The Wars of The Jews by Flavius Josephus (essential reading TXT) 📕

(3) Josephus here calls this Antiochus the last of the Seleucidae, although there remained still a shadow of another king of that family, Antiochus Asiaticus, or Commagenus, who reigned, or rather lay hid, till Pompey quite turned him out, as Dean Aldrich here notes from Appian and Justin.

(4) Matthew 16:19; 18:18. Here we have the oldest and most authentic Jewish exposition of binding and loosing, for punishing or absolving men, not for declaring actions lawful or unlawful, as some more modern Jews and Christians vainly pretend.

(5) Strabo, B. XVI. p. 740, relates, that this Selene Cleopatra was besieged by Tigranes, not in Ptolemais, as here, but after she had left Syria, in Seleucia, a citadel in Mesopotamia; and adds, that when he had kept her a while in prison, he put her to death. Dean Aldrich supposes here that Strabo contradicts Josephus, which does not appear to me; for although Josephus says both here and in the Antiquities, B. XIII. ch. 16. sect. 4, that Tigranes besieged her now in Ptolemais, and that he took the city, as the Antiquities inform us, yet does he no where intimate that he now took the queen herself; so that both the narrations of Strabo and Josephus may still be true notwithstanding.

(6) That this Antipater, the father of Herod the Great was an Idumean, as Josephus affirms here, see the note on Antiq. B. XIV.

ch. 15. sect. 2. It is somewhat probable, as Hapercamp supposes, and partly Spanheim also, that the Latin is here the truest; that Pompey did him Hyrcanus, as he would have done the others from Aristobulus, sect. 6, although his remarkable abstinence from the 2000 talents that were in the Jewish temple, when he took it a little afterward, ch. 7. sect. 6, and Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 4. sect.

4, will to Greek all which agree he did not take them.

(7) Of the famous palm trees and balsam about Jericho and Engaddl, see the notes in Havercamp’s edition, both here and B.

II. ch. 9. sect. 1. They are somewhat too long to be transcribed in this place.

(8) Thus says Tacitus: Cn. Pompelna first of all subdued the Jews, and went into their temple, by right of conquest, Hist. B.

V. ch. 9. Nor did he touch any of its riches, as has been observed on the parallel place of the Antiquities, B. XIV. ch. 4.

sect. 4, out of Cicero himself.

(9) The coin of this Gadara, still extant, with its date from this era, is a certain evidence of this its rebuilding by Pompey, as Spanheim here assures us.

(10) Take the like attestation to the truth of this submission of Aretas, king of Arabia, to Scaurus the Roman general, in the words of Dean Aldrich. “Hence (says he) is derived that old and famous Denarius belonging to the Emillian family [represented in Havercamp’s edition], wherein Aretas appears in a posture of supplication, and taking hold of a camel’s bridle with his left hand, and with his right hand presenting a branch of the frankincense tree, with this inscription, M. SCAURUS EX S.C.; and beneath, REX ARETAS.”

(11) This citation is now wanting.

(12) What is here noted by Hudson and Spanheim, that this grant of leave to rebuild the walls of the cities of Judea was made by Julius Caesar, not as here to Antipater, but to Hyrcanas, Antiq.

B. XIV. ch. 8. sect. 5, has hardly an appearance of a contradiction; Antipater being now perhaps considered only as Hyrcanus’s deputy and minister; although he afterwards made a cipher of Hyrcanus, and, under great decency of behavior to him, took the real authority to himself.

(13) Or twenty-five years of age. See note on Antiq. B. I. ch.

12. sect. 3; and on B. XIV. ch. 9. sect. 2; and Of the War, B.

II. ch. 11. sect. 6; and Polyb. B. XVII. p. 725. Many writers of the Roman history give an account of this murder of Sextus Caesar, and of the war of Apamia upon that occasion. They are cited in Dean Aldrich’s note.

(14) In the Antiquities, B. XIV. ch. 11. sect. 1, the duration of the reign of Julius Caesar is three years six months; but here three years seven months, beginning nightly, says Dean Aldrich, from his second dictatorship. It is probable the real duration might be three years and between six and seven months.

(15) It appears evidently by Josephus’s accounts, both here and in his Antiquities, B. XIV. ch. 11. sect. 2, that this Cassius, one of Caesar’s murderers, was a bitter oppressor, and exactor of tribute in Judea. These seven hundred talents amount to about three hundred thousand pounds sterling, and are about half the yearly revenues of king Herod afterwards. See the note on Antiq.

B. XVII. ch. 11. sect. 4. It also appears that Galilee then paid no more than one hundred talents, or the seventh part of the entire sum to be levied in all the country.

(16) Here we see that Cassius set tyrants over all Syria; so that his assisting to destroy Caesar does not seem to have proceeded from his true zeal for public liberty, but from a desire to be a tyrant himself.

(17) Phasaelus and Herod.

(18) This large and noted wood, or woodland, belonging to Carmel, called apago by the Septuagint, is mentioned in the Old Testament, 2 Kings 19:23; Isaiah 37:24, and by I Strabo, B. XVI.

p. 758, as both Aldrich and Spanheim here remark very pertinently.

(19) These accounts, both here and Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 13. sect.

5, that the Parthians fought chiefly on horseback, and that only some few of their soldiers were free-men, perfectly agree with Trogus Pompeius, in Justin, B. XLI. 2, 3, as Dean Aldrich well observes on this place.

(20) Mariamac here, in the copies.

(21) This Brentesium or Brundusium has coin still preserved, on which is written, as Spanheim informs us.

(22) This Dellius is famous, or rather infamous, in the history of Mark Antony, as Spanheim and Aldrich here note, from the coins, from Plutarch and Dio.

(23) This Sepphoris, the metropolis of Galilee, so often mentioned by Josephus, has coins still remaining, as Spanheim here informs us.

(24) This way of speaking, “after forty days,” is interpreted by Josephus himself, “on the fortieth day,” Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 15.

sect. 4. In like manner, when Josephus says, ch. 33. sect. 8, that Herod lived “after” he had ordered Antipater to be slain “five days;” this is by himself interpreted, Antiq. B. XVII. ch.

8. sect. 1, that he died “on the fifth day afterward.” So also what is in this book, ch. 13. sect. 1, “after two years,” is, Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 13. sect. 3, “on the second year.” And Dean Aldrich here notes that this way of speaking is familiar to Josephus.

(25) This Samosata, the metropolis of Commagena, is well known from its coins, as Spanheim here assures us. Dean Aldrich also confirms what Josephus here notes, that Herod was a great means of taking the city by Antony, and that from Plutarch and Dio.

(26) That is, a woman, not, a man.

(27) This death of Antigonus is confirmed by Plutarch and.

Straho; the latter of whom is cited for it by Josephus himself, Antiq. B. XV. ch. 1. sect. 2, as Dean Aldrich here observes.

(28) This ancient liberty of Tyre and Sidon under the Romans, taken notice of by Josephus, both here and Antiq. B. XV. ch. 4.

sect. 1, is confirmed by the testimony of Sirabe, B. XVI. p. 757, as Dean Aldrich remarks; although, as he justly adds, this liberty lasted but a little while longer, when Augtus took it away from them.

(29) This seventh year of the reign of Herod [from the conquest or death of Antigonus], with the great earthquake in the beginning of the same spring, which are here fully implied to be not much before the fight at Actium, between Octavius and Antony, and which is known from the Roman historians to have been in the beginning of September, in the thirty-first year before the Christian era, determines the chronology of Josephus as to the reign of Herod, viz. that he began in the year 37, beyond rational contradiction. Nor is it quite unworthy of our notice, that this seventh year of the reign of Herod, or the thirty-first before the Christian era, contained the latter part of a Sabbatic year, on which Sabbatic year, therefore, it is plain this great earthquake happened in Judea.

(30) This speech of Herod is set down twice by Josephus, here and Antiq. B. XV. ch. 5. sect. 3, to the very same purpose, but by no means in the same words; whence it appears that the sense was Herod’s, but the composition Josephus’s.

(31) Since Josephus, both here and in his Antiq. B. XV. ch. 7.

sect. 3, reckons Gaza, which had been a free city, among the cities given Herod by Augustus, and yet implies that Herod had made Costobarus a governor of it before, Antiq. B. XV. ch. 7.

sect. 9, Hardain has some pretense for saying that Josephus here contradicted himself. But perhaps Herod thought he had sufficient authority to put a governor into Gaza, after he was made tetrarch or king, in times of war, before the city was entirely delivered into his hands by Augustus.

(32) This fort was first built, as it is supposed, by John Hyrcanus; see Prid. at the year 107; and called “Baris,” the Tower or Citadel. It was afterwards rebuilt, with great improvements, by Herod, under the government of Antonius, and was named from him “the Tower of Antoni;” and about the time when Herod rebuilt the temple, he seems to have put his last hand to it. See Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 5. sect. 4; Of the War, B. I. ch. 3.

sect. 3; ch. 5. sect. 4. It lay on the northwest side of the temple, and was a quarter as large.

(33) That Josephus speaks truth, when he assures us that the haven of this Cesarea was made by Herod not less, nay rather larger, than that famous haven at Athens, called the Pyrecum, will appear, says Dean Aldrich, to him who compares the descriptions of that at Athens in Thucydides and Pausanias, with this of Cesarea in Josephus here, and in the Antiq. B. XV. ch. 9.

sect. 6, and B. XVII. ch. 9. sect. 1.

(34) These buildings of cities by the name of Caesar, and institution of solemn games in honor of Augustus Caesar, as here, and in the Antiquities, related of Herod by Josephus, the Roman historians attest to, as things then frequent in the provinces of that empire, as Dean Aldrich observes on this chapter.

(35) There were two cities, or citadels, called Herodium, in Judea, and both mentioned by Josephus, not only here, but Antiq.

B. XIV. ch. 13. sect. 9; B. XV. ch. 9. sect. 6; Of the War, B. I.

ch. 13. sect. 8; B. III. ch. 3. sect. 5. One of them was two hundred, and the other sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem. One of them