back secretly “to seize the kingdom by guile” (Dan. xi. 21 seq.). On his accession he appointed Jesus, the brother of Onias, to the high-priesthood, and sanctioned his proposals for the conversion of Jerusalem into a Greek city. The high priest changed his name to Jason and made a gymnasium near the citadel. The principle of separation was abandoned. The priests deserted the Temple for the palaestra and the young nobles wore the Greek cap. The Jews of Jerusalem were enrolled as citizens of Antioch. Jason sent money for a sacrifice to Heracles at Tyre; and the only recorded opposition to his policy came from his envoys, who pleaded that the money might be applied to naval expenditure. Thus Jason stripped the high-priesthood of its sacred character and did what he could to stamp out Judaism.
Menelaus supplanted Jason, obtaining his appointment from the king by the promise of a larger contribution. In order to secure his position, he contrived the murder of Onias, who had taken sanctuary at Daphne. This outrage, coupled with his appropriation of temple vessels, which he used as bribes, raised against Menelaus the senate and the people of Jerusalem. His brother and deputy was killed in a serious riot, and an accusation was laid against Menelaus before Antiochus. At the inquiry he bought his acquittal from a courtier and his accusers were executed. Antiochus required peace in Jerusalem and probably regarded Onias as the representative of the pro-Egyptian faction, the allies of his enemy.
During his second Egyptian campaign a rumour came that Antiochus was dead, and Jason made a raid upon Jerusalem. Menelaus held the citadel and Jason was unable to establish himself in the city. The people were presumably out of sympathy with Hellenizers, whether they belonged to the house of Onias or that of Tobiah. When Antiochus finally evacuated Egypt in obedience to the decree of Rome, he thought that Judaea was in revolt. Though Jason had fled, it was necessary to storm the city; the drastic measures which Menelaus advised seem to indicate that the poorer classes had been roused to defend the Temple from further sacrilege. A massacre took place, and Antiochus braved the anger of Yahweh by entering and pillaging the Temple with impunity. The author of 2 Maccabees infers from his success that the nation had forfeited all right to divine protection for the time (2 Macc. v. 18–20).
The policy which Antiochus thus inaugurated he carried on rigorously and systematically. His whole kingdom was to be unified; Judaism was an eccentricity and as such doomed to extinction. The Temple of Jerusalem was made over to Zeus Olympius: the temple of Gerizim to Zeus Xenius. All the religious rites of Judaism were proscribed and the neighbouring Greek cities were requested to enforce the prohibition upon their Jewish citizens. Jerusalem was occupied by an army which took advantage of the Sabbath and proceeded to suppress its observance. An Athenian came to be the missionary of Hellenism and to direct its ceremonies, which were established by force up and down the country.
28. The Maccabees.—Jerusalem and Gerizim were purged and converted to the state religion with some ease. Elsewhere, as there, some conformed and some became martyrs for the faith. And the passive resistance of those who refused to conform at length gave rise to active opposition. “The king’s officers who were enforcing the apostasy came into the city of Modein to sacrifice, and many of Israel went over to them, but Mattathias . . . slew a Jew who came to sacrifice and the king’s officer and pulled down the altar” (1 Macc. ii. 15 sqq.). Whether led by this Mattathias or not, certain Jews fled into the wilderness and found a leader in Judas Maccabaeus his reputed son, the first of the five Asmonean (Hasmonean) brethren. The warfare which followed was like that which Saul and David waged against the Philistines. Antiochus was occupied with his Parthian campaign and trusted that the Hellenized Jews would maintain their ascendancy with the aid of the provincial troops. In his last illness he wrote to express his confidence in their loyalty. But the rebels collected adherents from the villages; and, when they resolved to violate the sabbath to the extent of resisting attack, they were joined by the company of the Assideans (Hasidim). Such a breach of the sabbath was necessary if the whole Law was to survive at all in Palestine. But the transgression is enough to explain the disfavour into which the Maccabees seem to fall in the judgment of later Judaism, as, in that judgment, it is enough to account for the instability of their dynasty. Unstable as it was, their dynasty was soon established. In the country-side of Judaea, Judaism—and no longer Hellenism—was propagated by force. Apollonius, the commander of the Syrian garrison in Jerusalem, and Seron the commander of the army in Syria, came in turn against Judas and his bands and were defeated. The revolt thus became important enough to engage the attention of the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, if not of Lysias the regent himself. Nicanor was despatched with a large army to put down the rebels and to pay the tribute due to Rome by selling them as slaves. Judas was at Emmaus; “the men of the citadel” guided a detachment of the Syrian troops to his encampment by night. The rebels escaped in time, but not into the hills, as their enemies surmised. At dawn they made an unexpected attack upon the main body and routed it. Next year (165 B.C.) Lysias himself entered the Idumaean country and laid siege to the fortress of Bethsura. Judas gathered what men he could and joined battle. The siege was raised, more probably in consequence of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes than because Judas had gained any real victory. The proscription of the Jewish religion was withdrawn and the Temple restored to them. But it was Menelaus who was sent by the king “to encourage” (2 Macc. xi. 32) the Jews, and in the official letters no reference is made to Judas. Such hints as these indicate the impossibility of recovering a complete picture of the Jews during the sovereignty of the Greeks, which the Talmudists regard as the dark age, best left in oblivion.
Judas entered Jerusalem, the citadel of which was still occupied by a Syrian garrison, and the Temple was re-dedicated on the 25th of Kislev (164 B.C.). So “the Pious” achieved the object for which presumably they took up arms. The re-establishment of Judaism, which alone of current religions was intolerant of a rival, seems to have excited the jealousy of their neighbours who had embraced the Greek way of life. The hellenizers had not lost all hope of converting the nation and were indisposed to acquiesce in the concordat. Judas and his zealots were thus able to maintain their prominence and gradually to increase their power. At Joppa, for example, the Jewish settlers—two hundred in all—“were invited to go into boats provided in accordance with the common decree of the city.” They accepted the invitation and were drowned. Judas avenged them by burning the harbour and the shipping, and set to work to bring into Judaea all such communities of Jews who had kept themselves separate from their heathen neighbours. In this way he became strong enough to deal with the apostates of Judaea.
In 163 Lysias led another expedition against these disturbers of the king’s peace and defeated Judas at Bethzachariah. But while the forces were besieging Bethzur and the fortress on Mount Zion, a pretender arose in Antioch, and Lysias was compelled to come to terms—and now with Judas. The Jewish refugees had turned the balance, and so Judas became strategus of Judaea, whilst Menelaus was put to death.
In 162 Demetrius escaped from Rome and got possession of the kingdom of Syria. Jakim, whose name outside religion was Alcimus, waited upon the new king on behalf of the loyal Jews who had hellenized. He himself was qualified to be the legitimate head of a united state, for he was of the tribe of Aaron. Judas and the Asmoneans were usurpers, who owed their title to Lysias. So Alcimus-Jakim was made high priest and Bacchides brought an army to instal him in his office. The Assideans made their submission at once. Judas had won for them religious freedom: but the Temple required a descendant of Aaron for priest and he was come. But his first act was to seize and slay sixty of them: so it was clear to Judas at any rate, if not also to the Assideans who survived, that political independence was necessary if the religion was to be secure. In face of his active opposition Alcimus could not maintain himself
