any lamentations that this polluted body can forged: he was moreover greatly disturbed, and make; for if I be a parricide, I ought not to die in a passion, because he had almost slain his sis without torture." Thus did Antipater cry out ter on Antipater's account. He did no longer with lamentation and weeping, and moved all the delay therefore to bring him to punishment for rest, and Varus in particular, to commiserate bis all his crimes; yet when he was eagerly pursu case. Herod was the only person whose passioning Antipater, he was restrained by a severe dis was too strong to permit him to weep, as know-temper he fell into. However, he sent an ac ing that the testimonies against him were true. count to Cæsar about Acme, and the contrivances 4. And now it was that, at the king's com- against Salome; he sent also for his testament, mand, Nicolaus, when he had premised a great and altered it, and therein made Antipas king, as deal about the craftiness of Antipater, and had taking no care of Archelaus and Philip, because prevented the effects of their commiseration to Antipater had blasted their reputations with him, afterward brought in a bitter and large ac- him; but he bequeathed to Cæsar, besides other cusation against him, ascribing all the wicked-presents that he gave him, a thousand talents ness that had been in the kingdom to him, espe-as also to his wife, and children, and friends, and cially the murder of his brethren, and demon- freed-men, about five hundred: he also bequeathstrated that they had perished by the calumnies ed to all others a great quantity of land and of he had raised against them. He also said, that money, and showed his respects to Salome his he had laid designs against them that were still sister, by giving her most splendid gifts. And alive, as if they were laying plots for the succes-this was what was contained in his testament, as sion; and, said he, how can it be supposed that it was now altered. ne who prepared poison for his father, should abstain from mischief as to his brethren? He then proceeded to convict him of the attempt to The golden Eagle is cut to pieces. Herod's Barpoison Herod, and gave an account in order of the several discoveries that had been made, and barity when he was ready to die. He attempts to kill himself. He commands Antipater to be had great indignation as to the affair of Pheroras, because Antipater had been for making him slain. He survives him five Days, and then dies. murder his brother, and had corrupted those that § 1. Now Herod's distemper became more and were dearest to the king, and filled the whole more severe to him, and this because these his palace with wickedness; and when he had in-disorders fell upon him in his old age, and when sisted on many other accusations, and the proofs he was in a melancholy condition; for he was for them, he left off. already almost seventy years of age, and had 5. Then Varus bid Antipater make his defence; been brought low by the calamities that happenbut he lay long in silence, and said no more buted to him about his children, whereby he had no this: "God is my witness that I am entirely in-pleasure in life, even when he was in health; the nocent." So Varus asked for the potion, and gave grief also that Antipater was still alive aggrait to be drunk by a condemned malefactor, who vated his disease, whom he resolved to put to was then in prison, who died upon the spot. So death now not at random, but as soon as he should Varus, when he had had a very private discourse be well again, and resolved to have him slain [in with Herod, and had written an account of this as- a public manner.] sembly to Cæsar, went away after a day's stay. The king also bound Antipater, and sent away to inform Cæsar of his misfortunes.

CHAP. XXXIII.

2. There also now happened to him, among his other calamities, a certain popular sedition. There were two men of learning in the city 6. Now after this it was discovered that Anti- [Jerusalem,] who were thought the most skilful pater had laid a plot against Salome also; for in the laws of their country, and were on that one of Antiphilus's domestic servants came, and account had in very great esteem all over the brought letters from Rome, from a maid-servant nation; they were, the one Judas, the son of of Julia, Cæsar's wife, whose name was Acme. Sepphoris, and the other Matthias, the son of By her a message was sent to the king, that she Margalus. There was a great concourse of the had found a letter written by Salome, among Ju- young men to these men, when they expounded lia's papers, and had sent it to him privately, out the laws, and there got together every day a kind of her good-will to him. This letter of Salome's of an army of such as were growing up to be contained the most bitter reproaches of the king, men. Now when these men were informed that and the highest accusations against him. Anti-the king was wearing away with melancholy, and pater had forged this letter, and had corrupted Acme, and persuaded her to send it to Herod. This was proved by her letter to Antipater, for thus did this woman write to him: "As thou desirest, I have written a letter to thy father, and have sent that letter, and am persuaded that the king will not spare his sister when he reads it. Thou wilt do well to remember what thou hast promised when all is accomplished."

7. When this epistle was discovered, and what the epistle forged against Salome contained, a suspicion came into the king's mind, that perhaps the letters against Alexander were also

with a distemper, they dropped words to their acquaintance, how it was now a very proper time to defend the cause of God, and to pull down what had been erected contrary to the laws of their country; for it was unlawful there should be any such thing in the temple as images, or faces, or the like representation of any animal whatsoever. Now the king had put up a golden eagle over the great gate of the temple, which these learned men exhorted them to cut down, and told them, that if there should any danger arise, it was a glorious thing to die for the laws of their country; because that the soul was immortal,* bins to persuade their scholars to hazard their lives for the vindication of God's law against images, by Moses, as well as of the answers those scholars made to Herod, when they were caught and ready to die for the same; I mean as compared with the parallel arguments and answers represented in the Antiquities, B. xvii. ch. vi. sect. 2, 3. A like difference between Jewish and Gentile notions the reader will find in my notes on Antiquities, B. iii. ch. vii. sect. 7; B. xv. ch. ix. sect. 1. See the like also in the case of the three Jewish sects in the Antiquities, B. xiii. ch. v. sect. 9, and ch. x. sect. 4, 5; B. xviii. ch. i. sect. 5, and compared with this in his Wars of the Jews, B. ii. ch. viii. sect. 2-14. Nor does St. Paul himself reason to the Gentiles at Athens, Acts xvii. 16, 34, as he does to the Jews

* Since in this and the following section we have an evident account of the Jewish opinions in the days of Josephas, about a future happy state, and the resurrection of the dead, as in the New Testament, John xi. 24, I shall here refer to the other places in Josephus, before he became an Ebionite Christian, which concern the same matters; Of the War, B. ii. ch. viii. sect. 10, 11; B. iii. ch. viii. sect. 4; B. vii. ch. vi. sect. 7; Contr. Apion, B. ii. sect. 30: where we may observe, that none of these passages are in his books of Antiquities, written peculiarly for the use of the Gentiles, to whom he thought it not proper to insist on 8 so much out of their way as these were. Nor is this tion to be omitted here, especially on account of le difference we have now before us in Josesentation of the arguments used by the rab- ll in his epistles.

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