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Archa Archeology

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

judges; but the execution of their sentences was placed in the hands of Roman officials appointed for that purpose. In all matters not pertaining to religion, the Jews had to conform to the requirements of the Roman law ("Corpus," II. i. 10). The ordinance of 399 does not read as Griltz has it, that all Jews, including their religious officials, are subject to the curial taxation, but refers to all the Jews (quicunque ex Judsis), with the exception, of course, of the functionaries of the synagogues (xii. 1. 165); and thus this ordinance does not conflict with the other similar one. The so-called shipping law of the year 390, regulating the transactions of the Jews and Samaritans in Alexandria (xiii. 5, 18), was signed by Arcadius as well as by Valentinian and Theodosius; but at that time Arcadius was scarcely more than a child. Among the laws of Arcadius deserving particular mention is the one which gives warning against those baptized Jews who rush to the chuich from dishonest motives (xvi. 8, 2; Jost, "Gesch."

ARCHELAUS:

Son of Herod I. kingofJudea; mother being the Samaritan Malthace. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Rome for education, and, after a stay of two or three years, returned home with his brothers Antipas and Philip, who likewise had attended the schools of the Imperial City. His return was possibly hastened by the intrigues of Antipater, who by means of forged born about 21



B.C., his

Copper Coin of Herod Archelaus.

hpoaoy. A bunch of grapes and leaf. Reverse EONAPXOY. A helmet with tuft of feathers in Held to left

Obverse

iv. 226).





g.

S.

ARCHA or ABC A

Kr.

a caduceus. (After

("

chest

")



Technical

name

was arranged that "all deeds, pledges, mortgages, lands, houses, rents, and possessions of the Jews should be registered " that only at six or seven towns contracts could be made in duplicate, one part to remain with the Jewish creditor, the other to remain in the Archa and that the contents of the archa? were there to be recorded on a roll of transcripts so that the king by this means should know every transaction made by any Jew in the kingdom. From time to time a " scrutiny " of the Archa took place, when either the Archa itself, or more probably the roll or transcript, was sent up to Westminster to be examined by the treasurer there. Many deeds showing copies of the rolls made at it





these " scrutinies

" still exist

at Westminster

Abbey

and at the record office (Memoranda of the Queen's Remembrances Jews' Rolls, Nos. 556 [3, 12], 557

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13-23]).

During the thirteenth century there appear to have been twenty-six towns in England at which archas were kept; and it was only at these towns that any business could be legally transacted with Jews. These towns have been enumerated by Dr. Gross as follows: Bedford, Berkhampstead, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Colchester, Devizes, ExeGloucester, Hereford, Huntingdon, Lincoln, ter, London, Marlborough, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Stamford, Sudbury, Wallingford, Warwick, Wilton, Winchester, Worcester, and York. Jews were allowed to dwell in towns only where there was an Archa, though exemptions were someOn JAan. 28, 1284, a royal mandate times made. was issued ordering' a general closure of the arctise, but commissioners were appointed to reopen the London Archa on Feb. 28, 1286 (Rigg, "Select Pleas of the Exchequer of the Jews," 1902, p. lxi.). C. Gross, in Papers of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, pp. 182-190. J. G.

Bibliography



ARCHAGATHUS.

Madden, " History of Jewish Coinage.")

in

documents for the repository in which Chirographs and other deeds were preserved. By the " Ordinances of the Jewry " in 1194 old English Treasury

[1, 7, 8, 10,

78

See C^ecilius op Kalaktb.

and similar devices calumniated him to his hope of insuring for him the same sanguinary fate he had prepared for his brothers Aristobulus and Alexander. As a result of these slanders, Herod designated Antipas, his youngest son, as his successor, changing his will to that effect. On his death-bed, however, four days before his demise, the king relinquished his determination and letters

father, in the

appointed Archelaus to the throne, while Antipas

and Philip were made tetrarchs merely. is

known

Nothing

definitely of the occasion for this change,

though there may be some foundation for the statement of Archelaus' opponents, that the dying king, in his enfeebled condition, had yielded to some palace intrigue in the latter's favor. Archelaus thus attained the crown with little difficulty at the early age of eighteen. That aged plotter Salome found it convenient to abet Archelaus, and secured for him the adherence of the army hence there was no opposition when he figured as the new ruler at the interment of Herod. The people, glad of the death of the tyrant, were well disposed toward Archelaus, and in the public assembly in the Temple the new king promised to have regard to the wishes of his subjects. It very soon became manifest, however, how little he intended to keep his word. Popular sentiment, molded by the Pharisees, demanded the removal of the Sadducean high priest Joezer (of the Boethus family), and the punishment of those former councilors of Herod who had brought about the martyrdom of the Pharisees Mattathias and Judas. Archelaus, professing always profound respect for the popular demand, pointed out that he could not well take any such extreme measures before he had been confirmed by the Roman emperor, Augustus, in his sovereignty just as soon as this confirmation should be received, he declared himself willing to grant the people's desire. His subjects, however, seem not to have had confidence in his assurances and when, on the day before Passover a day when all Palestine, so to speak, was in Jerusalem they became so insistent in their demand for immediate action, that the

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