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| About the Time of Christ, in accordance with Prophecy, the Rulers who had governed the Jewish Nation in Regular Succession from the Days of Antiquity came to an End, and Herod, the First Foreigner, Became King.
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Chapter VI.—About the Time of
Christ, in accordance with Prophecy, the Rulers who had governed the
Jewish Nation in Regular Succession from the Days of Antiquity came to
an End, and Herod, the First Foreigner, Became King.
1. When
Herod,85
the first ruler of foreign blood, became
King, the prophecy of Moses received its fulfillment, according to
which there should “not be wanting a prince of Judah, nor a ruler
from his loins, until he come for whom it is reserved.”86
| 86 Gen. xlix. 10. The LXX., which
Eusebius quotes here, according to his custom, is in the present
instance somewhat different from the Hebrew. | The latter, he also shows, was to be the
expectation of the nations.87
2. This prediction remained
unfulfilled so long as it was permitted them to live under rulers from
their own nation, that is, from the time of Moses to the reign of
Augustus. Under the latter, Herod, the first foreigner, was given the
Kingdom of the Jews by the Romans. As Josephus relates,88
| 88 Eusebius refers here to Ant. XIV. 1. 3 and 7. 3. According
to Josephus, Herod’s father was Antipater, and his mother Cypros,
an Arabian woman of noble birth. | he was an Idumean89
| 89 The
Idumeans or Edomites were the descendants of Esau, and inhabited the
Sinaitic peninsula south of the Dead Sea. Their principal city and
stronghold was the famous rock city, Petra. They were constant enemies
of the Jews, refused them free passage through their land (Num. xx.
20);
were conquered by Saul and David, but again regained their
independence, until they were finally completely subjugated by John
Hyrcanus, who left them in possession of their land, but compelled them
to undergo circumcision, and adopt the Jewish law. Compare Josephus,
Ant. XIII. 9. 1; XV. 7. 9; B. J. IV. 5. 5. |
on his father’s side and an Arabian on his mother’s. But
Africanus,90
| 90 On
Africanus, see Bk. VI. chap. 31. This account is given by Africanus in
his epistle to Aristides, quoted by Eusebius in the next chapter.
Africanus states there (§11) that the account, as he gives it, was
handed down by the relatives of the Lord. But the tradition, whether
much older than Africanus or not, is certainly incorrect. We learn from
Josephus (Ant. XIV. 2), who is the best witness upon this
subject, that Antipater, the father of Herod the Great, was the son of
another Antipater, or Antipas, an Idumean who had been made governor of
Idumea by the Jewish king Alexander Jannæus (of the Maccabæan
family). In Ant. XVI. 11 Josephus informs us that a report had
been invented by friends and flatterers of Herod that he was descended
from Jewish ancestors. The report originated with Nicolai Damasceni, a
writer of the time of the Herods. The tradition preserved here by
Africanus had its origin, evidently, in a desire to degrade Herod by
representing him as descended from a slave. | who was also no common writer, says that
they who were more accurately informed about him report that he was a
son of Antipater, and that the latter was the son of a certain Herod of
Ascalon,91
| 91 Ascalon,
one of the five cities of the Philistines (mentioned frequently in the
Old Testament), lay upon the Mediterranean Sea, between Gaza and Joppa.
It was beautified by Herod (although not belonging to his dominions),
and after his death became the residence of his sister Salome. It was a
prominent place in the Middle Ages, but is now in ruins. Of this Herod
of Ascalon nothing is known. Possibly no such man existed. | one of the so-called servants92
of the temple of Apollo.
3. This Antipater, having been
taken a prisoner while a boy by Idumean robbers, lived with them,
because his father, being a poor man, was unable to pay a ransom for
him. Growing up in their practices he was afterward befriended by
Hyrcanus,93
| 93 Hyrcanus II., eldest son of the King Alexander Jannæus of the
Maccabæan family, became high priest upon the death of his father,
in 78 b.c.; and upon the death of his mother,
in 69 b.c., ascended the throne. He gave up
his kingdom afterward (66 b.c.) to his younger
brother, Aristobulus; but under the influence of Antipater the Idumean
endeavored to regain it, and after a long war with his brother, was
re-established in power by Pompey, in 63 b.c.,
but merely as high priest and governor, not with the title of king. He
retained his position until 40 b.c., when he
was driven out by his nephew Antigonus. He was murdered in 30 b.c., by command of Herod the Great, who had married
his grand-daughter Mariamne. He was throughout a weak man, and while in
power was completely under the influence of his minister,
Antipater. | the high priest of the Jews. A son of his
was that Herod who lived in the times of our Saviour.94
4. When the Kingdom of the Jews
had devolved upon such a man the expectation of the nations was,
according to prophecy, already at the door. For with him their princes
and governors, who had ruled in regular succession from the time of
Moses came to an end.
5. Before their captivity and
their transportation to Babylon they were ruled by Saul first and then
by David, and before the kings leaders governed them who were called
Judges, and who came after Moses and his successor Jesus.
6. After their return from
Babylon they continued to have without interruption an aristocratic
form of government, with an oligarchy. For the priests had the
direction of affairs until Pompey, the Roman general, took Jerusalem by
force, and defiled the holy places by entering the very innermost
sanctuary of the temple.95
| 95 In 63
b.c., when Pompey’s curiosity led him to
penetrate into the Holy of Holies. He was much impressed, however, by
its simplicity, and went away without disturbing its treasures,
wondering at a religion which had no visible God. | Aristobulus,96
| 96 Aristobulus II., younger brother of Hyrcanus, a much abler and
more energetic man, assumed the kingdom by an arrangement with his
brother in 66 b.c. (see note 9, above). In 63
b.c. he was deposed, and carried to Rome by
Pompey. He died about 48 b.c. Eusebius is
hardly correct in saying that Aristobulus was king and high priest by
regular succession, as his elder brother Hyrcanus was the true heir,
and he had assumed the power only because of his superior
ability. | who, by the right of ancient succession, had
been up to that time both king and high priest, he sent with his
children in chains to Rome; and gave to Hyrcanus, brother of
Aristobulus, the high priesthood, while the whole nation of the Jews
was made tributary to the Romans from that time.97
| 97 The
real independence of the Jews practically ceased at this time. For
three years only, from 40 to 37 b.c., while
Antigonus, son of Aristobulus and nephew of Hyrcanus, was in power,
Jerusalem was independent of Rome, but was soon retaken by Herod the
Great and remained from that time on in more or less complete
subjection, either as a dependent kingdom or as a province. |
7. But Hyrcanus, who was the
last of the regular line of high priests, was very soon afterward taken
prisoner by the Parthians,98
| 98 40
b.c., when Antigonus, by the aid of the
Parthians took Jerusalem and established himself as king there, until
conquered by Herod in 37 b.c. Hyrcanus
returned to Jerusalem in 36 b.c., but was no
longer high priest. | and Herod, the
first foreigner, as I have already said, was made King of the Jewish
nation by the Roman senate and by Augustus.
8. Under him Christ appeared in
bodily shape, and the expected Salvation of the nations and their
calling followed in accordance with prophecy.99
From
this time the princes and rulers of Judah, I mean of the Jewish nation,
came to an end, and as a natural consequence the order of the high
priesthood, which from ancient times had proceeded regularly in closest
succession from generation to generation, was immediately thrown into
confusion.100
| 100 Eusebius’ statement is perfectly correct. The high priestly
lineage had been kept with great scrupulousness until Hyrcanus II., the
last of the regular succession. (His grandson Aristobulus, however, was
high priest for a year under Herod, but was then slain by him.)
Afterward the high priest was appointed and changed at pleasure by the
secular ruler.
Herod the Great first
established the practice of removing a high priest during his lifetime;
and under him there were no less than six different ones. |
9. Of these things Josephus is
also a witness,101
| 101 Josephus, Ant. XX. 8. | who shows that when
Herod was made King by the Romans he no longer appointed the high
priests from the ancient line, but gave the honor to certain obscure
persons. A course similar to that of Herod in the appointment of the
priests was pursued by his son Archelaus,102
and
after him by the Romans, who took the government into their own
hands.103
| 103 After
the death of Archelaus (a.d. 7), Judea was
made a Roman province, and ruled by procurators until Herod Agrippa I.
came into power in 37 a.d. (see below, Bk. II.
chap. 4, note 3). The changes in the high priesthood during the most of
this time were very rapid, one after another being appointed and
removed according to the fancy of the procurator, or of the governor of
Syria, who held the power of appointment most of the time. There were
no fewer than nineteen high priests between the death of Archelaus and
the fall of Jerusalem. |
10. The same writer shows104
| 104 Josephus, Ant. XV. 11. 4. | that Herod was the first that locked up the
sacred garment of the high priest under his own seal and refused to
permit the high priests to keep it for themselves. The same course was
followed by Archelaus after him, and after Archelaus by the
Romans.
11. These things have been
recorded by us in order to show that another prophecy has been
fulfilled in the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ. For the
Scripture, in the book of Daniel,105
having expressly
mentioned a certain number of weeks until the coming of Christ, of
which we have treated in other books,106
| 106 It is
commonly assumed that Eusebius refers here to the Dem. Evang.
VIII. 2 sq., where the prophecies of Daniel are discussed at length.
But, as Lightfoot remarks, the reference is just as well satisfied by
the Eclogæ Proph. III. 45. We cannot, in fact, decide which
work is meant. | most clearly
prophesies, that after the completion of those weeks the unction among
the Jews should totally perish. And this, it has been clearly shown,
was fulfilled at the time of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
This has been necessarily premised by us as a proof of the correctness of the
time.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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