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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (June 20, 1901)
The Conservative * SUICIDE AMONG THE JEWS AND THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [ Written for THE CONSERVATIVE by Lawrence Irwell. ] Suicide seems to have been xincommon among the Jews tiutil about the begin ning of the Christian era. In the old testament only four cases of suicide are mentioned. The first is that of Sam son. In his case , the act was that of a man driven to a condition approaching insanity by the cruelty of his persecu tors. His great desire was for revenge upon his enemies , although it is doubt ful whether lie cared for his own life , after he had been deprived of his sight. His prayer , "Strengthen mo , I pray Thee , only this once , O God , that I may at once bo avenged of the Philis tines for my two eyes , " seems very strong evidence that ho sacrificed what remained to him of life for the gratifi cation of feeling that he was avenging himself upon his persecutors. The Suicide of Saul. The second and third suicides are those of Saul and his armor-bearer. They belong , I think , to the same class as Samson's , for they wore committed , not for any desire for death , but from the force of external circumstances. Samson killed himself in order to ob tain something that was to him dearer than life , viz ; revenge. Saul and his follower died in order that they might escape what was to them worse than death , i. e. , falling into the hands of the enemy. Rather than be captured by his pursuers , when retreating , after having received a wound , ho called upon his armor-bearer to kill him. The re quest not being immediately complied with , Saul fell upon his sword and died. His armor-bearer then , in imitation of his leader , killed himself in order to avoid being taken prisoner. The fourth suicide mentioned in the old testament is that of Ahitophel , the circumstances of which are peculiar. Having , with the aid of Absalom , raised a rebellion , the cunning Ahito phel hanged himself to escape the con sequences of his treachery , as many persons have done since his time. The notorious Piggott , who forged the Par- nell letters , it may be remembered , shot himself in order to escape arrest and trial. The Death of Abimelech. The case of Abimeleoh was not a tech nical suicide ; but it approached it veiy closely. Having had his skull broken by a stone flung from a height by a woman , Abimeleoh was killed at his own request , to enable him to escape the humiliation of dying by the hand of a . ' 'A certain cast woman. woman a piece of a mill-stone upon Abimelech's head , and all to break his skull. Then he hastily called upon the young man , his armor-bearer , and said to him , 'draw thy sword and slay me , that men may not say of mo 'a woman slow him. ' And his young man thrust him through and he died. " Jews Prefer Death to Submission. In the case of Eleazar and those who took refuge with him in Massada after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus , as recorded by Josephus , we have an ex ample of a whole Jewish garrison pre ferring death to submission. Eleazar , with several hundred soldiers and fol lowers were about A. T > . 70 , besieged in the stronghold named Massada , by the Romans under Silva. When the Jews saw that defeat was inevitable , they de cided to die by their own hands rather than surrender. "The wall ( of the city ) however , being consumed to the ground , and no hope or possibility left of safety or relief , the only bravo thing they had before them was to consider how they might deliver their wives and children from the ignominious outrages they might expect from the Romans whenever they became masters of the place. Eleazar concluded , upon the balancing of this question , that a glo rious death was infinitely to be pre ferred to a life of infamy , and that the most generous resolution they could take in the world would be not to outlive their liberties. " Eleazar told the people ple that he considered it their duty to themselves and to their families to kill themselves after having taken the lives of their wives and children. At first he failed to convince his follows of the wisdom , of the course which he advo cated , but eventually he brought them to his way of thinking , and a general slaughter of the women and children commenced. In describing the scene , Josephus writes : "Such was the pas sion these people had for the destruction of themselves and their families that not one man of them shrank when they came to execution. They kept up their dear and natural affection to the last , upon an opinion that they could not do their friends a better service. They took their last leave of their wives and children in their arms , with a kiss and a stab. * * * This wad a miserable necessity , but they were driven upon it by a mis erable choice ; for the destroying of their wives and children was the least evil they liad before them. " After this slaughter they gathered together their portable property and burned itand then , "choosing ten men by lot out of their number to do execution upon all the rest , they ranged themselves as near as they could to the dead bodies of their friends , gave them a parting embrace , and cheerfully presented their throats to the executioner. As soon as the ten had , with a mighty resolution , dis- cliarged then : part , they east lots among themselves as to which of the remain ing ten should "dispatch the other nine , with a condition that the surviug tenth man should kill himself lipon the bodies of the rest , such confidence had these people in one another. The nine died with the same constancy as the rest. The last man overlooked the bodies , and finding that they were all stark dead set fire to the palace , and then cast him self upon his sword among his friends. * * * The number of the slain was nine hundred and sixty , reckoning wo men and children into the account. " Two women and five children who had hidden in an aqueduct escaped. These told the Romans the story , which was so incredible that they could not believe it. "But betaking themselves to the quenching of the fire , and following the way up to the palace , they found such a carnage of dead bodies , that without in sulting and rejoicing as enemies , they broke out into admiration at the gener ous greatness of the Jews' minds , the steadiness of their counsels , and the ob stinate agreement of such a number of men in the contempt of death. " The Escape of Josephus. Josephus himself , from whose "His tory of the Wars of the Jews" the above narrative is taken , came very near to' losing his life in a similar slaughter. At about the same time , when leading the Jewish army against the Romans , he and his soldiers were besieged at Jo- tapata. "When the commander realized that the position was hopeless , he de cided to surrender to the enemy. To this , however , the troops would not agree , and with threats urged upon their leader , the nobler course ( as they considered it ) of self-destruction. In answer , Josephus addressed the army at considerable length , and discoursed upon the wickedness of suicide. But ho failed to convince the soldiers , and they pro ceeded to cast lots and to kill each other until only the leader and one soldier re mained. When Josephus found him self in this position he argued the case with his one comrade , and eventually convinced him. They decided that both should live and should give them selves up to Vespasian , the leader of the Roman army. Unselfish Self-Destruction. In the second book of Maccabees ( the Apocrypha ) there is an account of the terrible suicide of Razis. It appears to illustrate two points first , the favor with which the Jews regarded what may be called unselfish suicide , and secondly the determination with which defeated Jewish generals sought death. When Nicauor's soldiers had broken the fortress in which Razis and his fol lowers were besieged , and defeat , coupled with surrender , was a certainty , Razis threw himself upon his sword , "choosing rather to die manfully than to fall into the hands of the enemy , to bo abused otherwise than beseemed his noble birth ; but missing his stroke through haste , the multitude also rush-
