MATTHEW XIV. 9—I3 61 Evangelist says that he was sorry because it is a custom of the Evangelists to speak of everything as it happened, and as it was supposed ; for it was their care to relate facts, and not to interpret their causes; for John was killed two years after the baptism of our Lord, BOOK XI. This, that they went and told Jesus; and when He had heard it, He departed thence by ship into a desert place apart. He does not say this, that they told Him of the murder of John, as if it were done beforehand ; for the history of the murder of John is put in the middle; but the order is thus, that Herod heard about Jesus, that he thought that # was John who was risen from the dead; that he wished, if it were possible, to see Him; and when this was told Jesus, that Herod was seek- ing to see Him, He departed and went into a desert place ; but they made known to Him, not the murder of John, but that Herod sought to see Him. Now the damsel, after she had taken the head of John in a charger, and brought it to her mother, returned to the guests, that with new kinds of her dancing she might pay the wages of her request. There was a lake at the side of which the dining hall was fixed; and she went upon the ice in order to dance and to shew the excellence of her performance, and amaze the beholders, when suddenly that place was opened from below her, and she was swallowed up as far as her neck, and a great fish was commissioned from God for the revenge of his death; it swallowed up her body, and when by every means they strove to rescue her, they could not; and as soon as they cut off her head with the very sword with which John was murdered, the Earth threw it up without any man lifting it; and while the head of John had been put before her mother, and she was striking it on the earth and mocking it, as “ Where is thy mouth that embittered our lives?” there was put also before her the head of her daughter ; and immediately from much weeping by one angelic operation her two eyes dropped and they fell upon the head of her daughter and [on that] of John. But when Pilate heard of the evil that was done to John, he sent to kill all the guests that were there; and from that day there was enmity between them. And on the day of the passion of the Pacificator of all, there was friendship between them, Herod and Pilate, according to the Evangelist. And because Pilate could not hurt Herod, for he was an autocrat like himself, Justice avenged him sharply in punishment, as also his father who slew the infants. £ 36a pe pas Ephraim, Diat, (Mos,) P. 165 Luke28.12