Part 62 (1/2)
[44] It seems, by this dying advice of Alexander Janneus to his wife, that he had himself pursued the measures of his father Hyrca.n.u.s and taken part with the Sadducees, who kept close to the written law, against the Pharisees, who had introduced their own traditions, ch. 16.
sect. 2; and that he now saw a political necessity of submitting to the Pharisees and their traditions hereafter, if his widow and family minded to retain their monarchical government or tyranny over the Jewish nation; which sect yet, thus supported, were at last in a great measure the ruin of the religion, government, and nation of the Jews, and brought them into so wicked a state, that the vengeance of G.o.d came upon them to their utter excision. Just thus did Caiaphas politically advise the Jewish sanhedrim, John 11:50, ”That it was expedient for them that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not;” and this in consequence of their own political supposal, ver.
48, that, ”If they let Jesus alone,” with his miracles, ”all men would believe on him, and the Romans would come and take away both their place and nation.” Which political crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth brought down the vengeance of G.o.d upon them, and occasioned those very Romans, of whom they seemed so much afraid, that to prevent it they put him to death, actually to ”come and take away both their place and nation”
within thirty-eight years afterwards. I heartily wish the politicians of Christendom would consider these and the like examples, and no longer sacrifice all virtue and religion to their pernicious schemes of government, to the bringing down the judgments of G.o.d upon themselves, and the several nations intrusted to their care. But this is a digression. I wish it were an unseasonable one also. Josephus himself several times makes such digressions, and I here venture to follow him.
See one of them at the conclusion of the very next chapter.
[45] The number of five hundred thousand or even three hundred thousand, as one Greek copy, with the Latin copies, have it, for Tigranes's army, that came out of Armenia into Syria and Judea, seems much too large. We have had already several such extravagant numbers in Josephus's present copies, which are not to be at all ascribed to him. Accordingly, I incline to Dr. Hudson's emendation here, which supposes them but forty thousand.
[46] This fortress, castle, citadel, or tower, whither the wife and children of Aristobulus were new sent, and which overlooked the temple, could be no other than what Hyrca.n.u.s I. built, [Antiq. B. XVIII ch.
4. sect. 3,] and Herod the Great rebuilt, and called the ”Tower of Antonia,” Aatiq. B. XV. ch. 11. sect. 5.
BOOK 14 FOOTNOTES
[1] Reland takes notice here, very justly, how Josephus's declaration, that it was his great concern not only to write ”an agreeable, an accurate,” and ”a true” history, but also distinctly not to omit any thing [of consequence], either through ”ignorance or laziness,” implies that he could not, consistently with that resolution, omit the mention of [so famous a person as] ”Jesus Christ.”
[2] That the famous Antipater's or Antipas's father was also Antipater or Antipas [which two may justly be esteemed one and the same frame, the former with a Greek or Gentile, the latter with a Hebrew or Jewish termination] Josephus here a.s.sures us, though Eusebias indeed says it was Herod.
[3] This ”golden vine,” or ”garden,” seen by Strabo at Rome, has its inscription here as if it were the gift of Alexander, the father of Aristobulus, and not of Aristobulus himself, to whom yet Josephus ascribes it; and in order to prove the truth of that part of his history, introduces this testimony of Strabo; so that the ordinary copies seem to be here either erroneous or defective, and the original reading seems to have been either Aristobulus, instead of Alexander, with one Greek copy, or else ”Aristobulus the son of Alexander,” with the Latin copies; which last seems to me the most probable. For as to Archbishop Usher's conjectures, that Alexander made it, and dedicated it to G.o.d in the temple, and that thence Aristobulus took it, and sent it to Pompey, they are both very improbable, and no way agreeable to Josephus, who would hardly have avoided the recording both these uncommon points of history, had he known any thing of them; nor would either the Jewish nation, or even Pompey himself, then have relished such a flagrant instance of sacrilege.
[4] These express testimonies of Josephus here, and Antiq. B. VIII. ch.
6. sect. 6, and B. XV. ch. 4. sect. 2, that the only balsam gardens, and the best palm trees, were, at least in his days, near Jericho and Kugaddi, about the north part of the Dead Sea, [whereabout also Alexander the Great saw the balsam drop,] show the mistake of those that understand Eusebius and Jerom as if one of those gardens were at the south part of that sea, at Zoar or Segor, whereas they must either mean another Zoar or Segor, which was between Jericho and Kugaddi, agreeably to Josephus: which yet they do not appear to do, or else they directly contradict Josephus, and were therein greatly mistaken: I mean this, unless that balsam, and the best palm trees, grew much more southward in Judea in the days of Eusebius and Jerom than they did in the days of Josephus.
[5] The particular depth and breadth of this ditch, whence the stones for the wall about the temple were probably taken, are omitted in our copies of Josephus, but set down by Strabo, B. XVI. p. 763; from whom we learn that this ditch was sixty feet deep, and two hundred and fifty feet broad. However, its depth is, in the next section, said by Josephus to be immense, which exactly agrees to Strabo's description, and which numbers in Strabo are a strong confirmation of the truth of Josephus's description also.
[6] That is, on the 23rd of Sivan, the annual fast for the defection and idolatry of Jeroboam, ”who made Israel to sin;” or possibly some other fast might fall into that month, before and in the days of Josephus.
[7] It deserves here to be noted, that this Pharisaical, superst.i.tious notion, that offensive fighting was unlawful to Jews, even under the utmost necessity, on the Sabbath day, of which we hear nothing before the times of the Maccabees, was the proper occasion of Jerusalem's being taken by Pompey, by Sosius, and by t.i.tus, as appears from the places already quoted in the note on Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 8. sect. 1; which scrupulous superst.i.tion, as to the observation of such a rigorous rest upon the Sabbath day, our Savior always opposed, when the Pharisaical Jews insisted on it, as is evident in many places in the New Testament, though he still intimated how pernicious that superst.i.tion might prove to them in their flight from the Romans, Matthew 25:20.
[8] This is fully confirmed by the testimony of Cicero, who: says, in his oration for Flaecus, that ”Cneius Pompeius, when he was conqueror, and had taken Jerusalem, did not touch any thing belonging to that temple.”
[9] Of this destruction of Gadara here presupposed, and its restoration by Pompey, see the note on the War, B. I. ch. 7. sect. 7.
[10] Dean Prideaux well observes, ”That notwithstanding the clamor against Gabinius at Rome, Josephus gives him a able character, as if he had acquitted himself with honor in the charge committed to him” [in Judea]. See at the year 55.
[11] This history is best ill.u.s.trated by Dr. Hudson out of Livy, who says that ”A. Gabinius, the proconsul, restored Ptolemy of Pompey and Gabinius against the Jews, while neither of them say any thing new which is not in the other to his kingdom of Egypt, and ejected Archelaus, whom they had set up for king,” &c. See Prid. at the years 61 and 65.
[12] Dr. Hudson observes, that the name of this wife of Antipater in Josephus was Cypros, as a Hebrew termination, but not Cypris, the Greek name for Venus, as some critics were ready to correct it.
[13] Take Dr. Hudson's note upon this place, which I suppose to be the truth: ”Here is some mistake in Josephus; for when he had promised us a decree for the restoration of Jerusalem he brings in a decree of far greater antiquity, and that a league of friends.h.i.+p and union only.
One may easily believe that Josephus gave order for one thing, and his amanuensis performed another, by transposing decrees that concerned the Hyrcani, and as deluded by the sameness of their names; for that belongs to the first high priest of this name, [John Hyrca.n.u.s,] which Josephus here ascribes to one that lived later [Hyrca.n.u.s, the son of Alexander Janneus]. However, the decree which he proposes to set down follows a little lower, in the collection of Raman decrees that concerned the Jews and is that dated when Caesar was consul the fifth time.” See ch. 10.
sect. 5.
[14] Those who will carefully observe the several occasional numbers and chronological characters in the life and death of this Herod, and of his children, hereafter noted, will see that twenty-five years, and not fifteen, must for certain have been here Josephus's own number for the age of Herod, when he was made governor of Galilee. See ch. 23. sect.
5, and ch. 24. sect. 7; and particularly Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 8. sect. 1, where about forty-four years afterwards Herod dies an old man at about seventy.
[15] It is here worth our while to remark, that none could be put to death in Judea but by the approbation of the Jewish Sanhedrim, there being an excellent provision in the law of Moses, that even in criminal causes, and particularly where life was concerned, an appeal should lie from the lesser councils of seven in the other cities to the supreme council of seventy-one at Jerusalem; and that is exactly according to our Savior's words, when he says, ”It could not be that a prophet should perish out of Jerusalem,” Luke 13:33.