END OF INSPIRED HISTORY 420 B.C--JEWISH HISTORY TO B.C. 163

END OF INSPIRED HISTORY 420 B.C--JEWISH HISTORY TO B.C. 163
ISRAEL A PROVINCE OF SYRIA
After, Nehemiah, no more separate governors of Judea were sent from Persia. The territory was annexed to the province of Coele-Syria, and the administration of Jewish affairs was left to the high-priests, subject to the control of the provincial governors. This raised the high-priesthood to a degree of temporal dignity and power, which very soon made it such an object of worldly ambition, as occasioned many violent and disgraceful contests among persons who had had the least possible regard for the religious character and obligations of the sacerdotal office.
HIGH COMPETITION FOR THE PRIESTHOOD
The history of this period is obscure and intricate.[384] Facts are few, and some of those which we possess are hard to reconcile. But there is enough to acquaint us with the unholy violence and unprincipled conduct of the competitors for the priesthood, and the sufferings arising from this, as well as from the arbitrary proceedings of those who succeeded in obtaining that high office.
[384] From B.C. 420 to his advent, the thread of inspired history is discontinued. The historic narrative of the Hebrew Commonwealth during this intermediate period is derived mainly from Josephus, Diodorus' Siculus, Polybius, the Maccabees, and fragments of other ancient writers--Ed.
JESHUA'S LINE OF HIGH PRIESTS
Jeshua, the high-priest who returned with Zerubbabel, was succeeded by his son Joachim, and he by his son Eliashib, who obtains unfavorable notice in the history of Nehemiah's second administration. He was then old, and died in B.C. 413. He was succeeded by his son Joiada or Judas, who held the office for forty years, B.C. 413-373.
ARTAXERXES SUCCESSORS
Artaxerxes, who died in 423 B.C., left one son by his queen, and seventeen sons by his concubines. The first was named Xerxes, and, among the latter, history only knows Sogdianus, Ochus, and Arsites. Xerxes, the only legitimate son, succeeded; but, after forty-five days, he was slain by Sogdianus, who mounted the throne. On this, Ochus, who was governor of Hyrcania, marched thence with a powerful army to avenge the deed. Sogdianus submitted, and was put to death. Ochus, in ascending the vacant throne, took the name of Darius, and was surnamed Nothus, or “bastard,” to distinguish him from others of the name.
EGYPT BECOMES INDEPENDENT
Of the events of this troubled reign, it is perhaps only necessary to notice that the Egyptians again shook off the Persian yoke, and made Amyrtaeus of Sais their king, 413 B.C. With the aid of the Arabians, they drove the Persians out of Egypt, pursued them as far as Phoenicia, and maintained their independence sixty-four years. Ochus sent an army against them without success. The Persian forces marched to Egypt along the coast, through Judea. This event could not fail to act to the serious detriment and disquiet of the Jews; but we possess no precise information on the subject. The Persian army while on its march might have laid waste Idumea, because the Idumeans had perhaps taken part with those Arabs, who, in conjunction with the Egyptians, had pursued the Persians into Phoenicia, while the Jews continued faithful to the Persian government, with which they certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied. The prophet Malachi appears to allude to these circumstances (Malachi 1:2-5).
ARSACES TAKES THRONE
Darius Nothus died in 404 B.C., and was succeeded by his eldest son Arsaces, who, on his accession, took the name of Artaxerxes, and was surnamed Memnon, on account of his astonishing “memory.” The long reign of this monarch was full of striking and important events; but our notice must be confined to the circumstances connected with Egypt and Phoenicia, with which the Jews could not but be in some way involved.
ARTAXERXES FAILS TO CONQUER EGYPT
Artaxerxes determined to make a vigorous effort to restore the Persian power in Egypt, and to this end made most extensive preparation, continued for three years. At last, in 373 B.C., he had equipped a most formidable expedition by land and sea, which, he confidently expected, would speedily reduce the strongholds, and firmly establish his authority throughout the country. But the jealousy between the commanders of the land and sea forces, prevented that union of purpose and action which was essential to success. Pelusium was found to be impregnable, and all the fortified towns were placed in a state of defence. The Persian general, Pharnabazus, therefore, despaired of making any impression upon them, and advanced into the interior, but being opposed by the Egyptian king (Nectanebo) with a considerable force, and in consequence of the want of boats, being constantly impeded in his movements by the various channels of the rising Nile, he was obliged to retreat and relinquish the hope of subjecting Egypt to the Persian yoke.
EGYPT FAILS TO TAKE PERSIA
The Egyptian king, by whom the Persians were thus repelled, was succeeded in 369 B.C. by Teos or Tachos, who formed large designs, and made extensive preparations for acting offensively against the Persian power. He made an alliance with the Lacedaemonians, and received from them 10,000 auxiliaries under the command of Agesilaus their king. Both the person and counsels of this consummate general were treated with considerable disrespect; and the king persisted in leading his army in person into Phoenicia against the Persians. But his absence was immediately followed by a powerful conspiracy in favor of his relative Nectanebo, for whom the army also declared, so that the infatuated Tacho had no resource but to flee from his own people and throw himself under the protection of the great and generous king of Persia, whose dominions he had invaded.
REGIONAL BATTLES
The Idumeans again suffered much from being mixed up in the contest between the Persians and Egyptians. Nor can it be supposed that the Jews escaped without much moral, if not physical injury. It will be considered that they were exposed to the burdens of a military rendezvous from 377 to 374 B.C.; for at that time there were assembled in their vicinity 200,000 barbarian soldiers, besides 20,000 Greeks; and 300 ships of war, 200 galleys of thirty rowers, and a great number of store-ships were collected at Acco (Acre). The invading army of Persia, both in going and returning, took its route along their coasts, as did afterward the Egyptian army in its invasion of Phoenicia. These circumstances could not but be attended with very injurious effects; but upon the whole the Jews may be considered to have enjoyed peace and comfort during most of the reign of Artaxerxes Memnon, who was a prince of mild and humane character, and governed with much moderation and prudence, and with considerable political wisdom. However, in all the provinces, much depended on the character of the governor or satrap, whose powers, within his province, were almost regal. Artaxerxes died in 358 B.C., after along reign of forty-six years. The pen of Xenophon has immortalized the revolt of his younger brother Cyrus, by which the early part of his reign was much troubled. The retreat of the 10,000 Greeks--who had fought for Cyrus and survived his overthrow and death--under the conduct of the historian himself, has been more admired and celebrated than most ancient or modern victories.
PERSIAN TAX ON SACRIFICES IMPOSED
It was between the periods of disturbance which have been indicated, namely, in 373 B.C., that the high-priest Joiada died, and was succeeded by his son Jonathan or Jochanan (John). About the time of the Egyptian invasion, this person occasioned much trouble to his nation. His brother Jesus had become so great a favorite with the Persian governor Bagoses, that he nominated him to the priesthood. When Jesus came to Jerusalem in that capacity, he was slain by Jonathan in the very temple. Bagoses no sooner heard of this outrage than he hastened to Jerusalem; and when an attempt was made to exclude him from the temple as a gentile, and consequently unclean, he replied with vehemence, “What! am not I as clean as the dead carcass that lies in your temple?” The punishment which Bagoses imposed for the murder of Jesus was a heavy tax upon the lambs offered in sacrifice. This onerous impost was not remitted until the succeeding reign; and it must have been the more sensibly felt, as the priests had for many years been accustomed to receive large contributions from the Persian kings toward defraying the expense of the sacrifices.
OCHUS TAKES EGYPT
Artaxerxes Memnon was succeeded in the throne of Persia by his son Ochus. In his reign, among many other disturbances which we need not mention, the Sidonians, Phoenicians, and Cyprians revolted, and made common cause with the Egyptians, who still maintained their independence. After repeated failures of his generals to reduce them, Ochus himself took the command of the expedition against them. He besieged Sidon, which was betrayed to him by the king Tonnes; on which the Sidonians in despair set fire to the city, and burned themselves with all their treasures. Terrified by this catastrophe of Sidon, the other Phoenicians submitted on the best terms they could obtain; and among them we may include the Jews, who seem to have joined the common cause. Being anxious to invade Egypt, Ochus was not unreasonable in his demands. After having also received the submission of Cyprus, the king marched into Egypt 350 B.C., and completely reduced it, chiefly by the assistance of Mentor the Rhodian, and 10,000 mercenary Greeks whom he had drawn into his service. The Egyptians were treated with a severity more congenial to the savage disposition of Ochus than was the moderation to which policy had constrained him in Phoenicia--he dismantled the towns; he plundered the temples of their treasures and public records; and the ox-god Apis he sacrificed to an ass--a severe practical satire upon the animal-worship in Egypt, and not less significant as an act of revenge upon the Egyptians for their having nicknamed himself The Ass, on account of his apparent inactivity and sluggishness. Ochus returned in triumph to Babylon, laden with spoil of gold and silver, and other precious things from the kingdoms and provinces he had conquered. From this decisive war the humiliation of Egypt may be dated. Nectanebo II, the last of her native kings, now fled with all the treasures he could collect into Ethiopia. Thenceforth, even to this day, it has been the destiny of Egypt only to change masters, as Ezekiel the prophet had foretold (Ezekiel 29:13-16).
SACRIFICIAL TAX LIFTED
That the Jews were involved in the revolt of the Phoenicians has been already intimated. This appears from the fact that Ochus went from Phoenicia to Jericho, subdued that city, took some of the inhabitants with him into Egypt, and sent others into Hyrcania to people that province. But that the disaffection of the Jews was not general, or that, at least, it was not shared by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, may be inferred from the fact that this city was not disturbed. Indeed, the Jews owed some gratitude to Ochus for remitting at his accession the heavy tax[385] which Bagoses had in the preceding reign imposed.
[385] Jahn estimates that it must have produced 50,000 .., perhaps rather too high an estimate.
JADDUS BECOMES HIGH PRIEST
It was in the eighteenth year of Ochus (B.C. 341) that the high-priest Jonathan, whose murder of his brother Jesus had given occasion for the imposition of this tax, died, and was succeeded by Jaddua or Jaddus.
BAGOAS POISONS ROYALTY
Ochus, after having re-established his dominion over all the provinces which had newly or in former times revolted, abandoned himself to luxurious repose, leaving the government in the hands of Bagoas, an Egyptian eunuch, and of his general Memnon, from both of whom he had received important services during the Egyptian war. But Bagoas could not forgive the ruin of his country, although that had been the basis of his own fortunes. He poisoned Ochus and destroyed all his sons, except Arses the youngest. This horrid act was followed by his sending back to Egypt such of the plundered archives as he could collect. Arses, whom he had spared, he placed on the throne, expecting to reign in his name. But finding that the young king contemplated the punishment of the murderer of his father and his brothers, Bagoas anticipated his intention, and in the third year of his reign destroyed him and all the remaining members of his family. The eunuch, whose soul was now hardened to iron by the concurrent and repeated action of grief and crime, tendered the scepter to Codomanus, the governor of Armenia, a descendant of Darius Nothus,[386] and who on his accession assumed the name of Darius, and is known in history as Darius Codomanus, B.C. 335. Bagoas soon repented of his choice, and plotted the death of this king also; but Darius, having discovered his design, returned to his own lips the poisoned chalice which he had prepared for the king.
[386] His grandfather was the brother of Darius Nothus, and his father was the only one of the family who escaped the massacre with which Ochus commenced his reign. He afterward married and had a son, who was this Codomanus. The young man lived to obscurity during most of the reign of Ochus, supporting himself as an astanda, or courier, by carrying the royal dispatches. He at last had an opportunity of distinguishing his valor by slaying a Cadustan champion, who, like another Goliath, defied the whole Persian army. For this gallant exploit he was rewarded by Ochus with the important government of Armenia.
DARIUS' LIFE OF SPLENDER
Few kings ever enjoyed greater advantages than Darius at their accession. He had no competitors or opponents; his treasures, increased under Ochus by the plunder of many lands, seemed exhaustless; his dominion appeared well established over all the nations which abode from the Indus to the isles of Greece, and from the cataracts of the Nile to the Caucasian mountains; and with all this, the personal bravery of Darius and his acknowledged merits made him universally respected and admired throughout his empire. But bright as appeared his star, another had risen before which his own grew pale and became extinct.
ALEXANDER ASCENDS THRONE
Alexander, the son of Philip king of Macedon, ascended the throne when he was only twenty years of age, in B.C. 335, being the very same year that Darius Codomanus became king of Persia. It is not necessary in a work of this nature to record the exploits of this celebrated hero, unless as far as necessary to tarry on the history of Palestine and the Jews.
ALEXANDER SETS OUT TO BATTLE
In the spring of B.C. 334, Alexander arrived at Sestos on the Hellespont, at the head of little more than thirty thousand foot and five thousand horse, and had them conveyed to Asia by his fleet of one hundred and sixty galleys, besides transports, without any opposition from the enemy on their landing. He had with him only seventy talents, or a month's pay for his army, and before he left home he disposed of almost all the revenues of the crown among his friends. When asked “what he left for himself?” he answered, “Hope.” Such was the spirit with which Alexander invaded Asia.
THE PERSIAN ARMY DEFEATED
On the fifth day after the passage of the Hellespont, Alexander met the Persians at the river Granicus in the Lesser Phrygia, where the governor of the western provinces had assembled an army of one hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse to oppose his passage. By defeating this great army, Alexander gained possession of the Persian treasury at Sardis, the capital of the western division of the Persian empire; several provinces of Asia Minor then voluntarily submitted to him, and in the course of the summer others were subjugated. In the campaign of the following year (B.C. 333) Alexander subdued Phrygia, Paphlagonia, Pisidia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia.
BABYLON TAKEN
Darius, meanwhile, was not remiss in making preparations for a vigorous resistance to the most formidable enemy the empire had ever seen. His admiral, whom he had sent with a fleet to make a diversion by a descent upon Macedonia, died to the midst of the enterprise; and, in an age where so much depended upon individuals, his death spoiled the undertaking. Darius then assembled a vast army, which some accounts make four hundred thousand, others six hundred thousand men, in Babylonia, and led them in person toward Cilicia to meet Alexander. That hero, on hearing of this movement, hastened forward to seize the passes of Cilicia. In this he succeeded, and stationed himself at Issus, where not more than thirty thousand men could march up to the attack. In this position his flanks were protected, and he could bring his whole army into action, while the Persians could only bring a number of men equal to his own into conflict. Darius saw too late how much wiser it had been for him to await the Greeks in the plains of Damascus. He lost the battle. The vast number of his soldiers was worse than useless; for the retreat was thus so obstructed, that more were crushed to death in the eagerness of flight than had been slain by the weapons of the Greeks. Darius himself escaped with difficulty, leaving his whole camp, with his own rich baggage, and his mother, wife, and sons, in the hands of the victor. These last were treated with tenderness and respect by the generous conqueror. To him this victory opened Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Immediately after the battle he sent to Damascus, and took all the heavy baggage, equipage, and treasures of the Persian army, with their wives and children, which had been left behind in the disastrous expedition to the Syrian straits.
ALEXANDER DEFEATS TYRE
For the present, Alexander did not follow Darius, who withdrew beyond the Euphrates; but, according to his original plan of reducing first all the maritime provinces of the empire, he marched in the spring of B.C. 332 into Phenicia. All the states of that country tendered their submission to him, except Tyre, which, however, was willing to render him barren testimonials of respect, had he been content with these. The siege of this place was one of the most splendid of Alexander's operations, and is even at this day regarded with admiration by military men. Tyre, which since the destruction of the ancient city by Nebuchadnezzar had been rebuilt upon an island about four hundred fathoms from the shore, relied upon the aid of Carthage (which was promised by the Carthaginian ambassadors there resent in the city) and still more upon its situation, Alexander being destitute of shipping,[387] and on its walls, which were high and strong, and which were now additionally strengthened. The city was plentifully supplied with provisions, and fresh supplies could be brought by sea without any difficulty. But Alexander, with the rubbish of the ancient city, constructed a causeway from the shore to the island, and in seven months took the place by storm, although the Tyrians defended themselves bravely. Many of them fled to Carthage by sea; but of those who remained, eight thousand were put to the sword, thirty thousand were sold into slavery, and two thousand were crucified, while the city was plundered and laid in ashes. These barbarities were committed under the policy of deterring other places from offering resistance to the conqueror. Thus the prophecy of Zechariah respecting new Tyre was literally accomplished, as the previous prophecy of Ezekiel against the old city had been fulfilled in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Alexander had, however, enlarged views of commercial policy, which induced him to re-people Tyre from the neighboring countries; and, improved in its harbors and basins by the very isthmus which he had made, and by which, consolidated by time, the island has ever since been connected with the shore, this maritime city was not long in recovering much of its former greatness.
[387] Alexander, after the battle of the Granicus, had discharged and dismissed his fleet, which was too small to cope with that of the Persians (collected from Egypt and Phoenicia), and yet too large for his slender treasury to maintain. He declared that he would render himself master of the sea by conquering on land--that is, by getting the ports and harbors of the enemy into his possession. It was in consequence of this large idea that he persevered in reducing Phoenicia and Egypt before he advanced into the interior.
ALEXANDER THREATENS HIGH PRIEST
There is every reason to conclude that Alexander, when he invaded Syria, summoned all the cities to surrender, to pay to him their customary tribute, and to furnish his arm with provisions. Josephus affirms that during the siege of Tyre, a written order of this description came to Jerusalem, addressed to Jaddua, the high-priest, as the chief magistrate of the nation. Jaddua replied that he had sworn fealty to Darius, and could not violate his oath as long as that monarch was living. Alexander, naturally of a furious and impetuous temper, was highly irritated by this reply, and threatened that as soon as he had completed the conquest of Tyre, he would, by the punishment of the Jewish high-priest, teach all others to whom they were to keep their oaths.
ALEXANDER OFFERS SACRIFICE
Accordingly, on his progress to Egypt, after the destruction of Tyre (B.C. 332) he turned aside from Gaza, which he reduced, to chastise Jerusalem. But he was met at Sapha--an eminence near Jerusalem, which commanded a view of the city and temple--by a solemn procession, consisting of the high-priest arrayed in his pontifical robes, attended by the priests in their proper habits, and by a number of the citizens in white raiment. This course Jaddua had been commanded to take, in a vision, the preceding night. When Alexander beheld the high-priest he instantly advanced to meet him, adored the sacred Name inscribed on his mitre, and saluted him first. This singular conduct the hero accounted for by observing to those around him--“I adore not the high-priest, but the God with whose priesthood he is honored. When I was at Dios in Macedonia, and considering in myself how to subdue Asia, I saw in a dream such a person, in his present dress, who encouraged me not to delay, but to pass over with confidence, for that himself would lead my army and give me the Persian empire. Since therefore I have seen no other person in such a dress as I now see, and recollect the vision and the exhortation in my dream, I think that having undertaken this expedition by a Divine mission, I shall conquer Darius, overthrow the Persian empire, and succeed in all my designs.” Having thus spoken (to Parmenio) he gave his right hand to the high-priest, and going into the temple, he offered sacrifice according to the high-priest's directions, and treated the pontiff and the priests with distinguished honors. The book of Daniel was then shown to him, in which it was foretold that one of the Greeks should overthrow the Persian empire, pleased at which, and believing himself to be the person intended, he dismissed the multitude. The day after, he caused the people to be assembled, and desired them to ask what favors they desired; on which, at the suggestion of the high-priest, they asked and obtained the free enjoyment of their national laws, and an exemption from tribute every seventh year. He also, by a bold anticipation of his fortunes, promised that the Jews in Babylon and Media should enjoy their own laws; and he offered to take with him in his expedition any of the people who chose to share his prospects. (Joseph. Antiq. xi. 8, 4, 5.)
This story has been much questioned by many writers, as they were at perfect liberty to do. Nevertheless, as these questioners are of the same class as those who doubt on the unusual or supernatural details of the sacred history itself, it is impossible not to see that the animus of objection is essentially the same. We are therefore disposed to declare our belief in this statement, 1. Because Alexander had been a clear and conspicuous object of prophecy; and that an operation upon his mind by dream or vision, was as natural and necessary as in the cases of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. 2. Because it was as necessary that the God of the Hebrews should be made known to him as the bestower of empires, as to the other great conquerors all of whom had been brought to avow it. 3. Because an operation upon the mind of Alexander, was a natural and necessary sequel to the operations upon the minds of those former conquerors. 4. Because the impression described as being made by this dream upon Alexander, and the conduct which resulted from it, are perfectly in unison with his character and conduct as described by other historians. 5. Because the Jews actually did enjoy the privileges which are described as the result of this transaction, and which it would not otherwise be easy to account for, or to refer to any other origin.
City of Alexandria

SAMARITANS CLAIM TO BE JEWS
The Samaritans had early submitted to Alexander, and sent him auxiliaries at the siege of Tyre; and now seeing the favor with which the Jews had been treated, they were not at all backward to claim the same privileges which had been conceded to them; for, as Josephus (with some asperity) remarks, the Samaritans were always ready to profess themselves to be Jews, when the sons of Abraham were in prosperous circumstances, and equally ready to disavow the connection when the Jews were to distress or difficulty. They also met Alexander in solemn procession, and as they were graciously received, they also requested exemption from tribute on the sabbatical year, since they, as well as the Jews, then left their lands uncultivated. But as, when pressed, they could not give a direct and satisfactory answer to the question whether they were Jews, Alexander told them he would take time to consider the matter, and let them know his decision when he returned from Egypt. It was not his policy to encourage such applications, as others, under the same or other pretences, might make similar claims of exemption, to the great injury of the public revenues. The eight thousand Samaritans who had assisted him at the siege of Tyre he took with him to Egypt, and assigned them lands in the Thebaid.
ALEXANDER RECEIVED IN EGYPT
When Alexander reached Egypt, he met with no opposition. The Persian garrisons were too weak to resist him, and the natives everywhere hailed him as their deliverer from the Persian bondage. In fact the Egyptians abhorred the Persians, and liked the Greeks as much as any foreigners could be liked by them. And the reason is very obvious. The Persians hated and despised image and animal worship as thoroughly as it was possible for the Jews to do, and the power of their arms gave them much opportunity for the exercise of the iconoclastic zeal by which they were actuated. They lost no opportunity of throwing contempt and ignominy upon the idols and idolaters of Egypt. But the pliable Greek regarded the same objects with reverence, and had no difficulty of so adopting them into his own system, or of identifying them with his own idols, as it enabled him to participate in the worship which the Egyptians rendered to them.
From Egypt Alexander went to visit the temple of Ammon, in an oasis of the western desert; and at this celebrated temple got himself recognized as the son of the god (commonly known as Jupiter Ammon) worshipped there.[388] It is better (with Plutarch) to attribute this to political motives, than to admit that impression of Alexander's understanding which the affair is calculated to convey. Alexander had much good sense, as yet uncorrupted by the extraordinary prosperity which had attended his undertakings; but he knew that there were millions in the world who would receive the belief of his heavenly origin as a discouragement to resistance, and as a consolation in defeat.
[388] This god was worshipped under the form of a ram: hence the ram's horns which appear on the head of Alexander in many figures of him.
After his return from Libya, Alexander wintered at Memphis, and appointed separate and independent governors of the several garrisoned towns, in order to prevent the mischief so often experienced by the Persians in intrusting too much power to a single hand. He prudently separated the financial, judicial, and military functions, to prevent the oppression of the people by their union; and his enlightened and comprehensive policy chose the site of a new city, Alexandria, to be the emporium of commerce for the eastern and western worlds by its two adjacent seas, the Red sea and the Mediterranean. The great prosperity which the city ultimately reached, and a considerable share of which it has ever since retained, affords the best illustration of !he large and sagacious views with which it was founded.
SAMARITANS PUNISHED
Early in the spring of B.C. 331, Alexander prepared to seek Darius beyond the Euphrates. The rendezvous of his army was appointed at Tyre; in advancing to which Alexander once more passed through Palestine. During his absence in Egypt, some Samaritans (perhaps enraged that they had not obtained the same privileges as the Jews) set fire to the house of Andromachus, whom Alexander had appointed their governor, and he perished in the flames. The other Samaritans delivered up the culprits to Alexander, now on his return from Egypt; but they could hardly dare at this time to remind him of their previous claim (respecting the sabbatic year), which he had promised to consider, as the conqueror was so highly enraged that, not satisfied with the punishment of the actual culprits, he removed the Samaritans from their city, and transferred thither a Macedonian colony. (Curtius, iv. 21. Comp. Euseb. Chron.) The Samaritans, thus excluded from Samaria, thenceforth made Shechem their metropolis. This, it will be remembered, was at the foot of Mount Gerizim, on which the Samaritan temple stood.
PERSIA CONQUERED
The operations and victories of Alexander beyond the Euphrates are not so connected with the history of Palestine as to require to be traced in this work. We therefore abstain from particular notice of the battle of Arbela, in Assyria (fought Oct. 1, B.C. 331), which gave Alexander possession of the Persian throne; the flight of Darius into Media, with the view of raising new levies there; the prevention of this intention by the speedy pursuit of Alexander; the further flight of Darius, and his murder by the conspirators, into whose hands he had fallen, and whom Alexander ultimately overtook and punished. As little need our attention be detained by his northern and Indian expeditions, full as they are of interesting circumstances on which it might be pleasant to expatiate.
He returned to Persia in B.C. 324, with a character still great, and adequate to great occasions; but, upon the whole, very much damaged in its finer traits, by the intoxication of mind which, but too naturally, his inordinate successes produced. On his return he inquired into and punished the mal-administrations of his generals and governors of provinces during his long absence eastward. The last year of his life he spent in a circuit through the imperial cities of Persepolis, Susa, Ecbatana, and Babylon, and in forming the noblest plans for the consolidation and improvement of his mighty empire. These plans we can not recapitulate; but they are well worth the most attentive study of those who would realize a just on respecting one of the most remarkable men the world has produced. The grasp of his mind was perhaps as large as that of his ambition: and while we regard his plans of universal conquest, and the sacrifice of human life and happiness which his causeless wars involved, with the most intense dislike, we have no desire to conceal our admiration of the many illustrious qualities which his mind exhibited.
ALEXANDER REBUILDS TEMPLE OF BABYLON
Alexander arrived at Babylon in B.C. 324, intending to make that city his future residence, and the capital of his gigantic empire. Hence he was full of projects for restoring that city to its ancient beauty and magnificence. This included the rebuilding of the temple of Belus, which the Jewish prophecies had devoted to destruction, never to be rebuilt. Alexander, nevertheless, actually commenced this work. The soldiers were employed in turn to remove the rubbish. The Jews alone refused to render any assistance, and suffered many stripes for their refusal, and paid heavy fines, until the king, astonished at their firmness, pardoned and excused them. “They also,” adds their historian (Hecateaus, in Joseph. contra Apion, i. 22), “on their return home, pulled down the temples and altars which had been erected by the colonists in their land, and paid a fine for some to the satraps, or governors, and received a pardon for others.”
ALEXANDER DIES
The death of Alexander at Babylon--in the midst of his prosperity, his excesses, his large plans, and also during his ominous attempt to rebuild the temple of Belus, and at the early age of thirty-two years--was calamitous to the Jewish nation. For amid the contests that prevailed among Alexander's successors--each striving for the mastery, and celebrating his death, as he himself foretold, with funeral games the most bloody--“evils were multiplied in the earth” (1Ma_1:19), and the Jews, from their intermediate situation, lying between the two powerful kingdoms (as they speedily became) of Syria northward, and of Egypt southward, were alternately harassed by both. According to the imagery of Josephus, “They resembled a ship tossed by a hurricane, and buffeted on both sides by the waves, while they lay in the midst of contending seas.” (Antiq. xi. 3, 3. See Hales, ii. 537.)
Every one is acquainted with the scramble for empire which took place among the generals and principal officers of Alexander upon his death. It is useless to enter into the details and trace the results of this struggle in the present work. It is only necessary that we should disentangle from the complicated web which history here weaves, such threads as may be found useful in leading on the history of the Jews and Palestine.
THE EMPIRE DIVIDED
It was determined that Aridæus, an illegitimate brother of Alexander, a man of no capacity, should be made king under the name of Philip, and that a posthumous son of Alexander's, called Alexander Aegus should be joined to him, Perdiccas being regent and guardian of the two kings, who were both incapable of reigning. After some deliberation Perdiccas distributed the governments among the generals and ministers. Some who had been appointed by Alexander were confirmed in their provinces. The rest are named below.[389]
[389] Polus and Taxiles had India; Sebyrrius, Arachosia and Gedrosia; Tleopolemus, Caramania; Peucestes, Persia; Python, Media; Phrataphernes, Parthia and Hyrcania; Stanasor, Aria and Drangiana; Philip, Bactria and Sogdiana; Arcesilaus, Mesopotamia; Archon, Babylonia; Ptolemy Largus, Egypt; Laomedon, Syria and Palestine; Philotas, Silicia ; Enmenes, Paphlagonia and Cappadocia; Antigonius, Pamphylia, Lycia and Greater Phrygia; Cassander, Caria; Meleager, Lydia; Leonatus, Lesser Phrygia, and the country around the Hellespont; Lysimachus, Thrace; Antipater, Macedonia; Seleucus, afterward destined to be the greatest of these names, received the important office of commander of the cavalry.
It was scarcely possible that the authority of two such kings, vested in a regent, should hold in check the powerful and ambitious governors of the provinces. Indeed the latter paid them the least possible regard and attention, and immediately after the assignment of the provinces, wars broke out not only between the governors themselves, but between them and the regent.
Our plan of confining our notices to the circumstances which more immediately affected Palestine, leads us first to notice the combination against the regent Perdiccas, which was formed in B.C. 322 by Antigonus, Antipater, Leonatus, and Ptolemy, on account of the design which Perdiccas betrayed of appropriating the crown of Macedonia, of which Antigonus was himself desirous. Perdiccas, who kept the young kings constantly with him, was then in Cappadocia. The next spring he, accompanied by the two kings, marched a large army through Syria into Egypt, to subdue Ptolemy in the first pace, while Eumenes was left in Asia Minor to prosecute the war against Antipater and his allies. The result of this expedition was, that Perdiccas was slain by his own soldiers, who went over to Ptolemy, who was a very able and popular man, and natural brother to Alexander. Eumenes was, proclaimed an outlaw, and, ultimately, the regency was undertaken by Antipater, who made some changes in the governments, appointing Seleucus governor of Babylonia; Antigonus to be general of Asia, to prosecute the war against the outlawed Eumenes; and the command of the cavalry he gave to his own son Cassander, who was then with Antigonus.
PTOLEMY TAKES JUDEA
The passage of a part of the royal army, through Judea, in going to and from Egypt, as just related, could not fail to involve the Jews in some of the miseries of war. But when the same royal army, under Antigonus, was otherwise employed against Eumenes, Ptolemy, who had become very powerful, embraced the opportunity to take possession of Judea, Samaria, Phoenicia and Coele-Syria, which were all easily subjugated by Nicanor his general. Laomedon the governor was taken prisoner, but contrived to make his escape. Thus Palestine was partly the theater of this short war; but as Laomedon could make but a faint resistance, little injury was probably sustained by the inhabitants; and, since it was their destiny to be a subject people, the inhabitants were well rewarded for what they then suffered, by passing under the dominion of so benevolent a prince as Ptolemy Lagus. He went himself to Jerusalem, as Josephus says, for the purpose of sacrifice in the temple after the example of Alexander, and on this occasion declared himself master of the country. To secure his dominions he took a number of the people with him to Egypt. Among these were several of the Samaritans and several thousand Jews; but their condition could not be very calamitous, as many of their countrymen soon followed them of their own accord.
PTOLEMY GRANTS JEWS PRIVILEGES
Ptolemy was soon made acquainted with the fidelity with which the Jews had maintained their allegiance to the Persian kings. This was a rare quality in those times: and wishing to attach such a people to himself, he restored the privileges they had enjoyed under Alexander; he employed a part of them to garrison his fortresses; others he sent to Cyrene, that he might have some faithful subjects in that newly-acquired territory; and many more were assigned a residence in Alexandria, with the grant of the same privileges as Alexander had bestowed on the Macedonian inhabitants of that city.
In 316 the puppet-king Aridæus was privately put to death, by Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, and in the same year Alexander Aegeus was imprisoned with his mother Roxana, by Cassander, governor of Caria; and he also was murdered in B.C. 310. Even this, however, did not quite put an end to the mockery of dependence and deference; for it was not until the death of Hercules, the remaining son of Alexander the Great, by his wife Barsine, that the satraps put on crowns and took the name of kings.
ANTIGONUS TAKES REGION
By the year B.C. 315 the turbulent and ambitious Antigonus had acquired such power as excited the alarm of Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander (then governor of Macedonia), who entered into an allegiance against him. Antigonus himself was not idle, for the year following he wrested from the grasp of Ptolemy, Palestine, Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria. In consequence of this Palestine and its vicinity became for three years the theater of war between Ptolemy and Antigonus, and during that time the Jews must have suffered much, as their country frequently changed masters. The consequence was, that many of the inhabitants voluntarily withdrew to Egypt, where, and particularly at Alexandria, they could enjoy freedom and peace under a mild government. During these wars Jerusalem does not, however, appear to have been molested, and was spared when Ptolemy gave up Samaria, Acco (Acre), Joppa, and Gaza, to pillage.
PTOLEMY GAINS REGION
It was at the last-mentioned city, Gaza, that the great battle was fought between Ptolemy and Demetrius (B.C. 312), which, by the defeat of the latter, threw the country again into the hands of the satrap of Egypt. In this battle Demetrius had a large force of elephants, mounted by native Indian riders. But notwithstanding the alarm which they inspired, they contributed to his defeat through the confusion they produced, when annoyed and harassed by the prudent measures which Ptolemy took against them. They were all taken, and most of the Indians slain.
ERA OF CONTRACTS
Seleucus had a joint command in this action. He was soon after furnished by Ptolemy with an inconsiderable force of two hundred horse and eight hundred foot, with which he might prosecute his own interests, and at the same time annoy Antigonus in the east. With this handful of men he crossed the desert and the Euphrates, and paused at Haran to increase his army in Mesopotamia. His entrance into Babylonia was like a triumphal procession, for the people, mindful of the justice of his previous administration, and the great qualities of character and conduct which he had displayed, flocked to his standard in crowds, and he recovered with the utmost ease not only the city and province of Babylon, but the whole of Media and Susiana; and he was enabled to establish his interest to this quarter upon so solid a foundation that it could no more be shaken, notwithstanding the momentary appearance of success which next year attended an attempt made by Demetrius to recover Babylon for his father Antigonus. It is from this recovery of Babylon by Demetrius in October, B.C. 312, twelve years after the death of Alexander, that the celebrated “Era of the Seleucidae” commences. It is also called the “Greek” and the “Alexandrian Era;” while the Jews, because obliged to employ it in all their civil contracts, called it the “Era of Contracts.” Some nations compute from the spring of the ensuing year: but that, as some suppose, this arose from the fact that Seleucus was not fully established until then in the possession of Babylon (after the attempt of Demetrius) may very well be doubted. It is more natural to resolve the difference into an adjustment of the era to the different times at which the year was commenced by different nations--some at the autumnal, and others at the vernal equinox.[390]
[390] It may be doubted whether the Era in its origin had any real reference to the taking of Babylon, although that even happened to occur in the year to which its commencement is referred. This Era long continued in general use in western Asia. The Arabians, who called it the “Era of the two-horned” (Dilkarnaim), meaning Alexander, did not relinquish it till long after the Era of the Hegira had been adopted. It is still retained by the Syrian Christians under the name of the Era of Alexander. Even the Jews, who in the first instance had been obliged to adopt it from its general use in civil contracts, employed no other epoch until A.D. 1040, when, being expelled from Asia by the caliphs, and scattered about in Spain, England, Germany, Poland, and other western countries, they began to date from the creation, although still without entirely dropping the Era of the Seleucidae.
JEWS MIGRATE TO EGYPT
Meanwhile Demetrius gained an important advantage over the general (Cilles) whom Ptolemy had dispatched to drive him out of Upper Syria, where he retrained with the remnant of his army; and on this occasion the victor, following the example which had lately been set by Ptolemy, directed the prisoners which were taken to be restored. It is interesting to note the introduction of such civilized amenities into transactions so essentially savage, and so humiliating to the just pride of reason, as those which warfare involve and produce. When the news of this success reached Antigonus (then in Phrygia) he hastened to join his son; and the aspect of their joint forces was so formidable, that Ptolemy judged it prudent to evacuate his recent conquests in Syria. Having therefore caused most of the fortifications of the places he relinquished to be demolished, he withdrew into Egypt, laden with spoil, and attended by great numbers of Jews, who were weary of continuing in what seemed likely to become the troubled battle-ground between the great ruling powers of Egypt and Syria, and chose rather to avail themselves of the security and ample privileges by which the wise policy of Ptolemy invited them to settle in Egypt.
PETRA INVADED
Elated by his successes, Antigonus conceived the design of reducing to his yoke the Nabathæan Arabs, who at this time inhabited the mountains of Seir. Availing himself of the absence of the active population of Petra at a great and distant fair in the desert, the general Athenaeus sacked that remarkable metropolis, and departed with immense booty. But overcome with fatigue, the army halted on the way, and lay carelessly at rest, when it was surrounded and cut in pieces by the hosts of the returning Nabathæans. Sixty only escaped. Antigonus afterward sent Demetrius to avenge this loss. But he, advancing to Petra, and perceiving the hazard and delay of the enterprise, was glad to compound with the people on terms which bore a show of honor to his father, without being disgraceful to them. Petra, which was the chief scene of these enterprises, was doubtless the city, in a valley of Mount Seir, which, after the oblivion of ages, has been brought to our knowledge and abundantly described by Burkhardt, Mangles, Laborde, and other travelers. We notice this expedition chiefly for the sake of recording, that Demetrius on his return by way of the Dead sea, took notice of the asphalt of that lake, and gave such an account of it to Antigonus as led him to desire to render it a source of profit to his treasury. He therefore dispatched the aged historian Hieronymus, with men to collect the asphalt for the benefit of the government. The Arabs looked on quietly, and offered no interruption until a large quantity had been collected and preparations were made for carrying it away; then they came down with six thousand men, and surrounding those who were employed in this business, cut them in pieces. Hieronymus escaped. Thus we perceive that the Asphaltic lake, otherwise useless, had become a source of wealth and object of contention on account of its bitumen.
THE TITLE KING ADOPTED
We need not enter into the treaties and wars between the satraps, during the succeeding years. Antigonus remained in possession of Syria. In 306 B.C., Demetrius, who had been highly successful in Greece, invaded the island of Cyprus, and made the conquest of it after repelling Ptolemy, who came with a fleet to the assistance of his allies. This conquest was so pleasing to Antigonus that he thereupon assumed the title of king, and had such confidence in the duty and affection of his excellent son, that he saluted him (by letter) with the same title, thus making him the associate of his government. When this was heard in Egypt, the people, out of their attachment to Ptolemy, saluted him also as king, whereupon Lysimachus in Thrace, Seleucus in Babylon, and even Cassander in Macedonia, were hailed by the regal title, by the nations under their rule. This none of them strenuously forbade or opposed; and although they did not immediately call themselves kings on their coins and in their edicts, they all did so ere long, with more or less show of decent reluctance and delay. In those times, however, the kingly title was very common, and much less of special significance was connected with it than it has since acquired.
PTOLEMY HOLDS OFF ANTIGONUS
Elated by this and his other great successes, Antigonus cast his eyes upon Egypt. In 305 B.C. he collected in Syria an army of eighty thousand foot, eight thousand horse, and eighty-three elephants, and marched along the coast of Palestine to Gaza; to which point Demetrius also repaired by sea, with a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships of war, and one hundred store-ships. This formidable expedition failed through mismanagement on their side, met by excellent management and preparation on the part of Ptolemy. Antigonus retired from the Egyptian frontier in disgrace, not a little heightened by the avidity with which his own soldiers embraced the opportunity of escaping from his austere rule to the mild and paternal sway of the Egyptian king.
SELEUCUS TAKES TERRITORY TO INDIA
Meanwhile Seleucus had been consolidating in the east that power which ultimately made him the greatest of the successors of Alexander. By 303 B.C. he had established his dominion over all the eastern-provinces to the borders of India, and in that year was preparing for the invasion of that country, when affairs called his attention to the west, and he concluded a treaty with the Indian king, from whom he received five hundred elephants--a fact which we particularly notice as explaining the frequent presence of that able beast in the subsequent warfare in Syria and Palestine. Subsequent supplies were afterward obtained from the same source, in order to keep up this favorite force in the armies of the Syrian kings.[391]
[391] The ancient Egyptians do not appear to have known the elephant, although quantities of the tooth were brought to the country and to Palestine. We do not remember to have met with a single instance in which this animal is described as being figured on the old monuments of that country.
Use of Elephants in war

ANTIGONUS FALLS IN BATTLE
At last the several kings, wearied out with troubles and conflicts which the insatiable and turbulent ambition of Antigonus occasioned, made common cause against him, Seleucus taking the lead, and bringing the largest force into the field. The belligerents met and fought a battle, intended by all to be decisive, at Ipsus in Phrygia, in the year B.C. 301. Antigonus brought into the field between seventy and eighty thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and seventy elephants; and Seleucus and his confederates had sixty-four thousand infantry, ten thousand five hundred cavalry, above one hundred chariots armed with scythes, and four hundred elephants. The courageous old man, Antigonus, now fourscore and upward, behaved with his usual valor and conduct, but not with his usual spirit. Seleucus, by an adroit interposition of his elephants, managed to prevent Demetrius from properly supporting his father with the cavalry, which he commanded; and the final result was, that Antigonus fell on the field of battle pierced by many arrows, while Demetrius managed with a poor remnant of the army to escape to Ephesus. He survived seventeen years, and took an active part in the affairs of that time, but not so as to bring him under our future notice.
ANTIGONUS TERRITORY DIVIDED
This great victory was followed by a treaty between the four potentates who had weathered the storm which had raged since the death of Alexander, being Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander. Each was formally to assume the royal dignity, and to govern his provinces with imperial power. The distribution was made on the principle of each retaining what he already had, and taking his due share of the empire which Antigonus had lost with life. To Cassander was allotted Macedonia and Greece; to Lysimachus Thrace, Bithynia, and some of the adjacent provinces; to Ptolemy, Libya, Egypt, Arabia Petra, Palestine, and Coele-Syria; to Seleucus, all the rest, being in fact the lion's share-including many provinces in Syria, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and the East as far as the frontiers of India.
ISRAEL UNDER PTOLEMY
This settlement must have been highly satisfactory to the Jews, whom it restored to the dominion of Ptolemy, with whose generally beneficent government, and particular favor to themselves, they had every reason to be satisfied. The prospects of durable peace, under the shadow of so great a king, must also have been contemplated with peculiar satisfaction by a people who suffered so much of the horrors and penalties, without sharing in the contingent honors and benefits of war.
They were not disappointed. Ptolemy, now relieved from his long conflict, and settled firmly upon his throne, applied himself with great and laudable diligence to the improvement of his dominions. One great point of his policy was really to attach to his rule the several nations which had become subject to it. From this policy sprang the favors which he showered upon the Jews, and the indulgence with which, notwithstanding their peculiarities, they were on all occasions treated. The most perfect religious toleration was established by this eminent monarch, whose interest it was to harmonize the differences of religious practice and opinion which existed between his Greek and Egyptian subjects: the religion of the Jews was comprehended in this indulgence; and their synagogue was as much tolerated and respected as the temples of Isis and of Jupiter. Ptolemy made Alexandria the metropolis of his empire, and gave full effect to the intention of its great founder by taking such measures as ere long rendered it the first commercial city in the world--This, among others, was a circumstance calculated to attract the Jews to that city; as, first their long absence from their native land--during the captivity, and then the troubles of war in that land--troubles peculiarly unfavorable to the peaceful pursuits and hopes, of agriculture--had already turned their attention toward commerce.
SELEUCUS BUILDS MANY NEW CITIES
Seleucus, between whose territories and those of Ptolemy, Palestine was now situated, saw the wisdom of the policy followed by the king of Egypt, and applied himself with great vigor to work it out in his own dominions. In those dominions many fine cities had been entirely destroyed, and others greatly injured by the ravages of war. To repair these losses, Seleucus built many new cities, among which are reckoned sixteen which he, from his father, called Antakya or Antioch; nine to which he gave his own name; six on which he bestowed that of his mother Laodicea; six which he called Apamea after his first wife, and one after his last wife Stratonice. Of all these towns the most celebrated was the city of Antioch, on the Orontes in Syria, which became the metropolitan residence of all the succeeding kings, and in a later day, of the Roman governors; and which has ever since survived, and which still exists, and retains some relative consequence by virtue of the corresponding decline of all prosperity and population in the country in which it is found. Its name will occur very often in the remainder of our narrative. Next to Antioch in importance was Seleucus on the Tigris, which may in fact be considered the capital of the eastern portion of the empire. It was situated about fifty miles north-by-east of Babylon, twenty-three miles below the site of the present city of Bagdad, and just opposite to the ancient city of Ctesiphon. This city (founded in B.C. 293) tended much to the final ruin and desolation of Babylon. Great privileges were granted to the citizens; and on this account many of the inhabitants of Babylon removed thither; and after the transfer of the trade to Seleucia, these removals became still more frequent. It was in this manner that Babylon was gradually depopulated; but the precise period when it became entirely deserted cannot now be ascertained. It may be interesting to note this, as many of the eastern Jews were involved in whatever transactions took place in this quarter, which, from the time of the captivity to this day, has never been destitute of a large and often influential Jewish population. But now Babylon itself is not more desolate--is even less desolate--has more to mark it as the site of a great city of old times, than the superseding Seleucia, which only received existence in the last days of Babylon. “I have,” says a late traveler--walked over the ground it occupied, and found the site of the royal city only marked by the parallel embankments of ancient aqueducts, and by the consolidated grit and debris which devote to utter barrenness, in this primeval country, the spots which towns once occupied, as if man had branded the ground by the treading of his feet.”
Antioch

SELEUCUS INVITES MANY JEWS TO SETTLE
In his newly-founded towns, it was the policy of Seleucus to induce as many as possible of the Jews to settle by important privileges and immunities, such as those which Ptolemy had extended to them. The consequence was that the Jews were attracted to these spots in such numbers, and especially to Antioch, that in them they formed nearly as large a proportion of the inhabitants as at Alexandria itself.
In all this, we think it is not difficult to perceive a further development of the divine plan, which now, as the times advanced, dictated the dispersion of numerous bodies of Jews among the Gentile nations--while the nation still maintained in its own land the standards of ceremonial worship and of doctrine--with the view of making the nations acquainted with certain truths and great principles, which should work in their minds as leaven until the times of quickening arrive.
SIMON'S WORK IN ISRAEL
During the time of Ptolemy Soter, the prosperity of the Jews was much strengthened by the internal administration of the excellent high-priest Simon the just. In 300 he succeeded Onias I, who had in 321 succeeded Jaddua, the high-priest in the time of Alexander the Great. Simon repaired and fortified the city and temple of Jerusalem, with strong and lofty walls; and made a spacious cistern, or reservoir of water, “in compass as a sea.”[392] He is reported to have completed the canon of the Old Testament by the addition of the books of Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, Nehemiah, Esther, and Malachi. This is not unlikely, as also that the book of Chronicles was completed in its present state; for the genealogy of David in the first book comes down to about the year B.C. 300; and it may also be remarked that in the catalogue of high-priests as given in Nehemiah, Jaddua is mentioned in such a manner as to intimate that he had been for some time dead. The Jews also affirm that Simon was “the last of the great synagogue:” which some ingeniously paraphrase into “the last president of the great council, or Sanhedrin, among the high-priests” (Hales, ii: 538); whereas it seems clear that no Sanhedrin at or before this time existed. And from the fact that this “great synagogue” is not (like the Sanhedrin) described as being composed of seventy members, but of one hundred and twenty, among whom were Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, Nehemiah, and Malachi--it would appear that it rather denoted the succession of devout and patriotic men who distinguished themselves after the captivity, by their labors toward the collection and revision of the sacred books, and the settlement and improvement of the civil and religious institutions of their country; and of whom Simon, by completing the sacred canon, became the last. Simon died in B.C. 291, and was succeeded by his son Eleazar.
[392] Ecclusticus 1:1-3. The whole chapter, entitled “The Praise of Simon the Son of Onias,” is devoted to a splendid eulogium on his deeds and character.
PHILADELPHUS MADE KING
Not long after this (B.C. 285), the king of Egypt, having conceived just cause of displeasure against his eldest son Ptolemy Keraunus, took measures to secure the succession to his youngest son Ptolemy Philadelphus. His advanced age warned him that he had no time to lose; he therefore resigned the diadem to Philadelphus (“the brother-loving”), and enrolled himself among the royal life-guards. He died two years after (B.C. 283) at the age of eighty-four, forty years after the death of Alexander.
KERAUNUS KILLED
As for Ptolemy Keraunus, he ultimately sought refuge at the court of Seleucus, by whom he was most kindly received and entertained: but he justified the ill opinion of him on which his own father had acted by destroying his benefactor. This was in B.C. 280, only seven months after Seleucus had consummated the greatness of his empire by the overthrow of Lysimachus, who had himself previously added the kingdom of Macedonia to his own of Thrace. Thus Seleucus became the possessor of three out of the four kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander had, in the defeat of Antigonus, been divided. After his death, Ptolemy Keraunus managed to seat himself on the Macedonian throne; but the very next year he was taken prisoner and cut in pieces by the Gauls, who had invaded Macedonia.
SOTER'S REIGN
Seleucus was succeeded in what may be called the throne of Asia by his son Antiochus Soter. This prince, after he had secured the eastern provinces of the empire, endeavored to reduce the western, but his general Patrocles was defeated in Bithynia, and the loss of his army disabled him from immediately prosecuting the claims upon Macedonia and Thrace. Meanwhile the scepter of Macedonia was seized by the vigorous hands of Alexander Gonatus, a son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and consequently a grandson of Antigonus, and to him Antiochus at length felt himself constrained to cede that country; and the family of Antigonus reigned there until the time of Perseus, the last king, who was conquered by the Romans. Antiochus Soter died in B.C. 261 after nominating as his successor his second son Antiochus Theos (“the God”). This prince was his son by his mother-in-law Stratonice, whom his too indulgent father had divorced to please him.
SEPTUAGINT
The accession of Antiochus II took place about the middle of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt. This last-named monarch was quite as tolerant and as friendly to the Jews as his father had been. He was a great encourager of learning and patron of learned men. Under his auspices was executed that valuable translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, called the Septuagint, from the seventy, or seventy-two, translators said to have been employed thereon. Eleazar was still the high-priest, and appears to have interested himself much in this undertaking, and was careful to furnish for the purpose correct copies of the sacred books. The date of B.C. 278 is usually assigned to this translation. Thus the Jewish scriptures were made accessible to the heathen. It is unquestionable that copies of this version, or extracts from it, found their way in process of time into the libraries of the learned and curious of Greece and Rome; and there is no means of calculating the full extent of its operation in opening the minds of the more educated and thoughtful class among the heathen to the perception of some of the great truths which they could learn only from that book, and which it was now becoming important that they should know. It was even a great matter that they should have the means of knowing clearly what the Jews believed, whatever they may themselves have thought of that belief. This version soon came into common use among the Jews themselves everywhere, even in Palestine, the original Hebrew having become a learned language. Indeed, the quotations from the Old Testament made by the evangelists and apostles, and even by Christ himself, are generally, if not always from this version.
PEACE REACHED WITH PHILADELPHUS
In the third year of Antiochus a long and bloody war broke out between him and Ptolemy Philadelphus. The latter king, bending under the weight of years, commanded by his generals, while Antiochus, in the vigor of youth, led his armies in person. Neither monarch appears to have gained any very decided advantages over the other; while we know that much was lost by Antiochus; for while his attention was engaged by wars in the west the eastern provinces of his vast empire--Parthia, Bactria, and other provinces beyond the Tigris--revolted from his dominion; this was in B.C. 250, from which the foundation of the Parthian empire may be dated; but it is perhaps better, with the Parthians themselves, to date it from the ensuing reign, when they completely established their independence. It is here however we are to seek the real beginning of the Parthian empire, which was ultimately destined to set bounds to the conquests of the Romans, and to vanquish the vanquishers of the world. The immediate result was that Antiochus was obliged, in the year B.C. 249, to make peace with Philadelphus on such terms as he could obtain. These were, that he should repudiate his beloved queen, who was his half-sister, and marry Berenice, a daughter of Philadelphus, and that the first male issue of the marriage should succeed to the throne.
PHILADELPHUS DIES
As Philadelphus on his part gave for the dower of his daughter half the revenues of Palestine, Phoenicia and Coele-Syria, the Jews may seem to have come partly under the dominion of Antiochus. But as the king retained the other half in his own hands, and as the revenues of Judea were always farmed by the high-priest, the circumstance made no change in their condition. Besides, the arrangement was too soon broken up to produce any marked effect. These were the important nuptials between “the king of the north,” and “the daughter of the king of the south, which the prophet Daniel had long before predicted (Daniel 11:6). It was only two years after this (B.C. 247) that Philadelphus died; immediately on which he put away Berenice and restored his beloved Laodicea; but she, fearing his fickleness, poisoned him, and set her son Seleucus Callinicus (“illustrious conqueror”) upon the throne (B.C. 246). On this Berenice sought shelter with her son (the heir by treaty) in the sacred groves of Daphne (near Antioch); but at the instigation of his mother Callinicus tore her from that sanctuary, and slew her, with her infant son.
Now Berenice was full sister to the new king of Egypt, Ptolemy III, surnamed Euergetes,[393] who immediately placed himself at the head of his army to avenge her wrongs. He was eminently successful. He entered Syria, slew the queen Laodicea, and overran the whole empire, as far as the Tigris on the east and Babylon on the south.[394] On he marched, from province to province, levying heavy contributions, until commotions in Egypt obliged him to abandon his enterprise and return home. On his way he called at Jerusalem, where he offered many sacrifices, and made large presents to the temple. There is little doubt but that the high-priest took the opportunity of pointing out to him those prophecies of Daniel (Daniel 11:6-8) which had been accomplished in the late events and his recent achievements; and this may probably have been the cause of his presents and offerings.
[393] We may add in a note that this title (the Benefactor) was conferred on Ptolemy by his Egyptian subjects on his return from his eastern expedition. He recovered and brought back, with other booty to an immense amount, 2,500 idolatrous images, chiefly those which Cambyses had taken away from the Egyptians. When he restored the idols to their temples, the Egyptians manifested their gratitude by saluting with this title. They were less prone than the Greeks of Asia to deify their kings.
[394] The inscription found at Adule by Cosmas gives a more extensive range to his operations, affirming that after having subdued the west of Asia, ultimately crossed the Euphrates, and brought under his dominion, not only Mesopotamia and Babylonia, but Media, Persia, and the whole country as far as Bactria. As this needs more collateral support than it has received, we adopt a more limited statement in the text.
JEWISH HIGH PRIESTS
The high-priest of the Jews was then Onias II Eleazar, the high-priest at the time the Greek translation of the Scriptures was made, died in B.C. 276, and was succeeded, not by his own son Onias, but by Manasses, a son of Jaddua. He died in B.C. 250, and Onias III then became high-priest. As usual, Onias farmed the tribute exacted from Judea by the Egyptians. But growing covetous as he advanced in years, he withheld, under one pretence or another, the twenty talents which his predecessors had been accustomed to pay every year to the king of Egypt as a tribute for the whole people. This went on for twenty-four years, and, the arrears then amounting to four hundred and eighty talents, the king deemed it full time to take energetic measures to secure the payment of this portion of the royal revenues. He sent an officer named Athenion to demand the payment of what was already due, and to require a more punctual payment in future, with the threat that unless measures of compliance were taken, he would confiscate all the lands of Judea, and send a colony of soldiers to occupy them. The infatuated priest was disposed to neglect the warning and brave the danger, which filled all the people with consternation. But the evils which might have been apprehended were averted through the policy and address of Joseph, the high-priest's nephew, who generously borrowed the money upon his own credit, paid the tribute, and so ingratiated himself at the Egyptian court that he obtained the lucrative privilege of farming the king's revenues not only in Judea and Samaria, but in Phoenicia and Coele-Syria.
Seleucus Callinicus, in his emergencies, had promised to his younger brother Antiochus Hierax, who was governor of Asia Minor, the independent possession of several cities in that province, for his assistance in the war with P. Euergetes. But when he had (B.C. 243) obtained a truce of ten years from the Egyptian king, he refused to fulfill this engagement. This led to a bloody war between the two brothers, in which Seleucus was so generally unsuccessful that it would appear as if the title of Callinicus (illustrious conquerer) had been bestowed upon him in derision. He was however ultimately successful through the losses and weakness which other enemies brought upon Antiochus Hierax (“the Hawk”--from his rapacity), who was in the end obliged to take refuge in Egypt, where he was put to death in B.C. 240. Toward the end of this war, Mesopotamia appears to have been the scene of action; for in that quarter occurred the battle in which eight thousand Babylonian Jews (subjects of Seleucus) and four thousand Macedonians defeated one hundred and twenty thousand Gauls whom Antiochus had in his pay (2Ma_8:20).
CALLINICUS AND KERAUNUS DIED
S. Callinicus being now relieved from the western war, turned his attention to the recovery of the eastern provinces which had revolted in the time of his father. Renewed troubles in Syria prevented any result from his first attempt in B.C. 236; and in his second, in 230, he was defeated and taken prisoner by the Parthians, whose king, Arsaces, treated the royal captive with the respect becoming his rank, but never set him at liberty. He died in B.C. 226 by a fall from his horse. On this event Seleucus III inherited the remains of his father's kingdom. This prince was equally weak in body and mind, and therefore most un-aptly surnamed Keraunus ('thunder'). When a war broke out in B.C. 223, his imbecile conduct so provoked his generals, that he was poisoned by their contrivance.
Of these troubles and dissensions in Syria, Ptolemy Euergetes, in Egypt, took due advantage in strengthening and extending his own empire. In B.C. 222, the year after the murder of Seleucus III, his reign was terminated through his murder by his own son Ptolemy, who succeeded him, and who, on account of this horrid deed, was ironically surnamed Philopator (“father-loving”). P. Euergetes is popularly considered the last good king of Egypt, which is true in the sense that the succeeding Ptolemies governed far worse than the first three of that name--all of whom were just and humane men, and whose reigns were glorious and beneficent. If Euergetes was inferior in some respects to Lagus and Philadelphus, he was more than in the same degree superior to his own successors.
GREEK INFLUENCE
At this time the Jews had for about sixty years enjoyed almost uninterrupted tranquillity under the shadow of the Egyptian throne. During this period circumstances led them into much intercourse with the Greeks, who were their masters and the ruling people in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor--and, in fact, in all the country west of the Tigris. A predominance of Greeks and of Grecian ideas, which has dotted the surface of westernmost Asia with frequent monuments of Grecian art, was not without much effect upon the Jews in this period. Among other indications, the increasing prevalence, in and after this period, of Greek proper names among the Jews, may be taken. There is ample evidence that the more opulent classes cultivated the language and imbibed some of the manners of the Greeks. It is also apparent that some acquaintance with the Greek philosophers was obtained, and made wild work in Jewish minds. Nothing manifests this more clearly than the rise of the Sadducees, whose system was nothing more than a very awkward attempt to graft the negations of Greek philosophy upon the Hebrew creed. It confirms this view, that the sect of the Sadducees was never popular with the mass of the nation--but was always confined to those whose condition in life brought them the most into contact with the notions of the Greeks--the wealthy, noble, and ruling classes. Priests--even high priests--sometimes adopted the views of this sect.
It has already been stated that the high-priest Simon the Just was counted as the last of “the great synagogue,” who had applied themselves to the great work of collecting, revising, and completing the canon of the Old Testament. To this followed “a new synagogue,” which applied itself diligently to the work of expounding and commenting upon the completed canon. This school lasted until the time of Judah Hakkadosh, who to prevent these comments or “traditions” (which were deemed of equal authority with the text) from being lost, after the dispersion, committed them to writing, in the Mishna--which, with its comments, has since constituted the great law-book of the Jews, from which, even more than from the Scriptures, they have deduced their religious and civil obligations. The founder and first president of this school, or synagogue, was Antigonus Socho, or Sochaeus. He (or, according to some accounts, his successor Joseph) was fond of teaching that God was to be served wholly from disinterested motives, of pure love and reverence, founded on the contemplation of his infinite perfections, without regard to the prospects of future reward, or to the dread of future punishment. This was either misunderstood or wilfully perverted by some of his scholars, and in particular by Sadoc and Baithos, who declared their disbelief that there was any future state of reward of punishment. Perhaps they stopped at this; but the views ultimately embodied in the creed of the sect which took its name from the first of these persons, inculcated that the soul was mortal like the body, and perished with it, and consequently that there was not, nor could be, any resurrection. They also held that there was no spiritual being, good or bad (Matthew 22:23; Acts 23:8). They rejected the doctrine of an overruling Providence, and maintained that all events resulted from the free and unconstrained actions of men. That, like the Samaritans, they rejected all the sacred books save the Pentateuch, is inferred from the unsupported authority of it passage of doubtful interpretation in Josephus.[395] And as there is some evidence to the contrary, it is safer to conclude that they admitted the authority of the other books, but ascribed to them an inferior value and importance than to the Pentateuch. But it is certain that they rejected absolutely the “traditions,” to which such supreme importance was attached by the mass of the nation. This was a good thing in them; and in this they agreed with Jesus Christ and his apostles, who were opposed to them and by them on every other point. In fact, it would seem as if this sect in its beginning was intended merely as an opposition to the tradition party, which was likely to be regarded with apprehension by the more open and thinking minds. The doctrinal errors had no necessary connection with the anti-tradition zeal of the party, and were probably grafted on it through the speculative tendencies of some of its original leaders.
[395] Antiq. xiii 10, 6.
ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT
After the murder of Seleucus Keraunus, who left no son, the kingdom of Syria fell to his brother Antiochus III, who had been brought up at Seleucia on the Tigris. He came to Antioch; and his reign was so productive in great events that he ultimately acquired the surname of “the Great.” He carried on the wars against the revolted provinces with such success that he soon recovered almost all Asia-Minor, Media, Persia, and Babylonia. The effeminate character of Ptolemy Philopator--who was a mean voluptuary, abandoned to the most shameful vices, and entirely governed by the creatures and instruments of his pleasures--led Antiochus to contemplate the feasibility of obtaining possession of the valuable provinces of Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. Great part of the first of these provinces, with the city of Damascus, he easily acquired, through the defection of Theodotian the governor--a brave man rendered a traitor by the desire of revenge, and by contempt for the character of his master. The campaign was terminated by a truce for four months, which circumstances made desirable for both parties before prosecuting the war. Negotiations for a peace were indeed entered into; but as both parties claimed Syria and Palestine in virtue of the treaty by which the empire of Alexander was divided after the fall of Antigonus, the truce expired without anything having been concluded.
The war, was therefore resumed in 218 B.C. Antiochus marched into the disputed territory and carried all things before him--forcing the passer of Lebanon, he penetrated into Phoenicia, and after securing the coast, marched into the interior, and brought under his power all the cities of Galilee; after which he passed beyond Jordan, and won the ancient territory of the tribes beyond that river, with the metropolis Rabbath-Ammon, which Ptolemy Philadelphus had fortified, and named after himself Philadelphia. At the same time, Antiochus subjugated some of the neighboring Arabs; and on his return threw garrisons into Samaria and some of the adjacent towns; and at the close of this brilliant campaign, he took up his winter quarters in Ptolemais (afterward Caesarea).
PHILOPATOR SUBJUGATES THE JEWS
These large and repeated losses at length roused all the energies which Ptolemy was capable of exerting. He forsook his drunken revels, and placing himself at the head of an army of seventy thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and seventy-three elephants, he marched from Pelusium through the desert, and encamped at Raphia, a place between Rhinoculura (El Arish) and Gaza. Antigonus, with the confidence of victory which his recent successes inspired, advanced to meet him at that place, with an army of sixty-two thousand infantry, six thousand cavalry, and one hundred and twenty elephants. He was totally defeated, with such loss that he made no attempt to repair it, but abandoned all his conquests and withdrew to Antioch. By a peace, concluded soon after, he relinquished all pretension to the disputed territories. Philopator now recovered all the former possessions of his crown without striking a blow; for the cities hastened to emulate each other in renewing their homage to him by their ambassadors. Among these the Jews, always partial to the Egyptian rule, were the most forward: and the king was induced to pay a visit to Jerusalem, as well as to the other principal cities. There he offered sacrifices according to the Jewish law, and presented gifts to the temple. But, unhappily, the beauty of the building, and the peculiar order and solemnity of the worship, excited the curiosity of the king to see the interior. Simon II, who had but lately succeeded Onias the high-priesthood, remonstrated against this intention, intimating that it was unlawful even for the priests to enter the inner sanctuary. Philopator answered haughtily, that although they were deprived of that honor, he ought not; and pressed forward to enter the sacred place. But while he was passing through the inner court for that purpose, he was “shaken like a reed, and fell speechless to the ground,” overcome either by his own superstitious fears, or, as the historian seems to intimate, by a supernatural dread and horror cast on him from above. He was carried out half dead, and speedily departed from the city full of displeasure against the Jewish people. He therefore commenced a most barbarous persecution against the Jews to Egypt on his return home. In the first place he caused a decree to be inscribed on brazen pillars at the palace-gate, that none should enter there who did not sacrifice to the gods he worshipped--which effectually excluded the Jews from all access to his person.
Execution by Elephants

Then he deprived the Jews in Alexandria of the high civil privileges they had enjoyed, degrading them from the first to the third or last class of inhabitants. He also ordered them to be formally enrolled, and that at the time of their enrollment, the mark of an ivy-leaf (one of the insignia of his god, Bacchus) should be impressed upon them with a hot iron: if any refused this mark they were to be made saves; and whoever opposed the decree was to be put to death. Again, they were tempted to apostasy by the promise of restoration to the rank of citizens of the first class; but of the many thousands of Jews then at Alexandria, only three hundred appear to have submitted to the humiliating condition, and these were held in such abhorrence by the majority of their countrymen, and were so pointedly shunned, and excluded from the society of their old associates, that the king, when acquainted with it, was highly enraged, and regarded this as an opposition to his authority; he vowed to extirpate the whole nation. To begin with the Jews in Egypt, he ordered them all to be brought in chains to Alexandria. Having thus brought them all together, they were shut up in the hippodrome, which was a large enclosure outside the city, built for the purpose of horse-racing and other pubic amusements, where he intended to expose them as a spectacle, to be destroyed by elephants. At the appointed time, the people assembled in crowds, and the elephants were on the spot; but the effects of a drunken bout, the preceding night, prevented the attendance of the king, and caused the postponement of the show. The next day, a similar disappointment proceeded from the same unseemly cause. But on the third, the king managed to be present, and the elephants were brought out after they had been intoxicated with wine and frankincense to render them more ferocious. But they spent their fury, not on the unhappy Jews, but turned upon the spectators, of whom they destroyed great numbers. This, connected with some unusual appearances in the air, appeared to the king and his attendants so manifest an interposition of a Divine Power in behalf of the Jews, that he instantly ordered them to be set at liberty; and fearful of having provoked the vengeance of Heaven, he hastened to restore the Jews to their former privileges by rescinding all the decrees he had issued against them. Now also, his better reason gaining sway, considering that those who had so signally evinced their fidelity to their God were not likely to be unfaithful to their king, he bestowed upon them many marks of his munificence and confidence. Among other things, he abandoned to their disposal the three hundred apostates, who were speedily put to death by their offended brethren.[396]
[396] It is right to apprize the reader that the whole of this account of the visit of Philopator to Jerusalem and its consequences, down to this point, is not in Josephus, but is given on the sole authority of the author of the third book of Maccabees. In all, there are five books of Maccabees, of which two only are included in our Apocrypha. The third, which relates solely to this persecution of the Jews by Ptolemy Philopator, exists in Greek, and is found in some ancient manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint, particularly in the Alexandrian and Vatican manuscripts. There is also a Syriac version of it from the Greek; but it has never been inserted in the Vulgate, or in our English Bibles, but English translations of it exist. It appears to have been the work of an Alexandrian Jew; and while we admit that the book is full of absurdities, and that the authority is of very little value in itself, yet we think that in the outline facts, as related in the text, there is so much appearance of probability, and so many small agreements with the accounts which history has preserved of the manners and ideas and circumstances of the times, as well as with the character of the king, that we are disposed to regard it as substantially true. The silence of Josephus is indeed a suspicious circumstance to which we are willing that due weight should be given; but it will be noticed by every reader that the history of Josephus is remarkably brief at this period.
EPIPHANES LOSES PALESTINE TO ANTIOCHUS
Ptolemy Philopator in B.C. 205, leaving his crown to Ptolemy Epiphanes, then a child five years of age. Meanwhile Antiochus III had won the surname of Great, by his eminent successes in the East, where he restored the ancient supremacy of the Seleucidae. At the death of Philopator, he had but recently returned from his eastern wars. He was not slow in perceiving the advantage which he might take of the infancy of the new king in accomplishing what had been one of the first objects of his reign. This design again exposed unhappy Palestine to all the horrors of war. The first campaign put Antiochus in possession of the standing bone of contention, Syria and Palestine. It is remarkable that on this occasion the Jews relinquished their usual attachment to the Egyptian yoke, and took a very decided part with Antiochus. For this many reasons may be conceived, but none are distinctly known; we have however no doubt that one of them may be found in the indulgent consideration with which the Jews of Babylonia and other eastern provinces had been treated by Antiochus--a fact which could not fail to be known in Palestine and at Jerusalem. The next year, however, Antiochus having been called away into Asia Minor, Palestine was speedily' recovered by Scopas, the Egyptian general, who did not fail to make the Jews aware of his consciousness of the favor to Antiochus which they had manifested. The Egyptians were, however, soon again driven out of the country by Antiochus, and on this occasion such important services were rendered him by the Jews, and, when he came to Jerusalem (B.C. 198), so lively were their demonstrations of joy, that the king, to confirm their attachment to his government, and to reward their services, granted them many important favors; and aware that there were no points on which they were more anxious than in what concerned their city and temple, he declared his intention to restore the city to its ancient splendor and dignity, and thoroughly to repair the temple at his own cost; he guarantied the inviolability of the sacred place from the intrusion of strangers; and by liberal grants, he made ample provision for the due and orderly performance of the sacred services. Antiochus also expressed his confidence in the attachment of the Jews by establishing colonies of them, on very advantageous terms, in Phrygia, Lydia, and other districts of doubtful fidelity--a circumstance which accounts for the great number of Jews scattered through those countries at the preaching of the gospel (1 Peter 1:1; James 1:1). But it was the destiny of Antiochus to come into contact with the iron power which was ere long to break in pieces all the kingdoms of the earth, and to make their glory a vain thing. The Romans had already become great, and began to interfere with their usual haughtiness in the affairs of the East. The successful termination of the second Punic war had covered them with renown, and spread their fame far and wide; and already they had indicated to sagacious persons, by the reduction of Macedonia to the state of a subject kingdom, the ultimate tendencies of their great and still increasing power. Antiochus regarded this phenomenon with some apprehension, and perceiving, at the same time, what appeared advantageous opportunities of recovering to the north all that had belonged to the first Seleucus, he felt disposed to bring his southern contest to a conclusion. He therefore temporized with the Egyptians, whose power he had greatly underrated, and made an offer of his beautiful daughter Cleopatra in marriage with the young king of Egypt, as soon as he should become of age; promising, as her dower, to restore the provinces of Syria and Palestine, which he had wrested from Egypt. The princess was accordingly betrothed to P. Epiphanies; but the marriage did not actually take place until B.C. 192, when the young monarch reached the eighteenth year of his age.
ANTIOCHUS REDUCES GREEK TERRITORY BUT NOT ROMANS
Antiochus availed himself of this settlement of affairs to prosecute his other plans. He reduces the maritime Greek cities of Asia Minor, and crossing the Hellespont, wrested the Chersonese from the weakened hands of the Macedonian king. This brought him into direct and fatal collision with the Romans. And here it may be observed that long before this the political sagacity of Ptolemy Philadelphus had detected the nascent greatness of the Roman state, and had anxiously cultivated its friendship. This also had been the policy of his successors; and the guardians of the young king, when apprehensive of the danger of Antiochus, had placed him under the guardianship of the republic.
When Antiochus had passed into Europe and taken possession of Thrace, the Romans sent an embassy to require restitution not only of all he had taken from Philip of Macedon, but of all that he had taken from their ward the king of Egypt. The Syrian king answered the requisition as haughtily as it was made; and it was manifest that an appeal to arms could not be far distant. What brought on the actual conflict was the passage of Antiochus into Greece, at the invitation of the Aetolians, who made him their commander-in-chief. In Greece his proceedings were not taken with that ability which distinguished the earlier part of his career, and in 191 B.C., he was utterly routed at Thermopylae, and compelled to withdraw from Europe, by the consul Aciltus Glabrio. The marriage of his daughter with Ptolemy had been completed the year before this at Raphia, but he still retained possession of the provinces to be ceded,[397] and endeavored to corrupt his daughter to betray the interests of her husband. But he was disappointed. She was more attached to Ptolemy than to her father; and, being probably dissatisfied at his breach of promise, she joined her husband in an embassy to Rome in 191 B.C., to congratulate the Romans on driving Antiochus out of Greece, and to assure the senate of the readiness of the king and queen to conform themselves to its directions.
[397] Jerome and Appian say that Antiochus did surrender these provinces; and Josephus appears to concur with them, intimating that the revenues were paid to the Egyptian king (Ant. xii. 4, 1). But Polybius denies it; and this denial is confirmed by the fact that they still remained in the possession of the sons and successors of Antiochus.
ANTIOCHUS IS SLAIN
Antiochus was now driven to seek peace with Rome; but the terms which they offered were so hard, that he could not bring himself to accept them. In all human probability he had brought himself into this condition by his inability to appreciate the value of the advice tendered to him by Hannibal, who, expelled from Carthage, had in 195 B.C., sought refuge at his court; and who, while he encouraged his enmity to the Romans, had exhorted him to make Italy the seat of the war. In 190 B.C., Cornelius Scipio (consul), assisted by his brother Africanus, passed over into Asia to conduct the war against Antiochus. Under their able management, it was soon brought to a conclusion, and the Syrian king was compelled from his capital of Antioch to sue for peace, which he obtained on very humiliating terms, but not essentially harder than those which he had at first refused. He relinquished all Asia Minor west of the Taurus: he agreed to pay all the expenses of the war, estimated at eighteen thousand Euobic talents, by regulated installments; he was to deliver up his elephants and his ships-of-war (excepting twelve) to the Romans; and he was to give into their hands Hannibal and other eminent foreigners, who had sought protection at his court. The aged Carthaginian and another contrived to make their escape; but the rest were given up, together with the twelve hostages, for the observance of the treaty, among whom the king's younger son, Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes was one. After this Antiochus withdrew to the eastern provinces of his empire, where he endeavored to collect the arrears of tribute due to him, to defray his heavy engagements to the Romans. There he was slain, two years after, by the natives of Elymais in Persia, when he attempted to seize the treasures contained in their rich temple. This was in B.C. 187, in the fifty-second year of his age, and the thirty-seventh of his reign. The leading events of his reign had been foreshown by Daniel (Daniel 11:13-19).
ONIAS BECOMES HIGH PRIEST
Simon II, who was high-priest of the Jews at the time of the unhappy visit of Ptolemy IV to Jerusalem, died in B.C. 195, after an administration of twenty-two years. He was succeeded by his son Onias III Onias was a person of great piety, and of mild and amiable disposition--and well worthy of better times than those in which he lived, and of a better end than it was his lot to experience. During the first years of his administration, when his excellent intentions received full effect under the favorable auspices of Antiochus and his successor, “the holy city was inhabited in all peace, and the laws were kept very well.” The nation was also at this time held in such high estimation that the sovereigns of the neighboring countries courted its friendship, and made magnificent offerings to the temple. And we are persuaded that this was not merely on account of the Jews, but with the design of honoring and with the hope of propitiating their God, Jehovah, whose fame was by this time widely extended among the nations, and his power acknowledged and feared by many of them.
PHILOPATOR BECOMES KING
Seleucus IV, surnamed Philopator, the eldest son of Antiochus the Great, succeeded to the throne of his father, and to the heavy obligations under which he lay to the Romans. He was as well disposed toward the Jews as his father had been; and notwithstanding his embarrassments, gave orders that the charges of the public worship should continue to be defrayed out of his own treasury. But subsequently, upon the information of Simon--a Benjamite, who was made governor of the temple, and had quarreled with Onias--that the treasury of the Jerusalem temple was very rich, and abundantly more than sufficient to supply the sacrifices and oblations--the king, who was greatly straitened for money, to raise the money required by the Romans, sent his treasurer Heliodorus to seize and bring him the reported treasure. Heliodorus concealed the object of his journey until be reached Jerusalem, when he made it known to the high-priest, and demanded the quiet surrender of the money. Onias informed him in reply, that there was indeed considerable treasure in the temple; but by no means of such large amount as had been reported. Great part of it consisted of holy gifts, and offerings consecrated to God, and the appropriation of which could not be disturbed without sacrilege. The rest had been placed there by way of security, for the relief of widows and orphans, who claimed it as their property; and a considerable sum had been deposited there by Hyrcanus (the son of that Joseph who obtained the farming of the revenues from Ptolemy Euergetes, as before related), a person of great opulence and high rank. He added, that being by virtue of his office the guardian of this wealth, he could not consent to its being taken from the right owners, and thereby disgrace his office and profane the sanctity of that holy place which was held in reverence by all the world. Determined to fulfill his mission, whatever impression this statement may have made upon his mind, Heliodorus marched directly to the temple, and was there vainly opposed by the high-priest and the other ministers of the sacred services. The outer gates were ordered to be demolished; and the whole city was in the utmost agonies of apprehension. But when Heliodorus was about to enter, at the head of his Syrians, he was struck with a panic terror, similar to that which Ptolemy Philopator had before experienced, and, falling to the ground, speechless, he was carried off for dead by his guard. Onias prayed for him and he recovered, and made all haste to quit the city. His plan being thus frustrated, the guilty Simon had the effrontery to charge Onias himself with having procured this visit from Heliodorus: some believed it; and in consequence there arose hostile conflicts between the patties of Onias and Simon, in which many lives were lost. At last, Onias resolved to proceed himself to Antioch and lay the whole matter before Seleucus. He was favorably received by the king, who heard and credited his statements, and, in consequence, decreed the banishment of Simon from his native country. This was in B.C. 176. In the year following, Seleucus was induced to send his son Demetrius as a hostage to Rome, to relieve his own brother Antiochus, who had now been twelve years in that city. Demetrius had departed, and Antiochus was not come; and the absence of the two who stood next the throne afforded Heliodorus an opportunity of conspiring against his master, whom be removed by poison, and himself assumed the government. Antiochus was visiting Athens, on his way home, when he heard of this. He immediately applied himself to the old enemy of his father, Eumenes, king of Perganios[398] (to whom the Romans had consigned the greater part of the territory in Asia Minor, which they compelled Antiochus the Great to cede) who, with his brother Attalus, was easily induced to assist him against the usurper. They succeeded, and their success placed the brother instead of the son of Seleucus upon the throne of Syria, with the concurrence of the Romans.
[398] The founder of the celebrated library at Pergamos, and the reputed inventor of parchment.
JASON SETS UP GYMNASIUMS FOR JEWS
Antiochus IV was scarcely settled on the throne before Jesus, or, by his Greek name, Jason,[399] repaired to Antioch, and, availing himself of the penury of the royal treasury, tempted the new king by the offer of four hundred and forty talents of silver to depose the excellent Onias III from the high-priesthood, and to appoint himself in his place. He also obtained an order that Onias should be summoned to Antioch, and commanded to dwell there. Finding how acceptable money was to the king, Jason offered one hundred and fifty talents more for, and obtained, the privilege of erecting at Jerusalem a gymnasium, or place for such public sports and exercises as were usual among the Greeks, as well as for permission to establish an academy in which Jewish youth might be brought up after the manner of the Greeks; and also the important privilege of making what Jews he pleased free of the city of Antioch. The obvious object of all this was as opposite as possible to that of the Mosaic institutions. It was intended to facilitate the commixture of the Jews with foreigners, and to lessen the dislike with which the Greeks were disposed to regard a people so peculiar and so exclusive. This might have been a good design under general considerations of human policy, but was calculated to be most injurious and fatal as respected the Jews, whose institutions designedly made them a peculiar people, and whatever tended to make them otherwise must needs have been in counteraction of the great principle of their establishment. The effects which resulted from the exertions of Jason, after he had established himself in the high-priesthood, were such as might have been foreseen. The example of a person in his commanding position drew forth and gave full scope to the more lax dispositions which existed among the people, especially among the younger class, who were enchanted with the ease and freedom of the Grecian customs, and weary of the restraints. and limitations of their own. Such as these abandoned themselves with all the frenzy of a new excitement, from which all restraint had been withdrawn, to the license which was offered to them. The exercises of the gymnasium seem to have taken their minds with the force of a fascination. The priests neglected their service in the temple to be present at these spectacles. It is well known that some of these exercises were performed naked; and it is related that many of the Jewish competitors found means to efface the marks of circumcision, that they might not be distinguished from other people. In the Greek cities of Asia, in which Jews were settled, this became a common practice among those young men who wished to distinguish themselves in the sports of the gymnasium.[400] We allude to this as a striking illustration of the extent in which this rite operated in fulfilling its design of separating the Jews from other people. The year after his promotion, Jason sent some young men, on whom he had conferred the citizenship of Antioch, to assist at the games which were celebrated at Tyre (in the presence of Antiochus) in honor of Hercules. They were entrusted with a large sum of money, to be expended in sacrifices to that god. But even the least scrupulous of the high-priest's followers were not prepared to go to this extent with him, and instead of obeying their instructions, they presented the money to the Tyrians as a contribution toward the repair of their fleet.
[399] Most persons of consequence had now two names; one native Hebrew name, used among their own countrymen, and another Greek (as much as possible like the other in sound or meaning), used in their intercourse with the heathen.
[400] To this practice allusions are made by St. Paul: Romans 2:25; 1 Corinthians 7:18.
MENELAUS BUYS PRIESTHOOD
Jason only enjoyed his ill-gotten dignity for three years. His younger brother Onias, or, by his Greek name, Menelaus, having been sent to Antioch with tribute, took advantage of the opportunity to ingratiate himself with Antiochus, and by offering three hundred talents more than Jason had paid, succeeded in getting himself appointed to the high-priesthood in his room. But he was repulsed in his attempt to assume that high office, and returned to Antioch, where he induced the king to establish him by force, by professing for himself and his associates an entire conformity to the religion of the Greeks. Jason was in consequence expelled by an armed force, and compelled to retire to the land of the Ammonites, leaving the pontificate to his still less scrupulous brother.
MENELAUS SLAIN BY THE JEWS
Menelaus found that he had over-taxed his resources in the payment he had agreed to make for his promotion, and in consequence of the non-payment he was summoned to Antioch by the king. Antiochus was absent when be arrived, and he soon learned that there was no hope of his retaining the favor of the king unless the payment was completed. Having exhausted his own coffers as well as credit, he privately sent to his brother Lysimachus (whom he had left as his representative at Jerusalem) to withdraw some of the sacred vessels of gold from the temple, to sell them at Tyre and the neighboring cities, and send him the amount. This disgraceful affair was not managed with such secrecy but that it came to the knowledge of his elder brother, the deposed high-priest, Onias III, who was still residing at Antioch, much respected by the numerous Jews of that city, before whom he spoke of this sacrilege in such strong language as threw them into such a state of ferment and displeasure as was likely to prove dangerous to Menelaus. He therefore, by bribery, prevailed on Andronicus, the king's deputy at Antioch, to put him to death. Onias, apprized of these intrigues, had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Daphne;[401] but was induced to quit it, by the assurances and promises he received from Andronicus, and was barbarously murdered as soon as he had passed the sacred bounds. This atrocious deed raised a terrible outcry among the Jews at Antioch, who hastened to make their complaints to the king on his return to that city. Antiochus, to do him justice, was much affected, and shed tears, when he heard them. He promised justice, and performed it; for, after proper investigation, Andronicus was stripped of his purple, and put to death on the very spot where Onias had been murdered. Menelaus, the more guilty of the two, found means to escape the storm which destroyed the agent of his crime, But the sums of money which were necessary to enable him to maintain his credit, obliged his brother Lysimachus to resort to such repeated and unheard of exactions, violence, and sacrilege, that the people of Jerusalem rose against him, scattered like chaff the three thousand men he had got to defend him, and, when he himself fled to the treasury of the temple, pursued and slew him there.
[401] This was a grove about three miles from Antioch, which had been made a sanctuary for criminals and a place of pleasure. In the end the place became so infamous that no man of character could visit it.
JEWISH ELDERS SLAIN
Antiochus having soon after come to Tyre, the Jewish elders sent three venerable deputies thither to justify this act, and to accuse Menelaus as the author of all the troubles which had happened in Judea and Antioch. The case which they made out was so strong, and was heard with so much attention by the king, that Menelaus felt greatly alarmed for the result. He therefore applied himself to the king's favorite, Ptolemy Macron, and promised him so large a sum that he was induced to watch the inconstant temper of the king, and availed himself of an opportunity of getting him not only to absolve Menelaus, but to condemn the three Jewish deputies to death. This most unjust and horrid sentence was immediately executed. This terrible crime shocked the whole nation, and was abhorrent even to foreigners, for the Tyrians ventured to express their sense of the wrong, by giving an honorable burial to the murdered men. The ultimate effect was to make Antiochus himself a sharer in the aversion with which Menelaus was regarded by the nation: but, at the same time, the paramount influence of that guilty person with the king seemed to he so clearly manifested, that all further notion of resisting his authority was abandoned, and he was enabled to resume his station at Jerusalem. This was greatly facilitated by the presence of the king himself with a powerful army in the country, for which circumstance we must now proceed to account.
THE PTOLEMY FAMILY
It will be remembered that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes, had been married to Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus the Great, and sister of the present Antiochus. Ptolemy was taken off by poison in B.C. 181, after a profligate and troubled reign of twenty-four years. He left three children: Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy Physcon, and Cleopatra, who was successively married to her two brothers.
PHILOMETOR THE CHILD KING
Ptolemy VI, surnamed Philometor (“mother-loving”), was but a child at the death of his father, and the government was conducted with ability by his mother Cleopatra. But she died in B.C. 173, on which the regency devolved on Eulaeus the eunuch, and Lenaeus, the prime minister--the tutors of the young prince. They immediately advanced a claim to the possession of Syria and Palestine, on the ground that they had been secured to Ptolemy Lagus by the partition-treaty of B.C. 301; and that they had again been given by Antiochus the Great in dowry with his daughter Cleopatra on her becoming queen of Egypt. Antiochus refused to listen to such demands; and both parties sent deputies to Rome to argue their respective claims before the senate.
ANTIOCHUS ATTACKS EGYPT
When Philometor had completed his fourteenth year, he was solemnly invested with the government, on which occasion embassies of congratulation were sent from all the neighboring nations. Apollonius, the ambassador of Antiochus, was instructed to take the opportunity of sounding the dispositions of the Egyptian court; and when this person informed Antiochus that he was viewed as an enemy by the Egyptians, he immediately proceeded to Joppa, to survey his frontiers toward Egypt, and to put them in a state of defence. On this occasion he paid a visit to Jerusalem. The city was illuminated, and the king was received by Jason (who was then high-priest) with every demonstration of respect. Afterward he returned to Antioch through Phoenicia.
Having completed his preparations for war, Antiochus, in B.C. 171, led his army along the coast of Palestine, and gave the Egyptians a signal overthrow at Pelusium. He then left garrisons on the frontier and withdrew into winter-quarters at Tyre. It was during his stay there that the deputies arrived to complain of Menelaus, and were put to death, as just related. In the spring of the next year (B.C. 170) Antiochus undertook a second expedition against the Egyptians, and attacked them by sea and land. He defeated them on the frontiers and took Pelusium. After his victory he might have cut the Egyptian army in pieces, but he behaved with such humanity as gained him great favor with the Egyptians. At length all surrendered to him voluntarily; and with a small body of troops he overran all the country except Alexandria, and obtained possession of the person of the young king, whom he treated with apparent consideration and regard.
AMMONITES THEN ANTIOCHUS ATTACK JERUSALEM
While Antiochus was thus employed, a rumor of his death before Alexandria reached Palestine, on which the deposed high-priest, Jason, quitted the land of the Ammonites, and with a party, assisted by friends within, surprised Jerusalem, massacred the citizens, drove his brother Menelaus into the castle, and possessed himself of the principality. But he was speedily compelled to quit the city and country, at the news that Antiochus was alive, and marching with a powerful army against Jerusalem. After wandering from one place to another, a fugitive and a vagabond; Jason at last perished miserably, a refugee in the strange land of Lacedaemonia. The news of this movement had been reported to Antiochus with such exaggeration as led him to conclude that Judea had revolted; and being further provoked by hearing that the Jews had made public rejoicings at the news of his death, he marched in great wrath from Egypt, took Jerusalem by assault, destroyed eighty thousand persons, plundered the temple of all its treasures, vessels, and golden ornaments, and carried away one thousand eight hundred talents to Antioch.
ANTIOCHUS LEAVES EGYPT
Ptolemy Philometor being now actually under the power of Antiochus, the people of Alexandria proclaimed his brother king under the name of Ptolemy Euergetes II; but who was afterward nick-named Physcon (“big-belly”) on account of his corpulency. This afforded Antiochus a pretext for returning the next year (B.C. 169) to Egypt with the declared intention of supporting Ptolemy Philometor in the throne, but with the real purpose of bringing the whole country under his power. At the end, however, perceiving that the conquest of Alexandria would be an undertaking of great difficulty, he withdrew to Memphis, and affected to deliver up the kingdom to Philometor, and returned to Antioch. But as he retained in his own hands Pelusium, the key of the kingdom on the side of Syria, his ulterior designs were transparent to Philometor, who therefore made an agreement with Physcon that they should share the government between them and resist Antiochus with their united power, and also that a joint embassy should be sent to Rome to implore the protection of the republic against their uncle.
ANTIOCHUS SUBMITS TO ROME
This brought on a fourth invasion of Egypt by Antiochus (B.C. 168), who now threw off the mask he had hitherto chosen to wear, and declared himself the enemy of both the brother kings. He took possession of all the country as far as Alexandria, and then advanced toward that city. He was within four miles thereof, when he was met at Eleusis, by the ambassadors which the Roman republic had sent to adjust these differences. And this they did in the usual summary manner of that arrogant people. At the head of the ambassadors was Popilius Laenas, whom Antiochus had known during his thirteen years' residence at Rome. Rejoiced to see him, Antiochus stretched forth his arms to embrace him. But the Roman sternly repelled the salute, demanding first to receive an answer to the written orders of the senate, which he delivered. The king intimated that he would confer on the matter with his friends, and acquaint the ambassadors with the result: on which Popilius drew with his staff a circle around the king on the sand, and said, “I require your answer before you quit this circle.” The king was confounded; but after a moment of rapid and condensed deliberation, he bowed his proud head, and said, falteringly, “I will obey the senate!” On which Popilius, who had hitherto seen only the king of Syria, recognized the friend, and extended to him his hand. Perhaps this conduct in either party would not have occurred the year, or even the month before; but the Romans had dust concluded their war with Perseus, and made Macedonia a Roman province, and the ambassadors had waited at Delos to learn the issue of this war before they sailed for Egypt.
APOLLONIUS SLAUGHTERS THE JEWS
Antiochus obeyed the senate, by immediately withdrawing his forces from Egypt. On his way homeward, he marched along the coast of Palestine; and he dispatched Apollonius, his general, with twenty-two thousand men to vent his mortification and fury upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which, as well as the rest of the province, had for two years been groaning under the tyranny and rapacity of Philip, the Phrygian governor, “more barbarous than his master;” and of Menelaus the apostate high priest, “worse than all the rest.” Apollonius came to Jerusalem, and as his men remained quiet, and he was himself known as the collector of the tribute in Palestine, and as such usually attended by an armed force, his hostile intentions were not suspected by the Jews. All things remained quiet until the Sabbath, on which day, it was known, the Jews of that age would not fight even in self-defence. The soldiers were then let loose, and scoured the streets, slaughtering all they met--who suffered themselves meekly to be slain, none being found who attempted to stand on their defence. The women and children were spared, to be sold for slaves. All the streets of Jerusalem, and the courts of the temple flowed with blood; the houses were pillaged and the city wall thrown down. Apollonius then demolished all the buildings near Mount Zion, and with the materials strengthened the fortifications of the citadel, which he furnished with a garrison and held under his own command. This castle was so situated as to give the garrison complete command of the temple, and the remains of the people would no longer visit the sanctuary, or the priests perform the public services of religion. Accordingly, in the month of June, B.C. 167 the daily sacrifice ceased, and Jerusalem was soon completely deserted, as the surviving inhabitants fled to the cities of the neighboring Gentiles.
ANTIOCHUS CANCELS ALL OTHER RELIGIONS
An edict was now issued at Antioch, and proclaimed in all the provinces of Syria, commanding the inhabitants of the whole empire to worship the gods of the king, and to acknowledge no religion but his--with the declared object “that all should become one people.” Antiochus was unquestionably a madman. This is not doubted by any one who has studied the whole of his history, which it has been no part of our duty to relate: and it is surely not very necessary to analyze the interior motives of a madman's acts. Hales fancies that “this general persecution seems to have been raised by Antiochus, not from any regard to his own religion, but from a regular plan and deep-laid scheme of plundering the temples throughout his dominions, after he had suppressed their worship. For the temples were not only enriched by the offerings of the votaries, but from their sanctity were the great banks of deposit, and the grand magazines of commerce.” But there was no general persecution, although the edict was general in its terms. The cities containing the wealthiest temples already worshipped the gods of Greece; and it must have been known, as proved the fact, that none of the other pagan nations would make much difficulty in complying with the royal edict. It must have been known, in fact, that none but the Jews were likely to oppose themselves to the operation of this decree; and we are therefore not disposed to look for any deeper cause than the insane abhorrence which Antiochus had conceived against that people, and which he could not safely manifest without bringing them into a condition of apparent contumacy, which might, in some degree, excuse, in the eyes of the heathen, his contemplated severities against them.
JEWS FORCED INTO PAGANISM
The pagan generally, as we have intimated, found no difficulty in complying with the royal edict. The Samaritans, who were anxious to claim a Jewish origin in the time of Alexander, now wrote to Antiochus to inform him that they were Sidonians, and offered to dedicate their temple on Mount Gerizim to Jupiter Xenius, “the defender of strangers.” Even many Jews submitted to the edict for fear of punishment, and a still greater number, long attached to the customs of the Greeks, were glad to avail themselves of the apparent compulsions under which they were now placed. But the better part of the people fled, and kept themselves concealed. An old man of the name of Athenaeus was sent to Jerusalem to instruct the Jews in the Greek religion, and to compel the observance of its rites. He dedicated the temple to Jupiter Olympius, and on the altar of Jehovah he placed a smaller altar to be used in sacrificing to the heathen god. This new altar, built by order of the desolater Antiochus, is what Daniel alludes to when he speaks of the “abomination that maketh desolate,” or “abomination of desolation.”[402] This altar was set up on the fifteenth day of the month Cisleu (November-December), and the heathen sacrifices were commenced on the twenty-fifth of the same month. Circumcision, the keeping of the Sabbath, and every peculiar observance of the law was made a capital offence; and all the copies of the law which could be found were taken away, defaced, torn in pieces, burned. The reading of it was forbidden; and it is said to have been at this time that the Jews first took to the public reading in the synagogues, of the other books of Scripture, as substitutes for the interdicted Pentateuch, which usage they afterward retained, when the reading of the law was restored. Groves were consecrated, and idolatrous altars erected in every city, and the citizens were required to offer sacrifices to the gods, and to eat swine's flesh every month on the birth-day of the king; and on the feast of Bacchus, the Jews were compelled to join in the celebration, and to walk in procession crowned with ivy. Instant death was the penalty of refusal. Among other instances of cruel punishment at Jerusalem, two women, with their infant children, whom they had circumcised with their own hands, were thrown from the battlements on the south side of the temple, into the deep vale below. Officers were sent into all the towns, attended by bands of soldiers, to enforce obedience to the royal edict.
[402] This is from Jahn, who remarks further, “This interpretation agrees much better with the literal meaning of the words than that adopted by those who apply this expression to the erecting of an image to Jupiter Olympius; a mode of explanation which is at variance with the authority of Josephus and the first book of Maccabees. Undoubtedly there was an image erected to Jupiter Olympius, for the pagan religion required it; but this is not the circumstance referred to by the prophet, in the words which have been quoted.”
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
It seems that ultimately Antiochus came into Palestine to observe that his orders had been duly executed; and the history relates that he commanded and superintended the most horrible tortures of the recusants--particular mention is made of the martyrdom of Eleazar, in his ninetieth year, for refusing to eat swine's flesh (2Ma_6:18-31); and of the heroic matron and her seven sons, who nobly set the royal madman at defiance and professed their belief that “The King of the World would raise up to everlasting life those who died for his laws;” and threatening their tormentor that “he should have no resurrection to life, but receive the lost punishment of his pride through the judgment of God.” Never before were the Jews exposed to so furious a persecution--indeed it is the first time in which they can be said to have been persecuted on account of their religion. It was undoubtedly made instrumental in the then, great mission of the Jews in calling the attention of the heathen to the great principles of doctrine of which they had been the special conservators. The mere fact of this conspicuous persecution for opinion, which was a new thing to the heathen, and still more the historical results of this persecution, were calculated to draw the attention of every reflecting mind among the heathen to those religious peculiarities on behalf of which such numbers of the Jewish people were willing to peril their lives.
MATTATHIAS INITIATES REVOLT
The persecution had lasted about six months, when God raised tip a deliverer for a people whom he had not yet abandoned, in the noble family of the Hasmoneans. Mattathias was the son of John, the son of Simon, the son of Asamonias, from whom the family took its name. He was a priest of the course of Joarib, the first of the twenty-four courses appointed by David (1 Chronicles 24:7), descended from Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the elder branch of the family of Aaron (1Ma_2:55). He had five sons, whose names were Johanan (John), Simon, Judas, Eleazar and Jonathan. He was one of the principal inhabitants of Modin, a town near the seashore, about a mile from Joppa (Jaffa), and four miles from Lydda or Diospolis. To this city a royal officer named Appelles was sent to enforce the edict. With many fair promises, he endeavored to induce Mattathias, as a leading man in the place, to set the example of sacrificing to the idol. But the undaunted priest repelled his offers with indignation and abhorrence, and with a loud voice, in the hearing of the whole assembly, proclaimed his refusal to sacrifice. At this juncture a certain Jew passed toward the altar with the intention of sacrificing, when Mattathias, in obedience to the law, struck him down with his own hand, as a rebel against Jehovah. This was the earnest-blood of the great war which followed. Kindled by his own act, the zealous priest and his sons, assisted by the citizens, whom their daring act emboldened, rushed upon the commissioner and his retinue, slew them on the spot, and tore town the idolatrous altar. Alive to the consequences of this deed, Mattathias proclaimed through the city, “Whosoever is zealous for the law, and a maintainer of the covenant, let him follow me!” Thus he and his sons fled to the mountains of Judea. They were only ten in number at first, but were soon joined by many Jews who were determined to maintain the religion of their fathers.
MATTATHIAS APPROVES SABBATH DEFENCE
These conscientious persons were disposed to construe the obligations of the law all the more rigidly and literally, out of opposition to the loose principles of those who had joined the Greeks--it being the tendency of all great struggles to produce extreme parties. They hence held it to be imperative to abstain from the use of arms on the sabbath day. In consequence of this a thousand persons, who had taken refuge in a large cave not far from Jerusalem, allowed themselves to be slaughtered on that day without the least resistance. This event opened the eyes of Mattathias and his adherents; who, after mature deliberation, determined that it was not only lawful, but their duty, to stand on their defence on the sabbath day; although they still thought themselves bound from voluntarily becoming on that day the assailants. They took every means of making this resolution known throughout the country, so that from that time no scruples on the subject were entertained.
MATTATHIAS DIES PURGING THE COUNTRY
Meanwhile the party of Mattathias went on steadily increasing, until it amounted to a considerable body of men, who were prepared to hazard everything in defence of their religion. This ardor could not long be restrained, and Mattathias, emerging from his concealment, went with them throughout the Jewish cities, and everywhere demolished the idolatrous altars, circumcised the children, slew the apostate Jews and the officers appointed to execute the decree of Antiochus, recovered many of the copies of the law which the oppressors had taken away, and gained several important advantages over the enemy. While engaged in these expeditions the heroic priest died, in the year B.C. 167. Before his death he appointed his third and bravest son, Judas, to be military leader; associating with him Simon, his second and most prudent son, as counselor. Judas is supposed to have derived his celebrated surname of Maccabeus from a cabalistic word formed of M.C.B.I, the initial letters of the Hebrew text Mi Chamoka Baalim Jehovah, “Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Jehovah!” (Exodus 6:11), which letters might have been displayed on his sacred standard: like the S.P.Q.R. for Senatus populus que Romanus on the Roman ensigns.
Roman Standards The noble war for the rights of opinion commenced by Mattathias was carried on for twenty-six years by his illustrious sons--counting from the first stroke at Modin--with five successive kings of Syria. Within this period Judas and his brothers established the independence of their country and the aggrandizement of their family, after destroying above two hundred thousand of the best troops of the Syrian kings. “Such a triumph of a petty province over a great empire is hardly to be paralleled in the annals of history.” (Hales ii. 551.)
APOLLONIUS DEFEATED AND SLAIN
The first enterprise of Judas, and his comparatively small but resolute band, was against Apollonius, whose barbarous exploits at Jerusalem have lately been recorded. He was at the head of a large army, but was defeated and slain by Judas, who took his sword, with which he afterward fought all his life long.
SERON DEFEATED
The next exploit of Judas was the defeat of Seron, a Syrian general, with a large host of Graecizing Jews and apostate Samaritans. The small force with which he achieved this victory was encouraged by the hero in the words of Jonathan, the son of Saul, “With the God of Heaven it is all one to deliver with a great multitude or a small company:” adding the emphatic words, “We fight for our lives and our laws.” This battle was fought near Betheron.
ANTIOCHUS SEEKS FUNDS AND FIGHTS THE JEWS
Antiochus was filed with rage and indignation at these successes of an adversary which seemed so contemptible, but whose fame had now spread into all the neighboring nations. He formed large plans of vengeance, but finding these checked by the exhausted state of his treasury--for he had squandered wealth like a madman as he was--he resolved to proceed into the eastern provinces to recruit his finances. His son, the heir of his crown, then about seven years old, he committed to the care of Lysias, “a nobleman, and one of the blood royal,” and appointed him regent of all the western provinces, from the Euphrates to Egypt, and commissioned him to raise and march an army to extirpate the Jews, and to plant a foreign colony in their room, B.C. 166.
The next year Lysias was able to send a large army of forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse into Judea, under the command of Nicanor and Gorgias. So confident were they of victory that Nicanor proclaimed a sale of the captive Jews beforehand, at the rate of ninety for a talent, or about two pounds sterling a head. This drew a crowd of merchants from the coast to the Syrian camp at Emmaus, near Jerusalem, to make a cheap purchase of slaves. This was not a peculiar circumstance; for it was then usual (according to Polybius) for the march of armies to be attended by slave-dealers. Under these alarming circumstances Judas and his party assembled at Mizpeh--that ancient place of concourse--where they fasted and prayed; after which Judas, in obedience to the law, dismissed all such of his men as had in the course of the preceding year built houses, betrothed wives, or were planting vineyards, or were fearful; and this strong act of faith reduced his small army from six thousand to three thousand men.
SYRIAN DEFEAT
The Syrian generals deemed it superfluous to employ their large force against so small a body. Gorgias, therefore, with a chosen army of five thousand foot and one thousand horse, marched by night to surprise the army of Judas. But that vigilant commander was apprized of the design, and determined to take advantage of the separation of the two generals. He marched therefore early in the evening, and fell by night upon the camp of Nicanor. Not the least expectation of an attack being entertained, the whole camp was thrown into confusion, and the soldiers fled. Three thousand Syrians were slain, and many soldiers and slave-dealers made prisoners. Early in the morning Gorgias, returning from his abortive march to Mizpeh, beheld the Syrian camp in flames, which threw his soldiers into such a panic that they he took themselves to instant flight; but were pressed upon so vigorously by the conquering Jews, that in all they destroyed that day nine thousand of their enemies, and wounded many more. Nicanor escaped in the disguise of a slave to Antioch, declaring his conviction that a mighty God fought for the Jews. In the camp of the Syrians the latter found great quantities of gold and silver, including the money which the slave-dealers had brought to purchase their persons. This victory was celebrated by a feast of thanksgiving.
LYSIAS ALSO DEFEATED
On the news of this defeat, the regent Lysias assembled a larger army of sixty thousand choice infantry, and five thousand horse, and marched himself at their head, to invade Judea in the south. He entered Idumea, which name must be understood as distinguishing the more modern territory of the Edomites, from their older and more southern territory of Edom, in Mount Seir, which the Nabateans now occupied. Idumea was now, then, confined to the region west and southwest, of the Asphaltic lake, which had in former times belonged to the tribes of Simeon and Judah. But after the Captivity it had been occupied by Edomites from Arabia Petra, the ancient Edom; who made Hebron their capital, and rebuilt, on their northern frontier, the strong fortress of Bethsur, or Bethsura, which had been originally built by Rehoboam. (2 Chronicles 11:7.) At this last-named very advantageous post, Lysias encamped, and was there set upon by the dauntless Judas, who, with only ten thousand men, gained a most important victory, slaying five thousand men on the spot, and putting the rest to flight. Observing that the Jews fought like men who were determined to conquer or die, Lysias did not venture to renew the engagement, and indeed his soldiers were so disheartened that he was soon obliged to return to Antioch, and there issue orders that recruits for a new expedition should be raised in distant countries, B.C. 165.
THE TEMPLE REPAIRED
This victory made Judas master of Judea; and he determined to return to Jerusalem, to repair and beautify the temple, which was then deserted and dilapidated. In the neglected courts of the Lord's house shrubs were growing “as in the forest or on the mountain.” The whole host cast ashes on their heads, and cried toward heaven, when they beheld the desolation of that holy place. The work of restoration was commenced with ardor; new utensils were provided for the sacred services; the old altar, having been defiled by idolatrous sacrifices, was taken away, and a new one erected in its place; and the sacrifices were recommenced precisely three years after the temple had been dedicated to Jupiter Olympius. A feast of eight days celebrated this new dedication, and an annual festival was instituted in honor of the event.
The castle on Mount Zion soon, however, proved a serious annoyance to the people, as it was still in the hands of the Syrians, who lost no opportunity of disturbing the services of the temple. The army of Judas was too small to allow him to blockade the castle, but he fortified the temple-mount against their aggressions with high walls and towers. He also strengthened the important fortress of Bethsura, to protect the frontier toward Idumea, as it lay about mid-way between Jerusalem and Hebron.
ANTIOCHUS INCAPACITATED ON WAY TO ATTACK JUDEA
When Antiochus Epiphanes received intelligence of the success of the Jewish arms; and the defeat of the Syrian hosts, he was at Elymias in Persia, detained by an insurrection occasioned by his plundering the celebrated temple in which his father Antiochus the Great had lost his life. Transported with ungovernable passion at the news, he hastened his homeward march to Antioch, devoting the Jewish nation to utter destruction. But while his mouth uttered the deep curses and fell purposes of his heart, he was smitten with sore and remediless torments in his inner parts. Yet on he went, until he fell from his chariot, and suffered much from the fall. He was then carried on a litter, but his disease acquired such a loathsome character that his person became an abhorrence to himself and to all who had occasion to be near him. In a disease so timed and so peculiar, the proud monarch was led to perceive the hand of God, and to acknowledge that his barbarities and sacrileges were justly punished by the torments which he endured and by the death which lay before him. He died early in the year 164 B.C., and in him perished a man whose wild extravagances dissolute and undignified character, savage cruelties, and capricious alternations of temper, abundantly justified the nickname of Epimanes, “madman” by which in his later years his assumed title of Epiphanes “illustrious” was ridiculed.
EUPATER PUT ON THE THRONE
Antiochus V, surnamed Eupator “well-fathered,” then a child nine years of age, was set up for king by his guardian Lysias, and his succession received the important sanction of the Romans; for although Demetrius (the son of Seleucus Philopator), still a hostage at Rome, and then twenty-three years of age, failed not to urge his claims upon the attention of the senate, that sage body decided that it was more for the interests of Rome that a minor should occupy the throne of Syria, than the ardent and able Demetrius.
LYSIAS DEFEATED AND PEACE NEGOTIATED
In the year 164 B.C., the war against the Maccabees was renewed by the regent Lysias. He invaded Judea with an army of eighty thousand foot, eighty elephants, and a large body of cavalry. He laid siege to Bethsura, but was repulsed by Judas with the loss of eleven thousand foot, and one thousand six hundred horse, and his whole army was broken up. This defeat convinced Lysias that the Jews could not be overcome because of the almightiness of the God by whom they were helped. He therefore offered them peace, on the condition of their being loyal to the state; on their acceptance of which, he issued a decree in the name of the king, which allowed them the free exercise of their own customs and worship, and permitted them to live according to their own laws. The apostate high-priest Menelaus, who had been all this while with the Syrians, and had exerted himself in promoting this peace, was now sent back to the Jews to be reinstated in his pontificate. It is some importance to note that the Roman ambassadors at the Syrian court used their efficient aid in obtaining this treaty for the Jews.
SYRIANS CONTINUE TO DISTURB JEWS
The peace thus afforded was of no long continuance: for although, formally, the war with the kingdom had ceased, the governors of the Syrian provinces were not backward in giving the Jews all the molestation in their power, and in encouraging such of the neighboring nations as were, from old or new enmities, disposed to disturb them--such as the Joppites, the Jamnites, the Arabians, and the Idumeans, all of whom were successively reduced by Judas, after a bloody warfare, the particulars of which are recorded in 2Ma_10:14-38.
SYRIAN GARRISON ON TEMPLE MOUNT
All this time the citadel on Mount Zion, garrisoned by Syrians and renegade Jews, continued to prove a great annoyance to the temple worship, which at last proved so intolerable, that Judas was induced to lay siege to it, after his return from the defeat of Gorgias the governor of Idumea. But some of the besieged, forcing their way through in a sally, hastened to the court at Antioch, and complained of the continued hostility of the Jews to the Syrian government, as evinced by this attempt upon the Syrian garrison; and by dwelling on this and other matters, contrived to stir up Lysias to undertake a new war against them. The Syrian army which was raised for this war in B.C. 163, consisted of one hundred thousand foot, twenty thousand horse, thirty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots armed with scythes--a prodigious force in that age, when, on account of the extravagant wages which soldiers received, it was difficult to keep more than eighty thousand men in the field. The young king was present in the camp, but of course Lysias was the actual commander. The Jews did not venture to attack the royal army in the open field. But while the Syrians laid siege to Bethsura, Judas fell upon them in the night, slew four thousand of them before they well knew who was among them, and drew off safely by break of day. The day after, a battle took place, in which the Syrians lost six hundred men; but Judas, fearing to be surrounded by the numbers of the enemy, thought proper to retire to Jerusalem, the fortifications of which he now strengthened and put in a state of defence. In this battle Judas lost his brother Eleazar. That valiant man perceiving one of the elephants more splendidly caparisoned than the others, mistakenly supposed it to be that of the king, and fought his way to it, got under it, stabbed it in the belly, and was crushed to death by the fall of the huge beast upon him.
JERUSALEM SIEGE BROKEN
It being a sabbatic year of rest to the land, Bethsura soon after surrendered for lack of provisions; and Jerusalem, which was next besieged, must have shared the same fate, and all the advantages which had been gained appeared now to be on the point of being lost for ever; when providentially the young king and his guardian were recalled by a civil war at home, commenced by Philip, who had been appointed regent by Antiochus Epiphanes before his death, to the exclusion of Lysias, whose ill success in the former war with the Jews had been highly displeasing to him. When this intelligence reached the camp, the king and council hastily concluded a peace with the Jews on the former terms--that they should be allowed to live according to their own laws. The siege was then broken up, but the treaty was violated by the Syrians in the demolition of the strong walls of the mount on which the temple stood. The royal army was then marched against Philip, who had gotten possession of Antioch, the metropolis, but who was defeated and slain.
MENELAUS EXECUTED
Now at last the traitor and apostate Menelaus met the fate he had long deserved. At the approach of the Syrian army he had abandoned his countrymen, and had stimulated the operations against them by his advice and counsel, in the secret hope of being made governor of the province, if Judas and his party were destroyed. But the intended mischief recoiled on his own wicked head. On the conclusion of the peace, he was viewed by the king and regent as the author of all these unhappy wars, and was sentenced to be suffocated in the ash-tower at Berea;[403] while the office to which he aspired was given to Judas himself, who was appointed to be chief governor “from Ptolemais unto the Gerrhenians.”
[403] This punishment was borrowed by the Syrian-Greeks from the Persians. A place was enclosed with high walls and filled with ashes. A piece of timber was made to project over the ashes, and on this the criminal was placed. He was liberally supplied with meat and drink until overcome with sleep he fell into the deceitful heap, and died an easy death. Only criminals of high rank were thus punished, it being considered a sort of privileged death.
ONIAS BUILDS JEWISH TEMPLE IN EGYPT
In the room of Menelaus, Jachimus, or Alcimus, was nominated to the high-priesthood, to the exclusion of the rightful claimant, Onias, the son of that Onias who had been slain at Antioch at the instigation of Menelaus. Upon this disappointment, Onias retired in disgust to Egypt, where his military and political talents procured him high favor from Ptolemy Philometor, and he was ultimately empowered to build a temple and establish a priesthood, for the numerous Jews of Egypt and Cyrene, at Heliopolis; and which subsisted nearly as long as that of Jerusalem, both being destroyed in the reign of Vespasian. There can be no question of the irregularity of this establishment; and although Onias justified it to the Jews by reference to the text Isaiah 19:18-19, the temple at Jerusalem was always held in much superior estimation by the Jews even of Egypt, who frequently repaired thither to worship.