History of the Jews (Vol. 1-6). Graetz Heinrich

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СКАЧАТЬ to lay the real state of affairs before King Seleucus, with an account of the conflicting parties and of the motives that induced Simon and the Tobiades to conspire against him, imploring the king's protection and aid. He appointed his brother Joshua, or Jason, as his delegate, and repaired to Antioch. During his absence the Hellenists, eager to obtain the office of high-priest for one of their own party, redoubled their intrigues. A high-priest from among their own number would not only be master of the treasures in the Temple, but leader of the nation. He could assist them in the introduction of Greek customs, and, by reason of his spiritual office, add weight to the efforts of the Hellenists, who had become so demoralised that they held nothing sacred.

      These secret devices soon became known, and roused the indignation of many who clung to the old customs and traditionary teachings. Amongst these was a poet and writer of proverbs, Jesus Sirach by name, the son of Eleazar (200–176). He was prompted by the wrongdoing he witnessed in Jerusalem to write a book of pithy sayings, applicable to the evils of the age, which might prove salutary to its Judæan readers. He was a successor of the proverb-writers. He was familiar with the Law, the prophets, and other instructive and spiritual works, and he was a close reader of the older Book of Proverbs, imitating the style of that work, though without reaching its graceful simplicity.

      Sirach did not belong to the sterner Chasidim who refrained from all harmless pleasures, and who denounced others for enjoying them. On the contrary, he was in favour of the social meal, enlivened by music and wine. To those who made a point of interfering with innocent pleasures, and whose dismal talk put an end to all gaiety, he addressed the following rebuke:—

      "Speak, thou elder in council, for it becometh thee, but with sound judgment, and shew not forth wisdom out of time. As a signet of an emerald set in a work of gold, so is the melody of music with pleasant wine." (Ecclus. xxxii. 3, 4, 6.)

      There were some over-pious Judæans who condemned the use of all medical skill and aid; they insisted that as all maladies were sent from God, He alone could cure them. Sirach explained in his proverbs that the skill of the physician and the virtue of medicines were also the gifts of God, created to serve the purpose of healing.

      But all his zeal was kindled at sight of the social and religious backsliding of his brethren, and their consequent humiliation in the eyes of the neighbouring peoples. The social depravity of his co-religionists grieved him more than their political oppression. Sirach stung with the lash of sarcasm the arrogance, deceit and lust of the rich Hellenists, who worshipped Mammon. He also denounced lechery, warned them against the companionship of dancers, singers and painted women, and he painted in no flattering colours the portraits of the daughters of Israel.

      Sirach declared that the root of all this evil was the indifference of the Judæans to their sacred Law. His aim was to reinstate it in the hearts of the people. He touched upon another subject, a burning question of the day. Many in Jerusalem, particularly among the upper circles, were anxious to substitute for the high-priest Onias one of their own party, even though he were not a descendant of Aaron. Was it necessary to restrict the priestly office to one family? This was the question propounded by the ambitious. Sirach's proverbs are directed against the possibility of a revolution in the sacred order.

      By various examples, taken from the history of the Judæan people, he endeavoured to show that obedience to the Law and to established rule would entail happy consequences, but that disobedience must lead to fatal results. He gave a short account of illustrious and notorious personages, dwelling upon their virtuous deeds or nefarious practices, as the case might be. He described the rise of the family of Korah against Aaron, their final destruction by fire, and the heightened glory of the high-priest. This was a hint to his co-religionists that the zealous Hellenists should not be allowed to provoke a repetition of Korah's punishment. He also dwelt upon the history of Phineas, Aaron's grandson, the third in glory, who was permitted to make atonement for Israel.

      He passed rapidly over the division of the two kingdoms and the depravity of the people, lingering upon the activity and energy of the prophets. He mentioned with loving recollection the names of Zerubbabel, the high-priest Joshua, and Nehemiah, in the days succeeding the Captivity. And at length he closed with a brilliant description of the high-priest, Simon the Just, of his good deeds and the majesty of his priesthood, hoping that this example of the ancestor of the family of the high-priest and of the Tobiades might instruct and warn the ambitious desecrators of the priestly diadem. But instead of the unity for which he prayed, at the end of his book, the dissensions increased, and the plots and wickedness of the Hellenists brought the Judæan nation to the brink of destruction.

      CHAPTER XXII. THE TYRANNICAL CONVERSION TO HELLENISM AND THE ELEVATION OF THE MACCABEES.

       Table of Contents

      Antiochus Epiphanes​—​His Character​—​His Wars with Rome​—​He appoints Jason to the High Priesthood​—​Introduction of the Greek Games​—​Jason sends Envoys to Tyre to take part in the Olympian Games​—​Affairs in Jerusalem​—​Antiochus invades Egypt​—​Report of his Death in Jerusalem​—​Antiochus attacks the City and defiles the Temple​—​His Designs against Judaism​—​His Second Invasion of Egypt​—​The Persecution of the Judæans​—​The Martyrs​—​Mattathias and his five Sons​—​Apelles appears in Modin​—​The Chasidim​—​Death of Mattathias and Appointment of Judas Maccabæus as Leader​—​His Virtues​—​Battles against Apollonius and Heron​—​Antiochus determines to exterminate the Judæan People​—​Composition and Object of the Book of Daniel​—​Victory of Judas over Lysias.

      175–166 B. C. E.

      There now appeared on the scene a royal personage who seemed destined to increase the hopeless disorders in Judæa, and to bring greater misery upon the House of Israel than it had ever known before. This man was Antiochus Epiphanes, whom history has justly branded. He belonged to a class of men who have a double nature. He was a mixture of malice and noble impulses; he was cunning and calculating, yet capricious, petty in great enterprises, and great in trivialities. His contemporaries even could not fathom his character, nor understand whether a naturally crippled intellect or simulation was the cause of the absurdities by which he made himself ridiculous in the eyes of the people. He seemed to covet the name of "Epimanes," or the Madman. His early training encouraged him to lead an irregular life. He resided for thirteen years at Rome, whither his father had sent him as hostage for the maintenance of peace and the payment of the costs of the war. Rome had just become the capital of the world. The Romans had conquered the Carthaginians, the Macedonians and the Syrians, and the Eternal City was passing from the austere morality of the Catos to the wantonness of the Claudii. Debauchery and unnatural lust—the immoral practices of the Greeks—speedily took root there. But what Antiochus learnt principally at Rome was contempt of men and their cherished customs; there also he acquired not only insolence, but a hardness of heart which knew no compassion, and the malice which sports with its victim before it strangles it.

      Antiochus succeeded in obtaining permission to leave Rome, and to send his nephew Demetrius, son of the king Seleucus Philopator, as hostage in his place. He returned to Syria, probably with the intention of dethroning his brother, but his design had been anticipated by Heliodorus, one of the court magnates, who had murdered Seleucus (175), and taken possession of the kingdom. It may be questioned whether Antiochus was not implicated in this deed; he was at that time at Athens, on his way home. His father's enemy, Eumenes, king of Pergamus, with his brother Attalus, put the murderer Heliodorus to flight, and proclaimed Antiochus king of Syria and Asia. Thus Antiochus attained to power by craft and usurpation; for Demetrius, now a hostage at Rome, was the rightful sovereign. The Romans favoured the usurper, for they hoped, by increasing the dissensions among the royal families, to bring about the fall of those kingdoms which still resisted СКАЧАТЬ