ANTIOCHUS the Great was succeeded (B.C. 187) by his son, Seleucus Philopater, The Syrian power was now at a very low ebb, for the “great tribute,” due to the Romans Is the result of the late disastrous war, consisted of a thousand talents a year, payable or twelve years, a term which expired at the death of Seleucus. All his exertions were called for to raise this heavy sum, and the prophetic description is most apt: “Then shall stand up in his (Antiochus’) estate a raiser of taxes.” Seleucus died by the treachery of Heliodorous, his treasurer, in 175.
Five years previously (180) the Egyptian monarch, P. Epiphanes, had purposed making war upon Seleucus, but his commanders, suspecting from his words that he intended to use their purses as well as their persons in the contest, resorted to the usual remedy of those days―(a remedy which Epiphanes himself had caused to be applied to those who were obnoxious to him)―they poisoned him. He was succeeded by his son, Ptolemy VI. (Philometer), under the guardianship of his mother, Cleopatra, who, it will be remembered, was the daughter of the late Antiochus, and upon whose marriage to P. Epiphanes it was agreed that Palestine and Cœle-Syria should pass to Egypt by way of dower.
By circumstances which are not at all clear, Palestine had come into the possession of Seleucus before that ruler’s death. How it was that Egypt lost its hold is not known. This, however, was the state of affairs just previous to B.C.175: ―P. Philometer was on the Egyptian throne; the Syrian monarch was Seleucus Philopater, in whose possession Palestine and Cœle-Syria then were. As to Jerusalem, we are told that “the holy city was inhabited with all peace, and the laws were kept very well, because of the godliness of Onias, the high priest, and his hatred of wickedness. The Onias here spoken of, is the third of that name.
The reader will have observed that so far we have only indirectly had any history of the Jewish nation. The people and land come into view merely as they are concerned in the affairs of the adjoining kingdoms. The fact is, Judah has no history of that time. Upon the people was still written the sentence, “Lo-Ammi” ―Not My people. Israel was set aside; the Gentile powers were running their course; around these history groups itself, and nearly all that we learn of God’s ancient people is the information that they were under the dominion of one of other of the great powers, oppressed of favored, as the case might be, by successive sovereigns.
We reach a period when they come more fully before us, but the history is a sad one. It concerns the afflictions which came upon the unhappy race and land―afflictions which well-nigh crushed out (as they were meant to do) both the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. We cannot doubt that these afflictions were God’s furnace to purify the faith of those who truly believed in Him. That the Jewish faith had reached a low ebb is undeniable. Of the twin dangers, violence and corruption, Satan’s two forms of attack from the beginning, the latter is far more insidious and dangerous than the first, and Judaism was in imminent danger of being “Hellenized” out of all recognition. Grecianism surrounded the Jews on every hand; Greek philosophy, Greek games, Greek religion, Greek vices―all were familiarized to the Jews by constant contact, and with familiarity came a dulled perception of what was evil, and even a love of it. There were signs of a tendency towards Grecianism even in Jerusalem, the city of the great King, and among those who above all others might have been expected to rigidly maintain the position which God had given to Israel―we refer to the high priests. Onias H. was suspected of this; later priests threw all their efforts into the attempt. “Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen,” is the reported language of those days.
In addition to this there were dangers of a different kind from within. An “Egyptian party” and a “Syrian party” were forming among the Jews, while avarice and the love of power were working those internal dissensions which often prove more disastrous to a commonwealth than attacks from without. This we proceed to explain, and it will be seen that, religiously and politically, Judæa had happened upon evil days.
We must go back a little in date to trace the origin of the dissensions referred to. It will be remembered that in about the year B.C. 226, the right of farming the taxes in Palestine had been sold by P. Euergetes to Joseph, nephew of the high priest, Onias II. This important office, held for many years, gave to him and to his family a position rivaling even that of the high priest. The family was subsequently known as “the sons of Tobias.” Joseph had seven sons by one wife, and by another, a younger son, Hyrcanus, who was sent by the father to the Egyptian court, to congratulate the king and queen upon the birth of a son. While at Alexandria, Hyrcanus managed to obtain from Joseph’s agent an immense amount of money, with which he made handsome presents to the king and queen, and lavishly bribed the king’s officers. By these means he overreached his father, and obtained from the king the office of collector of revenues in the land beyond the Jordan. Joseph was enraged at the loss of his treasures, as were also his sons, who from the first envied Hyrcanus, and these conspired to way— lay and kill him. But in the attack they were repulsed, and two of the brothers were killed. Joseph soon died, but the feud lived.
It was no mere family dissension: the elders of the people took part against Hyrcanus, as did also the high priest Simon (the son and successor of Onias II.), and most of the people; others espoused the cause of the younger son. He retreated to beyond the Jordan, and after seven years committed suicide from fear of the then Syrian king Antiochus. Before his death, he seems to have recovered the favor of Onias III. (who B.C. 195 had succeeded Simon his father in the priesthood), for with his knowledge.
Hyrcanus’s treasure was deposited in the Temple, and he spoke of him as “a man of great dignity. This may have helped to bring about the breach which existed between the high priest and the governor of the Temple, Simon, a Benjamite, who is believed to have been the eldest brother of Hyrcanus. In the year 176 B.C. the enmity between these two― the governor and the priest―had become so bitter, that Simon, finding that he could not overcome Onias, went to Appollonius, governor of Cœle-Syria and Phœnicia, and told him of the immense treasure in the Temple. It was reported to the king, and the needy monarch (Seleucus) had as little compunction in robbing the Temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem, as his father had in plundering the Temple of Jupiter at Elymais. Heliodorous, the king’s treasurer, was sent to take possession of the money. He was hindered― (we lightly touch the marvelous story)―by a wonderful apparition:―a horse, upon which sat a terrible rider clothed in a panoply of gold, ran fiercely upon Heliodorous and smote at him with his fore-feet, while two young men, “notable in strength, excellent in beauty, and comely in apparel,” stood on either side scourging him with many stripes. He fell speechless to the ground, was restored by the high priest’s intercession, and returned to Seleucus, declaring that God’s eye was upon the place, and attributing what had happened to the “God.
Not so Simon, who had betrayed the treasure. He was skeptical about the heavenly character of “the great apparition,” and boldly suggested that Onias was at the bottom of it. The hatred increased; murder was committed; and Onias, seeing that as the mischief could only increase with time, went to the king. But before anything could be done, Seleucus died, and his brothel came into power.
The new king, Antiochus, adopted the surname “Epiphanes,” Illustrious. That was his own estimate of himself; a truer one— that of the prophetic Scriptures―designated him “a contemptible person”; his own people by a play on his title called him “Epimanes,” Madman. It is, indeed, difficult to understand the behavior of his earlier life, or to know whether to account him madman or fool. But we are not so much concerned with his earlier acts, whether despicable, foolish, or sinful, as with his attitude towards God’s people— an attitude which has earned for him the fearful name, “The Antichrist of the Old Testament.” Not that persecution blazed forth at once after his accession. For a time the chief troubles of the people came from the disputes between those in authority, and those who sought for authority.
Upon the accession of the new king, he was offered by Joshua, the brother of the high priest, three hundred and sixty talents, and a further eighty talents from another source, if he would depose the then priest, Onias, and place him in the office. He further promised to set apart one hundred and fifty talents for the establishment of a gymnasium after the Greek fashion, and, further, that he would call the people of Jerusalem “Antiochians.” The greedy king closed with the offer; Onias was deposed, the miter passed to Joshua, who to the full extent of his power did his best to Hellenize his people. He threw off his honored Hebrew name “Joshua” for the Greek “Jason”; he built the gymnasium, and in every possible way incited the young men to the adoption of “Greek fashions.” A sad picture is drawn in the First and Second Books of Maccabees of the condition of things in those days―the people following the customs of the heathens, making themselves uncircumcised, sold to do mischief, and the priests neglecting the altar and its sacrifices, and hastening to the games of the Greeks! Jason even went so far as to send special messengers from Jerusalem to Tyre, bearing money for offerings to Melkarth, the Phoenician Hercules, on the occasion of the games in his honor.