This announcement was made during the reign of Claudius, A. D. 41–54,of which reign Tacitus says that it was distinguished for earthquakes, bad harvests, and general scarcity.[188] The Christians in Antioch, therefore, sent contributions to Jerusalem and commissioned Saul and Barnabas for the purpose of conveying these gifts, Acts 11:29.
For the first time we now read of the term “presbyters” in the Greek, or seniores in the Vulgate translation, and called “elders” in the English version, Acts 11:30.
6. At this time Herod Agrippa (see table page 229) ruled in Judæa. Claudius had known him as an earnest advocate of his rule before his succession to the empire, and he therefore rewarded Herod with the addition of Samaria and Judæa to those possessions of Philip Antipas which he before possessed. Herod had been imprisoned by Tiberius, but Caligula restored him to liberty and presented him with a golden chain of the same weight as the iron one he had worn in prison, and this chain he dedicated to the Temple when, A. D. 42, he arrived in Jerusalem. This Herod courted the favor of the Jews by many public acts. In his time the northern section of Jerusalem, now inclosed with a wall, was a suburb; and he inclosed it and, had not the prefect of Syria compelled him to stop, he would have strengthened all the fortifications of the city.
7. It was evidently, therefore, because it pleased the Jews, and probably at their instigation, that he wilfully put to death James, the son of Zebedee, with the sword and proceeded to perpetrate the same atrocity with Peter, having imprisoned him for that purpose. The history of this act of Herod and of the escape of Peter is given in Acts 12. Herod, being not only disappointed, but evidently alarmed, at the mystery of Peter’s escape, retiredimmediately from Jerusalem to Cæsarea and there met his sudden death, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, after seven years’ reign in Palestine.
8. The dominion of these districts, Judæa, Samaria, and Galilee, now reverted to the prefect of Syria,and they were fully incorporated with the Roman Empire.[189]
JUDÆA, SAMARIA, AND GALILEE.
The boundaries of these districts cannot be exactly traced. Judæa was the most important; and its north border began at the Jordan and probably ran up the valley of the Farah to the Jewish city Akrabeh, thence westward along the course of the valley of the present river Ballut, coming out at the city Antipatris; and although the plain of Sharon was politically a part of Judæa, Herod having possession of the maritime towns, yet strictly the line followed the river out to the sea.
This line formed the north boundary of Judæa and the south boundary of Samaria, in the strictly Jewish sense.
Of Galilee, the south boundary began at the Jordan east of Beth-shean, which was a Samaritan city. It ran along, probably, south of Mt. Gilboa, westward and just north of Jenin, the ancient En-gannim, which was within the Samaritan border, and probablyalong the ridge of Carmel. At the end of the ridge, near the sea, Galilee seems to have claimed the modern Haifa, a village then called Sycaminon, and in this vicinity the seashore was in Galilee. The border line of Galilee thence retired inland, the coast plain belonging to Phœnicia. It then ran northeasterly to the angle formed by the Leontes River, now called the Kasimiyeh, then northward a short distance, and then east by south to Banias, thence southward, including some towns east of the upper Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, forming that part of Galilee called “Galilee beyond Jordan.”
The extreme southern boundary of Judæa, in the political sense, is mentioned in one of the rabbinical writings as from Petra to Ascalon,but Ascalon itself did not belong to Judæa.[190]