The life and work of St. Paul

THE HERODS IN THE ACTS. 73T
In whose character, as in that of all his family, there was a large vein of 1
ostentation,*
went seven furlongs out of the city to meet him, with the five other kings in his chariot.'
Marsus did not like the look of this combination, and sent his servants to the kings withj
the cool order that they were all to make the best of their way at onco to their respective'
homes. It was in consequence of this deliberate insult that, after the death of Agrippa,
Claudius, in respect to his memory, and in consequence of a request which he had 1
received from him, displaced Marsus, and sent C. Cassius Longinus in his place. 3
AGRIPPA AND BEEENIOB.
Not a spark of true patriotism seems ever to have been kindled in the breast of
Agrippa II. He was as complete a renegade as his friend Josephus, 3 but without hi*
versatility and genius. He had passed all his early years in the poisoned atmosphere of
such coiTrts as those of Gaius and Claudius, and was now on excellent terms with Nero.
The mere fact that he should have been a favourite with the Messallinas, and Agrippinas,
and Poppneas, of a palace rife with the basest intrigues, is sufficient to condemn
him. His appointments to the High-priesthood were as bad as those of his predecessors,
and he incurred the displeasure of the Jews by the arbitrary rapidity of the constant
changes which he made. Almost the only specific event which marked his period of
royalty was a dispute about a view from a window. In a thoroughly unpatriotic and
irreverent spirit he had built a banquet-hall in Herod's palace at Jerusalem, which
overlooked the Temple courts. It was designed to serve the double purpose of gratifying
the indolent curiosity of his guests as they lay at table, by giving them the spectacle of
the Temple worship in its most sacred details, and also of maintaining a certain
espionage over the movements of the worshippers, which would at any moment enable
him to give notice to the Roman soldiers if he wished them to interfere. Indignant at
this instance of contemptible curiosity and contemptible treachery, the Jews built up a
counter wall to exclude his view. Agrippa, powerless to do anything himself, invoked
the aid of the Procurator. The wall of the Jews excluded not only the view of Agrippa,
but also that of the commandant in the tower of Antonia, and Festus ordered them to
pull it down. The Jews resisted this demand with their usual determined fury, and
Festus BO far gave way that he allowed them to send an embassy to Home to await the
decision of the Caesar. The Jews sent Ishmael Ben Phabi the high priest, Helkias the
treasurer, and other distinguished ambassadors, and astutely gaining the ear of Poppsea
who is believed to have been a proselyte, but if so, was a proselyte of whom the Jews
ought to have been heartily ashamed obtained a decision in their favour. Women like
Poppaea, pantomimists like Aliturus such were in theso days the defenders of the Temple
for the Jews against their hybrid kings ! We hear little more of Agrippa II. till the
breaking out of the war which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem. As might have
been expected, ho, like Josephus. like Tiberius Alexander, and other eminent renegade*,
was found in the ranks of the Roman invaders, waging war on the Holy City. He
probably saw the Temple sink amid its consuming fires. Like Josephus he may have
watched from a Roman window the gorgeous procession in which the victor paraded the
sacred spoils of the Temple, while the wretched captives of his countrymen
" Swelled, slow-pacing, by the car's tall side,
The Stoic tyrant's philosophic pride."
After that he fell into merited obscurity, and ended a frivolous life by a dishonoured
old age.
1 Thus on a coin, engraved by Akerman, Numism. Tllustr., he is called 0