her brother. Antipater withdrew to Rome; but when, after the death of Pheraras, Herod
obtained indubitable evidence that his son had plotted against his life, he lured Antipater
to Palestine, where on his arrival he was cast into prison. All that was needed was the
permission of Augustus for his execution. It arrived, and was carried out only five days
before the death of Herod himself. So ended a reign almost unparalleled for reckless
cruelty and bloodshed, in which the murder of the Innocents in Bethlehem formed but so
trifling an episode among the many deeds of b lood, as to have seemed not deserving of
record on the page of the Jewish historian.
But we can understand the feelings of the people towards such a King. They hated the
Idumĉan; they detested his semi- heathen reign; they abhorred his deeds of cruelty. the
King had surrounded himself with foreign councillors, and was protected by foreign
mercenaries from Thracia, Germany, and Gaul. 8 So long as he lived, no woman's honour
was safe, no man's life secure. An army of all-powerful spies pervaded Jerusalem - nay,
the King himself was said to stoop to that office.9 If pique or private enmity led to
denunciation, the torture would extract any confession from the most innocent. What his
relation to Judaism had been, may easily be inferred. He would be a Jew - even build the
Temple, advocate the cause of the Jews in other lands, and, in a certain sense, conform to
the Law of Judaism. In building the Temple, he was so anxious to conciliate national
prejudice, that the Sanctuary itself was entrusted to the workmanship of priests only. Nor
did he ever intrude into the Holy Place, nor interfere with any functions of the priesthood.
None of his coins bear devices which could have shocked popular feeling, nor did any of
the buildings he erected in Jerusalem exhibit any forbidden emblems. The Sanhedrin did
exist during his reign,10 though it must have been shorn of all real power, and its activity
confined to ecclesiastical, or semi-ecclesiastical, causes. Strangest of all, he seems to
have had at least the passive support of two of the greatest Rabbis - the Pollio and
Sameas of Josephus 11 - supposed to represent those great figures in Jewish tradition,
Abtalion and Shemajah. 12 13 We can but conjecture, that they preferred even his rule to
what had preceded; and hoped it might lead to a Roman Protectorate, which would leave
Judĉa practically independent, or rather under Rabbinic rule.
8. Jos. Ant. xvii. 8. 3.
9. Ant. xv. 10. 4.
10. Comp. the discussion of this question in Wieseler, Beitr. pp. 215 &c.
11. Ant. xiv. 9. 4; xv. 1. 1, 10. 4.
12. Ab. i. 10, 11.
13. Even their recorded fundamental principles bear this out. That of Shemajah was:
'Love labour, hate lordship, and do not push forward to the authorities.' That of Abtalion
was: 'Ye sages, be careful in your words, lest perchance ye incur banishment, and are
exiled to a place of bad waters, and the disciples who follow you drink of them and die,
and so in the end the name of God be profaned.'
It was also under the government of Herod, that Hillel and Shammai lived and taught in
Jerusalem:14 the two, whom tradition designates as 'the fathers of old.'15 Both gave their
names to 'schools,' whose direction was generally different - not unfrequently, it seems,