begot Alrad, in whose time Ezra, haying founded a library, returned to Jerusalem, with seventeen hundred of the Jews, and cast out the foreign women from all commerce with the Jews. About the same time, Nehemiah, coming to Jerusalem, built the walls with six gates in a narrow place, and delivered the people from usury. He kindled fresh fire from sticks which had been hidden by Jeremiah. Esdras read in the tabernacle, and caused the people to assemble to hear the law four times every day, and four times by night, and he also led the people to the celebration of the Sabbath. Alrud begot Eliachim, Eliachim begot Azor, Azor begot Achim, Achim begot Ehud, Eliud begot Eleazar. This Eleaxar stabbed an elephant, and perished with it. Eleazar begot Mathan. Mathan by his wife Escha became the father o f Jacob. But when Mathan died, Mathas or Melchi took Escha his wife, and by her had Heli, who was the uterine brother o f Jacob. And Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary. Joseph was the adopted son of Heli according to the law, and not according to nature. With reference to which we read in the Gospel of Luke the Evangelist : " Being as it was thought the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli." This Joseph had a wife according to the law of the Jews, o f his own tribe and family, by name Mary. And of her, in accordance with the announcement of an angel, a true king and priest was born, Christ, the son of God, after the order of Melchisedech. CH. XXXll.—The Tyranny and Cruelty of Herod—Marries Mariamne—His Love for her—He kills her—The Wickedness of Antipater—Birth of Herod Agrippa. BUT now, when the legitimate line of kings and priests of the Jews was extinct, Herod, who was a foreigner, the son of Antipater, the prince, and of Cypis, an Arabian, was invested by the Roman senate with the kingdom of the Jews, and, contrary to all human and divine laws of the Jewish nation, he promoted all the lowest of the people. He kept the vestments of the high priest shut up, and never permitted any one to use them. And in order to mingle his own posterity with the royal family of the Jews, he repudiated Dosis, the wife whom he had originally married, and married Mariamne, the granddaughter of king Aristobulus, and the daughter of Hyrcanus, the high priest.