PERSECUTION OF HEROD AGRIPPA THE FIRST.
Barnabas found the Church of Jerusalem in great trouble. The year 44
was perilous to it. Besides the famine, the fires of persecution which
had been smothered since the death of Stephen were rekindled.
Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, had succeeded, since the
year 41, in reconstituting the kingdom of his grandfather. Thanks to
the favor of Caligula, he had reunited under his domination Batania,
Trachonites, a part of the Hauran, Cibilene, Galilee, and the
Persea.[14.1] The ignoble part which he played in the tragi-comedy
which raised Claudius to the empire,[14.2] completed his fortune. This
vile Oriental, in return for the lessons of baseness and perfidy he
had given to Rome, obtained for himself Samaria and Judea, and for his
brother Herod the kingdom of Chalcis.[14.3] He had left at Rome the
worst memories, and the cruelties of Caligula were attributed in part
to his counsels.[14.4] The army and the pagan cities of Sebaste and
Cesarea, which he sacrificed to Jerusalem, were averse to him.[14.5]
But the Jews found him to be generous, munificent, and sympathetic.
He sought to render himself popular with them, and affected a polity
quite different from that of Herod the Great. The latter was much
more regardful of the Greek and Roman world than of the Jewish. Herod
Agrippa, on the contrary, loved Jerusalem, rigorously observed the
Jewish religion, affected scrupulousness, and never let a day pass
without attending to his devotions.[14.6] He went so far as to receive
with mildness the advice of the rigorists, and took the trouble to
justify himself from their reproaches.[14.7] He returned to the
Hierosolymites the tribute which each house owed to him.[14.8] The
orthodox, in a word, had in him a king according to their own heart.
It was inevitable that a prince of this character should persecute the
Christians. Sincere or not, Herod Agrippa was, in the most thorough
sense of the word, a Jewish Sovereign.[14.9] The house of Herod, as it
became weaker, took to devotion. It was no longer that broad profane
idea of the founder of the dynasty, seeking to make the most diverse
religions live together under the common empire of civilization. When
Herod Agrippa, for the first time after he had become king, set foot
in Alexandria, it was as a King of the Jews that he was received; it
was this title which irritated the population and gave rise to endless
buffooneries.[14.10] Now what could a King of the Jews be, if not the
guardian of the laws and the traditions, a sovereign theocrat and
persecutor? From the time of Herod the Great, under whom fanaticism
was entirely repressed, until the breaking out of the war which led to
the ruin of Jerusalem, there was thus a constantly augmenting progress
of religious ardor. The death of Caligula (24th Jan., 41) had produced
a reaction favorable to the Jews. Claudius was generally benevolent
towards them,[14.11] as a result of the favorable ear he lent to Herod
Agrippa and Herod King of Chalcis. Not only did he decide in favor of
the Jews of Alexandria in their quarrels with the inhabitants and allow
them the right of choosing an ethnarch, but he published, it is said,
an edict by which he granted to the Jews throughout the whole empire
that which he had granted to those of Alexandria; that is to say, the
freedom to live according to their own laws, on the sole condition of
not outraging other worships. Some attempts at vexations analogous
to those which were inflicted under Caligula were repressed.[14.12]
Jerusalem was greatly enlarged; the quarter of Bezetha was added
to the city.[14.13] The Roman authority scarcely made itself felt,
although Vibius Marsus, a prudent man, of wide public experience, and
of a very cultivated mind,[14.14] who had succeeded Publius Petronius
in the function of imperial legate of Syria, drew the attention of
the authorities at Rome from time to time to the danger of these
semi-independent Eastern Kingdoms.[14.15]
The species of feudality which, since the death of Tiberius, tended to
establish itself in Syria and the neighboring countries,[14.16] was in
fact an interruption in the imperial polity, and had almost uniformly
injurious results. The "Kings" coming to Rome were personages, and
exercised there a detestable influence. The corruption and abasement
of the people, especially under Caligula, proceeded in great part from
the spectacle furnished by these wretches, who were seen successively
dragging their purple at the theatre, at the palace of the Cæsar, and
in the prisons.[14.17] So far as concerns the Jews, we have seen{14.18}
that autonomy meant intolerance. The Sovereign Pontificate quitted for
a moment the family of Hanan, only to enter that of Boethus, no less
haughty and cruel. A Sovereign anxious to please the Jews could not
fail to grant them what they loved best; that is to say, severities
against everything which diverged from rigorous orthodoxy.[14.19]
Herod Agrippa, in fact, became towards the end of his reign a violent
persecutor.[14.20] Some time before Easter of the year 44, he cut off
the head of one of the principal members of the apostolical college,
James son of Zebedee, brother of John. The matter was not presented
as a religious one; there was no inquisitorial process before the
Sanhedrim; the sentence, as in the case of John the Baptist,[14.21]
was pronounced by virtue of the arbitrary power of the sovereign.
Encouraged by the good effect which this execution produced upon the
Jews,[14.22] Herod Agrippa was not willing to stop upon so easy a
road to popularity. It was the first days of the feast of Passover,
ordinarily marked by a redoubled fanaticism. Agrippa ordered the
imprisonment of Peter in the tower of Antonia, and sought to have him
judged and put to death with great pomp before the mass of people then
assembled.
A circumstance with which we are unacquainted, and which was regarded
as miraculous, opened Peter's prison. One evening, as many of the
disciples were assembled in the house of Mary, mother of John-Mark,
where Peter habitually dwelt, there was suddenly heard a knock at the
door. The servant, named Rhoda, went to listen. She recognised Peter's
voice. Transported with joy, instead of opening the door she ran
back to announce that Peter was there. They regarded her as mad. She
swore she spoke the truth. "It is his angel," said some of them. The
knocking was heard repeatedly; it was indeed himself. Their delight was
infinite. Peter immediately announced his deliverance to James, brother
of the Lord, and to the other disciples. It was believed that the
angel of God had entered into the prison of the apostle and made the
chains fall from his hands and the bolts fly open. Peter related, in
fact, all that had passed while he was in a sort of ecstasy; that after
having passed the first and second guard, and overleaped the iron gate
which led into the city, the angel accompanied him still the distance
of a street, then quitted him; that then he came to himself again and
recognised the hand of God, who had sent a celestial messenger to
deliver him.[14.23]
Agrippa survived these violences but a short time.[14.24] In the
course of the year 44, he went to Cesarea to celebrate games in honor
of Claudius. The concourse of people was extraordinary; and many from
Tyre and Sidon, who had difficulties with him, came thither to ask
pardon. These festivals were very displeasing to the Jews, both because
they took place in the impure city of Cesarea, and because they were
held in the theatre. Already, on one occasion, the king having quitted
Jerusalem under similar circumstances, a certain Rabbi Simeon had
proposed to declare him an alien to Judaism, and to exclude him from
the temple. Herod Agrippa had carried his condescension so far as to
place the Rabbi beside him in the theatre, in order to prove to him
that nothing passed there contrary to the law,[14.25] and thinking he
had thus satisfied the most austere, he allowed himself to indulge his
taste for profane pomps. The second day of the festival he entered the
theatre very early in the morning, clothed in a tunic of silver fabric,
with a marvellous brilliancy. The effect of this tunic, glittering
in the rays of the rising sun, was extraordinary. The Phœnicians
who surrounded the king lavished upon him adulations borrowed from
paganism. "It is a god," they cried, "and not a man." The king did
not testify his indignation, and did not blame this expression. He
died five days afterwards; and Jews and Christians believed that he
was struck dead for not having repelled with horror a blasphemous
flattery. Christian tradition represents that he died of a vermicular
malady,[14.26] the punishment reserved for the enemies of God. The
symptoms related by Josephus would lead rather to the belief that he
was poisoned; and what is said in the Acts of the equivocal conduct
of the Phœnicians, and of the care they took to gain over Blastus,
valet of the king, would strengthen this hypothesis.
The death of Herod Agrippa I. led to the end of all independence
for Jerusalem. The administration by Procurators was resumed, and
this régime lasted until the great revolt. This was fortunate for
Christianity; for it is very remarkable that this religion, which
was destined to sustain subsequently so terrible a struggle against
the Roman empire, grew up in the shadow of the Roman principality,
under its protection. It was Rome, as we have already several times
remarked, which hindered Judaism from giving itself up fully to its
intolerant instincts, and stifling the free instincts which were
stirred within its bosom. Every diminution of Jewish authority was a
benefit for the nascent sect. Cuspius Fadus, the first of this new
series of Procurators, was another Pilate, full of firmness, or at
least of good-will. But Claudius continued to show himself favorable
to Jewish pretensions, chiefly at the instigation of the young Herod
Agrippa, son of Herod Agrippa I., whom he kept near to his person, and
whom he greatly loved.[14.27] After the short administration of Cuspius
Fadus, we find the functions of Procurator confided to a Jew, to that
Tiberius Alexander, nephew of Philo, and son of the _alabarque_ of the
Alexandrian Jews who attained to high functions and played a great part
in the political affairs of the century. It is true that the Jews did
not like him; and regarded him, and with reason, as an apostate.[14.28]
To cut short these incessantly renewed disputes, recourse was had to an
expedient in conformity with sound principles. A sort of separation was
made between the spiritual and temporal. The political power remained
with the procurators; but Herod, king of Chalcis, brother of Agrippa
I., was named prefect of the temple, guardian of the pontifical habits,
treasurer of the sacred fund, and invested with the right of nominating
the high-priests.[14.29] At his death (year 48), Herod Agrippa II.,
son of Herod Agrippa I., succeeded his uncle in his offices, which he
retained until the great war. Claudius, in all this, manifested the
greatest kindness. The high Roman functionaries in Syria, although not
so strongly disposed as the emperor to concessions, acted with great
moderation. The procurator, Ventidius Cumanus, carried condescension
so far as to have a soldier beheaded in the midst of the Jews, drawn
up in line, for having torn a copy of the Pentateuch.[14.30] It was
all useless, however; Josephus, with good reason, dates from the
administration of Cumanus the disorders which ended only with the
destruction of Jerusalem.
Christianity played no part in these troubles.[14.31] But these
troubles, like Christianity itself, were one of the symptoms of the
extraordinary fever which devoured the Jewish people, and the Divine
travail which was accomplishing in its midst. Never had the Jewish
faith made such progress.[14.32] The temple of Jerusalem was one of
the sanctuaries of the world, the reputation of which was most widely
extended, and where the offerings were most liberal.[14.33] Judaism had
become the dominant religion of various portions of Syria. The Asmonean
princes had violently converted entire populations to it (Idumeans,
Itureans, etc.).[14.34] There were many examples of circumcision having
been imposed by force;[14.35] the ardor for making proselytes was very
great.[14.36] The house of Herod itself powerfully served the Jewish
propaganda. In order to marry princesses of this family, whose wealth
was immense, the princes of the little dynasties of Emese, of Pontus,
and of Cilicia, vassals of the Romans, became Jews.[14.37] Arabia and
Ethiopia counted also a great number of converts. The royal families
of Mesene and of Adiabene, tributaries of the Parthians, were gained
over, especially by their women.[14.38] It was generally granted that
happiness was found in the knowledge and practice of the law.[14.39]
Even when circumcision was not practised, religion was more or less
modified in the Jewish direction; a sort of monotheism became the
general spirit of religion in Syria. At Damascus, a city which was in
nowise of Israelitish origin, nearly all the women had adopted the
Jewish religion.[14.40] Behind the Pharisaical Judaism there was thus
formed a sort of free Judaism, of inferior quality, not knowing all the
secrets of the sect;[14.41] bringing only its good-will and its good
heart, but having a greater future. The situation was, in all respects,
that of the Catholicism of our days, in which we see, on one hand,
narrow and proud theologians, who alone would gain no more souls for
Catholicism than the Pharisees gained for Judaism; on the other, pious
laymen, very often heretics without knowing it, but full of a touching
zeal, rich in good works and in poetical sentiments, altogether
occupied in dissimulating or repairing by complaisant explanations the
faults of their doctors.
One of the most extraordinary examples of this tendency of religious
souls towards Judaism was that given by the royal family of
Adiabene, upon the Tiger.[14.42] This house, of Persian origin and
manners,[14.43] already partly initiated into Greek culture,[14.44]
became entirely Jewish, and even preëminently devout; for, as we
have already said, these proselytes were often more pious than the
Jews by birth. Izate, chief of the family, embraced Judaism through
the preaching of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who, entering the
seraglio of Abermerig, king of Mesene, for the purposes of his petty
traffic, had converted all the women, and constituted himself their
spiritual preceptor. The women brought Izate into communication with
him. Towards the same time Helen, his mother, received instruction
in the true religion from another Jew. Izate, with the zeal of a
new convert, wished to be circumcised. But his mother and Ananias
vehemently dissuaded him from it. Ananias proved to him that the
observation of God's commandments was of more importance than
circumcision, and that he might be a very good Jew without this
ceremony. Such a tolerance was the privilege of a small number of
enlightened minds. Some time after, a Jew of Galilee, named Eleazar,
finding the king occupied in reading the Pentateuch, showed him by
texts that he could not observe the law without being circumcised.
Izate was convinced, and submitted immediately to the operation.[14.45]
The conversion of Izate was followed by that of his brother, Monobaze,
and of all the family. Towards the year 44, Helen came and established
herself at Jerusalem, where she had built for the royal house of
Adiabene a palace and family mausoleum, which still exist.[14.46] She
rendered herself dear to the Jews by her affability and her alms.
It was very edifying to see her, like a pious Jewess, frequenting
the temple, consulting the doctors, reading the law, teaching it to
her sons. During the plague of the year 44, this holy personage was
the providence of the city. She had a large quantity of wheat bought
in Egypt, and of dried figs in Cyprus. Izate, on his part, sent
considerable sums to be distributed among the poor. The wealth of
Adiabene was in part expended at Jerusalem. The sons of Izate came
thither to learn the customs and the language of the Jews. All this
family was thus the resource of this population of beggars. It acquired
there a sort of citizenship; several of its members were found there at
the time of the siege of Titus;[14.47] others figure in the Talmudic
writings, presented as models of piety and devotedness.[14.48]
It is thus that the royal family of Adiabene belongs to the history of
Christianity. Without being Christian, in fact, as certain traditions
have represented,[14.49] this family represented under various aspects
the first fruits of the Gentiles. In embracing Judaism, it obeyed a
sentiment which was destined to bring over the entire pagan world
to Christianity. The true Israelites according to God, were much
rather these foreigners animated by so profoundly sincere a religious
sentiment than the arrogant and spiteful Pharisee, for whom religion
was but a pretext for hatred and disdain. These good proselytes,
although they were truly saints, were in nowise fanatics. They admitted
that true religion might be practised under the empire of the most
widely differing civil codes. They completely separated religion from
politics. The distinction between the seditious sectaries, who must
presently defend Jerusalem with rage, and the devoutly pious who, at
the first rumor of war, were going to flee to the mountains,[14.50]
made itself more and more manifest.
We may see at least that the question as to proselytes was propounded
in a very similar manner at once in Judaism and in Christianity. On
both hands alike the void was felt for enlarging the door of entrance.
For those who were placed at this point of view, circumcision was a
useless or noxious custom; the Mosaic observances were simply a mask
of a race having no value but for the sons of Abraham. Before becoming
the universal religion, Judaism was obliged to reduce itself to a
sort of deism, imposing only the duties of natural religion. That was
a sublime mission to fulfil, and to it a portion of Judaism, in the
first half of the first century, lent itself in a very intelligent
manner. On one side, Judaism was one of those innumerable national
worships[14.51] of which the world is full, and the sanctity of which
springs solely from the fact that the ancestors had adored in the same
way; on another side, Judaism was the absolute religion, made for all,
destined to be adopted by all. The terrible flood of fanaticism which
spread over Judea, and which led to the war of extermination, cut short
this future. It was Christianity which took upon its own account the
task which the synagogue had been unable to accomplish. Laying aside
ritual questions, Christianity continued the monotheistic propaganda of
Judaism. That which had caused the success of Judaism with the women
of Damascus in the seraglio of Abenverig, with Helen, with so many
pious proselytes, became the force of Christianity throughout an entire
world. In this sense the glory of Christianity is truly confounded with
that of Judaism. A generation of fanatics deprived this latter of its
recompense, and hindered its gathering the harvest it had prepared.