against Hyrcanus. He fled again beyond Jordan, built a strong tower, and committed depredations on the Arabians, probably the Nabatheans, who carried on a considerable commerce. Dreading, however, the vengeance of the king of Syria, he fell on his sword and slew himself.

At

Antiochus united the quick and versatile character of a Greek, with the splendid voluptuousness of an Asiatic. one time he debased the royal dignity by mingling with the revels of his meanest subjects; scouring the streets in his riotous frolics, or visiting the lowest places of public entertainment, and the common baths; or, like Peter of Russia, conversing with the artisans, in their shops, on their various trades. With still less regard to the dignity of his own character, he was fond of mimicking, in public, the forms of election to the Roman magistracies: he would put on a white robe, and canvass the passengers in the streets for their votes. Then, supposing himself to have been elected edile, or tribune, he would place his curule chair in the open marketplace, and administer justice: a poor revenge against a people before whose power he trembled! On the other hand, the pleasures of Antiochus were those of a Sardanapalus ; and his munificence, more particularly towards the religious ceremonies and edifices, both of his own dominions and of Greece, was on a scale of truly oriental grandeur. For, among the discrepances of this singular character, must be reckoned a great degree of bigotry and religious intolerance.

The admirers of the mild genius of the Grecian religion, and those who suppose religious persecution unknown in the world till the era of Christianity, would do well to consider the barbarous and wanton attempt of Antiochus to exterminate the religion of the Jews, and substitute that of the Greeks. Yet the savage and tyrannical violence of Antiochus was, in fact, and surely we may say providentially, the the safeguard of the Jewish nation from the greatest danger to which it had ever been exposed, the slow and secret encroachment of Grecian manners, Grecian arts, Grecian vices, and Grecian idolatry. It roused the dormant energy of the

whole people, and united again, in indissoluble bonds, the generous desire of national independence, with zealous attachment to the national religion. It again identified the true patriot with the devout worshipper.

Joshua, or Jason, the brother of Onias, the high priest, by the offer of three hundred and sixty talents, bribed the luxurious but needy sovereign of Syria to displace his unoffending relative, and confer upon himself the vacant dignity. Onias was summoned to Antioch, and there detained in honourable confinement. Joshua proceeded to strengthen his own interests by undermining the national character; he assumed a Grecian name, Jason; obtained permission to build a gymnasium, to which he attracted all the youth of the city; weaned them, by degrees, from all the habits and opinions of their fathers, and trained them in a complete system of Grecian education. He allowed the services of the temple to fall into disuse, and carried his alienation from the Jewish faith so far as to send a contribution to the great games which were celebrated at Tyre in honour of their tutelar deity, the Hercules of the Greeks. This last act of impiety was frustrated by the religious feelings of his messengers, who, instead of con ferring the present on the conductors of the games, gave it to the magistrates to be employed in the service of their fleet.

The authority of Jason was short-lived. He sent, to pay the tribute at Antioch, another Onias, (his own brother, according to Josephus, or the brother of Simon, the son of Joseph, according to the book of Maccabees,) but who, in conformity to the Grecian fashion, had assumed the name of Menelaus This man seized the opportunity of outbidding his employer for the high priesthood, and was accordingly substituted in his place. Menelaus, however, found the treasury exhausted by the profusion of Jason; and, in order to make good his payments at Antioch, secretly purloined the golden vessels of the temple, which he sold at Tyre. The zeal of the deposed Onias was kindled at this sacrilege; he publicly denounced the plunderer before the tribunal of Antioch. But

the gold of Menelaus was all-powerful among the officers of the Syrian court. Onias fled to an asylum in the Daphne, near Antioch; but being persuaded to come forth, was put to death by Andronicus, whom Menelaus had bribed. Yet the life of Onias had been so blameless and dignified, that even the profligate court and thoughtless monarch lamented his death. In the mean time, a formidable insurrection had taken place in Jerusalem. The people, indignant at the plunder of the temple, attacked Lysimachus, brother of Me.. nelaus, who had been left in command, and, although he rallied a force of three thousand men, overpowered and slew him.

Antiochus had now opened his campaign for the subjugation of Egypt. While at Tyre, a deputation from Jerusalem came before him to complain of the tyranny of Menelaus. Menelaus contrived not merely that the embassy should have no effect, but the ambassadors themselves were murdered. Antiochus advanced the next year into Egypt: his career was victorious: the whole country submitted. But a false rumour of his death having reached Palestine, Jason, the dispossessed high priest, seized the opportunity of revolt against his brother, took the city, shut up Menelaus in the castle of Acra, and began to exercise the most horrible revenge against the opposite party. The intelligence of the insurrection, magnified into a deliberate revolt of the whole nation, reached Antiochus. He marched without delay against Jerusalem, took it without much resistance, put to death in three days' time forty thousand of the inhabitants, and seized as many more to be sold as slaves. Bad as this was, it was the common fate of rebellious cities: but Antiochus proceeded to more cruel and wanton outrages against the religion of the people. He entered every part of the temple, pillaged the treasury, seized all the sacred utensils, the golden candlestick, the table of showbread, the altar of incense, and thus collected a booty to the amount of eighteen hundred talents. He then commanded a great sow to be sacrificed on the altar of burnt-offerings, part of the flesh to be boiled, and the liquor

from the unclean animal to be sprinkled over every part of the temple; and thus desecrated with the most odious defilement the sacred place, which the Jews had considered, for centuries, the one holy spot in all the universe.

The dastardly Jason had escaped before the approach of Antiochus: he led a wandering life, and died at length, unpitied and despised, at Lacedæmon. Menelaus retained the dignity of high priest; but two foreign officers, Philip, a Phrygian, and Andronicus, were made governors of Jerusalem and Samaria. Two years afterward, Antiochus being expelled from Egypt by the Romans, determined to suppress every pretension to independence within his own territories, He apprehended, perhaps, the usual policy of the Romans, who never scrupled at any measures to weaken the powerful monarchies which stood in the way of their schemes of conquest, whether by exciting foreign enemies, or fomenting civil disturbances in their states. The execution of the sanguinary edict for the extermination of the whole Hebrew race, was intrusted to Apollonius, and executed with as cruel despatch as the most sanguinary tyrant could desire. Apollonius waited till the sabbath, when the whole people were occupied in their peaceful religious duties. He then let loose his soldiers against the unresisting multitude, slew all the men, till the streets ran with blood, and seized all the women as captives. He proceeded to pillage, and then to dismantle the city, which he set on fire in many places: he threw down the walls, and built a strong fortress on the highest part of Mount Sion, which commanded the temple and all the rest of the city. From this garrison he harassed all the people of the country, who stole in with fond attachment to visit the ruins, or offer a hasty and interrupted worship in the place of the sanctuary; for all the public services had ceased, and no voice of adoration was heard in the holy city, unless of the profane heathen calling on their idols. The persecution did not end here. Antiochus issued out an edict for uniformity of worship throughout his dominions, and despatched officers into all parts to enforce rigid compliance

with the decree. This office, in the districts of Judæa and Samaria, was assigned to Athenæus, an aged man, who was well versed in the ceremonies and usages of the Grecian religion. The Samaritans, according to the Jewish account, by whom they are represented as always asserting their Jewish lineage when it seemed to their advantage, and their Median descent when they hoped thereby to escape any imminent danger, yielded at once; and the temple on Gerizim was formally consecrated to Jupiter Xenius. Athenæus, having been so far successful, proceeded to Jerusalem, where, with the assistance of the garrison, he suppressed every observance of the Jewish religion, forced the people to profane the sabbath, to eat swine's flesh and other unclean food, and forbade the national rite of circumcision. The temple was dedicated to Jupiter Olympius; the statue of that deity was erected on part of the altar of burnt-offerings, and sacrifice duly performed. Many barbarities were committed, which, as it were, escape the reprobation of posterity by their excessive atrocity. Cruelties too horrible to be related, sometimes, for that very reason, do not meet with the detestation they deserve. Among other martyrdoms, Jewish tradition dwells with honest pride on that of Eleazar, an aged scribe, ninety years old, who determined to leave a notable example to such as be young, to die willingly and courageously for the honourable and holy laws; and that of the seven brethren, who, encouraged by their mother, rejected the most splendid offers, and confronted the most excruciating torments, rather than infringe the law. From Jerusalem the persecution spread throughout the country: in every city the same barbarities were executed, the same profanations introduced; and, as a last insult, the feasts of the Bacchanalia, the license of which, as they were celebrated in the later ages of Greece, shocked the severe virtue of the older Romans, were substituted for the national festival of Tabernacles. The reluctant Jews were forced to join in these riotous orgies, and carry the ivy, the insignia of the god. So near was the Jewish nation, and the worship of Jehovah, to total extermination.