Philip (Tetrarch)

• Philip (Tetrarch)

154:7.3They rowed over to near the vil­lage of Kheresa, put their boat in the cus­tody of friends, and be­gan the wan­der­ings of this event­ful last year of the Mas­ter’s life on earth. For a time they re­mained in the do­mains of Philip, go­ing from Kheresa up to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, thence mak­ing their way over to the coast of Phoeni­cia.

153:1.1A dis­tin­guished con­gre­ga­tion greeted Je­sus at three o’clock on this ex­qui­site Sab­bath af­ter­noon in the new Ca­per­naum syn­a­gogue. Jairus pre­sided and handed Je­sus the Scrip­tures to read. The day be­fore, fifty-three Phar­isees and Sad­ducees had ar­rived from Je­ru­sa­lem; more than thirty of the lead­ers and rulers of the neigh­bor­ing syn­a­gogues were also pres­ent. These Jew­ish re­li­gious lead­ers were act­ing di­rectly un­der or­ders from the San­hedrin at Je­ru­sa­lem, and they con­sti­tuted the or­tho­dox van­guard which had come to in­au­gu­rate open war­fare on Je­sus and his dis­ci­ples. Sit­ting by the side of these Jew­ish lead­ers, in the syn­a­gogue seats of honor, were the of­fi­cial ob­servers of Herod An­tipas, who had been di­rected to as­cer­tain the truth con­cern­ing the dis­turb­ing re­ports that an at­tempt had been made by the pop­u­lace to pro­claim Je­sus the king of the Jews, over in the do­mains of his brother Philip.

157:3.1Early Tues­day morn­ing Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles left Ma­g­a­dan Park for Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, the cap­i­tal of the Tetrarch Philip’s do­main. Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi was sit­u­ated in a re­gion of won­drous beauty. It nes­tled in a charm­ing val­ley be­tween scenic hills where the Jor­dan poured forth from an un­der­ground cave. The heights of Mount Her­mon were in full view to the north, while from the hills just to the south a mag­nif­i­cent view was had of the up­per Jor­dan and the Sea of Gal­i­lee.

156:6.6Philip, the brother of Herod, had be­come a half­hearted be­liever in Je­sus and sent word that the Mas­ter was free to live and work in his do­mains.

162:1.7But the au­da­cious bold­ness of Je­sus in pub­licly ap­pear­ing in Je­ru­sa­lem over­awed his en­e­mies; they were not pre­pared for such a dar­ing chal­lenge. Sev­eral times dur­ing this month the San­hedrin made fee­ble at­tempts to place the Mas­ter un­der ar­rest, but noth­ing came of these ef­forts. His en­e­mies were so taken aback by Je­sus’ un­ex­pected pub­lic ap­pear­ance in Je­ru­sa­lem that they con­jec­tured he must have been prom­ised pro­tec­tion by the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties. Know­ing that Philip (Herod An­tipas’s brother) was al­most a fol­lower of Je­sus, the mem­bers of the San­hedrin spec­u­lated that Philip had se­cured for Je­sus promises of pro­tec­tion against his en­e­mies. Je­sus had de­parted from their ju­ris­dic­tion be­fore they awak­ened to the re­al­iza­tion that they had been mis­taken in the be­lief that his sud­den and bold ap­pear­ance in Je­ru­sa­lem had been due to a se­cret un­der­stand­ing with the Ro­man of­fi­cials.