Jews are in adversity, they deny that they are of kin to them, and then they confess the truth: but when they perceive that some good fortune hath befallen them, they immediately pretend to have communion with them, saying that they belong to them, and derive their genealogy from the posterity of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Accordingly, they made their address to the king with splendour, and showed great alacrity in meeting him at a little distance from Jerusalem. And when Alexander had commended them, the Shechemites approached to him, taking with them the troops that Sanballat had sent him, and they desired that he would come to their city, and do honour to their temple also; to whom he promised, that when he returned, he would come to them. And when they petitioned that he would remit the tribute of the seventh year to them, because they did not sow thereon, he asked who they were that made such a petition; and when they said that they were Hebrews, but had the name of Sidonians, living at Shechem, he asked them again whether they were Jews; and when they said they were not Jews, "It was to the Jews," said he, "that I granted that privilege; however, when I return, and am thoroughly informed by you of this matter, I will do what I shall think proper." And in this manner he took leave of the Shechemites; but ordered that the troops of Sanballat should follow him into Egypt, because there he designed to give them lands, which he did a little after, in Thebais, when he ordered them to guard that country.

PON the death of Alexander, Judæa came into the possession of Laomedon, one of his generals. On his defeat, Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, attempted to seize the whole of Syria. He

advanced against Jerusalem, assaulted it on the Sabbath, and met with no resistance, the superstitious Jews scrupling to violate the holy day, even in self-defence. The conqueror carried away one hundred thousand captives, whom he settled chiefly in Alexandria and Cyrene. In a short time, following a more humane policy, he endeavoured to attach the Jewish people to his cause, enrolled an army of thirty thousand men, and intrusted the chief garrisons of the country to their care. Syria and Judæa did not escape the dreadful anarchy which ensued during the destructive warfare waged by the generals and successors of Alexander. Twice these provinces fell into the power of Antigonus, and twice were regained by Ptolemy, to whose share they were finally adjudged after the decisive defeat of

Antigonus at Ipsus. The maritime towns, Tyre, Joppa, and Gaza, were the chief points of contention; Jerusalem, itself, seems to have escaped the horrors of war. During this dangerous period, Onias, the high priest, administered the public affairs for twenty-one years. He was succeeded, the year after the battle of Ipsus, by Simon the Just, a pontiff on whom Jewish tradition dwells with peculiar attachment. His death was the commencement of peril and disaster, announced, say the rabbins, by the most alarming prodigies. The sacrifices, which were always favourably accepted during his life, at his death became uncertain or unfavourable. The scape goat, which used to be thrown from a rock, and to be dashed immediately to pieces, escaped (a fearful omen) into the desert. The great west light of the golden chandelier no longer burnt with a steady flame: sometimes it was extinguished. The sacrificial fire languished; the sacrificial bread failed, so as not to suffice, as formerly, for the whole priesthood.

The founding of the Syro-Grecian kingdom by Seleucus, and the establishment of Antioch as the capital, brought Judæa into the unfortunate situation of a weak province, placed between two great conflicting monarchies. Still, under the mild government of the first three Ptolemies, Soter, Philadelphus, and Euergetes, both the native and Alexandrian Jews enjoyed many marks of the royal favour; and while almost all the rest of the world was ravaged by war, their country flourished in profound peace. Towards the end of the reign of Euergetes, the prosperity of the nation was endangered by the indolence and misconduct of Onias the Se cond, the high priest, the son of Simon the Just, who had succeeded his uncles, Eleazar and Manasseh, in the supreme authority. The payment of the customary tribute having been neglected, the Egyptian king threatened to invade the country, and share it among his soldiers. The high priest being unable, or unwilling, to go to Egypt to answer for his conduct, his nephew Joseph was despatched on this delicate mission. Joseph with difficulty obtained money for his journey of some Samaritans. He travelled to Egypt in a cara

van with some rich Coelesyrians and Phoenicians, who were going to Alexandria to obtain the farming of the royal tribute. He caught from their conversation the sum they proposed to offer, and the vast profit they intended to make of their bargain. On his arrival at court, he made rapid progress in the royal favour. When the farmers of the revenue came to make their offers, they bid eight thousand talents; Joseph instantly offered double that sum. His sureties were demanded; he boldly named the king and queen. Struck with the character of the man, the royal bondsmen testified their assent; and Joseph became farmer of the revenues of Judæa, Samaria, Phoenicia, and Colesyria, with a formidable body of tax gatherers, and two thousand soldiers. By making one or two terrible examples, putting to death twenty men at Ascalon, and confiscating a thousand talents of their property, and by the same severity at Scythopolis, Joseph succeeded in raising the royal revenue with great profit to himself. He continued to discharge his office with vigilance, punctuality, and prudence, for twenty-two years. Nor does it appear that his measures were unjust or oppressive. His administration lasted till the invasion of Antiochus the Great. This enterprising monarch, not contented with wresting his own territory of Colesyria from the power of Ptolemy, seized Judæa, but was totally defeated in a great battle at Raphia, near Gaza. After his victory, Ptolemy (Philopater) entered Jerusalem. He made sumptuous presents to the temple; but pressing forward to enter the sanctuary, he was repelled by the high priest, Simon, son of Onias. He is reported to have been seized with a supernatural awe and horror; but from that time he entertained implacable animosity against the Jews, whom, it is said, he cruelly persecuted.

During the monarchy of the next Ptolemy, (Epiphanes,) Antiochus again seized Coelesyria and Judæa. Scopas, general of the Egyptian forces, recovered, garrisoned, and strengthened Jerusalem, which he ruled with an iron and oppressive hand: but heing defeated near the sources of the Jordan, he was constrained to leave Antiochus undisputed

master of the territory. The Syrian king was received as a deliverer in Jerusalem; and, desirous to attach these valuable allies to his cause, he issued a decree highly favourable to the whole nation. Antiochus afterward bestowed Colesyria and Judæa as the dowry of his daughter, Cleopatra, on the young king of Egypt, Ptolemy Epiphanes. Still, however, the revenues were to be shared by the two sovereigns. In what manner the king of Syria regained his superiority does not appear; but, probably, through the disorder into which the affairs of Egypt fell at the close of the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, and during the minority of Ptolemy Philometor.

It was not, however, the tyranny of foreign sovereigns, but the unprincipled ambition of their own native rulers, that led to calamities little less dreadful than the Babylonian captivity, the plunder and ruin of the holy city, the persecution, and almost the extermination of the people. By the elevation of Joseph, the son of Tobias, to the office of collector, or farmer of the royal revenue, as above related, arose a family powerful enough to compete with that of the high priest. Joseph had eight sons; the youngest, Hyrcanus, by his own niece, who was substituted by her father in the place of a dancer, of whom Joseph had become violently enamoured in Egypt. This niece he afterward married. Hyrcanus, being sent on a mission to congratulate Ptolemy Philopater on the birth of his son, got possession of all his father's treasures. By the magnificence of his presents, a hundred beautiful girls, and a hundred beautiful boys, which each cost a talent, and bore a talent in their hands, and by the readiness of his wit, he made as favourable an impression in the court as his father had done before him. On his return to Judæa, he was attacked by his brothers, on account of his appropriation of his father's Egyptian wealth: two of them were slain in the affray. Hyrcanus then retreated beyond the Jordan, and became collector of the revenue in that district. On his father's death a great contest arose about the partition of his wealth; the high priest, Onias III., took part with the elder brothers