(22) We have here one eminent example of Nero's mildness and goodness in his government towards the Jews, during the first five years of his reign, so famous in antiquity; we have perhaps another in Josephus's own Life, sect.3; and a third, though of a very different nature here, in sect.9, just before.However, both the generous acts of kindness were obtained of Nero by his queen Poppea, who was a religious lady, and perhaps privately a Jewish proselyte, and so were not owing entirely to Nero's own goodness.
(23) It hence evidently appears that Sadducees might be high priests in the days of Josephus, and that these Sadducees were usually very severe and inexorable judges, while the Pharisees were much milder, and more merciful, as appears by Reland's instances in his note on this place, and on Josephus's Life, sect.31, and those taken from the New Testament, from Josephus himself, and from the Rabbins; nor do we meet with any Sadducees later than this high priest in all Josephus.
(24) Of this condemnation of James the Just, and its causes, as also that he did not die till long afterwards, see Prim.Christ.
Revived, vol.III.ch.43-46.The sanhedrim condemned our Savior, but could not put him to death without the approbation of the Roman procurator; nor could therefore Ananias and his sanhedrim do more here, since they never had Albinus's approbation for the putting this James to death.
(25) This Ananias was not the son of Nebedeus, as I take it, but he who was called Annas or Ananus the elder, the ninth in the catalogue, and who had been esteemed high priest for a long time;and, besides Caiaphas, his son-in-law, had five of his own sons high priests after him, which were those of numbers 11, 14, 15, 17, 24, in the foregoing catalogue.Nor ought we to pass slightly over what Josephus here says of Annas, or Ananias, that he was high priest a long time before his children were so; he was the son of Seth, and is set down first for high priest in the foregoing catalogue, under number 9.He was made by Quirinus, and continued till Ismael, the 10th in number, for about twenty-three years, which long duration of his high priesthood, joined to the successions of his son-in-law, and five children of his own, made him a sort of perpetual high priest, and was perhaps the occasion that former high priests kept their titles ever afterwards; for Ibelieve it is hardly met with be fore him.
(26) This insolent petition of some of the Levites, to wear the sacerdotal garments when they sung hymns to God in the temple, was very probably owing to the great depression and contempt the haughty high priests had now brought their brethren the priests into; of which see ch.8.sect.8, and ch.9, sect.2.
(27) Of these cloisters of Solomon, see the description of the temple, ch.13.They seem, by Josephus's words, to have been built from the bottom of the valley.
(28) See the Life at the beginning of the volume.
(29) What Josephus here declares his intention to do, if God permitted, to give the public again an abridgement of the Jewish War hear of it elsewhere, whether he performed what he now intended or not.Some of the reasons of this design of his might possibly be, his observation of the many errors he had been guilty of in the two first of those seven books of the War, which were written when he was comparatively young, and less acquainted with the Jewish antiquities than he now was, and in which abridgement we might have hoped to find those many passages which himself, as well as those several passages which others refer to, as written by him, but which are not extant in his present works.
However, since many of his own references to what he had written elsewhere, as well as most of his own errors, belong to such early times as could not well come into this abridgement of the Jewish War; and since none of those that quote things not now extant in his works, including himself as well as others, ever cite any such abridgement; I am forced rather to suppose that he never did publish any such work at all; I mean, as distinct from his own Life, written by himself, for an appendix to these Antiquities, and this at least seven years after these Antiquities were finished.Nor indeed does it appear to me that Josephus ever published that other work here mentioned, as intended by him for the public also: I mean the three or four books concerning God and his essence, and concerning the Jewish laws; why, according to them, some things were permitted the Jews, and others prohibited; which last seems to be the same work which Josephus had also promised, if God permitted, at the conclusion of his preface to these Antiquities; nor do I suppose that he ever published any of them.The death of all his friends at court, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and the coming of those he had no acquaintance with to the crown, I mean Nerva and Trajan, together with his removal from Rome to Judea, with what followed it, might easily interrupt such his intentions, and prevent his publication of those works.
End