And how would that blow be met? Would they be able to escape it, or parry it, or stand up against it? The Chasidim, the Ironsides, the men who had been the stay and strength of Judas’s armies, who had followed him to victory at Beth-zur, at Beth-horon, at Adasa, were miserably dejected. The embassy to Rome had broken their spirits. The issue, before so simple to these stern souls, narrow, perhaps, in their range of vision, but of a clear and single eye, was now confused. While they fought for the Lord against the gods of the heathen, they could confidently expect that He would show Himself greater than all gods, and this faith had made them irresistible. But now, if Jew and Roman were to fight side by side, with what confidence could they call upon the Lord of Hosts? Was He the Lord of that host, in whose ranks were ranged the battalions of the uncircumcised?
Some left the leader whom they now regarded as unfaithful to his trust, and departed to distant [pg 357]villages, hanging up the swords which they were steadfastly resolved not to draw side by side with the heathen. Others, in whom the military instinct of discipline, or the personal attachment to Judas, as the general who had led them so often to victory, were so strong as to overpower all other considerations, remained with him. Nothing could take them from his side, but they went with heavy hearts and with an outlook on the future that was almost hopeless.
Meanwhile the embassy started. What the answer of the Romans would be Judas did not doubt. They would rejoice to secure the alliance of a people who could lend them aid so useful. But would the answer come in time to save the city and the Temple from the wrath of Demetrius?
And indeed that wrath did not linger. Within a month Bacchides was on his way from Antioch with a force of twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse. The renegade Alcimus accompanied him, and was to be reinstated in his high-priesthood. Their line of march was through Galilee. On their way they took the fortified town of Masaloth, and put the garrison to the sword. It was about the time of the Passover feast that the invaders reached Jerusalem. There was some talk about attacking it; but Alcimus was urgent in resisting the proposal. “The King’s quarrel,” he said, “is with Judas, who is the cause of all this mischief, and [pg 358]Judas is not here. And the King has commanded that I should be replaced in my office; but what shall my office profit me if there be no city for me to govern, nor Temple in which I am to minister?” Bacchides yielded to these representations, and leaving the city unhurt marched to Beeroth (a few miles north-east of Jerusalem) and there pitched his camp.
Among the patriots there was such doubt and dismay as had never been felt from the day when the aged Mattathias struck the first blow for freedom, not even in that dark hour when Judas and his famine-stricken followers were about to make their desperate sally from the Temple fortress. It was not that they were fighting against overwhelming odds, for they had faced as great before; it was that they had lost their unquestioning faith in their leader.
“Ah!” said Micah to Azariah, when they were discussing the matter for the twentieth time—and indeed it was almost the only subject of their talk—“I have seen these heathen from near at hand—I say it with shame—and I know what they are better than you, better than Judas, who is so good that he can scarcely believe that other men are bad. ‘He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled,’ says Jesus, the son of Sirach, and though our captain is greater than other men, in this matter he is but as they are. What madness drove him to meddle with [pg 359]the accursed thing? God forgive me if I speak evil of the ruler of my people, but I must say that which is in my heart.”
“Nay,” said Azariah, still loyal to his great-hearted chief, though he too had doubts which he had to crush down by sheer force of will—“nay, you go too far. Did not Jehoshaphat, the servant of the Lord, make alliance with the children of Edom when he fought against Mesha, the King of Moab?”
“But the children of Edom,” answered Micah, “were akin to our people; but as for these Romans, they are utterly unclean. O, brother, I have often thought whether, as a faithful servant of the Law, I could remain any longer with the captain.”
“You will not leave us?” cried Azariah—“it only wants that, and I shall be ready to fall on my own sword.”
“No; I shall not go. If I am wrong the Lord pardon me; but I cannot go when so many are falling away. Yet if these Romans come—then I shall depart.”