understanding of the New Testament. The annexed table will perhaps be found useful in distinguishing the particular persons of this family, whose names occur in the Evangelical histories.

ANTIPAS or ANTIPATER, an Idumæan,

appointed prefect of Judæa and Syria by Julius Cæsar.

HEROD, misnamed the Great, by his will divided his dominions among his three sons, Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Herod Philip.

III. To Archelaus he assigned Judæa, Samaria, and Idumæa, with the regal dignity, subject to the approbation of Augustus, who ratified his will as it respected the territorial division, but conferred on Archelaus the title of Ethnarch or chief of the nation, with a promise of the regal dignity, if he should prove himself worthy of it. Archelaus entered upon his new office amid the loud acclamations of his subjects, who considered him as a king; hence the evangelist says that he reigned. (Matt. ii. 22.) His reign, however, commenced inauspiciously: for, after the death of Herod and before Archelaus could go to Rome to obtain the confirmation of his father's will, the Jews having become very tumultuous at the temple in consequence of his refusing them some demands, Archelaus ordered his soldiers to attack them; on which occasion upwards of three thousand were slain. On Archelaus going to Rome to solicit the regal dignity, (agreeably to the practice of the tributary kings of that age, who received their crowns from the Roman emperor,) the Jews sent an

1 This circumstance probably deterred the Holy Family from settling in Judæa on their return from Egypt; and induced them by the divine admonition to return to their former residence at Nazareth in Galilee. (Matt. ii. 22, 23.) Dr. Hales's Analysis of Chronology, vol. ii. p. 717.

embassy, consisting of fifty of their principal men, with a petition to Augustus that they might be permitted to live according to their own laws, under a Roman governor. To this circumstance our Lord evidently alludes in the parable related by Saint Luke. (xix. 1227.) A certain nobleman (ɛʊyevns, a man of birth or rank, the son of Herod) went into a far country (Italy), to receive for himself a kingdom (that of Judæa) and to return. But his citizens (the Jews) hated him, and sent a message (or embassy) after him (to Augustus Cæsar), saying, "We will not have this man to reign over us." The Jews however failed in their request, and Archelaus, having received the kingdom (or ethnarchy), on his return inflicted a severe vengeance on those who would not that he should reign over them.1 The application of this parable is to Jesus Christ, who foretells that, on his ascension, he would go into a distant country, to receive the kingdom from his father; and that he would return, at the destruction of Jerusalem, to take vengeance on those who rejected him. The subsequent reign of Archelaus was turbulent, and disgraced by insurrections of the Jews against the Romans, and also by banditti and pretenders to the crown: at length, after repeated complaints against his tyranny and mal-administration, made to Augustus by the principal Jews and Samaritans who were joined by his own brothers, Archelaus was deposed and banished to Vienne in Gaul, in the tenth year of his reign; and his territories were annexed to the Roman province of Syria.3

IV. HEROD ANTIPAS (or Antipater), another of Herod's sons, received from his father the district of Galilee and Peræa, with the title of Tetrarch. He is described by Josephus as a crafty and incestuous prince, with which character the narratives of the evangelists coincide; for, having deserted his wife, the daughter of Aretas king of Arabia, he forcibly took away and married Herodias the wife of his brother Herod Philip, a proud and cruel woman, to gratify whom he caused John the Baptist to be beheaded (Matt. xiv. 3: Mark vi. 17. Luke iii. 19.), who had provoked her vengeance by his faithful reproof of their incestuous nuptials; though Josephus ascribes the Baptist's death to Herod's apprehension, lest the latter should by his influence raise an insurrection among the people. It was this Herod that laid snares for our Saviour; who detecting his

1 Josephus, Ant. Jad. lib. xvii. c. ix. § 3. c. xi.

2 There is an impressive application of this parable in Mr. Jones's Lectures on the figurative language of Scripture, lect. v. near the beginning. (Works, vol. iii. pp. 35, 36.)

3 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. xii. § 2.

4 Concerning the meaning of this term learned men are by no means agreed. In its primary and original signification it implies a governor of the fourth part of a country; and this seems to have been the first meaning affixed to it. But afterwards it was given to the governors of a province, whether their government was the fourth part of a country or not: for Herod divided his kingdom only into three parts. The tetrarchs, however, were regarded as princes, and sometimes were complimented with the title of king. (Matt. xiv. 9.) Beausobre's Introd. to the New Test. (Bp. Watson's Tracts, vol. iii. p. 123.) The Romans conferred this title on those princes whom they did not choose to elevate to the regal dignity; the tetrarch was lower in point of rank than a Roman governor of a province. Schulzii Archæol. Hebr. pp. 18, 19. Jahn, Archæol. Bibl. p. 338.

insidious intentions, termed him a fox (Luke xiii. 32.), and who was subsequently ridiculed by him and his soldiers. (Luke xxiii. 7-11.) Some years afterwards, Herod aspiring to the regal dignity in Judæa was banished together with his wife, first to Lyons in Gaul, and thence into Spain.1

V. PHILIP, tetrarch of Trachonitis, Gaulonitis, and Batanæa, is mentioned but once in the new Testament. (Luke iii. 1.) He is represented by Josephus as an amiable prince, beloved by his subjects whom he governed with mildness and equity:2 on his decease without issue, after a reign of thirty-seven years, his territories were annexed to the province of Syria.3

VI. AGRIPPA, or Herod Agrippa, was the son of Aristobulus, and grandson of Herod the Great, and sustained various reverses of fortune previously to his attaining the royal dignity. At first he resided at Rome as a private person, and ingratiated himself into the favour of the emperor Tiberias; but, being accused of wishing him dead that Caligula might reign, he was thrown into prison by order of Tiberias. On the accession of Caligula to the empire, Agrippa was created king of Batanæa and Trachonitis, to which Abilene, Judæa, and Samaria were subsequently added by the emperor Claudius. Returning home to his dominions, he governed them much to the satisfaction of his subjects (for whose gratification he put to death the apostle James, and meditated that of St. Peter, who was miraculously delivered, Acts xii. 2-17.), but, being inflated with pride on account of his increasing power and grandeur, he was struck with a noisome and painful disease of which he died at Cæsarea in the manner related by St. Luke. (Acts xii. 21-23.)4

VII. AGRIPPA junior was the son of the preceding Herod Agrippa: being only seventeen years of age at the time of his father's death, he was judged to be unequal to the task of governing the whole of his dominions. These were again placed under the direction of a Roman procurator or governor, and Agrippa was first king of Chalcis, and afterwards of Batanæa, Trachonitis, and Abilene, to which other territories were subsequently added. It was before this Agrippa and his two sisters Berenice and Drusilla the wife of the Roman governor Felix, that St. Paul delivered his masterly defence." (Acts xxvi.)

1 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. 7.

2 Ibid. lib. xvii. c. viii. § 1. lib. xviii. c. v. § 4. De Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. xxxiii. § 8. lib. ii. c. vi. § 3.

3 Ibid. lib. xviii. c. 4. § 6.

4 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. 5-8.

5 Ibid. lib. xix. c. 9. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 12, 13.

SECTION II.

POLITICAL STATE OF THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMAN PROCURA

TORS, TO THE SUBVERSION OF THEIR CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.

I. Powers and functions of the Roman Procurators.-H. Political and civil state of the Jews under their administration.-III. Account of Pontius Pilate.-IV. And of the Procurators Felix and Festus. I. THE Jewish kingdom, which the Romans had created in favour of Herod the Great, was of short duration; expiring on his death, by the divison of his territories, and by the dominions of Archelaus, which comprised Samaria, Judæa, and Idumæa, being reduced to a Roman province annexed to Syria, and governed by the Roman procurators. These officers not only had the charge of collecting the imperial revenues, but also had the power of life and death in capital causes and on account of their high dignity they are sometimes called governors (Hysoves). They usually had a council, consisting of their friends and other chief Romans in the province; with whom they conferred on important questions. During the continuance of the Roman republic, it was very unusual for the governors of provinces to take their wives with them. Augustus disapproved of the introduction of this practice, which however was in some instances permitted by Tiberius. Thus Agrippina accompanied Germanicus into Germany and Asia, and Plancina was with Piso, whose insolence towards Germanicus she contributed to inflame :4 and though Cæcina Severus afterwards offered a motion to the senate, to prohibit this indulgence, (on account of the serious inconveniences, not to say abuses, that would result from the political influence which the wives might exercise over their husbands,) his motion was rejected, and they continued to attend the procurators to their respective provinces. This circumstance will account for Pilate's wife being at Jerusalem. (Matt. xxvii. 19.)

6

The procurators of Judæa resided principally at Cæsarea, which was reputed to be the metropolis of that country, and occupied the splendid palace which Herod the Great had erected there. On the great festivals, or when any tumults were apprehended, they repaired to Jerusalem, that, by their presence and influence, they might restore order. For this purpose they were accompanied by cohorts (apai, Acts x. 1.) or bands of soldiers, not legionary cohorts, but distinct 1 Josephus (Ant. Jud. lib. xx. c. 4. § 4. and de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 16. § 1.) mentions instances in which the Roman procurators thus took council with their

assessors.

2 Suetonius, in Augusto. c. 24.

3 Tacitus, Annal. lib. ii. c. 54, 55. lib. i. c. 40, 41.

4 Ibid. lib. i. c. 40.

5 Ibid. lib. iii. c. 33, 34.

6 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. 3. § 1. lib. xx. c. 5. § 4. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 9. §.2. Tacit. Hist. lib. ii. c. 79.

companies of military: each of them was about one thousand strong.1 Six of these cohorts were constantly garrisoned in Judæa; five at Cæsarea, and one at Jerusalem, part of which was quartered in the tower of Antonio, so as to command the temple, and part in the prætorium or governor's palace.

These procurators were Romans, sometimes of the equestrian order, and sometimes freedmen of the emperor: Felix (Acts xxiii. 24-26. xiv. 3. 22-27.) was a freedman of the emperor Claudius,2 with whom he was in high favour. These governors were sent, not by the senate, but by the Cæsars themselves, into those provinces which were situated on the confines of the empire, and were placed at the emperor's own disposal. Their duties consisted in collecting and remitting tribute, in the administration of justice, and the repression of tumults: some of them held independent jurisdictions, while others were subordinate to the proconsul or governor of the nearest province. Thus Judæa was annexed to the province of Syria.

II. The Jews endured their subjection to the Romans with great reluctance, on account of the tribute which they were obliged to pay: but in all other respects they enjoyed a large measure of national liberty. It appears from the whole 'tenor of the New Testament, (for the particular passages are too numerous to be cited3) that they practised their own religious rites, worshipped in the temple and in their synagogues, followed their own customs, and lived very much according to their own laws. Thus they had their high priests, and council or senate; they inflicted lesser punishments; they could apprehend men and bring them before the council; and if a guard of soldiers was necessary, could be assisted by them, on requesting them of the governor. Further, they could bind men and keep them in custody; the council could likewise summon witnesses and take examinations; they could excommunicate persons, and they could inflict scourging in their synagogues (Deut. xxv. 3. Matt. x. 17. Mark xiii. 9.); they enjoyed the privilege of referring litigated questions to referees, whose decisions in reference to them the Roman prætor was bound to see put in execution.4 Beyond this, however, they were not allowed to go; for, when they had any capital offenders, they carried them before the procurator, who usually paid a regard to what they stated, and, if they brought evidence of the fact, pronounced sentence according to their laws. He was the proper judge in all capital causes; for, after the council of the Jews had taken under their consideration the case of Jesus Christ, which

1 Biscoe on the Acts, ch. ix. § 1. pp. 330–335.

2 Suetonius in Claudio, c. xxviii.

3 See Dr. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book ii. c. ii. where the various passages are adduced and fully considered.

4 Cod. lib. i. tit. 9. 1. 8. de Judæis.-As the Christians were at first regarded as a sect of the Jews (Acts xxviii. 24.), they likewise enjoyed the same privilege. This circumstance will account for Saint Paul's blaming the Corinthian Christians for carrying their causes before the Roman prætor, instead of leaving them to referees chosen from among their brethren. (I Cor. vi. 1—7.)