=The Tragedies of His Family Life.= The saddest chapter in Herod's tempestuous career is that of his family life. He was a man of strong and ungoverned passions, in whom intense love, jealousy, and vindictiveness played a prominent rôle. He was also the victim of the intrigues and rivalries characteristic of an oriental harem. The story of the murder of his wife, Mariamne, the Maccabean princess whom he truly loved, and of his two favorite sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, as a result of the plots of his sister, Salome, and of his treacherous son, Antipater, is one of the familiar and most tragic chapters in history. Conscious at last that his wife and sons had been innocent of the base charges which led him to murder them, betrayed by his nearest kinsmen, hated by most of his subjects, and regarded coldly by the royal patron whom he had served so slavishly, Herod the Great was the most pathetic figure in all his wide kingdom. =The Popular Hopes of the Jews.= The victories and glories of the Maccabean era, followed by the double tyranny of Rome and Herod, made a profound impression upon the faith and hopes of the Jewish race. Many of them turned with loathing from the bloodshed and the selfish victories of the later Maccabean rulers to the law and the worship at the temple as their chief joy and consolation. In the minds of others these triumphs recalled the glories of the days of David and kindled anew their ambition to see a world-wide kingdom with Jerusalem as its centre and a descendant of David on the throne, who should reign, not as the corrupt, selfish Maccabean kings, but with justice and regard for the welfare of all his subjects. Others, more spiritually minded, like the author of chapters 37 to 70 of the book of Enoch, looked for The Elect One, The Anointed, The Son of Man, who would come to put an end to the reign of the wicked, to purify the earth of all evil, to gather together the faithful, and to establish a universal rule of righteousness. The more bitter the tyranny of Herod and the more galling the yoke of Rome the more ardently they hoped for the speedy realization of these expectations, which were the solace and inspiration of the great body of the Jewish nation. About 4 B.C., while at Jericho the tyrant lay dying who for a third of a century had held the Jewish race powerless in his strong grasp, a few miles away there was born one who was destined to realize, in a manner more glorious than the most enlightened of Israel's prophets had proclaimed, Jehovah's gracious purpose for mankind. XXIII THE BACKGROUND OF JESUS' CHILDHOOD AND YOUNG MANHOOD