An Epitome of the Jewish History From the Time of Nehemiah and Malachi to the Birth of Christ Filling Up the Chasm Between the Old and New Testaments

AN EPITOME OF THE JEWISH HISTORY FROM THE TIME OF NEHEMIAH AND MALACHI TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST FILLING UP THE CHASM BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

As many have wished to see an epitome of the Jewish history, from the days of the prophet Malachi to the advent of Christ, in order to connect the history of the Old and New Testaments, I have prepared the following, which, in such a work as this, is a much as should be expected. On all hands Malachi is allowed to have been the last prophet under the Old Testament; and he flourished about four hundred and nine years before the coming of Christ, according to the commonly received chronology; and Nehemiah, who was contemporary with him, was the last of those civil governors appointed by God himself. His last act of reformation is fixed by Prideaux. B.C. 409; soon after which it is supposed he died, as at this time he could not be less than seventy years of age. For the administration of affairs in his times and in those of Ezra, whom he succeeded in the government of Judea, the reader is referred to the notes on Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel.

We have seen, in the book of Nehemiah, that, on the return of the Jews from the Chaldean captivity, many of them brought strange wives and a spurious offspring with them, and refusing to put them away, were banished by Nehemiah, and went and settled in Samaria. Among those exiles there was a son of Jehoida, the high priest, named Manasseh, who had married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, and put himself under the protection of his father-in-law, who was governor of the place. After the death of Nehemiah, Sanballat obtained a grant from Darius to build a temple on Mount Gerizim, near Samaria, of which he made Manasseh, his son-in-law, high priest. This temple was begun to be built, B.C. 408. From the building of this temple, Samaria became the refuge of all refractory Jews; and though by this means the old superstition of the land was reformed to the worship of the God of Israel; they of Jerusalem would never consider the Samaritan Jews otherwise than apostates. On the other hand, the Samaritans maintained that Mount Gerizim was the only proper place for the worship of God. This people rejected all traditions, and adhered only to the written word contained in the five books of Moses. Nehemiah’s death was also attended with a change of the Jewish government at Jerusalem. Judea had no longer a governor of its own. It was united to the prefecture of Syria; the rulers of which committed the administration of both civil and ecclesiastical affairs to the high priest for the time being.

By this means the high priesthood became an office under the heathen; and towards the latter end of Artaxerxes Mnemon’s reign, B.C. 405, who succeeded his father Darius Nothus, B.C. 423, the office was conferred by the governor of Syria and Phoenicia. For Bagoses, the governor, took upon himself to displace Johanan the high priest, in favour of the said priest’s brother Joshua; which nomination, though it did not take place, (for Johanan slew his brother Joshua in the inner court of the temple, as he endeavoured by force to usurp the high-priest’s office by virtue of the governor’s commission, B.C. 366,) was attended with this bad consequence-that Bagoses, hearing of the murder, came in great wrath to Jerusalem, and laid a heavy fine upon the nation, which lasted seven years, or during the whole of his government.

Artaxerxes Mnemon died B.C. 359, with grief at the brutality of his son Ochus, who had so terrified his eldest brother Ariaspes, that he poisoned himself, and had his younger brother Harpates assassinated. So that Ochus succeeded to the dignity and empire of his father.

In the third year of Ochus, about 356 before Christ, Alexander the Great was born at Pella in Macedonia. Ochus, having reigned twenty-one years, was poisoned by his favourite Bagoas, in hopes of getting the whole government into his own hands, and to put the crown on the head of Arses, his youngest son, whom he also poisoned soon after, and raised Codomannus, a distant relation of the late king, to the throne. This new king took the name of Darius; and when Bagoas had also prepared a poisonous draught for him, he obliged Bagoas to drink it himself; by which means he saved his own life and punished the traitor.

It was about the year B.C. 336 that Alexander the Great succeeded to the kingdom of Macedon, on the death of his father Philip, who was slain by the noble Macedonian Pausanias, as he celebrated the marriage of his daughter with Alexander, king of Epirus, before he set out upon the Grecian expedition against Persia, being chosen captain-general of the united forces of Greece.

Alexander also succeeded to that command by a new election. In one campaign he overran all Asia Minor; vanquished Darius in two battles; took his mother, wife, and children prisoners; and subdued all Syria as far as Tyre, B.C. 332.

During the siege of Tyre, he demanded the submission of the neighboring provinces of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. The two former submitted to him; but Judea would not renounce their allegiance to Darius so long as he lived. This brought upon them the wrath of the conqueror; who, having taken Tyre, by carrying a bank from the continent through the sea to the island on which the city stood, and burned it down to the ground, destroyed and slew all the inhabitants in a barbarous manner, both in the sackage of the town, and afterwards in cold blood; and then marched to Jerusalem to wreak his vengeance upon the Jews. Upon his approach, and the report of his having crucified two thousand of the Tyrian prisoners, the high priest Jaddua and all the city were under dreadful apprehensions. They had nothing but God’s protection to depend upon. They fasted and prayed: and God in a vision directed the high priest to go in his pontifical robes, attended by the high priests in their proper habits, and all the people in white garments, and meet Alexander out of the city.

As soon as Alexander saw this procession moving towards him, and the high priest in the front, he was overawed, drew near, bowed down, and saluted him in a religious manner; alleging that he did so in regard to that God whose priest he was; adding, moreover, that the high priest so habited had appeared to him in a dream at Dio in Macedonia, assuring him of success against the Persians.

Jaddua conducted him into the city; and, having offered sacrifices in the temple, showed him the prophecies of Daniel, concerning the overthrow of the Persian empire by a Grecian king.

Alexander was well satisfied with his reception at Jerusalem; and at his departure granted the Jews a toleration of their religion, and an exemption from tribute every seventh year. And the Jews were so well pleased with the conqueror’s behaviour, that, upon his signifying that he would receive as many of them as would enlist into his service, great multitudes entered under his banner, and followed him in his other expeditions. The Samaritans met him with great pomp and parade, as he left Jerusalem, and invited him to their city. But Alexander deferred both the invitation, and petition for certain privileges, till his return from Egypt; and left his favourite Andromachus governor of Syria and Palestine.

Andromachus, coming some time after to Samaria upon business, was burned to death in his house, as it was thought on purpose, by the Samaritans, in revenge of the slight which they apprehended Alexander had shown them. But as soon as Alexander heard it, he caused those to be put to death who had acted any part in the murder, banished all the other inhabitants from Samaria, planted therein a colony of Macedonians, and gave the residue to the Jews.

Upon the ruin of the Persians, Alexander had erected the Grecian or Macedonian monarchy. But coming to Babylon, after the conquest of the most part of the then known world, he gave himself up so much to drunkenness and gluttony, that he soon put an end to his life, B.C. 323. Here it cannot be amiss to observe, that Alexander was of a bold and enterprising spirit; but more full of fire than discretion. His actions, though successful, were furious and extravagantly rash. His few virtues were obscured with more and greater vices. Vainglory was his predominant passion; and the fables of the ancient Greek heroes were the only charts by which he steered his conduct. His dragging Balis round Gaza, his expedition into India, his drunken procession through Caramania, and taking to himself the name of the son of Jupiter, are so many vouchers of this assertion. And, were all his actions duly considered and estimated, he would be properly characterized the great cut-throat of the age in which he lived; as all they are who delight in bloodshed, and will forfeit ALL to obtain universal monarchy; whereas those only are the true heroes who most benefit the world, by promoting the peace and welfare of mankind. In a righteous cause, or a just defence of a man’s country, all actions of valour are worthy of praise; but in all other cases victory and conquest are no more than murder and robbery. Therefore Alexander’s heroism is to be avoided, and not to be followed, as the surest way to honour and glory. Alexander was no sooner dead, than Ptolemy Soter seized upon Egypt; and having in vain endeavoured to gain Syria, Phoenicia, and Judea from Laomedon, whom Alexander had appointed governor instead of Andromachus, who was burnt, invaded them by sea and land, took Laomedon prisoner, and got possession of those provinces also, except Judea; which, upon the account of their allegiance to the surviving governor, refusing to yield, felt the severity of the conqueror; for, understanding that the Jews would not so much as defend themselves on the Sabbath day, he stormed Jerusalem, took it without resistance on that day, and carried above one hundred thousand of them captives into Egypt. From this time we may date the Jews’ subjection to the kings of Egypt. And it was in the fifth year of this Ptolemy’s reign that Onias the Jewish high priest died, and was succeeded by his son Simon the Just, on whom an eulogium may be found in Ecclus. 50:1, &c., B.C. 292.

Simon the Just was high priest nine years, and is supposed to have completed the canon of the Old Testament by adding the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Malachi, and the two books of Chronicles, with the aid and assistance of the great synagogue. He was succeeded by his brother Eleazar, his son Onias being a minor, B.C. 291.

Ptolemy Soter was succeeded by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 285, who completed the college or museum of learned men, and the famous library at Alexandria in Egypt, which was begun by his father, and contained seven hundred thousand volumes, and placed in that library an authentic translation of the book of the law. This translation was finished under the inspection of Eleazar the high priest, and is called the Septuagint, on account of the joint labour of seventy-two translators employed in it, B.C. 254.

Ptolemy Philadelphus died in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, and in the sixty-third of his age B.C. 247. He was a learned prince, and a great patron of learning; so that men of learning flocked to his court from all parts, and partook of his favour and bounty. Among these were the poets Theocritus, Callimachus, Lycophron, and Aratus, and Manetho, the Egyptian historian.

B.C. 247, Ptolemy Euergetes succeeded his father Ptolemy in Egypt. He found Onias, the son of Simon the Just, in the pontificate at Jerusalem, who was very old, weak, inconsiderate, and covetous. And Euergetes, perceiving that the high priest had for many years kept back the annual tribute, sent one Athenion, an officer at court, to Jerusalem, to demand it, being a very large sum, with threats of sending an army to dispossess them of the country upon refusal.

This demand and threatening threw the whole nation into great confusion; and one Joseph, the high priest’s nephew by his sister’s side, rebuked his uncle sharply for his injustice and ill management of the public interest, proposed Onias’s journey to Alexandria, as the best expedient, and, upon his uncle’s refusal, offered to go in person to pacify the king’s wrath, which was accepted by the high priest, and approved by the people, B.C. 226.

Joseph all this time had entertained Athenion in a most elegant manner at his own house, and at his departure loaded him with such valuable gifts, that when he arrived at Alexandria, he found the king prepared much in his favour to receive him, and made himself more acceptable by informing him concerning the revenues of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, whose value he had inquired more perfectly from their farmers, with whom he had traveled to court part of the way; and was thereupon admitted the king’s receiver general of Coelesyria, Phoenicia, Judea, and Samaria. He immediately satisfied the king for his uncle’s arrears with five hundred talents he borrowed at Alexandria on the credit of his new office, which he enjoyed twenty-two years, though he met with great opposition at his first collecting, till he had brought some of the ringleaders to exemplary punishment.

B.C. 221. All things were again composed at Jerusalem; and Philopater having succeeded his father Ptolemy Euergetes in Egypt, and defeated the army of Antiochus the Great, he in the fifth year of his reign took the tour of Jerusalem while he visited his conquests. But this was very unfortunate for the Jews. For Philopater being led by a vain curiosity to enter into the sanctuary and the holy of holies on the great day of expiation, B.C. 217, where no one but the high priest was allowed to enter, he was opposed by the deprecations and lamentations of the people; and when he would still advance beyond the inner court, he was seized with such a terror and consternation, that he was obliged to be carried back in a manner half dead. He recovered; but when he left the city, he vowed revenge. And accordingly, he was no sooner returned to Alexandria than he deprived the Jews of all their rights and privileges; ordered them to be stigmatized with a burn representing an ivy leaf, under pain of death, in honour of his god Bacchus; and excluded all persons from his presence that would not sacrifice to the god he worshipped. Then he commanded as many Jews as he could seize in Egypt to be brought and shut up in the Hippodrome, or place for horse-races, at Alexandria, to be destroyed by elephants. But God turned the wild beasts upon those that came to see the dreadful massacre, by which numbers of the spectators were slain; and so terrified the king and his subjects with other tokens of his displeasure and power, that Philopater immediately not only released the Jews from the Hippodrome, but restored the whole nation to their privileges, reversed every decree against them, and put those Jews to death who for fear of persecution had apostatized from their religion.

Ptolemy Philopater was succeeded, B.C. 204, by his son Ptolemy Epiphanes, then only five years old. This minority gave Antiochus the Great an opportunity to regain Coelesyria and Palestine: in which expedition the Jews had shown so much favour to Antiochus, that he granted them many favours, a liberty to live according to their own laws and religion, a prohibition to strangers to enter within the sept of the temple, &c. But as soon as Ptolemy was marriageable, he made peace with him, and gave him his daughter, with Coelesyria and Palestine for her portion. On this occasion Joseph, who had been Ptolemy’s receiver general in those provinces, and displaced by Antiochus, was restored. Ptolemy in a short time had a son; and it being customary on such occasions for all the great officers of state to congratulate the king and queen, and to carry them presents, Joseph, whose age would not permit him to take so long a journey, sent his son Hyrcanus, B.C. 187, who, upon an unlimited credit given him by his father, when he was arrived at Alexandria, borrowed a thousand talents, or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, with which, buying a hundred beautiful boys for the king, and as many beautiful young maids for the queen, at the price of a talent per head, and presenting them each with a talent in their hands, and disposing of the remaining sum among the courtiers and great officers, he so obliged the king and queen, and all the court, that he found it easy to supplant his father, and obtained the king’s commission for collecting the royal revenues in all the country beyond Jordan.

Hyrcanus, having thus abused his trust, went with a strong guard to execute his office; and being met by his brothers, killed two of them. He came to Jerusalem; but his father would not admit him to his presence, and he was shunned by every body. Upon the death of his father, which happened soon after, he endeavoured by force of arms to oust his brethren from the paternal estate. This disturbed the peace of Jerusalem for a while; till at last his brothers, being assisted by the high priest and the generality of the people, drove him over Jordan, where he lived in a strong castle, till he fell upon his own sword and killed himself to avoid the punishment with which Antiochus Epiphanes, upon his succeeding to the throne of Syria, threatened him. B.C. 175.

Antiochus the Great being slain by the inhabitants of Elymais, as he attempted by night to plunder the temple of Jupiter Belus, thereby to pay the Romans according to his agreement, his son Seleucus Philopater succeeded him in the provinces of Syria, Judea, &c., and resided at Antioch.

Seleucus, at his first advancement to the dominion of these provinces, continued his father’s favours to the Jews; but being afterwards informed by one Simon a Benjamite that there was great treasure in the temple, he sent one Heliodorus to seize it, and to bring all the riches he could find therein to Antioch. Heliodorus attempted to execute this commission; but he was so terrified at the sight of an armed host of angels that appeared to defend the entrance of the sacred treasury, that he fell speechless to the ground; nor did he recover till the high priest interceded to God for him. This same Heliodorus poisoned his sovereign Seleucus, hoping to obtain the kingdom; but his design was frustrated by Eumenes, king of Pergamus, and his brother Attalus, who set Antiochus Epiphanes, another son of Antiochus the Great, on the throne of Syria.

Epiphanes, at his accession to the throne, finding himself hard pressed by the Romans, endeavoured to raise their heavy tribute by all manner of exactions. Amongst other means he deposed the good and pious high priest, Onias, and sold the pontificate to his brother Jason for the yearly sum of three hundred and sixty talents; and afterwards he deposed Jason, and sold it to his brother Menelaus for three hundred talents more, B.C. 174.

Menelaus, having invaded the pontificate by these unjust means, and finding himself straitened to raise the annual payment according to contract, by the means of Lysimachus, another of his brothers, he robbed the temple of many gold vessels, which, being turned into money, he paid to the king; and bribed Andronicus, the governor of Antioch, to murder his brother Onias, lest at any time he should stand in his way. It is true that at the instance of the people Andronicus was seized and executed for his villany and murder, and Lysimachus was put to death by the mob at Jerusalem; yet Menelaus found means by bribery, not only to acquit himself, but to obtain sentence against, and even the execution of, the three delegates that went from Jerusalem to prosecute him in the name of the sanhedrin.

But while Antiochus was engaged in the Egyptian war, Jason on a false report that the king was dead, marched with a thousand men, surprised the city of Jerusalem, drove Menelaus into the castle, and cruelly put to the sword and to other kinds of death all those that he thought were his adversaries.

Immediately the news of this revolution and massacre reached Antiochus, he hastened to reduce the Jews to their obedience; and in his way, being informed that the inhabitants of Jerusalem had made great rejoicings at the report of his death, he was so provoked, that, taking the city by storm, B.C. 170, he slew forty thousand persons, and sold as many more for slaves to the neighbouring nations. He entered the holy of holies, sacrificed a sow upon the altar of burnt-offerings, and caused the broth or liquor thereof to be sprinkled all over the temple. He plundered the temple of as much gold and furniture as amounted to eight hundred talents of gold. Then, returning to Antioch, he made one Philip, a most barbarous and cruel man, governor of Judea; Andronicus, as bad a man, governor of Samaria; and continued Menelaus, the worst of all, in the pontificate. And, as if this was not sufficient to satisfy his rage, he not long after sent an army of two and twenty thousand men, under Apollonius his general, with commission to put all the men of Jerusalem to the sword, and to make slaves of the women and children; which was rigorously executed on a Sabbath day, so that none escaped but such as could hide themselves in caves, or reach the mountains by flight.

This cruelty soon after pursued the Jews, wherever dispersed: for by a general decree to oblige all people in his dominions to conform to the religion of the king, one Athenaeus, a Grecian idolater, was pitched upon to receive and instruct all the Jews that would turn idolaters, and to punish with the most cruel deaths those who refused. It was at this time that the temple was dedicated to Jupiter Olympus; the books of the law were burned; and women, accused of having their children circumcised, were led about the streets with these children tied about their necks, and then both together cast headlong over the steepest part of the wall. B.C. 167; for many of them chose rather to die than to renounce their God; as the holy zeal and religious fortitude of the very aged and pious Eleazar, a chief doctor of the law, and of the heroine Salomona and her seven sons, do testify; whom neither the instruments of death could terrify, nor the allurements of the tyrant could persuade, to forfeit their interest with the Almighty, either by idolatry or dissimulation.

Matthias, great grandson of Asmonaeus, and a priest of the first course, retired with his five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, from the persecution at Jerusalem, to a little place called Modin, in the tribe of Dan. But as soon as they were discovered, Antiochus sent one Appelles to that place, to oblige all the inhabitants, on pain of death, to turn idolaters. This officer delivered his commission by endeavouring to persuade Matthias to embrace idolatry, tendering to him the king’s favour, and promising him great riches; which the good priest not only scornfully rejected, but slew the first Jew that dared to approach the idolatrous altar; and then, turning upon the king’s commissioner, he despatched him and all his attendants, with the assistance of his sons and those that were with them. After this he put himself at the head of as many Jews as he could collect; and, having broken down the idols and the altars of the heathens, retired with them into the mountains. Here, as he took measures for their defence, he was joined by a numerous party of Assidaeans; a valiant people, who practised great hardships and mortifications, and were resolved to lay down their lives for the recovery of the temple. By these, and the accession of great numbers of other Jews, Matthias found himself in a capacity to take the field; but as their mistaken notion about resting on the Sabbath day had been one great cause of their being surprised by their enemies, and brought many great misfortunes upon them, because they would not defend themselves on that day from their enemies, he caused it to be unanimously agreed and decreed, that it was lawful, and that they might defend themselves, and repel force by force, on the Sabbath day, should they be attacked.

After this decree had passed, with the approbation of the priests and elders, Matthias left his lurking-places, marched round the cities of Judah, pulled down the heathen altars, restored the true worship and circumcision, and cut off both the apostates and persecutors that fell in his way, till death summoned him to immortality, in the hundred and forty-seventh year of his age.

When he found death approaching, he exhorted his five sons to persevere in the cause of God, as he had begun; and he appointed his son Judas his successor in the command of the army; and Simon to be their counsellor, B.C. 166. He was buried at Modin with great lamentation of all Israel. Judas, who had signalized himself on former occasions for his great valour, was distinguished by the title Maccabeus; and having taken the command of his people upon him, he prosecuted the good work of reformation begun by his father, and took all the measures he was able, by fortifying towns, building castles, and placing strong garrisons, to maintain the liberty and religion of his country against all opposition.

Apollonius was sent by Antiochus to march an army of Samaritans against him; but he was killed, and his troops defeated and entirely routed, after a great slaughter, by our young general, who, finding Apollonius’s sword among the spoils, took it for his own use, and generally fought with it ever after.

This news having reached Coelosyria, Seron, deputy-governor of that province, marched with all the forces he could collect to revenge the death of Apollonius: but he met with the same fate.

Antiochus was so enraged at these defeats, that he immediately ordered forty thousand foot, seven thousand horse, and a great number of auxiliaries, made up of the neighbouring nations and apostate Jews, to march against Judea, under the command of Ptolemy Macron, Nicanor, and Gorgias, three eminent commanders, B.C. 1032.

Upon their advancing as far as Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, Judas, who may be supposed at that time besieging or at least blocking up Jerusalem, then in the hands of the heathen, retired to Mizpeh. Here the whole army addressed themselves to God. Judas exhorted them most pathetically to fight for their religion, laws, and liberties; but at last, giving those leave to withdraw from his army that had built houses, or betrothed wives within the year, or that were in any degree fearful, he presently found himself at the head of no more than three thousand men. However, he was resolved to give the enemy battle. In the mean time God ordained him an easy victory; for while Gorgias was detached with five thousand foot and one thousand horse to surprise his little army by night, Judas, being informed of the design, marched by another way, fell upon the camp in the absence of Gorgias, killed three thousand men, put the rest to flight, and seized the camp. Gorgias, not finding the Jews in their camp, proceeded to the mountains, supposing they were fled thither for safety. But not meeting with them there, he was much surprised in his return at what had happened in his absence, and his army, hearing that Judas waited to give them a warm reception in the plains, flung down their arms and fled. Judas in the pursuit killed six thousand more, and wounded and maimed most of the rest. This victory opened to him the gates of Jerusalem, where he and his army celebrated the next day, which was a Sabbath, with great devotion and thanksgiving.

Timotheus and Bacchides, governors or lieutenants under Antiochus, marched immediately to the assistance of Gorgias; but they fell a sacrifice to the valour and conduct of Judas, who, by the spoils taken from the enemy, was enabled the better to carry on the war.

This defeat was succeeded by another of Lysias, the governor of all the country beyond the Euphrates. He had penetrated as far as Bethzura, a strong fortress about twenty miles from Jerusalem, threatening to destroy the country with an army of sixty thousand foot and five thousand horse. But he was defeated also by Judas with ten thousand men only. This victory gave him some respite, and accordingly he restored the temple to the true worship of God, removed all the profanations, built an altar of unhewn stones, and replaced the furniture that Antiochus had carried away, out of the gold and other rich spoils taken in this war. Thus he dedicated the temple again, and ordained that a feast of dedication should be kept annually, in commemoration thereof for ever, about the 20th of November. His next care was to subdue the fortress on Mount Acra, which Apollonius had erected to command the temple; and being yet in the power of the heathens, gave them great opportunities to annoy the Jews that went to worship in the temple. But not having men enough to spare to form a blockade, he silenced it by another fortification, which he erected on the mountain of the temple.

When this revolt and success of the Jews reached Antiochus, in his expedition into Persia, he threatened utterly to destroy the whole nation, and to make Jerusalem the common place of burial to all the Jews. But God visited him with a sudden and sore disease. He at first was afflicted with grievous torments in his bowels; his privy parts were ulcerated and filled with an innumerable quantity of vermin; and the smell was so offensive that he became nauseous to himself and all about him. Then his mind was so tormented with direful spectres and apparitions of evil spirits, and the remorse of his wicked life and profanations gnawed him so grievously, that he at last acknowledged the justice of God in his punishment, and offered up many vows and promises of a full reparation in case he recovered. But God would not hear him; therefore, when his body was almost half consumed with abominable ulcers, he died under the most horrid torments of body and mind, in the twelfth year of his reign. Judas Maccabeus began now to consider how the government should be fixed, and therefore, in a general assembly held at Maspha, he revived the ancient order, and appointed rulers over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. And it is also probable that he constituted the high court of sanhedrin, in which was a settled Nasi, president or prince, who was the high priest for the time being; an Abbethdin, or father of the house of judgment, who was the president’s deputy; and a Chacan, or the wise man, who was sub-deputy. The other members were called elders or senators, men of untainted birth, good learning, and profound knowledge in the law, both priests and laymen. And they in particular were empowered to decide all private difficult controversies, all religious affairs, and all important matters of state.

This was properly the senate or great council of the nation, which grew into great power under the administration of the Asmonean princes, and was in great authority in the days of our Saviour’s ministry. Lysias, who had been so shamefully routed by Judas, having the care of Antiochus’s son, who was called Antiochus Eupater, and only nine years old, set him on the throne, and seized the government and tuition of the young king into his own hands, and immediately combined with the neighbouring Idumeans and other nations, enemies to Judah, to unite in an attempt utterly to destroy and extirpate the whole race of Israel. When Judas was informed of this confederacy, he resolved to prevent their intentions, and to carry the war into Idumea. Thus he entered their country by Acrabatene, a canton of Judea, near the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, and slew there twenty thousand of them. Then falling upon the children of Bean, another tribe of the Idumeans, he killed twenty thousand more, routed their army, and took their strong holds. Hence passing over Jordan into the land of the Ammonites, he defeated them in several engagements, slew great numbers of them, and took the city Jahazah, at the foot of Mount Gilead, near the brook Jazah; and so returned home. After his return into Judea, one Timotheus, a governor in those parts, pretended to follow him with a numerous army. But Judas fell upon him; and having overthrown him with a very great slaughter, pursued him to the city Gazara, in the tribe of Ephraim, which he took; and he slew both Timotheus and his brother Chereas, governor of that city, and Apollophanes, another great captain of the Syrian forces. This success stirred up the jealousy of the heathen nations about Gilead, who fell upon the Jews in the land of Tob; and, having slain one thousand, took their goods, carried their wives and children captives, and drove the residue to seek for refuge and security in the strong fortress Dathema, in Gilead. But Timotheus, the son of him slain at Gazara, shut them up with a great army, and besieged them, while the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, and Ptolemais, were contriving to cut off all the Jews that lived in Galilee. Judas, in this critical juncture, by the advice of the sanhedrin, dividing his army into three parts, he and his brother Jonathan marched with eight thousand men to the relief of the Gileadites; his brother marched with three thousand into Galilee; and his brother Joseph was left with the command of the remainder to protect Jerusalem and the country round and to remain wholly on the defensive, till Judas and Simon should return. In their march to Gilead, Judas and Jonathan attacked Bossora, a town of the Edomites, slew all the males, plundered it, released a great number of Jews reserved to be put to death as soon as Dathema should be taken, and burned the city. When they arrived before Dathema, which was by a forced march in the night, the brothers gave Timotheus so sudden and violent an assault, that they put his army to flight, and slew eight thousand in the pursuit. And wherever he came and found any Jews oppressed or imprisoned, he released them in the same manner as he did at Bossora. At the same time Simon defeated the enemy several times in Galilee, drove them out of the country, and pursued them with very great slaughter to the gates of Ptolemais. But Joseph, contrary to his orders, leaving Jerusalem, was put to flight by Gorgias, governor of Syria, and lost two thousand men in that ill-projected expedition, against Jamnia, a seaport on the Mediterranean.

Lysias by this time had assembled an army of eight hundred thousand men, eighty elephants, and all the horse of the kingdom, and marched in person against the Hebrew conqueror. Judas met him at the siege of Bethzuna, gave him battle, slew eleven thousand foot, one thousand six hundred horse, and put the rest to flight.

Thus victory was happily attended with a peace between Judas and Lysias, in the name of the young king; by which the heathen decree of uniformity made by Epiphanes was rescinded, and the Jews permitted to live according to their own laws.

However, this peace was soon broke by the people of Joppa and Jamnia; but Judas was no sooner informed that they had cruelly treated and murdered the Jews that lived amongst them, but he fell upon Joppa by night, burned their shipping, and put all to the sword that had escaped the fire; and he set fire to the haven of Jamnia, and burned all the ships in it. Timotheus also, who had fled before this conqueror, was discontented with the peace, and gathered an army of one hundred and twenty thousand foot, and two thousand five hundred horse, in order to oppress the Jews in Gilead. But when the news of this armament reached Judas, he marched against him; and after he had defeated a strong party of wandering Arabs, and made peace with them, taken the city Caspis, which was Heshbon in the tribe of Reuben; slain the inhabitants; destroyed the place; taken Caraca also, and put its garrison of ten thousand men to the sword, he came up with Timotheus near Raphon on the river Jabbok, gave him battle, slew thirty thousand of his men, took him prisoner, pursued the remainder of his army to Carnion in Arabia; took that city also, and slew twenty-five thousand more of Timotheus’s forces; but gave him his life and liberty, on the promise that he would release all the Jewish captives throughout his dominions.

As he returned to Jerusalem he stormed the strong city of Ephron, well garrisoned by Lysias, put twenty-five thousand people to the sword; plundered it, and razed it to the ground; because the people refused to grant him a passage through it. This campaign was concluded with a day of thanksgiving in the temple at Jerusalem.

Thus Judas, finding himself disengaged from the treaty of peace by these hostilities, carried the war into the south of Idumea; dismantled Hebron, the metropolis thereof; passed into the land of the Philistines, took Azotus or Ashdod, destroyed their idols, plundered their country, and returned to Judea, to reduce the fortress of Acra, which was still in the hands of the king of Syria, and was very troublesome in time of war to those that resorted to the temple.

Judas prepared for a regular siege; but Antiochus, being informed of its distress, marched to its relief with an army of one hundred and ten thousand foot, twenty thousand horse, thirty-two elephants with castles on their backs full of archers, and three hundred armed chariots of war. In his way through Idumea, he laid siege to Bethzura, which at last was forced to surrender, after Judas, who had marched to its relief, had killed four thousand of the enemy by surprise in the night; lost his brother Eleazar in battle, crushed to death by an elephant that he had stabbed; and was forced to retreat and shut himself and his friends up in the temple. The king and Lysias were both present in this army of the Syrians; and would have compelled Judas to surrender, had not Philip, whom Epiphanes had upon his death-bed appointed guardian of his son, taken this opportunity of their absence to seize upon Antioch, and to take upon him the government of the Syrian empire.

Upon this news Lysias struck up a peace immediately with Judas, upon honourable and advantageous terms to the Jewish nation. But though it was ratified by oath, Eupater ordered the fortifications of the temple to be demolished.

It was in this war that Menelaus, the wicked high priest, fell into disgrace with Lysias, while he was prompting the heathen barbarity to destroy his own people: for being accused and convicted of being the author and fomentor of this Jewish expedition, Lysias ordered him to be carried to Berrhaea, a town in Syria; and there to be cast into a high tower of ashes, in which there was a wheel which continually stirred up and raised the ashes about the criminal, till he was suffocated, and died. This was a punishment among the Persians for criminals in high life. This wicked high priest was succeeded at the promotion of Antiochus Eupater, by one Alcimus, a man altogether as wicked as his immediate predecessor. Eupater returned home, and by an easy battle killed the usurper Philip, and quelled the insurrection in his favour. But it was not so with Demetrius, the son of Seleucus Philopater, who, being now come to maturity, claimed the kingdom in right of his father, elder brother to Epiphanes. Demetrius had been sent to Rome, as a hostage, in exchange for his uncle Antiochus Epiphanes, in the very year that his father died. Antiochus, returning in the very nick of time, was declared king, in prejudice to the right of Demetrius. And though Demetrius had often solicited the assistance of the Roman senate, under whom he was educated, to restore him to his kingdom, reasons of state swayed with them rather to confirm Eupater, a minor, in the government, than to assert the right of one of a mature understanding. Yet, though he failed in this application, Demetrius resolved to throw himself upon Providence. To which end, leaving Rome incog., Demetrius got safe to Tripolis, in Syria; where he gave out that he was sent, and would be supported by the Romans, to take possession of his father’s kingdom. This stratagem had its desired effect; every one deserted from Eupater to Demetrius, and the very soldiers seized on Eupater and Lysias, and would have delivered them into his hands. But Demetrius thought it more politic not to see them; and having ordered them to be put to death, was presently settled in the possession of the whole kingdom. During this interval the Jews enjoyed a profound peace, but having refused to acknowledge Alcimus their high priest because he had apostatized in the time of the persecution, Alcimus addressed the new king, Demetrius, implored his protection against Judas Maccabeus, and so exasperated him against the whole body of his party by false representations, that Demetrius ordered Bacchides to march an army into Judea, and to confirm Alcimus in the pontificate.

Alcimus was also commissioned with Bacchides to carry on the war in Judea, who upon the promise of a safe conduct, having got the scribes and doctors of the law into their power, put sixty of them to death in one day. Bacchides left him in possession with some forces for his support; with which he committed many murders, and did much mischief; and at last obtained another army from Demetrius, under the command of Nicanor, to destroy Judas; to disperse his followers, and the more effectually to support the said Alcimus in his post of high priest.

Nicanor, who had experienced the valour of Judas, proposed a compromise: but Alcimus, expecting more advantage to himself by a war, beat the king off it; so that Nicanor was obliged to execute the first order. The war was carried on with various success, till Nicanor was slain in a pitched battle near a village called Bethoron; and his whole army of thirty-five thousand men, casting down their arms, were to a man cut off in the flight.

This victory was followed with a day of thanksgiving, which was established to be continued every year under the name of the anniversary day of solemn thanksgiving.

Judas, observing that the Syrians paid no regard to any treaties, thought that, by making a league with the Romans, his nation would be much better secured against such a perfidious people. Therefore he sent Jason and Eupolemus to Rome, who soon obtained the ratification of a league of mutual defence between them, and a letter to Demetrius, requiring him, upon the peril of having war denounced against him, to desist from giving the Jews any more uneasiness and trouble.

This, however, proved of no service. For while this league was negotiating, Demetrius sent Bacchides and Alcimus a second time into Judea with a numerous army to revenge the defeat and death of Nicanor. At this time Judas had no more than three thousand men to oppose them; and of these all but eight hundred deserted their general, at the report of the number and strength of their enemies. Yet Judas refused to yield up the cause of God; and being followed by that handful of brave men, he charged and broke the right wing, where Bacchides commanded in person, and pursued them as far as the mountains of Azotus; and must have gained a complete victory, had not his little army been followed and encompassed by the left wing. But being surrounded with an exceeding great force, the Jews sold their lives at a dear rate; Judas was killed, and then such as survived him were forced to flee away.

His body was carried off by his brothers Simon and Jonathan, and buried in the sepulchres of his ancestors, at Modin, with great funeral honour, as he deserved.

Bacchides, after his success, seized on the whole country, and used the adherents of the Maccabees so inhumanly, that Jonathan was necessitated to retire at the head of his distressed countrymen to the Wilderness of Tekoa. This little army encamped with a morass on one side, and the river Jordan on the other. Bacchides pursued them; secured the pass of their encampment; and, though he attacked them on the Sabbath day, he lost a thousand men in the assault, before the Maccabees broke; and then, being overpowered by numbers, they threw themselves into the river, and escaped by swimming to the other side, without being pursued. About this time (B.C. 160) Alcimus, the wicked pontiff, died suddenly of a palsy; and Demetrius, having received the senatorian letter from Rome, commanding him to desist from vexing the Jews, recalled Bacchides; so that Jonathan found himself in a condition to bring his affairs into better order. But this state of rest lasted only for two years; for the malcontents invited Bacchides to return with his army, under a promise to support his enterprise, and to seize Jonathan. But before this association could take place, Jonathan had information of it, took fifty of the principal conspirators, and put them to death. And when Bacchides arrived with his great army, Jonathan and his brother Simon gave him such uneasiness, and so artfully distressed and harassed his army, without giving him any pitched battle, that Bacchides grew weary of his undertaking, put several of those that invited him to that expedition to death, and at last made peace with the Maccabees, restored all his prisoners, and swore never more to molest the Jews, B.C. 158.

When Jonathan found himself in quiet possession of Judea, and that there was no more to fear from Bacchides, he punished the apostate Jews with death, reformed the Church and state, and rebuilt the walls about the temple and city of Jerusalem. And soon after, the high priesthood having been vacant seven years, he put on the pontifical robe, at the nomination of Alexander, who, by the assistance of the Roman senate, and the management of one Heraclides, claimed the crown of Syria in right of his pretended father Antiochus Epiphanes.

Jonathan, though Demetrius made him more advantageous offers, suspected that these promises were not real, but only to serve the present purpose, and accepted Alexander’s proposals; which was so acceptable to the new king, that when he had beaten and slain Demetrius, and made himself master of the whole Syrian monarchy, he invited Jonathan to his marriage with Cleopatra, daughter of Ptolemy, king of Egypt; and, besides great personal honours, conferred on him the post of general of all his forces in Judea, and chief sewer of his household, B.C. 153. However, this prosperity was soon disturbed by Apollonius, governor of Coelosyria, who, taking part with Demetrius, the son of Demetrius the late king, who had concealed himself with his brother Antiochus in Crete, during the late troubles, was now landed in Cilicia with an army of mercenaries, and had marched with an army as far as Jamnia, challenging Jonathan to give him battle. Jonathan marched out with a body of ten thousand men; took Joppa in sight of the enemy; gave Apollonius battle, beat him, and pursued his broken forces to Azotus, where he destroyed eight thousand men, the temple of Dagon, and the city, with fire and sword, which engaged Alexander’s affections so much, that he gave him the golden buckle, (a distinguished mark of the royal family of Persia,) and the city and territories of Ecron.

After this succeeded a surprising revolution in Syria. Alexander had called to his assistance his father-in-law Ptolemy Philometer, who, suspecting that his son Alexander had conspired his death, carried off his daughter Cleopatra; gave her to Demetrius, Alexander’s competitor; then, turning his arms upon Alexander, settled Demetrius upon the throne of his ancestors; and, after gaining a complete victory, forced him to flee into Arabia, where Zabdiel, the king of the country, cut off his head, and sent it to Ptolemy, B.C. 146.

This Demetrius took the style of Nicanor, or Conqueror; and though he summoned Jonathan to appear before him to answer certain accusations, the high priest found means to gain his favour; and not only a confirmation of former, but a grant of additional privileges; which, with the promise to withdraw the heathen garrison from Acra, so recommended him to Jonathan, that, when Demetrius was in danger of being murdered by the inhabitants of Antioch, he marched three thousand men to the king’s assistance, burned a great part of the city, slew one hundred thousand of the inhabitants with fire and sword, and obliged the rest to throw themselves upon the king’s mercy. Yet this service, and his promise also, was presently forgot by Demetrius, when he thought the storm was blown over; and, he would, on the contrary, have certainly obliged him, under pain of military execution, to pay the usual taxes and tribute paid by his predecessors, had he not been prevented by the treason of a discontented courtier, whose name was Tryphon.

Tryphon (B.C. 144) at first declared for, and set Antiochus Theos, the son of the late Alexander, on the throne of Syria, after he had vanquished Demetrius, and forced him to retire into Seleucia. Jonathan, for his own interest, declared for the new king; by which he obtained a confirmation of the pontificate, &c., and his brother Simon was made commander of all his forces from Tyre to Egypt.

As soon as Demetrius heard of Jonathan’s revolt, he marched to chastise him for it; but it turned to his loss; for he was repulsed twice, and lost Gaza, with all the country as far as Damascus, and Joppa in the land of the Philistines.

Tryphon intended now to pull off the mask; but not daring to attempt so foul a crime till Jonathan could be removed, prevailed with him to disband his army, and to accompany him with one thousand men only to Ptolemais; where he was no sooner entered, but his men were put to the sword, and Jonathan put under an arrest. Then, marching his army into Judea, he proposed to restore him, on condition of one hundred talents; and that his two sons should be given for hostages of their father’s fidelity. Jonathan was persuaded to comply with this demand: but the villain not only caused them and their father to be put to death, but having also murdered Antiochus privately, he assumed the title of king of Syria. Simon (B.C. 143,) hearing that his brother was murdered, and buried at Bascama, in Gilead, sent and brought him thence, and buried him under a curious monument of white wrought and polished marble, at Modin. And after he was admitted governor in his stead, he offered his service to Demetrius, then at Laodicea; who, on condition that the Jews would assist him in the recovery of his crown, conceded to him the high priesthood and principality, and granted the people many privileges.

But Demetrius being about this time persuaded to head the Elymaean, Parthian, and Bactrian revolters against Mithridates, king of Parthia, Simon applied himself to fortifying his cities; and reduced the fortress of Acra; which he not only took, but even levelled the mount on which it was built.

Mithridates (B.C. 141) vanquished Demetrius; and after he had taken him prisoner, gave him his daughter Rhodaguna in marriage; which so exasperated his wife Cleopatra, then shut up in Seleucia, that she offered herself and the kingdom to Antiochus, his brother, B.C. 139, then in Crete. Antiochus accepted the proposal; and upon his landing in Syria with an army of mercenaries, he was so strengthened with deserters from Tryphon’s forces, that he drove him into Apamea, near the mouth of the Orontes, and took him and put him to death.

Thus Antiochus became possessed of his father’s throne; though not without the assistance of Simon, whom he had promised to reward with many new privileges. But he no sooner found himself delivered from all opposition, than he forgot his promises; and, on the contrary, demanded the restoring of Joppa and Gazara, &c., or a thousand talents in lieu of them.

Simon refused to comply; and Antiochus sent Cendebeus with an army to force him. Simon, now very old, attended by his sons Judas and John Hyrcanus, put him to flight at the first onset, and killed a great number of the enemy in the pursuit. After this, Simon, and his sons Judas and Mattathias, B.C. 135, being perfidiously murdered by Ptolemy, Simon’s son-in-law, whom he had made governor of the plains of Jericho, at an entertainment prepared for them in the castle of Jericho, with a design to usurp the government of Judea to himself, sent a party to Gazara to seize John Hyrcanus also. But he was informed, and so prepared to receive them, that he despatched the intended murderers, and hastening to Jerusalem, secured both the city and the temple, where he was declared his father’s successor in the pontificate and principality of the Jews. Antiochus thought to serve himself of these distractions and accordingly marched a large army into Judea; and after he had driven Hyrcanus into Jerusalem, obliged him to accept of a peace upon the hard terms of delivering up their arms, dismantling Jerusalem, paying a tribute for Joppa, &c., held by the Jews out of Judea, and five hundred talents to buy off the rebuilding of Acra.

Hyrcanus accompanied Antiochus to the Parthian war, in which he signalized himself with great renown. He returned home at the end of the year. But Antiochus, who chose to winter in the East, was with his whole army destroyed in one night by the natives, who, taking the advantage of their separate quarters all over the country, rose on them, and cut their throats in cold blood: so that Antiochus himself was slain, and out of four hundred thousand persons, of which his army consisted, scarce a man escaped to carry home the news of this massacre.

Phraortes, the king of Parthia, having suffered much by this invasion of Antiochus, endeavoured to get quit of him by sending his prisoner Demetrius Nicanor into Syria, to recover his own kingdom; so that when the news came of Antiochus’s death, he was without more delay reinstated on the throne. But his tyrannical proceedings presently raised him up a new pretender to the crown, (B.C. 127,) one Alexander Zabina, the pretended son of Alexander Balas, who, by the assistance of Ptolemy Physcon, king of Egypt, defeated him in the field; and, taking him prisoner in Tyre, put him to death.

Zabina being raised to the throne of Syria by the king of Egypt, Ptolemy expected that he should hold it in homage from him; and, upon his refusal, gave his daughter Tryphaena to Antiochus Gryphus, the son of Nicanor, whom he made king of Syria, and pursued Zabina till he got him into his hands, and put him to death.

Hyrcanus, in the midst of these revolutions, shook off the Syrian yoke. He built the famous tower of Baris upon a steep rock. He took several cities on the borders of Judea, amongst which was Shechem, the chief seat of the Samaritans, (B.C. 130,) and destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim. He extended his conquests over the Idumeans, (B.C. 129,) who were prevailed on to embrace the Jewish religion; so that from this time they exchanged the name of Idumeans or Edomites for that of Jews. He renewed the alliance with the senate of Rome, and obtained greater privileges and advantages than his nation ever had before; and concluded his military operations with the siege and utter destruction of Samaria, under the conduct of his sons Aristobulus and Antigonus.

After these great actions, Hyrcanus enjoyed full quiet from all foreign wars; and had nothing to trouble him at home, but the false insinuations of the Pharisee Eleazar, who declared that his mother was a captive taken in the wars, and that, therefore, he was incapable of holding the high priesthood. Hyrcanus had been educated in this sect: but one Jonathan, an intimate friend of his, and a Sadducee, took this opportunity to draw him over to his own sect; which he effected so sincerely, that Hyrcanus renounced the Pharisees for ever, abrogated their traditional constitutions, and made it penal for any one to observe them. Yet he was an excellent governor; and, dying in the thirtieth year of his administration, left five sons: but the high priesthood and sovereignty he left to Judas Aristobulus, his eldest son, B.C. 107.

Aristobulus (B.C. 107) was the first since the captivity that put on the diadem, and assumed the title of king: but he was of that suspicious and cruel disposition, that he cast his own mother into prison, and starved her to death, imprisoned all his brethren except Antigonus, whom at last he ordered to be murdered in a fit of jealousy, B.C. 106: of which, however, he repented, and gave up the ghost in great anxiety of mind, after a reign of no more than one year; though in that time Antigonus had reduced the Itureans to his obedience, and forced them to conform to the religion of the Jews. At this time Pompey and Cicero were born.

Alexander Jannaeus, his third brother was released from his confinement by Salome, Aristobulus’s widow. The like favour was also extended to his two other brothers. But as soon as Jannaeus was settled on the throne, he put one of them to death under a suspicion of treason, and he took Absalom the younger into his favour.

This Alexander (B.C. 105) attempted to extend his dominions by new conquests. But in his attempts against Ptolemais and Ptolemy Lathyrus, who came to the assistance of Zoilus and the Gazaeans, he lost a fine army, and was reduced to sue for protection from Cleopatra, who had seized upon Egypt, and obliged her son Lathyrus to be contented with the island of Crete.

Cleopatra, at first, was inclined to take advantage of Alexander’s misfortunes, and to seize upon him and his dominions; but Ananias, one of her generals, by birth a Jew, and a relation to Alexander, dissuaded her from so unjust a design, and obtained her protection for him. Nevertheless Alexander’s martial spirit sought out new employments. His country being clear of foreign forces, he attacked and took Gadara and Amathus in Syria. But being followed by Theodorus, prince of Philadelphia, who had laid up his treasure at Amathus, he lost his plunder, ten thousand men, and all his baggage, B.C. 101.

This did not deter him from attempting the reduction of Gaza; which, however, he could not have taken, had it not been treacherously surrendered to him by Lysimachus, the governor’s brother. Here Alexander, ordering his soldiers to kill, plunder, and destroy, was the author of a sad scene of barbarity, and reduced that ancient and famous city to ruin and desolation.

After his return from this carnage, he was grossly insulted by a mob at home, while he was offering the usual sacrifices on the feast of tabernacles. But he made the people pay dearly for it; for be fell upon them with his soldiers, and slew six thousand. And from this time he took into his pay six thousand mercenaries from Pisidia and Cilicia, who always attended his person, and kept off the people while he officiated. B.C. 101. All being again quieted at home, Alexander marched against the Moabites and Ammonites, and made them tributaries. In his return he took possession of Amathus, which Theodorus had evacuated; but he lost most of his army, and was very near losing his own life in an ambuscade which Thedus, an Arabian king, had laid for him near Gadara. This raised fresh discontents among his subjects, and new troubles at home, which were attended with the most unheard-of barbarities. They were not able to overpower him; but his wickedness had so provoked them that nothing but his blood could satisfy them; and at length, being assisted by Demetrius Euchaerus, king of Damascus, they entirely routed him, so that he was forced to consult his own safety by fleeing to the mountains. His misfortune was the cause of six thousand of his rebel subjects deserting him; which, when Demetrius perceived, he withdrew, and left the revolters to fight their own battle. After this separation Alexander gained several advantages; and at last, having cut the major part off in a decisive battle, he took eight hundred of the rebels in Bethome, whom he carried to Jerusalem; and having first killed their wives and children before their faces, he ordered them all to be crucified in one day, before him and his wives and concubines, whom he had invited to a feast at the place of execution. Then, resolving to revenge himself on the king of Damascus, he made war on him for three years successively, and took several places; when, returning home, he was received with great respect by his subjects. His next expedition was against the castle of Ragaba, in the country of the Gerasens, where he was seized with a quartan ague, which proved his death, B.C. 79. His queen Alexandra, by his own advice, concealed it till the castle was taken; and then, carrying him to Jerusalem, she gave his body to the leaders of the Pharisees, to be disposed of as they should think proper; and told them, as her husband had appointed her regent during the minority of her children, she would do nothing in the administration without their advice and help.

This address to the Pharisees so much gained their esteem that they not only settled the queen dowager in the government, but were very lavish in their encomiums on her deceased husband, whom they honoured with more than ordinary pomp and solemnity at his funeral.

The Pharisees having now the management of the queen regent, and of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, her sons by Alexander, had all the laws against Pharisaism repealed and abolished, recalled all the exiles, and demanded justice against those that had advised the crucifixion of the eight hundred rebels.

The queen made her eldest son, Hyrcanus, high priest. But Aristobulus was not contented to live a private life; and therefore, as soon as his mother seemed to decline, he meditated in what manner he might usurp the sovereignty from his brother, at her decease; and he had taken such measures beforehand, that upon the death of his mother he found himself strong enough to attempt the crown, though Alexandra had declared Hyrcanus her successor. The two armies met in the plains of Jericho; but Hyrcanus, being deserted by most of his forces, was obliged to resign his crown and pontificate to Aristobulus, and promise to live peaceably upon his private fortune.

This resignation was a subject of great discontent to some of Hyrcanus’s courtiers, among whom was Antipater, father to Herod the Great, who persuaded Hyrcanus to fly to Aretas, king of Arabia, who, on certain conditions, supplied him with fifty thousand men, with which Hyrcanus entered Judea, and gained a complete victory over Aristobulus. But while he besieged him in the temple, Aristobulus, with the promise of a large sum of money, engaged Pompey, the general of the Roman army, then before Damascus, to oblige Aretas to withdraw his forces; but Aristobulus, though he was for the present delivered from his brother’s rage, prevaricated so with Pompey, that he at last confined Aristobulus in chains, took Jerusalem sword in hand, retrenched the dignity and power of the principality, destroyed the fortifications, ordered an annual tribute to be paid to the Romans, and restored Hyrcanus to the pontificate, and made him prince of the country, but would not permit him to wear the diadem. Pompey, having thus settled the government of Judea, returned in his way to Rome with Aristobulus, his sons Alexander and Antigonus, and two of his daughters, to adorn his triumph.

Alexander found means to escape, by the way, and about three years after arrived in Judea, and raised some disturbance; but he was defeated in all his attempts by Gabinius, the Roman governor in Syria, who, after this, coming to Jerusalem, confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, but removed the civil administration from the sanhedrin into five courts of justice of his own erecting, according to the number of five provinces, into which he had divided the whole land.

When Aristobulus had lain five years prisoner at Rome, he with his son escaped into Judea, and endeavoured to raise fresh trouble; but Gabinius soon took them again; and being remanded to Rome, the father was kept close confined, but the children were released.

It was about this time, B.C. 48, that the civil war between Pompey and Caesar broke out; and when Aristobulus was on the point of setting out, by Caesar’s interest, to take the command of an army in order to secure Judea from Pompey’s attempts, he was poisoned by some of Pompey’s party.

When Caesar was returned from the Alexandrian war, he was much solicited to depose Hyrcanus in favour of Antigonus, the surviving son of Aristobulus; but Caesar not only confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood and principality of Judea, and to his family in a perpetual succession, but he abolished the form of government lately set up by Gabinius, restored it to its ancient form, and appointed Antipater procurator of Judea under him.

Antipater, who was a man of great penetration, made his son Phasael governor of the country about Jerusalem, and his son Herod governor of Galilee.

Soon after this appointment, Herod, who was of a very boisterous temper, having seized upon one Hezekiah, a ring-leader of a gang of thieves, and some of his men that infested his territories, he put them to death. This was presently looked upon as a breach of duty to the sanhedrin, before whom he was summoned to appear. But lest the sentence of that court should pass upon him, he fled to Sextus Caesar, the Roman prefect of Syria at Damascus; and, with a large sum of money, obtained of him the government of Coelesyria. He afterwards raised an army, marched into Judea, and would have revenged the indignity which he said the sanhedrin and high priest had cast upon him, had not his father and brother prevailed with him to retire for the present.

While Julius Caesar lived, the Jews enjoyed great privileges; but his untimely death, B.C. 44, by the villanous and ungrateful hand of Brutus, Cassius, &c., in the senate house, as he was preparing for an expedition against the Parthians to revenge his country’s wrong, delivered them up as a prey to every hungry general of Rome. Cassius immediately seized upon Syria, and exacted above seven hundred talents of silver from the Jews; and the envy and villany of Malicus, who was a natural Jew, and the next in office under Antipater, an Idumean, rent the state into horrid factions. Malicus bribed the high priest’s butler to poison his friend Antipater, to make way for himself to be the next in person to Hyrcanus. Herod, making sure of Cassius, by obtaining his leave and assistance to revenge his father’s death, took the first opportunity to have him murdered by the Roman garrison at Tyre.

The friends of Malicus, having engaged the high priest and Felix the Roman general at Jerusalem on their side, resolved to revenge his death on the sons of Antipater. All Jerusalem was in an uproar; Herod was sick at Damascus; so that the whole power and fury of the assailants fell upon Phasael, who defended himself very strenuously, and drove the tumultuous party out of the city. As soon as Herod was able, the two brothers presently quelled the faction, and had not Hyrcanus made his peace by giving Herod his granddaughter Mariamne in marriage, they certainly would have shown their resentment of the priest’s behaviour with more severity.

Again, this faction was not so totally extinguished but that several principal persons of the Jewish nation, upon the defeat of Brutus and Cassius, accused Phasael and Herod to the conqueror, Mark Anthony, of usurping the government from Hyrcanus. But the brothers had so much interest with the conqueror that he rejected the complaints of the deputies, made them both tetrarchs, and committed all the affairs of Judea to their administration; and to oblige the Jews to obey his decision in this affair, he retained fifteen of the deputies as hostages for the people’s fidelity, and would have put them to death had not Herod begged their lives. The Jews, however, when Anthony arrived at Tyre, sent one thousand deputies with the like accusations, which he, looking upon as a daring insult, ordered his soldiers to fall upon them, so that some were killed and many wounded. But upon Herod’s going to Jerusalem the citizens revenged this affront in the same manner upon his retinue; the news whereof so enraged Anthony, that he ordered the fifteen hostages to be immediately put to death, and threatened severe revenge against the whole faction. But after that Mark Anthony was returned to Rome, the Parthians, at the solicitation of Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, who had promised them a reward of a thousand talents and eight hundred of the most beautiful women in the country, to set him on the throne of Judea, entered that country, and being joined by the factious and discontented Jews, (B.C. 37,) took Jerusalem without resistance, took Phasael and Hyrcanus, and put them in chains; but Herod escaped under the cover of night and deposited his mother, sister, wife, and his wife’s mother, with several other relations and friends, in the impregnable fortress Massada, near the lake Asphaltites, under the care of his brother Joseph, who was obliged to go to Rome to seek protection and relief.

In the mean time Antigonus remained in possession of all the country, and was declared king of Judea. The Parthians delivered Hyrcanus and Phasael to Antigonus; upon which Phasael, being so closely handcuffed and ironed that he foresaw his ignominious death approaching, dashed his own brains out against the wall of the prison. Antigonus cut off the ears of Hyrcanus, to incapacitate him from the high priesthood, and returned him again to the Parthians, who left him at Seleucia, in their return to the East. Herod on this occasion served himself so well on the friendship which had been between his father and himself with the Roman general, Mark Anthony, and the promise of a round sum of money, that he in seven days’ time obtained a senatorial decree, constituting him king of Judea, and declaring Antigonus an enemy to the Roman state. He immediately left Rome, landed at Ptolemais, raised forces, and being aided with Roman auxiliaries, by order of the senate, he reduced the greater part of the country, took Joppa, relieved Massada, stormed the castle of Ressa, and must have taken Jerusalem also, had not the Roman commanders who were directed to assist him been bribed by Antigonus, and treacherously obstructed his success. But when Herod perceived their collusion, he, for the present, satisfied himself with the reduction of Galilee; and hearing of Anthony’s besieging Samosata on the Euphrates, went in person to him to represent the ill treatment he had met with from the generals, Ventidius and Silo, whom he had commanded to serve him.

Upon his departure, Herod left the command of his forces to his brother Joseph, with charge to remain upon the defensive. But Joseph contrary to orders, attempting to reduce Jericho, was slain and most of his men were cut to pieces. And thus Herod again lost Galilee and Idumea. Mark Anthony granted all he requested; and though at first the army which Anthony had spared him was roughly handled, and he himself wounded as he approached Jerusalem to revenge his brother’s death, he afterwards slew Pappus, Antigonus’s general, and entirely defeated his army; and in the next campaign after a siege of several months, Herod, assisted by Socius the Roman general, took it by storm. The soldiers expecting the spoils of the city as their due, and being exasperated by the long resistance of the citizens, spared neither men, women, nor children, and would certainly have utterly destroyed every thing and person with rapine and devastation, death and slaughter, had not Herod redeemed them with a large sum of money.

Antigonus surrendered himself to Socius, who carried him in chains to Anthony; and he for a good sum of money was bribed to put him to death, that in him the Asmonaean family, which had lasted one hundred and twenty-nine years, might be extinct.

By this event Herod found himself once more in full power, and at liberty to revenge himself upon his enemies. He began his reign with the execution of all the members of the great Sanhedrin except Pollio and Sameas, who are also called Hillel and Shammai. Then he raised one Ananel, born of the pontifical family at Babylon, to the place of high priest; but Mark Anthony, at the intercession of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, who was solicited thereto by Alexandra, Mariamne’s mother, and the entreaties of his own beloved Mariamne in behalf of her young brother, prevailed with him to annul this nomination, and to prefer Aristobulus to the pontificate. But as Hyrcanus was yet alive, and the Jews, in the place of his exile, paid him all the honours and reverence due to their king and high priest, Herod, under a pretence of gratitude and friendship to that author of all his fortunes, prevailed with the old prince to desire it, and with Phraortes, king of Parthia, to permit his return to Jerusalem, with an intention to cut him off at a proper opportunity; which he soon after did on a pretence of his holding treasonable correspondence with Malchus, king of Arabia. But in the mean time Alexandra, valuing herself upon the interest she had with Cleopatra, laid a scheme to obtain the regal dignity for her son Aristobulus, by the same means that she had got him the pontificate. But this intrigue ended in the death of Aristobulus, and her own close confinement at first, and afterwards in her own and her daughter Mariamne’s death; though this tragic scene was at several times acted under disguise. Aristobulus was drowned at Jericho, as it were accidentally, B.C. 29, in a fit of jealousy; Mariamne was adjudged to die, and Alexandra was ordered for execution, B.C. 28, on a supposition that she wished his death; which unjust sentence pursued his very innocent children Alexander and Aristobulus, for expressing their dislike of their father’s cruelty to their mother Mariamne. But it is very probable that he himself had fallen a sacrifice to Octavius after the battle, and the total loss of Mark Anthony at Actium, (fought B.C. 31,) had he not hastened to the conqueror at Rhodes, and in an artful speech appeased him, and with a promise to support his faction in those parts, obtained from him a confirmation of his royal dignity.

The cruelties, however, which he exercised to his own flesh and blood filled his mind with agonies of remorse, which brought him into a languishing condition; and what helped to increase his disorder was the conspiracy of Antipater, his eldest son by Doris, born to him whilst he was a private man. But Herod having discovered the plot, accused him thereof before Quintilius Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, and put him to death also; which occasioned that remarkable exclamation of the Emperor Octavius, that “it was better to be Herod’s hog than his son.” The great pleasure that Herod took (B.C. 25) in obliging his protector Octavianus, and the dread he had of being dethroned for his cruelties, prompted him to compliment him with the names of two new cities, the one to be built on the spot where Samaria stood before Hyrcanus destroyed it, (B.C. 22,) which he called Sebaste, the Greek word for Augustus, the other was Caesarea, once called the Tower of Straton, on the sea-coast of Phoenicia. After this he built a theatre and amphitheatre in the very city of Jerusalem, to celebrate games and exhibit shows in honour of Augustus; set up an image of an eagle, the Roman ensign, over one of the gates of the temple; and at last carried his flattery so far as idolatrously to build a temple of white marble in memory of the favours he had received from Octavianus Augustus.

These advances to idolatry were the foundation of a conspiracy of ten men, who bound themselves with an oath to assassinate him in the very theatre. But being informed thereof in time, Herod seized the conspirators, and put them to death with the most exquisite torments; and to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he formed a design to rebuild the temple, (B.C. 17,) which now, after it had stood five hundred years, and suffered much from its enemies, was fallen much into decay. He was two years in providing materials; and it was so far advanced that Divine service was performed in it nine years and a half more, though a great number of labourers and artificers were continued to finish the outworks till several years after our Saviour’s ascension, for when Gessius Florus was appointed governor of Judea, he discharged eighteen thousand workmen from the temple at one time. And here it should be observed that these, for want of employment, began those mutinies and seditions which at last drew on the destruction both of the temple and Jerusalem, in A.D. 70.

Thus I have finished that brief connection of the affairs of the Jews from the death of Nehemiah and conclusion of the Old Testament, to the coming of Christ, where the New Testament begins, which from the creation of the world, according to the most exact computation, is the year 4000. The general state of the heathen world was in profound peace under the Roman emperor, Augustus, to whom all the known parts of the earth were in subjection when Christ was born. This glorious event took place in the year of the Julian Period 4709, and the fifth before the vulgar era of Christ commonly noted A.D., Anno Domini, or the year of our Lord. See the learned Dr. Prideaux’s connected History of the Old and New Testaments. I need not add here the years from the birth of Christ to the end of the New Testament History, as these are regularly brought down in a Table of Remarkable Eras, immediately succeeding the Acts of the Apostles, and terminating at A.D. 100.

For the desolation that took place when the temple was taken and destroyed, see Clarke’s notes on “Matthew 24:31”. The general history of the Jews, especially from the destruction of their temple, A.D. 70, to the end of the sixteenth century, has been written by Mr. Basnage, entitled, “Histoire des Juifs, depuis Jesus Christ, jusqu a present; pour servir de continuation a l’Histoire de Joseph;” the best edition of which was printed at the Hague, 1716, 12mo., in fifteen vols. The first edition was translated into English by T. Taylor, A. M., Lond. 1708, fol.; but the author has greatly enlarged and corrected his work in the Hague edition above mentioned. The learning and research manifested in this work are amazing; and on the subject nothing better, nothing more accurate and satisfactory, can be well expected. This work I heartily recommend to all my readers.

For the state of the Jews in different nations of the earth, the Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin, a native of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre, has been referred to, first translated from Hebrew into Latin by B. A. Montanus, and printed at Antwerp, in 1575, and much better by Constantine L’Empereur, and printed at Leyden, 12mo., with the Hebrew text and notes, 1633. This work has gone through many editions among the Jews, in Hebrew and in German. It has also been translated into French by Baratier, with many learned notes, Amsterdam, 1734.

But all the preceding translations have been totally eclipsed by that of the Rev. B. Gerrans, lecturer of St. Catherine Coleman, and second master of Queen Elizabeth’s free grammar school, St. Olave, Southwark, with a Dissertation and Notes, 12mo., Lond. 1784. If we can believe Rab. Benjamin, (who it appears flourished in A.D. 1160,) he travelled over the whole world, and found the Jews in general in a most nourishing state, and living under their own laws in many places. But the work is a wretched imposition, too hastily credited by some learned men; written with a view of keeping up the credit of the Jewish people, and with the tacit design to show that the Messiah is not yet come, and that the sceptre has not departed from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet; but he is at such variance with himself, and with the whole geography of the globe, that, as Mr. Gerrans properly observes, no map could possibly be made of his travels. “Reduce,” says he, “the universe to its primeval chaos; confound Asia with Africa; north with south, and heat with cold; make cities provinces, and provinces cities, people uncultivated deserts with free and independent Jews, and depopulate the most flourishing kingdoms; make rivers run when and where you please, and call them by any names but the right one; take Arabia upon your back, and carry it to the north of Babylon; turn the north pole south, or any other way you please; make a new ecliptic line, and place it in the most whimsical and eccentric position which the most hobby-horsical imagination can possibly conceive or describe; and such a map will best suit such an author.” What therefore this author says of his travels and discoveries is worthy of no regard; and it is a doubt with me (if this person ever existed) whether he ever travelled beyond the limits of the kingdom of Navarre, or passed the boundaries of the city of Tudela. I mention these works, the first in the way of strong recommendation; the second, to put the reader on his guard against imposition; at the same time recommending these outcasts of Israel to his most earnest commiseration and prayers, that the God of all grace may speedily call them to eternal glory by Christ Jesus, that all Israel may be saved; and that through all their dispersions they may be soon found singing the song of Moses and the Lamb! Amen, Amen.