Reference: Agrippa

See HEROD 3, 4.

(See HEROD.)

Agrip'pa

Grandson of Herod the Great. His early years were passed as a spendthrift and a wanderer, but at length being at Rome he contrived to win the favour of Caligula who on coming to the throne in A.D. 37, declared Agrippa to be the successor of' Philip the Tetrarch, who had died three years previously. By preferring charges against Antipas, who had married his sister Herodias, Agrippa, got this prince deposed and banished, and in A.D. 39 he succeeded him in the territories of Galilee and Peraea. He was still a guest of Caligula at Rome when that tyrant was cut off in A.D. 41, and having used his influence in the election of Caligula's successor Claudius, this emperor not only confirmed the previous grants, but added those of Judaea, Samaria, and Abilene, so that his possessions were nearly identical with those of his grandfather Herod the Great. He was in these possessions when we read of him in the New Testament as 'Herod the king,' Acts 12. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and because he saw it pleased the Jews he seized Peter also. This happened about A.D. 43, and within a year the king, allowing himself to be called a god, was smitten by the Almighty and died a miserable death. The account given by Josephus as to Agrippa's administrative qualities, his exertions for the Jews whilst at Rome, and his desires to strengthen and embellish Jerusalem, may be true; but his seizing the apostles to please the Jews stamps him as one unfitted to rule, while his overweening pride in the last scene of his life made him the just object of the wrath of Him who will not give His glory to another.

Agrip'pa

[HEROD]

See Herod

AGRIPPA, surnamed Herod, the son of Aristobulus and Mariamne, and grandson of Herod the Great, was born A.M. 3997, three years before the birth of our Saviour, and seven years before the vulgar aera. After the death of his father Aristobulus, Josephus informs us that Herod, his grandfather, took care of his education, and sent him to Rome to make his court to Tiberius. Agrippa, having a great inclination for Caius, the son of Germanicus, and grandson of Antonia, chose to attach himself to this prince, as if he had some prophetic views of the future elevation of Caius, who at that time was beloved by all the world. The great assiduity and agreeable behaviour of Agrippa so far won upon this prince, that he was unable to live without him. Agrippa, being one day in conversation with Caius, was overheard by one Eutychus, a slave whom Agrippa had emancipated, to say that he should be glad to see the old emperor take his departure for the other world and leave Caius master of this, without meeting with any obstacle from the emperor's grandson, Tiberius Nero. Eutychus, some time after this, thinking he had reason to be dissatisfied with Agrippa, communicated the conversation to the emperor; whereupon Agrippa was loaded with fetters, and committed to the custody of an officer. Soon after this, Tiberius dying, and Caius Caligula succeeding him, the new emperor heaped many favours and much wealth upon Agrippa, changed his iron fetters into a chain of gold, set a royal diadem on his head, and gave him the tetrarchy which Philip, the son of Herod the Great, had been possessed of, that is, Batanaea and Trachonitis. To this he added that of Lysanias; and Agrippa returned very soon into Judea, to take possession of his new kingdom. The emperor Caius, desiring to be adored as a god, commanded to have his statue set up in the temple of Jerusalem. But the Jews opposed this design with so much resolution, that Petronius was forced to suspend his proceedings in this affair, and to represent, in a letter to the emperor, the resistance he met with from the Jews. Agrippa, who was then at Rome, coming to the emperor at the very time he was reading the letter, Caius told him that the Jews were the only people of all mankind who refused to own him for a deity; and that they had taken arms to oppose his resolution. At these words Agrippa fainted away, and, being carried home to his house, continued in that state for a long time. As soon as he was somewhat recovered, he wrote a long letter to Caius, wherein he endeavoured to soften him; and his arguments made such an impression upon the emperor's mind, that he desisted, in appearance, from the design which he had formed of setting up his statue in the temple. Caius being killed in the beginning of the following year, A.D. 41, Agrippa, who was then at Rome, contributed much by his advice to maintain Claudius in possession of the imperial dignity, to which he had been advanced by the army. The emperor, as an acknowledgment for his kind offices, gave him all Judea, and the kingdom of Chalcis, which had been possessed by Herod his brother. Thus Agrippa became of a sudden one of the greatest princes of the east, and was possessed of as much, if not more territory, than had been held by Herod the Great, his grandfather. He returned to Judea, and governed it to the great satisfaction of the Jews. But the desire of pleasing them, and a mistaken zeal for their religion, induced him to put to death the Apostle James, and to cast Peter into prison with the same design; and, but for a miraculous interposition, which, however, produced no effect upon the mind of the tyrant, his hands would have been imbrued in the blood of two Apostles, the memory whereof is preserved in Scripture. At Caesarea, he had games performed in honour of Claudius. Here the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon waited on him to sue for peace. Agrippa being come early in the morning into the theatre, with a design to give them audience, seated himself on his throne, dressed in a robe of silver tissue, worked in the most admirable manner. The rising sun darted his golden beams thereon, and gave it such a lustre as dazzled the eyes of the spectators; and when the king began his speech to the Tyrians and Sidonians, the parasites around him began to say, it was "the voice of a god and not of man." Instead of rejecting these impious flatteries, Agrippa received them with an air of complacency; and the angel of the Lord smote him because he did not give God the glory. Being therefore carried home to his palace, he died, at the end of five days, racked with tormenting pains in his bowels, and devoured with worms. Such was the death of Herod Agrippa, A.D. 44, after a reign of seven years. He left a son of the same name, and three daughters