Good morning from the Mediterranean News Network! I’m Aristarchus Vero, bureau chief for Judea, Decapolis, and all the other provinces of Roman Palestine Or, I should say, former bureau chief. My nephew Nikophoros took over a ten-day ago. It was about time, I suppose, I’ve been covering this benighted backwater for 40 years. And it does give me time to write my memoirs.
I’ve probably interviewed every major figure who’s strutted, crawled, marched or stumbled across this impossible landscape since Herod had his sons Alexander and Aristobulus executed. Of course I never told all I knew; I wanted to keep my own head on my shoulders, after all!
But they’re all dead, now, at least everyone who would actually do more than bluster and threaten. Herod Antipas, Herod’s youngest son, has as many crimes to his name as Herod, but on a much smaller scale. He’ll never be known as “the Great,” that’s for sure. Though I suppose in some ways he’s been a pretty good king, he’s kept the peace in Galilee and Perea, no easy task, and rebuilt the economy.
The latest scandal involved that prophet, the one they called the Baptizer. You may have heard of it? It’s not like there’s any shortage of these wild-eyed ranters wandering up and down the countryside, but this one had amassed a considerable following. And one of the things he did was to denounce Herod for marrying his brother Philip’s divorced wife Herodias. She was, of course, another one of that bloodthirsty brood that Herod the Great had spawned, and wasn’t about to let a challenge like that go unpunished. So she had her daughter Salome dance for one of Herod’s infamous parties, and like the besotted idiot he was he offered Salome anything she wanted as a reward for the entertainment. Being well-coached by her mother, she asked for the Baptizer’s head. Herod was backed into a corner, of course, since the offer was made publicly, and that was the end of one more prophet. A palace insider told me later, though, that Herod has never been the same after that. First, he was worried that John might be a real prophet, and second, he had been walking a tightrope between keeping Rome sweet and his Jewish subjects placated. And that has tied his hands as regards the current threat to the civic order, another rabble-rouser from the town of Nazareth in Galilee. They say Herod has bad dreams now, and has taken to long talks with the local rabbis.
His father, King Herod called The Great, was quite another kettle of fish. He reigned for over forty years, and was unquestionably one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. By that time, though, I think it was about two years before his death, he was totally paranoid. He saw conspiracies everywhere and did whatever it took to keep his power. Herod went through ten wives, and everybody is sure he had the second one, Mariamne, murdered. I suppose you can understand him, he came to power in an absolute cesspool of intrigue, Rome’s political football in the game of Empire, with accusations and assassinations the order of the day. The two sons he had executed the year I started my career were Mariamne’s sons, too, and they understandably had some mixed feelings about dear old Dad. And then Herod’s oldest son, Antipater, made a clumsy attempt to poison him and was sentenced to death after an open-and-shut trial before the governor of Syria. Ironically, the sentence was carried out only five days before Herod’s own death.
His death unleashed a series of riots that took two months for the Romans to put down.
Anyway the reason that all of this is still so interesting today is that all of these
local rulers kings, governors, tetrarchs or what have you, had a very hard time balancing between Rome’s demands and the Jewish people’s religious sensitivities. You see, Herod wasn’t really Jewish, but Idumean, and his feeble
attempt to marry into the legitimate line of Jewish kings and priests became sort of implausible after Mariamne was killed. And it got worse after her sons were killed. He kept trying to do things to win back the favor of the religious Jews, but blew it over and over again by trying at the same time to meet Rome’s demands. For instance: Herod rebuilt the Jewish temple. You have never seen a more magnificent building, even in Rome itself. The rabbis say “he who has never seen the temple pf Herod has never seen a beautiful building,” and they view its construction as an attempt to atone for having killed so many of their religious leaders during his rise to power.
And all of Palestine prospered once the big power struggles between Egypt and Rome - and within Rome itself, of course - were over. There were construction jobs going begging, and all the other little businesses thrive when men have money in their pockets; weavers and bakers and blacksmiths and fishermen were all enjoying a boom.
But these Judeans are a strange people. They’re religious fanatics, to be blunt, and mere economic considerations don’t seem to matter when they think their god has been insulted. And not only was Herod pretty nearly tone deaf when it came to the little nuances of faith, he actually preferred the Hellenistic culture, and did some really dumb things like build a temple honoring the Emperor Augustus up in Caesar Philippi. Not even remitting a third of their taxes mollified the people. Even worse than that, though, was when he put [up a Roman eagle on the gate of the temple in Jerusalem. A pair of rabbis had the eagle pulled down while Herod was out of town, visiting the hot springs for his health, and when he found out what they had done he had them burned alive and ordered the eagle replaced.
Absolutely everyone hated him by then. Except perhaps the Romans. And so to make sure everyone mourned him when he died, instead of dancing in the streets for joy, the king ordered his sister and brother-in-law Salome and Alexas to have all the Jewish leaders in the country killed when he died. He planned ahead, inviting them all to Jerusalem for a conference and having them imprisoned as soon as they entered the city. Knowing which side their bread was buttered on, after Herod collapsed right there in the hippodrome, the royal pair set the Jewish leaders free instead, thus ensuring their own survival. There were riots, of course, since it was Passover and people were still pretty steamed over the eagle over the temple gates. Herod’s son Archelaus had to kill 3000 of them before they cooled off. I’ve been ducking around the worst scandal, though, although you really do need to understand the context. The rest is all politics. Herod was no worse than many of the local kings and better than most. And half the gossip about his political shenanigans was just that, gossip. But there was one incident that noone ever dared to talk about. I knew about it because I was there the day the eastern astronomers showed up, and later conferred with trusted inside sources who swear to this day that what I’m about to tell you is absolutely true.
It happened like this. Herod’s chamberlain came rushing into the great hall where Herod was receiving some minor diplomats from - I think - Cyprus - and after whispering in Herod’s ear ushered in three elderly men in Persian garb who prostrated themselves according to their custom and begged a hearing. They told the King that, according to their astrological calculations, a new Jewish king was either going to be born soon, or had already been born. Sure that such an event would be known to the current king, they asked, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." [v. 2] Now this would have alarmed Herod no matter what else had been going on, but what with the recent spate of plots and counter-plots he went absolutely ballistic. And of course the people had already heard the rumors, apparently the three sages had been asking their questions openly in the streets. And so they had started to gather around the palace gates clamoring to know what was going on. So King Herod called together all the chief priests and scribes and demanded to know where the Messiah was supposed to be born.
Well, this was a new one to me. Of course all kings wind up being anointed when they are crowned - that’s what Messiah means, you know, anointed - but this sounded like some sort of religious prophecy, an oracle like the Roman sibyls or the Greek one at Delphi. And given Herod’s usual contempt for the peoples’ religious sensibilities it was really out of character for him to pay any attention to it. Perhaps something in him knew he wasn’t long for this world, and worries about the next one were beginning to make themselves felt. I really couldn’t say. Of course if this really was the savior king that the religious fanatics had been heralding for years then Herod’s premonition of impending doom was absolutely spot on, but if it wasn’t, what was the big deal? Personally, I think Herod really thought this might be the real thing. But if so, why did he try to frustrate the will of the God the Jewish people claimed was in charge of the whole universe? You’d think instead he’d be down at the temple groveling to the priests, making spectacular donations to the temple coffers and generally jumping through hoops to be cleansed.
But that’s not what he did.
What he did, instead, was to order a deed so horrible that as far as I know no one up to know has dared let the secret out. He sent out his personal guard to Bethlehem, a little town about two days’ walk from Jerusalem - did I tell you that’s where the rabbis said the prophecy foretold the Messiah would be born? - with orders to kill every male child in and around the town who was two years old and under. They came back in five days and reported the job done.
All of Herod’s other murders and executions had some evidence, some purpose, some real danger behind them. His sons really were conspiring against him, and so, probably, had been his wife Mariamne as well as the last few members of the royal and priestly lines. But this was madness. To commit such a sacrilege against the gods when he would be dying before any of those babies grew up to be a real danger?
I think Herod was absolutely terrified that the god of the Jews was real after all, and that his sins could never be paid for. What folly! I’m not a religious man myself, but it doesn’t hurt to toss in a few coins on a feast day, just in case, and one certainly doesn’t spit on their priests or writings. Or whatever the local equivalent is. I wonder, some days, if there really was a king born that day; eastern wise men have an uncanny reputation. Do you suppose the baby escaped? I wonder if I’ll ever know. Maybe it’s this new rabbi that seems to have replaced John the Baptizer in the affections of the people. He’s certainly strange enough. But this Jeshua is from Nazareth, after all, not Bethlehem, so probably not.
This is Aristarchus Vero, signing off for MNN.
