Agrippa

“ It would take long to recount the other men whose names survive for no other reason than that the admirable qualities of their sons have handed them down to posterity. Did the father of Marcus Agrippa, of whom nothing was known, even after Agrippa became famous, confer the greater benefit upon his son, or was that greater which Agrippa conferred upon his father when he gained the glory, unique in the annals of war, of a naval crown, and when he raised so many vast buildings in Rome, which not only surpassed all former grandeur, but have been surpassed by none since? ”

“ Now the centurion who was set to keep Agrippa, when he saw with what haste Marsyas came, and what joy Agrippa had from what he said, he had a suspicion that his words implied some great innovation of affairs, and he asked them about what was said. They at first diverted the discourse; but upon his further pressing, Agrippa, without more ado, told him, for he was already become his friend; so he joined with him in that pleasure which this news occasioned, because it would be fortunate to Agrippa, and made him a supper. ”

“ Agrippa was the most honourable person in the assembly, having the title of king bestowed upon him, though otherwise having only the power of other governors under the emperor, and, though not here superior, yet senior, to Festus; and therefore, Festus having opened the cause, Agrippa, as the mouth of the court, intimates to Paul a licence given him to speak for himself, v. 1. Paul was silent till he had this liberty allowed him; for those are not the most forward to speak that are best prepared to speak and speak best. ”

“ Here Agrippa, whose age and strength made him fearless, seeing that things were going better in all parts of the field than with him, seized standards from the standard-bearers and advanced with them himself, some he even began to throw amongst the masses of the enemy. ”

“ I know that thou believest. 28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. 29 And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. 30 And when he had thus spoken, the king rose, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them: 31 And when they had gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. 32 Then said Agrippa to Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Caesar. ”

“ II. Agrippa is so far from thinking him a madman that he thinks he never heard a man argue more strongly, nor talk more to the purpose.
1. Paul applies himself closely to Agrippa's conscience. Some think Festus was displeased at Paul because he kept his eye upon Agrippa, and directed his discourse to him all along, and that therefore he gave him that interruption, v. 24. But, if that was the thing that affronted him, Paul regards it not: he will speak to those who understand him, and whom he is likely to fasten something upon, and therefore still addresses Agrippa ”

“ From him the Herods called themselves Agrippa; and his daughter was the first of those ladies named Agrippina, whose tragic stories mark the early years of the Roman empire. Cornelius Agrippa was probably assumed by the learned man of Cologne, who has connected it in the popular mind with alchemy and necromancy. St. Agrippina was martyred at Rome under Valerian, and her remains being transferred to Girgenti in Sicily, she became known to the Greeks. Her name is used in Russia in the softened form of Agrafina, and the rude contraction Gruscha or Grunja. ”

“ A Little before the death of Herod the king, Agrippa lived at Rome, and was generally brought up and conversed with Drusus, the emperor Tiberius's son, and contracted a friendship with Antonia, the wife of Drusus the Great, who had his mother Bernice in great esteem, and was very desirous of advancing her son. Now as Agrippa was by nature magnanimous and generous in the presents he made, while his mother was alive, this inclination of his mind did not appear, that he might be able to avoid her anger for such his extravagance ”

“ AGRIPPA. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side, Admir'd Octavia: great Mark Antony Is now a widower.
CAESAR. Say not so, Agrippa: If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof Were well deserv'd of rashness.
ANTONY. I am not married, Caesar: let me hear Agrippa further speak.
AGRIPPA. To hold you in perpetual amity, To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts With an unslipping knot, take Antony Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims No worse a husband than the best of men; Whose virtue and whose general graces speak That which none else can utter. ”

“ With hesitation, he called on a most beautiful woman near the chariot, and commanded her to return the ring to its owner, an order she reluctantly obeyed.
Henry Cornelius Agrippa, who was born at Cologne in 1486, was an astrologer and magician. When travelling, he paid his hotel bills with pieces of horn, which appeared as gold to those to whom they were presented. A foolish fellow entered Agrippa's study, and raised the devil therein during the magician's absence. The novice, being unable to subdue the fiend, lost his life. ”

“ And thus did king Agrippa depart this life. But he left behind him a son, Agrippa by name, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, and three daughters; one of which, Bernice, was married to Herod, his father's brother, and was sixteen years old; the other two, Mariamne and Drusilla, were still virgins; the former was ten years old, and Drusilla six. Now these his daughters were thus espoused by their father; Marlatone to Julius Archelaus Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, the son of Chelcias; and Drusilla to the king of Commagena. ”

“ Some men, by dint of excessive egotism, manage to persuade their contemporaries that they are very great men indeed: they publish their acquirements so loudly in people's ears, and keep up their own praises so incessantly, that the world's applause is actually taken by storm. Such seems to have been the case with Agrippa. He called himself a sublime theologian, an excellent jurisconsult, an able physician, a great philosopher, and a successful alchymist. ”

“ Said Agrippa, "Festus, I should like to hear this man myself."
"All right," said Festus, "tomorrow thou shalt hear him."
A Royal Assembly.
On the morrow, Agrippa and Bernice came with "great pomp;" which means, no doubt, that he dressed in his purple robes and she in her bright jewels, and attended with servants all dressed in gorgeous colors. It was a royal assemblage, and a royal occasion, but the most royal personage among them was the humble prisoner who appeared in chains to plead his innocence and the justice of his cause. ”

“ This Agrippa, overwhelmed by debts, had fled from Palestine to Rome in the latter years of Tiberius. His mother's interest with the widow of Germanicus procured him a special recommendation to her son Caligula. Viewing this child and heir of the popular Germanicus as the rising sun, Agrippa had been too free in his language. True, the uncle of Germanicus was the reigning prince; but he was old, and breaking up. True, the son of Germanicus was not yet on the throne; but he soon would be; and Agrippa was rash enough to call the Emperor a superannuated old fellow, and even to wish for his death. ”

“ Obviously, if Agrippa said Yes, then the next question would be, 'Believest thou the Christ, whose life and death and resurrection thou knowest, and who has fulfilled the prophets thereby?' That would have been a hard question for the king to answer. His conscience begins to be uncomfortable, and his dignity is wounded by this extremely rude person, who ventures to talk to him as if he were a mere common man. He has no better answer ready than a sarcasm; not a very forcible one, betraying, however, his penetration into, and his dislike of, and his embarrassment at, Paul's drift. ”

“ In 12 B.C. Agrippa, the great general of Augustus, to whom he may be almost said to have owed his throne, and who was its chief support, died at the age of fifty-one, leaving Julia, the emperor's only child, a widow. Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa by an earlier marriage, was wife of Tiberius, and had borne him a son, Drusus, afterwards father of Germanicus. Livia with great difficulty prevailed upon Augustus to replace Agrippa by Tiberius, who was compelled to exchange Agrippina for Julia, to his bitter grief. ”

“ Can Rome say worse than these Judeans have shrieked as we rode through the streets? What care I what Roman rabble bawls if I rule Rome? With the army in Titus’ strong hands, the Senate will eat from our hands, whipped curs. Where is Titus? Take me to him, Brother! We can save the last of Herod’s line.”
King Agrippa rose irresolute. The Princess had stung him to action; but one, who must be stung to action, must be kicked on by prods in action.
“That I cannot, Sister Bernice, though you were Queen of Heaven.” King Agrippa began pacing the tent. ”

“ He also conducted him to the city Jerusalem, where all the people met him in their festival garments, and received him with acclamations. Agrippa also offered a hecatomb of sacrifices to God; and feasted the people, without omitting any of the greatest dainties that could be gotten. He also took so much pleasure there, that he abode many days with them, and would willingly have staid longer, but that the season of the year made him make haste away; for as winter was coming on, he thought it not safe to go to sea later, and yet he was of necessity to return again to Ionia. ”

“ Agrippa was well versed in the scriptures of the Old-Testament, and therefore could make a better judgment upon the controversy between him and the Jews concerning Jesus being the Messiah than another could. It is an encouragement to a preacher to have those to speak to that are intelligent, and can discern things that differ. When Paul says, Judge you what I say, yet he speaks as to wise men, 1 Cor. x. 15. 3. He therefore begs that he would hear him patiently, makrothymos— with long suffering. Paul designs a long discourse, and begs that Agrippa will hear him out, and not be weary ”

“ AGRIPPA II., HEROD, tetrarch of Abilene, Galilee, Iturea, and Trachonitis, born in 27 A. D. During his reign he enlarged Cæsarea Philippi and named it Neronias, in honor of Nero. He remained faithful to the Romans, and tried to dissuade the Jews from rebelling. ”

“ Continue your favour, O master, that your Agrippa may not be driven wholly to forsake life; for I shall appear (if you do not do so) to have been released from bondage, not for the purpose of being saved, but for that of being made to perish in a more conspicuous manner. (326) "You have given me the greatest and most glorious inheritance among mankind, the rank and power of a king, at first over one district, then over another and a more important one, adding to my kingdom the district called Trachonitis and Galilee. ”

“ Agrippa called the people together and, taking his seat on a lofty dais, with Bernice by his side, harangued them. He assured them that, when the emperor heard what had been done, he would send a better governor to them, in the place of Florus. He told them that it was vain to hope for independence, for that the Romans had conquered all the nations in the world; and that the Jews could not contend against them, and that war would bring about the destruction of the city, and the Temple. The people exclaimed they had taken up arms, not against the Romans, but against Florus. ”

“ After the demise of Herod II, the Emperor Claudius gave Agrippa the tiny kingdom of Chalcis (about 50) . It was whispered that this last scion of the Hasmonæan and Herodian houses led an incestuous life with his beautiful sister Berenice, who was a year younger than himself, and a widow on the death of her husband, Herod II. There was probably some truth in the rumor, as Agrippa found himself forced to silence it. He betrothed his sister to Polemon, king of Cilicia, who, perhaps allured by her wealth even more than by her beauty, adopted Judaism to obtain her hand. ”

“ Agrippa was ruler of the kingdom of Chalcis, a district north of Palestine and about the Lebanon Range. He was accompanied by his sister Bernice, who afterwards became the mistress of Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem in the last great siege. Festus had already heard St. Paul's case, and had allowed his appeal unto Cæsar. He wished, however, to have his case investigated before two Jewish experts, Agrippa and Bernice, who could instruct his own ignorance on the charges laid against him by the Jews, enabling him to write a more satisfactory report for the Emperor's guidance. ”

“ They said we mountaineers were robbers. We never were. We are shepherds; but I was caught in my father’s caravan. He was the great sheik of the road from Damascus to the East; and Felix gave me to young Agrippa for a toy, a plaything. I was a page to the Princess Bernice when your prisoner Prophet in there made his plea before Agrippa the Young to come to Rome and prove his case; but when the Princess Bernice was sent to Cilicia to marry that old man there, and still the evil tongues about her and her brother ”

“ The Agrippa here spoken of was the son of Herod Agrippa, mentioned in the last article; but that he did not succeed to his father's kingdom, nor ever recovered Judea, which had been a part of it, we learn by the information of Josephus, who relates of him that when his father was dead Claudius intended at first to have put him immediately in possession of his father's dominions; but that, Agrippa being then but seventeen years of age, the emperor was persuaded to alter his mind, and appointed Cuspius Fadus prefect of Judea and the whole kingdom ”