CHAPTER VI.
Of the Jewish affairs under Antiochus the Greek, Seleucus, and Antiochus Epiphanes, Kings of Syria.
After the death of Ptolemy Philopater, Ptolemy Epiphanes came to the throne. The Jews, having experienced severe persecutions at the hands of the Ptolemys, surrendered to the power of Antiochus the Great, King of Syria; and when he came to Jerusalem, the people went out to meet him in great procession, and very graciously welcomed him to their city.
Antiochus, flattered by this mark of their attention granted them the same privileges as he had done to their brethren who had settled themselves in Babylon and Mesopotamia. He had at all times expressed himself satisfied with the conduct of the people, having found them on all occasions true and loyal subjects.
Antiochus, wishing to show his confidence in the Jews, and with a view of encouraging them, sent many of them from Babylon to Lower Asia, to guard and protect his forts and garrisons, and allowed them good settlements; hence many of the Jewish nation peopled that part of the country. At the death of Antiochus, his son, Seleucus Philopater, succeeded him. In his day, Simon, a Benjamite, was made Governor of the Temple. He had some difference with Onias, the high priest, who was a very good man. Simon, however, not succeeding in his expectations with the high priest, reported to Appolonius, the Governor of the Province under Seleucus, that great treasures were deposited in the Temple; upon which information Heliodorus, the treasurer, was sent to seize them.
Heliodorus accordingly repaired to the Temple to make this seizure. When he entered the Temple he found the priests and all the people engaged in solemn prayer to Almighty God, imploring his divine assistance in their present distress. The scene which thus presented itself to him at that moment so powerfully affected him, that he fell prostrate before the Lord of Hosts, whose power he publicly acknowledged, and resolved not to interfere with the people of God, as he called them, and immediately left the city.
Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded his brother Seleucus in the kingdom of Syria. When seated on the throne, Jason, the brother of Onias the high priest, bribed Antiochus with a large sum of money to deprive Onias of the priesthood and to banish him to Antioch; at the same time Jason wished to have the priesthood conferred on him; not, as it is supposed, that he wished to have it as a religious office, but because it would invest him likewise with the power of the civil government. Antiochus received the bribe; banished Onias to Antioch, and then appointed Jason to the office of high priest.
When Jason became high priest, he erected a place of exercise at Jerusalem for training up youth according to the fashion of the Greeks, and induced many of them to forsake the religious customs and usages of their forefathers, and to conform in many things to the customs and ceremonies of the heathens. Some few years after Jason had been in office, he commissioned his brother Menelaus to go to the court of Syria to pay the annual tribute money. Menelaus took advantage of this opportunity, and offered the king a larger bribe than his brother had given for the priesthood.
Antiochus made no scruple in the matter, and accepted the money thus offered by Menelaus; and gave instructions to his secretary to make out a fresh commission in favor of Menelaus, who returned triumphantly to Jerusalem, deposed his brother Jason, and placed himself in the office of the priesthood.
Menelaus being in office, abused the power and authority vested in him, and conducted himself in a manner much worse than his brother whom he had deposed. He stole some of the golden vessels from the Temple, impoverished the country, and by degrees he managed to enslave the whole of Judea, and overturned all that was left of her religion and her freedom. He then visited Antioch, where he met his brother Onias, who rebuked him for his misconduct both towards him and the people in general. Menelaus, chagrined at his brother's rebuke, adopted means by which Onias was put to death. During this time, Lysimachus, who had been appointed by Menelaus to officiate as his deputy during his absence, stripped the temple of many of its most costly vessels. He also committed many other sacrilegious acts; this occasioned a great tumult and confusion among the people, which ended in considerable bloodshed, and in which conflict the deputy himself fell a victim.
This circumstance led to a false report being industriously circulated, that Antiochus had fallen in the affray. Jason, availing himself of this confusion, headed an army of resolute and desperate men; repaired to Jerusalem which he assaulted; succeeded in putting to flight his brother Menelaus with his party, and committed great havoc among those who opposed him. Jason, however, was in the end defeated; his party routed; he himself perished in some strange land, and it is supposed even without the usual rites of burial.
Antiochus hearing of this affair, and imagining that Judea had revolted, gave immediate orders to his soldiers to repair to Jerusalem and to kill young and old without any reserve. The soldiers obeyed their cruel master in so unmerciful a manner, that in less than three days upwards of forty thousand souls were slain; thousands taken into captivity, and sold as slaves to the several neighboring nations.
Antiochus then entered the holy Temple, stripped it of all the sacred vessels still remaining--the altar of incense--the golden table and the golden candle-stick.
He then destroyed all the beautiful decorations of the House of God, robbed the noble edifice of all its treasures, and impiously polluted the holy of holies. And to further satiate his cruel revenge, he sacrificed a sow on the altar of burnt offerings, and scattered its fragments over every part of the Temple. The tyrant then departed, leaving the city of Jerusalem overwhelmed in sorrow and in mourning. The streets were strewed with the dying and the dead. The cries and lamentations of the orphan and the widow deplored the loss of their natural protectors and their property, which the tyrant carried away with him to enrich his unholy possessions.
Some time after, Antiochus sent his general Appollonius to collect the annual tribute to which the Jews were subject, and at the same time commanded him at the head of a thousand men, to attack the city of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, while the people were all engaged in their religious worship in the Temple.
Appollonius fully executed the mandate of his cruel master. He slew the priests and the Levites while at their sacred duties, together with numbers of the private citizens; led the women and children into captivity; destroyed all their houses; built a castle near the Temple, and placed a troop of men as guards to watch and annoy those few Jews who still remained in the city.
Not yet satisfied, the cruel tyrant issued a decree throughout all his dominions to suppress every religion excepting the worship of the idols, he himself had set up, and to which alone he paid his adoration. He forbade the Jews to perform the initiatory rite on their male children, and prevented them from offering any more sacrifices in the Temple to the God of Israel. He then set up an image upon the altar, and sacrificed to it, and called it the Temple of Jupiter Olympus. He compelled the people to offer up the flesh of swine, and other unclean beasts, and even to eat of them. He forced the Jews to profane the sabbath, and cruelly persecuted all such who did not strictly conform to his wishes; rendering the position of the poor Jews pitiable in the extreme, and probably unequalled by any other nation in the annals of the world. Antiochus then ordered all the books of the law, and other books used for worship, to be destroyed; and to effectually carry out his cruel edict, officers were appointed to search every house, and every person was examined on oath as to the possession of any Hebrew books or tablets. By this means not a copy of the law was to be seen among the poor Jews. Notwithstanding all these persecutions, there were found numbers of the people who defied the power of the merciless king; and putting their trust in the God of Israel, would not defile themselves with the idolatrous worship then imposed on them, and break the law of God. Sad to relate, that daily and hourly these people who adhered to their religion, were put to the sword and other torments, to compel them to act in obedience to the king's orders. Their love for their religion was greater than the pleasures of this world, and in support of that religion they sacrificed their own lives and those of their wives and children.
In the next and following chapters we shall inform our readers of the manner in which the Lord raised up champions in Israel, who valiantly and bravely resented the injuries inflicted on their countrymen, and zealously fought the battles of the Lord; the success which ensued, together with the total defeat of their enemies, and the punishment which awaited the tyrant Antiochus and his army.