certain village called Lydda, which was not less than a city in largeness, and there heard the Samaritan cause a second time before his tribunal, and there learned from a certain Samaritan that one of the chief of the Jews, whose name was Dortus, and some other innovators with him, four in number, persuaded the multitude to a revolt from the Romans; whom Quadratus ordered to be put to death: but still he sent away Ananias the high priest, and Ananus the commander [of the temple], in bonds to Rome, to give an account of what they had done to Claudius Caesar. He also ordered the principal men, both of the Samaritans and of the Jews, as also Cumanus the procurator, and Ceier the tribune, to go to Italy to the emperor, that he might hear their cause, and determine their differences one with another. But he came again to the city of Jerusalem, out of his fear that the multitude of the Jews should attempt some innovations; but he found the city in a peaceable state, and celebrating one of the usual festivals of their country to God. So he believed that they would not attempt any innovations, and left them at the celebration of the festival, and returned to Antioch.
3. Now Cumanus, and the principal of the Samaritans, who were sent to Rome, had a day appointed them by the emperor whereon they were to have pleaded their cause about the quarrels they had one with another. But now Caesar's freed-men and his friends were very zealous on the behalf of Cumanus and the Samaritans; and they had prevailed over the Jews, unless Agrippa, junior, who was then at Rome, had seen the principal of the Jews hard set, and had earnestly entreated Agrippina, the emperor's wife, to persuade her husband to hear the cause, so as was agreeable to his justice, and to condemn those to be punished who were really the authors of this revolt from the Roman government: - whereupon Claudius was so well disposed beforehand, that when he had heard the cause, and found that the Samaritans had been the ringleaders in those mischievous doings, he gave order that those who came up to him should be slain, and that Cureanus should be banished. He also gave order that Celer the tribune should be carried back to Jerusalem, and should be drawn through the city in the sight of all the people, and then should be slain.
Chapter 7
FELIX IS MADE PROCURATOR OF JUDEA; AS ALSO CONCERNING AGRIPPA, JUNIOR AND HIS SISTERS.
1. SO Claudius sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to take care of the affairs of Judea; and when he had already completed the twelfth year of his reign, he bestowed upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and Batanea, and added thereto Trachonites, with Abila; which last had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took from him Chalcis, when he had been governor thereof four years. And when Agrippa had received these countries as the gift of Caesar, he gave his sister Drusilla in marriage to Azizus, king of Emesa, upon his consent to be circumcised; for Epiphanes, the son of king Antiochus, had refused to marry her, because, after he had promised her father formerly to come over to the Jewish religion, he would not now perform that promise. He also gave Mariamne in marriage to Archelaus, the son of Helcias, to whom she had formerly been betrothed by Agrippa her father; from which marriage was derived a daughter, whose name was Bernice.
2. But for the marriage of Drusilla with Azizus, it was in no long time afterward dissolved upon the following occasion: While Felix was procurator of Judea, he saw this Drusilla, and fell in love with her; for she did indeed exceed all other women in beauty; and he sent to her a person whose name was Simon[1] one of his friends; a Jew he was, and by birth a Cypriot, and one who pretended to be a magician, and endeavored to persuade her to forsake
- ↑ This Simon, a friend of Felix, a Jew, born in Cyprus, though he pretended to be a magician, and seems to have been wicked enough, could hardly be that famous Simon the magician, in the Acts of the Apostles, 8:9, etc., as some are ready to suppose. This Simon mentioned in the Acts was not properly a Jew, but a Samaritan, of the town of Gittae, in the country of Samaria, as the Apostolical Constitutions, VI. 7, the Recognitions of Clement, II. 6, and Justin Martyr, himself born in the country of Samaria, Apology, I. 34, inform us. He was also the author, not of any ancient Jewish, but of the first Gentile heresies, as the forementioned authors assure us. So I suppose him a different person from the other. I mean this only upon the hypothesis that Josephus was not misinformed as to his being a Cypriot Jew; for otherwise the time, the name, the profession, and the wickedness of them both would strongly incline one to believe them the very same. As to that Drusilla, the sister of Agrippa, junior, as Josephus informs us here, and a Jewess, as St. Luke informs us, Acts 24:24, whom this Simon mentioned by Josephus persuaded to leave her former husband, Azizus, king of Emesa, a proselyte of justice, and to marry Felix, the heathen procurator of Judea, Tacitus, Hist. V. 9, supposes her to be a heathen; and the grand-daughter of Antonius and Cleopatra, contrary both to St. Luke and Josephus. Now Tacitus lived somewhat too remote, both as to time and place, to be compared with either of those Jewish writers, in a matter concerning the Jews in Judea in their own days, and concerning a sister of Agrippa, junior, with which Agrippa Josephus was himself so well acquainted. It is probable that Tacitus may say true, when he informs us that this Felix (who had in all three wives, or queens, as Suetonius in Claudius, sect. 28, assures us) did once marry such a grandchild of Antonius and Cleopatra; and finding the name of one of them to have been Drusilla, he mistook her for that other wife, whose name he did not know.
