r that
he also was summarily executed. In addition to these troubles Herod was
tormented by remorse for the execution of the murdered Mariamne. He was
the victim of jealousy, suspicion, and wrath. One of his last acts was
the order to destroy the infants in the vicinity of Jerusalem in the
vain hope of destroying the predicted Messiah,--him who should be "born
king of the Jews." He died of a loathsome and excruciating disease, in
his seventieth year, having reigned nearly forty years. His kingdom, by
his will, was divided between the children of his later wife, a
Samaritan woman,--the eldest of whom, Archelaus, became monarch of
Judea; and the second, Antipas, became tetrarch of Galilee. The former
married the widow of his half-brother Alexander, who was executed; and
the latter married Herodias, wife of Philip, also his half-brother.

Archelaus ruled Judaea with such injustice and cruelty, that, after
nine years, he was summoned to Rome and exiled to Vienne in Gaul, and
Judaea became a Roman province under the prefecture of Syria. The
supreme judicial authority was exercised by the Jewish Sanhedrim, the
great ecclesiastical and civil council, composed of seventy-one persons
presided over by the high-priest. The Sanhedrim, under the name of chief
priests, scribes, and elders of the people, now took the lead in all
public transactions pertaining to the internal administration of the
province, being inferior only to the tribunal of the governor, who
resided in Caesarea.

Meanwhile the long expectation of the Jews, especially during the reign
of Herod, of a promised Deliverer, was fulfilled, and one claiming to be
the Messiah appeared,--not a temporal prince and mighty hero of war, a
greater Judas Maccabaeus, as the Jews had supposed, but a helpless
infant, born in a manger, and brought up as a peasant-carpenter. Yet he
it was who should found a spiritual kingdom never to be destroyed, going
on from conquering to conquer, until the whole world shall be subdued.
With the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, in which we see the fulfilment of
all the promises made to the chosen people from Abraham to Isaiah,
Jewish history loses its chief interest. The mission of the Hebrew
nation seems to stand accomplished; the conception of one, holy,
spiritual God was kept alive in the world until, in "the fulness of
time," the mighty Romans subdued and united all lands under one rule,
drawing them nearer together by great highroads; the flexibl