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Chapter Seventeen - Ben- Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), selections
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- By Lew Wallace, New York
- Edited by Paul C. Gutjahr
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- Book:
- Bestsellers in Nineteenth-Century America
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 22 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 21 November 2016, pp 865-994
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
“Learn of the philosophers always to look for natural causes in all extraordinary events; and when such natural causes are wanting, recur to God.”
Count de Gabalis“But this repetition of the old story is just the fairest charm of domestic discourse. If we can often repeat to ourselves sweet thoughts without ennui, why shall not another be suffered to awaken them within us still oftener.”— Hesp.: Jean Paul F. Richter.
“See how from far upon the eastern road
The star- led wisards haste with odours sweet.
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began;
The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean—
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.”
Christ's Nativity: The Hymn.— Milton.Book Second
“There is a fire
And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest.”
Childe Harold.Chapter I
It is necessary now to carry the reader forward twenty- one years, to the beginning of the administration of Valerius Gratus, the fourth imperial governor of Judea— a period which will be remembered as rent by political agitations in Jerusalem, if, indeed, it be not the precise time of the opening of the final quarrel between the Jew and the Roman.
In the interval Judea had been subjected to changes affecting her in many ways, but in nothing so much as her political status. Herod the Great died within one year after the birth of the Child— died so miserably that the Christian world had reason to believe him overtaken by the Divine wrath. Like all great rulers who spend their lives in perfecting the power they create, he dreamed of transmitting his throne and crown— of being the founder of a dynasty. With that intent, he left a will dividing his territories between his three sons, Antipas, Philip, and Archelaus, of whom the last was appointed to succeed to the title.