No doubt he felt highly pleased and gratified to have Jesus sent to him. The petty and obsequious vassal king was caught in Pilate's snare of flattery. The sending of a noted prisoner to his judgment seat by a Roman procurator was no ordinary compliment. But Herod was at once too serious and too frivolous to assume jurisdiction of any charges against this prisoner, who had offended both the religious and secular powers of Palestine. To condemn Jesus would be to incur the ill will and resentment of his many followers in his own province of Galilee. Besides, he had already suffered keenly from dread and apprehension, caused by the association of the names of John and Jesus, and he had learned that from the blood of one murdered prophet would spring the message and mission of another still more powerful and majestic. He was, therefore, unwilling to embroil himself and his dominions with the heavenly powers by condemning their earthly representatives. Again, though weak, crafty and vacillating, he still had enough of the cunning of the fox not to wish to excite the enmity of Cæsar by a false judgment upon a noted character whose devoted followers might, at any moment, send an embassy to Rome to make serious and successful charges to the Emperor. He afterwards lost his place as Tetrarch through the suspicions of Caligula, who received news from Galilee that Herod was conspiring against him.[89] The premonitions of that unhappy day probably now filled the mind of the Idumæan. On the other hand, Herod was too frivolous to conduct from beginning to end a solemn judicial proceeding. He evidently intended to ignore the pretensions of Jesus, and to convert the occasion of His coming into a festive hour in which languor and drowsiness would be banished from his court. He had heard much of the miracles of the prisoner in his presence. Rumor had wafted to his ears strange accounts of marvelous feats. One messenger had brought news that the Prophet of Nazareth had raised from the dead a man named Lazarus from Bethany, and also the son of the widow of Nain. Another had declared that the laws of nature suspended themselves on occasion at His behest; that when He walked out on the sea, He did not sink; and that He stilled the tempests with a mere motion of His hand. Still another reported that the mighty magician could take mud from the pool and restore sight; that a woman, ill for many months, need only touch the hem of His garment to be made whole again; and that if He but touched the flesh of a leper, it would become as tender and beautiful as that of a new-born babe. These reports had doubtless been received by Herod with sneers and mocking. But he gathered from them that Jesus was a clever juggler whose powers of entertainment were very fine; and this was sufficient for him and his court. "Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing."[90]