“Have you aught to say to me in private?” asked Judas, when the man was brought in.
“Nay,” he answered; “my message is one that all may hear.”
He then delivered it, reading the words from a parchment which he carried in his hand, and which bore the sign-manual (an impression of the seal-ring dipped in ink) of Antiochus Eupator, as well as that of Lysias. They ran thus:
“Antiochus, surnamed Eupator, King of Syria and Egypt, offers to the people of the Jews peace and friendship. He permits them to worship God after the manners and customs of their fathers, and he hereby revokes all the edicts which the King, his father, having been misinformed by unfaithful advisers, issued against the said nation of the Jews.”
Never was there a more surprising, a more unexpected change in the position of affairs. But it might have been foreseen by those who had watched with a full knowledge of the truth, the recent course of events.
Despatches had reached Lysias from Antioch which convinced him that he and his young charge had enemies to reckon with who would be far more formidable than Judas and his followers. Philip had returned from Persia with the host of Epiphanes, and had assumed the management of affairs, and [pg 312]Philip was a dangerous rival. Were he to prevail, his own position as the chief adviser of the King would be untenable; and the King himself would very probably be dispossessed by some other claimant to the throne.
He laid the case, or at least so much as it was necessary to explain, before the boy-King. The lad, who was indeed intelligent beyond his years, at once acquiesced in the advice, that easy conditions of peace should be offered to the garrison.
Then an assembly of the soldiers was summoned. All the officers were invited by name, and, after the usual fashion of such gatherings, as many of the men as could crowd into the chambers were also present. To them Lysias said nothing about the news from Antioch, which it would be better, he thought, to conceal as long as possible; but he dwelt on the useless hardships which they were all enduring.
“Famine and the pestilence are upon us,” he said, “and we decay daily. But the place to which we lay siege is strong, and we are no nearer to the taking of it than we were six months since. Now, therefore, let us offer to these men, who are neither robbers nor murderers, peace and liberty, that they may worship God after their own fashion, and live by their own laws. For, of a truth, it is far better, as many of yourselves know, that they should be our friends than our enemies.”
An unanimous shout of approval was the answer; and hence the message which came so opportunely to Judas and his followers in the very crisis of their despair.