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 EDITED BY PROFESSOR SALMOND, D.D., ABERDEEN. 
 
 HISTORICAL CONNECTION 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. JOHN'SKINNER, M.A., 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I.— The Persian Period, . . , 9-23 
 
 ]. The Origin of Judaism—2. The Extent of five Jewish 
 State—3. The Growth of the High-Priestly Power — I. 
 The Scribes—5. The Synagogue—6. The Germs of Op¬ 
 posing Tendencies—7. The Samaritans—8. Galilee and 
 Peraea—9. The Close of the Persian Period—10. Re¬ 
 sults of the Persian Period. 
 
 Chapter II.— The Greek Period, . . . 24-42 
 
 11. Alexander the Great—12. Alexander and the Jews 
 —13. The Wars of the Diadochi—14. The Jewish Dis¬ 
 persion—15. The Septuagint—16. Judaea under the 
 Ptolemies—17. Progress of Hellenism in Judaea—18. 
 Wars of Egypt and Syria—19. Final Conquest of Pales¬ 
 tine by Syria—20. Judaea under the Seleucidae—21. 
 The First Attempt on the Temple Treasures—22. An- 
 tiochus Epiphanes—23. The High Priesthood sold to 
 the Highest Bidder—24. The Egyptian Campaigns of 
 Epiphanes—25. Desecration of the Temple—Judaism 
 suppressed by Force—26. The Chasidim—27- A Jewish 
 Temple in Egypt. 
 
 Chapter III.— The Maccabees, . . . 42-55 
 
 28. The Outbreak of the Revolt—29. Judas Maocabaeus 
 —30. The Battle of Emmaus—31. The Purification of 
 the Temple—32. Death of Antiochus Epiphanes—33. 
 Judas defeated by Lysias—34. Appointment of an 
 Aaronic High Priest—35. Renewal of Hostilities—36. 
 Death of Judas Maccabaeus—37. Jonathan succeeds 
 Judas—38. Jonathan obtains the High Priesthood—39 
 Simon’s Administration—40. The Death of Simon. 
 
ym 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter IV.— The Asmon^gan Dynasty, . . 56-71 
 
 41. The Last Conflict with Syria—42. The Conquests of 
 John Hyrcanus—43. The Origin of Jewish Parties ; I. 
 The Pharisees—44. II. The Saducees—45. III. The 
 Essenes—46. The Quarrel between Hyrcanus and the 
 Pharisees—47. The Sons of Hyrcanus—48. Civil War 
 between the King and the Pharisees—49. The Pharisees 
 in power under Alexandra—50. The Abdication of 
 Hyrcanus—51. Antipater the Idumaean—52. The Inter¬ 
 vention of Rome—53. The First Roman Siege of Jeru¬ 
 salem. 
 
 Chapter Y.—The Roman Period, . . . 71-88 
 
 54. The New Temper of the People—55. Attempts to 
 restore the Asmonseans—56. The Growing Power of 
 Antipater—57. The Rise of Herod—58. The Reign of 
 Antigonus—59. Herod obtains the Kingdom—60. Herod 
 strengthens his position—61. Herod’s Public Works— 
 62. Herod’s Administration—63. The Jewish Sects in 
 the time of Herod—64. The Close of Herod’s Reign— 
 65. The Birth of Christ. 
 
 % 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 89 
 
HISTORICAL CONNECTION 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PERSIAN PERIOD. 
 
 b.c. 537-333. 
 
 1. THE ORIGIN OF JUDAISM. Nonationever 
 experienced a more wonderful transformation than 
 that which Israel passed through during the Baby¬ 
 lonian Captivity. The restored Jewish Common¬ 
 wealth, which was founded by Zerubbabel and 
 Joshua, belongs to an entirely different order of 
 things from the ancient kingdoms of Israel and 
 Judah. The differences were partly due to altered 
 political circumstances, of which we shall speak 
 presently. But of far greater importance than these 
 was the new attitude of the people towards their 
 national religion. The religious indifference and 
 proneness to idolatry, against which the pre-exilic 
 prophets had contended in vain, had passed com¬ 
 pletely away, and were succeeded by a zeal for the 
 honour of Jehovah and an aversion to heathen wor¬ 
 ship, which are henceforth the strongest features in 
 the national character. Before the Exile the higher 
 truths of the religion of Israel had been maintained 
 by the prophets and a small prophetic party, whilst 
 the great mass of their countrymen recognised no 
 real difference in character between Jehovah and 
 the other gods whom they so eagerly served. The 
 Captivity brought that long conflict to a decisive 
 issue. It was a time of sifting and purification, in 
 
10 
 
 which many individuals lapsed finally into heathen¬ 
 ism. It was also a time of national regeneration ; 
 the better part of the people rose to a sublime faith 
 in God, and confidence in the future of Israel. They 
 were driven back on the fundamental questions of 
 their relation to Jehovah, and the mission they were 
 destined to fulfil in the unfolding of God’s redeem¬ 
 ing purpose. In the effort to grasp the imperish¬ 
 able truths of the revelation that had been com¬ 
 mitted to them, they realised for the first time the 
 immeasurable superiority of their religion to every 
 form of the surrounding paganism ; they joyfully em¬ 
 braced their vocation to be the guardians of that 
 true knowledge of God which was to bring salvation 
 to all the ends of the earth. 
 
 The little band of exiles who took advantage of 
 the permission of Cyrus to return to their own land, 
 consisted of men who were penetrated with these 
 convictions, and were resolved to give effect to them 
 in the constitution of the new state. Their grand 
 aim was to reconstitute the Jewish nation as the 
 holy people of God, separated from all other nations 
 by the most scrupulous obedience to His law. That 
 is the fundamental idea of Judaism, and how firmly 
 it was held by the leaders of the Return is seen in 
 their stern refusal to make common cause with the 
 Samaritans in the building of the Temple.® But to 
 carry out that idea in the practical working of a 
 new social organisation proved to be an exceedingly 
 difficult undertaking. It was indeed rendered 
 easier by the fact that they had no immediate pros¬ 
 pect of political independence. Within the limits 
 allowed by the Persian authority they found ample 
 scope to organise themselves as a distinctively re¬ 
 ligious community. Nevertheless, the task proved 
 too great for the energies of the feeble and strug¬ 
 gling colony which had braved the hardships of the 
 first settlement in Canaan. The zeal of the leaders 
 
 a Ezra iv. 1-4. 
 
11 
 
 was neutralised, not only by opposition from with¬ 
 out, but by the apathy, the selfishness, and worldli¬ 
 ness that prevailed amongst their followers. It was 
 not till the arrival of Ezra from Babylon, eighty 
 years after the Exile, a that things began to improve. 
 Under his auspices a great religious reformation was 
 carried through. The principle of separation from 
 the heathen was revived and relentlessly enforced 
 by the dissolution of all mixed marriages. 6 In a 
 great assembly of the people, the book of the law T 
 was adopted as the written constitution of the state, 
 and the authoritative rule of the individual life/ 
 Ezra’s efforts were vigorously seconded and con¬ 
 tinued by Nehemiah, who had set himself, in the 
 first instance, to render J erusalem safe from attack 
 by the rebuilding of the walls. By the j oint labours 
 of these two men, Judaism was at last placed on a 
 secure foundation. The law now became at once the 
 standard of holiness, and the symbol of nationality, 
 and in spite of disintegrating tendencies still at work, 
 it gained such a hold on the affections of the Jewish 
 people, that all danger of th&ff being absorbed by 
 the surrounding nations was at an end. 
 
 2. THE EXTENT OF THE JEWISH STATE. 
 In the following pages we are to sketch the 
 history of this remarkable community from the 
 close of Nehemiah’s administration (about 430 b.c.) 
 to the birth of Christ. But before proceeding to 
 our narrative it is necessary to give an account of 
 some outstanding features of Jewish life which 
 originated during the first century of the Persian 
 dominion. First of all we must notice the small¬ 
 ness of the territory assigned to the new state. The 
 earliest settlement seems to have been confined to 
 the district in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. 
 As its numbers increased, partly by new accessions 
 from Babylonia, partly by the incorporation of Jews 
 who had remained in the land during the exile, it 
 
 « Ezra vii. viii. b Ezra ix. x. c Neh. viiL-x. 
 
12 
 
 gradually extended to the West and South, but still 
 it covered only a small part of the old kingdom of 
 Judah. In the time of the Maccabees the southern 
 boundary was near Beth-zur, a few miles north of 
 Hebron.® The south country was inhabited by the 
 hostile Edomites or Idumeans, who must have taken 
 possession of these regions during the Captivity. To 
 the north lay the territory of the Samaritans, the 
 mixed Israelite and Babylonian race which had 
 been settled there after the destruction of the king¬ 
 dom of the Ten Tribes. And when we remember 
 that the plain along the sea coast was still in .the 
 possession of the Philistines, we find that the region 
 actually subject to Jerusalem must have been con¬ 
 siderably less than 1000 square miles. Within these 
 narrow limits, however, the Jewish people grew up 
 into a vigorous and compact nation, with powers 
 both of resistance and aggression altogether out 
 of proportion to its external resources. The Judsea 
 which under the Maccabees baffied the efforts of one 
 of the great monarchies of Asia to reduce it to servi¬ 
 tude was still a country only about the size of Forfar¬ 
 shire. Although its overflowing population had 
 spread over all the surrounding lands, and Jerusalem 
 had become the mother city of innumerable Jewish 
 colonies scattered all over the east, it was not till the 
 conquests of John Hyrcanus, at the close of the 
 second century, that it began to extend its political 
 boundaries. 
 
 3. THE GROWTH OF THE HIGH-PRIESTLY 
 POWER. Throughout the Persian Period the Higli- 
 priesthood was steadily gaining in dignity and im¬ 
 portance. It was the only office of ancient Hebrew 
 origin which had survived the Exile, and for that 
 
 a See below, p. 46. In the time of Nehemiah we read of Jews living 
 in the southern districts as far as Beer-slieba (ch. xi. 25-35). These 
 must either have been detached Jewish settlements in the midst of 
 the Idumean population, or else we must suppose that the latter 
 afterwards gained the upper hand and drove the Jews back beyond 
 Hebron. 
 
13 
 
 reason alone it would have been the natural centre 
 round which the elements of order in the new com¬ 
 munity might arrange themselves. It was, more¬ 
 over, the highest earthly authority recognised by 
 the Law. For the Law took no cognisance of the 
 Persian supremacy or the obligations which it in¬ 
 volved. The nation had no king but God, and His 
 representative on earth was the High Priest. For 
 a time the sacred and the secular authority were 
 kept distinct by the appointment of civil governors, 
 resident in Jerusalem, who might be Jews, like 
 Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, but were probably in 
 other instances foreigners. By degrees, however, 
 and by an almost inevitable process, the political 
 power passed into the hands of the High Priest. 
 As the religious head of a religious commonwealth, 
 holding his office by hereditary right, he could not 
 fail to be the most influential person in the State. 
 It proved the easier course for the Persian govern¬ 
 ment to leave the administration of the country in 
 his hands, and hold him directly responsible for the 
 maintenance of order and the payment of the 
 tribute. That this change was actually effected in 
 the latter part of the Persian Period seems evident 
 from an incident related by Josephus.® When the 
 High Priest Judas (son of Eliashib, the contemporary 
 of Nehemiah) died, a contest for the office arose be¬ 
 tween his two sons, Johanan and Joshua. The 
 latter, who, being the younger son, had no legal 
 claim to the High-priesthood, was the friend of a 
 Persian general named Bagoses, who had promised 
 on his father’s death to secure for him the succession. 
 This led to a quarrel between the two brothers, in 
 the course of which Joshua was slain by Johanan 
 within the Temple precincts. Upon this Bagoses 
 hastened to Jerusalem, forced his way in spite of all 
 opposition into the Temple, and as a punishment for 
 the outrage, imposed a heavy tax on the daily sacri¬ 
 st Antiq. xl. 7 . 1. 
 
14 
 
 fice, which continued to be exacted for seven years. 
 The story is significant not only as illustrating the 
 growing political importance of the priesthood, but 
 also as foreshadowing the abuses that were after¬ 
 wards to arise from the combination of secular with 
 spiritual power. The office became a prize for the 
 ambition of worldly ecclesiastics who had no regard 
 for the sacred interests committed to their charge. 
 Like the degenerate Popes of the Middle Ages, such 
 men looked on the priestly dignity chiefly as a means 
 of personal aggrandisement, and were utterly un¬ 
 scrupulous in the methods by which they sought to 
 secure and retain it. It does not appear, however, 
 that these evils attained very serious proportions 
 under the Persian dominion. It is not till the later 
 times of the Jewish state, after the ancient house of 
 Zadok had been disinherited, a that we find the world¬ 
 liness and degradation of the priesthood exercising 
 a baneful influence on the national destiny. 
 
 4. THE SCRIBES. But by far the most import¬ 
 ant factor in the development of Judaism was the 
 rise of a class of professional students and expounders 
 of the law, called Sopherim or Scribes. The aim 
 and tendency of Judaism was to make every Jew 
 personally responsible for the keeping of the whole 
 law, and to load the individual conscience with as 
 many obligations as could be brought to bear upon 
 it. A definite rule had to be found for almost every 
 action of daily life, and such rules had to be deduced 
 by one means or another from the law itself. It is 
 evident that no legal code, however comprehensive, 
 —certainly not the Law of Moses—could provide for 
 all the details of human conduct. In the attempt to 
 reduce it to practice, difficulties of various kinds 
 must necessarily arise. It might happen that one 
 requirement was contradicted by another, or that 
 
 a Zadok was appointed high priest in the beginning of the reign of 
 Solomon (1 Kings ii. 35). The office was filled by his lineal descen¬ 
 dants until b.c. 171, a period of over 800 years. (See below, p. 37.) 
 
15 
 
 some part of the Law had no application to the 
 actual circumstances of the time, or again, that a 
 whole department of life was not dealt with in the 
 Law at all. How to be faithful to God’s covenant 
 under such conditions came to be a serious theoreti¬ 
 cal difficulty, and it could only be overcome by the 
 continuous labours of a body of trained experts, who 
 made the study of the Law the great business of 
 their lives. 
 
 It might be supposed that the duty of elaborating 
 the Law would naturally have devolved on the 
 priests, the religious leaders of the people. And no 
 doubt many priests, following the example of Ezra, 
 who was himself both priest and scribe, did devote 
 themselves to legal study. But their activity in this 
 direction was always held to be quite distinct from 
 their official duties as priests. As a matter of fact 
 the majority of the scribes were devout and studious 
 laymen, who by force of character, thorough ac¬ 
 quaintance with the letter of the Law, and the 
 general agreement which they maintained amongst 
 themselves, obtained respect and authority for their 
 decisions. It was the duty of each scribe to train as 
 many disciples as possible in the knowledge of the 
 Law, and as a rule he was expected to give his in¬ 
 struction without fee or reward. It was necessary, 
 at the same time, that all the scribes throughout the 
 country should act in concert. Since the life of a 
 whole community had to be regulated, uniformity in 
 their teaching was indispensable ; and when differ¬ 
 ences arose between one scribe and another, the 
 question had to be discussed by the most eminent 
 scribes, until some one view or some compromise 
 secured the assent of the majority. Thus the entire 
 body of scribes formed a sort of school or guild, held 
 together not by any constituted authority, but by 
 the necessity of pursuing their common aim in har¬ 
 mony with one another. In this way, then, there 
 grew up a vast system of oral tradition, equally 
 
16 
 
 binding with the written Law, which was trans¬ 
 mitted from teacher to pupil, and never committed 
 to writing till the second century a.d. From the 
 nature of the case, it was an endless process. Each 
 new decision opened up fresh cases of difficulty 
 which had to be settled in the same way; and so 
 the mass of authoritative precepts increased from 
 generation to generation, till one wonders that so 
 cumbrous a structure did not break down under its 
 own weight. It need not be denied that many of 
 the scribes were men of true moral insight, and 
 occasionally enunciated maxims of great depth and 
 beauty. But the tendency of the system was to¬ 
 wards externalism—a petty and arbitrary handling 
 of questions that should never have been raised, a 
 subtle casuistry which was fatal to the existence of 
 genuine morality. A late scribe gave apt expression 
 to the genius of the whole school when he declared 
 that the great commandment of the Law was the 
 law about fringes. Take care of the fringes, and the 
 garment will take care of itself : keep the little com¬ 
 mandments, and you cannot break the great ones;— • 
 that was the spirit in which the scribes developed 
 the Law of God. How mischievous the results were 
 every reader has learned from Christ’s scathing de¬ 
 nunciations of the scribes and lawyers of his time. 
 
 5. THE SYNAGOGUE. Whilst the existence of 
 a class of scribes was essential to the perpetuation 
 of legalism, it would not have been sufficient of 
 itself to secure a due regard for the Law on the part 
 of the common people. The systematic instruction 
 imparted in their schools could only be the privilege 
 of the few ; some more popular kind of teaching 
 was needful to keep the Law before the mind of the 
 general community. This want was supplied by one 
 of the most characteristic of Jewish institutions— 
 the Synagogue. Although we have no certain 
 information about their origin, we may safely assume 
 that synagogues were generally established in Judaea 
 
17 
 
 at least as far back as the age of Ezra. The inhabit¬ 
 ants of every town and village were organized into 
 one or more congregations, who assembled every 
 Sabbath day in the synagogue, or meeting-house, 
 for public worship. The principal feature of the 
 services was always the reading of the Law and the 
 Prophets. As the knowledge of the sacred Hebrew 
 gradually died out, the reading had to be accom¬ 
 panied by a running translation into the Aramaic 
 dialect, which became the vernacular of Palestine. 
 The exposition and application of the passages read 
 were afterwards set forth in a sermon or exhorta¬ 
 tion, which might be delivered by any person present 
 whom the ruler of the synagogue thought fit to call 
 on. a By this means the scribes found an opportun¬ 
 ity of bringing the results of their studies to bear on 
 the every-day life of the people, and a very thorough 
 knowledge of the Law was put within the reach of 
 every Israelite. But there was another way in 
 which the institution of the synagogue proved a 
 powerful instrument in maintaining allegiance to the 
 Law. The elders who managed the affairs of the 
 congregation kept strict watch over the morals of 
 each member of the flock, and exercised discipline, 
 amounting in extreme cases to excommunication, on 
 all transgressions of the Law. The whole weight of 
 social opinion was thus brought to bear with crush¬ 
 ing force on the life of the individual, and we may 
 be sure that cases of persistent disobedience would 
 be of rare occurrence in communities so carefully 
 organised and superintended as the Jewish congre¬ 
 gations were. 
 
 6. THE GERMS OF OPPOSING TENDEN¬ 
 CIES. We find, then, that from a very early period 
 there were two ruling classes in Judtea, each aspiring 
 to supreme influence on its own lines—the priests on 
 the ground of their official position, and the scribes 
 on the ground of the authority of the Law. There 
 
 a See Luke iv. 16, ff; Acts xiii. 15. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 was clearly no reason in the nature of things why 
 these two classes should not have acted in perfect 
 harmony with each other. Nevertheless, in course 
 of time they became more and more separated, and 
 at last two sharply contrasted parties were developed 
 from them. The chief cause of this divergence lay 
 in the irreligious tendencies of the priesthood. It is 
 a remarkable fact that of all circles of Jewish society 
 the upper ranks of the priesthood were the least 
 influenced by the theocratic spirit, the most suscep¬ 
 tible to foreign influences, and the readiest in times 
 of temptation to abandon the fundamental principles 
 of their religion. Even in the time of Nehemiah 
 the worst obstructives to his measures of reforma¬ 
 tion were the High Priest and some of his relations, 
 although it was not till a much later period that the 
 spirit of indifference fully asserted itself. The scribes, 
 on the contrary, were the zealous champions of the 
 integrity of the Law, and the upholders of all that 
 was distinctive in Judaism. They were the life and 
 soul of the popular resistance to paganism, which 
 carried the nation safely through the dangers of the 
 Greek period, in spite of the apostacy .of the chief 
 priests. It was the influence of their teaching which, 
 at the most critical juncture of the people’s history, 
 called into existence the party whose heroic efforts 
 saved Judaism from extinction. And later still, 
 when we come to consider the permanent antagon¬ 
 ism between the Pharisees and Sadducees, we shall 
 find that the bulk of the scribes were included in 
 the Pharisaic party, while the Sadducees were pre¬ 
 eminently the party of the priests. 
 
 7. THE SAMARITANS (Neh. xiii. 28; Jos. Ant. 
 xi. 8. 2-4). Nehemiah’s second term of office as 
 Governor of Judsea, which commenced in b.c. 433, 
 was marked by an event whose far-reaching conse¬ 
 quences could not be foreseen at the time when he 
 recorded it. In contending against the evil of mixed 
 marriages between Jews and aliens, he encountered 
 
19 
 
 the most obstinate resistance from the High Priest 
 Eliashib, whose grandson was married to a daughter 
 of Sanballat, the Governor of Samaria. Refusing to 
 give up his wife, the offender was banished from 
 Jerusalem by Nehemiah’s orders. We are not told 
 what became of him afterwards, but it is natural to 
 suppose that he took refuge with his father-in-law 
 in Samaria. The sequel of the story is given, with 
 some inaccuracies, in the pages of Josephus. We 
 read there of a certain Manasseh, who was a great- 
 grandson of Eliashib, and had married Nikaso, the 
 daughter of the Samaritan governor Sanballat. Be¬ 
 ing required by the Jewish authorities either to 
 divorce his wife or cease to exercise his priestly 
 functions, Manasseh went over to the Samaritans, 
 and was followed afterwards by other prominent 
 Jews who were entangled with similar alliances. 
 Sanballat received them with open arms, and under¬ 
 took, with the permission of the Persian king, to 
 erect a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, of which 
 Manasseh should be the chief priest. But before 
 the requisite permission could be obtained, Darius 
 was defeated by Alexander the Great in the battle 
 of Issus. Sanballat then transferred his allegiance 
 to Alexander, and by his authority the new temple 
 was built, and Manasseh was installed as the first 
 high priest of the Samaritans. We can hardly 
 doubt that this story is a garbled version of the in¬ 
 cident so briefly related by Nehemiah. Josephus 
 has placed it a hundred years too late. Perhaps he 
 has confused two distinct facts—the organisation of 
 the Samaritans as a religious community, and the 
 erection of the famous temple on Gerizim. At all 
 events, the probability is that the expulsion of Man¬ 
 asseh took place in the time of Nehemiah, and that it 
 was followed by the secession of a number of mal¬ 
 contents, who rebelled against the high - handed 
 measures by which the governor enforced submis¬ 
 sion to the law. 
 
20 
 
 Thus the expulsion of this refractory priest proved 
 to be one of the most important events in the early 
 history of Judaism. In the first instance it was no 
 doubt an immense advantage to the Jewish com¬ 
 munity. It marks the point at which the party who 
 were opposed to the introduction of the law ceased 
 to struggle against the spirit of legalism supported 
 by the authority of the governor. When these men 
 resolved to give up the contest and go over to the 
 Samaritans, the triumph of Judaism was assured. 
 But in its ultimate consequences their secession 
 was by no means an unmixed blessing. It resulted, 
 as we see from Josephus, in the formation of a rival 
 sect, a spurious Judaism, which effectually prevented 
 the extension of the Jewish system in the middle 
 region of Palestine. Up to this time the Samaritans 
 had not ventured to take up an attitude of religi¬ 
 ous rivalry to Judaea ; they had probably never aban¬ 
 doned the hope of being received into the Jewish 
 communion. In the time of Zerubbabel they pro¬ 
 fessed to have sacrificed to Jehovah since the days 
 of Esar-haddon, King of Assyria, which shows that 
 they claimed no very high antiquity for their pecu¬ 
 liar worship. Now, however, they found themselves 
 in a position to establish a hierarchy and a sacrificial 
 system of their own. The Pentateuch was intro¬ 
 duced amongst them, probably by Manasseh himself, 
 and with some necessary modifications, became the 
 basis of a religious constitution closely resembling 
 that of Jerusalem. Certain passages of the law 
 could be interpreted as pointing to Mount Gerizim 
 as the only legitimate centre of the worship of 
 J ehovah, and there accordingly a temple was built. 
 In course of time they came honestly to believe in 
 themselves as the descendants of the Ten Tribes, 
 and the true representatives of the ancient religion 
 of Israel. The Jews of course treated these preten¬ 
 sions with the utmost contempt. They blamed the 
 Samaritans for playing a double part with regard to 
 
21 
 
 their religion: when the Jews were in favour, the 
 Samaritans professed to be merely a section of the 
 Jewish people, but when things went ill with the 
 Jews, then they disowned all kinship and connection 
 with them.® Whether that charge be well founded 
 or not, it is certain that the bitterest hatred pre¬ 
 vailed between the two races, and was kept alive by 
 acts of cruelty on one side and the other, and never 
 died out as long as the Jews retained a footing in 
 their own land. 
 
 8. GALILEE AND PER/EA. Whilst the central 
 district of Palestine was thus irrecoverably lost to 
 Judaism, all the rest of the country seems to have 
 been brought more or less completely within the 
 sphere of its influence. In Galilee in the north, and 
 Peraea (the ancient Gilead) on the east of the Jordan, 
 there was, in the time of the Greek ascendency, a 
 considerable Jewish population owning allegiance to 
 the hierarchy at Jerusalem. By what means the 
 Judaizing of these regions was effected, whether by 
 colonisation and proselytism from Judaea, or by the 
 return of Jews from Babylonia, cannot now be as¬ 
 certained ; but in all probability it must have been 
 far advanced before the end of the Persian period. 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that it was only 
 a religious authority that the scribes and priests of 
 Jerusalem exercised in Galilee and Peraea. Their 
 political fortunes, which depended entirely on the 
 arrangements made by the sovereign power, were in 
 general more closely linked with those of Samaria 
 than with those of Judaea. Only for a short time, in 
 the most flourishing days of the Jewish state, did 
 its political supremacy extend over the whole of 
 Palestine. And it is a striking testimony to the 
 superior vitality of Judaism that the Samaritan 
 secession made no progress even in those remote 
 provinces which had formerly belonged to the 
 kingdom of the Ten Tribes. 
 
 a Jos. Ant. ix. 14. 3; xi. 8. 6; xii. 5. 5. 
 
22 
 
 9. THE CLOSE OF THE PERSIAN PERIOD. 
 
 The last century of the Persian Period is almost a 
 complete blank in the history of Israel. Artaxerxes 
 I., the friend and patron of Nehemiah, died in b.c. 
 424; and to all appearance he was the last Persian 
 monarch who took a benevolent interest in the affairs 
 of Judaea. The great Empire was fast hastening 
 towards dissolution. Formidable insurrections broke 
 out in various quarters; the court was a scene of 
 treachery and murder, where members of the royal 
 family contended by intrigue and assassination for 
 the possession of the throne. The expedition of the 
 “ Ten Thousand ” (c. b.c. 401) related in Xenophon’s 
 “ Anabasis,” first revealed to the Western world the 
 military inferiority of the Persian armaments, and 
 so prepared the way for the invasion of Alexander 
 the Great, seventy years later. About the middle 
 of the fourth century the Phoenicians and Cyprians 
 allied themselves with the Egyptians in a vain 
 attempt to shake off the Persian yoke. In this 
 revolt, which was suppressed with great cruelty by 
 Artaxerxes III., it is possible that the Jews may 
 have somehow been implicated. At all events this 
 king is known to have transported a large number 
 of Jews to Hyrcania on the inhospitable shores of the 
 Caspian Sea. Whatever may have been the reason 
 for this harsh measure, it shows that the friendly 
 relations which had once subsisted between the Jews 
 and their Persian masters were entirely broken up, 
 and that there were no ties of gratitude or loyal 
 attachment to be severed when they were called on 
 to take the oath of submission to Alexander the Great. 
 
 10. RESULTS OF THE PERSIAN PERIOD.— 
 When we look back over the two hundred years of 
 Persian rule, with their dearth of literary produc¬ 
 tions, their long intervals of utter silence, and their 
 brief historical records of suffering and partial 
 achievement, they seem on the whole to present 
 a gloomy and disappointing retrospect. It is clear 
 
23 
 
 that Israel can have had no stirring or elevating 
 external history during these centuries. The high 
 hopes of an era of Messianic glory and felicity 
 which had been cherished at the close of the Exile, 
 had been chilled by the hard realities of the struggle 
 for national existence, and the steady, if not crushing, 
 pressure of a foreign despotism. Deprived of the 
 living voice of prophecy, the people, with no sure 
 perception of a divine purpose ruling their present 
 history, seem to have settled down into sullen 
 acquiescence in their cheerless lot. The Book of 
 Ecclesiastes, which is assigned by many critics to 
 the latter part of this period, may be taken to 
 reflect the feelings of an educated and thoughtful 
 Jew of the time. Its tone of weariness and de¬ 
 pression, its sense of stagnation, its glimpses of 
 injustice, and misgovernment, and oppression, are 
 all indications of a state of mind that would 
 naturally arise in a people like Israel languishing 
 under a long-continued and far-reaching tyranny. 
 Yet it is often such dull and uneventful periods 
 that leave the deepest marks on a nation’s character. 
 In the case of Israel, the enforced tranquillity of the 
 Persian dominion made this one of the most fruitful 
 periods in the history of Judaism. In the inner 
 world of Jewish life an intense activity must have 
 prevailed, the energy of the nation being fully 
 absorbed in the work of assimilating the law, and 
 applying it more and more closely to the regulation 
 of social and religious duty. The great principle of 
 holiness through separation became deeply rooted 
 in the mind of the community, and the Jewish 
 character gradually acquired the austere exclusive¬ 
 ness and devotion to the externals of religion, which 
 ever afterwards excited the antipathy of the heathen 
 world. The stirring events to be related in the next 
 two chapters will show how solid and enduring were 
 the results attained during the later years of the 
 Persian era. 
 
24 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GREEK PERIOD. 
 
 b.c. 333-167. 
 
 11. ALEXANDER THE GREAT. The ovei 
 throw of the Persian empire by Alexander the 
 Great opens a new era in the history of the East. 
 Crossing the Hellespont in b.c. 334, he first en¬ 
 countered and defeated the Persian generals on the 
 banks of the Granicus. In the following year he 
 won the decisive battle of Issus, near the north-east 
 corner of the Mediterranean Sea. After subduing 
 Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt, he marched into 
 Mesopotamia, and again defeated Darius in the 
 battle of Arbela (b.c. 331). These victories left 
 him the undisputed master of the Persian empire, 
 and when he died at Babylon in 323 his sway 
 extended over the whole of Western Asia from 
 the Nile to the Indus. But the real importance 
 of Alexander’s conquests lies in the fact that they 
 opened up the East to the introduction of Greek 
 civilisation. Alexander himself was fully alive to 
 this higher aspect of his work. It was his conscious 
 purpose to fuse together the various nationalities of 
 his vast dominions into a new and homogeneous 
 society, speaking the same language, and penetrated 
 throughout by the spirit of Greece. And the policy 
 which had been inaugurated by the great conqueror 
 was followed more or less consistently by the power¬ 
 ful Macedonian nobles, who carved out kingdoms for 
 themselves from the fragments of his empire after 
 his death. The new cities which sprang up every¬ 
 where under these enlightened rulers were meant to 
 be centres of Greek culture, and models of Greek 
 institutions. Greek became the common language 
 of the civilised world, and along with it, Greek ideas 
 
25 
 
 and manners were gradually diffused amongst the 
 mixed populations of the East. Of all these nations 
 Israel alone had native vigour enough to struggle 
 against the subtle and powerful attractions of the 
 Greek ideal of life. Other nations, when once they 
 had lost their political independence, had no great 
 spiritual heritage to cling to. But the Jew had his 
 religion, and its truths had been too deeply instilled 
 into his mind to be lightly surrendered. The result 
 was a long and painful conflict, which deepened in 
 intensity as time went on, and reached its crisis one 
 hundred and sixty years after Alexander’s death. 
 And it is this antagonism between the spirit of the 
 old Hebrew religion and the foreign influences of 
 the age that gives its peculiar interest and signifi¬ 
 cance to the period of Jewish history on which we 
 have now entered. 
 
 12. ALEXANDER AND THE JEWS (Jos. Ant. 
 xi. 8. 5). Judaea and the neighbouring countries fell 
 into the hands of Alexander, as we have seen, as the 
 result of his victory at Issus (b.c. 333). Josephus 
 tells us that the Jews at first refused to acknow¬ 
 ledge his authority out of respect for their oath of 
 allegiance to the King of Persia. After spending 
 many months in besieging Tyre and Gaza, Alexander 
 marched against Jerusalem to punish it for its 
 obstinacy. Outside the city he was met by a pro¬ 
 cession of the inhabitants clothed in white, with the 
 high priest, Jaddua, in his robes of office, at their 
 head. This unexpected demonstration made an ex¬ 
 traordinary impression on the king. Advancing 
 alone to meet the high priest, he fell down before 
 him and worshipped the God whose name was en¬ 
 graved on his mitre. When one of his officers re¬ 
 monstrated with him for such unnecessary self- 
 abasement, he replied that long before, while he was 
 meditating the conquest of Asia, that same vener¬ 
 able figure had appeared to him in a vision, and assured 
 him of the success of his enterprise. He then entered 
 
26 
 
 the city, we are told, where he offered a sacrifice in 
 the temple under the directions of the high priest, 
 and confirmed the Jews in all their privileges, 
 especially the exemption from taxes in the sabbatical 
 year. How much truth there may be in this story 
 it is impossible to say, but it seems certain that the 
 Jews were kindly treated by Alexander, and that 
 the change of masters made very little difference in 
 their condition. They paid their tribute to the 
 Macedonian officials instead of the Persian, and for 
 the rest things moved on quietly as before. We 
 have not yet reached the true dawn of the Greek 
 period. 
 
 13. THE WARS OF THE DIADOCHI. The 
 
 early death of Alexander in 323 threw the affairs of 
 the empire into the utmost confusion. The heir to 
 the throne was yet unborn, and the real power 
 necessarily passed into the hands of the great cap¬ 
 tains, who had served under Alexander, and are 
 known in history as the Diadochi or Successors. 
 At first an agreement was made to keep the empire 
 together in the interests of Alexander’s family, and 
 the leading generals were sent to govern the different 
 provinces as lieutenants. But this arrangement soon 
 broke down on account of the ambitions and jealousies 
 of these able and powerful soldiers. Ptolemy Lagi, 
 who had been entrusted with the government of 
 Egypt, immediately set about making it an inde¬ 
 pendent kingdom for himself. Antigonus, one of 
 the ablest of the Diadochi, not content with his own 
 province, speedily made it clear that he aimed at 
 bringing the whole empire under his sway ; and in 
 this he seems very nearly to have succeeded. Thus 
 for twenty years the world was disturbed by inces¬ 
 sant wars, into the confused history of which we 
 need not enter here. a It is sufficient to say that at 
 
 a For fuller information on the events of this time, and on the 
 diffusion of Greek civilisation in the East, the student should consult 
 ProfessorMahaffy’swork on “Alexander’s Empire” (T. Fisher Unwin. 
 1887 ). 
 
27 
 
 the battle of Ipsus, in b.c. 301, Antigonus was finally 
 crushed by a coalition of four other generals, who 
 had previously agreed to divide the empire of Alex¬ 
 ander between themselves. Of these four the only 
 two with whom we have any further concern are 
 Ptolemy Lagi and Seleucus. Ptolemy retained pos¬ 
 session of Egypt, and received in addition part 
 of the Mediterranean coast, including Palestine. 
 Seleucus received part of Asia Minor, Syria, Meso¬ 
 potamia, Babylonia, and the whole of the East. 
 Since he fixed his capital near the western extremity 
 of his dominions, his kingdom was henceforth known 
 as Syria. Lying on the high road between these 
 two great monarchies, Judaea was constantly exposed 
 to invasion in their frequent wars, and its possession 
 continued to be disputed between them for the next 
 one hundred and thirty years.® 
 
 14. THE JEWISH DISPERSION. From the 
 very beginning of the Greek Period, large numbers 
 of Jews were induced to settle in the new Egyptian 
 capital of Alexandria, which rapidly rose to be the 
 foremost city in the world. They were attracted 
 thither partly by the rights of citizenship, which 
 had been conferred on them by Alexander the 
 Great at the foundation of the city, and partly by 
 their own natural aptitude for business affairs. 
 Under the wise administration of the early Ptolemies 
 the number of Jewish colonists steadily increased, 
 and a special quarter of the city was assigned to 
 them. There they not only enjoyed equal rights 
 with the dominant Greek population, but they were 
 governed in civil matters by their own magistrates, 
 and were allowed the free exercise of all their 
 religious customs. Alexandria thus became the 
 chief centre of what is known as the Dispersion, 
 
 a The history of these two kingdoms down to the time of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes is dimly outlined in Daniel xi., where Egypt is referre l 
 to as the Kingdom of the South, and Syria as the Kingdom of the 
 North. 
 
23 
 
 i.e., the Jews scattered abroad among the heathen, in 
 active intercourse with them, but prevented from 
 mingling with them by the powerful bond of re¬ 
 ligion. A similar process went on in Syria, where 
 Seleucus I. had planted Jewish colonies in the new 
 cities which he founded, especially in his capital of 
 Antioch on the Orontes. From these centres, and 
 from the Holy Land itself, the stream of Jewish 
 emigration poured forth along the great trade routes 
 of the empire, and in course of time the Jews of the 
 Dispersion were to be found in all the countries of 
 the civilised world. It was inevitable that amongst 
 the Jews living abroad there should be developed a 
 type of J udaism somewhat different from that which 
 prevailed in Palestine, and this was especially the 
 case with the cultured Jews of Alexandria. Yet in 
 all essential respects they remained faithful to their 
 religious traditions, and always felt themselves to be 
 one with their brethren at home. By the regular 
 payment of the temple tribute, and frequent pilgrim¬ 
 ages to the feasts at Jerusalem, they kept up constant 
 communication with the mother-country, and thus 
 imparted a strength and prestige to Jerusalem, as 
 their religious metropolis, similar to that which 
 Borne has so long enjoyed as the centre of Catholic 
 Christianity. 
 
 15. THE SEPTUAGINT. The existence of so 
 many Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria and else¬ 
 where made a Greek translation of the Old Testa¬ 
 ment almost indispensable. The first impulse to 
 the work seems, however, to have been given by 
 Ptolemy (II.) Philadelphus (b.c. 284-247), who 
 wished to place a copy of the Jewish law, written 
 in Greek, in the great library of Alexandria. Ac¬ 
 cording to the Jewish legend he sent an embassy 
 to the High Priest at Jerusalem to obtain an 
 authentic copy of the Books of Moses and the 
 services of competent translators. The work of 
 translation was said to have been performed by 
 
29 
 
 seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish scholars; hence 
 the name Septnagint or LXX. The remaining books 
 of the Old Testament were translated at various 
 times to meet the wants of the Jewish community 
 of Alexandria, and the whole was completed certainly 
 before the middle of the second century b.c. What¬ 
 ever may have been the exact circumstances of its 
 origin, the new version was universally adopted by 
 Greek-speaking Jews throughout the world, and 
 came to be regarded with almost as much veneration 
 as the Hebrew original itself. 
 
 16. JUD/EA UNDER THE PTOLEMIES.— 
 Under the first three Ptolemies the yoke of Egyptian 
 supremacy lay very lightly on the J ews of Palestine. 
 The civil and spiritual authority were still united in 
 the person of the High Priest, with whom, however, 
 there was now associated a Gerousia , or Supreme 
 Council of Elders, in the administration of the state. a 
 Two High Priests of this period are specially men¬ 
 tioned as having worthily upheld the best traditions 
 of their office—Simon the Just at the beginning, and 
 Simon II. at the close, of the third century. The 
 latter is said to have repaired the walls of Jerusalem, 
 fortified the temple, and adorned the city with many 
 splendid buildings. 6 The authority of the Ptole¬ 
 mies was chiefly exercised in the imposition of taxes, 
 and so long as these were regularly paid, the Jews 
 were allowed to manage their internal affairs for 
 themselves. In the reign of Ptolemy (III.) Euer- 
 getes (247-222), a change in the system of taxation 
 was introduced, which seriously diminished the in¬ 
 fluence of the high priest, aud gave rise to many 
 
 a The origin of this council, which afterwards developed into the 
 Sanhedrin, is one of the many obscure points in Jewish history. It is 
 possible that some such court may have existed during the Persian 
 period. But in any case the institution of a supreme council, with 
 judicial and administrative functions, must have been due to the ex¬ 
 tension of local self-governm nt which was favoured by the early 
 Greek rulers. The Gerousia is first mentioned in a decree of Antiochus 
 the Great, about the year 202 (Jos. Ant., xii. 3. 3.) 
 
 b Ecclus. 1.1-20. 
 
30 
 
 disorders in the Jewish state. It came about in this 
 way. The high priest, Onias II., had incurred the 
 displeasure of the king by foolishly withholding the 
 yearly tribute of twenty talents for which he was 
 responsible. A nephew of Onias, named Joseph, the 
 son of Tobias, saw in this complication an oppor¬ 
 tunity to advance his own interests, and offered to 
 settle the matter by a mission to the Egyptian court. 
 He succeeded probabty beyond his own expectations. 
 By his ready wit and pleasing manners, as well as by 
 rich presents, he so ingratiated himself with the 
 king and queen, that he was appointed Farmer- 
 general of taxes for the whole of Palestine and Coele- 
 Syria. He kept this position for twenty-two years, 
 to the great profit of his royal master and himself. 
 Supported by a body of Egyptian troops, he com¬ 
 mitted several acts of wholesale plunder on cities 
 lying outside of Judsea, and acted generally in such 
 a tyrannical manner that he had no difficulty in 
 raising a larger revenue from his district than any 
 of his predecessors had done. By his great wealth 
 and influence he became the head of a powerful and 
 turbulent faction in Judsea, which set the regular 
 authority of the high priests completely at defiance. 
 After his death his youngest son Hyrcanus, who out¬ 
 shone his father in the arts of flattery and dissimu¬ 
 lation, was embroiled in a feud with his seven 
 brothers, and was compelled to take refuge on the 
 other side of the Jordan. But the party of the sons 
 of Tobias remained a standing danger to the public 
 peace long after the Egyptian dominion in Palestine 
 had come to an end.* 
 
 17. PROGRESS OF HELLENISM IN JUD/EA. 
 
 Meanwhile certain sections of the Jewish nation 
 were being completely carried away by the current 
 of Greek civilisation. By this time Judsea was al¬ 
 most surrounded by a belt of Greek towns, some of 
 them founded, others merely restored, by the enter- 
 
 a Jos. Ant. xii. 4 . 
 
31 
 
 prise of Greek or Macedonian settlers . a Where 
 cities of this kind abounded, as along the sea coast, 
 the country was completely Hellenised, which means 
 that every department of life, from religious worship 
 and political institutions down to the most familiar 
 social customs, was moulded by the prevailing Greek 
 spirit. Although none of these towns were found 
 within strictly Judaean territory, they were near 
 enough to give the Jews many glimpses of a life of 
 refinement and pleasure very different from that to 
 which they had been accustomed. Besides, they 
 were compelled in the way of trade to hold constant 
 intercourse with the Greek districts, and it was almost 
 impossible to prevent some foreign usages from 
 making their way into Judaea. Hence it is not sur¬ 
 prising that a movement in favour of Greek liberty 
 of thought and manners began to spread amongst 
 the upper classes. Some, attracted by the free, 
 voluptuous life of the heathen cities, boldly 
 abandoned the profession of Judaism, and en¬ 
 deavoured to live as like the Greeks as possible. 
 Others, without going so far as to renounce their 
 religion, nevertheless broke through many of the 
 restraints which the law imposed on free intercourse 
 with foreigners. That the influence of the Tobias 
 party told powerfully in this direction we may infer 
 from the character of Joseph himself, whose life 
 was stained by some of the worst vices of heathenism. 
 On the other hand, a reaction in favour of the strict 
 observance of the Law set in amongst the better part 
 of the nation, who perceived the moral and religious 
 corruption that lay under the fair surface of Greek 
 culture; while the lower orders were to a large 
 extent protected from the influx of paganism by 
 their ignorance of the Greek language. Never- 
 
 a The most important of these were Gaza, Azotus (Ashdod), 
 Ptolemais (Accho, the modern Acre), along the coast; Samaria , in 
 the middle of the country; Scythopolis (Bethslmn), Pella, and Paneas 
 (identical with the ancient Dan, or near it), in the north. 
 
32 
 
 theless the tide of Hellenism flowed steadily in upon 
 the Jews till it was checked by the outbreak of the 
 Maccabsean insurrection, when it appeared that the 
 great mass of the people were on the side of those 
 who remained faithful to the Law. 
 
 18. WARS OF EGYPT AND SYRIA (Dan. xi. 
 5-12 ; Jos. Ant. xii. 3. 3). During all this time the 
 possession of Palestine was the object of ceaseless 
 wars and intrigues between the kings of Egypt and 
 Syria. Ptolemy Philadelphus conducted the war by 
 subsidizing his allies in Asia Minor and Greece to 
 do his fighting for him, so that during his life 
 Palestine was not the scene of military operations. 
 But just at the time of his death an event occurred 
 which sent a thrill of horror through men’s minds 
 even in that age of violence, and caused the enmity 
 between the two kingdoms to burst out with greater 
 fury than ever. This was the murder of Berenice, 
 the daughter of Philadelphus, who had been given 
 in marriage to Antiochus II. of Syria on the con¬ 
 clusion of a treaty of peace. She had scarcely reached 
 her new home when she was foully murdered at 
 Daphne, near Antioch (b.c. 246 ). a To avenge her 
 death, her brother Ptolemy Euergetes invaded Syria 
 at the head of a large army, and but for troubles 
 which recalled him to Egypt, would probably have 
 completely subdued it. As it was, he tightened his 
 hold on his outlying possessions by leaving a garrison 
 in Seleucia, the port of Antioch. Things continued 
 in this position till Antiochus (III.) the Great [223- 
 187] ascended the throne of Syria, and Euergetes 
 was succeeded by the worthless and indolent Ptolemy 
 (IV.) Philopator [221-204]. As soon as he was free 
 to do so, Antiochus marched southwards and overran 
 Palestine as far as Gaza, when at length the slothful 
 Philopator got ready an army and inflicted a heavy 
 defeat on him at Raphia, near Gaza (b.c. 217). 
 Antiochus was then compelled to agree to a treaty 
 
 a Dan. xi. 6. 
 
33 
 
 which left matters almost as they were before the 
 
 Well*. 
 
 19. FINAL CONQUEST OF PALESTINE BY 
 SYRIA (Dan. xi. 13-17; Jos. Ant. xii. 4. 1). In the 
 year b.c. 203 Antiochus, acting in concert with the 
 King of Macedon, took advantage of the youth of 
 Ptolemy (V.) Epiphanes [204-181], to renew his 
 attack upon Egypt through Palestine. On this 
 occasion he found the Jews thoroughly disaffected 
 towards the Egyptian government, on account of 
 cruelties perpetrated by Philopator on the Alex¬ 
 andrian Jews. They accordingly rendered every 
 possible assistance to Antiochus, and were rewarded 
 by liberal concessions to the temple at Jerusalem, 
 and the offer of many new privileges to the city.« 
 Antiochus, however, was again expelled from Pales¬ 
 tine by the Egyptian general, Scopas, and Jerusalem 
 suffered severely for its disloyalty. But at length 
 in b.c. 198, Scopas was defeated in a great battle at 
 Paneas, near the sources of the Jordan. This victory 
 decided the fate of Palestine. Judsea was quickly 
 cleared of Egyptian troops, and Antiochus was on 
 the point of carrying the war into Egypt itself, 
 when all his plans were suddenly checked by a 
 threatening message from the Romans, who had 
 resolved to take the young Ptolemy under their 
 protection. Antiochus made the best of a difficult 
 situation, by proposing a marriage of his daughter 
 Cleopatra with the young King of Egypt, and offer¬ 
 ing to pay over the revenue of Palestine as part of 
 her dowry. On these terms peace was concluded, 
 and so the Jews passed under the dominion of the 
 King of Syria. It is true that on the death of 
 Cleopatra, about twenty-five years later, the Egyp¬ 
 tians tried to assert their claim to the possession of 
 Palestine, but this only led to a renewal of hostilities, 
 from which Egypt reaped no advantage. 
 
 20. JUD/EA UNDER THE SELEUCID/E (Dan. 
 
 a Jos. Ant. xii. 3. 3. 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 xi. 18-20). We have seen that the Jews, or at least 
 a large party amongst them, had gladly welcomed 
 the prospect of being incorporated in the Syrian 
 kingdom. A subject nation is always apt to expect 
 some advantage from a change of masters. More¬ 
 over, the lavish promises of Antiochus the Great 
 during the war, and his known favour for the Jews 
 of Babylonia, seemed to warrant the hope that he 
 would at all events prove a more lenient sovereign 
 than a Ptolemy Philopator. If Antiochus had been 
 in a position to keep his engagements, it is probable 
 that these expectations might in some measure have 
 been realised. But soon after his occupation of the 
 country, he experienced a reverse of fortune, which 
 threw all the affairs of the Syrian monarchy out of 
 joint, and made generous treatment of its subjects 
 impossible. The Bomans, who had just come vic¬ 
 toriously out of their long struggle with Carthage, 
 had now a free hand in the East, and they could not 
 resist the temptation to interfere in the quarrels of 
 the petty kingdoms of Asia. Through circumstances 
 which it is unnecessary to relate, Antiochus came 
 into collision with them, and was defeated and 
 ruined in the battle of Magnesia (b.c. 190). A 
 heavy military indemnity for twelve years was im¬ 
 posed on him, and he was compelled to send his 
 second son, Antiochus, as a hostage to Rome in 
 security for its payment. The kings of Syria never 
 recovered from the financial embarrassment into 
 which they were thus plunged. In order to fill 
 their exhausted treasury, they were driven to the 
 desperate expedient of robbing temples within their 
 own territory. Antiochus himself lost his life in an 
 attempt of this kind, near the head of the Persian 
 Gulf, in b.c. 187. 
 
 21. THE FIRST ATTEMPT ON THE TEMPLE 
 TREASURES (2 Mac. iii.). It was not long be¬ 
 fore the attention of Seleucus IV. [187-176], the son 
 and successor of Antiochus the Great, was directed to 
 
35 
 
 the wealth treasured up in the Temple at Jerusalem. 
 A Benjamite named Simon, belonging to the party 
 of the sons of Tobias, had a long-standing quarrel 
 with the high priest Onias III. This man, ap¬ 
 parently from sheer malice, went to Apollonius, the 
 governor of Coele-Syria, and urged him to plunder 
 the temple of the vast sums of money which he 
 alleged to be deposited there beyond what had been 
 collected for religious purposes. When Seleucus 
 heard of this he sent his minister, Heliodorus, to 
 Jerusalem, to inquire as to the truth of this report, 
 and to confiscate any treasure he might find in the 
 temple. In spite of the protests of the high priest 
 and the entreaties of the people, Heliodorus deter¬ 
 mined to force his way into the sanctuary, but there 
 he is said to have been struck to the ground by a 
 company of angels, and to have owed his life to the 
 intercession of the high priest. Simon had mean¬ 
 while gone to Antioch, where he persistently 
 slandered Onias, and sought by every means in his 
 power to prejudice the king against him. His 
 partisans stirred up so many disturbances in Jeru¬ 
 salem that Onias himself was compelled to proceed 
 to the Syrian court in order to get the dispute 
 settled. While he was there (in b.c. 176), Seleucus 
 was murdered by Heliodorus, who hoped to secure 
 the throne for himself. But soon after Antiochus, 
 the brother of the late king, returned from Rome, 
 and obtained the kingdom, the lawful heir, 
 Demetrius, having just taken his place as a hostage 
 at Rome. 05 
 
 22. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES. (Dan. xi. 21-24). 
 Under this king—surnamed Epiphanes (the Brilliant) 
 by his flatterers, but by the common people Epimanes 
 (the Madman)—the long conflict between Judaism 
 and Hellenism entered upon a new phase, and was 
 quickly brought to a crisis. Hitherto the Jews, 
 amidst all their misfortunes, had enjoyed complete 
 
 a Dan. xi, 20, 21. 
 
36 
 
 toleration in the observance of their own religion. 
 But Epiphanes, who had learned many bad lessons 
 during his twelve years’ sojourn in Borne, determined 
 to establish the Greek idolatry as a state religion, 
 and to enforce conformity to it throughout his 
 dominions. In Judsea his measures met with stub¬ 
 born resistance, and he conceived in consequence a 
 bitter hatred of the whole Jewish race, a hatred 
 which was aggravated by the misfortunes of his 
 latter years. It is perhaps some excuse for him 
 that he knew the Jewish character only on its 
 worst side. Erom the first he gave his confidence 
 to members of the Greek party, who were labouring 
 with all their might to destroy everything that was 
 distinctive in Judaism. These men assured him 
 that Judaea was ripe for the introduction of 
 heathenism, and lent themselves as willing instru¬ 
 ments to carry out the king’s wishes. He did not 
 discover till it was too late the tenacious strength of 
 the people he had to deal with, and the sacrifices it 
 was capable of making for its sacred institutions. 
 But nothing can palliate the savage cruelty with 
 which, after his mistake was clear, he persisted in 
 the endeavour to coerce the Jews into submission to 
 his will. Begardless of every consideration of 
 justice and humanity, meeting opposition with ever 
 severer measures of repression, he blindly adhered 
 to the policy of blood and iron, till at last the long- 
 suffering nation was driven into open revolt, and 
 faced his armies on the field of battle. 
 
 23. THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD SOLD TO THE 
 HIGHEST BIDDER (2 Mac. iv. 7-50; Jos. Ant. 
 xii. 5. 1). At the beginning of the reign of Epi¬ 
 phanes, the head of the Greek party in Jerusalem 
 was a brother of the high priest, who had exchanged 
 his Hebrew name Joshua for the Greek Jason. In 
 spite of his Greek proclivities, he had been en¬ 
 trusted by Onias III. with the management of 
 affairs during the absence of the latter in Antioch. 
 
37 
 
 Jason, however, followed him thither, and endea¬ 
 voured to obtain the High-priesthood for himself in 
 return for a large yearly tribute. Antiochus at once 
 closed with the offer, conferred the priesthood on 
 Jason, and detained Onias in Antioch. He also 
 granted Jason permission to erect a gymnasium 
 after the Greek fashion in Jerusalem, and very soon 
 devout Jews were scandalised by seeing the exercises 
 of the Grecian games practised by naked Jewish 
 youths under the very walls of the Temple. Even 
 the priests were carried away by the prevailing 
 fashion, and forsaking the service of the altar, threw 
 themselves eagerly into these shameless pastimes. 
 But Jason had only held office for about three years, 
 when another blow was struck at the integrity of 
 Jewish institutions. Menelaus, a member of the 
 Tobias party, who did not even belong to the tribe 
 of Levi, offered 300 talents a year more than Jason 
 for the High-priesthood, and was forthwith installed 
 as his successor (b.c. 171). Jason was compelled to 
 take refuge beyond the Jordan. Menelaus, however, 
 found himself quite unable to meet his money obli¬ 
 gations to the king, and to extricate himself from 
 his difficulties he began to pilfer the temple treasury. 
 With the money thus obtained he bribed various 
 persons of influence at the Syrian court. By this 
 means he procured the assassination of Onias at 
 Daphne," and, in the same way, when he was ac¬ 
 cused before the king by three elders from the coun¬ 
 cil at Jerusalem, he contrived to get them executed 
 and to recover his liberty. In the meantime, his re¬ 
 peated acts of sacrilege on the temple had provoked 
 an insurrection in J erusalem, in which a bloody con¬ 
 flict took place between the populace and the royal 
 troops who had been placed at the disposal of this 
 renegade High Priest. 
 
 24. THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGNS OF EPI- 
 PHANES (Dan. xi. 25-30; 1 Mac. i. 16-28 ; 2 Mac. 
 
 a See Dan. xi. 22. 
 
38 
 
 v. 1-23; Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 2, 3). From b.c. 171 to 
 168, Antiochus was engaged in a series of campaigns 
 against Egypt, in the course of which he noted 
 several symptoms of the hatred which his conduct 
 had produced amongst the Jews. During his second 
 campaign a report spread in Palestine that the 
 tyrant was dead, and Jason immediately returned 
 with an armed force to Jerusalem. The bulk of the 
 population being on his side, he entered the city and 
 slew many of the adherents of Menelaus; but the 
 priest himself held out in the citadel till the arrival 
 of Antiochus, when Jason was once more driven into 
 exile. Antiochus punished this outbreak with mer¬ 
 ciless severity. He let loose his soldiers on the un¬ 
 fortunate city, and after an indiscriminate massacre 
 of the inhabitants, he entered the temple along with 
 Menelaus, and carried off all its remaining treasures 
 and all the sacred vessels. Two years later (b.c. 168) 
 the war with Egypt was abruptly stopped by the 
 same power that had crossed his father’s path thirty 
 years before. Popilius Laenas, the Roman ambas¬ 
 sador, met him near Alexandria, and commanded 
 him to desist for ever from his designs on Egypt. 
 Antiochus tried hard to gain time, but the ambas¬ 
 sador was inexorable; drawing a circle round him 
 on the sand where he stood, he demanded an answer 
 before he left the spot. Antiochus knew the Romans 
 too well to defy them, and at once promised all that 
 was required of him. He then retired in sullen 
 wrath to Antioch, resolved to take a fearful ven¬ 
 geance on the hapless Jews. 
 
 25. DESECRATION OF THE TEMPLE — 
 JUDAISM SUPPRESSED BY FORCE (Dan. xi. 
 31; 1 Mac. i. 29-59; 2 Mac. v. 24-26; Jos. Ant. 
 xii. 5. 4). The king entrusted the execution of his 
 plans in Judsea to his general, Apollonius, whom he 
 sent to Jerusalem with a large army towards the 
 end of the year 168. When the Sabbath came round 
 the soldiers suddenly fell on the defenceless inhabit- 
 
ants and slaughtered a areat multitude of them, 
 while many of the women and children were sold 
 into slavery. The walls were broken down and the 
 temple laid waste, though not destroyed; and Jer¬ 
 usalem, deserted by all but the apostate party of 
 Menelaus, assumed the appearance of a heathen city. 
 About this time also the citadel of Akra, which 
 played so important a part in the subsequent his¬ 
 tory, seems to have been erected, probably on the 
 western side of the Tyropoeon Yalley, overlooking 
 the Temple Mount. Apollonius then proceeded to 
 carry out his instructions for the forcible suppression 
 of the Jewish religion, and the establishment of 
 idolatry in its place. The temple was to be dese¬ 
 crated, and dedicated to the service of the Olympian 
 Jupiter. An altar to this god was erected on the 
 top of the great altar of burnt-offering, and on this 
 altar, a on the 25th of the month Chisleu (December), 
 the first heathen sacrifice was offered. Similar altars 
 were set up in the towns and villages of Judaea, and 
 at these the people were compelled to sacrifice; 
 while all the distinctive observances of Judaism, 
 such as circumcision, the keeping of the Sabbath, 
 and abstinence from unclean food, were prohibited 
 on pain of death. 
 
 26. THE CHASIDIM (Dan. xi. 32-35; 1 Mac. i. 
 44-64 ; 2 Mac. vi., vii.). The persecution that fol¬ 
 lowed, though of short duration, rose to a fearful 
 height of violence and cruelty. Commissioners were 
 appointed to visit the country districts, and see that 
 the royal decrees were duly observed. Cases of dis¬ 
 obedience were carefully searched out and punished 
 with scourging or death. Women who had allowed 
 their sons to be circumcised were strangled, with 
 their infants hung from their necks ; copies of the 
 Law were destroyed or defaced wherever they were 
 found, and their possessors put to death. The first 
 effect of the persecution was to draw a sharp line of 
 a The “abomination of desolation.” See Dan. ix. 27; 1 Mac. i. 54. 
 
40 
 
 division between those who were faithful to the Law, 
 and those who were lukewarm or indifferent. And 
 when neutrality became impossible, and each man 
 was compelled to declare himself on one side or the 
 other, it was found that a very large number were 
 prepared to suffer anything rather than abandon the 
 faith of their fathers. The spirit of the better part 
 of the nation was only nerved to a more heroic en¬ 
 durance, and inflamed with a more ardent devotion 
 to the national religion. It was during the troubles 
 of this period that the faithful supporters of the Law 
 first banded themselves together in a secret league 
 for the defence of the sacred observances which were 
 threatened with extinction. They were known by 
 the honourable name of the Chasidim , or Pious.® 
 They were in no sense a political party. They did 
 not aim at liberating their country from the yoke of 
 the Syrian dominion ; they only strove for freedom 
 to worship God and live according to the Law. At 
 first they had no thought of taking up arms in de¬ 
 fence of their rights, but retired to caves and secret 
 places in the wilderness to await the providential 
 issue of events. So strict was their adherence to the 
 letter of the Law, that a large body of them, sur¬ 
 prised in their retreat by royal troops, allowed them¬ 
 selves to be murdered to a man rather than lift a 
 hand in self-defence on the Sabbath day.& They felt 
 that they were living in the last days, and looked 
 for deliverance not to any arm of flesh, but to the 
 direct interposition of God Himself. In the midst 
 of their sorrows they turned for comfort to the Book 
 of Daniel—a book which, at whatever time it was 
 written, has certainly a very special bearing on the 
 circumstances of this dark and eventful period. 
 Their courage was sustained and their hearts were 
 
 a In the first book of Maccabees we read of the ‘‘Synagogue” of 
 the Chasidim, which shows that the defenders of the law had formed 
 some kind of voluntary association amongst themselves. 
 b 1 Mac. ii. 31-38. 
 
41 
 
 clieered by its noble examples of Jewish constancy 
 in bygone days; by its predictions of the downfall 
 of the brute kingdoms of this world, and the bring¬ 
 ing in of the kingdom of everlasting righteousness ; 
 above all, by its clear announcement of the doctrine 
 of the resurrection, which, from this time, held a 
 place in the minds of true believers in Israel such as 
 it had never had before. 
 
 27. A JEWISH TEMPLE IN EGYPT (Jos. Ant. 
 xiii. 3. 1-3). So desperate did the situation of 
 Judaism appear to be at this time that one man 
 at least conceived the bold idea of removing the seat 
 of the national worship from Jerusalem to Egypt. 
 Onias III., the High Priest who was murdered at 
 Daphne in 171, left behind him a son, Onias IV., 
 who placed himself under the protection of Ptolemy 
 Philometor, the King of Egypt. It is not surprising 
 that the representative of the house of Zadok should 
 have considered the locality of the sanctuary of less 
 consequence than the legitimacy of the priesthood ; 
 and accordingly Onias, seeing no prospect of being 
 restored to his rights at Jerusalem, resolved to found 
 a new temple in the land of his adoption. Near the 
 city of Leontopolis, in the district of Heliopolis, he 
 had observed an old Egyptian temple that had 
 fallen into decay. A passage in the book of Isaiah a 
 seemed to him to sanction the erection of an altar to 
 Jehovah at this place, and he applied to Ptolemy 
 and his queen for leave to build there a temple after 
 the pattern of that of Jerusalem. The permission 
 was not granted till about the year 160, so that we 
 are anticipating somewhat the course of events. In 
 the next chapter we shall see that at that time the 
 temple at Jerusalem had been purified, and was 
 again presided over by a descendant of Aaron. 
 Onias, however, persisted in his project, built his 
 temple, and obtained a sufficient number of priests 
 
 a Is. xix. 18,19. In v. 18, instead of “ city of destruction,” many 
 copies have “ city of the Sun ” (Heliopolis). 
 
42 
 
 and Levites to carry on the services. With the com¬ 
 plete triumph of the legal party in Judaea which 
 speedily followed, the necessity for the Egyptian 
 temple disappeared. But the kings of Egypt were 
 not sorry to do something to check the flow of 
 money to Palestine in the shape of religious offerings 
 from their Jewish subjects, and supported the 
 worship of the new temple by every means in 
 their power. And although Leontopolis proved a 
 very insignificant rival to Jerusalem, it continued to 
 be more or less frequented by the Egyptian Jews 
 till after the time of Christ. What became ulti¬ 
 mately of the descendants of Onias we do not know. 
 It is certain that they never regained their ancient 
 position as the heads of the J ewish hierarchy. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MACCABEES. 
 
 b.c. 167-135. 
 
 28. THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLT (b.c. 
 
 167) (1 Mac. ii.; Jos. Ant. xii. 6). Things had 
 come to such a pass in Judaea that a single spark was 
 sufficient to kindle the flame of rebellion throughout 
 the country. In the little town of Modein, about 
 eighteen miles N.W. of Jerusalem, there was living 
 at this time an aged priest named Mattathias, who 
 had retired from Jerusalem, in deep distress at the 
 miseries of his people. In course of time Apelles, 
 one of the royal commissioners, came to the village 
 and assembled the inhabitants for the purpose of 
 celebrating a heathen sacrifice. Mattathias, as the 
 most influential person in the community, was first 
 
43 
 
 directed to set the example of submission to the 
 king’s authority. This he promptly and firmly 
 declined to do. At this moment another Jew 
 stepped forward to offer sacrifice, when Mattathias, 
 carried away by a sudden impulse, rushed on him, 
 and with his own hand slew him on the altar. In 
 the tumult that followed Apelles was killed, the 
 altar was thrown down, and Mattathias and his 
 sons, calling on all who were zealous for the Law and 
 faithful to the covenant to follow them, fled to the 
 mountains. The news of this bold deed spread 
 quickly over the country, and great numbers of the 
 Chasidim and others who had fled from persecution, 
 came out of their hiding-places and rallied round 
 Mattathias. Under his guidance an irregular but 
 vigorous crusade against idolatry was organized, and 
 the daily increasing band of insurgents speedily 
 became the terror of the apostates in all places 
 beyond the protection of a Syrian garrison. Care¬ 
 fully avoiding a conflict with the royal forces, they 
 made sudden descents and night attacks on unde¬ 
 fended towns and villages, where they overthrew 
 heathen altars, and enforced the observance of cir¬ 
 cumcision and other Jewish usages as required by 
 the Law. Soon after the outbreak of the revolt 
 Mattathias died, leaving the control of the move¬ 
 ment in the hands of his five noble sons, of whom in 
 his dying charge he designated Simon as the wisest 
 in council, and Judas as the ablest leader in war. 
 
 29. JUDAS MACCAB/EUS (1 Mac. iii. 1-26; 2 
 Mac. viii. 1-7 ; Jos. Ant. xii. 7. 1). The wonderful 
 success which attended the next stages of the revolt 
 was fmainly due, under God, to the character and 
 military genius of Judas Maccabaeus, a from whose 
 surname it was that his followers received their 
 common designation of Maccabees. In him the 
 
 a The meaning of the name is obscure. According to one deriva¬ 
 tion it signifies the “ Hammerer,” according to a more recent one, the 
 “Extinguisher.” 
 
44 
 
 party of the faithful had found a leader of the 
 noblest type, a true hero and patriot, such as had 
 not arisen in Israel since the days of David and 
 Jonathan. Along with the skill and caution of a 
 thorough general he possessed that strange power of 
 infusing courage into others which marks the born 
 commander of men. Like David, too, he was sus¬ 
 tained by a lofty confidence in God, which never 
 failed him in the darkest hours of his life, but led 
 him again and again to the most surprising victories 
 over overwhelming odds. For a time his operations 
 were confined to the system of irregular warfare and 
 night attacks which had been commenced under his 
 father. His first skirmish with regular soldiers was 
 in the year 166, when he cut in pieces a detachment 
 that was advancing against him from Samaria under 
 the general Apollonius. A little later in the same 
 year, Seron, another Syrian general, having collected 
 a larger force in the extreme north of Palestine, 
 marched into Judaea; but Judas caught him in the 
 pass of Beth-horon, and defeated him with the loss of 
 800 men. These successes inspired the Maccabees 
 with the most enthusiastic confidence in their 
 leader, and the fame of Judas spread far and wide 
 among the surrounding nations. 
 
 30. THE BATTLE OF EMMAUS (b.c. 166). 
 (1 Mac. iii. 27—iv. 25 ; 2 Mac. viii. 8-29 ; Jos. Ant. 
 xii. 7. 2-4). When the news of these events reached 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, he was beside himself with 
 rage, and determined in his fury to destroy the 
 Jewish nation from the face of the earth. Owing 
 to the exhausted state of his treasury he seems to 
 have had considerable difficulty in raising an army 
 sufficient for his purpose. As some of his Eastern 
 provinces were withholding their tribute, he divided 
 his forces into two parts ; and leaving one half with 
 his relative Lysias to suppress the insurrection in 
 Judsea, he himself led the other half against the 
 rebels in the East. Lysias accordingly sent an 
 
45 
 
 army of 40,000 foot and 7000 horse a into Judaea 
 under these experienced generals, Ptolemaeus, 
 Nicanor, and Gorgias. They marched south by 
 way of the sea coast, and encamped at Emmaus, 
 half way between Joppa and Jerusalem. So sure 
 were they of victory that their camp was thronged 
 with Phoenician slave-dealers, who had come to 
 buy the numerous captives that they expected to 
 take. The army of Judas was assembled meanwhile 
 at the ancient sanctuary of Mizpah, a few miles north 
 of Jerusalem. There they prepared for the coming 
 conflict by observing a day of humiliation and 
 prayer, when they spread out before the Lord the 
 defaced books of the Law, the unused priestly 
 garments, the tithes and offerings they had collected 
 but could not bring into the temple, crying, What 
 shall we do with these, and whither shall we carry 
 them away? As soon as Judas had completed his 
 arrangements, he marched westward and took up a 
 position to the south of the enemy’s camp. Having 
 learned that Gorgias had planned a night attack 
 on him with 6000 men, he broke up his camp under 
 cover of darkness, and leaving Gorgias to search 
 for him in the mountains, he appeared at daybreak 
 with his whole force (3000 men) in front of the main 
 body of the enemy, and awaited their attack. In 
 the engagement that ensued the Jews were com¬ 
 pletely victorious, and after scattering the Syrians, 
 set fire to their camp. When the column of Gorgias 
 emerged from the mountains, and saw the camp on 
 fire and the Jewish host drawn up in battle-array, 
 they, too, fled in disorder without striking a blow, 
 and the small army of Judas returned home with 
 songs of triumph and thanksgiving for their wonder¬ 
 ful deliverance. 
 
 31. THE PURIFICATION OF THE TEMPLE 
 
 a The numbers throughout are taken from the first book of 
 Maccabees. They are almost the only point on which that excellent 
 historical work is open to the suspicion of inaccuracy. 
 
46 
 
 (1 Mac. iv. 28-61 ; 2 Mac. x. 1-8 ; Jos. Ant. xii. 7. 
 5-7). In the following year (165) Lysias despatched 
 a still larger army of 65,000 men against Judas. 
 This time they avoided the scene of so many 
 disasters by marching down the eastern side of the 
 Jordan and round the south end of the Dead Sea, 
 so as to enter Judaea from the south. But Judas, 
 whose followers now numbered 10,000, met them at 
 Beth-zur on the Idumaean frontier (about five miles 
 north of Hebron), and again inflicted a crushing 
 defeat upon them. Judas now resolved to capture 
 Jerusalem, the only place still held by Syrian troops. 
 He took possession of the Temple mountain without 
 difficulty, and converted it into a strong fortress. 
 The garrison was cooped up within the citadel 
 of Akra, and invested as closely as possible, but the 
 place was found too strong to be taken by assault. 
 The sanctuary was then sedulously purified, the 
 polluted altar was removed, and a new one of 
 unhewn stone erected in its place ; new utensils 
 were provided, and the ancient order of the temple 
 service was restored in accordance with the Law. 
 On the 25th of Chisleu, exactly three years from 
 the day that the first heathen sacrifice was offered, 
 the feast of the dedication of the altar commenced, 
 and was kept up with great rejoicing for eight days. 
 This was the origin of the feast of the Dedication, a 
 which was observed for eight days every year as 
 long as the temple stood, in commemoration of this 
 joyful event. 
 
 32. DEATH OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES 
 
 (1 Mac. v. 1—vi. 16 ; 2 Mac. ix., xii.; Jos. Ant. xii. 
 8. 1—9. 1). The year 164 was spent by Judas and 
 his brethren in a series of campaigns against the 
 countries round about Judaea. The tremendous 
 energy which the small Jewish army had been able 
 to put forth in its struggles with Syria, excited the 
 alarm of the surrounding nations, so that the Jews 
 
 a See John x. 22. 
 
47 
 
 residing beyond the limits of Judaea were in con¬ 
 stant danger of massacre at the hands of their 
 heathen neighbours. Urgent messages for succour 
 were received from the Jews in Galilee and Gilead, 
 and it was decided to send two expeditions, one 
 under Simon and the other under Judas himself, to 
 their relief. After much hard fighting these Jews 
 were rescued and brought in safety to Judsea. Judas 
 also made an incursion into the southern portion 
 of the old kingdom of Judah, now held by the 
 Idumaeans, where he dismantled the fortress of 
 Hebron. Then turning westward into the Philistine 
 country he ravaged the territory of Aslidod and 
 destroyed their idols and altars. But the most 
 important event of the year was the death of 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, which occurred as he was re¬ 
 turning from his eastern expedition. He lived just 
 long enough to hear of the complete failure of all 
 his plans in Judaea. According to the Jewish 
 historian, his last hours were embittered and his 
 end was hastened by remorse for the crimes he had 
 committed against the Jews ; and so he “perished 
 through great grief in a strange land.” 
 
 33. JUDAS DEFEATED BY LYSIAS (1 Mac. vi. 
 17-63; Jos. Ant. xii. 9. 2-7). The death of Epiphanes 
 left the Syrian government free to adopt a more 
 conciliatory policy towards the Jews. It seems that 
 at least one voice a in the royal council was raised 
 against persisting in the foolish projects of the late 
 king, and in favour of justice and toleration. 
 Lysias, however, who was now regent and guardian 
 of the young king, Antiochus (V.) Eupator, was not 
 disposed to come to terms with victorious rebels ; 
 especially as the Syrians in the citadel of Jerusalem 
 were being hard pressed by Judas, and were send¬ 
 ing piteous entreaties for help. He therefore re¬ 
 solved to make one more supreme effort to quell the 
 insurrection by force. Taking the young king with 
 
 a Ptolemy Macron (2 Mac. x. 12, 13). 
 
48 
 
 liim he marched at the head of 120,000 men by the 
 south of the Dead Sea, and laid siege to Beth-zur, 
 which was now occupied by a Jewish garrison. 
 Judas was obliged to raise the siege of Akra, and go 
 to meet this formidable army at Beth-zechariah, a 
 few miles from Beth-zur. But the huge Syrian host 
 swept everything before it, and advanced without 
 further opposition to Jerusalem, where it relieved 
 the citadel, and besieged the Jews in the Temple 
 fortifications. As it was the Sabbath year, both 
 the beleaguered garrisons were badly victualled, and 
 that of Beth-zur was soon forced to capitulate. The 
 Temple mount was also reduced to the last extremity, 
 when tidings reached Lysias which necessitated his 
 immediate return to Antioch. A treaty was hastily 
 concluded, which guaranteed to the Jews perfect free¬ 
 dom in all matters of worship and religion, and on this 
 condition the Temple fortress was surrendered. 
 
 34. APPOINTMENT OF AN AARONIC HIGH 
 PRIEST (2 Mac. xiii. 1-8 ; Jos. Ant. xii. 9. 7). The 
 treaty with Lysias marks an important turning- 
 point in the struggle for independence. The con¬ 
 cession of religious liberty covered all that the 
 Maccabees had originally taken up arms for ; and it 
 is to be noted that amidst all the subsequent vacil¬ 
 lations of Syrian policy this concession appears 
 never to have been formally revoked. It is true 
 that many of the Maccabees were now resolved to 
 fight till they had won their political independence ; 
 but a large number, including probably all the 
 Chasidim, had no further motive for prolonging the 
 conflict. Another event which tended to pave the 
 way for a peaceable settlement was the execution of 
 the apostate High-Priest Menelaus, who was too 
 deeply identified with the policy of Epiphanes to be 
 spared. Lysias perceived that there was no hope of 
 peace in Judsea so long as he was alive, and recom¬ 
 mended the young king to have him put to death. 
 This was accordingly done, and in his room Alcimus, 
 
40 
 
 a descendant of Aaron, though not a member of the 
 last High-Priestly family, was appointed High- 
 Priest. These arrangements would probably have 
 satisfied the party of the Law; and if Alcimus 
 had only acted with discretion and forbearance, the 
 Jews might have settled down once more as peace¬ 
 able vassals of the Syrian kingdom. 
 
 35. RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES (1 Mac. vii.; 
 2 Mac. xiv., xv. ; Jos. Ant. xii. 10. 1-5). But in the 
 meantime (b.c. 162), Demetrius, the elder brother of 
 Epiphanes and the rightful heir to the throne, had 
 been released from Eome, a and having killed An- 
 tiochus Eupator and Lysias, took possession of the 
 kingdom, under the title of Demetrius I. (Soter). 
 Alcimus, who was not succeeding in Judaea, soon 
 appeared at his court, begging for aid, and represent¬ 
 ing the absolute necessity of getting rid of Judas 
 Maccabaeus and his faction. The new king listened 
 to his story and sent one of his generals, Bacchides, 
 with an army to support the cause of Alcimus, and 
 to endeavour, by fair means or foul, to secure the 
 person of Judas. In spite of these ominous arrange¬ 
 ments, the Chasidim, who had hitherto fought side 
 by side with the champions of national independence, 
 were the first to tender their allegiance to the High 
 Priest; and but for the vindictiveness of Alcimus 
 they might have been permanently detached from 
 the national cause. But when he (or Bacchides) 
 treacherously seized and executed sixty of their lead¬ 
 ing men, they took alarm ; and after Bacchides had 
 left the country, Judas once more bestirred himself. 
 It is plain that his following had been much reduced 
 by recent events, for he did not for some time ven¬ 
 ture on a pitched battle with the Syrian forces. 
 Nevertheless his bold and rapid movements struck 
 such terror into the hearts of the apostate party, that 
 Alcimus was again forced to quit Jerusalem and be¬ 
 take himself to Antioch. Demetrius then sent a 
 
 a See p. 35. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 fresh army under Nicanor, who first tried unsuccess¬ 
 fully to entrap Judas at a conference to which he 
 had invited him. He then attacked the Jewish 
 army at a place called Caphar-salama, but was de¬ 
 feated ; and in a second battle at Beth-horon he was 
 killed and his army annihilated. 
 
 36. DEATH OF JUDAS MACCAB/EUS (1 Mac. 
 
 viii. , ix. 1-22 ; Jos. Ant. xii. 11). During the interval 
 of peace which succeeded these victories, Judas en¬ 
 deavoured to form an alliance with the Romans 
 against Demetrius. Two Jewish ambassadors who 
 were sent to Rome succeeded in negotiating a treaty, 
 which, however, was somewhat vague in its terms, 
 and produced no practical results. Before it received 
 the sanction of the senate, the great Jewish warrior 
 had met his fate. His last battle was fought at 
 Eleasa (b.c. 161) against Bacchides, who had been 
 sent back to Judaea in place of Nicanor. So dis¬ 
 heartened were the followers of Judas, that on the 
 eve of battle he was deserted by all but 800 men, 
 and even these urged him not to risk a conflict 
 against such overwhelming numbers. “ God forbid,” 
 was the proud answer, “ that I should do this thing 
 and flee away from before them : if our time be 
 come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and 
 let us not stain our honour.” The 800 fought 
 with all their old impetuous valour, and drove the 
 right wing of the enemy in headlong rout before 
 them. But the left wing closed round on them from 
 behind, and then after a gallant stand against hope¬ 
 less odds, a few survivors made their escape from 
 the field. Amongst the slain was Judas Maccabaeus. 
 His body was carried off the field by his brothers 
 Jonathan and Simon, and was buried with great 
 lamentation in the family sepulchre at Modein. 
 
 37. JONATHAN SUCCEEDS JUDAS (1 Mac. 
 
 ix. 23-73 ; Jos. Ant. xiii. 1). After the death of 
 Judas, the Syrian party, supported by Bacchides, 
 once more gained the ascendency in Judaea. It was 
 
51 
 
 evidently the intention of Bacchides to put the 
 government of the country into their hands, to sup¬ 
 press their opponents entirely, and then leave the 
 Jews to their own devices. The scattered remnant 
 of the Maccabees soon saw that unless they were to 
 allow themselves to be exterminated in detail, they 
 must again combine and take up arms in their own 
 defence. They accordingly chose Jonathan, the 
 youngest of the sons of Mattathias, as their leader. 
 He was a man of a very different stamp from his 
 brother Judas. Although he proved himself a brave 
 and skilful general, his chief successes were due to 
 the dexterous diplomacy with which he took advan¬ 
 tage of the opportunities presented by the embar¬ 
 rassments of his adversaries. And as his power in¬ 
 creased it became more and more manifest that the 
 object of the struggle was no longer religious free¬ 
 dom (which indeed was scarcely endangered), but the 
 establishment of the Asmonaean" house as the rul¬ 
 ing power in the Jewish state. For the first three 
 years of his leadership (160-157) Jonathan and his 
 men barely maintained their ground, sometimes on 
 the other side of the Jordan, and sometimes in the 
 southern wilderness of Judah. But at last Bacchides, 
 baffled in various attempts to capture him, became 
 weary of the whole business, and quarrelled with 
 the leaders of the Syrian faction. Jonathan adroitly 
 seized the opportunity to come to terms with the 
 general himself, who indeed only wanted a decent 
 pretext for leaving the country. A friendly agree¬ 
 ment was speedily arranged between them, and 
 Bacchides promised to interfere no further in the 
 affairs of the Jews. Jonathan then took up his 
 abode in Michmash, from whence for six years he 
 ruled the people after the fashion of the Judges of 
 former days. In spite of the presence of the Syrian 
 garrison at Jerusalem, his power was so firmly estab- 
 
 a The family name of the descendants of Mattathias. According to 
 Josephus, Asmoneus was the great-grandfather of Mattathias. 
 
lished that his support came to be a matter of the 
 utmost consequence in the impending contest for the 
 Syrian crown. 
 
 38. JONATHAN OBTAINS THE HIGH-PRIEST¬ 
 HOOD (1 Mac. x-xii.; Jos. Ant. xiii. 2. 4, 5). The 
 High-Priest Alcimus had died in the year 159, and 
 for some reason unknown to us the Syrian Govern¬ 
 ment appointed no successor. There is little doubt 
 that Jonathan, who of course was of priestly descent, 
 had an eye to the vacant office ; and everything 
 comes to the man who waits. In b.c. 152 Alexander 
 Balas, a pretended son of Antiochus Epiphanes, 
 seized Ptolemais, and established himself there as a 
 rival to Demetrius. Both parties immediately began 
 to court the friendship of Jonathan. First of all, 
 Demetrius granted him permission to levy an army 
 and take possession of Jerusalem, with the exception 
 of the citadel, which Jonathan, no doubt in perfect 
 good faith, at once proceeded to do. But when 
 Alexander Balas conferred on him the High-Priest¬ 
 hood and the title of king’s friend, as the price of his 
 support, he accepted the honour and the office with¬ 
 out the least hesitation, and entered on his priestly 
 functions at the Feast of Tabernacles in this same 
 year 152. Demetrius then tried to win him back by 
 still larger promises ; but Jonathan distrusted him 
 and definitely threw in his lot with the pretender. 
 He had no reason to regret his choice. Demetrius 
 was vanquished and killed by Balas, who heaped 
 many fresh rewards on Jonathan, and found in him 
 a steadfast friend and ally when Demetrius II. came 
 forward to claim his father’s crown. On the over¬ 
 throw of Balas, which took place in b.c. 146, Jona¬ 
 than transferred his allegiance to Demetrius, and 
 was not only confirmed in the priesthood, but 
 obtained nearly all the privileges which the first 
 Demetrius had vainly offered six years before. 
 
 It would have been well if Jonathan had rested 
 content with this and kept clear of the entangle- 
 
53 
 
 ments of Syrian politics for the future. But he was 
 extremely anxious to obtain the surrender of the 
 citadel of Jerusalem, which was still occupied by the 
 Syrians. Demetrius at length yielded this point, in 
 return for Jonathan’s assistance on the occasion of a 
 popular rising in Antioch. But when the danger 
 was past he broke his word, and then Jonathan 
 formed an alliance with a certain Trypho, who had 
 set up a puppet-king in the person of Antiochus 
 VI., the son of Alexander Balas. Jonathan gained 
 several important victories over the forces of Deme¬ 
 trius in the extreme north of Palestine, while his 
 brother Simon was greatly strengthening his posi¬ 
 tion in Judaea. But at last he fell a victim to the 
 fathomless duplicity of Trypho, who had secret 
 designs on the throne which he was sure that 
 Jonathan would oppose. He therefore determined 
 to get rid of him by treachery, and having lured him 
 into the city of Ptolemais with only a few followers, 
 he kept him prisoner and cut down his men. It 
 was a melancholy, but not wholly undeserved, termi¬ 
 nation to a career which, though brilliantly successful 
 in its results, compares unfavourably in its spirit and 
 methods with those of Judas and Simon. 
 
 39. SIMON’S ADMINISTRATION (1 Mac. xiii., 
 xiv.; Jos. Ant. xiii. 6). Trypho had no sooner got 
 Jonathan into his power than he prepared to sub¬ 
 jugate Judaea with a large army. At this crisis, 
 Simon, the older brother of Judas and Jonathan, 
 and the only remaining son of Mattathias, came to 
 the front and assumed the command of the Jewish 
 army. He first entered into negotiations with Try¬ 
 pho for the release of Jonathan, but though he ful¬ 
 filled the stipulated conditions, Jonathan was still kept 
 in captivity. Trypho then marched round the whole 
 country, seeking an opportunity to advance on Jeru¬ 
 salem, but was baffled at all points by the vigilance 
 of Simon. On one occasion he had made all his pre¬ 
 parations for a cavalry march to relieve the garrison, 
 
54 
 
 but this also was frustrated by a providential fall of 
 snow. He then retreated round the south of the 
 Dead Sea, and at Bascama, somewhere on the east 
 of Jordan, he caused Jonathan to be put to death 
 (b.c. 143). Simon now became governor and high- 
 priest, as well as military chief, of the Jews. He 
 has been well described as the statesman of his house, 
 as Jonathan was the diplomatist, and Judas the 
 hero. He adopted a policy entirely opposite to that 
 of Jonathan, and far better adapted to the wants of 
 the time. He did, indeed, formally acknowledge the 
 sovereignty of Demetrius, but having obtained from 
 him a concession of immunity from tribute, he wisely 
 left the claimants for the Syrian throne to fight out 
 their own quarrel, and devoted his attention to 
 developing the resources of his country. In the 
 year 141 the last great stronghold of the Syrian 
 party, the fortress of Akra, was starved into sur¬ 
 render, and thus the land was finally rid of the pre¬ 
 sence of foreign troops. In the following year a 
 great assembly at Jerusalem declared the offices of 
 Prince and High-Priest of Judaea to be hereditary in 
 the family of Simon until a faithful prophet should 
 arise in Israel. These events mark the real com¬ 
 mencement of the period of Jewish independence. 
 The fruit of the long and arduous struggles of Judas 
 and Jonathan was gathered in by the last survivor 
 of their family, who ought to be regarded as the true 
 founder of the Asmonsean dynasty. Under his wise 
 and righteous administration the nation entered on 
 an era of peace and prosperity such as it had not 
 enjoyed since the Exile. 
 
 40. THE DEATH OF SIMON (1 Mac. xv., xvi.; 
 Jos. Ant. xiii. 7). Towards the end of his life, how¬ 
 ever, Simon was again drawn into the troubles aris¬ 
 ing out of the Syrian succession. Demetrius II. 
 was now a prisoner amongst the Parthians, and 
 disappears from the scene for about ten years (138- 
 128). The usurper Trypho was still in the field, 
 
55 
 
 having murdered his royal charge shortly after the 
 death of Jonathan. But the rights of Demetrius 
 were taken up and asserted by his younger brother, 
 Antiochus (VII.) Sidetes, who eventually overthrew 
 Trypho. Whilst the issue was doubtful, this king 
 sought the friendship of Simon, and even granted 
 him the right of coining money in his own name. 
 But after gaining some successes against Trypho, he 
 changed his tone, and demanded the surrender of 
 the towns of Joppa and Gazara, and the fortress of 
 Jerusalem. Simon was willing to pay a moderate 
 compensation for the possession of these places, but 
 firmly refused to deliver them up. Antiochus then 
 sent his general, Cendebaeus, to take them by force, 
 but he sustained a complete defeat at the hands of 
 Judas and John, the sons of Simon. Two years 
 later (b.c. 135), Simon was treacherously mur¬ 
 dered at a banquet near Jericho, by his son-in-law 
 Ptolemy, who wished to succeed him in his office. 
 His sons, Judas and Mattathias, fell with him, and 
 a like fate was prepared for the other son, John, 
 who was then commandant of Gazara. But a timely 
 warning put John on his guard; he hastened to 
 Jerusalem, and at once assumed the High-Priesthood 
 in his father’s stead. Ptolemy in the meantime had 
 sent messengers to Antiochus VII., informing him 
 of what he had done, and offering to surrender the 
 country into his hands. Thus the thirty years’ 
 struggle for independence, the most glorious period 
 of Jewish history, closed in gloom and uncertainty, 
 with the terror of foreign conquest still hanging 
 over the unhappy nation. 
 
56 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE ASMONiEAN DYNASTY. 
 
 B.C. 135-63. 
 
 41. THE LAST CONFLICT WITH SYRIA (Jos. 
 Ant. xiii. 8). John Hyrcanus, the prince who now 
 ascended the throne, is usually reckoned the first 
 independent ruler of the Asmonaean dynasty. He 
 was a man already tried in war, and his prompt 
 action at this crisis saved his country from the 
 horrors of anarchy. Ptolemy, the murderer of his 
 father, could not have stood against him for a day, 
 but that he kept the mother of John a prisoner, and 
 threatened to torture her if her son should drive 
 him to extremities. In this way he managed to 
 hold out for some months in a small fort near 
 Jericho, hoping that the Syrian king would come to 
 his assistance. At last, however, he murdered his 
 prisoners, fled across the Jordan, and was heard of 
 no more. Soon afterwards, Antiochus VII., the 
 ablest and best of the later Syrian monarchs, in¬ 
 vaded Judaea, in order to assert his sovereign rights 
 over it. John was forced to retire within the walls 
 of Jerusalem, and a siege of nearly a year’s dura¬ 
 tion ensued. When the Feast of Tabernacles came 
 round, the Jews sought a truce of seven days to 
 permit the due celebration of the festival. The 
 king, who was perhaps weary of the war, not only 
 granted the truce, but sent splendid offerings for 
 the temple. The good feeling thus kindled on both 
 sides, led to negotiations for an honourable peace. 
 John consented to pay tribute for Joppa and other 
 cities recently acquired by Judsea, but steadfastly 
 refused to have another Syrian garrison quartered 
 in Jerusalem. Antiochus ultimately withdrew this 
 demand in return for a payment of 500 talents, and 
 
57 
 
 after destroying the walls of Jerusalem, he left the 
 country. Judaea was thus once more reduced to the 
 position of a vassal principality, and this state of 
 things continued till the death of Antiochus, who 
 perished in an expedition against the Partisans, 
 about the year 127. He was the last Syrian king 
 who interfered with effect in the affairs or Judaea. 
 
 42. THE CONQUESTS OF JOHN HYRCANUS 
 (Jos. Ant. xiii. 9. 10). These early troubles, however, 
 were but the stormy dawn of a bright and glorious 
 day. Although John Hyrcanus never assumed the 
 title of king, it was he who raised the Jewish state 
 to its highest point of political greatness and splen¬ 
 dour. Before his death he had recovered most of 
 the old historic territory of Israel; since the revolt 
 of the ten tribes under Eehoboam, no Jewish sover¬ 
 eign had owned so large a dominion. It is true that 
 his successes were chiefly due to the decay of the 
 Syrian power, through the incessant contests of rival 
 claimants for the crown. But John at least made 
 the most of his opportunity. He maintained, as the 
 nucleus of his army, a body of foreign mercenaries, 
 whom he is said to have paid with treasure taken 
 from the tomb of David. Thus equipped he first 
 captured the fortified cities on the east of Jordan, 
 then subdued the Samaritans, destroying the rival 
 temple on Mount Gerizim, and lastly vanquished 
 the Idumaeans who still occupied the southern portion 
 of Judaea. The subjugation of the latter was final 
 and complete. Compelled to choose between giving 
 up their lands and adopting the Jewish religion, 
 these hereditary enemies of Israel submitted to the 
 rite of circumcision, and were henceforth incorpor¬ 
 ated in the Jewish nation. The Samaritans, how¬ 
 ever, were not so easily dealt with. Towards the 
 end of John’s life they revolted and called in the aid 
 of Syrian and Egyptian troops. Samaria was 
 besieged by the two sons of Hyrcanus; the allies 
 were defeated ; and the city, after a stubborn resist- 
 
58 
 
 ance, was taken and levelled with the ground. The 
 rebellion was put down, but the spirit of the Samari¬ 
 tans was not broken ; the severity practised by the 
 Jews on this occasion only served to intensify the 
 fierce undying hatred between the two races. 
 
 43. THE ORIGIN OF JEWISH PARTIES—I. 
 THE PHARISEES." Of the causes which brought 
 about the downfall of Jewish independence, perhaps 
 the most important was the mutual hostility of two 
 great parties whose origin can be traced to the time 
 of John Hyrcanus. The feud between the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees is the outstanding feature in the 
 history of the Asmonsean princes, and in order to 
 understand the period it is necessary to have some 
 knowledge of the growth and distinguishing ten¬ 
 dencies of these rival factions. The Pharisees were 
 the spiritual successors of the Chasidim, who had 
 borne such an honourable part in the great struggle 
 for religious liberty. We find in them the same 
 fanatical devotion to the Law, and the same indiffer¬ 
 ence to secular politics except when they thought the 
 interests of religion were involved, which indeed was 
 very often. If there was any difference at all, it 
 was a difference of temper rather than of principles. 
 The name Pharisees, or “ Separatists,” was given to 
 them, probably by their enemies, to mark the 
 haughty exclusiveness of their attitude towards the 
 common people—the “ people of the land.” Separ¬ 
 ateness was in truth essential to the Pharisaic ideal 
 of the religious life. The Law as expounded by the 
 Scribes was so elaborate, and ran out into such a 
 number of minute requirements, that to keep it 
 perfectly was quite beyond the power of the average 
 Israelite. The Pharisees were the men who gathered 
 round the Scribes, accepted their teaching, and made 
 it the chief business of their lives to reduce it to 
 
 % 
 
 a See the chapter on “ Pharisees and Sadducees,” in Schtirer’s 
 ‘‘Jewish People in the time of Christ," Div. ii, vol. ii., pp. 4- 43 of 
 the English translation. 
 
59 
 
 practice. And since the keeping of the Law was 
 the real vocation of Israel, the Pharisee naturally 
 came to regard himself and his sect as the only true 
 Israelites, and to avoid contact with all others as 
 defiling. The common people, on the other hand, 
 conscious of their own shortcomings, repaid the scorn 
 of the Pharisees with unbounded respect and rever¬ 
 ence, and willingly yielded themselves up to their 
 guidance. Though at no time very numerous,® they 
 had such a hold on the nation that their opponents 
 the Sadducees were compelled when in power to 
 defer constantly to their opinion for fear of popular 
 resistance. 
 
 Yet with all their faults the Pharisees were the 
 best representatives of the living religion of their 
 day. There were two truths especially, of vital 
 importance to Israel and to humanity, of which 
 they were the champions and exponents. First, 
 it was in them alone that the hope of the Messiah 
 was a practical power in the national life. They 
 believed, as we have seen, that the one duty of 
 Israel was to be a holy nation through scrupulous 
 adherence to the covenant. But they also believed 
 that when Israel was true to its calling the Messiah 
 would appear, to break the yoke of the heathen, and 
 redeem His people from all their afflictions. Hence 
 their one interest in political questions was to get 
 rid of all external hindrances to the perfect observ¬ 
 ance of the Law ; they could be content with any 
 government that did not interfere with that. 
 Secondly, and closely connected with this, there 
 was the doctrine of the resurrection. In those 
 days the idea of a future life had little hold on 
 men’s minds apart from the expectation of the 
 Messianic kingdom. It was clung to chiefly as 
 the solution of a difficulty which weighed more and 
 more heavily on the hearts of faithful Israelites— 
 
 a Tn the time of Herod they numbered over 6000. (Jos. Ant. xvii. 
 2.4.) 
 
60 
 
 viz., what was to become of those who had been 
 faithful to the covenant in life and death, and yet 
 had not seen the promised reward ? The answer 
 was that these would be raised from the dead and 
 share with the living in the glory of the latter days. 
 Thus these two doctrines were for the time in¬ 
 separably linked together; and although they 
 underwent modifications and expansions as time 
 went on, yet they never advanced much beyond 
 this crude and narrow form till they were seen 
 in the light of the life and teaching and resurrection 
 of Christ. 
 
 44. II. THE SADDUCEES. The Sadducees a 
 seem to have been in the first instance neither 
 a religious sect nor a political party, but a social 
 clique. Numerically they were a much smaller body 
 than the Pharisees, and belonged for the most part 
 to the wealthy and influential priestly families who 
 formed the aristocracy of the Jewish nation. The 
 leaders of the party were the elders who had seats 
 in the council, the military officers, the statesmen, 
 and officials who took part in the management of 
 public affairs. With the mass of the people they 
 never had much influence ; like true aristocrats 
 they did not greatly care for it. Their one ambi¬ 
 tion was to make themselves indispensable to the 
 reigning prince, that they might conduct the govern¬ 
 ment of the country according to their own views. 
 This absorbing interest in the secular side of politics 
 placed them in radical opposition to the Pharisees. 
 The Sadducees held, like some more modern politi¬ 
 cs That the name Sadducee is equivalent to “Zadokite” is now 
 generally acknowledged. Who the Zadok was who gave his name 
 to the party is, however, a more difficult question. The opinion of 
 most recent scholars is that the name is derived from the “sons of 
 Zadok ” who held the High-Priesthood from the time of Solomon to 
 the death of Onias III. (see p. 37). If this view is correct, the 
 Sadducees were the members and adherents of the old High-Priestly 
 family, who attached themselves to the Asmonsean priests after the 
 revolution. Their worldly and anti-religious tendency is explained by 
 the prominence they had always given to the political side of the 
 High Priest’s functions. 
 
Cl 
 
 cians, that the law of God had no application to 
 politics. If Israel was to be made great and 
 prosperous it must be by well-filled treasuries, 
 strong armies, skilful diplomacy, and all the re¬ 
 sources of human statecraft. God had left all such 
 matters to human sagacity, and to expect a divine 
 deliverance merely by making the people holy they 
 accounted sheer and dangerous fatalism. Their 
 religious position was little more than a protest 
 against the extreme demands which the Pharisaic 
 system made on faith and conduct. They rejected 
 the entire mass of scribe-made law, acknowledging 
 only the authority of the written word. To the 
 Messianic hope they were profoundly indifferent. 
 They denied the doctrine of the resurrection, avow¬ 
 edly because it was not contained in the Scriptures, 
 but really because they had no need for it. They 
 were men of the world, whose thoughts and aims 
 were confined to the present life, and they had no 
 interest in a spiritual world, or a life beyond the 
 grave. 
 
 The antagonism of Pharisees and Sadducees was 
 really at bottom a milder phase of the long conflict of 
 Judaism and Hellenism,—the same conflict which 
 had been waged between the Chasidim and the 
 Greek party in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. 
 Only, the field of contention was immensely 
 narrowed. Then the very existence of Judaism 
 was at stake, now both parties were united in 
 upholding the national religion. But while the 
 Pharisees sought to make religion supreme in every 
 department of life, the Sadducees banished it from 
 the sphere of politics, and sought to limit its 
 obligations in all directions as much as possible. 
 
 45. III. THE ESSENES.« We must briefly 
 notice the existence of another sect which appeared 
 about this time, although it left no mark on the his¬ 
 tory of the period. There arose a body of men called 
 a See Schurer, l. c., pp. 188-21S. 
 
62 
 
 Essenes, in whom the passion for ceremonial purity 
 took a peculiar form, and was carried to most un- 
 Jewish extremes. In order to realise their idea of a 
 holy life, they separated themselves entirely from 
 common society, and formed a sort of monastic order, 
 into which no one was admitted without undergoing 
 a long probation, and taking a solemn oath to con¬ 
 ceal the doctrines of the brotherhood from the out¬ 
 side world. They lived by themselves in houses of 
 their own, working in the field or at useful crafts, 
 but shunning trade as tending to covetousness. The 
 whole course of their daily life was regulated with a 
 view to religious purity ; each meal was a sacrifice, 
 prepared by the priests belonging to the order, and 
 partaken at a common table. The two points in 
 which they went clearly beyond the limits of ortho¬ 
 dox Judaism were, first, their rejection of animal 
 sacrifices, and second, their custom of praying to¬ 
 wards the rising sun, whose light they regarded as a 
 manifestation of the brightness of God. But that, 
 in spite of these eccentricities, they still considered 
 themselves good Jews, was shown by their desire to 
 keep up some sort of connection with the temple. 
 Although they could take no share in the worship 
 because of their objection to animal sacrifices, they 
 showed their reverence for the sanctuary by sending 
 regular offerings of incense. Living their simple 
 unpretending life away from the turmoil and strife 
 of the world, they gained a great reputation for piety 
 and knowledge, Essene predictions of future events 
 being highly esteemed and considered almost in¬ 
 fallible. 
 
 46. THE QUARREL BETWEEN HYRCANUS 
 AND THE PHARISEES (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10. 5, 6). 
 For the greater part of the period covered by the 
 present chapter, the Sadducees were in power, and 
 the Pharisees in opposition. A very trifling incident 
 in the reign of John Hyrcanus is said to have de¬ 
 termined the attitude of the reigning family towards 
 
63 
 
 the rival parties. At a great state-banquet, where 
 the leaders of the Pharisees were present, John asked 
 them to say whether they had any fault to find with 
 his conduct. Thereupon a man called Eleazar 
 bluntly replied that he ought to resign the High- 
 Priesthood and confine himself to the civil govern¬ 
 ment of the people. He gave as his reason that 
 John’s mother had been a slave in the time of An- 
 tiochus Epiphanes—an utterly baseless calumny, 
 which was speedily disproved. Hyrcanus, how¬ 
 ever, who had previously been friendly to the Phari¬ 
 sees, took a very serious view of the matter. Hav¬ 
 ing convinced himself that Eleazar had spoken the 
 mind of his party, and that, for whatever reason, the 
 Pharisees really wished to deprive him of his priestly 
 dignity, he resolved to withdraw from them and join 
 the Sadducees, who had already been trying to win 
 him over to their side. We can hardly suppose that 
 a man like Hyrcanus would have taken this im¬ 
 portant step without very strong reasons ; and the 
 most likely explanation of it is that the Pharisees 
 were even then beginning to see that the union of 
 priestly and royal power in the hands of one man 
 was full of danger to the interests they had most at 
 heart. The ruler would always be tempted to mag¬ 
 nify the political side of his office, and the sanctions 
 of religion would be disregarded in the pursuit of 
 worldly greatness. That suspicion was only too 
 abundantly justified by the subsequent history, and 
 if the Pharisees did not at this time sympathise with 
 the opinion of Eleazar, w T e shall find that they very 
 soon came round to it. 
 
 47. THE SONS OF HYRCANUS (Jos. Ant. xiii. 
 11. 1—13. 4). After a long and prosperous reign of 
 twenty-nine years John Hyrcanus died in 106, and 
 was succeeded by his oldest son, Aristobulus I. 
 He was the first of the Asmonoean princes who 
 assumed the title of king. From his fondness for 
 Greek manners he received the surname of Phil- 
 
64 
 
 Hellen. The only political achievement of his short 
 reign was the conquest of Ituraea, the region lying 
 to the N.E. of the Sea of Galilee. During his last 
 illness, instigated by the plots of his queen and 
 courtiers, he ordered the assassination of his favourite 
 brother, Antigonus. Sorrow for this crime is said 
 to have hastened his end, and he died in 105, having 
 reigned about a year. 
 
 His widow, Alexandra, then married the oldest 
 surviving brother, Alexander Jann^eus, and raised 
 him to the throne. In warlike ambition and love 
 of Greek culture he followed closely in the steps 
 of his predecessor. The first nine years of his reign 
 were spent in a series of exhausting campaigns, in 
 the course of which the rashness or incapacity of 
 the king brought the country to the verge of ruin. 
 The main object of the war was to get possession 
 of the important cities along the sea-coast from 
 Ptolemais to Gaza. The citizens of Ptolemais ob¬ 
 tained the assistance of Ptolemy Lathurus, who had 
 seized the island of Cyprus, and was making war 
 against his mother, Cleoaptra, Queen of Egypt. In 
 a murderous battle near the Jordan, Ptolemy 
 defeated Alexander, and then overran Judsea, com¬ 
 mitting frightful atrocities wherever he went. 
 Judaea now became the theatre of the war between 
 Cleopatra and Ptolemy, and when the latter was 
 eventually driven back to Cyprus, Cleopatra was 
 advised to depose Jannaeus and annex his dominions. 
 Fortunately, however, the general of her army was an 
 Egyptian Jew, whose heart was true to his people ; 
 and his energetic remonstrances persuaded her to 
 abandon the project. After this Alexander re¬ 
 sumed his schemes of conquest. In spite of heavy 
 losses he was on the whole successful, and this first 
 part of his reign was brought to a close by the 
 capture and destruction of Gaza in b.c. 96. 
 
 48. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE KING AND 
 THE PHARISEES (Jos. Ant. xiii. 13. 5—15. 4). It 
 
is needless to say that both Aristobulus and Alex¬ 
 ander adhered to the party and the policy of the 
 Sadducees. For more than ten years now the 
 popular party had been excluded from any share 
 in the government. The reckless way in which 
 Jannseus had wasted the strength of the country 
 and the terrible risks to which he had exposed it, 
 afforded just cause of complaint; and the discontent 
 and disaffection of the people had been steadily in¬ 
 creasing. So unpopular did the king become, that 
 on one occasion while he was officiating at the 
 Feast of Tabernacles he was pelted with citrons 
 by the mob. In revenge for this insult he sent his 
 foreign guards amongst the people, and 6000 were 
 slain on the spot. Not long after news reached 
 Jerusalem of the total destruction of an army of 
 Alexander’s by the King of Arabia; and then the 
 smouldering enmity of the Pharisees burst out in 
 open rebellion. Six years of civil war followed 
 between the king and the Sadducees on one hand, 
 and the Pharisees, supported by the people, on the 
 other — a war conducted on both sides with the 
 greatest determination and bitterness. The king, 
 indeed, at one time showed signs of relenting, but 
 the Pharisees rejected his overtures and demanded 
 his life as the first condition of peace. At last they 
 invited Demetrius Eucarus, who was then ruler of 
 Damascus, to come to their help. This speedily 
 brought the conflict to a close. Alexander was 
 totally defeated in a battle near Shechem, and 
 was obliged to flee to the mountains of Ephraim. 
 Then there occurred one of those sudden revulsions 
 of popular feeling which mark the excited and un¬ 
 healthy state of Jewish society about this time. 
 Large numbers of the people who had fought against 
 Alexander now rallied to his standard, and with 
 their help he was able to expel the Syrians and sup¬ 
 press the revolt. Fifty thousand men are said to 
 have perished in this war, and the triumph of the 
 
66 
 
 king was signalized by tlie crucifixion of 800 of 
 his prisoners. 
 
 49. THE PHARISEES IN POWER UNDER 
 ALEXANDRA (Jos. Ant. xiii. 16). The remain¬ 
 ing twelve years of Alexander’s life were chiefly 
 occupied with military operations directed against 
 Aretas, king of the Arabians or Nabateans. In 
 his later years, however, he came to see that it 
 would be impossible to rule much longer in opposi¬ 
 tion to the Pharisees, and that a complete change of 
 policy was necessary to save the throne. Accord¬ 
 ingly, in his dying charge to his wife, Alexandra, 
 he recommended her, as soon as he was dead, to 
 throw herself on the generosity of the Pharisees, 
 and in all her actions to be guided by their advice. 
 Alexandra carried out his injunctions to the letter. 
 She dismissed the Sadducees from her counsels, and 
 summoned the leaders of the Pharisees to her side. 
 Her elder son, Hyrcanus II., a weak and irresolute 
 man, was made High-Priest, while the younger and 
 more enterprising, Aristobulus, was jealously ex¬ 
 cluded from public affairs. This was precisely the 
 state of things at which the Pharisees had long been 
 aiming. The priesthood was separated from the 
 civil power, the queen had surrendered herself to 
 their influence, and the High-Priest was a mere tool 
 in their hands. And on the whole, they seem to 
 have acted with wonderful discretion and ability. 
 During her nine years’ reign, Alexandra maintained 
 the honour of the country in her dealings with 
 neighbouring states, and gave her people a much- 
 needed interval of rest and tranquillity. But it 
 seemed as if nothing would teach either party the 
 virtue of toleration when in power. After a time 
 the Pharisees proceeded to take vengeance on their 
 opponents for the crimes they had committed in the 
 previous reign. Then the Sadducees took alarm, 
 and went in a body to implore the protection of 
 the queen. With many tears they recounted their 
 
67 
 
 services to the royal house, they protested their un¬ 
 abated loyalty to herself, so that they were ready to 
 die at the palace gate rather than take up arms 
 against her. They represented the disgrace it 
 would be, if they were compelled to seek employ¬ 
 ment abroad, and hinted that any of the neighbour¬ 
 ing princes would be only too eager to secure the 
 services of men like themselves, whose very names 
 had been a terror to them. The poor queen fell 
 upon the worst of all the possible courses open to 
 her. Despairing of effecting a lasting reconciliation 
 between the two parties, she put the Sadducees in 
 possession of various fortresses, that they might 
 have the means of defending themselves from their 
 enemies. There, of course, the Sadducees at once 
 began to intrigue in favour of Aristobulus, who had 
 warmly espoused their cause, and henceforth be¬ 
 came their favourite and leader. The result was 
 seen as soon as Alexandra fell sick. Aristobulus 
 stole away from Jerusalem by night, and visited 
 the fortresses that were under the command of his 
 partisans. In less than a fortnight, twenty-one gar¬ 
 risons had declared for him ; and. in this threatening 
 situation of affairs, Queen Alexandra died (b.c. 69). 
 
 50. THE ABDICATION OF HYRCANUS (Jos. 
 Ant. xiv. 1. 1, 2.) In the contest between the two 
 brothers, which broke out on the death of Alex¬ 
 andra, the Pharisees and Sadducees were again 
 ranged on opposite sides. Hyrcanus was easily 
 defeated in the first battle, and shut himself up in 
 the Baris, a castle which John Hyrcanus had built 
 in Jerusalem. Being a man totally destitute of 
 ambition, he had no desire to prolong the war, and 
 offered to relinquish both the crown and the High- 
 Priesthood, on condition that he might retain his 
 private fortune, and live peaceably in the capital. 
 His brother agreed to this, and became king under 
 the title of Aristobulus II. The reign of Hyrcanus 
 II. had lasted only three months. 
 
68 
 
 51. ANTIPATER THE IDUM/EAN (Jos. Ant. 
 xiv. 1. 3—2. 2). If Hyrcanus had been left to 
 himself there is no doubt that his part of the 
 compact would have been faithfully observed. But 
 he had an evil genius at his side in the person of 
 Antipater, an Idumsean, whose father had entered 
 the service of Alexander Jannseus, and who had 
 himself obtained great influence over Hyrcanus. 
 Finding his prospects of advancement blighted by 
 the abdication of Hyrcanus, he could not rest until 
 he had exhausted every effort to raise him again to 
 the throne. Hyrcanus was slow to move, but at 
 last Antipater roused in his dull mind a suspicion 
 that his brother intended to take his life, and so 
 induced him to flee to Petra, the capital of Aretas, 
 the king of Arabia. There Antipater concluded an 
 agreement, according to which Aretas was to receive 
 back certain cities that had been taken from him by 
 Alexander Jannseus, on condition that he should 
 send an army to restore Hyrcanus to his kingdom. 
 When the Arabian soldiers appeared in Jud£ea, the 
 Pharisees once more declared for Hyrcanus, and 
 raised a formidable rebellion amongst the people. 
 Aristobulus was defeated and besieged by the Phari¬ 
 sees and Arabs in the Temple. Although he was 
 deserted by all but a few followers, mostly priests, 
 the strength of the place enabled him to hold out for 
 a considerable time. Meanwhile important events 
 which had occurred in another quarter were prepar¬ 
 ing an unwelcome solution of the difficulties in which 
 the Jewish nation was so hoplessly entangled, 
 
 52. THE INTERVENTION OF ROME (Jos. 
 Ant. xiv. 2. 3—3. 4). We have now reached the 
 time when the Jews were to be brought into im¬ 
 mediate relations with the irresistible force of the 
 Homan Republic. Shortly before the events we 
 have narrated, Pompey the Great, then at the zenith 
 of his power, had been sent out to the East, with 
 unlimited authority over the whole of Asia as far as 
 
69 
 
 Armenia. In the year 64, when the siege of the 
 Temple was proceeding, his general, Scaur us, reached 
 Damascus. Each of the contending parties in Judaea 
 sent a deputation with gifts requesting his support. 
 Scaurus gave his decision in favour of Aristobulus, 
 and ordered the Arabs to withdraw. But in the 
 same year Pompey himself came to Damascus, and 
 in the following spring the two brothers appealed to 
 him as the ultimate authority for a settlement of the 
 dispute. On this occasion, however, we read of a 
 third deputation, who appeared in the name of the 
 people, and prayed for the abolition of the monarchy, 
 as inconsistent with their divinely-ordained consti¬ 
 tution. Such a proposal could in the circumstances 
 only mean the establishment of Roman rule, and 
 there can be no doubt as to the quarter whence it 
 emanated. It was the Pharisees who, thoroughly dis¬ 
 gusted with the abuses that now seemed inseparable 
 from the existing regime , sought for this as the 
 nearest possible approach to the ideal of a pure 
 Theocracy, in which the nation should have no king 
 but God, and no earthly ruler except the High- 
 Priest. Pompey had doubtless determined on the 
 course he would pursue, but to avoid needless blood¬ 
 shed, he dismissed all the ambassadors with civil 
 words, and promised to investigate the matters laid 
 before him when he should arrive in Judsea. Aris¬ 
 tobulus had already offended him by the absurd way 
 in which he had pleaded his cause, and now provoked 
 him still further by his vacillating and ambiguous 
 conduct. Professing to submit to Pompey’s decision, 
 he spent his time in making preparations for re¬ 
 sistance in case it should be against him. At last he 
 was brought to book by a peremptory order to de¬ 
 liver up the capital to an officer of Pompey’s army. 
 This he promised to do, but while he was detained 
 in the Roman camp, his adherents in the city closed 
 its gates in the face of the troops sent to take 
 possession. Pompey then arrested Aristobulus, and 
 marched in person against Jerusalem. 
 
70 
 
 53. THE FIRST ROMAN SIEGE OF JERUSA¬ 
 LEM (Jos. Ant. xiv. 4). Within the city all was 
 now confusion and division of counsels. The Phari¬ 
 sees were in favour of trusting Pompey and making 
 an unconditional surrender. The followers of Aris- 
 tobulus were determined to resist to the end. Ulti¬ 
 mately the party of Aristobulus fortified themselves 
 in the temple, while the Pharisees delivered up the 
 rest of the city to Pompey. Then began (b.c. 63) 
 the first Eoman siege of the Temple. The defenders, 
 refusing all terms, held out with heroic courage. It 
 is said that it was only by taking advantage of the 
 Sabbaths, when the Jews would do nothing beyond 
 self-defence, that the Roman was able to advance 
 his engines near enough to make a breach in the 
 fortifications. After three months this was effected, 
 the Roman soldiers stormed the walls, and after a 
 horrible scene of carnage, the Roman eagles were 
 planted on the Temple mount. The crowning dis¬ 
 grace in the eyes of the Jews was the fact that 
 Pompey insisted on entering the Holy of Holies. 
 Although he touched neither the treasures nor the 
 sacred vessels, and gave orders on retiring that 
 everything should be put right for the regular ser¬ 
 vice, still the mere fact that an uncircumcised 
 Gentile had trodden the sacred courts was an 
 unpardonable offence and an unspeakable humilia¬ 
 tion. Pompey then made his arrangements for the 
 administration of the country. Hyrcanus was rein¬ 
 stated in the High-Priesthood with the new title of 
 Ethnarch instead of king. He was deprived, how¬ 
 ever, of all the territory acquired by the Maccabsean 
 conquests, only Judsea proper being left under his 
 jurisdiction. Even this he held subject to an annual 
 tribute to the Romans. Aristobulus and his two 
 sons were carried off to Rome to grace the splendid 
 triumph which Pompey celebrated on his return 
 from his Asiatic conquests. In that procession, too, 
 there were thousands of Jewish captives, who were 
 
71 
 
 afterwards set at liberty, and laid the foundation of 
 the large Jewish colony which we find at Rome in 
 the days of the Apostles. 
 
 5 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ROMAN PERIOD. 
 
 b.c. 63-4. 
 
 54. THE NEW TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 For the next thirty years the political history of 
 Judaea is marked by a succession of desperate 
 attempts on the part of the people to regain its free¬ 
 dom. The unsettled condition of affairs at Rome, 
 where a few great men were contending for the 
 mastery of the world, 05 presented many opportunities 
 to the Jews to create disturbances. To us the most 
 noteworthy feature of the period is the change that 
 had come over the spirit of the nation since last it 
 was subject to a foreign power. The Persian and 
 
 a The student will find it necessary to hear in mind the following facts 
 and dates in Roman history:—The First Triumvirate—a mere private 
 arrangement between Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus—was formed in 
 b.c. 60. Crassus perished in the Parthian campaign in the year 53. 
 The growing jealousy between Caesar and Pompey led to civil war 
 in 49, and in the following year Pompey was defeated in the battle of 
 Pharsalia, and fled to Egypt, where he was murdered soon after. From 
 this time till his death Caesar ruled the Roman world as Dictator. He 
 was assassinated in b.c. 44 by the so-called Republican party, led by 
 Brutus and Cassius. These men had to flee from Rome, and began to 
 establish their power in the East. Meanwhile the second Triumvirate 
 —Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus—had been proclaimed at Rome; and 
 in the year 42 their forces met and defeated those of Brutus and 
 Cassius at Philippi. After this Lepidus was ignored by the other two 
 Triumvirs, and was obliged to retire into private life, leaving Octavian 
 and Antony to wrestle for the mastery of the world. Discord soon 
 arose between them, and after several attempts at reconciliation, 
 Antony was defeated in the battle of Actium (b.c. 31). Octavian then 
 became the first Roman emperor, under the title of Augustus. 
 
12 
 
 early Greek kings had found the Jews very sub¬ 
 missive and tractable subjects so long as their religi¬ 
 ous liberty was respected. But eighty years of 
 partial independence and Pharisaic teaching had 
 changed all this, and made the Jews perhaps the 
 most troublesome of all the races with whom the 
 Bomans had to deal. For one thing, no doubt, 
 religion itself occupied a larger space in the thoughts 
 of the people at large than it had done before the 
 Maccabee rebellion. The dominion of the heathen 
 over the people of God, no matter how considerately 
 it might be exercised, was felt to be in itself an 
 intolerable anomaly. The consequences of that feel¬ 
 ing were very important. It gave a new direction 
 to the Messianic hope ; men were no longer content 
 to wait quietly for a miraculous deliverance, or to 
 work for it only in the way of obedience to the Law. 
 They held that God would help those who helped them¬ 
 selves ; their first duty as believers in His promises 
 was to fight for emancipation from the Boman yoke. 
 The Pharisees of the old school thus partly lost the 
 confidence of the people, their doctrines seemed 
 unsuited to the circumstances of the age. Even at 
 this time we see the beginning of the movement 
 which ended in the formation of the party of the 
 Zealots — the party that ultimately plunged the 
 nation into its last disastrous struggle with Borne. 
 
 55. ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE AS- 
 MON/EANS (Jos. Ant. xiv. 5. 6). But besides this 
 new sensitiveness in the sphere of religion, there are 
 distinct traces of the rise of a sentiment of natural 
 patriotism during those years of power and in¬ 
 dependence. Amongst the lower classes there was a 
 strong attachment to the members of the Asmonsean 
 family, the representatives of the national cause, 
 whose misfortunes had only endeared them the more 
 to the hearts of their countrymen. Accordingly, 
 when Alexander, the elder son of Aristobulus II., 
 escaped from his guards on the way to Borne, and ap- 
 
73 
 
 peared in Palestine, he speedily found himself at the 
 head of a force large enough to seize Jerusalem, and 
 overawe the Roman garrison in the citadel. This 
 rising was put down by the arrival of Gabinius from 
 Syria, where he had just succeeded to Pompey’s com¬ 
 mand. In order to weaken still further the national 
 spirit in Judsea, Gabinius broke up the country into 
 five small districts, each under its local court or San¬ 
 hedrin, and strictly forbade the carrying of appeals 
 from any of these districts to the Great Sanhedrin at 
 J erusalem. a 
 
 The next revolt was caused by the return of Aris- 
 tobulus himself, who with his second son had made 
 his escape from Rome. Although he still found 
 many adherents in Judsea, he was unable to main¬ 
 tain his ground against the forces of Gabinius. He 
 was compelled to surrender himself, and was sent 
 back a prisoner to Rome. There he remained till the 
 great quarrel between Caesar and Pompey broke out 
 in b.c. 49, when the former proposed to send him out 
 to Palestine with an army to create a diversion 
 against Pompey in that quarter. The scheme was 
 defeated by the poisoning of Aristobulus, it is sup¬ 
 posed, by members of Pompey’s faction. About the 
 same time his son Alexander was beheaded by 
 Pompey’s orders at Antioch. 
 
 56. THE GROWING POWER OF ANTIPATER 
 (Jos. Ant. xiv. 8. 11). With the return of Hyr- 
 canus to office, his minister, Antipater, had become 
 the most influential personage in Jewish politics. 
 The cool and crafty Idumsean, free from Jewish 
 passions and prejudices, saw clearly that in one form 
 or other the Roman supremacy must inevitably be 
 established over Judaea. He saw that there was a 
 
 a It is in connection with these arrangements of Gabinius that the 
 name Sanhedrin (Greek, Sunedrion ) first occurs. Whether any 
 change in the composition of the council took place at this time 
 is uncertain. The local councils of Gabinius were abolished, and the 
 authority of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem over the whole land was 
 restored, by Julius CEesar in b.c. 47. (Cf. above, p. 29.) 
 
74 
 
 prospect of winning the kingdom for his family by 
 showing himself the devoted partisan of the interests 
 of Rome. He therefore set himself diligently to 
 cultivate the friendship of whoever appeared for the 
 time to be the rising man in the Roman world. It 
 was no easy task to keep on good terms with all the 
 men who rose in rapid succession to supreme power 
 at Rome, and Antipater frequently found himself on 
 the losing side. But he never failed to ingratiate 
 himself with the victor, and his consistent faithless¬ 
 ness to one master after another served his purpose 
 far better than chivalrous devotion to any one of 
 them would have done. His greatest success was 
 achieved in b.c. 48, when Julius Caesar, after the 
 death of Pompey, came to Egypt and found himself 
 hard pressed for want of men and money. Anti¬ 
 pater, who had hitherto supported Pompey, hastened 
 to his assistance with a body of troops, and in many 
 ways proved himself so useful and zealous that he 
 gained the complete confidence, and even friendship, 
 of Caesar. As a reward for his services, he was ap¬ 
 pointed Governor of Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee, 
 Hyrcanus, of course, retaining the nominal sove¬ 
 reignty. During the brief period of Caesar’s power 
 everything went well for Antipater’s schemes. With 
 the help of his sons, Phasael and Herod, he kept 
 order in all his provinces, and by his influence with 
 Caesar he procured many privileges for the Jews, 
 both in their own land and throughout the Roman 
 world. When the unexpected news reached him of 
 Caesar’s assassination in b.c. 44, it seemed as if all his 
 labour had been in vain. The Jews were not to be 
 bribed by all the benefits he had secured them ; they 
 were eager to get rid of the upstart Idumaeans, who 
 were beginning to act as if the country belonged to 
 them. Accordingly, while Antipater was straining 
 every effort to raise supplies for Cassius, the Repub¬ 
 lican leader, he was suddenly cut off by poison ad¬ 
 ministered by a Jew, who thought in this way to de- 
 
75 
 
 liver his country from its worst enemy. But he had 
 made a mistake ; a more dangerous enemy was left. 
 Antipater left behind him a son who, with more 
 than his father’s cunning and audacity, followed the 
 line of action which he had sketched out, and never 
 halted till he had laid Judaea prostrate and bleeding 
 ctt liis foot 
 
 57. THE RISE OF HEROD (Jos. Ant. xiv. 9.12). 
 This son, Herod, had already distinguished himself 
 in his father’s lifetime as governor of Galilee. That 
 province was infested by bands of armed men, com¬ 
 monly called “ robbers,” but in reality the scattered 
 remnants of the army of Aristobulus. The energy 
 with which he hunted down and slaughtered these 
 rebels earned for Herod the thanks of Sextus Caesar, 
 then Roman governor of Syria, who became his fast 
 friend and protector. But it also brought him into 
 conflict with the authorities at Jerusalem. Amongst 
 the robber-chiefs were some natives of Judaea whom 
 Herod executed without a trial. This was an in¬ 
 vasion of the rights of the Sanhedrin, to whom alone 
 it pertained to pass sentence of death on a Jew. 
 Herod was accordingly summoned before the supreme 
 court to stand his trial on a charge of murder. It 
 was a time of intense anxiety to the patriotic party, 
 who knew that they were measuring their strength 
 with the whole Idumaean interest, backed by the in¬ 
 fluence of the Romans. And when Herod appeared 
 before the court clothed in royal purple and accom¬ 
 panied by armed guards, the courage of his judges 
 forsook them, and no one dared to open his mouth 
 against him. At last they were roused by the bitter 
 reproaches and stern warnings of one of their number 
 named Sameas, and were on the point of pronouncing 
 sentence on Herod, when Hyrcanus, who knew that 
 he would be held responsible for the consequences, 
 adjourned the trial to a future day. Before the next 
 sitting Herod had retired to his friend Sextus at 
 Damascus, and was hardly restrained by his father’s 
 
76 
 
 entreaties from advancing against Jerusalem with a 
 Roman army to avenge the insult offered to him. 
 Such was Herod’s first appearance in public life. 
 The Jews knew what they had to expect if ever he 
 should become their master, and beheld with dismay 
 his sure and steady progress towards the object of 
 his ambition. When, after the battle of Philippi, 
 Antony became the ruler of the East, three successive 
 deputations appeared before him to ask his protection 
 against the two brothers, Phasael and Herod. But 
 it was all in vain. Herod secured the confidence of 
 Antony as completely as his father had gained that 
 of Caesar, and Antony treated the Jews with a con¬ 
 tempt and cruelty of which his great predecessor had 
 never been guilty. The upshot was that the two 
 brothers were appointed Tetrarchs under Hyrcanus 
 as king (b.c. 41). 
 
 58. THE REIGN OF ANTIGONUS (Jos. Ant. 
 
 xiv. 13). Just at this time, when the complete 
 triumph of the Idumaean family seemed inevitable, a 
 last gleam of hope lit up the decaying cause of the 
 Asmonaeans. Antigonus, the younger son of Aris- 
 tobulus II., had tried in various ways to make good 
 his title to the throne of his fathers, but hitherto 
 without the least success. He had been rejected by 
 Caesar in the year 48, when he was forestalled by 
 Antipater ; and a later attempt to enter Judaea with 
 an army had been defeated by Herod. But in b.c. 
 40, while Antony was absent in Egypt, the Parthian 
 armies burst into Syria. They were easily induced 
 by the promise of a large sum of money to take up 
 the cause of the Asmonaean prince against Herod 
 and the Romans, and with their help Antigonus suc¬ 
 ceeded in forcing his way to Jerusalem, where he 
 was eagerly welcomed by the populace. The fortunes 
 of the two brothers now sunk to the lowest ebb. 
 Hyrcanus and Phasael fell into the hands of the 
 Parthians, and the former, after having his ears cut 
 off in order to disqualify him for the priesthood, was 
 
77 
 
 removed to Babylonia. Phasael committed suicide 
 in prison; and Herod himself, although he was 
 never captured, was reduced to such straits, that 
 at one time he was on the point of following his 
 brother’s example. With great difficulty he escaped 
 from the country, and leaving his wives and faith¬ 
 ful adherents in the fortress of Masada, near the 
 southern end of the Dead Sea, he made his way, 
 a solitary fugitive, to the court of the King of 
 Arabia. Antigonus thus became the undisputed 
 master of the kingdom, and was installed as High- 
 Priest under his Hebrew name of Mattathias. For 
 three years he maintained the semblance of power, 
 but it soon appeared that he was unable to cope 
 with the difficulties of his situation. His only pros¬ 
 pect of permanent sovereignty lay in the support of 
 Pome, and this Antigonus made no effort to secure. 
 After the withdrawal of the Parthians he obtained 
 no decided success, either by war or statesmanship, 
 the enthusiasm of the people gradually died down, 
 and his chances of success, such as they were, slipped 
 out of his hands. 
 
 59. HEROD OBTAINS THE KINGDOM (Jos. 
 Ant. xiv. 14-16). Herod, in the meantime, was 
 displaying all the tenacious energy and readiness 
 of resource, which are almost the only admirable 
 features of his character. Driven from the Arabian 
 court in disgrace, he went next to Cleopatra, Queen 
 of Egypt; but failing to obtain from her the help 
 he wanted, he determined to push on to Pome. 
 There he had an interview with both Antony and 
 Octavian, and speedily obtained a decree of the 
 Senate, appointing him King of Judsea. In the spring 
 of the year 39 he returned to take possession of his 
 future kingdom. But the resistance of the Jews was 
 so stubborn, and the Roman generals sent to assist 
 him were so half-hearted in his support, that after 
 two years’ constant fighting he seemed no nearer 
 his object than when he began. At last, early in 
 
78 
 
 37, Antony lent him two Roman legions under 
 Sosius, to undertake the conquest of Judaea in 
 earnest. Herod then advanced southward through 
 Galilee, overcoming all opposition, and taking fear¬ 
 ful vengeance on his conquered enemies and on de¬ 
 fenceless cities that fell into his power. Jerusalem 
 was then surrounded by a host of 100,000 Jews and 
 Romans, and the horrors of the second great Roman 
 siege began. The leaders of the Pharisees, regard¬ 
 ing Herod as God’s scourge to punish the nation for 
 its sins, again counselled submission and surrender, 
 but the people took matters into their own hands. 
 Animated by a fanatical expectation that the long- 
 deferred Messianic deliverance was now imminent, 
 they defended the Holy City and the Temple to the 
 last extremity. Slowly they were driven from one 
 line of defence after another, and the final assault 
 took place on the anniversary of the day on which 
 the temple was taken by Pompey, twenty-six years 
 before. It required all Herod’s exertions to save 
 the sanctuary from desecration, and he had to pay 
 the Roman soldiers a large sum out of his private 
 purse to prevent the plunder of the city, Antigonus 
 surrendered himself to Sosius, and was taken to 
 Antioch, where he was soon afterwards beheaded by 
 Antony at Herod’s instigation. 
 
 60. HEROD STRENGTHENS HIS POSITION 
 (Jos. Ant. xv. 1-7 passim). Herod the Great, as he 
 was afterwards called, had now reached the goal 
 towards which his father and he had laboured so 
 long and with such inexhaustible perseverance. From 
 this time till his death, a period of thirty-three 
 years (37-4 b.c.), his position was never seriously 
 threatened by any internal disturbance. Neverthe¬ 
 less, the first nine years of his reign were full of 
 difficulties of various kinds, and were in consequence 
 stained by a series of atrocious crimes. One of his 
 first acts was to break the power of the Sadducee 
 aristocracy by executing forty-five of their number 
 
79 
 
 who had been prominent supporters of Antigonus . a 
 The surviving Asmonaeans were a constant source of 
 apprehension to him, but he did not at first think 
 it necessary to remove them out of his way. In b.c. 
 37, before the siege of Jerusalem, he had married 
 the beautiful and high-minded Mariamne , b the 
 grand-daughter both of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus 
 II., and he probably hoped that, as her husband, he 
 would be accepted as the representative of the 
 Asmonaean claims. Yet within a very few years 
 every member of that unfortunate house had met a 
 violent end at his hands. The first victim was Aris¬ 
 tobulus, Mariamne’s brother, and the rightful heir 
 both of the crown and the High-Priesthood. To 
 please his mother-in-law, Herod appointed him High- 
 Priest at the unlawful age of seventeen. But when 
 he observed how rapidly the young and handsome 
 Asmonaean was gaining the hearts of the people, he 
 became alarmed, and caused him to be drowned, as 
 if by accident, whilst bathing with his companions 
 (b.c. 35). c The aged Hyrcanus,^ the only male 
 survivor of the family, was too feeble to excite 
 serious suspicion, until in the year 30 Herod had to 
 face the most dangerous crisis of his reign. The 
 defeat of Antony by OctaviaD, in the battle of 
 Actium, had destroyed the foundation of all his 
 power. He had been Antony’s most zealous sup¬ 
 porter up to the last, and only a man of Herod’s 
 audacity would have conceived the bold project of 
 going to meet the victor and seek the confirmation 
 of his authority. Before starting on that difficult 
 mission, from which he hardly expected to return, 
 Herod caused Hyrcanus to be murdered.** He also 
 
 a Jos. Ant. xv. 1. 2. These men were most likely all members of 
 the Sanhedrin, and would have constituted a majority of that body. 
 It is therefore improbable that the execution of the whole Sanhedrin 
 by Herod, mentioned by Josephus as a separate event, ever took place. 
 
 b xiv. 15. 14. c xv. 3. 1-3. 
 
 d Herod had induced him to return from Babylonia, in order that 
 he might have him under his own eye. 
 
 e Jos. Ant. xv. 6. 1-3. 
 
80 
 
 left confidential orders that if anything should befall 
 him, his wife Mariamne should be put to deaths He 
 had done the same thing in similar circumstances 
 before, and on both occasions the secret was betrayed 
 to the queen. Herod succeeded with Octavian be¬ 
 yond his most sanguine anticipations. He was con¬ 
 firmed in the kingdom, his dominions were increased, 
 and he returned to Jerusalem secure in the favour 
 and friendship of the autocrat of the Roman world. 
 But all the joy of success was spoiled by the recep¬ 
 tion that awaited him at home. Mariamne took no 
 pains to conceal her resentment at his cruel and 
 jealous design : she treated him with such haughty 
 coldness that life with her became intolerable. For 
 about a year the miserable domestic discord lasted, 
 diligently fomented by Herod’s sister Salome, till at 
 last the king, stirred to fury by suspicions of her 
 fidelity, had her tried and condemned to death (b.c. 
 29). 6 When he realised what he had done, his 
 passionate love of her came back to him with ter¬ 
 rible power, and he was seized with such intense 
 anguish of mind that he fell into a dangerous sick¬ 
 ness, and was thought to be dying. After his 
 recovery he added one more to the list of his victims, 
 Alexandra, the mother of Mariamne, the last descen¬ 
 dant of the Asmonsean kings. 5 
 
 61. HEROD’S PUBLIC WORK3 (Jos. Ant. xv. 
 8. 5; 9. 6, 11). Having thus strengthened his posi¬ 
 tion both at home and abroad, Herod felt himself 
 free to indulge his favourite inclinations as a rnler. 
 The next fourteen years of his reign (b.c. 28-14) were 
 chiefly devoted to a variety of peaceful undertak¬ 
 ings, especially the erection of many public buildings 
 and new cities throughout his dominions. Besides 
 gratifying his own passion for magnificence and dis¬ 
 play, Herod had another object in view in these 
 costly enterprises. He wished to be known at Borne 
 as an admirer of Roman fashions and an enlightened 
 
 a Jos. Ant. xv. 6. 5. b xv. 7. 1-4. c xv. 7. 8. 
 
81 
 
 promoter of Roman civilization amongst his subjects. 
 For this purpose he built a theatre in Jerusalem, and 
 a huge amphitheatre just outside the gates, and en¬ 
 deavoured to familiarize the Jews with the brutal 
 spectacles of the Roman circus. Outside of Judsea 
 proper he was an undisguised patron of heathenism. 
 He freely erected heathen temples within his own 
 territory, and contributed to their erection in other 
 places. The new cities he built were all laid out in 
 the most approved Roman style. Of these new 
 cities, the most important was the seaport of Caesarea, 
 named in honour of Caesar Augustus (Octavian), to 
 whose worship its temple was dedicated. Thus far 
 Herod seemed to be treading closely in the footsteps 
 of Antiochus Epiphanes, and it is no wonder that the 
 Jews looked with alarm on this fostering of paganism 
 as proof of a design to undermine their religion. 
 But Herod had not the remotest intention of at¬ 
 tempting the subversion of Judaism. The greatest 
 of all his public works, the rebuilding of the Temple 
 at Jerusalem, was meant to gain the goodwill of his 
 subjects by a show of zeal for the religion which he 
 himself professed. That great work was commenced 
 in b.c. 20, and was pressed on with so much energy, 
 that in a year and a half the Temple proper was com¬ 
 plete and ready for the ordinary services. The outer 
 courts, with their storehouses and splendid arcades, 
 took eight years more, and even then the work was 
 not nearly finished. It was still proceeding in the 
 time of Christ,® and was not concluded till a.d. 60, 
 only a few years before its final destruction. Herod 
 spared no pains to make the new Temple a worthy 
 monument of the glory and prosperity of his reign. 
 That, indeed, as the Jews knew very well, was his 
 principal ambition, and it was with great difficulty 
 that their objections to Herod’s project were over¬ 
 come. And although Herod began by deferring to 
 their views in every minute particular, it seemed as 
 
 a See John ii. 20. 
 
 V 
 
82 
 
 if he could not stop without doing something to 
 wound their religious susceptibilities. Over the 
 main entrance to the outer court he placed a golden 
 eagle, the symbol of the Roman dominion ; so that 
 the worshippers could not approach the sanctuary 
 without being reminded that they owed this splendid 
 edifice to one whose power rested on the hated pro¬ 
 tection of Rome. 
 
 62. HEROD’S ADMINISTRATION. In many 
 other ways Herod sought to act the part of a bene¬ 
 volent despot, and it cannot be denied that under 
 his government the nation made great advances in 
 material prosperity. His influence with the emperor 
 procured an extension of privileges to the Jews of 
 the Dispersion, and gained a certain respect for 
 Judaism in the highest circles of the heathen world. 
 At home he encouraged commerce and agriculture, 
 granted remissions of taxation, and maintained 
 perfect tranquillity throughout the land. During a 
 famine which occurred in the year 24 he sold some 
 of his private furniture to buy corn from Egypt, 
 which he distributed gratuitously among the starv¬ 
 ing people." By measures such as these Herod 
 succeeded in acquiring a certain amount of super¬ 
 ficial popularity, on the strength of which he would 
 fain have figured before his Roman friends as a 
 prince beloved by his people. But no one knew 
 better than himself how shallow his popularity was, 
 and how utterly the real heart of the people was 
 estranged from him. He did not trust his subjects ; 
 his castles frowned down on them on every side, all 
 public assemblies were prohibited, and the paid spies 
 of the king moved about everywhere, keeping strict 
 watch over the actions of suspected persons. 6 Not 
 content with these precautions, about the year 20 
 Herod determined to exact an oath of fidelity from 
 all his subjects, the harmless and peace-loving 
 Essenes being alone exempted. The great majority 
 
 a Jos. Ant. xv. 9. 1, 2. 6 xv. 10. 4. 
 
83 
 
 of the Pharisees, however, refused to take this oath, 
 and Herod was obliged to rest satisfied with inflict¬ 
 ing a fine for their obstinacy. Such an exercise of 
 forbearance, however, was of very rare occurrence in 
 Herod’s administration. The clemency and magna¬ 
 nimity of a true king were foreign to his nature, and 
 all the benefits of his rule were neutralised in the 
 feeling of his people by the frequent outbreaks of 
 his gloomy and vindictive temper. To the day of 
 his death he never kindled one spark of loyal and 
 disinterested affection in the breast of any human 
 being. 
 
 63. THE JEWISH SECTS IN THE TIME OF 
 HEROD. The execution of the leading Sadducees 
 in the beginning of Herod’s reign « had reduced that 
 party to a position of political impotence. Their 
 irreligious principles ought to have made them very 
 acceptable members of a court like Herod’s, but 
 they had been too deeply committed to the cause of 
 the Asmonseans to be safely trusted. Moreover 
 the hereditary priesthood had been abolished by 
 Herod, 6 who conferred the dignity on creatures of 
 his own, holding office at his pleasure, mostly obscure 
 strangers with no influence in the country except 
 what they derived from his support. After a time, 
 however, the chief priest was usually selected from 
 five or six privileged families, and it is possible that 
 these may have included some of the old Sadducee 
 families. At all events the new priestly aristocracy 
 was characterised by the same worldly tendencies as 
 the old. Amongst the families which owed their 
 first elevation to Herod was that of Boethus, an 
 Alexandrian Jew, whose son was appointed High- 
 Priest (about b.c. 25) because Herod had married his 
 daughter after the murder of Mariamne. This man 
 became the founder of a party called the Boethus- 
 ians, who are often mentioned in Jewish writings as 
 a mere offshoot of the Sadducees. Thus the spirit of 
 a See above, page 78f. b Jos. Ant, xv. 3.1. 
 
84 
 
 the Sadducees worked on when their power as a 
 party was gone, and after the close of the Herodian 
 period they again obtained a leading position in 
 Jewish affairs. 
 
 As for the Pharisees, it would have been impossible 
 to tell beforehand what attitude their principles 
 would lead them to assume towards a ruler like 
 Herod. On the one hand they might look on his 
 reign, supported by heathen power, with its glaring 
 violations of Mosaic institutions, as an evil to be 
 resisted to the death. But, on the other hand, they 
 might fall back on their doctrine of Providence, and 
 submit to the inevitable, in order to labour more 
 effectually at their great task of preparing the people 
 for God’s salvation. The second view seems to have 
 been the one that commended itself to the bulk of 
 the party, although their refusal of the oath of al¬ 
 legiance shows that they were not prepared to make 
 any formal acknowledgment of the legitimacy of 
 Herod’s rule. Herod on his part treated them with 
 exceptional forbearance and consideration. He ex¬ 
 hibited no jealousy of their influence with the people; 
 on the contrary, he bestowed marks of honour on 
 some of their leaders, notably the stern Sameas, who, 
 it will be remembered, had denounced him on the 
 first occasion when he came into public notice. At 
 this time, therefore, great activity prevailed in the 
 Pharisaic schools, and some of the most famous 
 names on the list of Jewish scribes adorned the age 
 of Herod. By far the most celebrated of these were 
 the two contemporaries, Shammai and Hillel, who 
 henceforth divided the expounders of the Law into 
 two opposing schools. The followers of Shammai 
 were distinguished by their rigorous interpretation 
 of the Law, those of Hillel by an easier and more 
 accommodating standard of legal righteousness. 
 Shammai has sometimes been identified with the 
 Sameas whom we have just mentioned. His op¬ 
 ponent Hillel, the most loveable of all the Rabbis, 
 
85 
 
 was a Babylonian Jew of humble birth, who, by his 
 zeal for learning, raised himself to the first rank as 
 a teacher, and by the beauty and gentleness of his 
 character attracted round him a devoted band of 
 disciples. In modern times he has been represented 
 as the reformer of Judaism, sometimes even as the 
 equal of Christ, if not the real author of the Gospel 
 morality. It is difficult to see how such an extra¬ 
 vagant estimate of the man could be formed. When 
 we read of the trivial questions that engaged his 
 attention, even his title of Reformer of Judaism 
 sounds somewhat ridiculous; and he certainly cannot 
 be regarded as a great religious personality. To 
 break the yoke of tradition and trust to the impulses 
 of a heart renewed^by the forgiving love of God, was 
 a thought as far above his vision as it was above that 
 of any of his contemporaries. Hillel may have been 
 the greatest of the scribes, but he was only a scribe 
 
 a f£ er 
 
 64. THE CLOSE OF HEROD’S REIGN (Jos. 
 Ant. xvi.). The prosperous part of Herod’s reign 
 came to an end about the year 14. The remaining 
 ten years of his life present a terrible record of sin 
 and punishment going hand in hand, where the 
 crimes of his early reign seem to rise from their 
 graves and drive him into ever deeper depths of 
 wickedness and despair. Trouble broke out first of 
 all in the bosom of his family. Mariamne had left 
 two sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, who inherited 
 something of their mother’s beauty and proud spirit. 
 They had been carefully educated at Rome under the 
 eye of the emperor, and when Herod brought them 
 home it was with the avowed intention of making 
 them the heirs of his kingdom. No sooner had they 
 set foot in their father’s realm than they were sur¬ 
 rounded by a network of treachery and intrigue. 
 All the arch-plotters of Herod’s court—his sister 
 Salome, his brother Pheroras, and an older son 
 named Antipater, who had been specially sent for 
 
m 
 
 to act the spy on his two step-brothers—set them¬ 
 selves to compass the ruin of the unoffending youths. 
 When all other devices failed, they induced the king 
 to believe that the sons of Mariamne were waiting 
 an opportunity to avenge their mother’s death. A 
 suspicion once lodged in Herod’s mind always worked 
 to one result. For several years he did not dare to 
 execute the fell purpose which he had conceived ; 
 he even sought the advice of Augustus, and allowed 
 a hollow reconciliation to be patched up by his in¬ 
 tercession. But he could not rest until he obtained 
 the emperor’s permission to have his sons tried before 
 a special commission on a charge of treason. Herod 
 took care that the trial should end in a condemna¬ 
 tion, and the two princes were strangled at Samaria 
 in b.c. 7. It was the news of this unnatural crime 
 that drew from Augustus the biting remark that 
 he would rather be one of Herod’s swine than one 
 of his sons. Before this indeed the relations be¬ 
 tween Herod and the emperor had been some¬ 
 what strained, and he began to fear that there 
 might be limits even to that friendship which it 
 had been the first object of his policy to main¬ 
 tain. The people, too, whose sympathies had been 
 aroused on behalf of Mariamne’s children, became 
 more restive than ever; and the king, already seized 
 with an incurable internal disease, was maddened 
 by the thought that his subjects were eagerly await¬ 
 ing the announcement of his death. Their irrepres¬ 
 sible excitement found vent in a popular tumult, 
 during which the golden eagle above the Temple 
 gates was pulled down and destroyed. The ring¬ 
 leaders were brought down to Jericho and burned 
 alive by Herod’s orders. 05 Meanwhile the king was 
 trying the most desperate remedies to prolong his 
 wretched existence, and yet suffering such torments 
 that he was with difficulty restrained from killing 
 himself. 6 His last act was the execution of his son, 
 
 a Jos. Ant.xvii. 6.1-4. b xvii. 6. 5; 7. 
 
87 
 
 Antipater, 05 who had been convicted on the clearest 
 evidence of attempts on his father’s life. Five days 
 later the old tyrant breathed his last. Determined 
 that his death should not be an occasion of universal 
 rejoicing, he had caused the leading inhabitants of 
 the capital to be imprisoned, and made his sister 
 swear that when his death was made known they 
 should all be butchered. 6 Happily these bloody in¬ 
 structions were disregarded; the prisons were all 
 emptied, and there was nothing to mar the feeling 
 of relief with which the news of his death was 
 received/ 
 
 65. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. In the last year 
 of Herod’s life (b.c. 4 )d Jesus Christ was born at 
 Bethlehem. The two names are inseparably as¬ 
 sociated in our memories by the story of the 
 Massacre of the Innocents. It is a strange testimony 
 to the character of Herod’s rule that this event, 
 which strikes us as an almost unparalleled atrocity, is 
 not once mentioned by any contemporary historian, 
 as though it had attracted no attention amidst the 
 worse horrors of his closing years. As we read 
 these opening pages of the gospel narrative we are 
 reminded how little we have been able to see of the 
 inner life of the people whose history we have now 
 followed through so many vicissitudes. In the 
 
 a Jos. Ant. xvii. 7. b xvii. 6. 5. c xvii. 8. 
 
 d The death of Herod is very important chronologically, as the 
 event that enables ns to connect the Christian era with the systems 
 of chronology that were in use in the time of Christ. It can he de¬ 
 termined with great certainty, from a comparison of the dates given 
 by Josephus, and from an eclipse of the moon which happened a 
 short time before. It is thus proved that Herod died in the year of 
 Rome 750. The Christian era was fixed by the calculations of 
 Dionysius Exiguus, an abbot of the 6th century, who placed the birth 
 of Christ in the year of Rome 754. This accordingly is the year from 
 which all Christian nations reckon their time. But since the birth 
 of Christ took place before the death of Herod, it follows that the 
 former event has been placed at least four years too late. Thus the 
 year 1889 is really 1893 years after the birth of Christ. It would of 
 course be impossible to alter a system of reckoning which has been 
 so long in use; and therefore we are compelled to express the truth 
 by saying that our Lord was born in the year 4 b.c. 
 
88 
 
 carpenter of Nazareth and his virgin wife, in the 
 parents of John the Baptist, in the shepherds who 
 kept their flocks in the fields of Bethlehem, in the 
 little group of saints who gathered round the infant 
 Saviour in the Temple, we recognise the humble re¬ 
 presentatives of the purest type of Jewish piety. 
 Men and women like these had lived and died in 
 Israel during all these centuries ; far removed from 
 the pomp of earthly courts, and the strife of factions 
 and the heated atmosphere of political and religious 
 fanaticism, they had waited for the consolation of 
 Israel. And now at last to such as these the long 
 expected Messiah had been revealed. In the hour 
 of Israel’s deepest degradation, when Herod’s king¬ 
 dom seemed to mock the aspirations of all faithful 
 Israelites with its counterfeit semblance of Messianic 
 glory, their eyes beheld the Lord’s Anointed, the 
 true King of the kingdom of God, the Euler 
 whose goings forth were from of old, from ever¬ 
 lasting.” 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 SHOWING THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE PRINCIPAL 
 GEOGRAPHICAL AND PROPER NAMES. 
 
 *** The sounds denoted by the marked vowels will be 
 understood from the following words (employed in Annan* 
 dale’s “ Imperial Dictionary ”):— 
 
 Fate, fat; me, met; pine, pin; note, not; tube, tub, bull. 
 
 In some words it has been considered sufficient to mark 
 the accent. 
 
 Alcimus (al'si-mus) 
 
 Antig'onus 
 
 Antl'ochus 
 
 Anti'pater 
 
 Apel'les 
 
 Apollo'nius 
 
 Ar-be'-la_ 
 
 Aris-to-bu'-lus 
 
 Asmonaian (-e'an) 
 
 Azo'tus 
 
 Bac'chides 
 
 Bago'ses 
 
 Bas'cama 
 
 Ber-e-nl'ce 
 
 Bo-e'thus 
 
 Bo-e-thii'sian 
 
 Cendebasus 
 
 (sen-de-be'us) 
 
 Chasidim 
 
 (ha-se'dhem) 
 Cle-o-pa'tra 
 Coele-Syr'ia (se-le) 
 
 DI-a'dQclu 
 
 El-e-a'sa 
 
 E-pim'anes 
 E-piph'anes 
 Essene (es'-sen) 
 Eu-er'-ge-tes 
 Eu'pa-tor 
 
 Gor'gias 
 
 Gra-ni'cus 
 
 He-li-o-do'rus 
 
 He-li-op'olis 
 
 Hyr-ca'nus 
 
 Idu-mse'a 
 
 It-u-rse'a 
 
 Jo-se'plius 
 
 Le-on-top'<51is 
 
 Lep'Idus 
 
 Lys'ias 
 
 Mac-ea-bse'us 
 
 Mac'-ca-bee 
 
 Mag-ne'sia 
 
 Mat-ta-thi'as 
 
 Men-c-la'us 
 
 Ni-ca'nor 
 
 Ni-ka'so 
 
 O-nI'as 
 
 Pa'nS-as (usually) 
 
 Pe-rse'a 
 
 Phar-sa'lia 
 
 Pha'sa-el 
 
 Phe-ro'ras 
 
 Phil-o-me'tor 
 
 Phil-op'ator 
 
 Ptol-e-ma'is 
 
 Ra-phi'a 
 
 Sa-lo'me 
 
 San'hedrin 
 
 Scy-thop'olis 
 
 Se-leu'-cldae 
 
 Si-de-'tes 
 
 So'pher-im 
 
 So'si-us 
 
 To-bl'as 
 
 Ty-ro-poe'on (-pe'-on) 
 Xen'5-phon 
 
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