and to marry Felix; and when he had had a son by her, he named him Agrippa. But after what manner that young man, with his wife, perished at the conflagration of the mountain of Vesuvius,* in the days of Titus Cæsar, shall be related hereafter.† 3. But as for Bernice, she lived a widow a good while after the death of Herod [king of Chalcis,] who was both her husband and her uncle; but when the report went that she had criminal conversation with her brother [Agrippa junior,] she persuaded Polemo, who was king of Cilicia, to be circumcised, and to marry her, as supposing that by this means she should prove those calumnies upon her to be false; and Polemo was prevailed upon, and that chiefly on account of her riches. Yet did not this matrimony endure long; but Bernice left Polemo, and, as was said, with impure intentions. So he forsook at once this matrimony, and the Jewish religion and at the same time Mariamne put away Archelaus, and was married to Demetrius, the principal man among the Alexandrian Jews, both for his family and his wealth; and indeed he was then their alabarch. So she named her son whom she had by him Agrippinus. But of all those particulars we shall hereafter treat more exactly.‡ CHAP. VIII. After what manner, upon the Death of Claudius, Nero succeeded in the Government; as also what barbarous things he did. Concerning the Robbers, Murderers, and Impostors that arose while Felix and Festus were Procurators of Judea. § 1. Now Claudius Cæsar died when he had reigned thirteen years, eight months, and twenty days; § and a report went about that he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina. Her father was Germanicus, the brother of Cæsar. Her husband was Domitius Enobarbus, one of the most illustrious persons that was in the city of Rome; after whose death, and her long continuance in widowhood, Claudius took her to wife: she brought along with her a son, Domitius, of the same name with his father. He had before this slain his wife Messalina, out of jealousy, by whom he had his children Britannicus and Octavia; their eldest sister was Antonia, whom he had by Pelina his first wife. He also married Octavia to Nero; for that was the name that Cæsar gave him afterward, upon adopting him for his son. 2. But now Agrippa was afraid, lest, when Britannnicus should come to man's estate, he should succeed his father in the government, and desired to seize upon the principality beforehand for her own son [Nero ;] upon which the report went, that she thence compassed the death of Claudius. Accordingly, she sent Burrhus, the general of the army, immediately, and with him the tribunes, and such also of the freed-men as were of the greatest authority, to bring Nero away into the camp, and to salute him emperor. And This eruption of Vesuvius is one of the greatest we have in history. See Bianchini's eurious and important observations on this Vesuvius, and its seven several great eruptions, with their remains vitrified, and still existing, in so many different strata under ground, till the diggers came to the antediluvian waters with their proportionable interstices, implying the deluge to have been above 2500 years before the Christian era, according to our exactest chronology. This is now wanting. + This is now wanting. This duration of the reign of Claudius agrees with Dio, as Dr. Hudson here remarks; as he also remarks that Nero's name, which was at first L. Domitius Ænobarbus,' after Claudius had adopted him, was Nero Claudius Cæsar Drusus Germanicus.' when Nero had thus obtained the government, he got Britannicus to be so poisoned, that the multitude should not perceive it; although he publicly put his own mother to death not long afterward, making her this requital, not only for being born of her, but by bringing it so about by her contrivances that he obtained the Roman empire. He also slew Octavia, his own wife, and many other illustrious persons, under the pretence that they plotted against him. 3. But I omit any further discourse about these affairs, for there have been a great many who have composed the history of Nero; some of whom have departed from the truth of many facts out of favour, as having received benefits from him; while others, out of hatred to him, and the great illwill which they bore him, have so impudently raved against him with their lies, that they justly deserve to be condemned: nor do I wonder at such as have told lies of Nero, since they have not in their writings preserved the truth of history as to those facts that were earlier than his time, even 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. 4. For in the first year of the reign of Nero, upon the death of Azizus, king of Emesa Soemus,* his brother succeeded in his kingdom, and Aristobulus, the son of Herod, king of Chalcis, was entrusted by Nero with the government of Lesser Armenia. Cæsar also bestowed on Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, Tiberias, and Taricheæ,† 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 robbers 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 Eleazer, the son of Dineas, who had gotten together a company of robbers; and this he did by treachery; for he gave him assurance that he should suffer no harm, and thereby persuaded 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 Cæsar to send him as procurator of Judea. So Felix contrived a method whereby he might get rid of him, now he was become so con. tinually troublesome to him; for such continual admonitions are grievous to those who are disposed to act unjustly. Wherefore Felix persuaded one of Jonathan's most faithful friends, a citizen of Jerusalem, whose name was * This Soemus is elsewhere mentioned [by Josephus in his own Life, § 11. as also] by Dio Cassius and Tacitus, as Dr. Hudson informs us. This agrees with Josephus' frequent accounts elsewhere in his own Life, that Tiberias, and Tarichæ, and Gamaia, were under this Agrippa junior, till Justus, the son of Pistus, seized upon them for the Jews upon the breaking out of the war. that Doras, to bring the robbers upon Jonathan, in order to kill him; and 6. These works, that were done by the robbers, filled the city with all sorts of impiety. And now these impostors† and deceivers persuaded the multitude to follow them into the wilderness, and pretended that they would exhibit manifest wonders and signs, that should be performed by the providence of God. And many that were prevailed on by them suffered This treacherous and barbarous murder of the good high priest, Jonathan, by the contrivance of this wicked procurator, Felix, was the immediate occasion of the ensuing murders by the Sicarii or ruffians, and one great cause of the following horrid cruelties and miseries of the Jewish nation, as Josephus here supposes; whose excellent reflection on the gross wickedness of that nation, as the direct cause of their terrible destruction, is well worthy the attention of every Christian reader. And, since we are soon coming to the catalogue of the Jewish high priests, it may not be amiss, with Reland, to insert this Jonathan among them, and to transcribe his particular catalogue of the last twenty-eight high priests, taken out of Josephus, and begin with Ananelus, who was made by Herod the Great. See Antiq. b. xv. chap. ii. § 4, and the note there. As for Ananus, and Joseph Caiaphas, here mentioned about the middle of this catalogue, these are no other than the Ananus and Caiphas so often mentioned in the four Gospels; and that Ananias, the son of Nebedeus, was that high priest before whom St. Paul pleaded his own cause, Acts xxiv. Of these Jewish impostors and false prophets, with many other circumstances and miseries of the Jews, till their utter destruction, foretold by our Saviour,-sce Lit. Accomp of Proph. p. 58-75. the punishment of their folly: for Felix brought them back, and then punished them. Moreover, there came out of Egypt* about this time to Jerusalem, one that said he was a prophet, and advised the multitude of the common people to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it was called, which lay over against the city, and at the distance of five furlongs. He said further, that he would show them from hence, how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down: and he promised them, that he would procure them an entrance into the city through those walls, when they were fallen down. Now, when Felix was informed of these things, he ordered his soldiers to take their weapons, and came against them with a great number of horsemen and footmen from Jerusalem, and attacked the Egyptian and the people that were with him. He also slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. But the Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more. And again the robbers stirred up the people to make war with the Romans, and said, they ought not to obey them at all; and when any person would not comply with them, they set fire to their villages, and plundered them. 7. And now it was that a great sedition arose between the Jews that inhabited Cesarea, and the Syrians who dwelt there also, concerning their equal right to the privileges belonging to citizens, for the Jews claimed the pre-eminence, because Herod their king was the builder of Cesarea, and because he was by birth a Jew. Now, the Syrians did not deny what was alleged about Herod; but they said, that Cesarea was formerly called Strato's Tower, and that then there was not one Jewish inhabitant. When the presidents of that country heard of these disorders, they caught the authors of them on both sides, and tormented them with stripes, and by that means put a stop to the disturbance for a time. But the Jewish citizens, depending on their wealth, and on that account despising the Syrians, reproached them again, and hoped to provoke them by such reproaches. However, the Syrians, though they were inferior in wealth, yet valuing themselves highly on this account, that the greatest part of the Roman soldiers that were there, were either of Cesarea or Sebaste, they also for some time used reproachful language to the Jews also; and thus it was, till at length they came to throwing stones at one another, and several were wounded, and fell on both sides, though still the Jews were the conquerors. But when Felix saw that this quarrel was become a kind of war, he came upon them on the sudden, and desired the Jews to desist, and when they refused so to do, he armed his soldiers, and sent them out upon them, and slew many of them, and took more of them alive, and permitted his soldiers to plunder some of the houses of the citizens, which were full of riches. Now those Jews that were more moderate, and of principal dignity among them, were afraid of themselves, and desired of Felix that he would sound a retreat to his soldiers, and spare them for the future, and afford them room for repentance for what they had done; and Felix was prevailed upon to do so. 8. About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ishmael, who was the son of Fabi. And now arose a sedition between the high priests and the principal men of the multitude of Jerusalem, each of whom got them a company of the boldest sort of men, and of those that loved innovations, about them, and became leaders to them; and when they * Of this Egyptian impostor, and the number of his followers, in Josephus, see Acts xxi. 38. struggled together, they did it by casting reproachful words against one another, and by throwing stones also. And there was nobody to reprove them; but these disorders were done after a licentious manner in the city, as if it had no government over it. And such was the impudence and boldness that had seized on the high priests,* that they had the hardiness to send their servants into the threshing floors, to take away those tithes that were due to the priests; insomuch that it so fell out that the poorest sort of the priests died for want. To this degree did the violence of the seditious prevail over all right and justice! 9. Now, when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix; and he had certainly been brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas, who was at that time had in the greatest honour by him. Two of the principal Syrians in Cesarea persuaded Burrhus, who was Nero's tutor, and secretary for his Greek epistles, by giving him a great sum of money, to disannul that equality of the Jewish privileges of citizens which they hither enjoyed. So Burrhus, by his solications, obtained leave of the emperor that an epistle should be written to that purpose. This epistle became the occasion of the following miseries that befell our nation; for, when the Jews of Cesarea were informed of the contents of this epistle to the Syrians, they were more disorderly than before, till a war was kindled. 10. Upon Festus' coming into Judea, it happened that Judea was afflicted by the robbers, while all the villages were set on fire, and plur dered by them. And then it was that the Sicarii, as they were called, who were robbers, grew numerous. They made use of small swords, not much different in length from the Persian acinacæ, but somewhat crooked, and like the Roman sicæ [or sickles], as they were called: and from these weapons these robbers got their denomination, and with those weapons they slew a great many; for they mingled themselves among the multitude at their festivals, when they were come up in crowds from all parts to the city to worship God, as we said before, and easily slew those that they had a mind to slay. They also came frequently upon the villages belonging to their enemies, with their weapons, and plundered them, and set them on fire. So Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them, and those that were his followers also. 11. About the same time king Agrippa built himself a very large diningroom in the royal palace at Jerusalem, near to the portico. Now this palace had been erected of old by the children of Asamoneus, and was situate upon an elevation, and afforded a most delightful prospect to those that had a mind to take a view of the city, which prospect was desired by the king; and there he could lie down, and eat, and thence observe what was done in the temple: which thing, when the chief men of Jerusalem saw, they were very much displeased at it; for it was not agreeable to the The wickedness here was very peculiar and extraordinary, tnat the high priests should so oppress their brethren the priests, as to starve the poorest of them to death. See the like presently, chap. ix. § 2. Such fatal crimes are covetousness and tyranny in the clergy, as well as in the laity, in all ages. |