Cornelius, born at Cologne in 1486, a man of considerable learning, and by common report a great magician; for the monks at that time suspected every thing of heresy or sorcery which they did not understand. He composed his treatise of the Excellence of Women to insinuate himself into the favour of Margaret of Austria, governess of the Low Countries. He accepted of the charge of historiographer to the emperor, which that princess gave him. The treatise of the Vanity of the Sciences, which he published in 1530, enraged his enemies extremely; as did that of Occult Philosophy, which he printed soon after at Antwerp. He was imprisoned in France for having written something against the mother of Francis I. On being liberated, he went to Grenoble, where he died in 1535.

Herod, the son of Aristobulus and Berenice, Agrippa, and grandson to Herod the Great, was born A.D. 3994, ten years before the vulgar era. After the death of Aristobulus his father, Josephus informs us that Herod, his grandfather, took care of his education, and sent him to Rome to make his court to Tiberius. The emperor conceived a great affection for Agrippa, and placed him near his son Drusus. He very soon won the favour of Drusus, and of the empress Antonia. On the death of Drusus, Agrippa, who had indulged his inclination to liberality, was obliged to leave Rome, overwhelmed with debt, and retired to the castle of Malatha, where he lived rather like a private person than a prince. Herod the tetrarch, his uncle, who had married Herodias, his sister, assisted him for some time with great generosity. He made him principal magistrate of Tiberias, and presented him with a large sum of money; but growing weary of assisting him, and reproaching him with his bad economy, Agrippa left Judea, and some time afterwards returned to Rome. Upon his arrival he was received into the good graces of Tiberius, and commanded to attend Tiberius Nero, the son of Drusus. Agrippa, however, having more inclination for Caius, the son of Germanicus, and grandson of Antonia, chose rather to attach himself to him; as if foreseeing the future elevation of Caius, who, at that time, was universally beloved. The great assiduity and agreeable behaviour of Agrippa so far won upon this prince, that he kept him continually about him.

Agrippa being one day overheard by Eutyches, a slave whom he had made free, to express his wishes for Tiberius's death and the advancement of Caius, the slave betrayed him to the emperor; whereupon Agrippa was loaded with fetters, and committed to the custody of an officer. Tiberius soon after died, and Caius Caligula ascended the throne. The new emperor heaped wealth and favours upon Agrippa, changed his iron fetters into a chain of gold, set a royal diadem upon his head, and gave him the tetrarchy of Batanaea and Trachonitis, which Philip the son of Herod the Great had formerly possessed. To this he added that of Lysanias; and Agrippa returned very soon into Judea to take possession of his new kingdom.

On the assassination of Caligula, Agrippa, who was then at Rome, contributed much by his advice to maintain Claudius in possession of the imperial dignity, to which he had been advanced by the army; and while he made a show of being in the interest of the senate, he secretly advised Claudius to maintain his good fortune with firmness. The emperor, as an acknowledgment for his kind offices, gave him all Judea; and the kingdom of Chalcis, at his request, was given to his brother Herod. Thus Agrippa became of a sudden one of the greatest princes of the East, and was possessed of as much, if not more territory than had been held by Herod the Great, his grandfather. He returned to Judea, and governed it to the great satisfaction of the Jews. But the desire of pleasing them, and a mistaken zeal for their religion, impelled him to acts of cruelty, the memory of which is preserved in Scripture, Acts xii. 1, 2, &c.; for about the feast of the passover, in the year of Jesus Christ 44, St James major, the son of Zebedee, and brother of St John the Evangelist, was seized by his order and put to death. He proceeded also to lay hands on St Peter, and imprisoned him, delaying his execution till the close of the festival. But God having miraculously delivered St Peter from the place of his confinement, the designs of Agrippa were frustrated. After the passover, he went from Jerusalem to Cesarea, and there had games performed in honour of Claudius. Here the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon waited on him to sue for peace. Agrippa being come early in the morning to the theatre to give them audience, seated himself on his throne, dressed in a robe of silver tissue, which reflected the rays of the rising sun with such lustre as to dazzle the eyes of the spectators. When the king had delivered his address, the parasites around him shouted out that it was not the voice of a man but of a god. The vain Agrippa received the impious flattery with complacent satisfaction; but in the midst of his elation, looking upwards he saw, with superstitious alarm, an owl perched over his head. During his confinement by Tiberius, he had been startled by a like omen, which had been interpreted as portending his speedy release, with the warning, that whenever he should behold the same sight again, his death was to follow within the space of five days. Seized with terror, he took to his bed, and after a few days of excruciating torment, died, according to the Scripture expression, "eaten up by worms." Such was the death of Herod Agrippa, after a reign of seven years, in the year of Christ 44.

Agrippa II., son of the preceding, was made king of Chalcis; but three or four years after, he was deprived of that kingdom by Claudius, who gave him instead of it other provinces. In the war which Vespasian carried on against the Jews, Herod sent him a succour of 2000 men; by which it appears, that though a Jew by religion, he was yet entirely devoted to the Romans, whose assistance indeed he wanted to secure the peace of his own kingdom. He lived to the third year of Trajan, and died at Rome A.D. 100. He was the seventh and last king of the family of Herod the Great. It was before him and Berenice his sister that St Paul pleaded his cause at Cesarea.