thrown headlong into a tower full of ashes-as if to requite him for his profanation of the sacred ashes1 on the altar. According to another, which clung to the hope that the High Priest, wicked as he was, had repented at last, he was sawn asunder for refusing to participate further in the plunder of the Temple. The Syrian Government appointed in his place Eliashib or Jehoiakim, more usually known by his Greek name of Alcimus. He, according to a popular legend just mentioned, was the nephew of the chief Rabbi of that time, Joseph, son of Joazar, who was impaled by the Syrian persecutor. Alcimus rode by in state as he saw his uncle hanging on the instrument of torture. 'Look at the horse which 'my master has given to me,' he said, ' and look at that which 'he has given to thee.' 'If those,' said the venerable martyr, who have fulfilled the will of God are thus punished, what 'shall be the fate of those who have broken it?' The words shot like a viper's fang into the breast of Alcimus. And the tradition went on to say that he proceeded to destroy himself by the accumulation of all manner of punishments provided by the Jewish law-stoning, burning, beheading, hanging.3 Another more authentic version described him as struck by palsy for having endeavoured, in pursuance of his Hellenising policy, to take down the partition which since the Return' separated the outer from the inner court of the Temple. But whatever may be the reconciliation of these conflicting stories, which betray the same lurking tenderness towards the successor of Aaron as we have seen in the case of Menelaus, Alcimus still played a conspicuous part for at least two years before his end. He paid his homage to the Syrian Government by a golden crown and the branches of palm and olive used in the Temple processions, and represented that so long 'as Judas at the head of "the Chasidim," or "Pious,” was 1 Macc. ix. 54-56; Jos. Ant. xii. 12 Macc. xiii. 5-8. 2 Derenbourg, p. 53. • Ibid., p. 54. 10, 6. $ 2 Macc. xiv. 6. 6 B.C. 162. 'left, it was not possible that the State should be quiet.' Accordingly he was at once invested with the office which it was felt would carry weight into the heart even of the insurgent nation. The calculation was correct. The fanatical party, to whom every Grecianising tendency was an abomination, and the name of Alcimus a by-word, yet, in their excessive Alcimus. tenacity for the letter above the spirit, when they heard' that a genuine son of Aaron' was advancing on Jerusalem, could believe no harm of him, and placed themselves in his hands, to find themselves miserably betrayed. In the massacre which followed, and in which probably Joseph the son of Joazar perished, their contemporaries seemed to see the literal fulfilment of the words of the seventy-fourth" Psalm. But Alcimus succeeded in his ambition. He entered on his office in the Temple, and it was he3 who, when Nicanor had for a moment been won over by the magnanimity of the Maccabee's bearing, fearing that he might be supplanted by that formidable rival, sowed discord between the two friends, and brought on the final struggle, which terminated, as we have seen, in the destruction of both. For the moment, on the fall of Judas, the party of Alcimus was in the ascendant. Bacchides took Nicanor's place. A confused struggle ensued. Jonathan, the youngest of the Asmonean brothers, appeared to be marked out for the supreme command by the peculiar dexterity which gave him his surname of the cunning.' There was a skirmish beyond the Jordan -a fray with the Arabs-a sudden inroad on the weddingparty of a tribe that had carried off the quiet eldest brother John-a close encounter with Bacchides, which Jonathan and his party escaped by plunging into the Jordan, like the Gadite warriors of old times. 5 For a time all the fruits of 6 4 the victories of Judas seemed to be lost. Bacchides occupied 11 Macc. vii. 14. 21 Macc. vii. 17. 2 Macc. xiv. 26. 41 Macc. ix. 35-48. 5 See Lecture XXII. all the Judæan fortresses and Alcimus reigned supreme in the Temple. Jonathan meanwhile entrenched himself in the Pass of Michmash, in the haunts of his illustrious namesake, the friend of David. The sudden death of Alcimus, and the disgust of Bacchides at the excesses of his party, finally cleared the prospect, and, after a long and doubtful conflict, Jonathan gradually vindicated his claim to be the successor of his glorious brother. The rivalry between the two claimants to the throne of Antioch, Alexander Balas, the pretended son of Antiochus, and his cousin Demetrius, gave to the Jewish chief the opportunity of siding with Alexander, who in return struck the critical blow alone wanting to Jonathan's success, by investing him with the office of High Priest, and adding to it the dignity of the King's Friend,' with a golden crown and purple robe-the mark of adoption into the regal circle. It was a decisive step in the relations of the Syrian Government to the Jewish insurgents, as the first recognition of their independence. But it was a decisive step also in the internal history of Israel. It was a break in the succession of the High Priests, such as had only taken place twice before, once when Eli, from some unexplained cause, superseded the elder house of Eleazar; again when Zadok was placed by Solomon in the place of Abiathar. But in the elevation of Jonathan to the High Priesthood the interruption was more serious. Regarded from a purely ceremonial point of view, it was a complete departure from that hereditary descent which had hitherto marked the whole previous series. The last unquestioned representative of the unbroken line was the murdered Onias, and his legitimate successor was the youth who had fled to Egypt. But even Jason, Menelaus, and Alcimus, although covered with popular 1 This is doubted by Herzfeld, ii. 218. But that Menelaus was the brother of Onias III., and of Jason, is stated by Josephus, Ant. xii. 5, 1 xx. 10, 3 (his Hebrew name being Onias, ibid. and Hegesippus, ii. 13). That Alcimus was the nephew of Menelaus, according to the Rabbinical tradition, obloquy, were yet all more or less members of the same sacred family. As such they were venerated even by those who most abhorred their policy. The extinction, therefore, of the house of Josedek, whether with Onias, Jason, or Alcimus, was regarded as the close of the Anointed Priests' of those (so it would seem) who belonged to that direct succession which had shared in the consecrated oil of the ancient1 Priesthood. Seven years had now passed, in which the functions of the great office had been altogether suspended; and it might have seemed as if from excess of regard for the exact hierarchical lineage, the Pontificate itself would expire. But here, as in other critical moments of the Jewish history, the moral force of the higher spirits of the nation overrode the ceremonial scruples. As in Russia, after the civil wars which brought to an end the ancient dynasty of Ruric, the nation chose for their new Prince the child of the Romanoff Prelate, who had with his whole order suffered in the struggle against the Polish oppressors, so the Jewish people could not but turn to the gallant family who had saved them and their faith from destruction. Even in the lifetime of Judas the idea of investing him with the High Priesthood had been entertained, though never fulfilled. And now came the time for its accomplishment. To modern nations the selection of a warlike deliverer for a sacred post, of raising a Charles Martel to the Papacy, a Cromwell to the office of Moderator, a Gustavus Vasa or a Wellington to the Primacy, is curiously incongruous. But the Jewish Priesthood was so essentially is almost certain (Derenbourg, 53, 54), and both statements are confirmed by 1 Macc. vii. 14. The natural tendency of the Jewish traditions would have been to illegitimatise these heretical Pontiffs. This is one probable explanation of Dan. ix. 25, whether 'the Anointed 'One' be Onias, or (as Herzfeld, ii. 430) Jason (comp. 2 Macc. i. 10). So (in general terms) the passage is interpreted by Eusebius, H. E. i. 6, Demonst. Ev. viii. p. 391-It means nothing else than the succession of anointed High Priests' (compare Tertullian and Theodoret). (See Rosenmüller ad loc.) 2 See Lectures on the Eastern Church, Lecture X. ficate of B.C. 153. military in its character, so entirely mechanical1 in its functions, that there was no shock to its associations in the same hand grasping the sword or spear of Phinehas and the censer The Ponti- or rod of Aaron. The Asmonean family brought to it more Jonathan. than it gave to them, a moral elevation and grandeur, which it had long lost, and which, after they had gone, it did not retain. One indispensable outward qualification there was to be and one only, the nomination by the Syrian Government, stepping as it did into the place and authority formerly occupied by Moses, by Solomon, and by Cyrus. It was for this benefit, no less than for his friendly relations generally, that the name of Alexander Balas was so studiously cherished by the Jewish Annals. For this they ignore his doubtful birth, his questionable surname; they rejoice in his wedding festivity; they describe with pride how their own chief sat by him in purple and ruled as a Syrian officer over the troops and over a district in the south of Palestine, how he received from the king a golden brooch, and the appanage of Ekron. The entrance of Jonathan on the Pontificate was conducted with due solemnity. It was on the joyous Festival of the Tabernacles, so often chosen for inaugurations of this kind, that Jonathan dressed himself in the consecrated clothes, surmounting the blue turban with the golden3 crown which he wore as 'the King's Friend,' and at the same time (it is characteristically added) collected his forces and his arms. From this time the union of the sacerdotal and the political supremacy was completed, and the language in which that union is described in the 110th Psalm is more exactly applicable to the Pontificate of the Asmonean warriors than to any period since the age of David. The military 1 See Lecture XXXVI. 2 στρατηγὸν καὶ μεριάρχην. The latter word only occurs again in Jos. Ant. xii. 5, 5. 1 Macc. x. 21, 22. |