The Greatest Story in the World, Period 1 by Horace G. Hutchinson

It is rather puzzling to find, now and again, in this greatest of all / stories, that several different people are called by the same name, / and also that the same person is called by different names. Now, / besides this Herod of whom we have been talking, there were several / others. There was Herod Antipas, his son, before whom Christ was / sent by Pontius Pilate, and also there was Herod Agrippa, his / grandson, who was king of Judea for a while, reigning, with such / limited power as the Romans allowed him, from A. D. 37 to his death in / 44. But for the most part, during all the early years of the / Christian Era, Judea was governed by one or other Roman procurator / and was not even in name a kingdom.

Octavius, of whom I have been telling you how he became master of the / world, lived till the year 14 A. D. (Anno Domini, or year of our / Lord), that is, fourteen years from the date sometimes assigned to / our Lord's birth. And now you may be puzzled, because you may / remember that it is said in the Bible that a decree went out from / Cesar Augustus, about the time of Christ's birth, that all the world / should be taxed. Cesar Augustus, you see, as Master of the World! / The explanation is that Cesar Augustus and Octavius were one and the / same person. He had been adopted as a {214} son by his great-uncle / Julius Cesar, and then had taken the name of Cesar. Augustus was not / a name, but a title, given by the Romans, just as one of the Pompeys, / and also one of the Herods, was called Magnus, or the Great. / Augustus means the August one -- the Magnificent.

I have said that Octavius was a prudent man. He showed his prudence / in the way that he allowed Antony, who was imprudent, to do all kinds / of foolish things before he set to work to crush his power. He was / equally prudent in his dealing with Lepidus, his other rival. And / after he had made an end of the power of these two, and was the / greatest man in the world, he showed his prudence in refusing to / claim any great title which might give any enemies at Rome a chance / of saying that he was grasping at power and trying to rule like a / despot, as Antony had done. No doubt he remembered what had happened / to his great-uncle.

So he maintained many of the forms of the republican government and / many of the old titles of the officials of the government, but it was / quite evident all the time that he had the real power, and it was not / any less real because he did not make a big show of claiming it. No / doubt the Romans were all the more ready to leave the real power in / his hands on that account. When his old rival Lepidus died he took / to himself the high office of Pontifex Maximus which he had allowed / Lepidus to hold during his life.

Before his death, having no son of his own at that time alive, he / adopted, as the Roman law permitted, his step-son Tiberius as his / colleague during his life and as his successor after his death; and / the Romans fully approved of his doing so. Thus, when he died in / A. D. 14, Tiberius succeeded him as ruler of Rome and of {215} the / world. He had not extended the limits of the Roman power, but he had / made that power far more secure both in the West and in the East. / The _Pax Romana_ had become a far more real peace under him than it / had been before.

But there never was any real peace in Judea for long together. The / national sentiment, as we should call it, of the old Jewish party, / the Conservatives, who are called Pharisees in the Bible, was too / strong for them to be at peace for any length of time under foreign / rule. King Agrippa, of whom we were speaking, was a personal friend / of both Caius Caligula and of Claudius, the two Roman Emperors who / succeeded Tiberius. We may speak of them as Emperors (imperators) by / this time, for it was a title which they took without dispute. / Agrippa made himself very well liked by the Jews, and it seems to / have been to please them that he had St. James beheaded and St. Peter / cast into prison, as is told in the Bible. The Bible, too, in the / Acts of the Apostles, tells us of his death in the year A. D. 44. He / was the last king of the Jews, and at his death Judea fell again / under the government of the procurators.

[Sidenote: The procurators of Judea]

The procurators all seem to have been oppressive in their government. / Probably their task was a very difficult one. They had to govern a / people who all through the story had shown themselves stronger in the / independence of their spirit and in following their own ways of life / than any other. The force of Roman soldiers of the legions and of / allied troops that they had at hand to uphold their authority must / have been very small in comparison with the force that the Jews and / their friends could muster at short notice. They must have depended / a great deal on the fame of the {216} Roman power, and on the / knowledge which the Jews must have had that if Rome really cared to / take serious measures against them they could have no hope of / success. Rome's power, if she cared to exert it, would be / overwhelming.

But Rome was far away. Perhaps she would not take the trouble to / exert that power.

That is how the Jewish party probably thought about it all; and the / procurators and even the kings of Judea had to try to uphold the / Roman power as best they could, and yet to do what they could not to / drive the Jews into the rebellion that they were always on the point / of making, and now and again actually did make.