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We have still to deal with further facts of importance in connection with Herod--in
relation to the birth of the Saviour, the building of the Temple, and other features--but as
we do not wish to encroach on the space reserved for definite exposition, we will reserve
these for our next article.
#10.
Herod the Great (Concluded).
pp. 73 - 76
The career of Herod the Great presents a strange alternation of splendid qualities,
dazzling charm, outrageous sensuality, and appalling blood-lust. In the year B.C.25, a
terrible famine swept away thousands of people, and the killing of the flocks left them
without the means of making clothing. In these circumstances Herod displayed the most
unsparing magnanimity. He sold the silver plate from his own table, he bought immense
bales of wool and quantities of bread, and distributed seed-corn to prevent the failure of
the subsequent harvest. Yet, at the same time, he loathed the Jews over whom he ruled,
and while in some respects acting in a way calculated to win their allegiance, wounded
their feelings very acutely by building heathen temples in Cęsarea and becoming a
patron of the heathen games.
"If he had confined such exhibitions of his heathen proclivities to the many pagan or
semi-pagan cities of his kingdom, the Jews might have tolerated and partially condoned
his conduct. But their horror can better be imagined than described when, in defiance of
their most cherished convictions, he built a theatre and an amphitheatre at Jerusalem itself
(B.C.25)."
The criticism raised by the Pharisees over this question led to the torture and death of
many families. And so the rule of blood continued.
In B.C.27 Herod married again. His new wife was also named Mariamne and was
the daughter of a priest, named Simon. To give his new Queen more dignity, Herod
deposed the existing High Priest, and replaced him by his father-in-law. However,
instead of improving conditions by these actions, he only made them worse, for Simon
incurred the hatred of the people by his greed and cruelty.
About this time Herod sent his two sons to Rome, where they were entrusted to the
family of Pollio--to whom Virgil addressed the poem in which he anticipated that
Pollio's infant son might be the promised Messiah and bring in the golden age. They
returned to Jerusalem in B.C.19 aged eighteen and nineteen. On their return, however,
they spoke too freely about their mother's execution, and were "imprudent enough to
treat Pheroros and Cypros and Salome, the brother, and mother, and sister of Herod, as
plebeians almost beneath their disdain". Herod attempted to improve things by arranging
for his two sons to marry. But this only made matters worse, for the wife of the elder son