This kingdom was to last a thousand years: the Sabbath year of jubilee, after the six thousand years of the world, would be founded by Jesus when he returned to the earth, bringing the blessing of peace and perfect happiness to the faithful. This belief required the further conviction that Jesus had not fallen a prey to death, but that he would rise again. It may have been the biblical story of Jonah's entombment for three days in the bowels of a fish which gave rise to the legend that Jesus after the same interval came forth from his sepulcher, which was found to be empty. Many of his disciples declared they had seen him after his death, now in one place, now in another; that they had spoken to him, had marked his wounds, and had even partaken of fish and honey with him. Nothing seemed to stagger their faith in the Messianic character of Jesus; but greatly as they venerated and glorified him, they had not yet raised him above humanity; in spite of the enthusiasm with which he inspired them, they could not look upon him as God. They regarded him only as a highly gifted man who, having obeyed the Law more completely than any other human being, had been found worthy to be the Messiah of the Lord.
They deviated in no degree from the precepts of Judaism, observing the Sabbath, the rite of circumcision, and the dietary laws, whilst they also reverenced Jerusalem and the Temple as holy places. They were, however, distinguished from the other Judæans in some peculiarities besides the belief they cherished that the Messiah had already appeared. The poverty which they willingly embraced in accordance with the teaching of Jesus was a remarkable trait in them. From this self-imposed poverty they were called Ebionites (poor), a name they either gave themselves or received from those who had not joined them. They lived together, and each new disciple was required to sell his goods and chattels and to pour the produce into the common purse.
To this class belonged the early Christians, or Judæan Christians, who were called Nazarenes, and not, according to their origin, Essenes. Seven administrators were appointed, as was usual among the Judæans, to manage the expenditure of the community, and to provide for their common repasts. They abstained from meat, and followed the way of the Essenes, whom they also resembled in their practice of celibacy, in their disuse of oil and superfluous garments, a single one of white linen being all each possessed. It is related of James, the brother of Jesus, who, on account of his near relationship to the founder, was chosen leader of the early Christian community, and was revered as an example, that he drank no wine or intoxicating beverages, that he never ate meat, allowed no scissors to touch his hair, wore no woolen material, and had only one linen garment. He lived strictly according to the Law, and was indignant when the Christians allowed themselves to transgress it. Next to him at the head of the community of Ebionites stood Simon Kephas or Petrus, the son of Jonas, and John the son of Zebedee, who became the pillars of Christianity. Simon Peter was the most energetic of all the disciples of Jesus, and was zealous in his endeavors to enroll new followers under the banner of Christianity. In spite of the energy he thus displayed, he is described as being of a vacillating character. The Christian chronicles state that when Jesus was seized and imprisoned he denied him three times, and was called by his master "him of little faith." He averred, with the other disciples, that they had received from Jesus the mission of preaching to the lost children of the house of Israel the doctrine of the brotherhood of man and the community of goods; like Jesus and John the Baptist, they were also to announce the approaching kingdom of heaven. Christianity, only just born, went instantly forth upon her career of conquest and proselytism. The disciples asserted that Jesus had imparted to them the power of healing the sick, of awakening the dead, and of casting out evil spirits. With them the practice of exorcism became common, and thus the belief in the power of Satan and demons, brought from Galilee, first took form and root. In Judaism itself the belief in demons was of a harmless nature, without any religious significance. Christianity first raised it to be an article of faith, to which hecatombs of human beings were sacrificed. The early Christians used, or rather misused, the name of Jesus for purposes of incantation. All those who believed in Jesus boasted that it was given to them to drive away evil spirits, to charm snakes, to cure the sick by the laying on of their hands, and to partake of deadly poisons without injury to themselves. Exorcism became by degrees a constant practice among Christians; the reception of a new member was preceded by exorcism, as though the novice had till then been possessed by the devil. It was, therefore, not surprising that the Christians should have been looked upon by Judæans and heathens as conjurors and magicians. In the first century, however, Christians attracted but little attention in Judæan circles, escaping observation on account of the humble class to which they belonged. They formed a sect of their own, and were classed with the Essenes, to whom, in many points, they bore so great a resemblance. They might probably have dwindled away altogether had it not been for one who appeared later in their midst, who gave publicity to the sect, and raised it to such a pinnacle of fame that it became a ruling power in the world.
An evil star seems to have shone over the Judæan people during the hundred years which had elapsed since the civil wars under the last Hasmonæans, which had subjected Judæa to Rome. Every new event appeared to bring with it some new misfortune. The comforting proverb of Ecclesiastes, that there is nothing new under the sun, in this instance proved false. The Messianic vision which had indistinctly floated in the minds of the people, but which had now taken a tangible form, was certainly something new; and this novel apparition, with its mask of death, was to inflict new and painful wounds upon the nation.
Christianity, which came from Nazareth, was really an offshoot of the sect of the Essenes, and inherited the aversion of that sect for the Pharisaic laws by which the life of the people was regulated. This aversion rose to hatred in the followers, stimulated by grief at the death of their founder. Pontius Pilate had greatly contributed to increasing of the enmity of the Christians against their own flesh and blood. He it was who added mockery and scorn to the punishment of death; he had bound their Messiah to the cross like the most abject slave, and in derision of his assumed royalty had placed the crown of thorns on his head. The picture of Jesus nailed to the cross, crowned with thorns, the blood streaming from his wounds, was ever present to his followers, filling their hearts with bitter thoughts of revenge. Instead of turning their wrath against cruel Rome, they made the representatives of the Judæan people, and by degrees the whole nation, responsible for inhuman deeds. They either intentionally deceived themselves, or in time really forgot that Pilate was the murderer of their master, and placed the crime upon the heads of all the children of Israel.
At about this period the anger of Pilate was kindled against a Samaritan self-styled Messiah or prophet, who called his believers together in a village, promising to show them on Mount Gerizim the holy vessels used in the time of Moses. The Governor, who looked with suspicion upon every gathering of the people, and regarded every exciting incident as fraught with possible rebellion against the Roman Empire, led his troops against the Samaritans, and ordered the ringleaders, who had been caught in their flight, to be cruelly executed. Judæans and Samaritans jointly denounced his barbarity to Vitellius, the Governor of Syria, and Pilate was summoned to Rome to justify himself. The degree of favor shown to the Judæans by Tiberius after the fall of Sejanus, explains the otherwise surprising leniency evinced towards the Judæan nation at that time. The Judæans had found an advocate at court in Antonia, the sister-in-law of Tiberius. The latter, who was the friend of a patriotic prince of the house of Herod, had revealed to Tiberius the plot framed against him by Sejanus, and in grateful recognition Tiberius repealed the act of outlawry against the Judæans. Vitellius, the Governor of Syria, was graciously inclined towards the Judæans, and not only inquired into their complaints, but befriended them in every way, showing a degree of indulgence and forbearance most unusual in a Roman, in those subjects on which they were peculiarly sensitive. When, on the occasion of the Feast of Passover, Vitellius repaired to Jerusalem in order to make himself acquainted with all that was going on there, he sought to lighten as much as possible the Roman yoke. He remitted the tax on the fruits of the market, and as the capital was mainly dependent upon that market for its requirements, a heavy burden was thus removed from the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He further withdrew the pontifical robes from behind the lock and bolts of the fort of Antonia, and gave them over to the care of the College of Priests, who kept them for some time. The right of appointing the High Priest was considered too important to the interests of Rome to be relinquished, and Vitellius himself made use of it to install Jonathan, the son of Anan, in the place of Joseph Caiaphas. Caiaphas had acted in concert with Pilate during all the time he had governed, and from his good understanding with the latter had doubtless become distasteful to the Judæan nation. The favor granted to the Judæans by Vitellius was in accordance with the wishes of the Emperor, who commanded him to aid the nation with all the available Roman forces in an unjust cause – that of Herod Antipas against King Aretas. Antipas, who was married to the daughter of Aretas, king of the Nabathæans, had nevertheless fallen in love with Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Herod, who, disinherited by his father Herod I., led a private life, probably in Cæsarea. During a journey to Rome, Antipas became acquainted with Herodias, who, doubtless repining at her obscure position, abandoned her husband, and after the birth of a daughter contracted an illegal marriage with his brother. Antipas' first wife, justly exasperated at his shameless infidelity, had fled to her father Aretas, and urged him to make war upon her faithless husband. Antipas suffered a great defeat, which was no sooner made known to the Emperor than he gave Vitellius orders instantly to undertake his defense against the king of the Nabathæans. As Vitellius was about to conduct two legions from Ptolemais through Judæa, the people took offense at the pictures of the Emperor which the soldiers bore on their standards, and which were to have been carried to Jerusalem, but out of regard to the scruples of the Judæans, Vitellius, instead of leading his army through Judæa, conveyed it along the farther side of the Jordan. Vitellius himself was received with the greatest favor in Jerusalem, and offered sacrifices in the Temple. Of all the Roman governors he was the one who had shown most kindness to the Judæans.
CHAPTER VII.
AGRIPPA I. HEROD II
Character of Agrippa – Envy of the Alexandrian Greeks towards the Judæans – Anti-Judæan Literature – Apion – Measures against the Judæans in Alexandria – Flaccus – Judæan Embassy to Rome – Philo – Caligula's Decision against the Judæan Embassy – Caligula orders his Statue to be placed in the Temple – The Death of Caligula relieves the Judæans – Agrippa's Advance under Claudius – His Reign – Gamaliel the Elder and his Administration – Death of Agrippa – Herod II – The False Messiah, Theudas – Death of Herod II.
37–49 C. E
After the murder of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, when the Senate indulged for the moment in the sweet dream of regaining its liberty, Rome could have had no forebodings that an enemy was born to her in Jerusalem, in the half-fledged Christian community, which would in time to come displace her authority, trample upon her gods, shatter her power, and bring about a gradual decadence, ending in complete decay. An idea, conceived and brought forth by one of Judæan birth and developed by a despised class of society, was to tread the power and glory of Rome in the dust. The third Roman Emperor, Caius Caligula Germanicus, was himself instrumental in delivering up to national contempt the Roman deities, in a sense the corner-stone of the Roman Empire. The throne of the Cæsars had been alternately in the power of men actuated by cruel cowardice and strange frenzy. None of the nations tributary to Rome suffered more deeply from this continual change in her masters than did the Judæans. Every change in the great offices of state affected Judæa, at times favorably, but more often unfavorably. The first years of Caligula's reign appeared to be auspicious for Judæa. Caligula specially distinguished one of the Judæan princes, Agrippa, with marks of his favor, thus holding out the prospect of a milder rule. But it was soon evident that this kindness, this good-will and favor, were but momentary caprices, to be followed by others of a far different and of a terrible character, which threw the Judæans of the Roman Empire into a state of fear and terror.
Agrippa (born 10 B. C. E., died 44 C. E.) was the son of the prince Aristobulus who had been assassinated by Herod, and grandson of the Hasmonæan princess Mariamne; thus in his veins ran the blood of the Hasmonæans and Idumæans, and these two hostile elements appeared to fight for the mastery over his actions, until at last the nobler was victorious. Educated in Rome, in the companionship of Drusus, the son of Tiberius, the Herodian element in Agrippa was the first to develop. As a Roman courtier, intent upon purchasing Roman favor, he dissipated his fortune and fell into debt. Forced to quit Rome for Judæa, after the death of his friend Drusus, he was reduced to such distress that he, who was accustomed to live with the Cæsars, had to hide in a remote part of Idumæa. It was then that he contemplated suicide. But his high-spirited wife, Cypros, who was resolved to save him from despair, appealed to his sister Herodias, Princess of Galilee, for instant help. And it was through the influence of Antipas, the husband of this princess, that Agrippa was appointed overseer of the markets of Tiberias. Impatient of this dependent condition, he suddenly resigned this office and became courtier to Flaccus, governor of Syria. From this very doubtful position he was driven by the jealousy of his own brother Aristobulus. Seemingly abandoned by all his friends, Agrippa determined upon once more trying his fortune in Rome. The richest and most distinguished Judæans of the Alexandrian community, the Alabarch, Alexander Lysimachus, with whom he had taken refuge, provided him with the necessary means for his journey. This noblest Judæan of his age, guardian of the property of the young Antonia, the daughter of the triumvir, had evidently rendered such services to the imperial family that he had been adopted into it, and was allowed to add their names to his own – Tiberius Julius Alexander, son of Lysimachus. He possessed, without doubt, the fine Greek culture of his age, for his brother Philo was a man of the most exquisite taste in Greek letters. But none the less did the Alabarch Alexander cling warmly to his people and to his Temple. Resolved to save Agrippa from ruin, but distrustful of his extravagant character, he insisted that his wife Cypros should become hostage for him.
A new life of adventure now commenced in Rome for Agrippa. He was met on the Isle of Capri by the Emperor Tiberius, who, in remembrance of Agrippa's close connection with the son he had lost, received him most kindly. But upon hearing of the enormous sum of money that Agrippa still owed to the Roman treasury, Tiberius allowed him to fall into disgrace. He was saved, however, by his patroness Antonia, the sister-in-law of the emperor, who maintained a friendly remembrance of Agrippa's mother Berenice. By her mediation he was raised to new honors, and became the trusted friend of the heir to the throne, Caius Caligula. But, as though Agrippa were destined to be the toy of every caprice of fortune, he was soon torn from his intercourse with the future emperor and thrown into prison. In order to flatter Caligula, Agrippa once expressed the wish, "Would that Tiberius would soon expire and leave his throne to one worthier of it." This was repeated by a slave to the emperor, and Agrippa expiated his heedlessness by an imprisonment of six months, from which the death of Tiberius at last set him free (37).
With the accession to the throne of his friend and patron, Caligula, his star rose upon the horizon. When the young emperor opened the prison-door to Agrippa he presented him with a golden chain, in exchange for the iron one that he had been forced to wear on his account, and placed the royal diadem upon his head, giving him the principality of Philip, that had fallen to the Empire of Rome. By decree of the Roman Senate he also received the title of Prætor. So devoted was Caligula to Agrippa that, during the first year of his reign, the Roman emperor would not hear of his quitting Rome, and when at length Agrippa was permitted to take possession of his own kingdom, he had to give his solemn promise that he would soon return to his imperial friend.
When Agrippa made his entry into Judæa as monarch and favorite of the Roman emperor, poor and deeply in debt though he had been when he left it, his wonderful change of fortune excited the envy of his sister Herodias. Stung by ambition, she implored of her husband also to repair to Rome and to obtain from the generous young emperor at least another kingdom. Once more the painful want of family affection, common to all the Herodians, was brought to light in all its baseness. Alarmed that Antipas might succeed in winning Caligula's favor, or indignant at the envious feelings betrayed by his sister, Agrippa accused Antipas before the emperor of treachery to the Roman Empire. The unfortunate Antipas was instantly deprived of his principality and banished to Lyons, whither he was followed by his faithful and true-hearted wife. Herod's last son, Herod Antipas, and his granddaughter, Herodias, died in exile. Agrippa, by imperial favor, became the heir of his brother-in-law, and the provinces of Galilee and Peræa were added to his other possessions.
The favor evinced by Caligula towards Agrippa, which might naturally be extended to the Judæan people, awakened the envy of the heathens, and brought the hatred of the Alexandrian Greeks to a crisis. Indeed, the whole of the Roman Empire harbored secret and public enemies of the Judæans. Hatred of their race and of their creed was intensified by a lurking fear that this despised yet proud nation might one day attain to supreme power. But the hostile feeling against the Judæans reached its climax amongst the restless, sarcastic and pleasure-loving Greek inhabitants of Alexandria. They looked unfavorably upon the industry and prosperity of their Judæan neighbors, by whom they were surpassed in both these respects, and whom they did not excel even in artistic and philosophical attainments. These feelings of hatred dated from the time when the Egyptian queen entrusted Judæan generals with the management of the foreign affairs of her country, and they increased in intensity when the Roman emperors placed more confidence in the reliable Judæans than in the frivolous Greeks. Slanderous writers nourished this hatred, and in their endeavors to throw contempt upon the Judæans they falsified the history of which the Judæans were justly proud.
The Stoic philosopher Posidonius circulated false legends about the origin and the nature of the divine worship of the Judæans, which legends had been originally invented by the courtiers of Antiochus Epiphanes. The disgraceful story of the worship of an ass in the Temple of Jerusalem, besides other tales as untrue and absurd, added to the assertion that the Judæans hated all Gentiles, found ready belief in a younger, contemporary writer, Apollonius Malo, with whom Posidonius had become acquainted in the island of Rhodes, and by whom they were widely circulated. Malo gave a new account of the history of the Judæan exodus, which he declared was occasioned by some enormity on the part of the Judæans; he described Moses as a criminal, and the Mosaic Law as containing the most abominable precepts. He declared that the Judæans were atheists, that they hated mankind in general; he accused them of alternate acts of cowardice and temerity, and maintained that they were the most uncultured people amongst the barbarians, and could not lay claim to the invention of any one thing which had benefited humanity. It was from these two Rhodian authors that the spiteful and venom-tongued Cicero culled his unworthy attack upon the Judæan race and the Judæan Law. In this respect he differed from Julius Cæsar, who, in spite of his associations with Posidonius and Malo, was entirely free from all prejudice against the Judæans.
The Alexandrian Greeks devoured these calumnies with avidity, exaggerated them, and gave them still wider circulation. Only three Greek authors mentioned the Judæans favorably – Alexander Polyhistor, Nicolaus of Damascus, the confidant of Herod, and, lastly, Strabo, the most remarkable geographer of ancient times, who devoted a fine passage in his geographical and historical work to Judaism. Although he mentions the Judæans as having originated from Egypt, he does not repeat the legend that their expulsion was occasioned by some fault of their own. Far otherwise he explains the Exodus, affirming that the Egyptian mode of life, with its unworthy idolatry, had driven Moses and his followers from the shores of the Nile. He writes in praise of the Mosaic teaching relative to the unity of God, as opposed to the Egyptian plurality of deities, and of the spiritual, imageless worship of the Judæans in contrast to the animal worship of the Egyptians, and to the investing of the divinity with a human form among the Greeks. "How can any sensible man," he exclaims, "dare make an image of the Heavenly King?" Widely opposed to the calumniators of Judaism, Strabo teaches that the Mosaic Law was the great mainstay of righteousness, for it holds out the divine blessing to all those whose lives are pure. For some time after the death of their great lawgiver, Strabo maintains that the Judæans acted in conformity with the Law, doing right and fearing God. Of the sanctuary in Jerusalem he speaks with veneration, for, although the Judæan kings were often faithless to the Law of Moses and to their subjects, yet the capital of the Judæans was invested with its own dignity, and the people, far from looking upon it as the seat of despotism, revered and honored it as the Temple of God.
One author exceeded all the other hostile writers in the outrageous nature of his calumnies; this was the Egyptian Apion, who was filled with burning envy at the prosperous condition of the Judæans. He gave a new and exaggerated account of all the old stories of his predecessors, and gained the ear of the credulous multitude by the readiness and fluency of his pen. Apion was one of those charlatans whose conduct is based on the assumption that the world wishes to be deceived, and therefore it shall be deceived. As expounder of the Homeric songs, he traveled through Greece and Asia Minor, and invented legends so flattering to the early Greeks that he became the hero of their descendants. He declared that he had witnessed most things of which he wrote, or that he had been instructed in them by the most reliable people; and even affirmed that Homer's shade had appeared to him, and had divulged which Grecian town had given birth to the oldest of Greek bards, but that he dared not publish that secret. On account of his intense vanity he was called the trumpet of his own fame, for he assured the Alexandrians that they were fortunate in being able to claim him as a citizen. It is not astonishing that so unscrupulous a man should have made use of the hatred they bore to the Judæans to do the latter all the injury in his power.
But the hostility of the Alexandrians, based on envy and religious and racial antipathy, was suppressed under the reign of Augustus and Tiberius, when the imperial governors of Egypt sternly reprimanded all those who might have become disturbers of the peace. Affairs changed, however, when Caligula came to the throne, for the Alexandrians were then aware that the governor Flaccus, who had been a friend of Tiberius, was unfavorably looked upon by his successor, who was ready to lend a willing ear to any accusation against him. Flaccus, afraid of drawing the attention of the revengeful emperor upon himself, was cowed into submission by the Alexandrians, and became a mere tool in their hands. At the news of Agrippa's accession to the throne, they were filled with burning envy, and the delight of the Alexandrian Judæans, with whom Agrippa came into contact through the Alabarch Alexander, only incensed them still more and roused them to action.
Two most abject beings were the originators and leaders of this anti-Judæan demonstration; a venal clerk of the court of justice, Isidorus, who was called by the popular wits, the Pen of Blood, because his pettifoggery had robbed many of their life, and Lampo, one of those unprincipled profligates that are brought forth by a burning climate and an immoral city. These two agitators ruled, on the one hand, the weak and helpless governor, and, on the other, they led the dregs of the people, who were prepared to give vent to their feelings of hatred towards the Judæans upon a sign from their leaders.
Unfortunately, Agrippa, whose change of fortune had been an offense in the eyes of the Alexandrians, touched at their capital upon his return from Rome to Judæa (July, 38), and his presence roused the enemies of the Judæans to fresh conspiracies. These began with a farce, but ended for the Judæans in terrible earnest. At first Agrippa and his race were insultingly jeered at. A harmless fool, Carabas, was tricked out in a crown of papyrus and a cloak of plaited rushes; a whip was given him for a scepter, and he was placed on an eminence for a throne, where he was saluted by all passers-by as Marin (which, in the Chaldaic tongue, denotes "our master"). This was followed by the excitable mob's rushing at the dawn of the next day into the synagogues, carrying with them busts of the emperor, with the pretext of dedicating these places of worship to Caligula. In addition to this, at the importunate instance of the conspirators, the governor, Flaccus, was induced to withdraw from the Judæan inhabitants of Alexandria what they had held so gratefully from the first emperors – the right of citizenship. This was a terrible blow to the Judæans of Alexandria, proud as they were of their privileges, and justly entitled to the credit of having enriched this metropolis by their learning, their wealth, their love of art and their spirit of commerce equally with the Greeks. They were cruelly driven out of the principal parts of the city of Alexandria, and were forced to congregate in the Delta, or harbor of the town. The mob, greedy for spoil, dashed into the deserted houses and work-shops, and plundered, destroyed and annihilated what had been gathered together by the industry of centuries.
After committing these acts of depredation, the infuriated Alexandrians surrounded the Delta, under the idea that the unfortunate Judæans would be driven to open resistance by the pangs of hunger or by the suffocating heat they were enduring in their close confinement. When at last the scarcity of provisions impelled some of the besieged to venture out of their miserable quarters, they were cruelly ill-treated by the enemy, tortured, and either burnt alive or crucified. This state of things lasted for a month. The governor went so far as to arrest thirty-eight members of the Great Council, to throw them into prison and publicly to scourge them. Even the female sex was not spared. If any maidens or women crossed the enemy's path they were offered pig's flesh as food, and upon their refusing to eat it they were cruelly tortured. Not satisfied with all these barbarities, Flaccus ordered his soldiers to search the houses of the Judæans for any weapons that might be concealed there, and they were told to leave not even the chambers of modest maidens unsearched. This reign of terror continued until the middle of September. At that time an imperial envoy appeared to depose Flaccus and to summon him to Rome, not on account of his abominable conduct towards the Judæans, but because he was hated by the emperor. His sentence was exile and he was eventually killed.
The emperor alone could have settled the vexed question as to whether the Judæans had the right of equal citizenship with the Greeks in Alexandria; but he was then in Germany or in Gaul celebrating childish triumphs, or in Britain gathering shells on the seashore. When he returned to Rome (August, 40) with the absurd idea of allowing himself to be worshiped as a god, and of raising temples and statues to his own honor, the heathen Greeks justly imagined that their cause against the Judæans was won. They restored the imperial statues in the Alexandrian synagogues, convinced that in the face of so great a sacrilege the Judæans would rebel and thereby arouse the emperor's wrath. This was actually the cause of a fresh disturbance, for the new governor of Alexandria took part against the Judæans, courting in this way the imperial favor. He insisted that the unhappy people should show divine honors to the images of the emperor, and when they refused on the ground that such an act was contrary to their Law, he forbade their observance of the Sabbath day. In the following words he addressed the most distinguished of their race: "How would it be if you were suddenly overwhelmed by a host of enemies, or by a tremendous inundation, or by a raging fire; if famine, pestilence or an earthquake were to overtake you upon the Sabbath day? Would you sit idly in your synagogues, reading the Law and expounding difficult passages? Would you not rather think of the safety of parents and children, of your property and possessions, would you not fight for your lives? Now behold, if you do not obey my commands, I will be all that to you, the invasion of the enemy, the terrible inundation, the raging fire, famine, pestilence, earthquake, the visible embodiment of relentless fate." But neither the rich nor the poor allowed themselves to be coerced by these words; they remained true to their faith, and prepared to undergo any penalties that might be inflicted upon them. Some few appear to have embraced paganism out of fear or from worldly motives. The Judæan philosopher, Philo, gives some account of the renegades of his time and his community, whom he designates as frivolous, immoral, and utterly unworthy. Amongst them may be mentioned the son of the Alabarch Alexander, Tiberius Julius Alexander, who forsook Judaism, and was consequently raised to high honors in the Roman State.