4. The Septuagint.—The Jews in Egypt grew numerous, and many of them began to take important positions of trust in the State and in the army. The study of Hebrew became more and more neglected. These Egyptian Jews must have grown denationalised, since they grudged the labour of becoming familiar with their national tongue. But, however willing to give up the language, they had no mind to give up the literature. They desired still to read the law and the prophets, if only it could be managed without too much trouble. They determinedto get a translation made. About 250 B.C. an embassy was sent to Jerusalem by the Egyptian king, Ptolemy Philadelphus, begging the high priest for the loan and labour of seventy-two learned scribes. It is said that each of the seventy-two made a separate translation, and that every one of the seventy-two translations turned out to be exactly alike. It is rather a doubtful story. But whether the seventy-two translators agreed—which, as they worked separately, seems not impossible—or whether it was their translations which were unanimous, which seems less likely, certain it is that a Greek version of the Scriptures was made, which was called the Septuagint. Some of those writers, who always will differ from the others, say that the scribes had nothing to do with it at all, but that the Septuagint owes its origin to different authors, countries, and ages.
5. Under Egyptian Rule.—When Alexander died (323 years B.C.), all his great conquests were divided among his generals. Syria and Egypt became the rival powers in the East. Palestine, for over a century, was like a battledore between two shuttlecocks. For a while the Egyptians had the best of the game, and under the first three Ptolemies the Jews were very mildly tossed. They had to pay tribute to Egypt, but their home government was left to their own high priests, and their religion was not interfered with.
6. Under Syrian Rule.—203 years B.C., Antiochus III. of Syria, called the Great, wrested Palestine from the fourth Ptolemy of Egypt. This change of masters in itself made no change in the positionof the Jews. They continued to be mildly ruled, and their government was still left in their own hands. Seleucus, the son and successor of Antiochus, proved as peaceably inclined as his father. But trouble was brewing. The civilisation of the Syrians was Greek in its nature, and their habits of thought and their modes of worship were sure to jar terribly with the strict notions of Judean Jews. So long as the priests stood between the court and the people, and all actual contact was avoided, no collision occurred. When the priests were found wanting the crisis came.
7. Home Rule.—In the course of time the government of the people had come into the hands of the high priest. The high priesthood was an hereditary office. From father to son, or to nearest of kin, the office was handed down, and for the most part worthily exercised as a trust as well as a dignity. It was not altogether an easy office. The Jews needed ruling, and their masters—Persian, Egyptian, Syrian, or Greek, as it might be—needed conciliating. The priests had to be firm in their faith and pleasant in their manners; a fault in either meant failure; disunion was to be dreaded, and weakness was altogether fatal. For a long while the difficulties were overcome. Jaddua and Onias, and Simon the Just, who was one of the last surviving members of the Great Synagogue which Ezra founded, were all towers of strength to the priesthood and to the people. But a certain incapable high priest, called Onias II. (230 B.C.) very nearly brought his nation into trouble with Egypt over the tribute-money, which he had letfall into arrears; and Onias III. (210 B.C.), though a good man, made the terrible mistake of calling in the Syrians to settle a family dispute. Antiochus took this opportunity to usurp the right of nominating to the high priesthood. A brother of Onias had long desired the office for himself. He offered a bribe to the Syrian treasury, and in further deference to the ruling state changed his Jewish name of Joshua to the Greek-sounding one of Jason. He gained his point, and he earned besides, it may be hoped, both the contempt of those he flattered and of those he forsook. Presently another candidate, named Menelaus, arose, and, to get means for the necessary bribery, he robbed the temple treasury. So far as the Syrians were concerned, the immediate moral to the Jews was the old one of the bundle of sticks. As long as the Jews were self-respecting and self-governing, they and their government and their religion had been respected and left alone. As soon as their leaders began to riot and quarrel among themselves the fate of the bundle of sticks fell upon the people.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MACCABEAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
1. Antiochus Epiphanes.—Seleucus was succeeded on the Syrian throne by his brother Antiochus, surnamed by his flatterers Epiphanes the Illustrious, and by his more candid friends, Epimanes the Madman. By the date of his accession ancient Greecehad lost her supremacy, and Rome was getting to be the great power in the world. All the little kings made their little wars, or planned their big projects, with a thought of Rome in the background. Antiochus was no exception. He had led an expedition against Egypt, and had been defeated by Rome. He knew the Roman policy was to break up empires, and to attract the pieces, as it were, to itself. The geographical position of Judea would make her a valuable Roman ally. He determined to get rid of this possibility by getting rid of the Jews. And besides this, the disputes and riots in Jerusalem over the priesthood were making the Jews and their religion personally unpleasant to Antiochus. He entered the capital 169 B.C., plundered the Temple, offered swine’s flesh on the altar, and put to death a great many of the inhabitants.
2. Antiochus’s Tyranny.—That was only the beginning. He set up heathen idols in the Samaritan temple as well as in the Jerusalem one. The Jewish Scriptures were burned, and the reading of the law and the observance of the law forbidden on pain of death. Great rewards were offered to those who would renounce Judaism. A mother and her seven sons were separately and in succession tempted. ‘I can better bear to see them all die than for one of them to live as a coward,’ said the brave woman; and they took her at her word, and one after another the boys were led out to death. An old man, Eleazar by name, did his part, too, to prove that the calmness of age can be as steadfast as the impulse of youth. They tried bribes and they tried tortures on him;all to no avail. ‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is One,’ was the last utterance of his dying lips.
3. Resistance of Mattathias.—Things had come to a bad pass. The martyrs who were steadfast in the covenant were more numerous by far than the weak-minded folks who yielded, but the persecutors outnumbered both. There was a passion of resentment felt by weak and strong alike, and the feeling needed only directing to find forcible expression. In the little town of Modin, near Jerusalem, there lived an Asmonean family, of whom an old priest, named Mattathias, was the head. An officer of Antiochus made a visit to this place, calling on the Jews to perform heathen sacrifice. Some waverer in the crowd tremblingly obeyed. Mattathias struck him down, and, aiming another blow at the altar, called on all those who were ‘zealous for the law’ to follow him. There was an immediate rally to his side. The enemy was worsted for the day, and Mattathias and his party left the town at once, and raised the standard of revolt throughout the country. That was the beginning of the terrible unequal struggle, which lasted twenty-seven years, and ended in well-deserved victory for the Jews.
4. Chasidim and Zaddikim.—In appealing to those who were ‘zealous for the law’ to gather round him, Mattathias secured at once a strong and enthusiastic following. For a large party had grown up among the Jews who were ‘zealous for the law’ in a very complete sense. They loved it devotedly, if sometimes, perhaps, just a little ostentatiously. These men were called Chasidim, Saints; and occasionally, it maybe, they took on themselves the pretensions as well as the qualities attaching to the name. Side by side with these, there were many who contented themselves with just conforming to the law and doing their duty, as it were, in outline. Such were called, in Biblical language, Zaddikim, or ‘righteous.’ These righteous ones, it is possible, found the saints a little difficult to live up to. In reaction, they, at any rate, became occasionally a little less than ‘righteous,’ even somewhat lax and Grecianised Jews, and were called Hellenists.