The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem. Flavius Josephus
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one at the same the and that this polygamy was not directly forbidden in the law of Moses is evident; but that polygamy was ever properly and distinctly permitted in that law of Moses, in the places here cited by Dean Aldrich, Deuteronomy 17:16, 17, or 21:15, or indeed any where else, does not appear to me. And what our Savior says about the common Jewish divorces, which may lay much greater claim to such a permission than polygamy, seems to me true in this case also; that Moses, "for the hardness of their hearts," suffered them to have several wives at the same time, but that "from the beginning it was not so," Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5.]
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[ This vile fellow, Eurycles the Lacedemonian, seems to have been the same who is mentioned by Plutarch, as [twenty-live years before] a companion to Mark Antony, and as living with Herod; whence he might easily insinuate himself into the acquaintance of Herod's sons, Antipater and Alexander, as Usher, Hudson, and Spanheim justly suppose. The reason why his being a Spartan rendered him acceptable to the Jews as we here see he was, is visible from the public records of the Jews and Spartans, owning those Spartans to be of kin to the Jews, and derived from their common ancestor Abraham, the first patriarch of the Jewish nation, Antiq. B. XII. ch. 4. sect. 10; B. XIII. ch. 5. sect. 8; and 1 Macc. 12:7.]
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[ See the preceding note.]
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[ Dean Aldrich takes notice here, that these nine wives of Herod were alive at the same time; and that if the celebrated Mariamne, who was now dead, be reckoned, those wives were in all ten. Yet it is remarkable that he had no more than fifteen children by them all.]
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[ To prevent confusion, it may not be amiss, with Dean Aldrich, to distinguish between four Josephs in the history of Herod. 1. Joseph, Herod's uncle, and the [second] husband of his sister Salome, slain by Herod, on account of Mariamne. 2. Joseph, Herod's quaestor, or treasurer, slain on the same account. 3. Joseph, Herod's brother, slain in battle against Antigonus. 4. Joseph, Herod's nephew, the husband of Olympias, mentioned in this place.]
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[ These daughters of Herod, whom Pheroras's wife affronted, were Salome and Roxana, two virgins, who were born to him of his two wives, Elpide and Phedra. See Herod's genealogy, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 1. sect. 3.]
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[ This strange obstinacy of Pheroras in retaining his wife, who was one of a low family, and refusing to marry one nearly related to Herod, though he so earnestly desired it, as also that wife's admission to the counsels of the other great court ladies, together with Herod's own importunity as to Pheroras's divorce and other marriage, all so remarkable here, or in the Antiquities XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3. be well accounted for, but on the supposal that Pheroras believed, and Herod suspected, that the Pharisees' prediction, as if the crown of Judea should be translated from Herod to Pheroras's posterity and that most probably to Pheroras's posterity by this his wife, also would prove true. See Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3. sect. 1.]
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[ This Tarentum has coins still extant, as Reland informs us here in his note.]
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[ A lover of his father.]
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[ Since in these two sections we have an evident account of the Jewish opinions in the days of Josephus, about a future happy state, and the resurrection of the dead, as in the New Testament, John 11:24, I shall here refer to the other places in Josephus, before he became a catholic Christian, which concern the same matters. Of the War, B. II. ch. 8. sect. 10, 11; B. III. ch. 8. sect. 4; B. VII. ch. 6. sect. 7; Contr. Apion, B. II. sect. 30; where we may observe, that none of these passages are in his Books of Antiquities, written peculiarly for the use of the Gentiles, to whom he thought it not proper to insist on topics so much out of their way as these were. Nor is this observation to be omitted here, especially on account of the sensible difference we have now before us in Josephus's reason of the used by the Rabbins to persuade their scholars to hazard their lives for the vindication of God's law against images, by Moses, as well as of the answers those scholars made to Herod, when they were caught, and ready to die for the same; I mean as compared with the parallel arguments and answers represented in the Antiquities, B. XVII. ch. 6. sect, 2, 3. A like difference between Jewish and Gentile notions the reader will find in my notes on Antiquities, B. III. ch. 7. sect. 7; B. XV. ch. 9. sect. 1. See the like also in the case of the three Jewish sects in the Antiquities, B. XIII. ch. 5. sect. 9, and ch. 10. sect. 4, 5; B. XVIII. ch. 1. sect. 5; and compared with this in his Wars of the Jews, B. II. ch. 8. sect. 2-14. Nor does St. Paul himself reason to Gentiles at Athens, Acts 17:16-34, as he does to Jews in his Epistles.]
BOOK II
Containing The Interval Of Sixty-Nine Years. From The Death Of Herod Till Vespasian Was Sent To Subdue The Jews By Nero.
CHAPTER 1
Archelaus Makes A Funeral Feast For The People, On The Account Of Herod. After Which A Great Tumult Is Raised By The Multitude And He Sends The Soldiers Out Upon Them, Who Destroy About Three Thousand Of Them.
1. Now the necessity which Archelaus was under of taking a journey to Rome was the occasion of new disturbances; for when he had mourned for his father seven days, 1 and had given a very expensive funeral feast to the multitude, [which custom is the occasion of poverty to many of the Jews, because they are forced to feast the multitude; for if any one omits it, he is not esteemed a holy person,] he put on a white garment, and went up to the temple, where the people accosted him with various acclamations. He also spake kindly to the multitude from an elevated seat and a throne of gold, and returned them thanks for the zeal they had shown about his father's funeral, and the submission they had made to him, as if he were already settled in the kingdom; but he told them withal, that he would not at present take upon him either the authority of a king, or the names thereto belonging, until Caesar, who is made lord of this whole affair by the testament, confirm the succession; for that when the soldiers would have set the diadem on his head at Jericho, he would not accept of it; but that he would make abundant requitals, not to the soldiers only, but to the people, for their alacrity and good-will to him, when the superior lords [the Romans] should have given him a complete title to the kingdom; for that it should be his study to appear in all things better than his father.
2. Upon this the multitude were pleased, and presently made a trial of what he intended, by asking great things of him; for some made a clamor that he would ease them in their taxes; others, that he would take off the duties upon commodities; and some, that he would loose those that were in prison; in all which cases he answered readily to their satisfaction, in order to get the good-will of the multitude; after which he offered [the proper] sacrifices, and feasted with his friends. And here it was that a great many of those that desired innovations came in crowds towards the evening, and began then to mourn on their own account, when the public mourning for the king was over. These lamented those that were put to death by Herod, because they had cut down the golden eagle that had been over the gate of the temple. Nor was this mourning of a private nature, but the lamentations were very great, the mourning solemn, and the weeping such as was loudly heard all over the city, as being for those men who had perished for the laws of their country, and for the temple. They cried out that a punishment ought to be inflicted for these men upon those that were honored by Herod; and that, in the first place, the man whom he had made high priest should be deprived; and that it was fit to choose a person of greater piety and purity than he was.
3. At these clamors Archelaus was provoked, but restrained himself from taking vengeance on the authors, on account of the haste he was in of going to Rome, as fearing lest, upon his making war on the multitude, such an action might detain him at home. Accordingly, he made trial to quiet the innovators by persuasion, rather than by force, and sent his general in a private way to them, and by him