Lecture 23. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Lecture 23. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated

Author

Morais, Sabato

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

12 pages on 5 sheets

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 12, Folder 4

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3cj8848x/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3cj8848x

Provenance

Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx12FF4_3.xml

content

Post Biblical Lecture
23

Why should mortals allow a monster to lodge in their hearts, and tear out of them feelings that beneficent nature has implanted? Why should evny ever gain a mastery over our best th selves, and make us callous to the sufferings which we cause? Herod was extremely wicked, but many of the atrocities which blackened his cha--racter might not have not been committed, if his sister Salome had learnt to put some check on her envious disposition. The exquisite beauty of her brother's wife, the high extraction of that daughter of the Maccabees and the great popularity she enjoyed, were to Salome so many sharp points spurring her on to deeds of destruction.
Herod had left Palestine to meet Octavious Caesar, who was then in Greece, in Rhodes. The king of the Jews presented himself attired in magnificent garments, but without bea wearing his crown. In well chosen language, he acknowledged his former attachment to Mark Antony. He said, that he would deem himself

unworthy of the respect of Octavious, if he denied the sentiments which he had cherished for a former his Roman benefactor, but,--he adroitly added--, the same friendship that he had shown the triumvir, now dispossessed of all power, he was ready to offer in all sincerity to the conqueror, if the latter did not disdainfully respected it. Octavious admired the candor and the dignified bearing of the speaker. He asked Herod to put on the diadem, and to be assured that Rome would not desert him. While this was happening abroad, the Jews at home had hoped and prayed for a different result of their King's vo--yage. They knew that the closer Herod drew to the Romans, the further he moved away from the laws and practices of the people over whom he ruled. Alexandra, the mother of Marianne, doubtless waited with anxiety for the news that her cruel son in law had met with adversity; for, she and her daughter had been kept under guard in a fortress, during his absence. Their keeper was a foreign

officer, called Sohemus, in whom Herod placed implicit confidence, and whom he ordered to kill both his wife and her mother if Octavious should turn his enemy. He returned safe but how very striking was the contrast between the reception which Herod had met among heathens, and that which awaited him in his own dominions! No wel--come was extended to the man who studied to please Romans, but who had only severe mea--sures and taxation for his Hebrew subjects.
But...the wife whom he desperately loved, would she not soften towards him, upon hearing of the high esteem in which he was held by Octavious Caesar, and the notabilities of all Italy? Marianne could not resort to the arts of deception. Too deeply stained with innocent blood was the past, that she might erase it form memory. That terrible past stood there before her in the person of her husband. She repelled him. Giving vent to her pent up feelings, she, imprudently perhaps, reproached Herod of his crimes against her family.

For a year, domestic quarrels continued without abating, and Salome, joined by her mother Cyprus, added fuel to the fire by hints and by open accusations. But shortly after Herod, who had gone to accompany Octavious to Egypt returned came back, the crisis was reached. One day that he2 sent for Marianne in1 a spirit of conciliation, she came entered the room, but kept at a distance, and met his proffers of affection with indignation, and a renewal of the charge of murder. In a paroxysm of anger, he would have struck his wife down on the spot, if her matchless counte--nance did not act as a curb to his violence. But Salome had heard the noise. Quickly she sent in a cup bearer, professing to offer the king a restorative, but which he was instructed to say, it was poison prepared by Marianne. At that, Herod commanded that a faithful servant of the queen be put to the rack. The unfortunate man, in order to spare himself insufferable agonies, falsely stated that the hatred which the queen harbored against the queen, was due to her knowledge of the secret mission.

Which he had given Sohemus. The latter was imme--diately executed on a horrid suspicion, and Marian--ne was summoned before a tribunal, obedient subservient to Herod, and sentenced to die for having attempted to take the life of her husband. We will draw a veil over the last moments of the unhappy Marian--ne--moments the more terrible harrowing, because of the revolting hypocrisy of her mother Alexandra, who thought of averting the same doom by abusing her innocent virtuous daughter, and calling Herod an injured man. In silent dignity, worthy of a Mac--cabean, the victims of Herod's jealousy and of Salome's envy met her sad fate. But no sooner had that lovely head fallen, than Herod gave away to feelings of despair akin to madness. They were aggravated by a pestilence which soon broke out in Judea, and which was generally interpreted as a Divine judgment be--cause of the sins of the king. This, stung with remorse, fell dangerously ill. He was in Samaria, when Alexandra, early expecting to hear the news of his death, plotted to seize some important fortresses.

But Herod was not so sick, as to allow a conspiring to go unpunished. Besides, his dis--position always vindictive, had become more rest relentlessly unforgiving, since Marianne had been sacrificed to it. Alexandra paid with her life for his indiscretion. The next to feel the effect of the king's displeasure was Costabarus governor of Idumea, Salome's second husband. That bad woman, regardless of the laws of her religion and of decency, sent a her husband a bill of divorce, and set her brother against him, because he had secreted the children of an influential Pharisee, opposed to the king and his government; Thus Herod plunged deeper and deeper into a sea of blood.
But a crime most offensive in the eyes of our an--cestors was Herod's his introduction of heathen games in Jerusalem and other cities, and in territories granted him by Octavious Caesar, now emperor Augustus. A theatre was opened in the capital, and an amphitheatre in the suburbs, where athletes play--ed on the unbecoming manners of the time, horse races took place, gladiators fought with wild beasts, and Roman devices, and Roman trophies hung all around.

The extravagance in dresses and in prizes for awarded to the winners of in the games was beyond bounds. These innovations which pleased the foreigners who were attracted by them to Judea, became objects of abhorrence to observant Jews. So irresistibly bec was the opposition felt, that a plot was made to kill the king, while he witnessed the perform--ances at the theatre. One of the conspirators turned informer, but and all were arrested. Nothing daunted, they confessed their intention to ride the country of a ruler who insulted the people by defying their laws and tenets. They bore torments with super--human vigor bravery and died under them, but the spy was found torn to pieces. Then Herod, deter--mined to discover the author of that act of ven--geance, set all the engines of torture to work, and feeling realizing that he was not safe among his sub--jects, surrounded himself with foreign troops. Dread--ing a revolt, he built more fortresses from which he might hurl destruction around amist against the revolutionists, and to curry favor with his patron, he Romanized the country by changing the Hebrew

names of places for Latin names, and paganized the country by audaciously erecting temples in honor of Augustus, where homage was paid to the emperor, as if he were a god. It is not sur--prising that the fame of Herod spread far throughout the world then known, and possessed almost entirely by Rome. But neither can we wonder at his extreme unpopularity at in Judea.
Two events, however, disposed an outraged nation to relent and think well of their Idumean king. The first was occasioned by a national disaster. In the twelfth year of the reign of Herod, a long continued drought brought on famine, and this was followed by pestilence. Poverty Destitution and hunger stared all in the face. Herod who had lavished the people's money in costly buildings for his own aggrandizement, saw with some compunction, per--haps, the starving and the dying. He could not supply food out of an exhausted treasury, but he melted his vessels of silver and gold belonging to him, and bought grain in Egypt, with which he fed over fifty thousand persons.

The second event by which Herod conciliated, for a time at least, many among the Jews, was the following. It will be remembered that Solomon's Temple was built with Eastern magni--ficence, but it is known also that after its destruct--ion by the Babylonians those who reconstructed it, in the days of the Persian monarchs, had but scanty means at their disposal. The Holy House arose again, but in a modest form. No doubt, from time to time it had undergone additions and embel--lishments, but never to a degree that might rival the structure for which King David had ammassed untold sums, and on which his favorite son had bestowed immense labor. Besides, during the seige which Jerusalem sustained at various periods, the second Temple must have suffered considerably. By reason of all that; Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, convened a national assembly, and in a discourse which he knew how elegantly to deliver, he disclosed his desire to raise the Temple on its new foundations, but and with a grandeur that might surpass imagination.

The proposition terrified his hearers. They could not believe in the sincerity of a man who had shocked them with his strong leaning to the habits of polythei--stic Rome. Might he not destroy the habitation of the One loving God, to set up on its Ruin a shrine to Jupiter or Olympus licentious Venus? Herod saw the cause of our father's terror consternation and promised that not a stone of the existing Temple would be touched, till all the materials for the rearing of a larger and a richer one were ready. It took two years only to prepare. A thousand waggons were engaged to bring stone of a marvellous size and rare timber. Ten thousand skilful working men labored inside of the building, and one thousand priests were purposely taught handi--craft, that they alone might work in places inac--cessible to persons not belonging to the Aaromite family. By dint of great industry and alacrity the inte--rior of the Temple proper was finished in eighteen months, but eight years were spent in outdoor work connected with it, and not till long after Herod had died, the whole was brought to completion.

Unworthy of the respect of Octavious, if he The Talmud, which, as it may be easily denied the decline supposed, if not partial to the Idumean ruler, acknowledges nevertheless his good faith and his earnestness in regard to the Temple. It may have been policy--a wish to pacify of an offended people--it may have been a passing sense of repentance, but he certainly displayed genius and generosity in that instance. The architectural beauties of the structure was unequalled by any edifice he had raised. Herod went in secret of the most superb marble, and fitted the sacred fane with a sumptuousness, which, according to Tal--mudists, had to be restrained. Yet, so immutably grave it was, that this adage remained to later ages. [Hebrew] "Whoever has not seen the building erected by Herod, cannot boast of having seen a truly handsome building." The proud King proud of his achievement chose for the day of the dedication, the anniversary of his coronation day, and entered with apparent zeal into the devotional and joyful festivity of that memorable occasion.

Identifier

p3cj8848x

identifier

SMBx12FF4_3