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ROME INTERFERES IN ASIA

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Josephus says that the Jews of their own accord went over to Antiochus, and received him into their city, and gave plentiful provision to all his army and to his elephants, and readily assisted him when he besieged the garrison that had been left by Scopas in the citadel of Jerusalem.'

One or two years after Panion, Antiochus made peace with Egypt. He betrothed his daughter Cleopatra to young King Ptolemy V, and it was agreed that her dowry should consist of the revenues of Coele-Syria and Palestine, while the lands themselves remained in the possession of Antiochus. On the other hand, Antiochus was apparently to retain various conquered cities in Asia Minor which hitherto had either belonged to Egypt or been within its 'sphere of influence.' Another reason which may have urged Antiochus to make peace was— s-Rome.

For Hannibal had been vanquished at Zama (202 B. C.), and Philip of Macedon at Cynoscephalae (197 B.C.), and the Romans were free to attend to the affairs of Asia and of Egypt. The latter had been for some time an allied and protected state, of growing importance to Rome because of its corn supplies.

Three years after her betrothal, Cleopatra (a name which now first enters into Egyptian history, the great Cleopatra being the 'sixth') was married to Ptolemy V with much pomp at Raphia (193 B. C.). Any further schemes of Antiochus against Egypt, which his daughter's marriage may have been intended to prepare or to mask, were never carried out. Antiochus drifted into war with Rome, and was vanquished by Lucius Cornelius Scipio at Magnesia in 190 B. C. The cities of Asia Minor were lost to him, but he was suffered to retain Coele-Syria and Palestine.

In 187 B. C. Antiochus III attempted to plunder the treasures of a temple in the district of Elymais, and was slain by the inhabitants. He was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV (187–175 B.C.). A story is told that he sent Heliodorus, his chief minister, to Jerusalem to plunder the treasures of the Temple, but that, alarmed by some strange apparition, the minister quitted the city without having accomplished the mandate of the king. Ptolemy V died in 181 B. C., and was succeeded by his son Ptolemy VI, who apparently only lived a few weeks after his accession, and was followed by his child-brother Ptolemy VII (Philometor) under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. The land seems to have quietly prospered under her rule. She died in 173 B.C. Meanwhile Seleucus IV was murdered in 175 B.C., in consequence of a conspiracy hatched by Heliodorus. His brother Antiochus had been sent as a hostage to Rome after Magnesia; but he happened to be on his way home when his brother was murdered,

for Demetrius, Seleucus' son, had been dispatched to Rome as hostage in his place. Antiochus now managed to secure the kingdom. He is known in history as Antiochus IV (Epiphanes).

§ 8. The character of Antiochus Epiphanes.-Antiochus IV is so important a figure in Jewish history that it may not be without interest to quote the strange descriptions of his character given by Polybius (the Greek historian, 203-121 B. C., his contemporary) and Livy. 'Antiochus Epiphanes, nicknamed from his actions Epimanes (the Madman), would sometimes steal from the court, avoiding his attendants, and appear roaming wildly about in any chance part of the city with one or two companions. His favourite place to be found was the shops of the silversmiths or goldsmiths, chatting and discussing questions of art with the workers of art, with the workers in relief and other artists; at another time he would join groups of the people of the town and converse with any one he came across, and would drink with foreign visitors of the humblest description. Wherever he found any young men carousing together he would come to the place without giving notice, with fife and band, like a rout of revellers, and often by his unexpected appearance cause the guests to rise and run away. He would often also lay aside his royal robes, and, putting on a toga, go round the market-place as though a candidate for office, shaking hands and embracing various people, whom he entreated to vote for him, sometimes as aedile and sometimes as tribune. And when he got the office and took his seat on an ivory curule chair, after the fashion of the Romans, he heard law cases which came on in the agora, and decided them with the utmost seriousness and attention. This conduct was very embarrassing to respectable people, some of whom regarded him as a good-natured, easy-going man, and cthers as a madman. In regard to making presents, too, his behaviour was on a par with this. Some he presented with dice made of gazelle horn, some with dates, others with gold. There were even instances of his making unexpected presents to men whom he met casually, and whom he had never seen before. In regard to public sacrifices and the honours paid to the gods, he surpassed all his predecessors on the throne; as witness the Olympieium at Athens and the statues placed round the altar at Delos. He used also to bathe in the public baths, when they were full of the townspeople, pots of the most expensive unguents being brought in for him; and on one occasion, on some one saying, "Lucky fellows, you kings, to use such things and smell so sweet!" without saying a word to the man, he waited till he was bathing the next day, and then

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coming into the bath caused a pot of the largest size and of the most costly kind of unguent, called stactê, to be poured over his head, so that there was a general rush of the bathers to roll themselves in it; and when they all tumbled down, the king himself among them, from its stickiness, there was loud laughter' (xxvi. 1, Mr. Shuckburgh's translation. The passage most unfortunately breaks off here. It is a mere fragment, preserved by Athenaeus). Yet Polybius elsewhere indicates that Antiochus, apart from these eccentricities, was a man of ability and energy. He had a keen interest in the artistic side of Hellenism at any rate, and was a profuse worshipper of the gods. Livy declares: 'In two great and honourable ways his mind was truly royal, in gifts to the Greek cities and in the cult of the gods. He promised he would surround the city of Megalopolis with a wall, and actually gave the greater part of the cost in money; he undertook to make a magnificent theatre of marble at Tegea; for the Prytaneum of Cyzicus, where those who obtain the honour dine at the public expense, he gave gold plate for one of the tables. To the Rhodians he gave not indeed one such remarkable gift, but many, according as their needs required them. Of his munificence to the gods, the temple of Olympian Jove at Athens, the only one on earth designed in accordance with the greatness of that deity, may serve as a witness; but Delos also he adorned with splendid altars and a crowd of statues, and at Antioch the magnificent temple of Capitoline Jove not only had its ceiling gilded, but all the walls were covered with thin plates of gold' (xli. 21).

§ 9. Why Antiochus Epiphanes became a persecutor of the Jews.How and why did Antiochus become the persecutor of the Jews? The causes seem to have been chiefly these: first, the character and aims of Antiochus himself; secondly, the internal party strife in Judæa and Jerusalem; thirdly, the relations of Antiochus with Egypt and Rome.

Antiochus was a Hellenist run to seed, but not without traces of genuineness. He wanted to hellenize and unify all the varied peoples of his kingdom, the Jews among the rest. Now the word 'hellenize' includes a religious reference, for religion and religious rites entered frequently and openly into Greek life and customs. But Judaism, while it could and did absorb elements of Hellenic thought, could not possibly adopt or assimilate the outward symbols and visible embodiments of Hellenic religion. The images of Zeus and Athene could have no place in the pure worship of the One and Only God.

So much for the first cause. The second and third bring us quickly to our history.

There was party strife at this time going on in Jerusalem. The high priest Onias III seems to have belonged to the party which would have liked to see Palestine again under the rule of Egypt. That party apparently included the more observant and religious Jews, opposed to all extremer hellenizing. Over against them was a Seleucid party, whose leaders, Simon and his brother Menelaus, seem to have been relatives of Onias. Jason (a Hellenized form of Joshua), the brother of Onias, was their ally. This Seleucid party would naturally include all those Jews who desired to introduce many Hellenic customs, and to break down the religious barriers and safeguards which kept the Jews aloof from the Greeks.

It would appear that Simon and Menelaus desired to obtain the office of high priest for one of themselves, but that, at first, not seeing their way to this, as they did not belong to the direct male line of succession, they used Jason as their tool. As a result, Jason dispossessed Onias and was appointed high priest by making offers specially grateful to Antiochus. This is what we are told in the following quotation from the so-called Second Book of the Maccabees, a less trustworthy compilation than the First Book, from which I shall shortly have many long extracts to make. (I desire here to add that the extracts from the Books of Maccabees are made from the Text of the Revised Version by the kind permission of the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge.)

But when Seleucus was deceased, and Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, succeeded to the kingdom, Jason the brother of Onias supplanted his brother in the high priesthood, having promised unto the king at an audience three hundred and threescore talents of silver, and out of another fund eighty talents; and beside this, he undertook to assign a hundred and fifty more, if it might be allowed him through the king's authority to set him up a Greek place of exercise and form a body of youths to be trained therein, and to register the inhabitants of Jerusalem as citizens of Antioch.

And when the king had given assent, and he had gotten possession of the office, he forthwith brought over them of his own race to the Greek fashion. And setting aside the royal ordinances of special favour to the Jews, and seeking to overthrow the lawful modes of life, he brought in new customs forbidden by the law: for he eagerly established a Greek place of exercise under the citadel itself; and caused the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek cap.

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And thus there was an extreme of Greek fashions, and an advance of an alien religion, by reason of the exceeding profaneness of Jason, that ungodly man and no high priest; so that the priests had no more any zeal for the services of the altar: but despising the sanctuary, and neglecting the sacrifices, they hastened to enjoy that which was unlawfully provided in the palæstra, after the summons of the discus; making of no account the honours of their fathers, and thinking the glories of the Greeks best of all. By reason whereof sore calamity beset them; and the men whose ways of living they earnestly followed, and unto whom they desired to be made like in all things, these they had to be their enemies and to punish them. For it is not a light thing to do impiously against the laws of God: but these things the time following shall declare.

§ 10. Menelaus as high priest.—This Jason ruled for three years (171 B.C.). Then the enemies of Onias III, and the leaders of the Greek and Seleucid party, ventured to show their hand more fully. The same authority informs us:—

Now after a space of three years Jason sent Menelaus, the aforesaid Simon's brother, to bear the money unto the king, and to make reports concerning some necessary matters. But he being commended to the king, and having glorified himself by the display of his authority, got the high priesthood for himself, outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver. And having received the royal mandates he came to Jerusalem, bringing nothing worthy the high priesthood, but having the passion of a cruel tyrant, and the rage of a savage beast.

While Menelaus, after driving out Jason who fled from Judæa, was thus occupying the high priest's office at Jerusalem, Antiochus marched, as we shall hear, on his first expedition to Egypt. Jason, meanwhile, on a rumour of Antiochus' death in Egypt, managed to collect together an armed force, captured Jerusalem by assault and expelled Menelaus. But he was not to maintain his power for long.

§ 11. Antiochus Epiphanes' first invasion of Egypt.-Cleopatra, the queen-regent of Egypt, died in 173 B.C. It would seem that the ministers of the young king Ptolemy VII (Philometor) made preparations to reoccupy Coele-Syria, and Antiochus IV

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