[12]—page 51.] Antiochus IV., king of Syria—the son of Antiochus the Great—known in history as Epiphanes the Illustrious, but to many of his contemporaries as Epimanes the Madman—was for ages the chief name of horror to the Jews. His father had conquered Palestine, B.C. 203, and his brother and predecessor, Saleucus Philopator, had plundered the Temple, and Syria had disputed the control of the land with Egypt. Epiphanes conquered Jerusalem, B.C. 169, and held it for three years and a half. The obstinate resistance of the Jews led to the most dreadful deeds of cruelty recorded in history. Those who adhered to Ptolemy were mercilessly butchered. He plundered the city and the Temple. He forbade the Jewish religion, tore up and burned the Sacred Scriptures, put a stop to the daily Sacrifice of expiation, and dedicated the Temple to Zeus Olympios. He compelled the people to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swine’s flesh upon the altar. Kurtz says: “This was the abomination of desolation in the Holy Place, spoken of by Daniel (ch. xi. 31)—a type of another desolation that still belonged to the future (Matt. xxiv. 15)”—before the Second Coming of Christ. Added to all the rest, his system of unspeakable barbarities and horrible tortures at length drove the people to desperation, and led to the successful uprising and heroic struggle for freedom under Judas the Maccabee—truly God’s hammer—and his brothers (recorded in the Apocryphal books bearing that name). Help in understanding the Jewish feeling toward Antiochus may be found in Josephus, Prideaux, Edersheim, etc.
[13]—page 61.] Eleazar, as he appears in the narrative, is not the real name of a historic leader of the Jews at this time. Josephus, indeed, speaks of a certain Jew “who was called Eleazar, and was born at Saab, in Galilee. This man took up a stone of great size, and threw it down from the wall upon the ram, and this with so great a force that it broke off the head of the engine. He also leaped down and took up the head of the ram from the midst of them, and, without any concern, carried it to the top of the wall, and this, while he stood as a fit mark to be pelted by all his enemies.” Disregarding his many wounds, he showed himself a hero in other daring exploits, like some of those attributed by the author to Salathiel.
Josephus tells also of another Eleazar, who, at the time when the Jews took the fortress of Masada by treachery, was the governor of the Temple. He was the son of Ananias, the High Priest, and was a very bold youth. He “persuaded those that officiated in the divine service to receive no gift or sacrifice from any foreigner. And this,” adds Josephus, “was the true beginning of our war with the Romans; for they rejected the sacrifice of Cæsar on this account.”
The real leader in this early Jewish war was, however, Flavius Josephus, the historian. After the destruction of the army of Cestius Gallus in A.D. 66, the patriots precipitated a revolution, and Josephus was sent to organize the defense of Galilee. He led in the desperate struggle against Vespasian, but fell into the hands of the Romans after the fall of the stronghold of Jotapata and the subsequent massacre there. He saved himself by predicting the future elevation of Vespasian to the imperial throne. He was present in the Roman army at the destruction of Jerusalem, and accompanied Titus to Rome, where he resided for the rest of his life. He was a great leader, and Salathiel in his exploits often seems to personate him.
[14]—page 64.] Onias is not brought forward as a historical character, but as the representative of a class of Jews who were equally treacherous in their dealings with their patriotic countrymen and with the Romans. He appears as one of the marplots of the history—the personification of hatred and malice—from this council of war until the final catastrophe, when he dies by the hand of Jubal. The speech which the writer puts in his mouth was, however, undoubtedly suggested by the remarkable oration, recorded by Josephus (Bk. II., ch. xvi.), which Agrippa (the same mentioned in the Acts) addressed to the Jews, in the gallery adjoining the Temple and in the presence of his sister Bernice, who was above in the palace of the Asmoneans, and in which he sought to dissuade the people from going to war with their oppressors. In this speech of Agrippa we have “an authentic account of the extent and strength of the Roman empire when the Jewish war began,” from which becomes the more apparent the madness that hurried the Jews to their final destruction.
[15]—page 70.] In these foreglimpses of national doom, the representative character of Salathiel is brought out and the sense of his own personal doom, as the arch-crucifier of Jesus, deepened.
[16]—page 72.] It has often been remarked that the selection of Judea as the home of the chosen people bears the marks of divine wisdom. At the point where the three continents of the ancient world meet, surrounded by desert, mountain, and sea, broken by rugged ranges and defiles impassable in the face of even a small opposing force, and filled with a dense population, it was not only unique in character but impregnable to foreign foe so long as Israel remained faithful to its covenant with Jehovah. When the barriers, which at first excluded the people from the outside world in their earlier development, were broken down, it became the one place from which all the world was most accessible for the spread of the Hebrew Theism and of Christianity.
[17]—page 74.] The Year of Jubilee, recurring every fiftieth year, was a remarkable feature of the Jewish system. It was inaugurated on the Day of Atonement with the blowing of trumpets throughout the land, and by a proclamation of universal liberty. Its main provisions were: (1) The soil was left uncultivated and the chance produce was free to all comers. (2) Every Israelite recovered his right to the land originally allotted to the family to which he belonged, if he, or his ancestor, had parted with it. Houses in walled cities were an exception, altho these were redeemable at any time within a full year of the time of sale. (3) All Israelites who had become slaves, either to their own countrymen or to resident foreigners, were set free in the Jubilee. Josephus states that in his time all debts were remitted in the Year of Jubilee. It was a wonderful provision for preventing the accumulation of inordinate wealth in the hands of the few, and for relieving and giving new opportunity to those whom misfortune or fault had reduced to poverty. (See Smith’s Bible Dictionary.)
[18]—page 75.] Small as was Judea—no larger than one of our smaller States—it yet has the distinction of embracing within its bounds the temperatures and productions of all climes. Notwithstanding the covenant unfaithfulness of its people and their failure in obedience to Jehovah, it is still true that it bequeathed to mankind all the forms of Theism—Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism—and with and through them the chief enlightening and power-giving influences since operative among the nations. It is not, then, too much to say that, with faithfulness to God and to its unequaled privileges, “Judea might have changed the earth into a paradise.”
[19]—page 79.] The elevation of Salathiel to the leadership, as the Prince of Naphtali, in the war now decided upon, seems contrary to the natural order, as he was a priest and allied to the tribe of Naphtali by marriage merely; but the plea that it was a holy war prevailed, and the superhuman qualities that had been manifested in him clearly marked him for the position. The exaltation and exultation were to be simply the prelude to a sharp recall to a deeper sense of the curse that was upon him, and upon all else because of his crime.