Yet there he was; in the pride of his power, and the reckless cruelty of his ever-watchful tyranny. Everywhere was his mark. Temples to the gods and to Cæsar, magnificent, and magnificently adorned, outside Palestine and in its non-Jewish cities; towns rebuilt or built: Sebaste for the ancient Samaria, the splendid city and harbour of Cæsarea in the west, Antipatris (after his father) in the north, Kypros and Phasaelis (after his mother and brother), and Agrippeion; unconquerable fortresses, such as Essebonitis and Machoerus in Peræa, Alexandreion, Herodeion, Hyrcania, and Masada in Judæa - proclaimed his name and sway. But in Jerusalem it seemed as if he had gathered up all his strength. The theatre and amphitheatre spoke of his Grecianism; Antonia was the representative fortress; for his religion he had built that glorious Temple, and for his residence the noblest of palaces, at the north-western angle of the Upper City, close by where Milo had been in the days of David. It seems almost incredible, that a Herod should have reared the Temple, and yet we can understand his motives. Jewish tradition had it, that a Rabbi (Baba ben Buta) had advised him in this manner to conciliate the people, [577] or else thereby to expiate the slaughter of so many Rabbis. [578] [579] Probably a desire to gain popularity, and supersition, may alike have contributed, as also the wish to gratify his love for splendour and building. At the same time, he may have wished to show himself a better Jew than that rabble of Pharisees and Rabbis, who perpetually would cast it in his teeth, that he was an Idumæan. Whatever his origin, he was a true king of the Jews - as great, nay greater, than Solomon himself. Certainly, neither labour nor money had been spared on the Temple. A thousand vehicles carried up the stone; 10,000 workmen, under the guidance of 1,000 priests, wrought all the costly material gathered into that house, of which Jewish tradition could say, He that has not seen the temple of Herod, has never known what beauty is.' [580] And yet Israel despised and abhorred the builder! Nor could his apparent work for the God of Israel have deceived the most credulous. In youth he had browbeaten the venerable Sanhedrin, and threatened the city with slaughter and destruction; again and again had he murdered her venerable sages; he had shed like water the blood of her Asmonean princes, and of every one who dared to be free; had stifled every national aspiration in the groans of the torture, and quenched it in the gore of his victims. Not once, nor twice, but six times did he change the High-Priesthood, to bestow it at last on one who bears no good name in Jewish theology, a foreigner in Judæa, an Alexandrian. And yet the power of that Idumæan was but of yesterday, and of mushroom growth! __________________________________________________________________
[528] I do not here reckon the brief reign of King Agrippa.
[529] Ps. cxxii.
[530] It will be seen that, with the most recent explorers, I locate Mount Zion not on the traditional site, on the western hill of Jerusalem, but on the eastern, south of the Temple area.
[531] 1 Macc. i. 33, and often; but the precise situation of this fort' is in dispute.
[532] 1 Macc. xii. 36; Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 11; comp. with it xiv. 16. 2; War vi. 7. 2; 8. 1.
[533] 141 b.c.
[534] 135-106 b.c.
[535] It is, to say the least, doubtful, whether the numeral 50 cubits (75 feet), which Josephus assigns to this rock (War v. 5. 8), applies to its height (comp. Speiss, Das Jerus. d. Jos.p. 66).
[536] Ant. xv. 11. 7.
[537] Jos. War v. 5. 8.
[538] I must take leave to refer to the description of Jerusalem, and especially of the Temple, in the Temple and its Services at the Time of Jesus Christ.'