Antiquities of the Jews — Book 15, Chapter 11

1. And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and after the
acts already mentioned, undertook a very great work, that is, to build
of himself the temple of God, 22 and make it larger in compass, and to
raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most
glorious of all his actions, as it really was, to bring it to
perfection; and that this would be sufficient for an everlasting
memorial of him; but as he knew the multitude were not ready nor willing
to assist him in so vast a design, he thought to prepare them first by
making a speech to them, and then set about the work itself; so he
called them together, and spake thus to them: "I think I need not speak
to you, my countrymen, about such other works as I have done since I
came to the kingdom, although I may say they have been performed in such
a manner as to bring more security to you than glory to myself; for I
have neither been negligent in the most difficult times about what
tended to ease your necessities, nor have the buildings. I have made
been so proper to preserve me as yourselves from injuries; and I imagine
that, with God's assistance, I have advanced the nation of the Jews to a
degree of happiness which they never had before; and for the particular
edifices belonging to your own country, and your own cities, as also to
those cities that we have lately acquired, which we have erected and
greatly adorned, and thereby augmented the dignity of your nation, it
seems to me a needless task to enumerate them to you, since you well
know them yourselves; but as to that undertaking which I have a mind to
set about at present, and which will be a work of the greatest piety and
excellence that can possibly be undertaken by us, I will now declare it
to you. Our fathers, indeed, when they were returned from Babylon, built
this temple to God Almighty, yet does it want sixty cubits of its
largeness in altitude; for so much did that first temple which Solomon
built exceed this temple; nor let any one condemn our fathers for their
negligence or want of piety herein, for it was not their fault that the
temple was no higher; for they were Cyrus, and Darius the son of
Hystaspes, who determined the measures for its rebuilding; and it hath
been by reason of the subjection of those fathers of ours to them and to
their posterity, and after them to the Macedonians, that they had not
the opportunity to follow the original model of this pious edifice, nor
could raise it to its ancient altitude; but since I am now, by God's
will, your governor, and I have had peace a long time, and have gained
great riches and large revenues, and, what is the principal thing of
all, I am at amity with and well regarded by the Romans, who, if I may
so say, are the rulers of the whole world, I will do my endeavor to
correct that imperfection, which hath arisen from the necessity of our
affairs, and the slavery we have been under formerly, and to make a
thankful return, after the most pious manner, to God, for what blessings
I have received from him, by giving me this kingdom, and that by
rendering his temple as complete as I am able."

2. And this was the speech which Herod made to them; but still this
speech affrighted many of the people, as being unexpected by them; and
because it seemed incredible, it did not encourage them, but put a damp
upon them, for they were afraid that he would pull down the whole
edifice, and not be able to bring his intentions to perfection for its
rebuilding; and this danger appeared to them to be very great, and the
vastness of the undertaking to be such as could hardly be accomplished.
But while they were in this disposition, the king encouraged them, and
told them he would not pull down their temple till all things were
gotten ready for building it up entirely again. And as he promised them
this beforehand, so he did not break his word with them, but got ready a
thousand waggons, that were to bring stones for the building, and chose
out ten thousand of the most skillful workmen, and bought a thousand
sacerdotal garments for as many of the priests, and had some of them
taught the arts of stone-cutters, and others of carpenters, and then
began to build; but this not till every thing was well prepared for the
work.

3. So Herod took away the old foundations, and laid others, and erected
the temple upon them, being in length a hundred cubits, and in height
twenty additional cubits, which [twenty], upon the sinking of their
foundations 23 fell down; and this part it was that we resolved to raise
again in the days of Nero. Now the temple was built of stones that were
white and strong, and each of their length was twenty-five cubits, their
height was eight, and their breadth about twelve; and the whole
structure, as also the structure of the royal cloister, was on each side
much lower, but the middle was much higher, till they were visible to
those that dwelt in the country for a great many furlongs, but chiefly
to such as lived over against them, and those that approached to them.
The temple had doors also at the entrance, and lintels over them, of the
same height with the temple itself. They were adorned with embroidered
veils, with their flowers of purple, and pillars interwoven; and over
these, but under the crown-work, was spread out a golden vine, with its
branches hanging down from a great height, the largeness and fine
workmanship of which was a surprising sight to the spectators, to see
what vast materials there were, and with what great skill the
workmanship was done. He also encompassed the entire temple with very
large cloisters, contriving them to be in a due proportion thereto; and
he laid out larger sums of money upon them than had been done before
him, till it seemed that no one else had so greatly adorned the temple
as he had done. There was a large wall to both the cloisters, which wall
was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by man. The
hill was a rocky ascent, that declined by degrees towards the east parts
of the city, till it came to an elevated level. This hill it was which
Solomon, who was the first of our kings, by Divine revelation,
encompassed with a wall; it was of excellent workmanship upwards, and
round the top of it. He also built a wall below, beginning at the
bottom, which was encompassed by a deep valley; and at the south side he
laid rocks together, and bound them one to another with lead, and
included some of the inner parts, till it proceeded to a great height,
and till both the largeness of the square edifice and its altitude were
immense, and till the vastness of the stones in the front were plainly
visible on the outside, yet so that the inward parts were fastened
together with iron, and preserved the joints immovable for all future
times. When this work [for the foundation] was done in this manner, and
joined together as part of the hill itself to the very top of it, he
wrought it all into one outward surface, and filled up the hollow places
which were about the wall, and made it a level on the external upper
surface, and a smooth level also. This hill was walled all round, and in
compass four furlongs, [the distance of] each angle containing in length
a furlong: but within this wall, and on the very top of all, there ran
another wall of stone also, having, on the east quarter, a double
cloister, of the same length with the wall; in the midst of which was
the temple itself. This cloister looked to the gates of the temple; and
it had been adorned by many kings in former times; and round about the
entire temple were fixed the spoils taken from barbarous nations; all
these had been dedicated to the temple by Herod, with the addition of
those he had taken from the Arabians.

4. Now on the north side [of the temple] was built a citadel, whose
walls were square, and strong, and of extraordinary firmness. This
citadel was built by the kings of the Asamonean race, who were also high
priests before Herod, and they called it the Tower, in which were
reposited the vestments of the high priest, which the high priest only
put on at the time when he was to offer sacrifice. These vestments king
Herod kept in that place; and after his death they were under the power
of the Romans, until the time of Tiberius Cæsar; under whose reign
Vitellius, the president of Syria, when he once came to Jerusalem, and
had been most magnificently received by the multitude, he had a mind to
make them some requital for the kindness they had shewn him; so, upon
their petition to have those holy vestments in their own power, he wrote
about them to Tiberius Cæsar, who granted his request: and this their
power over the sacerdotal vestments continued with the Jews till the
death of king Agrippa; but after that, Cassius Longinus, who was
president of Syria, and Cuspius Fadus, who was procurator of Judea,
enjoined the Jews to reposit those vestments in the tower of Antonia,
for that they ought to have them in their power, as they formerly had.
However, the Jews sent ambassadors to Claudius Cæsar, to intercede with
him for them; upon whose coming, king Agrippa, junior, being then at
Rome, asked for and obtained the power over them from the emperor, who
gave command to Vitellius, who was then commander in Syria, to give it
them accordingly. Before that time they were kept under the seal of the
high priest, and of the treasurers of the temple; which treasurers, the
day before a festival, went up to the Roman captain of the temple
guards, and viewed their own seal, and received the vestments; and
again, when the festival was over, they brought it to the same place,
and showed the captain of the temple guards their seal, which
corresponded with his seal, and reposited them there. And that these
things were so, the afflictions that happened to us afterwards [about
them] are sufficient evidence. But for the tower itself, when Herod the
king of the Jews had fortified it more firmly than before, in order to
secure and guard the temple, he gratified Antonius, who was his friend,
and the Roman ruler, and then gave it the name of the Tower of Antonia.

5. Now in the western quarters of the enclosure of the temple there were
four gates; the first led to the king's palace, and went to a passage
over the intermediate valley; two more led to the suburbs of the city;
and the last led to the other city, where the road descended down into
the valley by a great number of steps, and thence up again by the ascent
for the city lay over against the temple in the manner of a theater, and
was encompassed with a deep valley along the entire south quarter; but
the fourth front of the temple, which was southward, had indeed itself
gates in its middle, as also it had the royal cloisters, with three
walks, which reached in length from the east valley unto that on the
west, for it was impossible it should reach any farther: and this
cloister deserves to be mentioned better than any other under the sun;
for while the valley was very deep, and its bottom could not be seen, if
you looked from above into the depth, this further vastly high elevation
of the cloister stood upon that height, insomuch that if any one looked
down from the top of the battlements, or down both those altitudes, he
would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such an immense
depth. This cloister had pillars that stood in four rows one over
against the other all along, for the fourth row was interwoven into the
wall, which [also was built of stone]; and the thickness of each pillar
was such, that three men might, with their arms extended, fathom it
round, and join their hands again, while its length was twenty-seven
feet, with a double spiral at its basis; and the number of all the
pillars [in that court] was a hundred and sixty-two. Their chapiters
were made with sculptures after the Corinthian order, and caused an
amazement [to the spectators], by reason of the grandeur of the whole.
These four rows of pillars included three intervals for walking in the
middle of this cloister; two of which walks were made parallel to each
other, and were contrived after the same manner; the breadth of each of
them was thirty feet, the length was a furlong, and the height fifty
feet; but the breadth of the middle part of the cloister was one and a
half of the other, and the height was double, for it was much higher
than those on each side; but the roofs were adorned with deep sculptures
in wood, representing many sorts of figures. The middle was much higher
than the rest, and the wall of the front was adorned with beams, resting
upon pillars, that were interwoven into it, and that front was all of
polished stone, insomuch that its fineness, to such as had not seen it,
was incredible, and to such as had seen it, was greatly amazing. Thus
was the first enclosure. In the midst of which, and not far from it, was
the second, to be gone up to by a few steps: this was encompassed by a
stone wall for a partition, with an inscription, which forbade any
foreigner to go in under pain of death. Now this inner enclosure had on
its southern and northern quarters three gates [equally] distant one
from another; but on the east quarter, towards the sun-rising, there was
one large gate, through which such as were pure came in, together with
their wives; but the temple further inward in that gate was not allowed
to the women; but still more inward was there a third [court of the]
temple, whereinto it was not lawful for any but the priests alone to
enter. The temple itself was within this; and before that temple was the
altar, upon which we offer our sacrifices and burnt-offerings to God.
Into none of these three did king Herod enter, 24 for he was forbidden,
because he was not a priest. However, he took care of the cloisters and
the outer enclosures, and these he built in eight years.

6. But the temple itself was built by the priests in a year and six
months; upon which all the people were full of joy; and presently they
returned thanks, in the first place, to God; and in the next place, for
the alacrity the king had showed. They feasted and celebrated this
rebuilding of the temple: and for the king, he sacrificed three hundred
oxen to God, as did the rest every one according to his ability; the
number of which sacrifices is not possible to set down, for it cannot be
that we should truly relate it; for at the same time with this
celebration for the work about the temple fell also the day of the
king's inauguration, which he kept of an old custom as a festival, and
it now coincided with the other, which coincidence of them both made the
festival most illustrious.

7. There was also an occult passage built for the king; it led from
Antonia to the inner temple, at its eastern gate; over which he also
erected for himself a tower, that he might have the opportunity of a
subterraneous ascent to the temple, in order to guard against any
sedition which might be made by the people against their kings. It is
also reported, 25 that during the time that the temple was building, it
did not rain in the daytime, but that the showers fell in the nights, so
that the work was not hindered. And this our fathers have delivered to
us; nor is it incredible, if any one have regard to the manifestations
of God. And thus was performed the work of the rebuilding of the temple.

FOOTNOTES:

1 (return) [ The city here called "Babylon" by Josephus, seems to be one
which was built by some of the Seleucidae upon the Tigris, which long
after the utter desolation of old Babylon was commonly so called, and I
suppose not far from Seleueia; just as the latter adjoining city Bagdat
has been and is often called by the same old name of Babylon till this
very day.]

2 (return) [ Here we have an eminent example of Herod's worldly and
profane politics, when by the abuse of his unlawful and usurped power,
to make whom he pleased high priest, in the person of Ananelus, he
occasioned such disturbances in his kingdom, and in his own family, as
suffered him to enjoy no lasting peace or tranquillity ever afterward;
and such is frequently the effect of profane court politics about
matters of religion in other ages and nations. The Old Testament is full
of the miseries of the people of the Jews derived from such court
politics, especially in and after the days of Jeroboam the son of Nebat,
"who made Israel to sin;" who gave the most pernicious example of it;
who brought on the grossest corruption of religion by it; and the
punishment of whose family for it was most remarkable. The case is too
well known to stand in need of particular citations.]

3 (return) [ Of this wicked Dellius, see the note on the War, B. I. ch.
15. sect. 3.]

4 (return) [ When Josephus says here that this Ananelus, the new high
priest, was "of the stock of the high priests," and since he had been
just telling us that he was a priest of an obscure family or character,
ch. 2. sect. 4, it is not at all probable that he could so soon say that
he was "of the stock of the high priests." However, Josephus here makes
a remarkable observation, that this Ananelus was the third that was ever
unjustly and wickedly turned out of the high priesthood by the civil
power, no king or governor having ventured to do so, that Josephus knew
of, but that heathen tyrant and persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes; that
barbarous parricide Aristobulus, the first that took royal authority
among the Maccabees; and this tyrant king Herod the Great, although
afterward that infamous practice became frequent, till the very
destruction of Jerusalem, when the office of high priesthood was at an
end.]

5 (return) [ This entirely confutes the Talmudists, who pretend that no
one under twenty years of age could officiate as high priest among the
Jews.]

6 (return) [ A Hebrew chronicle, cited by Reland, says this drowning was
at Jordan, not at Jericho, and this even when he quote Josephus. I
suspect the transcriber of the Hebrew chronicle mistook the name, and
wrote Jordan for Jericho.]

7 (return) [ The reading of one of Josephus's Greek MSS. seems here to
be right, that Aristobulus was "not eighteen years old" when he was
drowned, for he was not seventeen when he was made high priest, ch. 2.
sect. 6, ch. 3. sect. 3, and he continued in that office but one year,
as in the place before us.]

8 (return) [ The reader is here to take notice, that this seventh year
of the reign of Herod, and all the other years of his reign, in
Josephus, are dated from the death of Antigonus, or at the soonest from
the conclusion of Antigonus, and the taking of Jerusalem a few months
before, and never from his first obtaining the kingdom at Rome, above
three years before, as some have very weakly and injudiciously done.]

9 (return) [ Herod says here, that as ambassadors were sacred when they
carried messages to others, so did the laws of the Jews derive a sacred
authority by being delivered from God by angels, [or Divine
ambassadors,] which is St. Paul's expression about the same laws,
Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2;2.]

10 (return) [ This piece of religion, the supplicating God with
sacrifices, by Herod, before he went to this fight with the Arabians,
taken notice of also in the first book of the War, ch. 19. sect. 5, is
worth remarking, because it is the only example of this nature, so far
as I remember, that Josephus ever mentions in all his large and
particular accounts of this Herod; and it was when he had been in mighty
distress, and discouraged by a great defeat of his former army, and by a
very great earthquake in Judea, such times of affliction making men most
religious; nor was he disappointed of his hopes here, but immediately
gained a most signal victory over the Arabians, while they who just
before had been so great victors, and so much elevated upon the
earthquake in Judea as to venture to slay the Jewish ambassadors, were
now under a strange consternation, and hardly able to fight at all.]

11 (return) [ Whereas Mariamne is here represented as reproaching: Herod
with the murder of her father [Alexander], as well as her brother
[Aristobulus], while it was her grandfather Hyrcanus, and not her father
Alexander, whom he caused to be slain, [as Josephus himself informs us,
ch. 6. sect. 2,] we must either take Zonaras's reading, which is here
grandfather, rightly, or else we must, as before, ch. 1. sect. 1, allow
a slip of Josephus's pen or memory in the place before us.]

12 (return) [ Here is a plain example of a Jewish lady giving a bill of
divorce to her husband, though in the days of Josephus it was not
esteemed lawful for a woman so to do. See the like among the Parthians,
Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 9. sect. 6. However, the Christian law, when it
allowed divorce for adultery, Matthew 5:32, allowed the innocent wife to
divorce her guilty husband, as well as the innocent husband to divorce
his guilty wife, as we learn from the shepherd of Hermas, Mand. B. IV.,
and from: the second apology of Justin Martyr, where a persecution was
brought upon the Christians upon such a divorce; and I think the Roman
laws permitted it at that time, as well as the laws of Christianity. Now
this Babas, who was one of the race of the Asamoneans or Maccabees, as
the latter end of this section informs us, is related by the Jews, as
Dr. Hudson here remarks, to have been so eminently religious in the
Jewish way, that, except the day following the tenth of Tisri, the great
day of atonement, when he seems to have supposed all his sins entirely
forgiven, he used every day of the whole year to offer a sacrifice for
his sins of ignorance, or such as he supposed he had been guilty of, but
did not distinctly remember. See somewhat like it of Agrippa the Great,
Antiq. B. XIX. ch. 3. sect. 3, and Job 1:4, 5.]

13 (return) [ These grand plays, and shows, and Thymelici, or music
meetings, and chariot races, when the chariots were drawn by two, three,
or four pair of horses, etc., instituted by Herod in his theatres, were
still, as we see here, looked on by the sober Jews as heathenish sports,
and tending to corrupt the manners of the Jewish nation, and to bring
them in love with paganish idolatry, and paganish conduct of life, but
to the dissolution of the law of Moses, and accordingly were greatly and
justly condemned by them, as appears here and every where else in
Josephus. Nor is the case of our modern masquerades, plays, operas, and
the like "pomps and vanities of this wicked world," of any better
tendency under Christianity.]

14 (return) [ Here we have an eminent example of the language of
Josephus in his writing to Gentiles, different from that when he wrote
to Jews; in his writing to whom he still derives all such judgments from
the anger of God; but because he knew many of the Gentiles thought they
might naturally come in certain periods, he complies with them in the
following sentence. See the note on the War. B. I. ch. 33. sect. 2.]

15 (return) [ This famine for two years that affected Judea and Syria,
the thirteenth mid fourteenth years of Herod, which are the twenty-third
and twenty-fourth years before the Christian era, seems to have been
more terrible during this time than was that in the days of Jacob,
Genesis 41., 42. And what makes the comparison the more remarkable is
this, that now, as well as then, the relief they had was from Egypt
also; then from Joseph the governor of Egypt, under Pharaoh king of
Egypt; and now from Petronius the prefect of Egypt, under Augustus the
Roman emperor. See almost the like case, Antiq. B. XX. ch. 2. sect. 6.
It is also well worth our observation here, that these two years were a
Sabbatic year, and a year of jubilee, for which Providence, during the
theocracy, used to provide a triple crop beforehand; but became now,
when the Jews had forfeited that blessing, the greatest years of famine
to them ever since the days of Ahab, 1 Kings 17., 18.]

16 (return) [ This Aelius Gallus seems to be no other than that Aelius
Lagus whom Dio speaks of as conducting an expedition that was about this
time made into Arabia Felix, according to Betarius, who is here cited by
Spanheim. See a full account of this expedition in Prideaux, at the
years 23 and 24.]

17 (return) [ One may here take notice, that how tyrannical and
extravagant soever Herod were in himself, and in his Grecian cities, as
to those plays, and shows, and temples for idolatry, mentioned above,
ch. 8. sect. 1, and here also; yet durst even he introduce very few of
them into the cities of the Jews, who, as Josephus here notes, would not
even then have borne them, so zealous were they still for many of the
laws of Moses, even under so tyrannical a government as this was of
Herod the Great; which tyrannical government puts me naturally in mind
of Dean Prideaux's honest reflection upon the like ambition after such
tyrannical power in Pompey and Cæsar: "One of these [says he, at the
year 60: could not bear an equal, nor the other a superior; and through
this ambitions humor and thirst after more power in these two men, the
whole Roman empire being divided into two opposite factions, there was
produced hereby the most destructive war that ever afflicted it; and the
like folly too much reigns in all other places. Could about thirty men
be persuaded to live at home in peace, without enterprising upon the
rights of each other, for the vain glory of conquest, and the
enlargement of power, the whole world might be at quiet; but their
ambition, their follies, and their humor, leading them constantly to
encroach upon and quarrel with each other, they involve all that are
under them in the mischiefs thereof; and many thousands are they which
yearly perish by it; so that it may almost raise a doubt, whether the
benefit which the world receives from government be sufficient to make
amends for the calamities which it suffers from the follies, mistakes,
and real-administrations of those that manage it."]

18 (return) [ Cæsarea being here said to be rebuilt and adorned in
twelve years, and soon afterwards in ten years, Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 5.
sect. 1, there must be a mistake in one of the places as to the true
number, but in which of them it is hard positively to determine.]

19 (return) [ This Pollio, with whom Herod's sons lived at Rome, was not
Pollio the Pharisee, already mentioned by Josephus, ch. 1. sect. 1, and
again presently after this, ch. 10. sect. 4; but Asinine Pollo, the
Roman, as Spanheim here observes.]

20 (return) [ The character of this Zenodorus is so like that of a
famous robber of the same name in Strabo, and that about this very
country, and about this very time also, that I think Dr. Hudson hardly
needed to have put a overlaps to his determination that they were the
same.]

21 (return) [ A tetrarchy properly and originally denoted the fourth
part of an entire kingdom or country, and a tetrarch one that was ruler
of such a fourth part, which always implies somewhat less extent of
dominion and power than belong to a kingdom and to a king.]

22 (return) [ We may here observe, that the fancy of the modern Jews, in
calling this temple, which was really the third of their temples, the
second temple, followed so long by later Christians, seems to be without
any solid foundation. The reason why the Christians here followed the
Jews is, because of the prophecy of Haggai, 2:6-9, which they expound of
the Messiah's coning to the second or Zorobabel's temple, of which they
suppose this of Herod to be only a continuation; which is meant, I
think, of his coming to the fourth and last temple, of that future,
largest, and most glorious one, described by Ezekiel; whence I take the
former notion, how general soever, to be a great mistake. See Lit.
Accorap. of Proph. p. 2.]

23 (return) [ Some of our modern students in architecture have made a
strange blunder here, when they imagine that Josephus affirms the entire
foundations of the temple or holy house sunk down into the rocky
mountain on which it stood no less than twenty cubits, whereas he is
clear that they were the foundations of the additional twenty cubits
only above the hundred [made perhaps weak on purpose, and only for show
and grandeur] that sunk or fell down, as Dr. Hudson rightly understands
him; nor is the thing itself possible in the other sense. Agrippa's
preparation for building the inner parts of the temple twenty cubits
higher [History of the War, B. V. ch. 1. sect. 5: must in all
probability refer to this matter, since Josephus says here, that this
which had fallen down was designed to be raised up again under Nero,
under whom Agrippa made that preparation. But what Josephus says
presently, that Solomon was the first king of the Jews, appears by the
parallel place, Antiq. B. XX. ch. 9. sect. 7, and other places, to be
meant only the first of David's posterity, and the first builder of the
temple.]

24 (return) [ "Into none Of these three did king Herod enter," i.e. 1.
Not into the court of the priests; 2. Nor into the holy house itself; 3.
Nor into the separate place belonging to the altar, as the words
following imply; for none but priests, or their attendants the Levites,
might come into any of them. See Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 4. sect. 6, when
Herod goes into the temple, and makes a speech in it to the people, but
that could only be into the court of Israel, whither the people could
come to hear him.]

25 (return) [ This tradition which Josephus here mentions, as delivered
down from fathers to their children, of this particular remarkable
circumstance relating to the building of Herod's temple, is a
demonstration that such its building was a known thing in Judea at this
time. He was born about forty-six years after it is related to have been
finished, and might himself have seen and spoken with some of the
builders themselves, and with a great number of those that had seen it
building. The doubt therefore about the truth of this history of the
pulling down and rebuilding this temple by Herod, which some weak people
have indulged, was not then much greater than it soon may be, whether or
not our St. Paul's church in London was burnt down in the fire of
London, A.D. 1666, and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren a little
afterward.]