It is rather puzzling to find, now and again, in this greatest of all stories, that several different people are called by the same name, and also that the same person is called by different names. Now, besides this Herod of whom we have been talking, there were several others. There was Herod Antipas, his son, before whom Christ was sent by Pontius Pilate, and also there was Herod Agrippa, his grandson, who was king of Judæa for a while, reigning, with such limited power as the Romans allowed him, from A.D. 37 to his death in 44. But for the most part, during all the early years of the Christian Era, Judæa was governed by one or other Roman procurator and was not even in name a kingdom.
Octavius, of whom I have been telling you how he became master of the world, lived till the year 14 A.D. (Anno Domini, or year of our Lord), that is, fourteen years from the date sometimes assigned to our Lord's birth. And now you may be puzzled, because you may remember that it is said in the Bible that a decree went out from Cæsar Augustus, about the time of Christ's birth, that all the world should be taxed. Cæsar Augustus, you see, as Master of the World! The explanation is that Cæsar Augustus and Octavius were one and the same person. He had been adopted as a son by his great-uncle Julius Cæsar, and then had taken the name of Cæsar. Augustus was not a name, but a title, given by the Romans, just as one of the Pompeys, and also one of the Herods, was called Magnus, or the Great. Augustus means the August one—the Magnificent.
I have said that Octavius was a prudent man. He showed his prudence in the way that he allowed Antony, who was imprudent, to do all kinds of foolish things before he set to work to crush his power. He was equally prudent in his dealing with Lepidus, his other rival. And after he had made an end of the power of these two, and was the greatest man in the world, he showed his prudence in refusing to claim any great title which might give any enemies at Rome a chance of saying that he was grasping at power and trying to rule like a despot, as Antony had done. No doubt he remembered what had happened to his great-uncle.
So he maintained many of the forms of the republican government and many of the old titles of the officials of the government, but it was quite evident all the time that he had the real power, and it was not any less real because he did not make a big show of claiming it. No doubt the Romans were all the more ready to leave the real power in his hands on that account. When his old rival Lepidus died he took to himself the high office of Pontifex Maximus which he had allowed Lepidus to hold during his life.
Before his death, having no son of his own at that time alive, he adopted, as the Roman law permitted, his step-son Tiberius as his colleague during his life and as his successor after his death; and the Romans fully approved of his doing so. Thus, when he died in A.D. 14, Tiberius succeeded him as ruler of Rome and of the world. He had not extended the limits of the Roman power, but he had made that power far more secure both in the West and in the East. The Pax Romana had become a far more real peace under him than it had been before.
But there never was any real peace in Judæa for long together. The national sentiment, as we should call it, of the old Jewish party, the Conservatives, who are called Pharisees in the Bible, was too strong for them to be at peace for any length of time under foreign rule. King Agrippa, of whom we were speaking, was a personal friend of both Caius Caligula and of Claudius, the two Roman Emperors who succeeded Tiberius. We may speak of them as Emperors (imperators) by this time, for it was a title which they took without dispute. Agrippa made himself very well liked by the Jews, and it seems to have been to please them that he had St. James beheaded and St. Peter cast into prison, as is told in the Bible. The Bible, too, in the Acts of the Apostles, tells us of his death in the year A.D. 44. He was the last king of the Jews, and at his death Judæa fell again under the government of the procurators.
The procurators of Judæa
The procurators all seem to have been oppressive in their government. Probably their task was a very difficult one. They had to govern a people who all through the story had shown themselves stronger in the independence of their spirit and in following their own ways of life than any other. The force of Roman soldiers of the legions and of allied troops that they had at hand to uphold their authority must have been very small in comparison with the force that the Jews and their friends could muster at short notice. They must have depended a great deal on the fame of the Roman power, and on the knowledge which the Jews must have had that if Rome really cared to take serious measures against them they could have no hope of success. Rome's power, if she cared to exert it, would be overwhelming.
But Rome was far away. Perhaps she would not take the trouble to exert that power.
That is how the Jewish party probably thought about it all; and the procurators and even the kings of Judæa had to try to uphold the Roman power as best they could, and yet to do what they could not to drive the Jews into the rebellion that they were always on the point of making, and now and again actually did make.