[equally] distant from one another; but on the east quarter, towards the sun rising, there was one large gate, through which such as were pure came in, together with their wives, but the temple farther inward in that gate was not allowed to the women; but still more inward was there a third [court of the] temple, whereinto it was not lawful for any but the priests alone to enter. The temple itself was within this; and before that temple was the altar, on which we offer our sacrifices and burnt-offerings to God. Into * none of these three did king Herod enter, for he was forbidden, because he was not a priest. However, he took care of the cloisters, and the outer enclosures, and these he built in eight years. 6. But the temple itself was built by the priests in a year and six months: upon which all the people were full of joy; and presently they returned thanks, in the first place, to God, and in the next place, for the alacrity the king had showed. They feasted, and celebrated this rebuilding of the temple and for the king, he sacrificed three hundred oxen to God, as did the rest, every one according to his ability: the number of which sacrifices it is not possible to set down, for it cannot be that we should truly relate it; for at the same time with this celebration for the work about the temple, fell also the day of the king's inauguration, which he kept, of an old custom, as a festival, and it now coincided with the other, which coincidence of them both made the festival most illustrious. 7. There was also an occult passage built for the king; it led from Antonia to the inner temple, at its eastern gate; over which he also erected for himself a tower, that he might have the opportunity of a subterraneous ascent to the temple, in order to guard against any sedition which might be made by the people against their kings. It is also † reported, that *Into none of these three did king Herod enter, i. e. 1. not into the court of the priests; 2. nor into the holy house itself; S. nor into the separate place belonging to the altar, as the words following imply, for none but priests, or their attendants, the Levites, might come into any of them. See Antiq. B. xvi ch. iv. 6. when Herod goes into the temple, and makes a speech in it to the people; but that could only be into the court of Israel, whither the people could come to hear him. + This tradition which Josephus here mentions, as delivered down from fathers to their children, of this particular remarkable circumstance relating to the building of Herod's temple, is a demonstration during the time that the temple was building, it did not rain in the day-time, but that the showers fell in the nights, so that the work was not hindered. And this our fathers have delivered to us; nor is it incredible, if any one have regard to the other manifestations of God. And thuswas performed the work of the rebuilding of the temple. that such its building was a knowing in Judea at this time. He was born but 46 years after it is related to have been finished, and might himself have seen and spoken with some of the builders themselves, and with a great number of those that had seen it building. The doubt, therefore, about the truth of this history, of the pulling down and rebuilding this temple by Herod, which some weak people have indulged, was not then much greater than it soon may be, whether or no our St. Paul's church in London, was burnt down in the fire of London, A. D. 1666, and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren a little afterward. BOOK XVI. CONTAINING THE INTERVAL OF 12 YEARS. [From the finishing of the temple by Herod, to the CHAP. J. Alaw of Herod's about thieves. Salome and Pheroras calumniate Alexander and Aristobulus, upon their return from Rome, for whom yet Herod provides wives. 1. As King Herod was very zealous in the administration of his entire government, and desirous to put a stop to particular acts of injustice which were done by criminals about the city and country, he made a law, no way like our original laws, and which he enacted of himself, to expose house-breakers to be ejected out of his kingdom; which punishment was not only grievous to be borne by the offenders, but contained in it a dissolution of the customs of our forefathers; for this slavery to foreigners and such as did not live after the manner of the Jews, and this necessity that they were under to do whatsoever such men should command, was an offence against our religious settlement, rather than a punishment to such as were found to have offended, such a punishment being avoided in our original laws for those laws ordain, that the thief shall restore fourfold and that if he have not so much, he shall be sold indeed, but not to foreigners, nor so that he be under perpetual slavery, for he must have been released after six years. But this law, thus enacted, in order to introduce a severe and illegal punishment, seemed to be a piece of insolence in Herod, when he did not act as a king but as a tyrant, and thus contemptuously, and without regard to his subjects, did he venture to introduce such a punishment. Now this penalty, thus brought into practice, was like He rod's other actions, and became a part of his accusation, and an occasion of the hatred he lay under. : 2. Now at this time it was that he sailed to Italy, as very desirous to meet with Caesar, and to see his sons who lived at Rome and Caesar was not only very obliging to him in other respects, but delivered him his sons again, that he might take them home with him, as having already completed themselves in the sciences; but as soon as the young men were come from Italy, the multitude were very desirous to see them, and they became conspicuous among them all, as adorned with great blessings of fortune, and having the countenances of persons of royal dignity. So they soon appeared to be the objects of envy to Salome, the king's sister, and to such as had raised calumnies against Mariamne; for they were suspicious, that when these came to the government, they should be punished for the wickedness they had been guilty of against their mother; so they made this very fear of theirs a motive to raise calumnies against them also. They gave it out that they were not pleased with their father's company, because he had put their mother to death, as if it were not agreeable to piety to appear to converse with their mother's murderer. Now by carrying these stories, that had indeed a true foundation [in the fact,] but were only built on probabilities, as to the present accusation, they were able to do them mischief, and to make Herod take away that kindness from his sons which he had before borne to them, for they did not say these things to him openly, but scattered abroad such words among the rest of the multitude; from which words, when carried to Herod, he was induced [at last] to hate them, and which natural affection itself, even in length of time, was not able to overcome; yet was the king at that time in a condition to prefer the natural affection of a father before all the suspicions and calumnies his sons lay under: so he respected them as he ought to do, and married them to wives, now they were of an age suitable thereto. To Aristobulus he gave for a wife Berenice, Salome's daughter, and to Alexander, Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus king of Cappadocia. CHAP. II. How Herod twice sailed to Agrippa; and how upon the complaint of the Jews in Ionia, against the Greeks, Agrippa confirmed the laws of the Jews to them. 1. WHEN Herod had despatched these affairs, and he understood that Marcus Agrippa had sailed again out of Italy into Asia, he made haste to him, and besought him to come to him into his kingdom, and to partake of what he might justly expect from one that had been his guest, and was his friend. This request he greatly pressed, and to it Agrippa agreed, and came into Judea; whereupon Herod omitted, nothing that might please him. He entertained him in his new built cities, and showed him the edifices he had built, and provided all sorts of the best and most costly dainties for him and his friends, and that at Sebaste, and Caesarea, about that port that he had built, and at the fortresses which he had erected at great expenses, Alexandrium, and Herodium, and Hyrcania. He also conducted him to the city Jerusalem, where all the people met him in their festival garments, and received him with acclamations. Agrippa also offered an hecatomb of sacrifices to God; and feasted the people, without omitting any of the greatest dainties that could be gotten. He also took so much pleasure there, that he abode many days with them, and would willingly have staid longer, but that the season of the year made him haşte away: for, as winter was coming on, he thought it not safe to go to sea later, and yet he was of necessity to return again to Ionia. 2. So Agrippa went away, when Herod had bestowed on him, and on the principal of those that were with him, many presents: but king Herod, when he had passed the winter in his own dominions, made haste to get to him again in the spring, when he knew he designed to go to a campaign at the Bosphorus. So when he had sailed by Rhodes, and by Cos, he touched at Lebos, as thinking he should have overtaken Agrippa there, but he was taken short here by a north wind, which hindered his ship from going to the shore; so he continued many days at Chius, and there he kindly treated a great many that came to him, and obliged them by giving them royal gifts. And when he saw that the portico of the city was fallen down, which, as it was |