Helena and Izates Become Jews

About this time Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates changed their way of life and took up the customs of the Jews. It came about like this. Monobazus, king of Adiabene, who also had the surname Bazaeus, fell in love with his sister Helena, took her as his wife, and made her pregnant. One night, as he lay beside her, he rested his hand on his wife’s belly as he fell asleep, and he seemed to hear a voice telling him to take his hand off her womb and not to crush the infant inside it; for by God’s providence it had been given its beginning, and it would also come to a happy end. Disturbed by the voice, he woke at once and told his wife about it; and when his son was born, he named him Izates. He also had an elder son by Helena, Monobazus, and other sons by other wives. Yet he made it plain that all his affection was set on Izates, as though he were his only son. From this, envy of the boy grew up among his brothers by the same father, and from envy came a growing hatred, since all of them were grieved that their father preferred Izates to them. Although their father saw this clearly, he forgave them, since they felt this not out of malice but because each of them wanted to be loved by his father. Still, he was greatly afraid for the young man, lest the hatred of his brothers bring him to some harm. So he sent him with many gifts to Abennerig, the king of Charax Spasini, and entrusted his son’s safety to him. Abennerig gladly received the young man and treated him with great affection. He gave him his own daughter, whose name was Samacha, as his wife, and he also gave him a territory from which he would receive large revenues. [a]

When Monobazus was old and saw that he had only a little time left to live, he wanted to see his son before he died. So he sent for him, embraced him with the greatest affection, and gave him a district called Carron. The land there is good and bears amomum in great abundance. In it too are the remains of the ark in which, the story goes, Noah was saved from the flood, and they are shown to this day to anyone who wants to see them. So Izates lived in that country until his father’s death. On the very day Monobazus died, Queen Helena sent for all the nobles, the satraps of the kingdom, and those who had been entrusted with the command of the armies. When they had come, she said to them: “I think you are aware that my husband wanted Izates to succeed him on the throne and judged him worthy of it. Still, I am waiting for your decision too. For happy is the man who receives a kingdom not from one person but from many, and from willing ones.” She said this to test what those she had summoned were thinking. When they heard it, they first bowed down before the queen, as is their custom, and then said that they confirmed the king’s decision and would obey it. They rejoiced in Izates, whom his father had rightly preferred over his brothers, just as they had all wished. But they said they wanted first to kill his brothers and kinsmen, so that Izates might hold the throne securely; for once those were destroyed, all the fear that might arise from their hatred and envy would be gone. Helena replied that she was grateful for their goodwill toward herself and Izates, but she asked them to put off their decision to kill his brothers until Izates arrived and gave it his own approval. Having failed to persuade her to kill them, they urged her at least to keep them in chains until he came, for their own safety. They also advised her to set up someone she trusted above all as governor of the kingdom in the meantime. Queen Helena took their advice. She made Monobazus, her eldest son, king; she put the diadem on his head and gave him his father’s signet ring and the ornament they call the sampsera, and she urged him to govern the kingdom until his brother arrived. Izates came quickly when he heard of his father’s death, and he succeeded his brother Monobazus, who stepped down from the throne in his favor. [b]

Now while Izates was living at Charax Spasini, a Jewish merchant named Ananias visited the king’s wives and taught them to worship God in the way that was traditional among the Jews. Through them he became known to Izates, and he won him over in the same way. When Izates was summoned by his father to Adiabene, Ananias went with him, yielding to his earnest request. It also happened that Helena had been taught in the same way by another Jew and had gone over to their laws. When Izates had taken the throne and arrived in Adiabene, and saw his brothers and his other kinsmen in chains, he was displeased at what had been done. He thought it impious either to kill them or to keep them in chains, but he thought it dangerous to keep them near him unchained while they remembered their wrongs. So he sent some of them, with their children, to Rome as hostages to Claudius Caesar, and he sent the others to Artabanus the Parthian on similar terms.

When Izates learned that his mother was very pleased with the Jewish customs, he hurried to adopt them himself. And since he thought he could not be a Jew in earnest unless he was circumcised, he was ready to have it done. But when his mother learned of this, she tried to stop him. She told him it would put him in danger: he was a king, and he would turn his subjects bitterly against him once they learned that he was eager for customs that were foreign and strange to them; they would never put up with a Jew as their king. So she spoke, and she tried in every way to stop him. He referred her words to Ananias. Ananias agreed with his mother and threatened that if Izates would not listen, he would leave him and go away. He said he was afraid that if the thing became known to everyone, he himself would be in danger of punishment as the one responsible for it, the man who had taught the king unseemly practices. He told him he could worship God even without circumcision, if he had fully decided to follow the ancestral laws of the Jews, and that this counted for more than being circumcised. God would forgive him, he said, for not doing the deed, since he left it undone out of necessity and for fear of his subjects. And for the time being the king was persuaded. But afterward, since he had not entirely given up his desire, another Jew, named Eleazar, came from Galilee. He had the reputation of being very strict about the ancestral laws, and he urged the king to do the deed. For when he came in to greet him and found him reading the law of Moses, he said: “You do not realize, O king, that you are wronging the laws in the greatest of matters, and through them, God. You ought not only to read them; even more, you ought to do what they command. How long will you remain uncircumcised? If you have not yet read the law about this, read it now, so that you may know what impiety it is.” When the king heard this, he put off the deed no longer. He withdrew to another room, called in the physician, and did what he had been commanded. Then he sent for his mother and his teacher Ananias and told them he had done it. At once they were seized with astonishment and with no small fear. If the deed came to light, the king would risk losing his throne, since his subjects would not tolerate being ruled by a man devoted to other people’s customs; and they themselves would be in danger, since the blame would be laid on them. But it was God who was to keep their fears from coming true. For he saved Izates himself and his sons when they fell into many dangers, opening a way of rescue out of hopeless straits, and so showing that those who look to him and trust in him alone do not lose the fruit of their piety. But these things we will relate later. [d]

As for Helena, the king’s mother, she saw that the kingdom was at peace and that her son was prosperous and admired by everyone, even by foreigners, through the providence of God. So she longed to go to the city of Jerusalem, to worship at the temple of God that was famous among all people, and to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving there. She asked her son to let her go. He very gladly agreed to his mother’s request, made great preparations for her journey, and gave her a great deal of money; and she went down to the city of Jerusalem, her son escorting her a long way. Her arrival was a great benefit to the people of Jerusalem. A famine was oppressing the city at that time, and many were dying for lack of the means to buy food. Queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria to buy grain for large sums of money, and others to Cyprus to bring back a cargo of dried figs. As soon as they returned with these supplies, which they did very quickly, she distributed food to those in need, and she left behind a very great memory of this kindness among our whole nation. When her son Izates learned of the famine, he too sent great sums of money to the leading men of Jerusalem. But the good things these royal persons did for our city we will make known later. [h]