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Titus Stabbed the Temple Curtain and a Gnat Ate His Brain

Titus defiled the Holy of Holies, stabbed the curtain, and sailed home victorious, but God sent a gnat into his nose that gnawed at his brain for thirty years.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Titus Mistook the Curtain for Heaven
  2. The Sea Refused to Finish Him
  3. The Gnat Entered His Nose in Rome
  4. God Uses Every Creature

Titus took a sword into the Holy of Holies after the Temple had fallen.

He had already done what armies do when they take a city that has resisted them too long: the fire, the slaughter, the stripping of every object of value from the sanctuary. He unrolled a Torah scroll on the altar. He committed acts of deliberate desecration in the most sacred space in the Jewish world. Then he took his sword and stabbed the curtain of the Holy of Holies.

Blood poured out.

Titus believed he had killed God. The Talmud records that he declared this openly, that he thought he had finally done to the God of Israel what his armies had done to the city. He loaded the sacred vessels into the Temple veil, wrapped them up, and called the conquest complete.

Titus Mistook the Curtain for Heaven

The rabbis who recorded this scene in Gittin 57a, the Babylonian Talmud's tractate on divorce redacted around 500 CE, understood exactly what Titus thought the blood meant. It was the most profound misreading of holiness in the tradition's account of the Temple's destruction. He looked at the parochet, the curtain that had separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the sanctuary for a thousand years, and he thought it was a wall he could pierce. He thought holiness was a material located in a specific spot that would bleed if you stabbed it in the right place.

The rabbis answer that error not with theological argument but with story. The blood, some say, was from a previous sacrifice still held in the curtain's fabric. The miracle was that Titus' act was already self-refuting. You cannot wound a presence by stabbing cloth. But he would not understand that until the gnat.

The Sea Refused to Finish Him

On the sea voyage back to Rome, a storm rose. Waves the size of mountains surrounded the ship. Titus shouted into the wind: the God of the Jews has power only on water. He drowned Pharaoh. He drowned Sisera. Now He comes for me. If He is truly mighty, let Him come down on land and fight me there.

The storm stopped. Titus took this as victory. He interpreted the sea's quiet as proof that his challenge was unanswerable. The Talmud reads it differently. God said: this wicked man has blasphemed and sinned before Me. He does not deserve to perish in the water as Pharaoh perished. I will fulfill his arrogance in a different way.

The Gnat Entered His Nose in Rome

He stepped onto Roman soil. A gnat flew up his nose and lodged in his brain.

For the rest of his life, it ate. The only thing that quieted it was the sound of a blacksmith's hammer, so Titus ordered smiths to hammer near him all day long. He paid a Gentile smith four zuzim a day. To a Jewish smith he paid nothing, saying that the knowledge that an enemy was suffering was payment enough. He had not finished with contempt even while the gnat was at work inside his skull.

He died after thirty years of this. When he died, his servants opened his skull to see what had happened. They found the gnat had grown to the size of a bird, or in some versions a sparrow, with a beak of copper and claws of iron. It had spent three decades becoming something larger than what entered, nourished on imperial blood and arrogance.

God Uses Every Creature

Vayikra Rabbah, the midrashic collection on Leviticus from roughly the fifth century CE, draws the theological conclusion directly. God tells the prophets: if you do not perform my mission, I have many messengers. Rabbi Aha teaches that God arranged the entire sequence around a tiny creature. The Holy One, blessed be He, accomplished through a gnat what no army, no judgment, no sea-storm accomplished. The largest and smallest creatures are equally available to the divine purpose. A conqueror who survived every army and every storm was brought low by something invisible to the human eye at the moment of its entry.

The story is not just about punishment. It is about the category error that power makes. Titus thought the Temple could be possessed by conquest. He thought God could be challenged on Roman ground. He thought silence from heaven was the same as approval from heaven. Every assumption proved wrong, one by one, through instruments that matched the scale of his misunderstanding. A curtain he stabbed, a sea that quieted when he boasted, and a gnat that outlasted every general who served him.

TitusTemple DestructionRomeGnatDivine JusticeExile
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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Gittin 57aTalmud Bavli, Gittin

That which he decreed against himself, as he undergoes the following: Every day his ashes are gathered, and they judge him, and they burn him, and they scatter him over the seven seas. Onkelos then went and raised Balaam from the grave through necromancy. He said to him: Who is most important in that world where you are now? Balaam said to him: The Jewish people.

Onkelos asked him: Should I then attach myself to them here in this world? Balaam said to him: You shall not seek their peace or their welfare all the days (see Deuteronomy 23:7). Onkelos said to him: What is the punishment of that man, a euphemism for Balaam himself, in the next world? Balaam said to him: He is cooked in boiling semen, as he caused Israel to engage in licentious behavior with the daughters of Moab.

Onkelos then went and raised Yeshu the Nazarene from the grave through necromancy. Onkelos said to him: Who is most important in that world where you are now? Yeshu said to him: The Jewish people. Onkelos asked him: Should I then attach myself to them in this world?

Yeshu said to him: Their welfare you shall seek, their misfortune you shall not seek, for anyone who touches them is regarded as if he were touching the apple of his eye (see Zechariah 2:12). Onkelos said to him: What is the punishment of that man, a euphemism for Yeshu himself, in the next world? Yeshu said to him: He is punished with boiling excrement. As the Master said: Anyone who mocks the words of the Sages will be sentenced to boiling excrement.

And this was his sin, as he mocked the words of the Sages. The Gemara comments: Come and see the difference between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the nations of the world. As Balaam, who was a prophet, wished Israel harm, whereas Yeshu the Nazarene, who was a Jewish sinner, sought their well-being. To conclude the story of Kamtza and bar Kamtza and the destruction of Jerusalem, the Gemara cites a baraita.

It is taught: Rabbi Elazar says: Come and see how great is the power of shame, for the Holy One, Blessed be He, assisted bar Kamtza, who had been humiliated, and due to this humiliation and shame He destroyed His Temple and burned His Sanctuary. § It was previously mentioned (55b) that the place known as the King’s Mountain [Tur Malka] was destroyed on account of a rooster and a hen. The details of what happened are as follows: It was customary in that place that when they would lead a bride and groom to their wedding, they would take out a rooster and a hen before them, as if to say in the manner of a good omen: Be fruitful and multiply like chickens.

One day a troop [gunda] of Roman soldiers passed by there while a wedding was taking place and took the rooster and hen from them. The residents of the city fell upon them and beat them. The soldiers came and said to the emperor: The Jews have rebelled against you. The emperor then came against them in war.

Among the residents of the King’s Mountain there was a certain man named bar Deroma who could jump the distance of a mil, and he killed many of the Romans, who were powerless to stand up against him. The emperor then took his crown and set it on the ground as a sign of mourning. He said: Master of the Universe, if it is pleasing to You, do not give over that man, a euphemism for himself, and his kingdom into the hands of only one man.

In the end it was the words issuing from his own mouth that caused bar Deroma to stumble, as he uttered this verse in complaint against God: “Have You not rejected us, O God, so that You go not forth, O God, with our hosts?” (Psalms 60:12). The Gemara asks: But did not David also say this? The Gemara answers: David uttered these words as a question, wondering whether they were true, whereas bar Deroma pronounced them as a statement of fact.

The Gemara recounts what happened to bar Deroma: He entered an outhouse, a snake came and eviscerated him, and he died. The emperor said: Since a miracle was performed for me, as I had no part in bar Deroma’s death, I will let the rest of the people be this time and take no further action against them. He let them be and went on his way. They leapt about, ate, drank, and lit so many candles in celebration that the image [bilyona] imprinted on a seal [gushpanka] was visible from a distance of a mil.

The emperor then said: The Jews are rejoicing over me. So he went back and came against them. Rav Asi says: Three hundred thousand men with drawn swords entered the King’s Mountain and massacred its inhabitants for three days and three nights. And at the same time on the other side of the mountain, weddings and other festivities continued to be celebrated, and they did not know about each other, owing to the enormous size of the place. § Concerning the verse: “The Lord has swallowed up without pity all the habitations of Jacob” (Lamentations 2:2), it is related that when Ravin came from Eretz Yisrael to Babylonia he said that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: This is referring to the six hundred thousand cities that King Yannai had in the King’s Mountain.

As Rav Yehuda says that Rav Asi says: King Yannai had six hundred thousand cities in the King’s Mountain, and each of them had a population as great as the number of those who left Egypt, except for three of those cities, the population of which was double the number of those who left Egypt. These are those three cities: Kefar Bish, Kefar Shiḥalayim, and Kefar Dikhrayya. The Gemara explains the meaning of these place-names.

Kefar Bish, Evil Town, was called by that name because its inhabitants would not open their houses to guests. Kefar Shiḥalayim was referred to by that name because their livelihood was derived from the cultivation of cress [shaḥalayim]. As for Kefar Dikhrayya, Town of Males, Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Their women would first give birth to boys, and afterward give birth to girls, and then they would stop having children.

Ulla said: I myself saw that place, and it could not hold even six hundred thousand reeds, all the more so that number of people. A certain heretic said to Rabbi Ḥanina: You lie with your exorbitant exaggerations. Rabbi Ḥanina said to him: With regard to Eretz Yisrael it is written: Land of the deer (see Jeremiah 3:19). Just as the skin of a deer cannot hold its flesh, for after the animal is skinned, its hide shrinks, so too, with regard to Eretz Yisrael, when it is settled, it expands, but when it is not settled, it contracts.

This explains how a place that is so small today could have been so highly populated prior to the Temple’s destruction. § The Gemara relates that Rav Minyumi bar Ḥilkiya, Rav Ḥilkiya bar Toviya, and Rav Huna bar Ḥiyya were once sitting together. They said: If there is someone who has heard anything about Kefar Sekhanya of Egypt, which was in that region, let him relate it. One of them began the discussion and said: There was an incident involving a betrothed man and woman from there who were taken captive by gentiles and the latter married them off to each other.

The woman said to the man: Please do not touch me, as I do not have a marriage contract from you, and it is prohibited for us to live together without one. And until the day of his death the man did not touch the woman. And when he died without having touched her, the woman said to the Sages: Eulogize this man who conquered [shepitpet] his passion [beyitzro] more than Joseph. As in the case of Joseph it was only for a short time that he had to overpower his inclination and resist Potiphar’s wife (see Genesis, chapter 39), whereas this man struggled with his passion each and every day.

Furthermore, Joseph was not in one bed with Potiphar’s wife, whereas this man was in one bed with his wife. In addition, with Joseph the woman was not his wife, whereas with this man she was his wife, as she was already betrothed to him. Another Sage began his remarks and said: It once happened that the market price of forty se’a of grain stood at one dinar. And then the rate went down one se’a [modeya], so that only thirty-nine se’a were sold for a dinar.

And they checked to see what sin had caused this, and they found a father and son who had engaged in sexual intercourse with a betrothed young woman on Yom Kippur. They brought the offenders to court and stoned them, and the rate returned to its former level. Yet another Sage began his remarks and said: There was an incident there involving a man who set his eyes upon his wife to divorce her, but her marriage contract was large and he wished to avoid having to pay it.

What did he do? He went and invited his friends, gave them food and drink, made them drunk, and lay his friends and his wife in one bed. He then brought the white of an egg, which has the appearance of semen, and placed it on the sheet between them. He then stood witnesses over them so that they could offer testimony, and went to court claiming that his wife had committed adultery.

A certain Elder of the disciples of Shammai the Elder was there, and Bava ben Buta was his name. He said to them: This is the tradition that I received from Shammai the Elder: Egg white on a bedsheet contracts and hardens when heated by fire, whereas semen is absorbed into the sheet by the fire. They checked the matter and found in accordance with his statement that the substance on the sheet was not semen but egg white.

They then brought the husband to court, administered lashes to him, and made him pay his wife’s marriage contract in full. Abaye said to Rav Yosef: But since those in the city were so righteous, what is the reason that they were punished and destroyed? Rav Yosef said to him: It is because they did not mourn for Jerusalem, as it is written: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her, rejoice with joy with her, all you that did mourn for her” (Isaiah 66:10).

The verse teaches that one who mourns for Jerusalem will rejoice in its rebuilding, and one who fails to mourn for Jerusalem is destroyed. § It was stated earlier that the city of Beitar was destroyed on account of a shaft from a carriage. The Gemara explains that it was customary in Beitar that when a boy was born they would plant a cedar tree and when a girl was born they would plant a cypress [tornita].

And when they would later marry each other they would cut down these trees and construct a wedding canopy for them with their branches. One day the emperor’s daughter passed by there and the shaft of the carriage in which she was riding broke. Her attendants chopped down a cedar from among those trees and brought it to her. Owing to the importance that they attached to their custom, the residents of Beitar came and fell upon them and beat them.

The attendants came and said to the emperor: The Jews have rebelled against you. The emperor then came against them in war. It was in connection with the war that ensued that the Sages expounded the following verse: “He has cut off in His fierce anger all the horn of Israel” (Lamentations 2:3). Rabbi Zeira says that Rabbi Abbahu says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: These are the eighty thousand officers bearing battle trumpets in their hands, who entered the city of Beitar when the enemy took it and killed men, women, and children until their blood flowed into the Great Sea.

Lest you say that the city was close to the sea, know that it was a mil away. It is similarly taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer the Great says: There are two rivers in the Yadayim Valley in that region, one flowing one way and one flowing the other way. And the Sages estimated that in the aftermath of this war these rivers were filled with two parts water to one part blood. Likewise, it was taught in a baraita: For seven years the gentiles harvested their vineyards that had been soaked with the blood of Israel without requiring any additional fertilizer.

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Hebraic Literature (Harris, 1901), Talmudic MiscellanyHebraic Literature (1901)

When Titus sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Talmud tells us, he did not content himself with fire and slaughter. He stripped the Temple of its sacred vessels, wrapped them in the veil of the Holy of Holies, and loaded them onto a ship bound for Rome.

At sea, a storm rose up. The waves reared like mountains. Titus stood on deck and shouted into the wind, “It seems the God of the Jews has power only on water. He drowned Pharaoh. He drowned Sisera. Now He comes for me. If He is truly mighty, let Him meet me on land.”

A voice answered from heaven. “Wicked one, son of a wicked father, grandson of Esau the wicked — go ashore. I have a creature in My world, the smallest of things. Go and fight it.”

The rabbis say a gnat entered Titus’s nostril and grew inside his skull for seven years, tapping away at his brain until he died. The emperor who boiled the seas could not kill an insect.

The storyteller's point lands before you see it coming: tyrants imagine God is a local deity, bound to one terrain. The God of Israel answers from whichever direction humbles them most.

Full source
Hebraic Literature (1901), Talmud, Gittin 56bHebraic Literature (1901)

After Titus destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Rabbis tell us, a small insect flew up his nose and lodged in his brain. It ate at him for the rest of his life. The only thing that quieted the gnawing, he discovered, was the sound of a blacksmith's hammer. So he ordered smiths to hammer before him all day long. To a Gentile blacksmith he paid four zuzim a day. To a Jewish smith he paid nothing, saying with a smile, "It is payment enough that you see your enemy suffering."

For thirty days the hammering brought relief. Then it stopped working. Nothing could muffle the insect anymore.

As for what happened after his death, the Talmud (Gittin 56b) preserves the testimony of Rabbi Phineas ben Aruba: "I was among the Roman magnates when the inquest was held on his body. When they opened his skull they found a gnat the size of a swallow, weighing two selas." Others said it was as big as a year-old pigeon and weighed two litras. Abaye added that its mouth was copper and its claws iron.

Titus knew the God of Israel had not finished with him. Before he died, he gave orders that his body be burned and the ashes scattered over the seven seas, so that the God of the Jews might never find him to bring him to judgment. The Rabbis tell this story, preserved again in the 1901 Hebraic Literature anthology, not as history but as a moral verdict: the man who ground the Temple to dust was ground down, in turn, by something too small to see.

No grave deep enough, no ocean wide enough, to hide from what you have done.

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Vayikra Rabbah 22:3Vayikra Rabbah

Vayikra Rabbah, a collection of Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) interpretations on the Book of Leviticus, explores this idea in a fascinating way. It begins with the verse, "The advantage of land." But it quickly pivots to a profound idea: God doesn’t need anyone, and yet, chooses to work through all of creation. As the text says, God tells the prophets, "If you do not perform my mission, I have many messengers."

Rabbi Aḥa takes this a step further. The Holy One, blessed be He, accomplishes His mission with anything – “even by means of a snake, even by means of a frog, even by means of a scorpion, and even by means of a gnat." Yes, a gnat! It sounds unbelievable. But then the Midrash launches into a story to prove the point.

This isn't just a theoretical idea, though. It becomes strikingly real with the tale of Titus, the Roman emperor who infamously destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE. This story, found in Vayikra Rabbah 22, pulls no punches.

In Midrash, the wicked Titus desecrated the Temple in the most appalling ways. He entered the Holy of Holies, the most sacred space, and desecrated it with violence. He even blasphemed against God, boasting that he had defeated God in His own palace. Can you imagine the audacity?

Titus, drunk on power, believed he was invincible. He gathered the Temple vessels, loaded them onto a ship, and set sail for Rome. When a storm arose, he arrogantly declared that God only had power over water, recalling the Flood and the defeat of Pharaoh. He felt untouchable.

But God, as the story tells us, had other plans. "Wicked one," God declared, "as you live, with the smallest creature that I created during the six days of Creation, I will exact retribution from you."

And so, a gnat was sent.

When Titus arrived in Rome, celebrated as a conquering hero, a seemingly insignificant gnat flew into his nose. This wasn't just any gnat; it was a divine messenger. It burrowed into his brain, causing excruciating pain.

Titus, desperate, called for doctors to examine his brain, hoping to understand what was tormenting him. When they opened his skull, they found a creature resembling a young dove, weighing two litra (an ancient unit of weight). Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Yosei claims to have witnessed this firsthand! The Midrash says that the weight of the gnat was equal to two litra. As the condition of the gnat changed, so did Titus's. When the gnat finally flew away, Titus died.

It's a gruesome tale, no doubt. But what's the message? It's not just about divine retribution, although that's certainly part of it. It's about the power of the small, the seemingly insignificant. It's about how God can use anything, even a tiny gnat, to accomplish His will. We often underestimate our own potential, feeling like we're too small to make a real difference. But this story reminds us that even the smallest act, the smallest creature, can be an instrument of the Divine. We all have a role to play, a mission to fulfill. As we find in Midrash Rabbah, God can use absolutely anything.

So, the next time you feel insignificant, remember the story of Titus and the gnat. Remember that even the smallest among us can be part of something much bigger than ourselves. Remember that God can work through anyone, anything, to bring about His will. And maybe, just maybe, that realization will inspire you to embrace your own potential and make a difference in the world.

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Sifrei Devarim 328:3Sifrei Devarim

Sifrei Devarim turns to Kingdom of Titus.

Sifrei Devarim attributes a particularly audacious statement to Titus, interpreting the verse "he" as referring not to God but to the nations, specifically Titus himself. The text paints a vivid picture: Titus, son of Vespasian's wife, brazenly enters the Kodesh HaKodashim, the Holy of Holies – the most sacred space within the Temple. Imagine the scene! He tears the parochet, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, with a knife. A deliberate act of desecration.

Then, the ultimate challenge. Titus cries out, "Where is their G-d? If He is G-d, let Him come and fight with me!" Can you feel the sheer audacity?

The story doesn't end there. The text then adds another layer, accusing Moses of deceiving the Jewish people. Titus, in this telling, claims that the Jews were "swindled" by Moses, who instructed them to build an altar, offer sacrifices, and pour libations, all, according to Titus, for Moses' own pleasure! The passage even quotes (Numbers 29:4) ("The one lamb shall you make in the morning, etc.") as supposed evidence of this deception.

This accusation is particularly stinging. It’s not just an attack on Judaism, but a direct assault on the integrity of Moses, the most revered prophet in Jewish tradition. What is the purpose of these accusations?

Think about the context. The Rabbis writing Sifrei Devarim were confronting the immense trauma of the Temple's destruction. How could they make sense of such a cataclysmic event? By portraying Titus as the embodiment of evil, as someone who not only destroyed the Temple but also blasphemed against God and accused Moses of deceit, they were able to externalize the pain and find meaning in the tragedy.

The charge against Moses also serves another purpose. It highlights the vulnerability of the Jewish people and the perceived betrayal by their own leaders. It forces them to confront questions of faith, leadership, and the very nature of their relationship with God.

This short passage from Sifrei Devarim is more than just a historical anecdote. It's a powerful reminder of the dangers of arrogance, the pain of loss, and the enduring human need to make sense of tragedy, even when that means confronting uncomfortable truths about ourselves. It asks us: how do we respond when the sacred is defiled? How do we maintain faith in the face of unimaginable loss? And how do we ensure that the memory of such events serves as a warning for future generations?

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Chukat 1:5Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Chukat

There is a story in Shihin about a certain blind man who went down to immerse in the waters within a cave. The well of Miriam chanced upon him, and he immersed and was healed. Titus the Wicked entered into the Holy of Holies. As he was reviling and blaspheming, he stood and slashed the curtain, and he took a Torah scroll and brought it out and spread it open, and he brought two harlots and transgressed upon them. He drew his sword and cut up the [scroll]. A miracle occurred, and blood began to spurt out from it. He began to boast, saying that he had slain Him. He grew bolder and bolder as he went, and when he reached the sea, the sea began to grow stormier and stormier. He said: The God of these people has power only in the sea. Pharaoh arose, and He drowned him in the sea, and likewise Sisera. Now, if He wishes, here is the dry land between Him and me, and let us see who prevails. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Wicked one, son of a wicked one, son of the grandson of Nimrod the Wicked, the lightest, lowliest creature among My creatures I am sending against you to wipe you out from the world. A gnat entered his nose, and he died a strange death. Why is its name called a lowly creature? Because it takes in but does not let out.

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