Chapter XXXIII: The Hope of Israel

A week had passed since the fatal day of Eleasa. Judas had been buried in peace in the grave where he had laid, five years before, the aged Mattathias. The Greek general had been so much impressed with the valour and generalship of the Jewish hero that he strictly ordered that no indignity should be offered to his remains; and when an envoy came from the surviving brothers to ask that the corpse should be given up for burial, made no difficulty about granting the request. It was only fitting that a brave man should be so honoured. The King, too, had been avenged on his enemy, nor did he imagine for a moment that the rebels, as he called them, would continue to hold out now that their leader had been taken from them. It was impossible for him to foresee that those undaunted brothers would maintain the desperate struggle until they had wrung from the Syrian king the recognition of Jewish independence. Accordingly he granted a truce for a fortnight, and even sent some of his troops to accompany the funeral procession. It had been a touching scene; and when the hero had been laid to rest in the sepulchre of his fathers, and the piercing voices of the women, many of whom had struggled over the long and toilsome way from Jerusalem to be present, raised the cry of lamentation, many of the Greek soldiers found themselves moved to tears. This had been the dirge that had been sung over the grave:—

“How is the valiant man fallen that delivered Israel.
In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion’s whelp roaring for his
prey.
For he pursued the wicked, and sought them out, and burnt up those that
vexed his people.
Wherefore the wicked shrunk for fear of him, and all the workers of
iniquity were troubled, because salvation prospered in his
hand.
He grieved also many kings, and made Jacob glad with his acts, and his
memorial is blessed for ever.”

And now once more the little company of those whom we have known by name are gathered in Seraiah’s house. The orphaned girls are there, Miriam and Judith, passionately grieving for their father, but yet exulting as passionately that he was at the side of Judas to the last, and that his hope had been at least so far fulfilled that he and the captain whom he loved had been saved from drawing sword among the legions of Rome. Little Daniel, too, is there, his childish heart sorely troubled with the darkness of a dispensation which he cannot understand; and Ruth, comforting herself and the children with the thought that he whom they had lost had rejoined his own Hannah, and half reproaching herself for her selfish joy in having her Seraiah still spared to her. Huldah and Eglah, who had been among the mourners at Modin, are there also, and the aged priest Shemaiah.

“O father,” cried one of the women, “tell us why these things are so. Why does God so disappoint us of our hopes? We trusted that it had been he who should have delivered Israel, and now he is dead!”

“We must wait,” said the old man, “for God’s good time, for He seeth not as we see. Did not David think that Solomon, his son, should be the promised king of Israel; and, behold, he turned aside to worship idols, and laid such burdens on the people that his kingdom was broken in twain? And now we, too, have built our hopes upon a man, and they have failed. Surely of Judas it might have been said, ‘He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper; he shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and dear shall their blood be in his sight.’

“We looked,” said Seraiah, “for the time when all kings should fall down before him, all nations should do him service. He seemed like the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that should smite all the kingdoms of evil, and we waited for the reign of Messiah the Prince.”

“And will Messiah come?” cried little Daniel, who had been eagerly listening to these words, not understanding all, indeed, but catching their general purport.

“Surely, my son,” said the old man; “but there are many things to be suffered first.”

He was silent for a time, sitting with eyes that seemed to take no heed of the present, but to be gazing into a far futurity. At last he spoke.

“He loved Israel with all his heart, but he has brought upon us a people of iron, harder than the brazen Greeks. He looked to them for help that he might build up the walls of Sion, and behold! in the days to come they will make Jerusalem a desolation and the inhabitants thereof a hissing. And yet, by the Lord’s help, he wrought a great deliverance for Israel. He recovered and cleansed the Temple, and by his hand the Lord changed the king’s commandment, so that we may once more worship Him in the beauty of holiness. And surely, had it not been for him, when he put to flight the hosts of Lysias, we should have been carried away again into captivity. For this was in the heart of our persecutors; only Judas stood in the way that it should not be done. The Lord reward him for it, and impute not his transgression unto him, for he did not transgress wilfully, or out of an evil heart. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that it shall not be so when Messiah shall come, for come He will at the appointed time, seeing that the Lord repenteth Him not of His promises. Verily He shall not do homage to any godless bestower of kingdoms, nor listen to the voice of the Evil One, though he promise Him all the world and the glory of it. With His own right hand and with His holy arm will He get Himself the victory!”

THE FAMILY OF THE ASMONEANS, OR MACCABEES.

The name “Maccabee,” probably derived from a Hebrew word signifying a “Hammer,” was originally given to Judas, and afterwards extended to his four brothers. They came of a priestly family, belonging to the first and noblest of the twenty-four “courses,” taking its name from a certain Asmon or Chasmon, great-grandfather of Mattathias, father of Judas. The five heroic brothers all met with a violent death.

That of Judas and Eleazar has been already described.

John, the eldest, was killed in a skirmish, shortly after the death of Judas.

Jonathan maintained himself in power by a clever policy of leaning on Rome, and taking part with various claimants to the Syrian crown. He became High-priest at some time after the year 153, and perished in 144 by the treachery of a certain Tryphon, who usurped for a time the throne of Syria.

Simon succeeded to the High-priesthood, and governed the Jewish people for a period of eight years with great success. In B.C. 143 he obtained from the Syrian king a formal recognition of the independence of the Jews, and in the following year he got possession of the fortress in Jerusalem occupied by the Syrian faction. In 135 he was treacherously murdered by his son-in-law, Ptolemaeus.

Simon, who had maintained the alliance with Rome, was succeeded by his son John Hyrcanus, who followed the same policy, and he again by his son Aristobulus, who assumed the title of King in 107.

Mariamne, the unhappy wife of Herod the Great, belonged to the Maccabean House. With the death of her two sons it became extinct.

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FOOTNOTES

1 Nearly £2,000.

2 “The exceeding profaneness of Jason, that ungodly wretch, and no
high priest” (2 Macc. iv. 13).

3 Antiochus’s surname, self-assumed or given by the flattery of his
courtiers, of “Epiphanes” (the Illustrious), was jestingly changed
by his subjects through the alteration of a single letter into,
“Epimanes” (Madman).

4 The Suburra was one of the least reputable quarters in Rome.

5 “He came with the King’s mandate, bringing nothing worthy the high
priesthood, but having the fury of a cruel tyrant, and the rage of a
savage beast” (2 Macc. iv. 25).

6 Son and successor of Seleucus Nicator, the first of the dynasty of
the Greek Syrian kings.

7 The wine of Mount Tmolus, a mountain near Smyrna, before which, as
Virgil says (Georgics ii. 184), all other wines rise as before their
betters.

8 Azariah, holpen of Jehovah.

9 Charles Martel defeated the Saracens between Poictiers and Tours
(A.D. 732).

10 Not to be confounded with the village near Jerusalem.

11 The talent must have been a talent of gold, which may be reckoned as
equal to £3,300.

12 This is the meaning of the name Eleazar.

13 Psalm cxxxvi.

14 About £,24.

15 Hebrews xi. 37-38. Compare ii. Macc. x. vi. “When as they wandered
in the mountains and dens like beasts.”

16 Nine o’clock, p.m.

17 There seems to have been a belief among the Jews of this time in the
efficacy of prayers for the dead. So we read in 2 Maccabees xii. 45:
“Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead that they might be
delivered from sin.” This is probably the chief reason why the
Council of Trent included the Books of Maccabees and other
Apocryphal writings in the Canon of Scripture.

18 The month Chisleu about corresponds to our December.

19 See S. John x. 22, 23: “And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of the
Dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple, in
Solomon’s porch.”

20 Eupator means “Born of a great father.”

21 Psalms cxiii.-cxviii.

22 Ibid. cxx.-cxxxiv.

23 Alcimus seems to have been an adaptation, not a little remote,
however, from the original, of the Hebrew name Eliakim.

24 “Bezeth,” it is called. Possibly it may be identified with Bezetha,
which was afterwards part of the city.

25 Copious draughts of wine were an important part of the customary
celebration of the Purim festival.

26 “Et pater Æneas et avunculus excitet Hector.”

27 Observe the Greek names of the two. In each case the father’s name
is Hebrew, and the son’s Greek. This seems to show how far the
Hellenization of the people had proceeded.

28 We commonly talk of the “three hundred” at Thermopylae. As a matter
of fact there were _a thousand_, not reckoning the Thebans, who are
said to have laid down their arms at once. But the seven hundred men
from Thespiae, a little Bœotian town, fought bravely to the end;
only their glory is swallowed up in that of the “three hundred”
Spartans. Canon Westcott speaks of this battle as the Jewish
Thermopylae (“Dictionary of the Bible”).

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Variations in hyphenation have not been changed. In several places, wrong quotation marks have been silently corrected.

Other changes, which have been made to the text:

page xi, “ELEAZER” changed to “ELEAZAR”
page 230, double “the” removed
page 354, “of” changed to “or”