e. Yet he approved of the neglect which his grandson
Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See Sueton. in August.
c. 93, and Casaubon's notes on that passage.]

[Footnote 7: See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6, xviii. 3;
and de Bell. Judiac. i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp. * Note: This was
during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist. of Jews, ii. 156.)
Probably in part to avoid this collision, the Roman governor, in
general, resided at Caesarea.--M.]

[Footnote 8: Jussi a Caio Caesare, effigiem ejus in templo locare,
arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave a very
circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this transaction,
which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria. At the first mention
of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa fainted away; and did not
recover his senses until the third day. (Hist. of Jews, ii. 181, &c.)]

This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so ridiculous
to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character, since Providence
has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history of the chosen people.
But the devout and even scrupulous attachment to the Mosaic religion,
so conspicuous among the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes
still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity
of their forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount
Sinai, when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were
suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when temporal
rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences of their piety
or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into rebellion against the
visible majesty of their Divine King, placed the idols of the nations in
the sanctuary of Jehovah, and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was
practised in the tents of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phoenicia. [9]
As the protection of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful
race, their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity.

The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every
calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the Jews of a later
period from the universal contagion of idolatry; and in contradiction to
every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to
have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of