of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.

And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.*

Whilst the sovereign disposer of events was thus prosecuting his gracious and magnificent plans,† for the redemption of a lost and ruined world, by instruments of low esteem; and without deigning, except in some very few instances, to notice the great and the noble, those mighty ones of the earth were carrying on their mundane affairs, and practising their political intrigues, and their profligate habits, utterly regardless of the proceedings of Jehovah. Yet they spoke sufficiently loud to have attracted their most serious attention, if, instead of being immersed in worldly pleasures and pursuits, they had been attentive to the voice of prophecy lodged in their hands; and if their religion, instead of being a holy and spiritual principle, had not sunk into a mere national and distinguishing system.

Pontius Pilate, besides many acts of cruelty,+ had conducted himself with very little discretion towards the

Luke, xxiv. 13-53.

↑ Amongst other previous dispositions for this sublime event, we may notice especially the remarkable influence of the over-ruling providence of God, in so far controlling the natural severity of the emperor Tiberius Cæsar, in whose reign our Lord's personal ministry was to be exercised, that he even proposed to the senate to enrol him amongst the Roman deities; and when they refused their concurrence, he nevertheless persisted in his opinion, and ordered that if any accused the Christians, they should be punished. Lardner's Test. i. 322. Abp. Leighton's Works, vol. iii. 520.

prejudices of the Jews; and it is even said, he contemplated the abolishing of the Jewish laws, and with that object removed the army from Cæsarea to Jerusalem, with the effigies or images on their ensigns. This being transacted in the night, when the people saw them in the morning, they became so clamorous, that finally Pilate consented to remove them.*

But having afterwards committed a cruel slaughtert upon the Samaritans, he was accused by the senate of that nation before Vitellius, who was then president of Syria; and who deprived Pilate of his government, and sent him to Rome to answer to Tiberius; by whose successor he was sent an exile into Gaul, where he hanged himself;§ and a similar doom was also reserved for the traitor, Judas Iscariot.||

Aristobulus, who had been so cruelly murdered by his father Herod, ¶ had left three children, viz.-Agrippa, Herod,

Jos. iii. 61-383. Crevier, ii. 22. iii. 22.
+ See Israel, post.
Jos. iii. 66.

§ L'Empriere, in Pilato. Crevier, iii. 22.

Matt. xxvii. 3—6.

The blood of him

I have betrayed is blood of innocence !

Now on my head it falls. He spake and rolled
His glaring eyes; then from the very face of man
Frantic he fled, nor stopped till far without
Jerusalem's high walls he stood. There first
He paused, again rushed swiftly on, then stopt
And gazed around in wild affright, to see
If eye of man was there. When he beheld
The place's loneliness, and found his ear
No longer caught the city's distant hum,
He then resolved to die."

¶ See p. 464.

Wilson's Travels, i. 217.

器

323

d afterwards king of Chalcis, and Herodias. Agrippa was sent young to Rome, where he was educated; but having given offence to Tiberius, was thrown into prison. During his residence at Rome, he had formed an intimacy with Caius Caligula, and when that prince succeeded Tiberius in the imperial throne, he not only liberated Agrippa, but gave him two tetrarchies, viz.-those of his uncle Philip, and of Lysanias, and liberty to assume the title† of king.‡

ari

Nor were Herod-Antipas, who ought to have protected, but who had so cruelly mocked and insulted the Saviour, and the profligate Herodias, suffered to escape the divine vengeance.§

Of the former we hear nothing more in the New Testament; but we learn from other authorities that he built the city of Tiberias, in Galilee, and Julias, in Perea beyond Jordan.||

When his nephew Agrippa returned from Rome with the title of king, and invested with the two tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, Herodias urged him to take a voyage to Rome,

He was the friend of Claudius Cæsar, from whom he obtained the privilege of nominating and deposing the high priest, and the superintendency of the temple of Jerusalem, although he was not the king of Judea.*

But not the regal power of life and death, which the emperor still kept in his own hands. Bas. 21. Besides many other marks of favour, in exchange for his iron fetters, Caligula gave him a golden chain, which, on his return to Jerusalem, Agrippa hung up in the temple, at the same time offering up sacrifices of thanksgivings to God. He however mixed with his observance of Jewish rites many pagan superstitions, which frequently exposed him to the suspicions and reproaches of the more conscientious Jews. Crevier, iii. 22. 158. 291.

Basn. 20. Crevier, iii. 21. Jos. iii. 86. See p. 480. He was called Herod-Agrippa. A. Clarke on Matt. ii. 1. Watson sub voce Agrippa. Jos. iii. 156. where see a curious note by Whiston. § A. Clarke on Matt. ii. 1. and Watson's Theo. Dic.

Jos. iii. 383.

Bas. 27.

to obtain from Caligula a similar honour and authority. But whether Agrippa suspected his uncle intended to make any representations injurious to him, or was ambitious to obtain his tetrarchy also, he sent Fortunatus to accuse him to the emperor of a conspiracy with Sejanus, and Antobanus, king of Parthia. And Antipas, not being able to defend himself against the charge, or to repel the inferences drawn from some part of his conduct, was banished to Lyons, in France, together with Herodias, from whence they both retired into Spain and died in exile; and upon that occasion, Caligula gave Agrippa his uncle's tetrarchy of Galilee.†

Towards the conclusion of the reign of Tiberius, all the Jews were banished from Rome, on account of four of them having attempted to convert Fulvia, a Roman lady of rank and wealth, to their faith; and it was imputed to them that their real object was to possess themselves of her money. Four thousand were sent to Sardinia to keep the banditti of that island in charge, and most probably perished there by the sword, or by the climate.‡

During the reign of Caligula, the Jews had a very narrow escape from extermination, throughout the extent of the Roman empire. The danger originated in the impious idolatry of the Romans, and the impiety of the emperor himself, not, however, peculiar to him, bad as he was, in allowing statues to be erected and divine honours to be paid to him. Many of the inhabitants in various provinces were bitterly inimical against this nation on various accounts, and had recourse to the same expedient as the Babylonian courtiers in the days of Daniel, viz.-to find an occasion against them concerning the law of their God.§ And therefore, availing themselves of the impiety and vanity of Caligula, by setting

up his statues in the different cities where the Jews resided, they at the same time claimed merit for their own respect and attachment to the emperor, and drew down his resentment against the poor Jews, for not uniting with them in worshipping his statues. To their praise it is recorded they invariably refused to do so, and' God in mercy appeared for their deliverance, by diverting the tyrant's wrath and madness.

The conspiracy began at Alexandria; but the chief danger was at Jerusalem itself, where Caligula had ordered a statue of Jupiter to be set up in the sanctuary itself, and commanded Petronius, the governor of Syria, to enforce obedience. To avert this impious desecration of their holy place, the entire population of Jerusalem, and the neighbouring towns and cities, men, women, and children, to the amount of many thousands, repaired to the Roman general at Ptolemais, and fell prostrate before him; and on his ordering them to rise, stood up, their hands behind their backs, their heads covered with dust, and tears streaming down their eyes, when one of their elders addressed him thus: "We are unarmed, as you see; without cause are we accused of being rebellious, even our hands we hold in such a posture as shews we yield up ourselves without resistance; we have brought our wives and children too, that you may save us all, or, if we must perish, that we may perish altogether. Petronius, we are pacific from inclination; and our religion breathes only peace. When Caius became emperor, we were the first in Syria that gave him joy on his happy accession: our temple was the first in which sacrifices were offered up for his prosperity; And shall it be the first whose religious rites are abolished? We abandon our towns, our houses, and our possessions; we are ready to lay at your feet all that we have; nor shall we think it too great a price to preserve the purity of our worship. Or, if we cannot obtain what we now beg, all that remains for us