Herod Agrippa (11 BC-44 AD) was King of Judea during a brief interruption of direct Roman rule from 41 to 44 AD.
Biography[]
Marcus Julius Agrippa was the son of Aristobulus IV and Berenice (the daughter of Salome), and he was named for the Roman statesman Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. After the execution of his father by his grandfather Herod the Great, Agrippa was sent to Rome, and the emperor Tiberius took a great liking to him and had him educated alongside his own sons Drusus Julius Caesar and Claudius. On the death of Drusus, the heavily indebted and depressed Agrippa considered suicide, but his brother-in-law and uncle Herod Antipas gave him a sum of money and made him an aedile of Tiberias. Tiberius entrusted Agrippa with the education of his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, and Agrippa befriended Caligula; he was imprisoned after he was overheard wishing Tiberius' death so that Caligula could reign, but he was freed after Caligula became emperor, and he became King of Judea in 41 AD due to the intercession of his friend Claudius. He was a zealous Jew, and he persecuted the Christian Church in Jerusalem and had James, son of Zebedee beheaded and Saint Peter arrested. In 44 AD, it was said that he was struck down by an angel of the Lord and that his body was eaten by worms, although, in reality, he died of heart disease. His son Herod Agrippa II became the last ruler of the Herodian dynasty.
