appointed as a reserve in case, by any act of defilement, the High Priest should be unable

to perform his duties. Josephus gives one example of this, and other examples are found

in the Talmud.

Gratius, the predecessor of Pontius Pilate, deprived Annas of the high-priesthood, and

appointed successively Ishmæl, Eleazar and Annas, Simon, and then Caiaphas. It is

probable that the Jews resented this and, while being obliged outwardly to accept the

nominees of the Roman Governor, they probably retained the title for the man who had

succeeded to the office in the orthodox way. As late as Acts 4: 6, we read of "Annas

the High Priest, and Caiaphas"--which lends colour to the suggestion of strong Jewish

antipathy towards Roman interference.

Within the limits we have allotted for these articles we cannot say very much, but we

trust that what is brought forward from time to time will help gradually to build up a

mental picture of the people and events that form the background in the great N.T. drama

of light and darkness.

Before the accession of Caligula, Tiberius had thrown Agrippa into prison on the

evidence of his coachman's report of a conversation overheard between Agrippa and

Caligula. As soon as he heard of Tiberius' death, Agrippa freed-man came running to tell

Agrippa the news, saying in the Hebrews tongue:  "The Lion is dead."  Upon his

accession, Caligula set Agrippa at liberty and placed upon his head a royal diadem. He

also made him king over the tetrarchy of Philip and gave him a golden chain of weight

equal to that of the chain with which he had been bound in prison.

The name Caligula means "bootling" and had been given by the soldiers to Gaius, the

son of Germanicus, as a pet name. As a child he had been the idol of the army, and at his

accession to the throne of the Cæsars, all Rome rejoiced. His brothers and his mother

were dead, and his sister Agrippina at this time was about to become the mother of the

future emperor Nero. The first few months of his reign were full of promise. He

liberated prisoners, recalled exiles, and publicly burned incriminating documents. But he

soon fell sick with a fever, and arose from his bed a maniac. He became possessed with

the idea of his own divinity, and indulged in a lust for blood the record of which is

sickening to read. Once, when annoyed by the populace at a public entertainment, he

expressed the wish that the Roman people had but one neck so that he might sever it at a

single blow. He made his horse, Incitatus, a consul; and his crazy reign ended with his

assassination by one of the officers of the Praetorians.