We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how
strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us,
because many of these Essens have, by their excellent virtue, been
thought worthy of this knowledge of Divine revelations.

CHAPTER 11. How Herod Rebuilt The Temple And Raised It Higher And Made
It More Magnificent Than It Was Before; As Also Concerning That Tower
Which He Called Antonia.

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 father