5 ([return])
[ See John 2:20. See also another speech of Herod's own to the young men that pulled down his golden eagle from the front of the temple, where he takes notice how the building of the temple cost him a vast sum; and that the Asamoneans, in those one hundred and twenty-five years they held the government, were not able to perform so great a work, to the honor of God, as this was, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 6. sect. 3.]
6 ([return])
[ Dr. Hudson here gives us the words of Suetonius concerning this Nicopolis, when Augustus rebuilt it: "And that the memory of the victory at Actium might be celebrated the more afterward, he built Nicopolis at Actium, and appointed public shows to be there exhibited every fifth year." In August, sect. 18.]
7 ([return])
[ Augustus here calls Julius Cæsar his father, though by birth he was only his uncle, on account of his adoption by him. See the same Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 14. sect. 4.]
8 ([return])
[ This is authentic evidence that the Jews, in the days of Augustus, began to prepare for the celebration of the sabbath at the ninth hour on Friday, as the tradition of the elders did, it seems, then require of them.]
9 ([return])
[ The remaining part of this chapter is remarkable, as justly distinguishing natural justice, religion, and morality, from positive institutions in all countries, and evidently preferring the former before the latter, as did the true prophets of God always under the Old Testament, and Christ and his New; whence Josephus seems to have been at this time nearer Christianity than were the Scribes and Pharisees of his age; who, as we know from the New Testament, were entirely of a different opinion and practice.]