the death of Judas, under king Demetrius.* This gallant family were never able to accomplish their object, not so much through defect of valor as through insufficiency of numbers. Thus the Macedonian troops held the city for five and twenty years, until Simon Maccabeus drove them out with the concurrence of the king of Syria. Hence it is evident that the Jews of Jerusalem must have learned the Greek language for the reasons named in our first proposition in the preceding chapter. The first effort of the Greeks would be naturally directed to inculcate their language rather than to enforce their religion upon the people, as this must be the medium of intercourse with them, since they themselves were ignorant of the Chaldee. Such was the state of things at Jerusalem; now look we elsewhere. § 9. The Samaritans, of their own accord, adopt the Grecian customs, and dedicate the temple on Gerizim to Hellenian Jove. The Samaritans who dwelt in Shechem, (for of Samaria the Greeks had possession, as already said,) when they saw the Jews tormented for their pertinacious adherence to the rites of Judaism, determined to "sail with the stream," or as the Greeks phrase it, πρὸς τὸν εὐ πράττοντα τοῖχον ρέπειν. They therefore despatched ambassadors to Antiochus to say that they were not Jews, but immigrants from Persia and Media, and prepared at once to adopt the Grecian habits and religion. In proof of their readiness to do this they asked permission to dedicate their temple, not yet appropriated to any particular god, to some Greek divinity. In the reply of Antiochus he granted their prayer, and the Sichemite Samaritans directly adopted Greek institutions and bestowed on the temple the name of the Hellenian Jove (Aids Envíov.) In so doing they conformed, according to Josephus,|| entirely to the Greek ritual. While Herodotus to the same effect testifies that this was the title under which Jupiter was worshipped in Greece. The ancient coins of Syracuse also make mention of this ΔΙΟΣ ΕΛΛΕΝΙΟΥ. In Agina, too, he was venerated under the same appellation, as Aris * Lib. 1 Mach cap. 11, V. 20. + Ibid. cap. 13, v. 49. Ibid. cap. 6, v. 23. Joseph. lib. 12 Antiq. cap. 5, § 5, p. 610. tophanes shows, and Pindart in the words ITag ẞwμor narigos 'Ellavíov. Thus did the Samaritans bow a willing neck to the yoke of Hellenism. § 10. Antiochus on pain of death commands the Jews to conform to Hellenism and renounce Judaism. The attempt of Antiochus to subvert Judaism and upset all that was national among the people did not rest here. Having heard that there were some who still clung to the sacred institutions of their country, he published a decree enjoining the Jews to forsake their ancestral usages and adopt those of Greece, on pain of death to the contumacious. To carry this into execution he sent an aged Athenian (Adqraiov), (so the Greek text and Syriac version give it; not Antiochian, as it is in the vulgate,)|| to compel them to abjure the laws of their fathers and embrace the Grecian faith, to defile their temple and consecrate it to some heathen deity, to prevent the celebration of sacrifice, the Sabbath, and feast days, together with the circumcision of infants, to subject them, in fact, to every kind of infamy, death following disobedience. How much all this must have tended to promote Hellenism in the land, the reader may more easily conjecture than I describe. In the first place the temple was dedicated to Jupiter Olympus (4òs 'OkvμTíov nomine insignitum est.) It was further polluted by the luxury and revellings of the Greeks, who even dared to take up their abode in its chambers with their courtezans. Next the Jews, after the total abolition of their religion, were taught to celebrate the king's birth-day every month with heathen sacrifices. As, moreover, Bacchus was a deity held in the highest honor by the Greeks, especially the Syrians, (his image is represented on some of the coins in Vaillant,)§ the Greek Bacchanalia soon came to be observed. Crowned with ivy the votaries traversed the city and temple, and indulged in drinking and dancing and every excess. Obedience was thus secured by compulsory means to the ordinance of the king, the Macedo [*Ellávie Zɛv..—ED.] Aristophan. in Equit. v. 1250. † Pindarus, Nem. od. 5, v. 19. Lib. 1 Mach. cap. 1, v. 43 ad 52. Lib. 2, cap. 6, v. 1 et seq. Vaillantius in Hist. Reg. Syr. pp. 179, 181, 210. Lib. 2 Mach. cap. 6, v. 7. nians in the city and country not allowing a man even to bear the name of Jew, (ut quis se Judæum nominaret,) as may be seen in Maccabees. All were obliged to profess themselves Greeks, all observed the Greek institutions, consequently all used the Greek language. §11. Antiochus removes all the causes that might prevent the adoption of Hellenism. A little afterwards, in the year of the Greek dynasty 145, on the fifteenth of the Jewish month Casleu, Antiochus came into Judea to put the finishing stroke to the work of conversion by his presence. His first care was to have the sacred books of the Law and the Prophets collected and burned † He next erected an altar upon the altar of Jehovah, placed a Grecian idol on it, and sacrificed in accordance with the heathen ritual. He caused altars to be raised throughout all the cities, hamlets, and villages of the land to the same divinity, to whom the Jews were forced to offer swine. They were also obliged to conform to the idolatrous usage mentioned by Aristophanes, of having before their door in the streets little shrines of Diana, or Hecate, as she is vulgarly called. This fact is gathered by Calmet in his commentary from Isaiah and Macrobius. To this, too, evidently refers what the author of First Maccabees records in these words, "Before the gates of their houses and in the highways they burned incense and offered sacrifice." In confirmation of this view is all which the same books narrate of the cruel tortures inflicted by order of the tyrant upon the Jews who clave to the religion of their ancestors, and could not be induced to abjure their faith. So successful, notwithstanding, had been the measures of the Syrian king, that when the first of the Maccabees, Judas, would recall the Jews to their fealty to the God of Heaven, he could only find six thousand faithful prepared to follow his arms. All were Græcised. (Græcabantur.) The unsupported patriot was therefore compelled to spend his life in exile.¶ At length Antiochus died, but this Ibid. v. 6. + Lib. 1 Mach. cap. 1, v. 57 ad 60. Calmet in Com. ad lib. 1 Mach. cap. 1, v. 58. Lib. 1 Mach. cap. 1, v. 58. Videsis lib. 1 Machab. cap. 1, v. 63 et 64; lib. 2, cap. 6, v. 10, 18, usque ad cap. 7. Lib. 2 Mach. cap. 8, v. 1. event brought no change of treatment towards the Jews. His successors, Antiochus Eupator and Demetrius, were heirs of his pirit no less than of his throne. They pushed their zeal for Hellenism to the utmost of their power, and confirmed it in its dominion over Palestine day after day.* § 12. The Chief Priest Alcimus a vigorous propagator of Hellenism. When Menelaus the chief priest died, in the year 163 A. C., Jacim, a most devoted admirer of the Greeks, was appointed to the vacant office by Ptolemy Eupator. He commenced his pontificate by an act of the same kind as distinguished that of his predecessors. He adopted a Greek name. Instead of Jacim, p, he became Alcimus, "Ahxiμos, the name of one of the most distinguished heroes of the Iliad.† Besides, incensed at the patriotic efforts of Judas Maccabeus to avenge the laws and liberties of his country, he sought to stop that enterprising prince in his career, and did not scruple to use violent means where none other would suffice. He gained the object of his wishes. After the death of Judas, his followers were harassed in all places by Bacchides, the general of the Syrian king. A famine aided the efforts of the Grecian commander, for, under the sore pressure of want, they were compelled at last to surrender at discretion to Bacchides; in the words of Josephus, πρὸς τοὺς Μακεδόνας avropolioa. By the advice of Alcimus the surrendered territory was committed to the administration of the Hellenizing Jews. These, as soon as they received their appointment, hunted out, with all diligence, the followers of Judas and those who had abjured the Grecian rites, and then gave them over to Bacchides, by whom they were put to death with circumstances of extreme barbarity. None were spared in the massacre except those who professed a cordial reception of Greek usages.|| To abolish utterly all distinction between Jew and Greek, Alcimus, intent upon making the revolution complete, ordered the wall of the temple courts, which separated them in worship, to be levelled with the ground. But God stopped the mouth of the impious priest, and struck him with palsy, some three years after he succeeded to the pontificate. * Ibid. cap. 11, v. 24 et seq. + Homerus, Iliad 19, v. 392, et 24, v. 564. Joseph. lib. 13, cap. 1, p. 631. Lib. 1 Mach. cap. 8, v. 23 ad 27; Jos. loc. cit. § 13. All Judea is covered with Grecian colonies. At length, in the year of the world 3843, and before Christ 161, when Jonathan assumed his deceased brother's command, Bacchides, fearing for the tranquillity of his royal master's dominions, came with a numerous Greek army to the river Jordan. In the words of Josephus, φοβηθείς Βακχίδης μὴ παράσχη πράγ ματα τῷ βασιλεῖ καὶ τοῖς Μακεδόσιν ὁ Ιωνάθης.* There, after a battle had been fought between them, as Jonathan found himself unable to sustain the contest against such overwhelming numbers, he withdrew beyond the river, and thus escaped the present danger. Bacchides, bending his way thence toward Jerusalem, fortified the towns of Judea, Jericho, Ammaus, Bethoron, Bethel, Thamatha, Phara Thopho,† and others with walls. and gates, and placed in them fresh reinforcements. But in Bethsura, Gazara, and in the castle of Jerusalem he established strong garrisons, and in them detained the sons of those Jewish chieftains as hostages who took part with Jonathan.‡ Judea was thus more than ever filled with foreigners of Greek extraction, and laid prostrate at their feet. There was no possibility of remaining a Jew, under those circumstances. Jonathan, an exile from the land, was compelled to betake himself to Bethbessen, as Fullonius supposes, and certainly beyond the Jordan, as Josephus assures us. And although he was enabled to defeat Bacchides two years afterwards, yet was he even then reduced to such straits, that the victor sent legates to the vanquished to sue for peace. After this was concluded, Jonathan retired to Michinash and exercised a kind of princely rule over his own people. The Greeks, on the other hand, holding the country for nineteen years, gave such a circulation to the Greek tongue,that from that period the Chaldee began to fall into almost total desuetude, (in desuetudinem abire cœperit Chaldaicus sermo, quem labentibus deinceps annis ne intelligebant quidem Judæi,) and became in a short time unintelligible to the Jews themselves, as we are yet to show, but must not anticipate the *Joseph. lib. 13 Antiq. cap. 1, § 2, p. 632. [Pharathoni Tephon; ita enim in LXX. Apud Joseph. Pharatho, Tochoan. ED.] Lib. 1 Mac. c. 9, v. 47 ad 53. Fullonius in Comm. ad 1 Mach. cap. 9, v. 57, p. 314. 1 Mach. cap. 9, v. 70. |