While the Apostle was thus employed amidst the familiar scenes of his childhood, the churches _throughout Judæa and Galilee and Samaria_, lately disturbed by his unceasing animosity, _had peace_, increased in numbers, and walked _in the fear of the Lord_ (Acts ix. 31). The rest, however, which they thus enjoyed, may perhaps be ascribed to another cause besides the conversion of their late persecutor[802]. In A.D. 36 Pontius Pilate, as we have already seen[803], was sent to Rome by Vitellius. Thereupon Marcellus was sent out as procurator of Judæa in his place, but on his arrival at Cæsarea was directed to make way for Marullus[804]. In the following year, A.D. 37, Vitellius was recalled from Syria, and was succeeded in that prefecture by Petronius, while Theophilus[805] succeeded his brother Jonathan in the office of high-priest. But a still more important event in the same year was the death of Tiberius[806], and the accession of Caligula. Releasing Herod Agrippa[807], the grandson of Herod the Great, from his prison at Rome, where Tiberius had confined him, he appointed him king of Trachonitis, which had belonged to Herod Philip’s tetrarchy, and bestowed upon him also the tetrarchy of Lysanias[808]. But the new emperor was scarcely seated on the throne, before in his insane vanity he ordered divine honours to be paid to himself throughout the empire[809], and directed that a golden colossal statue of himself should be placed in the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem. The execution of this mandate was entrusted to Petronius, and having ordered Sidonian workmen to make the statue, he moved up with his troops to Ptolemais, prepared to set it up by force. But no sooner did intelligence of what was intended reach the Jews than one universal feeling of horror pervaded the nation, and thousands assembled from all quarters without distinction of rank or age or sex, imploring the prefect to desist from carrying out his instructions. Shrinking from the horrible task of commencing a war of massacre and extermination which he saw was inevitable, if the statue was set up, Petronius hesitated, wrote to expostulate with his master, and put off the execution of the order. At the same time Herod Agrippa, then at Rome, implored his patron to pause, and a deputation from Alexandria, headed by the learned and venerable Philo, set forth the stern requirements of the Jewish Law. But Caligula was inexorable, and it is impossible to say what would have been the result[810], had he not been assassinated[811] on the 24th of January, A.D. 41. Thus the Jews were delivered from this terrible indignity.