VIII. THE JEWISH SECTS
(53) The Three Sects and their Views on Fate and Free-Will
This account occurs in the history of the Maccabæan period. The saying of R. Aqiba (Pirqe Aboth, III. 24) may be quoted in illustration of this passage: “Everything is foreseen; and free-will is given,” where Predestination and Free-will are set side by side, as if not irreconcilable.
At this time |c. 145 B.C.| there were three sects of Jews, holding different opinions about human actions; the first was called the sect of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes.
The Pharisees assert that some, but not all, events are the work of Fate, and some are under our own control, to be or not to be. The followers of the Essenes affirm that Fate is all-powerful, and that nothing befalls men except in accordance with her decree. The Sadducees abolish Fate, maintaining that there is no such thing, that the events of human life are not dependent upon her, and that all things fall within our own control; so that it is we who are responsible for our blessings and bring our misfortunes on ourselves by our own thoughtlessness.—Ant. XIII. 5. 9 (171-173).
(54) The Essenes, with a note on Pharisees and Sadducees
Jewish philosophy takes three forms. The followers of the first school are called Pharisees, of the second Sadducees, of the third Essenes.
The Essenes: their Asceticism, Simplicity of Life and Community of Goods
A studied gravity[329] is the distinguishing characteristic of the Essenes. Of Jewish birth, they show a greater attachment to each other than do the other sects. They shun pleasures as a vice and regard temperance and the control of the passions as a special virtue. Marriage they disdain, but they adopt other men’s children, while yet pliable and docile, and regard them as their kin and mould them in accordance with their own principles. They do not wholly condemn wedlock and the continuance thereby of the human race, but guard against women’s wantonness, being persuaded that none of the sex keeps her plighted troth to one man.
Riches they despise, and their community of goods is a wonderful arrangement; you will not find one among them distinguished by greater opulence than another. They have a law that new members on admission to the sect shall confiscate their property to the order, with the result that you will nowhere see either abject poverty or inordinate wealth; the individual’s possessions join the common stock and all the brotherhood enjoy a single patrimony.
Oil they consider defiling, and any one who accidentally comes in contact with it scours his person; for they make a point of keeping a dry skin and of always being dressed in white.
They elect overseers of the common property,[330] and all their officials for various purposes are chosen[331] by the whole body.
They occupy no one city; each city has its own settlement. On the arrival of any of the sect from elsewhere, all the resources of the community are put at their disposal, just as if they were their own; and they enter the houses of men whom they have never seen before as though they were their most intimate friends. Consequently, they carry nothing whatever with them on their journeys, except arms as a protection against brigands. In every city of the order there is one expressly appointed to attend to strangers, who provides them with raiment and other necessaries.
In their dress and general appearance they resemble boys who are schooled under a rigorous system.[332] They do not change their garments or shoes until they are torn to shreds or worn threadbare with age.
There is no buying or selling among themselves, but each gives what he has to any in need and receives from him in exchange something useful to himself; they are also freely permitted to accept whatever they choose without making any return.
Their Prayers to the Sun. The Refectory
In religious matters[333] their piety is unique. Before the sun is up they utter no word on mundane matters, but offer to him certain prayers, which have been handed down from their forefathers, as though entreating him to rise. They are then dismissed by the overseers to the various crafts in which they are severally proficient and are strenuously occupied until the fifth hour, when they again assemble in one place and, girding themselves with linen cloths, so equipped bathe their bodies in cold water. After this purification, they collect in a private apartment which none of the uninitiated is permitted to enter, and so, pure and by themselves, repair to the Refectory, as to some sacred shrine. When they have taken their seats in silence, the baker serves out the loaves to them in order, and the cook sets before each a single vessel of one kind of food. Before meat the priest says a grace, and none may partake until after the prayer. When breakfast[334] is ended, he pronounces a further grace; thus at the beginning and at the close they do homage to God as the bountiful giver of life.[335] Then laying aside their raiment, as holy (vestments), they again betake themselves to their labours until the evening. On their return they sup in like manner, and any guests who may have arrived sit down with them. No clamour or disturbance ever pollutes their dwelling; conversation takes place in turn, each man making way for his neighbour. To persons outside the silence of those within appears like some awful mystery; it is in fact due to their continuous sobriety and to the limitation of their allotted portions of meat and drink to the demands of nature.
In all other matters they do nothing without orders from the overseers; two things only are left to individual discretion, the rendering of assistance and compassion. Members may of their own motion help the deserving, when in need,[336] and proffer food to the destitute; but presents to relatives are prohibited, without leave from the managers.
Just in their control[337] of resentment, they restrain their wrath; they are champions of[338] fidelity and very ministers of peace. Any word of theirs has more force than an oath; swearing they avoid, regarding it as worse than perjury, for they say that the thing which[339] is not believed without (an appeal to) God stands condemned already.
Their Studies
They display an extraordinary interest in the writings of the ancients, singling out in particular those which make for the welfare of soul and body; through these they make investigations into medicinal roots[340] and the properties of stones,[341] useful in the treatment of diseases.[342]
Admission to the Order. The Novice’s Probation and Oath
A candidate anxious to join their sect is not immediately admitted. For one year, during which he remains outside the fraternity, they prescribe for him their own rule of life, presenting him with a small hatchet, the forementioned loin-cloth and white raiment. Having given proof of his continence during this probationary period, he is brought into closer touch with the rule and is allowed to share the purer kind of holy water, but is not yet received into the life of the community. For, after this exhibition of endurance, his character is tested for two years more, and only then, if found worthy, is he enrolled in the society.
But, before he may touch the common food, he is made to swear tremendous oaths[343]:—first that he will practise piety towards God,[344] next that he will observe justice towards men; that he will wrong none whether of his own mind or under another’s orders; that he will for ever hate the unjust and fight the battle of the just; that he will for ever keep faith with all men, especially with the powers that be, since no ruler attains his office save by the will of God;[345] that, should he himself bear rule, he will never abuse his authority nor, either in dress or by other outward marks of superiority, outshine his subjects; to be ever a lover of truth and to make it his aim to convict liars; to keep his hands from stealing and his soul pure from impious gain; to conceal nothing from the members of the sect and to report none of their secrets to others, even though threatened with death. He swears, moreover, not to communicate any of their doctrines to any one otherwise than as he himself received them; to abstain from robbery; and in like manner carefully to preserve the books of their sect and the names of the angels. Such are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes.
Expulsion from the Order
Those who are convicted of[346] serious crimes they expel from the order; and the ejected individual often comes to a most miserable end. For, being bound by their oaths and usages, he is not at liberty to partake of other men’s food, and so falls to eating grass and wastes away and dies of starvation. This has led them in compassion to receive many back in the last stage of exhaustion, deeming that torments which have brought them to the verge of death are a sufficient penalty for their misdoings.
Their Law-courts, Reverence for Moses, Sabbatarianism, etc.
They are just and scrupulously careful in their trial of cases, never passing sentence in a court of less than a hundred members; the decision thus reached is irrevocable. After God they hold most in awe the name of their lawgiver, any blasphemer of whom is punished with death.
It is a point of honour with them to obey their elders, and a majority; for instance, if ten sit together, one will not speak if the nine desire silence.
They are careful not to spit into the midst of the company or to the right, and are stricter than all Jews in abstaining from work on the seventh day; for not only do they prepare their food on the day before, to avoid kindling a fire on that one, but they do not venture to remove any vessel or even to go to stool.
On other days they dig a trench a foot deep with the skalis[347]—such is the purpose of the hatchet which they present to new members on admission[348]—and wrapping their mantle about them, that they may not offend the rays of the deity,[349] sit above it. They then replace the excavated soil in the trench. For this purpose they select the more retired spots. And though this secretion of bodily impurity is a natural function, they make it a rule to wash themselves after it, as if defiled.
The Four Grades of Essenes—their Endurance of Persecution
They are divided, according to the duration of their discipline, into four grades;[350] and so far are the junior members inferior to the seniors, that the latter, if but touched by the former, bathe themselves, as though they had been polluted by contact with an alien.
They live to a great age—most of them to upwards of a century—in consequence, I imagine, of the simplicity of, and their moderation in, their diet.[351] They make light of danger, and conquer pain by their resolute will; death, if it come with honour, they consider better than immortality. The war with the Romans tried their souls through and through by every variety of test. Racked and twisted, burnt and broken, and made to pass through every instrument of torture, to induce them to blaspheme their lawgiver or to eat some forbidden thing, they refused to yield to either demand, nor ever once did they cringe to their tormentors or shed a tear. Smiling in their agonies, and with gentle derision of the ministers of their tortures, they cheerfully resigned their souls, confident that they would receive them back again.
Their Belief in the Immortality of the Soul
For it is a fixed belief of theirs that bodies are corruptible, and the matter of which they are made has no permanence, but that souls continue for ever immortal. Emanating from the finest ether, these souls become entangled, as it were, in the prison-house of the body, to which they are dragged down by some magical[352] spell; but when once they are released from the bonds of the flesh, then, as though liberated from a long servitude, they rejoice and are borne aloft. For the good souls—and here they are of the same mind as the sons of Greece—they maintain that there is reserved a habitation beyond the ocean, in a place which is not oppressed by rain or snow or heat, but is refreshed by the ever-gentle breath of the west wind coming in from ocean; while to the base they allot a murky and tempestuous dungeon, big with never-ending punishments.
The Greeks, I imagine, had the same conception when they set apart the Islands of the Blessed for their brave men, whom they call heroes and demigods, and the Region of the Impious for the souls of the wicked down in Hades, where, as their mythologists tell, certain persons are undergoing punishment, such as Sisyphus, Tantalus, Ixion, and Tityus.[353] Their aim was first to establish the premiss that souls are immortal, and secondly to promote virtue and to deter from vice; for the good are made better in their lifetime by the hope of being rewarded even after death, and the impetuous passions of the wicked are restrained by fear and the expectation that, even though they escape detection while alive, they will undergo never-ending punishment after their decease.
Through these theological views of theirs concerning the soul the Essenes irresistibly attract all who have once tasted their philosophy.
Essene Prophets
There are some among them who profess to foretell the future, being versed from their early years in holy books, various[354] forms of purification and apophthegms of prophets; and seldom, if ever, do they err in their predictions.[355]
Essene Schismatics who Allow Marriage
There is yet another order of Essenes, who, while at one with the rest in their mode of life, customs and regulations, differ from them in their views on marriage. They think that those who decline to marry cut off the chief function of life—that of transmitting it—and furthermore that, were all to adopt the same view, the whole race would very quickly die out. They give their wives, however, a three years’ probation, and only marry them after they have thrice undergone purification, in proof of fecundity. They have no intercourse with them during pregnancy, thus showing that their motive in marrying is not self-indulgence but the procreation of children. In the bath the women wear a dress, the men a loin-cloth. Such are the usages of this order.
The Pharisees and Sadducees
Of the two first-named schools, the Pharisees have the reputation of being the most accurate expositors of the laws, and owe to this[356] their position as the leading sect. They attribute everything to Fate and God; yet they admit that to act rightly or otherwise rests for the most part with men, though in each action Fate is an auxiliary.[357] Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment.
The Sadducees, the second of the orders, do away with Fate altogether, and remove God beyond, not merely the commission, but the very sight, of evil. They maintain that good and evil lie open to men’s choice and that it rests with every man’s will whether he embraces the one or the other. As for the permanence of the soul, penalties in the underworld[358] and rewards, they will have none of them.
The Pharisees are affectionate to each other, and cultivate harmonious relations with the community. The Sadducees, even to one another, are rather boorish in their behaviour, and in their intercourse with their fellows are as harsh as with aliens.
Such is what I have to say on the Jewish philosophical schools.—B.J. II. 8. 2-14 (119-166).
(55) Another Account of the Three Sects—and a Fourth
This account, which follows the story of Quirinius and the revolt of Judas, § (24), seems to be taken from the special source on which Josephus draws largely in the last books of the Antiquities. The style is difficult, and the text in places uncertain.
Among the hereditary institutions of the Jews, dating from quite ancient times, were the three schools of philosophy: the school of the Essenes, that of the Sadducees, and, thirdly, that of the Pharisees so called. Although I[359] have spoken about them in the second book of the Jewish War,[360] I will briefly touch on them here.
The Pharisees
The Pharisees practise simplicity of life, and give way to no self-indulgence. They take as their guiding motive certain traditional principles which their school[361] has tested and approved, and consider it a matter of the first importance to observe the doctrines which it has deliberately dictated. They show respect and deference to those who have gone before them, nor have they the effrontery to dispute any proposition which they have introduced.[362] While maintaining that all events are the work of Fate, they do not deprive man of free-will in his actions, since (as they hold) it has pleased God that the decision should rest[363] both with Fate’s council-chamber and with the human will whether a man takes the side of virtue or of vice. They believe that souls have immortal power, and that beneath the earth punishments and awards await those who, during life, have made a practice of vice or virtue: to the former is assigned everlasting imprisonment, the latter are granted facilities to live again.[364] By these doctrines they have gained a very great influence over the masses, and all religious ceremonies in the matter of prayers[365] and the offering of sacrifices are performed according to their directions. Such high testimony do the cities bear to their character, regarding them, both in their manner of life and in their utterances, as patterns of perfection.
The Sadducees
The Sadducees hold that the soul perishes with the body. They make no pretence of observing any rules whatever except the laws; indeed, they count it meritorious to dispute with the doctors of their school. Their tenets have but few adherents; but these are persons of the highest reputation. They have hardly any effect on practical life; for whenever any of their number accept office, they, reluctantly indeed, but of necessity, become converts to the Pharisaic creed, because otherwise they would not be tolerated by the masses.
The Essenes
The characteristic of the Essene creed is that all things are left in God’s hands. They hold that souls are immortal, and that the rewards[366] of righteousness are a prize worth a battle. Although they send dedicatory offerings to the Temple, their rites of purification when sacrificing are peculiar; they are consequently excluded from the precincts of the national shrine[367] and offer their sacrifices apart. In other ways they are most estimable men, whose whole energy is devoted to agriculture. In this particular they deserve more admiration than all professedly virtuous persons, because a habit which has never prevailed, even for a while, in any nation, whether Greek or barbarian, has been with them a long-established and uninterrupted custom. Their goods are in common, and the rich man enjoys no more of his possessions than he who owns nothing at all; this rule is followed by a body of men numbering over four thousand. Marriage and slavery they abjure, the latter as tending to promote injustice, the former as giving occasion for discord; they live by themselves and minister to each other’s needs. They elect good men to act as receivers of their revenues and of the produce of the soil, and priests as bakers and cooks. Their manner of life bears the closest resemblance in all points to that of the Dacian tribe known as the Polistæ.[368]
The Zealots
A fourth school was founded by Judas the Galilæan.[369] While they agree in all other respects with the Pharisees, its disciples have an ineradicable[370] passion for liberty, and take God for their only leader and lord. In their determination to call no man lord, they make light of enduring death in all manner of forms, and of penalties inflicted on their kinsmen and friends. Since, however, most of my readers have witnessed their unflinching endurance under such tortures, I need not dwell further upon it. My fear is not that anything which I might say of them will be thought incredible, but, on the contrary, that the narrative may fail to do justice to the fortitude with which they meet the agony of pain. It was the madness of this party which was the beginning of the afflictions of our nation, when |A.D. 64-66.| Gessius Florus, the governor, by wanton abuse of his authority, drove them in desperation into revolt from Rome.[371]
Such are the various schools of Jewish philosophy.—Ant. XVIII. 1. 2-6 (11-25).
(56) Why John Hyrcanus went over from the Pharisees to the Sadducees
John Hyrcanus I was the son and successor, in the offices of high priest and prince, of Simon the Maccabee.
These successes of Hyrcanus, however, aroused the envy of the Jews. His bitterest enemies were the Pharisees, one of the Jewish sects, as we have already stated, whose influence with the populace is such that a word from them against king or high priest meets with instant belief.
Hyrcanus had been their disciple and was greatly beloved by them. Having on one occasion invited them to a banquet and hospitably entertained them, and seeing them in high good humour, he began to say to them that they knew how anxious he was to live righteously, and how in all his actions he strove to please God and them (for the Pharisees are a school of philosophers); but he besought them, if ever they saw him erring and deviating from the right way, to bring him back into it and correct him. His guests declaring that there was no virtue which he lacked, he was pleased with their commendation.
But one of them, named Eleazar, an ill-natured man who delighted in faction, remarked, “As you have asked us to tell you the truth and desire to be righteous, renounce the high priesthood and be content to be ruler of the people.” And when Hyrcanus enquired of him the reason why he should lay down the office of high priest, he replied, “Because we are informed by the elders that your mother was a captive in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.”[372] The story was false, and Hyrcanus was exasperated with the man, and all the Pharisees were greatly indignant.
A certain Jonathan,[373] however, an intimate friend of Hyrcanus and a follower of the sect of the Sadducees (whose doctrines are the reverse of those of the Pharisees), asserted that Eleazar’s slanderous words had the unanimous approval of the whole body of Pharisees, and that this would be manifest if he asked them what punishment he deserved for what he had said. Hyrcanus, accordingly, asked the Pharisees what penalty they thought appropriate, expecting to prove[374] by the measure of the sentence which they pronounced that the libel had not received their approval. They replied, “Stripes and imprisonment.” The taunt did not seem to merit capital punishment; the more so as the Pharisees are naturally lenient in the matter of penalties. Hyrcanus was greatly incensed at this answer, supposing that the man’s abusive language had met with their approbation. His exasperation was increased in particular by Jonathan, who so worked upon him as to induce him to desert the Pharisees and join the Sadducean party; he also persuaded him to abolish the practices which the Pharisees had ordained for the people, and to punish any who observed them. To this cause he and his sons owed their unpopularity with the multitude.
Of this more hereafter. Here I would merely explain that the Pharisees had delivered to the people certain customary practices, handed down by their forefathers and not recorded in the laws of Moses, and for that reason rejected by the Sadducees, who maintain that only what is written (in Scripture) should be held binding, and that customs based on ancestral traditions should not be observed. On these matters the two parties had great debates and differences. The Sadducees are influential only with the wealthy and have no following among the populace; the Pharisees have the masses on their side. But of these two sects and of the Essenes I have given a precise account in the second book of my Jewish (War).[375]—Ant. XIII. 10. 5 f. (288-298).
(57) "Conciliate the Pharisees"—Alexander’s dying advice to Alexandra
Alexander Jannæus (of the Hasmonæan dynasty; reigned 104-78 B.C.), on his last campaign, lies dying during the siege of Ragaba, near Gerasa on the east of Jordan.
The Queen, seeing him to be near his end and now past hope of recovery, wept and lamented for her impending desolation and poured out her grief for herself and her children. “To whom are you thus leaving me,” so she spoke to him, “and our children who need others to help them, knowing as you do the ill-will which the nation bears you?”
Alexander advised her, if she wished to secure both the throne and their children, to comply with his suggestions. She was to conceal his death from the soldiers until she had taken the town.[376] She was then to enter Jerusalem in triumph after her victory and to concede a measure of authority to the Pharisees; for they would commend her for the honour paid them and dispose the nation in her favour. The Pharisees, he told her, had great influence with the Jews (and could use it) to the injury of any who hated them, or to the advantage of those who were on friendly terms with them; above all they had the confidence of the common people in any harsh criticism which they might pronounce on others, even though prompted by mere malice; the offence which he himself had given to the nation arose from his insulting the Pharisees. “Do you accordingly,” he said, “when you reach Jerusalem, send for such of them as are factious,[377] display my dead body, and with absolute sincerity allow them to use me as they will, whether they prefer to do despite to my corpse by refusing it burial in revenge for all they have suffered from me, or to gratify their anger by any other form of outrage to it. Promise them, moreover, that you will take no action in the exercise of your royal authority without consulting them. If you thus address them, I shall obtain a more splendid funeral from them than I should have had from you—for with the power to misuse my dead body they will lack the will—and you will be secure in your rule.” With this advice to his wife, he died, having reigned seven and twenty years and lived one and fifty.[378]
Alexandra took the fortress and, in accordance with her husband’s suggestions, had a colloquy with the Pharisees, leaving the disposal of the corpse and of the affairs of the kingdom entirely in their hands, and so pacified their anger against Alexander and won their good-will and friendship for herself. The Pharisees then went and harangued the multitude, rehearsing Alexander’s achievements, and telling them that they had lost a righteous king; and by their encomiums elicited from the people such lamentation and dejection on his behalf that they gave him a more splendid funeral than to any of the kings that had been before him.
Alexander left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, but he bequeathed the kingdom to Alexandra. Of the sons, Hyrcanus was a weak administrator and preferred a quiet life; the younger, Aristobulus, was a man of action and courage. Their mother was beloved of the multitude because she appeared to take her husband’s errors to heart.
Hyrcanus she appointed high priest, because he was the elder, but still more on account of his temperamental inaction. She allowed the Pharisees complete freedom, and ordered the people to obey their behests. She also reinstated the customs which the Pharisees had introduced in accordance with ancestral tradition and her father-in-law, Hyrcanus, had abrogated.[379] She was thus nominally Queen, but the real power was in the hands of the Pharisees.—Ant. XIII. 15. 5-16. 2 (399-409)
(58) How the Pharisees rose to Power under Queen Alexandra
A supplement to the final paragraph in the preceding section.
Beside Alexandra, and growing as she grew,[380] arose the Pharisees, a body of Jews with the reputation of excelling the rest of their nation in the observances of religion, and as exact exponents of the laws. To them, being herself devoutly religious, she listened with too great deference; while they, gradually taking advantage of an ingenuous woman, became at length the real administrators of the state, at liberty to banish and to recall, to loose and to bind, whom they would. In short, the enjoyments of royal authority were theirs; its expenses and burthens fell to Alexandra. She proved, however, to be a wonderful administrator of large affairs of state, and, by continual additions to her levies, doubled her (home) army, besides collecting a considerable body of foreign troops; so that she not only strengthened her own nation, but became a formidable foe to foreign potentates. Thus she ruled the nation, and the Pharisees ruled her.—B.J. I. 5. 2 (110-112).
(59) Herod the Great exempts Pharisees and Essenes from the Oath of Allegiance. The Essene Prophet Menahem
Most of Herod’s subjects, either from obsequiousness or fear, yielded to his demands;[381] those who showed a bolder front and took offence at the compulsory order, he found one means or other of putting out of the way. He endeavoured to persuade Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas and most of their disciples to take the oath with the rest; but they refused, and the respect in which Pollio was held secured them from sharing the penalty of the other objectors.
Exemption from this order was further extended to the Essæans,[382] as we call one of our sects, who resemble in their manner of life the Grecian school of Pythagoras. Elsewhere I shall give a more detailed account of them;[383] here the reason may be told why Herod held them in such honour and esteem as possessed of supernatural powers. The narrative, while illustrating the high opinion which this class enjoyed, will not be out of place in an historical work.
There was a certain Essene named Menahem,[384] who was reputed not only to lead a blameless life but to have been gifted by God with a knowledge of future events. This man, seeing Herod as a lad on his way to school, addressed him as king of the Jews. Herod, supposing that he spoke in ignorance or in jest, reminded him that he was only a commoner. But Menahem, with a quiet smile, clapped him on the backside and said, “For all that, be sure you will be king and will have a prosperous reign;[385] for God finds you worthy of it. And remember the blows you received from Menahem, and let them be a symbol to you of the changes of fortune. It were best to reflect on such things, even though you were to be a lover of righteousness, of piety to God and equity to your subjects. But I, knowing all, know that such will not be your character. You will surpass all men in good fortune and will win undying renown, but will be forgetful of piety and justice. God, however, will not be unmindful of these sins and at the close of your life the wrath which they merit will be remembered against you.”
Herod at the time paid little heed to this prediction of eminence to which his hopes did not aspire; but when he had by gradual stages risen to the throne and prosperity, and was at the height of his power, he sent for Menahem and asked him how long he would reign. Menahem would not reveal all. He held his peace, but on being further asked merely whether he would reign as much as ten years, “Yes,” he replied, “twenty; nay, thirty,” but fixed no term for the allotted period. With this answer Herod was content, gave Menahem his hand and dismissed him, and from that time forward continued to hold all the Essenes in honour.—Ant. XV. 10. 4 f. (369-378).
(60) The Pharisees refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance (another account).
Now there was one section of the Jews that prided themselves on their strict observance of inherited traditions and professed (to know) the laws[386] in which the Deity takes delight.[387] They had obtained complete control over the women-folk.[388] They were called Pharisees, and showed foresight in resisting an all-powerful monarch[389] and temerity in proceeding to open hostility and opposition.
For instance, when the whole Jewish nation took the oath of allegiance to Cæsar and to the king’s government, these men, to the number of upwards of six thousand, refused to swear. The king imposed a money penalty, whereupon the wife of Pheroras[390] paid the fine on their behalf. In requital for this service of hers the Pharisees, who through divine inspiration were endowed with the gift of foreknowledge, foretold that God had decreed the downfall from power of Herod and his family, and the transfer of the kingdom to her and Pheroras and their children. These words, coming to the knowledge of Salome,[391] were reported to the king, who was further informed that the Pharisees were corrupting some of his courtiers. The king thereupon put the principal offenders among the Pharisees to death together with the eunuch Bagoas and one Carus, the most famous beauty of his time and a royal favourite. He also killed all the members of his household who were implicated in[392] the Pharisees’[393] prediction. Bagoas had been led by them to believe that he would be called the father and benefactor of the king whose rise they foretold; that monarch, they said, would be omnipotent and would enable Bagoas to marry and beget children of his own.—Ant. XVII. 2. 4 (41-45).