(36) Agrippa II, Felix and Drusilla
All three characters appear in the Acts. Agrippa II (the son of Agrippa I) with his sister Bernice and Festus, the Roman governor, listened to St. Paul’s defence at Cæsarea (Acts xxv. xxvi.). Felix, the predecessor of Festus, with Drusilla his wife had a private interview with the Apostle; the circumstances of their marriage described below throw light on the governor’s terror “as” Paul “reasoned of righteousness and temperance and the judgement to come” (Acts xxiv. 24 f.).
The influence exercised by the Cypriot sorcerer, Atomos, over the Roman governor, finds a curious parallel in the relations of Elymas and Sergius Paulus (Acts xiii. 6 ff.). The Jewish magician there too resides in Cyprus, and in the “Western” text bears a name strangely similar to that of the friend of Felix (Ετ[ο]ιμας, Etoemas, ib. xiii. 8, cod. D).
The Emperor then |A.D. 52| sent Claudius Felix, the brother of Pallas,[[218]] to take over the administration of Judæa. Moreover, when he had now completed the twelfth year of his reign, |A.D. 53| he bestowed upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and (the region of) Batanæa, adding also Trachonitis, together with the former tetrarchy of Lysanias, namely Abella.[[219]] At the same time he deprived him of the kingdom of Chalcis,[[220]] which he had held for four years.
After receiving this award from Cæsar,[[221]] Agrippa gave his sister Drusilla in marriage to Azizus, king of Emesa,[[222]] on his consenting to be circumcised. Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus, had declined the marriage from reluctance to adopt Jewish practices, although he had previously promised her father that he would do so....
The marriage of Drusilla and Azizus was, however, not long afterwards broken off on the following ground. Drusilla was the most beautiful of women, and Felix, while procurator of Judæa, saw and fell in love with her. He accordingly sent to her one of his friends named Atomos,[[223]] a Jew born in Cyprus, who pretended to be a magician, and tried to persuade her to desert her husband and marry him, promising to make her happy[[224]] if she did not reject him. And she, because she was unhappy in her life[[225]] and desired to escape from her sister Berenice’s envy of her beauty, ...[[226]] was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her race and to marry Felix. By him she bore a son whom she called Agrippa.—Ant. XX. 7. 1 f. (137-143).