessor to this sacred shrine by erecting a splendid monument to his memory in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin. Prince Marcantonio Borghese had the body of Pope Clement VIII transferred there from the Vatican, so that even in death he might render homage to her, whom he had loved so much in life.

Prayer

O Mary, who hast given us in thy Purification, so bright an example of true and sincere devotion, and whose sweet heart was at once pierced with sorrow and filled with heavenly joy at the prophecy of Simeon, grant that I may imitate thee, and obey the commandments of Jesus, in such wise, that I may have part in the Redemption which He has won for us. Amen.

The History Of The Blessed Virgin, Translated From The French By The Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G. Part 36.

Chapter 13.

The Purification. Part 2.

The presence of the Messias, who inflamed the heart of the disciples at Emmaus, even before they had recognised their Master in the breaking of bread, beamed upon the soul of the Aaronites, as the ray of spring glistens on the eternal snows of Ararat. That solemn moment, which suspended the sacred concerts round the throne of God, and fixed the eyes of the heavenly host on a single point of the universe, that moment announced by Aggeus, when the glory of the second temple effaced that of the first, passed unperceived before the darkened eyes of the priests and doctors. None of them recognised " the pure and never sullied oblation" which Malachy had predicted. The desired of nations, He whose way had been prepared by angels, the great Redeemer so long promised and expected, was there bodily present, in his holy house, and no one thought to welcome him with palms, crying out upon the battlements of the temple and the roofs of Jerusalem, " Hosanna to the Son of David!" They knew well, says the gospel, how to prognosticate the approach of rain by the clouds which gathered in the west; they knew well how to foresee heat when the south wind blew; but these men, so skilful in drawing presages from the different aspects of the sky, did not see " that the fig-tree of Solomon was about to put forth its figs," 1 and the child of the people did not lead them to presage the God. 0 poverty, how excellent a disguise art thou, even for the divine nature! The true Christ was in the midst of his own; but he was poor, and his own received him not: therefore have they remained without a Saviour; for no Melech-Hamaschiak has come to justify their incredulous contempt for the divine Son of the Virgin, and they are on this account reduced to say, with cold and despairing rage, " Perish those who calculate the time of the Messias !" 2

Meanwhile the infant God, who had recognised as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem the sites of our redemption, counted his executioners in silence in this grave and glittering assemblage; among the choirs who sung to the harp hymns of praise to the Eternal, Christ distinguished the arrogant and malevolent voices which should cry out later on, " Crucify him ! crucify him!"

Race of Aaron, where art thou now ? The avenging breath of the Crucified has scattered thee like chaff in every part of the globe; absorbed in those masses which thou despisedest, the companions of thy exile no longer know thee! But at that time, little troubled about that future which was lowering over their heads, the Hebrew priests offered to the God who rejected them the chosen victims of the great and of the common people. One of them took the doves from Joseph, mounted the general ascent of the altar of holocausts, and offered to the Lord this poor and simple sacrifice.

"And after they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord," says St. Luke, "they returned into Galilee to their own city, Nazareth." 3

Where shall they take the frugal repast, to recruit their strength ? 4

Tradition is silent as to a great part of this affecting and perilous journey. No doubt the holy travellers made long and painful marches across the mountains, taking advantage of the earliest hours of daylight, and often waiting, too, for the rising of the moon to proceed on their way. As long as they were passing through Galilee, the deep caverns which are sunk in it, caverns of unknown windings, where it is easy to hide from all observation, afforded them a place to stop and repose : but these dens with hollow sides had their dangers too; for numerous and predatory bands, who had long defied all the forces of the kingdom, and who were emboldened to reappear by the sickness of Herod, 5 chose them by preference for their places of security. The fear of penetrating unconsciously into one of these resorts of assassins must have made Joseph hesitate more than once at the sheltering openings of these isolated caverns.

At length, after a thousand inconveniences of every kind, the Holy Family had reached the environs of Jerusalem. Here precautions and uneasiness were multiplied by reason of the imminence of danger; the fugitives no longer dared to come near towns, nor even populous villages, where numbers of spies and informers had their eye upon strangers: 6 they followed the bed of torrents, dived into deserted roads, or the damp shade of woods, not daring to go far out of the way to renew their exhausted provisions, and suffering at once from fear, cold, and hunger They had passed by Anathoth, and were moving in the direction of Ramla, to descend into the plains of Syria. Anxious to get out of a dangerous neighbourhood, they had borrowed some hours of the night, when they saw some armed men issue forth from a dark ravine, who stopped their passage. He who appeared to be the chief of this troop of bandits came forward from the hostile group to inspect the travellers. Joseph and Mary had stopped, and looked at each other with alarm: Jesus was asleep. The robber, who had come to take blood and gold, looked with astonishment at this old man, unarmed, just like a patriarch of olden times; at this young woman, covered with a veil, who seemed anxious to hide her child from him in her heart, so closely did she press him painfully to her breast. " They are poor," said the robber to himself, " and travel by night, like fugitives!" He too, perhaps, had a son in the cradle; perhaps the atmosphere of meekness and mercy which surrounded Jesus and Mary acted upon this ferocious soul: he lowered the point of his lance, and holding out a friendly hand to Joseph, he offered him a lodging for the night in his fortress, suspended upon the corner of a rock, like the nests of birds of prey. This offer, honestly made, was accepted with holy confidence, and the roof of the robber afforded hospitality, on this occasion, as well as the tent of the Arab. 7 The next day, towards noon, the Holy family stopped at the extremity of a vast forest of palm-trees, nopals, and wild fig-trees, which extends at a short distance from Ramla; 8 a carpet of everlasting flowers, narcissuses, and anemones received the Sovereign of heaven and earth; the heats of summer ruled in the plain, and the warbling of birds, the perfume of plants, the tufted shade of fig-trees, and the distant bubbling of a spring, acted as a charm on the sleep of Christ. After a short rest, the moments of which were counted, the travellers proceeded on their journey. Their motive for moving towards Bethlehem is unknown; tradition has preserved the memory of their passing by it, and the Christians have erected an altar in the cave where Mary concealed her infant, 9 while Joseph went up to the town, either to inquire for the departure of a caravan, or to exchange the slow travelling beast which had carried the Blessed Virgin for a camel. Whatever was the motive which led Joseph and Mary to the crater of a volcano, there is no doubt that they stayed there but a few hours, and that they made haste to reach a maritime town of the Philisthines, to join the first caravan going to Egypt.

If we rely on the learned calculations of chronologists, who allow of no interval in this long journey, the holy pair must have found a caravan on the point of starting, on the coast of Syria. This is the more probable, as the vernal equinox was at hand, and every one would be anxious to anticipate the season when the simoom exercises its empire over the desert, and makes its sea of sand as treacherous as the waves themselves. 10 Excepting the mortal apprehension of the enraged pursuit of Herod, the second part of the journey of the Holy Family did not yield to the first in fatigue or suffering or even in danger. On quitting Gaza, the ruined towers of which resounded with the dying sound of the waves, the travellers beheld nothing before them but immense solitudes of sand, of a dreary aspect and frightful barrenness, ploughed up by the hot wind of the desert, and oppressed by a fiery sky. No vegetation, except a few thin patches of heath, growing here and there on the lonely plain; no water except the brackish spring where the Virgin and Joseph, who were weary, who were poor, and whom no one cared for, could not quench their thirst till after the rich merchants, their slaves, and camels had exhausted it, and there remained of this poor muddy water barely enough to fill the hollow of one's hand. The farther they went from the frontiers of Syria, the more did they feel thirst, and the springs were more scarce. At times, they discerned at a distance, in the middle of a boundless plain, a large blue clear lake, like the lake of Genesareth; the sky was reflected in its limpid waters, in which a solitary date-palm beheld its own image. A cry of joy hailed this discovery; they urged on the speed of the camels, and Mary raised her drooping head, like a rose of Jericho which foretells rain. 11 They were close upon this blessed lake, and already slaking their thirst in imagination; but, oh wretched fate ! a mocking demon transported the lake some leagues farther on, and left nothing in its place but parched-up sand ! 12

1 St. Luc, c. 12, v. 55 et. 56. et c. xxii. v. 29, 30.

2 Basn., liv. vi. c. 26. Talmud, 349.

3 We have followed the opinion of St Luke, St. John Chrysostom, and some other authorities, in making the Holy Family leave for Nazareth after the Purification. This is the only way to reconcile St. Matthew—who says nothing of the marvellous events of the Presentation in the temple—with St. Luke, who is silent on the massacre of the Innocents, and the flight into Egypt. " What then shall we say ? " says St. John Chrysostom, " that St. Luke calls this the time, describing that which preceded the descent into Egypt. For he did not lead them thither before the Purification, lest the law should be in any way infringed; but he waited till the Purification should be accomplished, and they should have returned to Nazareth, and then they were to go down into Egypt."—(Horn. ix. in St Matt)

4 S. Bonav., De Vita Christi.

5 These large armies, often two or three thousand strong, were commanded by experienced chiefs, who gave Herod and the Romans full occupation. Some had a political aim, and made, party war; others were only a mere collection of assassins, who carried long daggers under their cloaks, and killed those whom they wished to get rid of, even in the streets of Jerusalem.—(De Bello, lib. ii. c. 5.)

6 Herod, who brought espionage to perfection in the East, covered the great roads with spies in every part of Judea.—(Josephus, Ant. Jud., lib. zv. o. 13.)

7 The site -where the local tradition has placed this scene, and where the ruins of the fortress of the banditti are still visible, continues to be very ill-famed. During the crusades, the Franks, to whom this tradition was familiar, had exalted the banditti chief to a feudal lord. "It is rare, however," says F. Nau, with amusing gravity, "that a lord of note becomes a highway robber." The crusaders were better versed in history than F. Nau. To this history, which seems authentic, has been added an embellishment, for which we cannot answer, asserting that the hospitable robber was the good thief in person.

8 The spot fixed by tradition as one of the resting-places of the Holy Family is very charming; the ruins of a monastery are still seen there.—(Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem, t. ii.)

9 This cave is called the Grotto of the Virgins  Milk, because it is supposed that some drops of milk of the Mother of God fell upon the rock, while she suckled the infant Jesus.

10 " The Arabs call the hot wind of the desert simoom, or poison: the impression it makes may be compared to that received from the mouth of a large oven when the bread is drawn. These winds prevail most frequently during the fifty days which comprise the equinoxes." (Volney, Voyage en Syrie.)

11 This rose, the cup of which opens and shuts according to the variations of the atmosphere, is consulted as a barometer by the Arabs.—(The Viscount Marcellus, in his Voyage en Orient, t ii.)

12 This is the phenomenon known by the name of mirage. During the expedition which the French made in Egypt in 1798, the soldiers, traversing the arid deserts of that burning country, parched with thirst, were often deceived by this cruel illusion. Every prominent object which offered itself to their eyes in the midst of these seas of sand, appeared to them surrounded with water: thus a hillock, which they perceived at a distance, seemed to them to rise out of the midst of a lake. Dying with want they ran towards it; but, when they arrived at the place itself, they discovered their mistake: the lake had fled, and appeared yet farther off to theirs eager eyes.—(See de Fellens, du Mirage. Art. 6.)

The History Of The Blessed Virgin, Translated From The French By The Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G. Part 35.

Chapter 13.

The Purification. Part 1.

Forty days after the birth of our Saviour, the Virgin considered it her duty to repair to Jerusalem, to obey the precept of Leviticus, which prescribed the purification of mothers, and the ransom of the first-horn. Doubtless this law did not oblige Mary; for if she had been a mother for our Redeemer, she had remained a virgin for herself, and her conception without stain had been followed by a parturition without defilement: " but she submitted voluntarily, for an example to the world, to a penal law to which she was only so far subject," says Bossuet, "as her virginal maternity was unknown."

Poorly equipped, and lost in the crowd on their first appearance upon the dusty road of Ephrata, Joseph and Mary, who had not attracted any notice, had not either left behind them those long recollections which pass into tradition among nations. It was different on their return to Jerusalem; thanks, no doubt, to the miraculous recitals of the shepherds, and the • brilliant visit of the Magi. At some distance from Bethlehem, Mary rested beneath a turpentine-tree to give the breast to her divine Infant, and this tree, according to the common belief, had from that time a hidden virtue which effected, during sixteen centuries, a multitude of wonderful cures. This, at least, is related by the Christians of Asia and the Turks, to whom this tree was still, two centuries ago, an object of veneration and a term of pilgrimage. 1

After this halt, the memory of which is preserved, the holy spouses arrived at the tomb of Rachel, 2 where every Hebrew was bound to pray as be passed. This tumulus of primitive times, which was composed of twelve great stones eaten by moss, upon each of which was read the name of a tribe of Israel, had no epitaph but a white rose of Syria; sweet and frail emblem of the beauty of that young woman, who faded at the moment when she had just blossomed, like the flower spoken of by Job. As they stopped to say the prayer for the dead over the revered dust of one of the saints of their nation, the Virgin and Joseph little thought that the plaintive cries of the dove which the Scripture attributes to this fair Assyrian, would so soon be applicable; and that the mother of 'Joseph and Benjamin was the desolate type of mothers who would bewail, some days afterwards, upon the mountains of Judea, their children massacred instead of Jesus Christ.

On leaving the valley of Rephaim, whose old oaks overshadowed the grassy tombs of the giants of the race of Enac, the virgin perceived a tree of forbidding aspect, the sight of which afflicted her heart. It was a barren olive-tree, which spread its pale foliage to the breezes of the night, and the mournful noise of which resembled the moaning of some human being. As she passed under its melancholy branches, which no bird of heaven enlivened with its song, Mary felt that sensation of poisonous cold diffused by the fatal shade of the manchineel-tree. This tree, if the local tradition was not mistaken, was the "infamous" wood on which Christ was nailed.

At the very moment when Joseph and Mary made their way into the second inclosure, with the sides of silver for the ransom and the doves for sacrifice, a holy old man, named Simeon, 3 to whom it had been divinely revealed that he should not die till he had seen Christ the Lord, came into the portico by inspiration of the Spirit of God. At the sight of the Holy Family, the eye of the just man became inspired; discovering the King Messias beneath the poor swaddling-clothes of the people, he took him from the arms of his mother, lifted him on to his face, and began to contemplate him with emotion, while tears of joy rolled down his venerable cheeks. " Now," cried out the pious old man, raising up his streaming eyes to heaven, " now thou dost dismiss thy servant, 0 Lord, according to thy word, in peace; because my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." As he finished these words, Simeon solemnly blessed the holy pair; and then addressing himself to Mary, after a mournful and grave silence, he added that this child, born for the ruin and resurrection of many in Israel, would be a sign of contradiction to men, and that sorrow should pierce the soul of his mother like the sharp point of a sword.

By this unexpected light, which shed a sombre gleam over the great destiny of Christ, the ignominies, the sufferings, and agonies of the cross, were disclosed at once to the Blessed Virgin. The inauspicious words of Simeon, like a stormy wind, made her bend down her head, and her heart was painfully oppressed. 4 But Mary knew how to accept, without complaint and without murmur, all that came to her from God; her pale lips were placed upon this chalice of wormwood and gall; she drained it even to the dregs, and then said, sweetly, as she dried up her tears, " O Lord, thy will be done! " At that moment the daughter of Abraham was exalted above the head and father of her people; she, too, sacrificed her son upon the altar of the Lord, but she had the sad assurance that the sacrifice would be accepted,— and she was a mother !

She was still pondering in her mind these deep thoughts, when a prophetess came in, named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser, who was far advanced in years. This holy widow departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving God night and day. At the sight of the divine Infant, she began to praise the Lord aloud, and to speak of him to those who looked for the redemption of Israel.

" Not only," says St. Ambrose on this subject, " does the generation of the Lord receive testimony from angels, and prophets, and shepherds, but also from the aged and the just. Every age, and both sexes, and the miracles of events attest it. A Virgin brings forth, one that was barren becomes a mother, the dumb speaks, Elizabeth prophesies, the Magian adores, he who is shut up in the womb leaps for joy, the widow proclaims, the just expects."

As the farthest court of the temple was forbidden to Mary, and as the infant, on account of his sex, was to be offered there to the Lord, Joseph himself carried him into the court of the first-born, asking himself at the same time whether the scenes which had taken place at the entrance of Jesus into the holy house would be renewed in the compartment of the Hebrew priests. But nothing discovered the infant God in this privileged part of the temple; everything there remained sad and frozen beneath the rising ray of the young Sun of justice. A priest unknown to Joseph received in a desultory manner from the rough hands of the man of the people, whom he regarded as the " offscouring of the world," 5 the timid birds ordained by the law, and did not even deign to honour Christ with a single look. The love of gold— that shameful idolatry, which hides its unacknowledged worship in the shade as long as it retains enough shame to blush —had changed into hard stone the narrow, egotistical, and malignant heart 6 of the princes of the synagogue. Leaving the monopoly of labour and privations to the simple Levites, whom they reduced to live upon herbs and dried figs, 7 they passed by the poor man stretched upon their marble thresholds, and the traveller wounded in the mountain pathway, turning their heads away with indifference ; in reality they loved neither God nor men. And with this does our Lord, who himself instituted a priesthood exclusively of charity, reproach them, with holy and piercing irony, in the parable of the Samaritan. Therefore, as Malachy had announced, " God cursed their benedictions," and turned away his face from their temple, which he was soon to deliver up to the sword and fire of the Romans.

1 This tree, under which Mary rested to give Jesus the breast, was destroyed during the century before the last, hut the memory of the place where it was is still preserved.

2 According to the Jewish doctors, Jacob buried his beloved wife on the road to Bethlehem, only because his prophetic knowledge led him to discover that a portion of his descendants would follow this road as captives of the Assyrians, and because he wished that Rachel might intercede for them to Jehovah, as they passed before her tomb. The Protestants have declaimed strongly against the Talmudists on account of this passage, which favours the intercession of the Virgin and of the saints. This tomb of Rachel was in such veneration, that all the Jews who passed by it made it a religious duty to engrave their names on one of the stones: these enormous stones were twelve in number.—(Talm. de Jer.) We know that the tears of Rachel, spoken of by Jeremias, were only a figure of the tears shed by the Jewish women after the massacre of the innocents.—(St. Matt. xi. 17,18.)

3 The Arabs give Simeon the title of Siddik (he who verifies), because he bore witness to the coming of the true Messias, in the person of Jesus, the son of Mary, whom all Mussulmans are obliged to receive as such.—'D'Herb., Biblioth. Orientale, t. iii. p. 266.)

4 "Mary, my sovereign," says St. Anselm on this subject, "I cannot believe that you could have lived a moment with such sorrow, had not God strengthened you, who gives life."

5 Prideaux, History of the Jews.

6 The Jewish doctors had then, and still have, a maxim which fills us with horror : they hold that he who does not nourish his hatred, and avenge himself, is unworthy of the name of rabbin. (Basn., liv. vi. c. 17.)

7 The luxury and avarice of the chief priests of Jerusalem were incredible. The pontiffs sent people into the country to take the tithes in the granaries, and appropriate them to themselves, which left the inferior priests to die of hunger. At the least remonstrance the miserable Levites were accused of revolt and insubordination, and delivered up to the Romans : the governor Felix alone cast forty of them into prison, out of complaisance to the doctors and princes of the synagogue.—(Josephus, Vita.)