The death of king Agrippa (Acts)

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE?
We looked at the story about the miraculous escape of the apostle Peter from prison (in Acts of the Apostles 12) and found that behind this story there is another story about the staged death of Herod Agrippa I. From the Antiquitates Judaicae we learned that Agrippa was struck by illness during the games of Caesarea, where he appeared as a god with the help of a garment in silver, and announces his death. We found that this story is a parody of the story abouth the transfiguration of Jesus in the gospel of Mark. We continued the reading of the Antiquitates with the story about the death of king Agrippa, and discovered that the author suggests that Agrippa organised and staged his death, and that is also the case with Jesus, because here Agrippa is a transposition of Jesus.

AND NOW
We return to the Acts of the Apostles where in 12,18-23, just after the escape of Peter, the author tells the death of king Herod Agrippa. When daylight came there was a great commotion among the soldiers, who could not imagine what had become of Peter. Herod put out an unsuccessful search for him; he had the guards questioned, and before leaving Judaea to take up residence in Caesarea he gave orders for their execution. Now Herod was on bad terms with the Tyrians and Sidonians. Yet they sent a joint deputation which managed to enlist the support of Blastus, the king's chamberlain, and through him negotiated a treaty, since their country depended for its food supply on the king's territory. A day was fixed, and Herod, wearing his robes of state and seated on a throne, began to make a speech to them. The people acclaimed him with, 'It is a god speaking, not a man!'

And at that moment the angel of the Lord struck him down, because he had not given the glory to God. He was eaten away by worms and died.

COMMENT

This is one of the places where we see that the Acts of the Apostles have been written AFTER the Antiquitates Judaicae, and that the New Testament and the works of "Flavius Josephus" are interwoven. Agrippa dies in in Caesarea. That he was eaten away by worms, suggest that the pain in his belly had this cause. The reaction of the people, "here a god is speaking", has no sense when the occasion is a speech at the regulation of an international conflict, but takes all its sense from the reaction to the light emanating from the silver garment. So clearly this story is inspired by the one in the Antiquitates Judaicae. Of course the author does not take over the story about the silver garment, that would be too much opera. He creates other circumstances, that are equally meaningfull. Here Agrippa becomes Adonis, the grain god. Tyrus and Sidon are belonging to Phoenicia, and Adonis is strongly associated with Phoenicia. "Blastos" is Greek for "germ". It is said that Tyrus and Sidon depended on Agrippa for their food supply. So also in this story Agrippa continues to be a transposition of Jesus, but now the association is with the Jesus who is multiplicating bread, dies and rises like Adonis, and is eaten under the form of bread. The implicit critics on the artificial divinity of the Jesus figure is also present in this story (this belongs to the New Testament but the Acts of the Apostles is a place of entire freedom). The angel who helped Peter to escape, comes back as the angel strucking Herod Agrippa. And finally, from the parallel with Peter it follows that Agrippa is dead an not dead, as is also the case in the Antiquitates.