The Amazing Christian Escape from the A.D. 70 Destruction of Jerusalem

“Be Ye Also Ready”: The Amazing Christian Escape from the A.D. 70 Destruction of Jerusalem By George A. Horton, Jr. Ensign, June 1989, 48-49

When the Roman legions destroyed Judaea those who heard Jesus’ reference to Daniel vividly and Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Josephus says that more than understood the Savior’s prophecies. 1,100,000 Jews perished and nearly 100,000 were Among the tragedies that the Lord said would taken captive. 1 In Rome’s ancient forum, the Arch of happen was the destruction of the temple. The Titus, which still stands, depicts Jewish captives in magnificent structure Solomon had built had already chains and Roman soldiers carrying the seven- been destroyed and rebuilt twice. It would be branched temple candlestick on their shoulders. Yet, destroyed again, and the Jews scattered to the four while the Jews suffered starvation, slaughter, and corners of the earth! capture, their fellow Christians in Jerusalem escaped. Unfortunately, the New Testament is silent How were the Christians spared? concerning the fulfillment of the Savior’s prophecies in About thirty-seven years before the Matthew 24. [Matt. 24] History, however, reveals that destruction, Jesus had foretold the terrible events that his prophecies were realized. It also reveals the would follow his death. He warned his followers to stunning fact that the believers obeyed the warnings, immediately flee Jerusalem when the signs he fled Jerusalem to a town called Pella, and thus saved predicted occurred. The Christian community carefully themselves. The early Christian scholar Eusebius wrote: watched for the signs and followed the Savior’s “The whole body, however, of the church at warning. Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine The Lord first identified the situation leading revelation, given to men of approved piety there up to destruction: Many would deceive the people by before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a saying that they were prophets or even Christ himself. certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.” 3 The disciples would be delivered up and afflicted, Epiphanes also attested to the Christian hated of all nations. Betrayal and iniquity would escape, according to Bible scholar Adam Clarke. The abound, and the love of many would turn cold. (See latter wrote: “It is very remarkable that not a single Matt. 24:10–12; JS—M 1:6–10.) Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, The Lord then taught of two major signs that though there were many there when Cestius Gallus would alert believers to flee: “When ye shall see invested the city; and, had he persevered in the siege, Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the he would soon have rendered himself master of it; but, desolation thereof is nigh.” (Luke 21:20.) when he unexpectedly and unaccountably raised the He also said, “When ye therefore shall see the siege, the Christians took that opportunity to escape. … abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the “[As] Vespasian was approaching with his prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let army, all who believed in Christ left Jerusalem and fled him understand:) to Pella, and other places beyond the river Jordan; and “Then let them which be in Judaea flee into so they all marvellously escaped the general shipwreck the mountains: of their country: not one of them perished.” 4 “Let him which is on the housetop not come Pella must not have been the only destination down to take any thing out of his house: of fleeing Christians, but it was the most prominent at “Neither let him which is in the field return the time. The flight to Pella took place in A.D. 66 during back to take his clothes.” (Matt. 24:15–18.) the attack by Gallus. Of the abomination of desolation to which Four years later came the fall of Jerusalem. Jesus referred, Daniel wrote, “They shall pollute the Titus laid siege to the capital, and his battering rams sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily broke down the great walls. The Jews, who were sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that already suffering from plunder, murder, pestilence, maketh desolate.” (Dan. 11:31.) and famine among themselves, were easy prey for the The abomination had happened in 170 B.C. fire and swords of the Tenth Roman Legion. when the Syrian king Antiochus IV ordered a massacre The Master’s chilling words concerning the fate in Jerusalem, profaned the altar of the temple, and of the temple in Jerusalem were completely fulfilled: carried away the temple treasures. 2 The horrifying “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be events under Antiochus were familiar to every Jew, and left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2.) The building the Lord called “my house” (Matt. 21:13) had stood on “immense desolation. (See JS—M 1:21–23, 27–32.) Our warning foundations of solid blocks of white marble covered signals include hearing of “wars, and rumors of wars” with gold.” 5 Some of the blocks were 67 1/2 feet long and the “elect [being] gathered from the four quarters by 9 feet thick. The temple towered 100 feet into the of the earth. … air, fronted by two immense columns. The imposing “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom structure was laid waste, with no part of the building against kingdom; there shall be famines, and left intact. Only a part of the original wall that had pestilences, and earthquakes. … surrounded the temple mount remained. “Iniquity shall abound, the love of men shall Jesus had given adequate warning, and those wax cold. … who heeded the prophecies survived, while most “[The] Gospel of the Kingdom shall be others perished. Pella continued as an important preached in all the world, for a witness unto all Christian center for more than seventy years, during nations, and then shall the end come, or the the time that Jerusalem remained desolate. Extensive destruction of the wicked.” (JS—M 1:23, 27, 29–31.) ruins of Pella lie near the modern village Tabaqat Fahl The Christians who fled to Pella “and other in the northern foothills of the Jordan Valley—perhaps places beyond,” such as Antioch and, later, Ephesus, the “mountains” Jesus referred to—fifty-three miles were saved. Would we have been among them? north of Amman and two and a half miles east of the “Whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be Jordan River. deceived” (JS—M 1:37), the Lord says. He urges us to Why is the flight to Pella important to us in the stand in holy places—places, as President Ezra Taft last dispensation? The prophecies of Jesus concerning Benson has told us, that “include our temples, our Jerusalem and the temple are not a lesson of the past chapels, our homes, and the stakes of Zion.” 6 These only. In this case, history presents a type of what will are, as the Lord declares, “for a defense, and for a happen again. The Lord told us that the signs that refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be preceded the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.” shall occur again, including the abomination of (D&C 115:6.)

Notes 1. Tacitus wrote that he had heard that 600,000 were besieged in Jerusalem (see Histories, 5:13), whereas Josephus estimates that nearly three million were in the city because of the feast of unleavened bread. He bases his guess on the reported number of sacrifices during the feast. The number 1,100,000 that he gives seems to refer to those who died in all of Judaea. (See Wars of the Jews, 6:9:3.) 2. See 1 Maccabees 1:20–50; Josephus, 5:9:4. 3. Ecclesiastical History, tr. C. F. Crusè, 3d ed., in Greek Ecclesiastical Historians, 6 vols. (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1842), p. 110 (3:5). 4. The New Testament … with a Commentary and Critical Notes, 6 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, n.d.), 5:228–29. 5. Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, n.d.), p. 57. 6. “Prepare Yourselves for the Great Day of the Lord,” in Brigham Young University 1981 Fireside and Devotional Speeches (Provo, Utah: University Publications Department, 1981), p. 68.