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country to God. So he believed that they w tempt any innovations, and left them at the c the festival, and returned to Antioch.

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3. Now Cumanus, and the principal of the who were sent to Rome, had a day appointed emperor, where on they were to have pleaded about the quarrels they had one with anothe Caesar's freed-men, and his friends, were very the behalf of Cumanus and the Samaritans; a prevailed over the Jews, unless Agrippa, junior, v at Rome, had seen the principal of the Jews h had earnestly entreated Agrippina, the emper persuade her husband to hear the cause, so as w to his justice, and to condemn those to be punish really the authors of this revolt from the Ro ment. Whereupon Claudius was so well disp hand, that when he had heard the cause, and fo Samaritans had been the ringleaders in those doings, he gave order, that those who came up to be slain, and that Cumanus should be banishe gave order that Celer, the tribune, should be car Jerusalem, and should be drawn through the cit of all the people, and then should be slain.

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Felix is made procurator of Judea; as also concer pa, junior, and his sisters.

1. So Claudius sent Felix, the brother of take care of the affairs of Judea; and, when he completed the twelfth year of his reign, he had upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip, and Batan ded thereto Trachonitis, with Abila; which las the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took from h when he had been governor thereof four years. Agrippa had received these countries as the gift he gave his sister Drusilla in marriage to Aziz Emesa, upon his consent to be circumcised; for the son of king Antiochus, had refused to marry he after he had promised her father formerly to co

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f Helcias, to whom she had been betrothed forAgrippa her father; from which marriage was deughter whose name was Berenice.

for the marriage of Drusilla with Azizus, it was in me afterward dissolved upon the following occaile Felix was procurator of Judea, he saw this Drufell in love with her; for she did indeed excel all men in beauty; and he sent to her a person whose s Simon,* one of his friends; a Jew he was, and a Cypriot, and one who pretended to be a magician, eavoured to persuade her to forsake her present and marry him; and promised, that if she would se him, he would make her a happy woman. Acy, she acted ill, and because she was desirous to

Simon, a friend of Felix, a Jew, born in Cyprus, though nded to be a magician, and seems to have been wicked could hardly be that famous Simon, the magician, in the e Apostles, viii. 9. &c. as some are ready to suppose. This entioned in the Acts, was not properly a Jew, but a Samathe town of Gittae, in the country of Samaria, as the cal constitutions vi. 7. the recognitions of Clement, ii. 6. tin Martyr himself, born in the country of Samaria, Apolo. inform us. He was also the author, not of any ancient but of the first Gentile heresies, as the forementioned au sure us. So I suppose him a different person from the other. this only upon the hypothesis, that Josephus were not misinas to his being a Cypriot Jew; for otherwise, the time, the he profession, and the wickedness of them both, would strongne one to believe them the very same. As to that Drusilla, er of Agrippa, junior, as Josephus informs us here, and a , as St. Luke informs us, Acts, xxiv. 24. whom this Simon, ned by Josephus, persuaded to leave her former husband, Azing of Emesa, a proselyte of justice, and to marry Felix, the n procurator of Judea, Tacitus, Hist. v. 9. supposes her to reathen, and the grand-daughter of Antonius and Cleopatra, ry both to St. Luke and Josephus. Now Tacitus lived someoo remote, both as to time and place, to be compared with either se Jewish writers, in a matter concerning the Jews in Judea ir own days, and concerning a sister of Agrippa, junior, with Agrippa Josephus was himself so well acquainted. It is prothat Tacitus may say true, when he informs us, that this Fewho had in all three wives, or queens, as Antonius in Clau$28. assures us) did once marry such a grandchild of Suetonius Cleopatra; and finding the name of one of them to have been

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that other wife whose name he did not

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by her on account of her beauty, was pr transgress the laws of her forefathers, and and, when he had had a son by her, he nam But, after what manner this young man, wi rished at the conflagration* of the mountain days of Titus Caesar, shall be related herea

3. But as for Berenice, she lived a widow a the death of Herod [king of Chalcis,] wh husband and her uncle; but, when the repo had criminal conversation with her brother, [ she persuaded Polemo, who was king of C cumcised, and to marry her, as supposing the she should prove those calumnies upon her Polemo was prevailed upon, and that chie of her riches. Yet did not this matrimony en Berenice left Polemo, and as was said, with tions. So he forsook at once this matrimon ish religion: and at the same time Mariamne ] laus, and was married to Demetrius, the princ the Alexandrian Jews, both for his family and indeed he was then their alabarch. So son, whom she had by him, Agrippinus. E particulars we shall hereafter treat more exa

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After what manner, upon the death of Claudius ed in the government; as also what barbe did. Concerning the robbers, murderers, that arose while Felix and Festus were Judea.

1. Now Claudius Caesar died, when h thirteen years, eight months, and twenty

*This eruption of Vesuvius was one of the gre history. See Bianchim's curious and important obs Vesuvius, and its seven several great eruptions, wi vitrified and still existing in so many different stra till the diggers came to the antediluvian waters, witionable interstices, implying the deluge to have b years before the christian aera, according to our exac + This is now wanting. This is also now This duration of the reign of Claudius agrees u

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band was Domitius Aenobarbus, one of the most s persons that was in the city of Rome; after whose nd her own long continuance in widowhood, ClauKher to wife. She brought along with her a son, s, of the same name with his father. He had be slain his wife Messalina out of jealousy, by whom had his children Britannicus and Octavia; their eldr was Antonia, whom he had by Pelina, his first He also married Octavia to Nero; for that was the at Caesar gave him afterward, upon his adopting his son.

at now Agrippina was afraid, lest, when Britannicus come to man's estate, he should succeed his father overnment, and desired to seize upon the principalrehand for her own son [Nero ;] upon which the rent, that she thence compassed the death of Claudicordingly, she sent Burrhus, the general of the army, ately, and with him the tribunes, and such also of ed men as were of the greatest authority, to bring vay into the camp, and to salute him emperor. And, Tero had thus obtained the government, he got Bris to be so poisoned that the multitude should not per; although he publicly put his own mother to death g afterward: making her this requital, not only for born of her, but for bringing it so about by her cones, that he obtained the Roman empire. He also ctavia, his own wife, and many other illustrious pernder this pretence, that they plotted against him. Fut I omit any further discourses about these affairs; re have been a great many who have compused the of Nero; some of which have departed from the of facts out of favour, as having received benefits from while others, out of hatred to him, and the great illhich they bare him, have so impudently raved against ith their lies, that they justly deserve to be condemnNor do I wonder at such as have told lies of Nero, since mave not, in their writings, preserved the truth of histoto those facts that were earlier than this time, even

n here remarks, as he also remarks, that Nero's name, which + first I. Domitiv Amnobarbus after Claudine had adopted

when the actors could have no way incurred their hatred, since those writers lived a long time after them. But, as to those that have no regard to truth, they may write as they please; for in that they take delight: but as to ourselves, who have made truth our direct aim, we shall briefly touch upon what only belongs remotely to this undertaking, but shall relate what hath happened to us Jews with great accuracy, and shall not grudge our pains in giving an account both of the calamities we have suffered, and of the crimes we have been guilty of. I will now, therefore, return to the relation of our own affairs.

the 4. For in the first year of the reign of Nero, upon death of Azizus, king of Emesa, Soemus,* his brother, suc ceeded in his kingdom, and Aristobulus, the son of Herod, king of Chalcís, was intrusted by Nero with the govern ment of the Lesser Armenia. Caesar also bestowed upon Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, Tiberias,† and Taricheae, and ordered them to submit to his jurisdiction. He gave him also Julias, a city of Perea, with fourteen villages that lay about it.

5. Now, as for the affairs of the Jews, they grew worse and worse continually; for the country was again filled with robberies, and impostors who deluded the multitude. Yet did Felix catch and put to death many of those impostors every day, together with the robbers. He also caught Elea zar, the son of Dineas, who had gotten together a company bia gave of robbers; and this he did by treachery; for he assurance that he should suffer no harm, and thereby per suaded him to come to him; but, when he came, he bound him, and sent him to Rome. Felix also bore an ill-will to Jonathan, the high-priest, because he frequently gave him admonitions about governing the Jewish affairs better than he did, lest he should himself have complaints made of him by the multitude, since he it was who had desired Caesarto send him as procurator of Judea. So Felix contrived a me thod whereby he might get rid of him, now he was become so continually troublesome to him ; for such continual admo

*This Soemus is elsewhere mentioned [by Josephus in his o life, § 11. as also] by Dio Cassius and Tacitus, as Dr. Hudson in

forms us.

This agrees with Josephus's frequent accounts elsewhere in own life, that Tiberias, and Taricheae, and Gamala, were under th Agrippa, junior, till Justus, the son of Pistus, seized upon them for the Jews, upon the breaking out of the war.

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