Volume 2

Agabus 243
to Him this time would be very different from that
received on the occasion of the cure of the Centurion's
son.
They may have been journeying for some hours to the
northeast around a curve of the lake, when they arrived
near Galaad to the south of Gamala. As in most of the
cities in this district, the population was made up of
heathens and Jews. The disciples were disposed to enter
the city. But Jesus told them that, if He went to the Jews
of the place, they would neither welcome Him nor give
Him anything; and if to the heathens, the Jews would be
scandalized and would pursue Him with calumny. He
predicted the entire destruction of the city, saying that
iniquity abounded in it.
The disciples spoke of a certain Agabus, a prophet living
at that time in Argob, a city of that region. For a long
time, he had had numerous visions of Jesus and His
doings, and had lately uttered some prophecies regarding
Him. Later on Agabus joined the disciples. Jesus informed
them that Agabus was the son of Herodian
parents, who had reared him in the errors of their sect,
but he had afterward rejected them. He called the sects
beautifully covered sepulchers full of corruption.
The Herodians were numerous on the west side of the
Jordan in Perea, Trachonitis, and especially in Ituraea.
They lived very privately and had some kind of
mysterious organization by which they secretly helped one
another. Many poor people applied to them, and received
immediate relief. These Herodians were outwardly great
sticklers for the prescriptions of the Pharisees; in secret
they aimed at freeing Judea from the Roman yoke, and
consequently were closely attached to Herod. They were
something like the modern freemasons. I understood fronl
Jesus' words that they feigned to be very holy and
magnanimous, but in reality they were hypocrites.
Jesus and the disciples remained at some distance from