on his consenting to be circumcised. Epiphanes, son of King Antiochus, had declined the marriage from reluctance to adopt Jewish practices, although he had previously promised her father that he would do so. . . .
The marriage of Drusilla and Azizus was, however, not long afterwards broken off on the following ground. Drusilla was the most beautiful of women, and Felix, while procurator of Judæa, saw and fell in love with her. He accordingly sent to her one of his friends named Atomos,[1] a Jew born in Cyprus, who pretended to be a magician, and tried to persuade her to desert her husband and marry him, promising to make her happy[2] if she did not reject him. And she, because she was unhappy in her life[3] and desired to escape from her sister Berenice's envy of her beauty, . . .[4] was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her race and to marry Felix. By him she bore a son whom she called Agrippa.—Ant. XX. 7. 1 f. (137-143). (37) The Death of James, "the Lord's Brother"
A description of the death by stoning, after a perfunctory trial by
the Sanhedrin, of James "the brother of Jesus who was called
Christ," the head of the early Church in Jerusalem (Acts xv.;
Gal. i. 19).
An alternative melodramatic account of the martyrdom of James—in which he is represented as hurled down from the "pinnacle" of the Temple, stoned, and finally despatched by a fuller's club—is given by Hegesippus (quoted by Euseb. H. E. II. 23).
The account of Josephus seems much the more trustworthy of the two, and there appears to be no reason for questioning its authenticity. As Lightfoot writes, "This notice . . . is probable in itself (which the account of Hegesippus is not), and is such as Josephus might be
- ↑ Some MSS read "Simon."
- ↑ We can hardly miss the Roman's jest on his name: "make a Felix of her."
- ↑ Lit. "faring ill"; Whiston's rendering, "acted wickedly," is scarcely possible.
- ↑ A line of corrupt and unintelligible text follows in Niese's MSS. The older editions read "for she was constantly being ill-treated by her because of her beauty."
