the ancient capital of Chaldæa, which even in its ruin was the prize of the East.

The High Priesthood, like the modern Patriarchates, was sold by the foreign Government, in the needy condition of the Syrian finances, to the highest bidder, and amongst the various rivals Jason succeeded, who added to his bribes the attempt to win the favour of Antiochus by adopting the Gentile usages. It is startling to think of the sudden influx of Grecian manners into the very centre of Palestine. The modesty of the sons and daughters of Abraham was shocked by the establishment of the Greek palæstra, under the very citadel1 of David, where, in defiance of some of the most sensitive feelings of their countrymen, the most active of the Jewish youths completely stripped themselves and ran, wrestled, leaped in the public sports, like the Grecian athletes, wearing only the broad-brimmed hat, in imitation of the headgear of the God Hermes, guardian of the gymnastic festivals. Even the priests in the Temple caught the infection,3 left their sacrificial duties unfinished, and ran down from the Temple court to take part in the spectacle as soon as they heard the signal for throwing the quoit, which was to lead off the games. The sacred names of Jerusalem and Judea were laid aside in favour of the title of 'citizens of Antioch.'4 A deputation of these would-be Greeks was sent by the hateful Jason' to a likeness of the Olympian festival celebrated in the presence of the King at Tyre, in honour of the ancient sanctuary of Moloch' or Mel

6

2

5 Bewpós, the usual word for religious deputations, like that sent to Delos.

62 Macc. iv. 18. Five-yearly games like the Olympians.

7 Comp. Herod. ii. 44. He was equally the God of Carthage. Compare Hannibal's vision, Liv. xxi. 22

B.C. 172.

cart, now transformed into the Grecian Hercules; though
here, with a curious scruple which withheld the pilgrims from
going the whole length with their chief, they satisfied their
consciences by spending the money intended for the sacrifice
in the building of the war-galleys of the Syrian navy. With
these lax imitations of the Pagan worship, the corruptions of
the Priesthood became more and more scandalous. Menelaus
outbid Jason for the office. Their brother Onias took refuge
from his violence in the sanctuary of Apollo at Daphne, near
Antioch, and was thence dragged forth and killed, with a
sacrilegious perfidy which shocked Jew and heathen alike, and
called out almost the only sign of human feeling which the
Jewish annalist allows to the Syrian King. Onias himself,
like a Becket or a Stanislaus, was transformed by a popular
apotheosis into the celestial champion 3 of his nation; and a
long-standing monument of the horror created by his murder
was the rival temple at Heliopolis, built by his son Onias,
who fled from Palestine on hearing of his father's death, as
though there were no longer a home or a sanctuary for him
in Palestine. Jason himself, after a momentary victory over
his brother Menelaus in Jerusalem, was expelled, and closed
a wandering exile by dying amongst the Spartan mountains.
And he that had cast out many unburied had none to
'mourn for him, nor any solemn funerals at all, nor sepulchre
'with his fathers.' 5

In the midst of this dissolution of Jewish society it is no wonder that to the tension of imagination which such a time produces portents should have appeared--such as we find not only in the final siege of Jerusalem, but in the Gothic invasion of ancient Rome, in the plague of Papal Rome, in the

12 Macc. iv. 19-20. 300 drachms. This seeming too small a sum, some MSS. read 3,000. But, as an Egyptian Jew, the writer reckons by the Alexandrian drachm, which was twice as much as the Athenian (Grimm).

22 Macc. iv. 34-37.

s Ibid. xv. 12. He is, perhaps, the Prince of the Covenant, Dan. xi. 22. 4 See Lecture XLVII. 5 2 Macc. v. 5-10.

fall of the Empire of Montezuma in Mexico, in the Plague
of London, in the French war of 1870. It happened that
'through all the city, for the space almost of forty days,
'there were seen horsemen galloping through the air, in cloth
of gold, and armed with lances like a band of soldiers, and
'squadrons of cavalry in array, and charges, and encounters,
' and shaking of shields, and multitude of pikes, and drawing
'of swords, and glittering of golden ornaments, and harness of
'all sorts.' The prayer that this apparition might turn for
'good' was presently answered by the approach of the most
startling catastrophe which the Jewish colony had experienced
since its return from Babylon, and which yet, with a fine
moral sense of a deserved Nemesis, the nobler spirits among
them acknowledged to be the just retribution for their crimes.

6

Jerusalem.

It was after completing his conquest of Egypt that Anti- Attack on ochus, in pursuit at once of his political and religious ambition, seized upon Jerusalem. The terrified population fled before him. They were hewn down in the streets; they were pursued to the roofs of their houses.2 But that which even more than this widespread massacre thrilled the city with consternation was the sight of the King, in all the pomp of royalty, led by the apostate 3 Menelaus into the sanctuary itself. It was believed by the Greek world that he reached the innermost recess and there found-such was the erroneous conclusion to which they leaped-the statue of the founder of the nation, the great lawgiver Moses, with the long flowing beard which tradition assigned to him, and seated on the Egyptian ass, from the time of the Exodust down to the second century of our era the inseparable accompaniment of the Israelite.

1 2 Macc. v. 2-4. Compare Plutarch, Marius, c. 76; Humboldt, Kosmos, i. 145. Dean Milman (i. 461) compares with this the description of the Aurora Borealis in his own Samor, to which we may add the striking

With characteristic rapacity
picture of a like phenomenon in Italy
in Lord Lorne's Guido and Lita,
21 Macc. i. 20-27; 2 Macc. v.
11- 16.

IV.

3 Diod. Sic. xxxiv. 1; see Lecture

he laid hands on the sacred furniture which the wealthy Babylonian Jews had contributed through the hands of Ezra -the golden altar of incense, the golden candlestick, the table of consecrated bread, and all the lesser ornaments and utensils. The golden candlestick, which was an object of especial interest from its containing the perpetual light, was traditionally believed to have fallen to the share of the renegade High Priest Menelaus. The great deposits which had escaped the grasp of Heliodorus, and which, but for the national depravity, would, it was thought, have been again defended by celestial champions, were seized by the king himself.

Then came another sudden attack under Apollonius the tax-gatherer, successor of Heliodorus, who took occasion to attack them on their day of weekly rest, scattering them or dragging them off to the slave-market from the midst of their festivities. It is a stratagem which occurs so often at this time as to lose its point, but which shows how rigidly since Nehemiah's time the observance of the Sabbath had set in. The rest, both of the seventh day and of the seventh year, had now become a fixed institution, guarded with the utmost tenacity, and carried into the most trivial and, at times,3 impracticable details.

There was a short pause, during which consternation spread through the country. In every home there was desolation as if for a personal sorrow. The grief of the women was even more affecting than the indignant sorrow 4 of the men; and showed how completely they shared the misfortunes of their country. The Holy City was transformed into the likeness of a Grecian garrison. The walls that Nehemiah had built with so much care were dismantled; the houses in their neighbourhood were burnt; another massacre and another See Derenbourg, 53. 10, 6; see Farrar's Life of Christ, i.

captivity followed. The blood ran through the streets and even in the Temple courts. The hill on which had stood the Palace of David was fortified with a separate wall, took the name of "The Height' (Acra'), and was occupied with the Greek or Grecian party, the more irritating to those who still adhered to their country and their faith because it overlooked the Temple itself. It was regarded as a perpetual tempter, an adversary1 or devil in stone—as a personal enemy. And over this fortress presided Philip, of rough Phrygian manners, and, more odious than all, the High Priest Menelaus, 'who 'bore a heavy hand over all the citizens, having a malicious 'hatred against his countrymen the Jews.'

But the worst was still to come. As soon as the entanglements of Antiochus in his Egyptian war allowed him a respite for his Syrian projects he determined on carrying out his fixed plans of a rigid uniformity throughout the land- B.c. 168. 'that all should be one people and that everyone should 'hear his laws.' There was not a corner of Judea which was not now invaded by the emissaries of Polytheism, rendered yet more hateful by the assistance received from renegade Israelites. A special commissioner was set to preside over this forced conversion; it is uncertain whether from Antioch, or, as if to introduce the new worship from its most genuine seat, from Athens. Under him, adopting the existing framework of the Jewish constitution for the purpose, 'overseers' (as we have already seen 3 expressed in the Greek original by the word which has passed into Bishops') were sent throughout the several districts both of Judæa and Samaria. The Divinity to whom the Holy Mount of Jerusalem was to be dedicated was the Father of Gods and me, in whose honour Antiochus had already begun at Athens the stately temple, even in his own age a wonder of the world, of which 11 Macc. i. 36, διάβολον πονηρόν, Ewald, v. 298. the translation of the Hebrew word Satan. See Lecture XLV.

2 Macc. vi. 1.

3 See Lecture XLIV.

Polyb. xxvi. 10.