current on the general life and progress of mankind; too often attempted to be cruelly dried up by violent means, or -turned into blood, yet still emerging when seeming almost lost, and flowing on, as it still flows, and seems destined to flow. Though the Jewish and Christian history have much. in common, they may be kept almost entirely distinct." This remark applies especially to what remains to be told of the house of Herod. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A.) THE HERODIANS. In the account which is given by St. Matthew (xxii. 15 ff.) and St. Mark (xii. 13 ft.) of the last efforts made by different sections of the Jews to obtain from our Lord himself the materials for his accusation, a party under the name of Herodians is represented as acting in concert with the Pharisees (Matt. xxii. 16; Mark xii. 13). St. Mark mentions the combination of the two parties for a similar object at an earlier period (Mark iii. 6), and in another place (viii. 15; cf. Luke xii. 1) he preserves a saying of our Lord, in which "the leaven of Herod" is placed in close connection with "the leaven of the Pharisees." In the Gospel of St. Luke, on the other hand, the Herodians are not brought forward at all by name. These very scanty notices of the Evangelists as to the position of the Herodians are not compensated by other testimonies; yet it is not difficult to fix their characteristics by a reference to the condition of Jewish feeling in the Apostolic age. There were probably many who saw in the power of the Herodian family the pledge of the preservation of their national existence in the face of Roman ambition. In proportion as they regarded the independent nationality of the Jewish people as the first condition of the fulfillment of its future destiny, they would be willing to acquiesce in the dominion of men who were themselves of foreign descent, and not rigid in the observance of the Mosaic ritual. Two distinct classes might thus unite in supporting what was a domestic tyranny as contrasted with absolute dependence on Rome, those who saw in the Herods a protection against direct heathen rule, which was the one object of their fear, and those who were inclined to look with satisfaction upon such a compromise between the ancient faith and heathen civilization, as Herod the Great and his successors had endeavored to realize, as the true and highest consummation of Jewish hopes. On the one side the Herodians-partisans of Herod in the widest sense of the term -were thus brought into union with the Pharisees, on the other, with the Sadducees. Yet there is no reason to suppose that they endeavored to form any very systematic harmony of the conflicting doctrines of the two sects, but At the time when Herod rebuilt it, he enclosed a space "twice as rather the conflicting doctrines them- | Jerusalem, and its dimensions were selves were thrown into the back- what Josephus states them to beground by what appeared to be a 400 cubits, or one stadium, each paramount political necessity. Such way.* coalitions have been frequent in every age; and the rarity of the allusions to the Herodians, as a mark-large" as that before occupied by the ed body, seems to show that this, like similar coalitions, had no enduring influence as the foundation of a party. The feelings which led to the coalition remained, but they were incapable of animating the common action of a united body for any length of time. (B.) TEMPLE OF HEROD. (See Plan, p. 76.) For our knowledge of the last and greatest of the Jewish Temples we are indebted almost wholly to the works of Josephus, with an occasional hint from the Talmud. The Temple or Naos itself was in dimensions and arrangement very similar to that of Solomon, or rather that of Zerubbabel-more like the latter; but this was surrounded by an inner enclosure of great strength and magnificence, measuring as nearly as can be made out 180 cubits by 240, and adorned by porches and ten gate-ways of great magnificence; and beyond this again was an outer enclosure measuring externally 400 cubits each way, which was adorned with porticoes of greater splendor than any we know of as attached to any temple of the ancient world: all showing how strongly Roman influence was at work in enveloping with heathen magnificence the simple templar arrangements of a Semitic people, which, however, remained nearly unchanged amid all this external incrustation. The Temple was certainly situated in the S. W. angle of the area now known as the Haram area at Temple and its courts, an expression that probably must not be taken too literally, at least if we are to depend on the measurements of Hecatæus. According to them, the whole area of Herod's Temple was between four and five times greater than that which preceded it. What Herod did apparently was to take in the whole space between the Temple and the city wall on its eastern side, and to add a considerable space on the north and south, to support the porticoes which he added there. As the Temple terrace thus became the principal defense of the city on the east side, there were no gates or openings in that direction, and being situated on a sort of rocky brow as evidenced from its appearance in the vaults that bound it on this side-it was at all later times considered unattackable from the eastward. The north side, too, where not covered by the fortress Antonia, became part of the defenses of the city, and was likewise without external gates. On the south side, which was enclosed by the wall of Ophel, there were double gates nearly in the centre. These gates still exist at a distance of about 365 feet from the south-western angle, and are perhaps the only architectural features of the Temple of Herod which remain in situ. This entrance consists of a double archway of Cyclopean architecture on the level of the ground, opening into a square vestibule measuring 40 feet each way. From this a double tunnel, nearly * Comp. O. T. Hist. ch. xxii. § 5, etc., and ch. xxvii. Notes and Ill. (A), concerning the Temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel. |