THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
25
[According to rabbinical tradition (Ta'anit, 29rt), destruction vnidcr both Xcbucliadne/zar and Titis took place on the Tenth of Ab, the lire-brands Josehaviiii; been thrown in the evening before. tlic real
pliiis ("B. J." vi. 4, §.)) says: "God had doomed the Temiile to the tire, according to the desliny of the agi'S, on that same fatal day. the tenlli day of the m'onlli Lous (.li). on whichit was formerly burned by the l<iiig of Haliylon." R. Johanan, w amora of tlic third century^ says (l.r.). "If I had been living at the time. I would have instituted the fast on the Tenth rather than on the Ninth of Ab." Indeed, the Karaites celebrate the Tenth of Ab as a Fron the remark of I{. Elie/.er ben Zadok fa.st-day. (Meg. Ta'anit, v. and Bab. Ta'anit, I'iM it appears, moreover, that the Ninth of Ab was celebrated as a
fast-day before the destruction of the S'cond TemAt any rate, the day was marked still more as ple. the day of iiatiiaial gloom in the war of Bar Kokba. when the fall of the fortressof Bethar, in '^'>. sealed the fate of the Jewish nation forever. The Jlishnah (Ta'anit, iv. 4) sjieaks of five national misfortunes that occilire<l on the Ninth of Ab, the first one being that night "when the Isnielites were doomed to stay in the wilderness" for folly years (Num. xiv. 1 it Kf'/.). the secdiiil and third the destruction of Jerussi-
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lem under Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, the fourlli llie fall (if Belhar, and the titlh misfcirlune was the drawing i>f the plow over the Holy City and the Temple a year later, in order to turn the place into
Ab, Ninth Day of Ab, Fifteenth Day of
Roman colony (compare Jerome, Zech. viii. 11). Henceforth the Ninth of Ab was like the Day of
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