m the beginning it was not
so," Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5.

[40] This vile fellow, Eurycles the Lacedemonian, seems to have been
the same who is mentioned by Plutarch, as [twenty-live years before]
a companion to Mark Antony, and as living with Herod; whence he
might easily insinuate himself into the acquaintance of Herod's sons,
Antipater and Alexander, as Usher, Hudson, and Spanheim justly suppose.
The reason why his being a Spartan rendered him acceptable to the Jews
as we here see he was, is visible from the public records of the Jews
and Spartans, owning those Spartans to be of kin to the Jews, and
derived from their common ancestor Abraham, the first patriarch of the
Jewish nation, Antiq. B. XII. ch. 4. sect. 10; B. XIII. ch. 5. sect. 8;
and 1 Macc. 12:7.

[41] See the preceding note.

[42] Dean Aldrich takes notice here, that these nine wives of Herod were
alive at the same time; and that if the celebrated Mariamne, who was
now dead, be reckoned, those wives were in all ten. Yet it is remarkable
that he had no more than fifteen children by them all.

[43] To prevent confusion, it may not be amiss, with Dean Aldrich, to
distinguish between four Josephs in the history of Herod. 1. Joseph,
Herod's uncle, and the [second] husband of his sister Salome, slain by
Herod, on account of Mariamne.

2. Joseph, Herod's quaestor, or treasurer, slain on the same account. 3.
Joseph, Herod's brother, slain in battle against Antigonus. 4. Joseph,
Herod's nephew, the husband of Olympias, mentioned in this place.

[44] These daughters of Herod, whom Pheroras's wife affronted, were
Salome and Roxana, two virgins, who were born to him of his two wives,
Elpide and Phedra. See Herod's genealogy, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 1. sect.
3.

[45] This strange obstinacy of Pheroras in retaining his wife, who was
one of a low family, and refusing to marry one nearly related to Herod,
though he so earnestly desired it, as also that wife's admission to
the counsels of the other great court ladies, together with Herod's
own importunity as to Pheroras's divorce and other marriage, all so
remarkable here, or in the Antiquities XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3.
be well accounted for, but on the supposal that Pheroras believed, and
Herod suspected, that the Pharisees' prediction, as if the crown of
Judea should be translated from Herod to Pheroras's posterity and that
most probably to Pheroras's posterity by this his wife, also would prove
true. See Ant