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1. And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and after
the acts already mentioned, undertook a very great work, that is,
to build of himself the temple of God, and make it larger in
compass, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as
esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions, as it
really was, to bring it to perfection; and that this would be
sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him; but as he knew the
multitude were not ready nor willing to assist him in so vast a
design, he thought to prepare them first by making a speech to
them, and then set about the work itself; so he called them
together, and spake thus to them: "I think I need not speak to
you, my countrymen, about such other works as I have done since I
came to the kingdom, although I may say they have been performed
in such a manner as to bring more security to you than glory to
myself; for I have neither been negligent in the most difficult
times about what tended to ease your necessities, nor have the
buildings. I have made been so proper to preserve me as
yourselves from injuries; and I imagine that, with God's
assistance, I have advanced the nation of the Jews to a degree of
happiness which they never had before; and for the particular
edifices belonging to your own country, and your own cities, as
also to those cities that we have lately acquired, which we have
erected and greatly adorned, and thereby augmented the dignity of
your nation, it seems to me a needless task to enumerate them to
you, since you well know them yourselves; but as to that
undertaking which I have a mind to set about at present, and
which will be a work of the greatest piety and excellence that
can possibly be undertaken by us, I will now declare it to you.
Our fathers, indeed, when they were returned from Babylon, built
this temple to God Almighty, yet does it want sixty cubits of its
largeness in altitude; for so much did that first temple which
Solomon built exceed this temple; nor let any one condemn our
fathers for their negligence or want of piety herein, for it was
not their fault that the temple was no higher; for they were
Cyrus, and Darius the son of Hystaspes, who determined the
measures for its rebuilding; and it hath been by reason of the
subjection of those fathers of ours to them and to their
posterity, and after them to the Macedonians, that they had not
the opportunity to follow the original model of this pious
edifice, nor could raise it to its ancient altitude; but since I
am now, by God's will, your governor, and I have had peace a long
time, and have gained great riches and large revenues, and, what
is the principal filing of all, I am at amity with and well
regarded by the Romans, who, if I may so say, are the rulers of
the whole world, I will do my endeavor to correct that
imperfection, which hath arisen from the necessity of our
affairs, and the slavery we have been under formerly, and to make
a thankful return, after the most pious manner, to God, for what
blessings I have received from him, by giving me this kingdom,
and that by rendering his temple as complete as I am able."
2. And this was the speech which Herod made to them; but still
this speech aftrighted many of the people, as being unexpected by
them; and because it seemed incredible, it did not encourage
them, but put a damp upon them, for they were afraid that he
would pull down the whole edifice, and not be able to bring his
intentions to perfection for its rebuilding; and this danger
appeared to them to be very great, and the vastness of the
undertaking to be such as could hardly be accomplished. But while
they were in this disposition, the king encouraged them, and told
them he would not pull down their temple till all things were
gotten ready for building it up entirely again. And as he
promised them this beforehand, so he did not break his word with
them, but got ready a thousand waggons, that were to bring stones
for the building, and chose out ten thousand of the most skillful
workmen, and bought a thousand sacerdotal garments for as many of
the priests, and had some of them taught the arts of
stone-cutters, and others of carpenters, and then began to build;
but this not till every thing was well prepared for the work.
3. So Herod took away the old foundations, and laid others, and
erected the temple upon them, being in length a hundred cubits,
and in height twenty additional cubits, which [twenty], upon the
sinking of their foundations fell down; and this part it was
that we resolved to raise again in the days of Nero. Now the
temple was built of stones that were white and strong, and each
of their length was twenty-five cubits, their height was eight,
and their breadth about twelve; and the whole structure, as also
the structure of the royal cloister, was on each side much lower,
but the middle was much higher, till they were visible to those
that dwelt in the country for a great many furlongs, but chiefly
to such as lived over against them, and those that approached to
them. The temple had doors also at the entrance, and lintels over
them, of the same height with the temple itself. They were
adorned with embroidered veils, with their flowers of purple, and
pillars interwoven; and over these, but under the crown-work, was
spread out a golden vine, with its branches hanging down from a
great height, the largeness and fine workmanship of which was a
surprising sight to the spectators, to see what vast materials
there were, and with what great skill the workmanship was done.
He also encompassed the entire temple with very large cloisters,
contriving them to be in a due proportion thereto; and he laid
out larger sums of money upon them than had been done before him,
till it seemed that no one else had so greatly adorned the temple
as he had done. There was a large wall to both the cloisters,
which wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever
heard of by man. The hill was a rocky ascent, that declined by
degrees towards the east parts of the city, till it came to an
elevated level. This hill it was which Solomon, who was the first
of our kings, by Divine revelation, encompassed with a wall; it
was of excellent workmanship upwards, and round the top of it. He
also built a wall below, beginning at the bottom, which was
encompassed by a deep valley; and at the south side he laid rocks
together, and bound them one to another with lead, and included
some of the inner parts, till it proceeded to a great height, and
till both the largeness of the square edifice and its altitude
were immense, and till the vastness of the stones in the front
were plainly visible on the outside, yet so that the inward parts
were fastened together with iron, and preserved the joints
immovable for all future times. When this work [for the
foundation] was done in this manner, and joined together as part
of the hill itself to the very top of it, he wrought it all into
one outward surface, and filled up the hollow places which were
about the wall, and made it a level on the external upper
surface, and a smooth level also. This hill was walled all round,
and in compass four furlongs, [the distance of] each angle
containing in length a furlong: but within this wall, and on the
very top of all, there ran another wall of stone also, having, on
the east quarter, a double cloister, of the same length with the
wall; in the midst of which was the temple itself. This cloister
looked to the gates of the temple; and it had been adorned by
many kings in former times; and round about the entire temple
were fixed the spoils taken from barbarous nations; all these had
been dedicated to the temple by Herod, with the addition of those
he had taken from the Arabians.
4. Now on the north side [of the temple] was built a citadel,
whose walls were square, and strong, and of extraordinary
firmness. This citadel was built by the kings of the Asamonean
race, who were also high priests before Herod, and they called it
the Tower, in which were reposited the vestments of the high
priest, which the high priest only put on at the time when he was
to offer sacrifice. These vestments king Herod kept in that
place; and after his death they were under the power of the
Romans, until the time of Tiberius Caesar; under whose reign
Vitellius, the president of Syria, when he once came to
Jerusalem, and had been most magnificently received by the
multitude, he had a mind to make them some requital for the
kindness they had shewn him; so, upon their petition to have
those holy vestments in their own power, he wrote about them to
Tiberius Caesar, who granted his request: and this their power
over the sacerdotal vestments continued with the Jews till the
death of king Agrippa; but after that, Cassius Longinus, who was
president of Syria, and Cuspius Fadus, who was procurator of
Judea, enjoined the Jews to reposit those vestments in the tower
of Antonia, for that they ought to have them in their power, as
they formerly had. However, the Jews sent ambassadors to Claudius
Caesar, to intercede with him for them; upon whose coming, king
Agrippa, junior, being then at Rome, asked for and obtained the
power over them from the emperor, who gave command to Vitellius,
who was then commander in Syria, to give it them accordingly.
Before that time they were kept under the seal of the high
priest, and of the treasurers of the temple; which treasurers,
the day before a festival, went up to the Roman captain of the
temple guards, and viewed their own seal, and received the
vestments; and again, when the festival was over, they brought it
to the same place, and showed the captain of the temple guards
their seal, which corresponded with his seal, and reposited them
there. And that these things were so, the afflictions that
happened to us afterwards [about them] are sufficient evidence.
But for the tower itself, when Herod the king of the Jews had
fortified it more firmly than before, in order to secure and
guard the temple, he gratified Antonius, who was his friend, and
the Roman ruler, and then gave it the name of the Tower of
Antonia.
5. Now in the western quarters of the enclosure of the temple
there were four gates; the first led to the king's palace, and
went to a passage over the intermediate valley; two more led to
the suburbs of the city; and the last led to the other city,
where the road descended down into the valley by a great number
of steps, and thence up again by the ascent for the city lay over
against the temple in the manner of a theater, and was
encompassed with a deep valley along the entire south quarter;
but the fourth front of the temple, which was southward, had
indeed itself gates in its middle, as also it had the royal
cloisters, with three walks, which reached in length from the
east valley unto that on the west, for it was impossible it
should reach any farther: and this cloister deserves to be
mentioned better than any other under the sun; for while the
valley was very deep, and its bottom could not be seen, if you
looked from above into the depth, this further vastly high
elevation of the cloister stood upon that height, insomuch that
if any one looked down from the top of the battlements, or down
both those altitudes, he would be giddy, while his sight could
not reach to such an immense depth. This cloister had pillars
that stood in four rows one over against the other all along, for
the fourth row was interwoven into the wall, which [also was
built of stone]; and the thickness of each pillar was such, that
three men might, with their arms extended, fathom it round, and
join their hands again, while its length was twenty-seven feet,
with a double spiral at its basis; and the number of all the
pillars [in that court] was a hundred and sixty-two. Their
chapiters were made with sculptures after the Corinthian order,
and caused an amazement [to the spectators], by reason of the
grandeur of the whole. These four rows of pillars included three
intervals for walking in the middle of this cloister; two of
which walks were made parallel to each other, and were contrived
after the same manner; the breadth of each of them was thirty
feet, the length was a furlong, and the height fifty feet; but
the breadth of the middle part of the cloister was one and a half
of the other, and the height was double, for it was much higher
than those on each side; but the roofs were adorned with deep
sculptures in wood, representing many sorts of figures. The
middle was much higher than the rest, and the wall of the front
was adorned with beams, resting upon pillars, that were
interwoven into it, and that front was all of polished stone,
insomuch that its fineness, to such as had not seen it, was
incredible, and to such as had seen it, was greatly amazing. Thus
was the first enclosure. In the midst of which, and not far from
it, was the second, to be gone up to by a few steps: this was
encompassed by a stone wall for a partition, with an inscription,
which forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death. Now
this inner enclosure had on its southern and northern quarters
three gates [equally] distant one from another; but on the east
quarter, towards the sun-rising, there was one large gate,
through which such as were pure came in, together with their
wives; but the temple further inward in that gate was not allowed
to the women; but still more inward was there a third [court of
the] temple, whereinto it was not lawful for any but the priests
alone to enter. The temple itself was within this; and before
that temple was the altar, upon which we offer our sacrifices and
burnt-offerings to God. Into none of these three did king Herod
enter, for he was forbidden, because he was not a priest.
However, he took care of the cloisters and the outer enclosures,
and these he built in eight years.
6. But the temple itself was built by the priests in a year and
six months; upon which all the people were full of joy; and
presently they returned thanks, in the first place, to God; and
in the next place, for the alacrity the king had showed. They
feasted and celebrated this rebuilding of the temple: and for the
king, he sacrificed three hundred oxen to God, as did the rest
every one according to his ability; the number of which
sacrifices is not possible to set down, for it cannot be that we
should truly relate it; for at the same time with this
celebration for the work about the temple fell also the day of
the king's inauguration, which he kept of an old custom as a
festival, and it now coincided with the other, which coincidence
of them both made the festival most illustrious.
7. There was also an occult passage built for the king; it led
from Antonia to the inner temple, at its eastern gate; over which
he also erected for himself a tower, that he might have the
opportunity of a subterraneous ascent to the temple, in order to
guard against any sedition which might be made by the people
against their kings. It is also reported, that during the
time that the temple was building, it did not rain in the
daytime, but that the showers fell in the nights, so that the
work was not hindered. And this our fathers have delivered to us;
nor is it incredible, if any one have regard to the
manifestations of God. And thus was performed the work of the
rebuilding of the temple.
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