was called Herod the Great, and was king of Judea when our Saviour was born.

50 Q. What became of Antipater at last?

A. He was poisoned by one Malichus, a rival, who envied his greatness and power in Judea; but his death was revenged by his son Herod, who was permitted by the Roman general to procure Malichus to be murdered. 51. Q. What further troubles did the Jews meet with about this time?

A. Some part or other of their nation were continually subject to plunders, sometimes from the Roman generals, for not paying the tribute demanded, or on some other pretences; sometimes by the Parthians, who assisted Antigonus, son of the late king Aristobulus, to recover Jerusalem and Judea, in opposition to the united forces of Phasael, Herod, and Hyrcanus. 52 Q. Did Antigonus ever recover this government? A. The Parthian general, Pacorus, who was at war with the Romans, did by mere treachery get into his custody both Hyrcanus aud Phasael, seized Jerusalem and rifled it, made Antigonus governor of Judea, and delivered up Hyrcanus and Phasael to him in chains; but Herod made his escape.

53 Q. What became of Phasael and Hyrcanus? Q. Phasael beat out his own brains in prison; Hyrcanus's ears were cut off; that, being maimed, he might be no longer a high-priest, Lev. xxi. 17. and he was sent afar off among the Parthians, that he might raise no disturbances against Antigonus.

54 Q. Whither did Herod take his flight?

A. After a little time he went to Rome to represent all these transactions, and he made his complaints with great and unexpected success; for Julius Cæsar being slain in the Roman senate, Mark Antony and Octavius (who was afterwards Augustus Cæsar) governed all things there, and they agreed to make Herod king of Judea, with the consent of the senate, hoping it would be for their interest in the Parthian war.

SECTION VIII.

Of the government of Herod the Great and his posterity over the Jews.

1 Q. What did Herod do on his receiving this new dignity?

A. He returned to Judea, first relieving his mother, who was put in prison by Antigonus; he made himself master of Galilee; he destroyed some large bands of robbers which infested the country thereabout, sheltering themselves in mountains, and the caves of steep and craggy rocks.

2 Q. What artifice did he use in order to attack them?

A. By reason of their dwelling in such hollow caves in precipices, there was no scaling them from below; and therefore, to ferret them out of their dens, he made large open chests, and filled them with soldiers, which he let down into the entrances of those caves by chains from engines which he had fixed above, and thus he destroyed great numbers of them. Note, This country was often annoyed with the remains of these plunderers in the reign of Herod, but he treated. them without mercy, and all the country that sheltered them with great rigour, till he restored peace to Galilee. 3 Q. Where was his next march?

A. Into Judea against Antigonus, and after several battles, with various success on both sides, he at last, by the assistance of the Roman legions, besieged Antigonus in Jerusalem.

4 Q. Did not Herod himself attend this siege?

A. Yes; but while the preparations were making for it he went to Samaria, and there he married Mariamne, a lady of the family of the Maccabees or Asmoneans, the grandaughter of Hyrcanus the second, a woman of great beauty and virtue, and admirable qualifications, hoping the Jews would more readily receive him for their king by this alliance ; and, having done this, he returned to the siege.

5 Q. Did he carry this place at last?

A. He took Jerusalem by storm, after six months' hard and bloody service in the siege, at which the Romans being enraged, ravaged the city with blood and plunder, notwithstanding all that Herod could do to prevent it; and, having taken king Antigonus there, and sent him to Antioch, Herod persuaded Mark Antony, by a large bribe, to put him to death. Note, Here ended the reign of the Asmoneans, or Maccabees, after that race had held the government one hundred and twenty years. During great part of this time, as well as before, the various changes of these Jewish governors, or the interruption by heathen conquerors, filled the country of Judea with innumerable calamities and desolations, of which Jerusalem itself had a very large share, nor did they cease in the following years. 6 Q. How did Herod begin his reign?

A. As he was forced to make his way to the kingdom through much blood, so he established himself by the same means, putting to death several of the partizans of Antigonus, and among them all the counsellors of the great Sanhedrim, except Pollio, who is called Hillel, and Sameas, who is called Shammai, for both of them had encouraged the city to receive Herod; though it was not out of love to him, but merely on this view, that it was in vain to resist him.. Note, This Hillel and Shammai were two very great and eminent teachers among the doctors of traditions in the Jewish schools.

7 Q. Who was made high-priest after the death of Antigonus, who was both priest and king?

A. At first Herod made one Ananelus or Ananus high-priest, who was an obscure man, but of the house of Aaron, educated among the Jews afar off in Babylonia, and therefore not so likely to oppose any of Herod's designs in Judea.

8 Q. Did Ananelus continue in the high-priesthood?

A. Herod's beloved wife Mariamne, and her mother, being of the race of the Maccabees. were ever teasing him to make Aristobulus, Mariamne's brother, a lad of seventeen years old, high-priest, in Ananelus's room, to whom indeed it rather belonged as an heir male of that family; this he at last complied with, against his will; but in a very little time he procured him to be drowned under pretence of bathing.

9 Q. What became of Hyrcanus all this while? A. Though he had been banished for so many years among the Parthians and Babylonians, yet he returned to Jerusalem upon the advancement of Herod, presuming that the marriage of his grandaughter, and his own former merits towards him, would secure to himself a peaceful old age in his own country under Herod's protection.

10 Q. How did Herod deal with him?

A. He received him at first with all respect, but some time after found a pretence to put him to death, when he was above eighty years of age, lest one time or other, being of the family of the Maccabees, or Asmoneans, he should be restored to the kingdom.

11 Q. Besides all these confusions, what other calamity happened to the Jews about this time?

A. A terrible earthquake ran through the whole land of Judea, and buried thirty thousand of the inhabitants in the ruin of their houses, in the seventh year of Herod's reign; a grievous pestilence followed it in a little time, and a desolating famine a very few years after, at which time Herod was very liberal to the people, but he could not gain their hearty affection.

12 Q. Did Herod maintain his government, when his great friend Mark Antony was ruined and vanquished by Octavius ?

A, He took care to make early submission to Octavius; he laid aside his diadem when he waited. on him, and with open heart he confessed his former friendship for Antony; but he now assured Octavius of the same faithful friendship and obedience, if he

might be trusted; upon which, Octavius, who now assumed the name of Augustus Cæsar, bade him resume his diadem, confirmed him in the kingdom, and was his friend and protector even to his death.

13 Q. Did he then continue to reign in perfect peace?

A. Domestic troubles broke the peace of his mind, and threw him into violent grief and rage, which further soured his temper for all his life after.

14 Q. What were those domestic troubles?

A. He was jealous lest any man should possess so great a beauty as Mariamne his queen after his death, and lest any remains of the family of the Asmoneans should hinder the succession of his own family to the kingdom of Judea; and for these reasons he gave private orders that, in case he died, both his wife and her mother should be put to death; which dreadful secret being communicated to his queen, she resented it to such a degree that she would never afterwards receive him; but, notwithstanding all his kind addresses and importunities, she perpetually followed him with sharp reproaches for the murder of her relations, by which he secured the crown to himself, and upbraided his mother and sister with the meanness of their parentage. So that, between his excess of love and rage and jealousy, he was so tormented, and so wrought upon by the artifices of his mother and sister Salome, that at last he put his beloved Mariamne to death, under a pretence of an attempt to poison him: and he executed her mother too a little after the daughter, for a real plot against his life.

15 Q. Did the death of Mariamne relieve him from this tumult of passion?

A. By no means; for now his love returned with violence, and his grief and vexation joined with other passions, to render him a most miserable wretch, a torment to himself, and outrageous to all about him.

16 Q. What course of life did he follow afterward? A. He grew more arbitrary and cruel in his go