Commentary Upon Acts, Part 1 – Part 1
PART I. Affaires of Rome.
Sect. I. Thanklesse officiousnesse.
OF the state and occurrences of the Church this instant yeere, there is neither any particular given by S. Luke, nor any else where to bee found in Scripture, save onelyonly what may be collected from the words of Paul concerning himselfe, namely that he is this yeere either in Arabia or Damascus or both spending one part of it in the one place; and the other in the other. The Church (now this great persecutor is turned Preacher) injoyed no doubt a great deale of ease in the ceasing of the persecution, and benefit by the earnestnesse of his ministery. And so let us leave her to her peace and comfortable times now growing on, and turne our story to the Romans.
Tiberius his reign being now come to the twentieth yeer, the present Consuls L. Vitellius, and Fabius Priscus, do prorogate or proclaime his rule for ten yeers longer. A ceremony used by Augustus, whensoever hee came to a tenth yeer of his reign, but by Tiberius there was not the like cause. One would have thought the twenty yeers past of his inhumane and barbarous reigne should have given the City more then enough of such an Emperour: and have caused her to have longed rather for his end then to have prolonged his dominion. But shee will make a virtue now or complement rather of necessity, and will get thanks of him for continuing of that which shee cannot shake off, and is willing that he shall reign still, because she knew he would do so whether shee will or no. It is the forlorne way of currying favour, to please a man in his owne humour, when we dare not crosse it. The flattering Consuls received a reward befitting such unnecessary officiousnesse, for they kept the feast, saith Dion, that was used upon such occasions, and were punished. Not with death, for the next yeer you shall have Vitellius in Iudea, but with some other infliction which it may bee was pretended for some other reason, but intended and imposed upon a profound policy. For while they thus took on them to confirme his rule they did but shake his title as he conceived, and told him a riddle that hee reigned by their courtesie and not by his own interest: but when hee punished them that would take on them to confirme this superioritie hee proved it independent, and not pinned upon their will.
Sect. II. Cruelties.
The veine of the Citie that was opened so long agoe, doth bleed still and still as fresh as ever. For Slaughter saith Tacitus was continuall, and Dion addeth that none of them that were accused were acquitted, but all condemned: some upon the letters of Tiberius, others upon the impeachment of Macro (of whom hereafter,) and the rest onelyonly upon suspition. Some were ended by the executioner, others ended themselves by their own hands, the Emperor all this while keeping out of the Citie, and that, as was thought, lest he should be ashamed of such doings there. Among those that perished by their owne hands was Pomponius Labeo, and his wife Paxaea, who being accused for corruption in his government of Maesia, cut his own veines and bled to death, and his wife accompanied him in the same fatall end. To the like end, but upon different occasions and accusations came Mamercus Scaurus and his wife Sexitia. He some yeers before having escaped narrowly with life upon a charge of treason, is now involved againe in other accusations, as of Adultery with Livilla, magicall practices, and (not the least) for libelling against Tiberius. For having made a Tragedy which he titled Atreus, and in the same, bringing him in, advising one of his subjects in the words of Euripides, That he should beare with the folly of the Prince: Tiberius not so guilty indeed of such a taxation of being a foole, as ready to take on to bee guilty, that he might have the better vie against the Author, personated the matter to himselfe, crying out that Scaurus had made him a bloody Atreus, but that hee would make an Ai…x of him again: which accordingly came to passe: for the Tragedian to prevent the executioner, acted his own tragedy, and died by his own hand, his wife being both incourager and companion with him in the same death. But among these lamentable spectacles so fearfull and so frequent, it was some contentment to see the accusers still involved in the like miseries with those whom they had accused: for that malady of accusing was growne Epidemicall and infectious, sparing none, and as it were catching one of another. The tokens hereof appeared in the banishment of Servilius and Cornelius the accusers of Scaurus, and of Abudius Rufo that had done the like by Lentulus Getulicus. This Getulicus was then commander of the Legions in Germany, and being charged with so much intimacy with Seianus, as that hee intended to have married his daughter to Sejanus his sonne, hee quitted himselfe by a confident letter to Tiberius. In which hee pleadeth that his familiarity and alliance to Sejanus had begun by the Emperours owne advice and privacy: and he was so farre from crouching, that he profereth termes of partition to Tiberius, namely that hee should enjoy the Empire, and himself would enjoy the Province where he was: This it was to have armes and armies at his disposall, for, for all this affront, the Emperour is necessarily calme, considering partly his owne age, partly the hatred of the people, but chiefly, that he stood in that height and sway and power that he was in rather by the timorous opinion of others then by any strength or firmnesse of his owne.
This yeer there arose a feigned Drusus in Greece: a man as it seemed, neither led by common policie that might have told him, that so great a Prince of Rome could not possibly have been so long obscured, nor by common opinion which greatly suspected, that Drusus was made away by the Emperours own consent: He found a party as inconsiderate as himselfe, for he was intertained by the Cities of Greece and Ionia, and furnished with aid, and had like to have come into Syria and surprized the forces there, had hee not been descried, taken and sent to Tiberius.
To conclude with some other raritie, besides these of crueltie, there was seen a Phoenix in Egypt this yeer, as Tacitus hath laid it, (but as Dion two yeers after) which then exercised the wits of the Philosophicall Greeks interpreting the presage either to the State or to the Emperour as their fancy led them: and in after times it exercised the pens of Christians, applying it as an Embleme of the resurrection of Christ.
PART II. The Affaires of the Iewes.
Sect. A commotion of the Iewes caused by Pilate.
BEsides the tumult mentioned before, caused by Pilate among the Jewes about some images of Cesar, Iosephus hath also named another raised by the same Spleene and rancour of his, against that people, which because Eusebius hath placed it at this yeer, bee it recommended to the reader upon his Chronology, Pilate a constant enemy to the nation of which hee was governour, sought and dogged all occasions whereby to provoke them to displeasure, that the displeasure might provoke them to do something that would redound to their owne disadvantage. At this time he took in hand a great worke of an Aquaeduct, or watercourse, to Ierusalem, to bring the water thither from a place two hundred furlongs or five and twenty miles off, (as Iosephus reckoneth it in one place, but in another he crosseth himself, and doubleth the measure to foure hundred) and for this purpose hee took the money out of their Corban or holy treasure to expend upon this his fancy. The people displeased with what was done come together by multitudes, some crying out against the work, and others plainly against Pilate. For they of old did know his conditions, that his affection was not so much to the people or to do them good by his Aquaeduct, as it was to tyrannize over their consciences which were nailed to their ancient rights and rites. But he suborning some of his Souldiers in the common garbe and garments, and they hiding clubs under their coates disposed themselves so about the multitude that they had them within them. And then, when the people continued still in their outrage and rayling, upon a signall given, they fall upon them, and beate without distinction all before them, both those that were seditious and those that were not: so that many died in the place and the rest departed away sore wounded. This is the tenour of th story in Iosephus in Antiq. lib. 18. cap. 4. & Bell. Iudaic. lib. 2. cap. 14. In the allegation of which History by Baronius, to omit his placing of it in the first yeer of Pilate about which he sheweth himselfe indifferent, I cannot passe these two things without observing. 1. That he saith that Pilate took the head of his watercourse three hundred furlongs off, whereas in the Greek there is no such summe in either of the places where the story is related, but in the one, two hundred and in the other foure. 2. That whereas the Greek readeth the transition to the next story, de Bell. Iud. l. 2. cap. 15. foreign, &c. At that time Agrippa the accuser of Herod went to Tiberius, &c. His Latin readeth it, Atque ab hoc accusator Herodis Agrippa, &c. losing both scantling of the time which the Author hath given & Eusebius followed, and seeming to bring Agrippa to Rome about this matter of Pilate.
In the twentieth yeere of Tiberius hath the same Iosephus placed the death of Philip the Tetrarch, although hee hath named it after the entrance of Vitellius upon the government of Syria, which was in the next yeere; but such transpositions are no strange things with him. This Philip was Tetrarch of Trachonitis, Gaulonitis, and Batanaea, he died in the Citie Iulias and was interred with a great deale of funerall pompe. His tetrarchy was added to Syria, but the tributes of it were reserved within it self.
THE CHRISTIAN HISTORY, THE JEWISH and the ROMAN. FOR The Yeare of Christ 36. And of Tiberius 21. Being the Yeare of the World 3963. And of the City of Rome, 788. Consuls
C. Cestius Gallus.
M. Servilius Rufus.
London, Printed by R. C. for Andrew Crooke, 1645.
PART I.
Sect. Affaires of the Iewes, Vitellius their Friend.
VItellius the last yeers Consul a… Rome is sent this yeer Proconsul into Syria, to govern that and Iudea which was incorporated into that Province. A man more Honorable abroad then at his owne doors, renowned in his youth, but ignominious in his old age, brave in ruling in forain parts, but base in officiousnesse and flattery at Rome. At the time of the Passeover, he commeth up to Ierusalem, whether induced by curiositie to see the festivall, or by the opportunity of the concourse, to behold the whole body of his dominion collected in so small a compasse, and to disperse among them his commands, or for what other cause let him keep it to himselfe: But so well did he like his intertainment, and the people that had given it him, that hee remitted to all the inhabitants, the Toll or Impost of all the fruits bought and sold: and hee permitted to the Priests the keeping of the High-Priests garments, which alate had been in the custody of the Romans. For Hyrcanus the first of that name, having built a tower neer unto the Temple, and living in it himself, and after him, some of his successors, he laid up there those holy garments, which they onelyonly might weare as in a place most convenient, both where to put them on when they came into the Temple, and to put them off when they went into the Citie. But Herod in after times seising upon that tower and repairing it, and naming it Antonia in honour of the great Antony, hee seised also upon the custody of those robes, when hee found them there, and so also did Archelaus, his sonne. But the Romans deposing of Archelaus and usurping his whole dominion (if reassuming of that which they had bestowed before, may bee called usurpation) they also as hee had done, kept these sacred garments under their hands: Laying them up in a roome under the seales of the Priests, and the keepers of the treasury: and the keeper of the Tower set up a Candle there every day. Seven dayes before any of the feasts, they were delivered out by the same keeper, and purified because they came out of heathen hands, and used the first day of the feast, and restored the second, and laid up as before. Vitellius graciously restored the custody of them to the Priests as had been used of old. But Ioseph who was also called Caiaphas who should have first worn them after, was removed by him from the high priest-hood, and Ionathan the sonne of Ananus placed in his stead. And thus is one of the unjust Judges of our Saviour judged himself, and the next yeere, and by this same Vitellius wee shall have the other judged also.