The line of defence adopted was bold, not to say impudent. The whole affair, according to Menelaüs, was a conspiracy on the part of the irreconcilable Jews to overthrow a loyal subject of the King. The witnesses, he declared, had been suborned, the documents had been forged. He then went on to bring a counter-charge against his accuser. And here he found a certain advantage in the transparent honesty of Oniah.
“Do you acknowledge,” he asked the ex-high priest, “the validity of the appointments which our most noble lord Antiochus has made to the office of high priest?”
Oniah frankly confessed that he did not.
“Do you consider yourself to be still, according to the Law, in rightful possession of that office?”
“I do.”
“And bound to assert that right?”
“By lawful means.”
“And you hold all means to be lawful that are enjoined in the Law of Moses?”
“I do.”
“And among such means you would count the banishment from the precincts of the Holy City of all such as do not worship the Lord God of Israel?”