Agrippa King, Herod Exiled

Tiberius died after reigning about twenty-two years, and Gaius succeeded him as emperor. He at once placed the crown of the Jewish kingdom on Agrippa, making him king of the tetrarchies of Philip and of Lysanias. Not long afterward he added to them the tetrarchy of Herod, after punishing Herod (this was the Herod of the time of the Savior’s passion) and his wife Herodias with perpetual exile for a great many crimes. Josephus is a witness to these things too. [a] In this emperor’s time Philo became known to very many people. He was a man of the highest distinction, not only among our own people but also among those trained in learning outside the Church. By descent he was a Hebrew, and he was second to none of the eminent men who held office at Alexandria. How much labor he gave to the divine learning of his fathers, and how great it was, his work makes plain to all. What he was in philosophy and in the liberal studies of the outside world there is no need to say, since he is recorded to have surpassed all his contemporaries in the school of Plato and Pythagoras, which he followed above all. [c]