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In the foreground of that view, sweeping from the snowy summits of Hermon in the north, past the Greek cities of Pella and Scythopolis, down the vast valley with its wealth of palms and balsams, must have stood the Roman city of Jericho, with its imperial farms and the palaces, baths and theatres of Herod the Great, a visible image of what Christ might have won for Himself if He had yielded to the temptation and turned from the pathway of spiritual light to follow the shadows of earthly power and glory.
Pharaohs and all the little kings round about Judaea; the vile old Herod and his equally vile brood, were recent or living examples of what the Master said when He sketched 'the kings of the Gentiles, They 'lord it over them. Arrogant superiority, imperious masterfulness, irresponsible wills, caprices ungoverned, an absolute oblivion of duties, no thought of responsibilities these were the features of that ancient type of monarch: and which, in spite of all constitutional hedges and limitations, there is abundant room for the repetition of, even in so-called Christian countries.
I beseech you, do not let this be the epitaph on your tombstone: 'Christ could there do no mighty work because of his unbelief. 'But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead. Mark vi. 16. The character of this Herod, surnamed Antipas, is a sufficiently common and a sufficiently despicable one.
Then, sinking upon his throne, he who a moment gone had received the worship of a god, writhed there in agony and wept. Yes, Herod wept. Attendants ran to him and lifted him in their arms. "Take me hence to die," he moaned. Now a herald cried: "The king is smitten with a sore sickness, and the games are closed. To your homes, O people."
By Old Cairo I do not mean only le vieux Caire of the guide-book, the little, desolate village containing the famous Coptic church of Abu Sergius, in the crypt of which the Virgin Mary and Christ are said to have stayed when they fled to the land of Egypt to escape the fury of King Herod; but the Cairo that is not new, that is not dedicated wholly to officialdom and tourists, that, in the midst of changes and the advance of civilisation civilisation that does so much harm as well as so much good, that showers benefits with one hand and defaces beauty with the other preserves its immemorial calm or immemorial turmult; that stands aloof, as stands aloof ever the Eastern from the Western man, even in the midst of what seems, perhaps, like intimacy; Eastern to the soul, though the fantasies, the passions, the vulgarities, the brilliant ineptitudes of the West beat about it like waves about some unyielding wall of the sea.
He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child.
How Herod Made War With The King Of Arabia, And After They Had Fought Many Battles, At Length Conquered Him, And Was Chosen By The Arabs To Be Governor Of That Nation; As Also Concerning A Great Earthquake.
We have produced these decrees, therefore, as marks for futurity of the truth of what we have said, that the Romans had a great concern about our nation. How Antony Made Herod And Phasaelus Tetrarchs, After They Had Been Accused To No Purpose; And How The Parthians When They Brought Antigonus Into Judea Took Hyrcanus And Phasaelus Captives.
Now when they were gone, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the infant and his mother by night, and flee into Egypt, and stay there, till I speak to thee, for Herod will search for the infant to destroy it.
Her sister was wife of Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and Batanaea. Now this Philip was brother to Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, and both were sons of Herod, called by the Jews the "Great." Miriam, as I understood, was at home in the courts of both tetrarchs, being herself of the blood. Also, when a girl, she had been betrothed to Archelaus at the time he was ethnarch of Jerusalem.
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