CHRISTMAS GREATNESS
Do you see that old man lying there in purple, on that box of solid gold? Two days ago he was alive, if you can call it that: tumors in his feet, spasms, fevers, pain, intolerable itching. Oh, he was great. Herod the Great. And just what did he do, this so-great one, apart from executing kin by hundreds, murdering his own wife and family, conspiring, torturing, betraying, massacring the infant males of Bethlehem? ‘Actually, he was an excellent ruler.’ So Enslin. But soon that stately, gleaming temple — white marble overlaid with gold and jewels — was torched by Titus’ legionaries. Taxes dropped, but rose again. The Olympic Games soon ceased. And Herod’s pitch for fame — glorifying his name with colonnades, porticos, cloisters, aqueducts, harbors, fortresses, amphitheaters, gymnasiums, statues, monuments — all came to nothing; they make the Mediterranean rubble. So it is, said Jesus, with those who go the human route to greatness. And Augustus quipped, ‘I’d rather be…
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