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CHAP. IX.

The death of Salome, The cities which Herod and Philip built. Pilate occasions disturbances. Tiberius puts Agrippa into bonds, but Caius frees him from them, and makes him king. Herod Antipas is banished.

1. AND now as the ethnarchy of Archelaus was fallen into a Roman province, the other sous of Herod, Philip, and that Herod who was called Antipas, each of them took upon them the administration of their own tetrarchs; for when Salome died, she bequeathed to Julia, the wife of Augustus, both her toparchy, and Jamnia, as also her plantation of palm-trees that were in Phasaelis.* But when the Roman empire was transJated to Tiberius, the son of Julia, upon the death of Augustus, who had reigned fifty seven years, six months and two days, both Herod and Philip continued in their tetrarchies and the latter of them built the city Cæsarea, at the fountains of Jordan, and in the region of Paneas; as also the city Julias, in the lower Gaulanitis. Herod also built the city Tiberias in Galilee, and in Perea [beyond Jordan] another that was also called Julias.

2. Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberias, sent by night those images of Cæsar that are called ensigns, into Jerusalem. This excited a very great tumult among the Jews when it was day; for those that were near

ted an eternal prison, but that the good are permitted to live again in this world, are nearly agreeable to the doctrines of Christianity. Only Josephus' rejection of the return of the wicked into other bodies, or into this world, which he grants to the good, looks somewhat like a contradiction of St. Paul's account of the doctrine of the Jews, that they themselves allowed that there should be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust, Acts. ch. xxiv. 15. Yet because Josephus' account is that of the Pharisees, and St. Paul's that of the Jews in general, and of himself, the contradiction is not very certain.

We have here, in that Greek MS. which was once Alexander Petavius, but is now in the librarv at Leyden, two most remarkable additions to the common copies, though deemed worth little remark by the editor; which, upon the mention of Tiberius coming to the empire, inserts first the famous testimony of Josephus concerning Jesus Christ, as it stands verbatim in the Antiquities, B. xviii. chap. iii. § 3 vol. iv. with some parts of that excellent discourse or homily of Josephus concerning Hades, annexed to the work. But what is here principally to be noted, is this, that in this homily, Josephus, having just mentioned Christ, as God the word, and the Judge of the world, appointed by the father, &c. adds that he had himself elsewhere spoken about him more nicely or particularly.

them were astonished at the sight of them, as indications that their laws were trodden under foot; for those laws do not permit any sort of image to be brought into the city. Nay, besides the indignation which the citizens had themselves at this procedure, a vast number of people came runing out of the country. These came zealously to Pilate to Cæsarea, and besought him to carry those ensigns out of Jerusalem, and to preserve them their ancient laws inviolable; but upon Pilate's denial of their request, they fell down prostrate upon the ground, and continued immovable in that posture for five days and as many nights.

3. On the next day Pilate sat upon his tribunal, in the open market-place, and called to him the multitude, as desirous to give them an answer; and then gave a signal to the soldiers that they should all by agreement, at once encompass the Jews with their weapons; so the band of soldiers stood round about the Jews, in three ranks. The Jews were under the utmost consternation at that unexpected sight Pilate also said to them, that they should be cut in pieces, unless they would admit of Cæsar's images, and gave intimation to the soldiers to draw their naked swords. Hereupon the Jews, as it were at one signal, fell down in vast numbers together,.and exposed their necks bare, and cried out, that they were sooner ready to be slain, than that their law should be transgressed. Hereupon Pilate was greatly surprised at their prodigious superstition, and gave order that the ensigns should be presently carried out of Jerusalem.

4. After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that sacred treasure which is called Corban upon aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs. At this the multitude had indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribuual, and made a clamour at it. Now when he was apprized aforehand of this disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers in their armour with the multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men, and not indeed to use their swords, but with their staves to beat those that made the clamour. He then gave the signal from his tribunal [to do as he had bidden them.] Now the Jews

This use of corban, oblation, as here applied to the sacred money dedicated to God in the treasury of the temple, illustrates our Saviour's words, Mark vii. 11, 12..

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were so sadly beaten, that many of them perished by the stripes they received, and many of them perished as trodden to death by themselves; by which means the multitude was astonished at the calamity of those that were slain, and held their peace.

5. In the mean time Agrippa, the son of that Aristobulus who had been slain by his father Herod, came to Tiberius, to accuse Herod the tetrarch; who not admitting of his accusation he stayed at Rome, and cultivated a friendship with others of the men of note, but principally with Caius, the son of Germanicus, who was then but a private person. Now this Agrippa, at a certain time, feasted Caius: and as he was very complaisant to him on several other accounts, he at length stretched out his hands, and openly wished that Tiberius might die, and that he might quickly see him emperor of the world. This was told to Tiberius by one of Agrippa's domestics, who thereupon was very angry and ordered Agrippa to be bound, and had him very ill treated in the prison for six months, until Tiberius died after he had reigned twenty-two years, six months, and three days.

6. But when Caius was made Cæsar, he released Agrippa from his bonds, and made him king of Philip's tetrarchy, who was now dead; but when Agrippa had arrived at that degree of dignity, he inflamed the ambitious desires of Herod the tetrarch, who was chiefly induced to hope for the royal authority by his wife Herodias, who reproached him for his sloth, and told him, that it was only because he would not sail to Cæsar, that he was destitute of that great dignity; for since Cæsar had made Agrippa a king, from a private person, much more would he advance him from a tetrarch to that dignity. These arguments prevailed with Herod, so that he came to Caius, by whom he was punished for his ambition, by being banished into Spain; for Agrippa followed him in order to accuse him; to whom also Caius gave his tetrarchy by way of addition. So Herod died in Spain, whither his wife had followed him.

CHAP. X.

Caius commands that his statue should be set up in the temple itself; and what Petronius did thereupon.

1. Now Caius Cæsar did so grossly abuse the fortune he had arrived at, as to take himself to be a god, and to de

sire to be so called also, aud to cut off those of the greatest nobility out of his country. He also extended his impiety as far as the Jews. Accordingly he sent Petronius with an army to Jerusalem, to place his *statues in the temple, and commanded him, that, in case the Jews would not admit of them, he should slay those that opposed it, and carry all the rest of the nation into captivity; but God concerned himself with these his commands. However, Petronius marched out of Antioch into Judea, with three legions, and many Syrian auxiliaries. Now as to the Jews, some of them could not believe the stories that spake of war, but those that did believe them were in the utmost distress how to defend themselves, and the terror diffused itself presently through them all; for the army was already come to Ptolemais.

2. This Ptolemais is a maritime city of Galilee, built in the great plain. It is encompassed with mountains; that on the east side, sixty furlongs off, belongs to Galilee; but that on the south belongs to Carmel, which is distant from it an hundred and twenty furlongs; and that on the north is the highest of them all, and is called by the people of the country, the ladder of the Tyrians, which is at the distance of an hundred furlongs. The very small river † Belus runs by it, at the distance of two furlongs; near which there is ‡ Memnon's monument, and hath near it a place no larger than an hundred cubits, which deserves admiration; for the place is round, and hollow, and affords such sand as glass is made of, which place, when it hath been emptied by the many ships there loaded, it is filled again by the winds, which bring into it, as it were on purpose, that sand which lay remote, and was no more than bare common sand, while this mine presently turns it into glassy sand. And what is to me still more wonderful, that glassy sand which is superfluous, and is once removed out of the place, becomes bare common sand

Tacitus owns that Caius commanded the Jews to place his effigies in their temple, though he be mistaken when he adds, that the Jews thereupon took arms.

†This account of a place near the mouth of the river Belus in Phoenicia, whence came that sand out of which the ancients made their glass, is a known thing in history, particularly in Tacitus and Strabo, and more largely in Pliny.

This Memnon had several monuments, and one of them appears, both by Strabo and Diodorus, to have been in Syma, and not impro bably in this very place.

again. And this is the nature of the place we are speaking

of.

3. But now the Jews got together in great numbers with their wives and children, into that plain that was by Ptolemais, and made supplication to Petronius, first for their laws, and, in the next place, for themselves. So he was prevailed upon by the multitude of the supplicants, and by their supplications, and left his army and the statues at Ptolemais, and then went forward into Galilee, and called together the multitude, and all the men of note to Tiberias, and shewed them the power of the Romans, and the threatenings of Caesar; and, besides this, proved that their petition was unreasonable, because while all the nations in subjection to them had placed the images of Cæsar in their several cities, among the rest of their gods, for them alone to oppose it, was almost like the behaviour of the revolters, and was injurious to Cæsar.

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4. And when they insisted on their law, and the custom of their country, and how it was not only not permitted them to make either an image of God, or indeed of a man, and to put it in any despicable part of their country, much less in the temple itself, Petronius replied," And am not I also, said he, bound to keep the law of my own lord? For if I transgress it, and spare you, it is but just that I perish; while he that sent me, and not I, will commence a war against you; "for. I am under command as well as you." Hereupon the whole multitude cried out, that "they were ready to suffer "for their law." Petronius then quieted them, and said to them, "Will you then make war against Cæsar ?" The Jews said, "We offer sacrifices twice every day for Cæsar, and "for the Roman people; but that if he would place the images among them, he must first sacrifice the whole Jewish "nation; and that they were ready to expose themselves, toદ gether with their children and wives, to be slain." At this Petronius was astonished, and pitied them on account of the inexpressible sense of religion the men were under, and that courage of theirs which made them ready to die for it; so they were dismissed without success.

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5. But on the following days he got together the men of power privately, and multitude publicly, and sometimes he used persuasions to them, and sometimes he gave them his advice; but he chiefly made use of threatenings to them, and insisted upon the power of the Romans, and the anger of

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