The Hammer: A Story of the Maccabean Times
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Title: The Hammer: A Story of the Maccabean Times
Author: Alfred John Church
Richmond Seeley
Illustrator: John Jellicoe
Release date: December 31, 2013 [eBook #44550]
Most recently updated: June 15, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44550
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAMMER: A STORY OF THE MACCABEAN TIMES ***
_THE HAMMER_
[Illustration: _The Cave among the Mountains._]
THE HAMMER
_A STORY OF THE MACCABEAN TIMES_
BY
ALFRED J. CHURCH, M.A.
_Lately Professor of Latin in University College, London_
AND
RICHMOND SEELEY
_With Illustrations by __JOHN JELLICOE_
LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED
ESSEX STREET, STRAND
1890
PREFACE
It is not so very long since the Apocrypha was found in almost every copy
of the English Bible, but in the present day it is seldom printed with it,
and very seldom indeed read. One or two of the writings included under
this name are trivial and even absurd; but, on the whole, the Apocryphal
books deserve far more attention than they receive. Among the foremost, in
point of interest and value, must be placed the First Book of Maccabees.
Written within fifty years of the events which it records, at a time, it
must be remembered, that was singularly barren of historical literature,
it is a careful, sober, and consistent narrative. It is our principal, not
unfrequently our sole, authority for the incidents of a very important
period, a period that was in the highest degree critical in the history of
the Jewish nation and of the world which that nation has so largely
influenced. It is commonly said that the great visitation of the Captivity
finally destroyed in the Hebrew mind the tendency to idolatry. But the
denunciations of Ezekiel prove to us that the exiles carried into the land
of their captivity the evil which they had cherished in the land of their
birth, and it is no less certain that they brought it back with them on
their return. It grew to its height in the early part of the Second
Century B.C., along with the increasing influence of Greek civilization in
Western Asia. The feeble Jewish Commonwealth was more and more dominated
by the powerful kingdoms which had been established on the ruins of the
empire of Alexander, and the national religion was attacked by an enemy at
least as dangerous as the Phœnician Baal-worship had been in earlier days,
an enemy which may be briefly described by the word Hellenism. The story
of how Judas and his brothers led the movement which rescued the Jewish
faith from this peril is the story which we have endeavoured to tell in
this volume. Our plan has been to follow strictly the lines of the First
Book of Maccabees, going to the Second, a far less trustworthy document,
only for some picturesque incidents. The subsidiary characters are
fictitious, but the narrative is, we believe, apart from casual errors,
historically correct.
We have to acknowledge special obligations to Captain Conder’s “Judas
Maccabæus,” a volume of the series entitled “The New Plutarch.” We also
owe much to Canon Rawlinson’s notes in the “Speaker’s Commentary on the
Bible,” to Canon Westcott’s articles in the “Dictionary of the Bible,” and
to Dean Stanley’s “Lectures on the Jewish Church.”
If any reader should be curious as to the literary partnership announced
on the title-page—a partnership that has grown, so to speak, out of
another of many years’ standing, shared by the writers as author and
publisher—he may be informed that the plan of the story and a detailed
outline of it have been contributed by Richmond Seeley, and the story
itself written for the most part by Alfred Church.
LONDON,
_Sept. 3, 1889._
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. A NEW ORDER OF THINGS 1
II. ANTIOCHUS 19
III. MENELAÜS 37
IV. AT ANTIOCH 49
V. THE WRATH TO COME 68
VI. THE EVIL DAYS 79
VII. THE DARKNESS THICKENS 90
VIII. SHALLUM THE WINE-SELLER 101
IX. THE PERSECUTION 113
X. IN THE MOUNTAINS 124
XI. NEWS BAD AND GOOD 135
XII. THE PATRIOT ARMY 148
XIII. GUERILLA WARFARE IN THE MOUNTAINS 159
XIV. THE BURIAL OF MATTATHIAS 171
XV. THE SWORD OF APOLLONIUS 184
XVI. NEWS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD 193
XVII. THE BATTLE OF EMMAUS 208
XVIII. THE BATTLE OF BETH-ZUR 225
XIX. IN JERUSALEM 235
XX. THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE 242
XXI. THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE 254
XXII. WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS 263
XXIII. MORE VICTORIES 274
XXIV. THE SABBATICAL YEAR 284
XXV. REVERSES 294
XXVI. LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS 304
XXVII. A PEACEFUL INTERVAL 314
XXVIII. HOPES AND FEARS 323
XXIX. CIVIL WAR 331
XXX. NICANOR 339
XXXI. THE FALLING AWAY 352
XXXII. THE LAST BATTLE 362
XXXIII. THE HOPE OF ISRAEL 368
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE CAVE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS _Frontispiece_
ANTIOCHUS IN THE TAVERN 32
THE PERSECUTION 118
THE LAST CHARGE OF MATTATHIAS 168
THE SWORD OF APOLLONIUS 192
FAREWELL TO THE MOUNTAINS 232
THE DEATH OF ELEAZAR 302
THE BOY KING 314
THE HAMMER
CHAPTER I.
A NEW ORDER OF THINGS.
The time is the evening of a day in the early autumn of the year 174 B.C.
There has been a great festival in Jerusalem. But it has been curiously
unlike any festival that one would have expected to be held in that famous
city. The people have not been crowding in from the country, and
journeying from their far-off places of sojourn among the heathen, to keep
one of the great feasts of the Law. Nothing could be further from the
thoughts of the crowd that is streaming out of this new building which
stands close under the walls of the Temple. What would they who built the
Temple some two and a half centuries before have thought of this strange
intruder on the sacred precincts? It is not difficult to imagine, for the
new erection is nothing more or less than a Circus, built and furnished in
the latest Greek fashion, and the spectacle which the crowd has been
enjoying, or pretending to enjoy—for it is strange to all, and distasteful
to some—is an imitation of the Olympian games. Things then, we see, have
been curiously changed. Even the city has almost lost its identity. It is
no longer the capital of the Jewish nation, but the chief town of an
insignificant province in the Greek kingdom of Syria, one of the fragments
into which the great dominion of Alexander had split some hundred and
fifty years before. We shall understand something more about this
marvellous change if we listen to a conversation that is going on in one
of the houses that adjoin the Temple.
“Well, Cleon, you will allow that our little show to-day has been fairly
successful. We are but novices, you know; barbarians, I am afraid you will
call us. But we hope to improve. You Greeks are wonderful teachers. You
can give in a very short time a quite marvellous appearance of refinement
to the merest savages. And we are not that; you would not call us savages,
my dear friend.”
“Savages! The gods forbid that such insolent folly should ever come from
my tongue! You have a most elegant taste in art, my dear Jason. Our own
Callias—he is our first _connoisseur_ at Athens; you must have heard me
mention him—would not disdain to have some of the little things which you
have about you here in his own apartment.”
And, as he spoke, Cleon looked round the room, which, indeed, was very
handsomely furnished in the latest Greek taste. The walls were covered
with tapestry, showing on a purple ground a design, worked in silver and
gold, which represented the triumphant return of the Wine-god from his
Eastern campaigns. At one end of the room stood a sumptuously-carved
bookcase, filled with volumes adorned by the most skilful binders of
Alexandria. The bookcase was flanked on either side by a pedestal statue,
one displaying the head of Hermes, the other the head of Athené. On a
sideboard were ranged twelve silver goblets, on which had been worked in
high relief the labours of Hercules. But probably the most precious object
in the room—at least in its master’s estimation—was a replica, about half
the size of life, of the statue that we know as the “Dying Gladiator.” It
was the work of a sculptor of Pergamum, a special favourite of the
art-loving dynasty of the Attali. It had been purchased for the enormous
sum of half a talent of gold;(1) and Jason had thought himself especially
fortunate in being allowed to secure it on any terms. The Pergamene artist
was bound, in consideration of the handsome payment which he received from
his royal patron, not to execute commissions for strangers, and it was
only as a special favour, and not till a heavy bribe had been paid to some
influential personage in the court, that the rule had been relaxed in
favour of Jason.
And who, it may be asked, was Jason?
Jason was the Jewish high priest, the successor of Aaron, of Eleazar, of
Jehoiada, of Hilkiah, and as unlike these worthies of the past in
appearance, in speech, in ways of thinking, as it is possible to conceive.
His costume, in the first place, was that of a Greek exquisite. He wore a
purple tunic, showing at the neck a crimson under-shirt, and gathered up
at the waist with a belt of the finest leather, clasped with a design in
silver, which showed a dog laying hold of a fawn. His knees were bare, but
the shins were covered with silk leggings of the same colour as the tunic,
against which the gold fastenings of the sandals showed in gay relief. His
hair was elaborately curled, and almost dripping with the richest of
Syrian perfumes. The forefinger of the left hand showed the head of Zeus
finely carved on an amethyst, that of the right was circled by a sapphire
ring with the likeness of Apollo.
His speech was Greek. Hebrew of course he knew, both in its classical and
its conversational forms; but he was as careful to conceal his knowledge
as an old-fashioned Roman of his time would have been careful to hide the
fact, if he had happened to know any language besides his own. His very
name, it will have been observed, had been changed to suit the new fashion
which he was endeavouring to set to his countrymen. Really it was
Joshua—no dishonourable appellation, one would think, seeing that it had
been borne by the conqueror of Canaan, and by the most distinguished of
the later high priests. But it did not please him, and he had changed it
to Jason.
As for his ways of thinking, these will become evident enough if we listen
to a little more of his conversation.
“And you think, Cleon,” he went on—Cleon was a Greek adventurer who gave
himself out as an Athenian, but who was shrewdly suspected of coming from
one of the smaller islands of the Ægean—“you think that our games went
pretty well?”
“Admirably, my dear Jason,” answered the Greek, who really had thought
them a deplorable failure, but who valued too much his free quarters in
the high priest’s sumptuous palace to give a candid expression of his
opinion.
“You see we had great difficulties to contend with. You can hardly
imagine, for instance, how hard I found it to persuade our young men to
run and wrestle naked. They quoted some ridiculous nonsense from the Law,
as if we could be bound nowadays by some obsolete old rules that no
sensible person would think for a moment of observing.(2) You saw, I dare
say, to-day that I was obliged to allow some of them to wear a loin-cloth.
They positively refused to come into the arena without it. Well, we shall
educate them in time. They _must_ learn to admire the beauty of the human
form, unspoilt by any of the trappings with which, for convenience sake,
we are accustomed to conceal it. I don’t despair of our having a school of
art here some day—not rivals, my dear Lysias, of your glorious Phidias and
Praxiteles, but imitators, humble imitators, whom yet you won’t disdain to
acknowledge.”
“But, my dear sir, you forget the Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not make to
thyself any graven image.’”
The speaker was a young man who had hitherto taken no part in the
conversation. He also had a Hebrew name and a Greek. His father, a rich
priest who claimed descent from no less a person than the prophet Ezekiel,
had called him Micah; but he had followed the fashion, and dubbed himself
Menander. Still, Greek ways and habits did not sit over-easily upon him.
Fashion has often a singular power over the young; but it could not quite
drive out the obstinate patriotism of the Jew. He could still sometimes be
scandalized at the thorough-going Hellenism of the high priest; and he was
so scandalized now. The Commandment was one of the things which he had
learnt at his mother’s knee, and which he had solemnly repeated when, at
the age of twelve, he had been regularly admitted to the privileges of a
“son of the Law.”
“My dear Menander,” broke in the high priest, “what can you be thinking
about? I had hoped better things of you. You do discourage me most
terribly. ‘No graven image or likeness of anything that is in heaven or
earth!’ Was there ever anything so hopelessly tasteless? Why, this is the
one thing that has checked all growth of art among us? And without art
where is the beauty of life? Now tell me, Menander, did you ever see
anything so hideous as the Temple? There is a certain splendour about
it—or was, till I had to strip off most of the gold for purposes of
state—but of beauty or taste not a scrap. You, Cleon, have never seen the
inside of it. Well, you have lost nothing. It would simply shock you after
your lovely Parthenon. Bells and pomegranates—things that any moulder
could make—and sham columns, and everything as bad as it can be. And then
the dresses! You should see—though I should really be ashamed if you did
see it—the absurd costume that some of them would make me wear as high
priest. Anything more cumbrous and clumsy could not be. A man can hardly
move in it; and as for showing any of the proportions of the figure—and I
take it that dress is meant to reveal while it seems to hide them—one
might as well be wrapped up in swaddling clothes.”
“Did you ever wear it?” asked Cleon.
“Once, and once only,” answered Jason. “That was on the day when I was
admitted to the office. You see it had to be done. Some of my enemies—and
I am afraid that I have enemies after all that I have done for this
ungrateful people—might have said that things were not regular without it,
and when one has paid twenty talents of gold for the office, it would be
rank folly to risk it for a trifle. But I have never worn it since, and
never mean to again. I did design something much lighter and neater,
worthy the Greek fashion, but with just a tinge—it would be well to have a
tinge—of our own in it; but it did not please the elders when I showed it
to them, a bigoted set of fools!”
“But your worship is very fine, I am told,” said the Greek.
“Very tasteless, very tasteless,” answered the high-priest, “the singing
and music as rude as possible. I tried to improve them when I first came
into office. When I was at Antioch I saw some very pretty performances in
the groves of Daphne, and I wanted to remodel our ceremonies on something
of the same lines. Of course I could not transplant them just as they
were: you will guess that there were one or two things that would hardly
do here. I am not strait-laced, as you know, but there are limits.
However, it all came to nothing. Our people are so clumsy and obstinate.
So the only thing will be to let these antiquated ceremonies die out by
degrees.”
Micah broke in at this point. Disposed as he was to follow Jason’s lead,
this was going too far. “Surely, my dear sir, if you take away from us all
that is distinctive, where will be our reason for existence? After all is
said, we are not Greeks and never can be Greeks; and if we cease to be
Jews, what are we?”
“_Jews!_ my dear fellow,” cried the high-priest, “why do you use the
odious word? We are not Jews, we are Antiochenes. Do you know that I paid
five talents to the treasurer of Antiochus for license to use the name?
For Heaven’s sake, let us have our money’s worth. By the way,” he went on,
turning to Cleon, “when does your Olympian festival next take place?”
“In two years’ time,” said the Greek.
“I propose to send an embassy with a handsome present for your great
temple. I should like to establish friendly relations with your people at
the head-quarters of your race. Do you think it is possible that our
Menon—you saw him in the stadium just now—might be allowed to run? It
would take all that your athletes know to beat him.”
“Quite impossible. He could hardly make out a Greek pedigree, I suppose?”
“No; he could not do that. But would not money smooth the way?”
“It could not be. Money will do most things with us, as it will elsewhere,
but not that. A man must show a pure Greek descent.”
“But the embassy can go?”
“Certainly,” replied the Greek, with a smile; “we are ready to take gifts
from any one. But—excuse my obtruding the suggestion—is it quite wise to
run counter to your people’s prejudices in this way? Couldn’t they get up
an agitation against you?”
“My dear Cleon, I feel quite easy on that score. I made the highest bid
for the place, and it is mine, just as much as this ring is mine.”
“But might not some one outbid you? I have heard of such things being
done.”
“Outbid me? Hardly. I have squeezed the uttermost farthing out of the
people to pay the purchase-money and the tribute, and I defy my rivals,
with all the best will in the world, to beat me. Why, my fellows, the
tax-gatherers, are the most ingenious rascals in the world for putting on
the screw. I make them bid against each other when I put the taxes up to
auction, and they really go to figures that I should not have thought
possible. And then, after all, they manage somehow or other to get a
handsome margin of profit for themselves. I know the scoundrels always
seem to have a great deal more money than I have.”
Menander, somewhat revolted at his friend’s levity, rose to take leave.
“Stop a moment,” said Jason, “I have a little commission for you, which
will give you a pleasant outing and a score or two of shekels to put in
your pocket.”
“Well, the shekels will be welcome. Those are very charming fellows, those
Greek friends of yours,” he went on, addressing Cleon, “but they have the
most confounded luck with the dice that I ever knew. But what is it, sir,
that you want me to do?”
“I want to do a civil thing to our friends at Tyre. You know that we do a
very brisk trade with them, and a little bit of politeness is never thrown
away. Well, next month they have the great games of Hercules, and I want
you to take a present to the Governor, and, as you will be there, just a
trifle—a silver tripod, or something of the kind—for Hercules himself. The
Tyrian people would take it amiss, I fancy, if you went quite
empty-handed.”
Micah—for at the moment he felt much more like a Micah than a
Menander—flushed all over. “I take a present to the idol at Tyre! You must
be joking; but, with all respect, sir, it is a joke which I do not
appreciate.”
“Come, my dear Menander,” said the high priest, with a laugh, “why all
this fuss? You must excuse me for saying so, but you are really a little
stupid this morning. What nonsense to talk about idols! The Greek heroes
are really the same as our own. Hercules is nothing more or less than
Samson under another name. You will find in every country the legend of
some strong man who goes about killing wild beasts and slaying his
enemies, and doing all kinds of wonders; and it does not become an
enlightened man like yourself to fancy that our hero is anything better
than another nation’s hero. However, think the matter over. If you don’t
choose to go there are plenty who will, and Tyre, I am told, is still
worth seeing, though, of course, it is nothing like what it was.”
At this moment a servant burst somewhat unceremoniously into the room.
“How now, fellow?” cried the high priest, “Where are your manners? Don’t
you know that I have company and am not to be interrupted?”
“Pardon, my lord,” said the man, in a breathless, agitated voice, “but the
matter is urgent. Your nephew Asaph is dying, and has sent begging you to
come to him.”
“Asaph dying!” cried the high priest, turning pale. “How is that?”
Asaph had been one of the performers in the exhibition of the day. A light
weight, but an exceedingly active and skilful wrestler, he had entered the
lists with a competitor much stronger and heavier than himself. The
struggle between the two athletes had been protracted and fierce and had
ended in a draw. There had been two bouts, but in neither had this or that
antagonist been able to claim a decided success. In each, both wrestlers
had fallen, Asaph being uppermost in the first, but underneath in the
second. On rising from the ground he had complained of severe internal
pains; but these had seemed to pass away, and he had been conveyed in a
litter to his mother’s house. After a brief interval the pains had
returned with increased severity; vomiting of blood had followed, and the
physician had declared that the resources of his art were useless. The
poor lad—he was but a few months over twenty—sent, in his agony, for his
uncle the high priest. It was a forlorn hope—for how could such a man give
comfort?—but it was the only one that occurred to him.
No one was more conscious of the incongruity of the task thus imposed upon
him, the task of administering consolation and comfort to the dying, than
Jason himself. His first impulse was to refuse to go. But to do so would
not only cause a scandal, but would also be the beginning of a family
feud. And Jason, though selfish and hardened by base ambitions, was not
wholly without a heart. He had some affection for his sister, a widow of
large means, whose purse was always open to him when he wanted help, and
Asaph—or Asius, as he preferred to call him—was his favourite nephew,
possibly his successor in his office. He felt that he must go, but it was
with a miserable sinking of heart that he felt it.
“Lead on,” he said to the slave, “I will follow. You, my friends, must
excuse me.”
The worldly priest might well have dreaded to enter the house of woe to
which he had been called.
The unhappy mother met him at the door. “Oh, Joshua!” she cried, the
foolish affectation of the Greek name being forgotten in the hour of
trouble. “Can you help us? My dear Asaph is dying, and he is terribly
distressed about his sins. You are high-priest. Have you not some power to
do him good?”
“Take me to him,” said Jason, “I will do all that I can for him.”
The unhappy lad was lying on a couch, the deathly pallor of his face
showing with a terrible contrast against the rich purple of the coverlet.
His eyes were wide open, and there was a terror-stricken look in them that
was inexpressibly painful to witness. As soon as he saw his uncle, he
burst forth in tones of agonized entreaty. “I have sinned; I have sinned;
I have followed in the ways of the heathen, and, see, my God hath called
me into judgment. Help me! help me! Save me from the fire of Gehenna!”
The high priest strove to say something; but his faltering lips seemed to
refuse to do their office.
“Speak! speak!” cried the young man. “It was you who told me to go into
the arena. You said there was no harm in it; you encouraged me, and now
you desert me. O help me!” and his voice, which had been raised to a loud,
angry cry, sank again to low tones of entreaty. “You are high priest; you
surely can do something with the Lord. Pray for me to Him. Quick! quick!
the evil ones are clutching at me!” and, as he spoke, he turned his eyes
with a fearful glance as if he saw some terrible presence which was
invisible to the rest.
His uncle, more unhappy than he had ever been before in his life, stood in
dumb despair. It seemed impossible to mock this wretched creature with
words in which he did not himself believe. And, indeed, the words
themselves seemed to have fled altogether from his memory. At last, with a
tremendous effort, he summoned up some of the words, once familiar to his
lips, but which had not issued from them for years. It was what we know as
the fifty-first Psalm in our psalter that he began—“_Have mercy upon me, O
God, after Thy great goodness, according to the multitude of Thy mercies
do away mine offences._” He began with a faltering and uncertain voice,
which gathered strength as he went on. The dying man listened with an
eagerly-strained attention, and the words seemed to have some soothing
effect upon him. When the speaker came to the words, “Cast me not away
from Thy presence,” he clasped his hands together. At the very moment of
the act a strong convulsion shook his frame: a stream of blood gushed from
his mouth; in another moment Asaph was dead.
His unhappy mother had been carried fainting to her apartments, where her
maids were endeavouring to restore her to consciousness. The high priest
was almost glad that she was in such a state that there could be no
question of attempting to administer to her any consolation. No one,
indeed, could have felt less like a comforter than he did at that moment.
As he walked slowly back to his palace he felt less satisfied with the
Greek fashions, for which he had sacrificed the faith of his fathers, than
he had done for many years.
The news that he found awaiting him at home changed the current of his
thoughts. A letter, carried, in Eastern fashion, by a succession of
runners, had arrived from Joppa. It was as follows:—
“_Josedech, Chief of the Council of Joppa, to Joshua, Governor of
Jerusalem._
“Know that a swift pinnace has arrived, bringing news that the fleet
of Antiochus the King is on its way hither. It will arrive, unless it
be hindered by weather or any other unforeseen cause, on the second
day. Let us know so soon as shall be possible how the heathen should
be received, whether we shall admit him into the city, and to whom we
shall assign the task of entertaining him. Farewell.”
Jason’s face flushed as he read this curt and not very courteous epistle.
“Governor of Jerusalem, indeed!” he muttered to himself. “So the old bigot
won’t acknowledge me to be high priest. I shall have to give him a lesson,
and teach him who he is and who I am. ‘How the heathen is to be received.’
What is the fool thinking of? As if he could be shut out of the city if he
chooses to come in! Well, I see plainly enough that there will be mischief
here, if I don’t take care. It won’t be enough to write. I must send some
of my own people to receive the king.”
He pressed a hand-bell that stood on the table. “Send the letter-carrier
here,” he said to the servant who answered the summons. In a few minutes
the man appeared.
“When can you start back with my answer?” asked the high priest.
“This instant, my lord, if it should so please you.”
“And the other posts are ready?”
“Each at his place, my lord.”
“And when will the letter be delivered in Joppa?”
“Let me think,” said the messenger. “The distance should be about two
hundred and eighty furlongs, and the way descends. ’Tis now scarcely the
first hour of the night. I should say that the letter should be there an
hour before midnight.”
Jason at once sat down and wrote his answer:—
“_Jason, the High Priest, to Josedech, Chief of the Council of Joppa,
greeting._
“I charge you that you do all honour to the most mighty and glorious
lord Antiochus. Let him have of the best, both in lodging and
entertainment, that your city affords. I doubt not your zeal and
goodwill, but that you may not fail for want of knowledge, I will send
certain of my own people, who will welcome the most august King in
such manner as shall be worthy both of his majesty and of our dignity.
Farewell.”
The messenger, who had been standing by while this letter was being
written, received the document with a salute, and placed it in his girdle.
A few minutes afterwards he was on his way.
“And now for the deputation to meet his Highness,” said Jason to himself.
“I cannot expect them to get off quite so quickly as this good fellow. But
they must not start later than noon to-morrow. And now, whom am I to send?
Cleon, of course, and Menander——”
He stopped short and reflected. “It’s really very hard to find a
respectable person who is quite free from bigotry—if, indeed, it is
bigotry.” For some minutes he seemed lost in thought. “Send the secretary
to me,” he said, when the servant came. This official soon made his
appearance, and we will leave him and his master to settle the details of
the deputation.
CHAPTER II.
ANTIOCHUS.
The greater part of the population of Joppa, which, like most seaside
towns, was somewhat cosmopolitan in its habits and ways of thinking, had
hurried down to the shore to watch the arrival of the great Syrian King.
And, indeed, his fleet was a sight worth seeing. Thirty ships, all of them
with three banks of oars, were formed in a semicircle, the arc of which
was parallel with the line of the shore. They were war-vessels, the finest
and swiftest that the Syrian fleet possessed, manned with picked crews,
and now gay with all the sumptuous adornments that befitted a peaceful
errand. The day was perfectly windless, and the sea as calm as a lake.
This circumstance made it possible for the squadron to preserve the order
of its advance with an exactitude which would not have been possible had
it been moving under sail. On the prow of each vessel stood a
flute-player, and the rowers dipped their oars in time to his music. Each
player had his eyes fixed on a conductor who was posted on the royal
vessel, a five-banked ship, which occupied a position slightly in advance
of the semicircle. Time was thus kept throughout the squadron—a result,
however, not obtained, as may easily be imagined, without a vast amount of
practice. The sight of the thousands of oars, as they were dipped and
lifted again in rhythmical regularity, with the sunshine flashing upon
them, was beautiful in the extreme. As for the ship that carried King
Antiochus, it was a gorgeous spectacle. The ropes were of gaily-coloured
silk; the hull was brilliant with gold. The figure-head was the head and
bust of a sea-nymph, exquisitely wrought in silver. The poop was covered
with a crimson awning.
As the squadron approached the harbour, a convenience which the Joppa of
to-day no longer possesses, the royal ship fell back, allowing the leading
vessels on either side of the semicircle to precede it to the pier. From
these a company of troops, splendidly arrayed in gilded armour,
disembarked, and formed two lines, between which the King was to walk.
The Syrian King was a young man of about two-and-twenty years, tall, and
well made, and not without a certain dignity of presence. His face, too,
at first sight would have been pronounced handsome. It was of the true
Greek type: the forehead and nose forming an almost uninterrupted straight
line. This line, however, receded too much, giving something of an
expression of weakness. But for this the features of the young Syrian king
might have been described as bearing a singular resemblance to those of
the great Alexander. Youthful as he was, his complexion, naturally of a
beautiful delicacy, was already flushed with excess. But the most sinister
characteristic of his face was to be found in the restless look of his
prominent eyes. The descendants of the brilliant soldier, the ablest and
most upright of the generals of Alexander, who had founded the Syrian
kingdom, had sadly degenerated under the corrupting influences of power.
The hideous example of lust and cruelty had been set and improved upon by
generation after generation, till the fatal taint of madness, always the
avenger of such wickedness, had been developed in the race.(3)
The Council of Joppa had sent a deputation of their body, headed by their
president, Josedech, to receive the visitor with such respect as might
lawfully be shown to a heathen. Greeting and compliments could be
exchanged without any loss of ceremonial purity. Nor would there be any
harm in presenting a gift. To sit down to meat with an unbeliever, was, of
course, out of the question; but this difficulty had been overcome by the
complaisance of a wealthy Greek merchant, who, for sufficient reasons of
his own, had offered to entertain the visitor.
The councillors saluted the King, not with the extravagant form of “Live
for ever!” but with the more moderate form of “Peace be with you.”
Antiochus answered with a careless greeting. At the same time he turned to
one of his courtiers, and said in a whisper which was heard, as it was
meant to be heard, by others besides the persons addressed, “Look! what a
set of he-goats. And faugh! how they smell!” The young King, who was
exceedingly vain of his good looks, had the fancy of making himself up as
the beardless Apollo, and, of course, the court followed the fashion that
he set. The insulting words did not fail to reach the ears of the elders,
but they affected not to have heard them. The president then proceeded to
deliver his address of welcome. It was sufficiently civil, but, as may be
supposed, not enthusiastic. The speaker hoped that friendly relations
might continue to exist between the Jewish people and the kingdom of
Syria. He was glad to receive on Jewish soil a powerful monarch who, he
trusted, would be favourably impressed with what he should see and hear.
If his subjects had any grievances they would find prompt redress; the
King would doubtless do the same for Jewish merchants who considered
themselves aggrieved.
To this address, which, after the manner of such documents, was somewhat
verbose and lengthy, Antiochus listened with ill-concealed impatience;
perhaps it would be more correct to say, with impatience that was not
concealed at all. He fidgeted about; he interjected disparaging remarks
that must have been distinctly heard a long way off. He even corrected the
speaker when he made a slip in Greek idiom. Still the elders preserved an
imperturbable calm, though a keen observer might have seen the flush
rising upon their faces.
The address of welcome ended, it only remained to offer the customary
present. An attendant stepped forward carrying a robe of honour, a piece
of native manufacture, which, without being particularly splendid, was
sufficiently handsome and valuable to be adequate to the occasion. But it
did not please the young King, who, indeed, was scarcely in the humour to
be pleased with anything. One of his followers received it from the hands
of the attendant, and Antiochus, according to the usual etiquette, should
have touched it, saying at the same time a few words of politeness. What
he did was to take it from the hands of the courtier who had received it,
shake it out, and hold it from him at arm’s length, eyeing it, at the same
time, with an expression of undisguised contempt. Even this was not all.
Turning his back upon the elders he dropped the robe on the head of one of
his attendants, and, by a sudden movement, twisted it round his neck,
bursting out at the same time into a loud horse-laugh. The laugh was, of
course, dutifully echoed by his courtiers; but to the Joppa crowd it
seemed no laughing matter. An angry murmur ran through it. The front ranks
made a menacing movement forwards, while stones began to fly from behind.
On the other hand, the soldiers of the King’s body-guard drew their
swords, and began to form up behind him. They were not properly prepared,
however, for a conflict; for, as they had come only on a service of
ceremony, they had nothing with them but their swords and light ornamental
breastplates.
Everything wore a most threatening look, when there occurred an
interruption that was probably welcome to every one, except, it may be,
the hotheaded and reckless young sovereign himself. The deputation from
Jerusalem had arrived. The high priest, anticipating, as we have seen,
some trouble, had despatched them at the very earliest opportunity, and
had urged them to make the best of their way to their destination. At the
same time, that their presence might have something more than moral
weight, he had sent a squadron of cavalry. The deputation, with their
escort following close behind, now made their way through the crowd.
The high priest was represented by his kinsman Phinehas—who had found a
substitute for his unfashionable name in Phineus—by Menander, who has been
already mentioned, and by two Greeks, of whom our acquaintance Cleon was
one. Josedech and his companions willingly left the management of affairs
in the hands of the new arrivals, and retired from the scene. Leaping from
his horse, Phinehas, or Phineus, prostrated himself in Eastern fashion at
the feet of Antiochus, and his companions followed his example, while the
escort of cavalry saluted. “Rise,” said Antiochus, whose good humour began
to return when he found himself treated with what he conceived to be
proper respect. He even condescended to reach out his royal hand, and
assist the envoy to recover his feet. Phineus proceeded to deliver an
address of welcome which was certainly not wanting in florid compliment.
It might even have been called profane, for Antiochus was described not
only as magnificent, illustrious, victorious (to mention a few only of the
speaker’s exuberant supply of epithets), but even as divine. The speech
ended, an attendant presented a richly-chased casket of gold, filled with
coins, fresh from the Syrian mint, and bearing the features and
superscription of Antiochus himself. The King received it with something
like _empressement_, and after speaking a few words of thanks, passed it
to his treasurer. At the same time he took a bag of silver from one of his
attendants, and condescended to scatter some of the pieces among the crowd
that lined the quays, with his royal hands. As may be supposed, a vigorous
scramble ensued, and not a few of the spectators were tumbled over the
edge into the shallow water below. Others jumped in of their own accord
after some of the pieces which had fallen short. A general burst of
laughter was the result, and the situation lost the gravity which had been
so alarming a few minutes before.
The King now recognized an old acquaintance in Cleon. Antiochus, handed
over in his childhood as a hostage by his father, had spent his boyhood
and youth in Rome. The somewhat austere manners of that city had not
pleased him, and he was glad to find in the young Greek an acquaintance
more congenial than the young Marcelli, sons of the priest of that name,
under whose charge he had been put. Cleon had come to Rome to seek his
fortune, and had found employment in assisting the comic poet Cæcilius in
making his translations from the Greek. Poets, however, were not so well
paid as to be able to spare much for their assistants, and Cleon had been
very glad to act as the young prince’s teacher, a post which his guardian
the priest had found it very difficult to fill. Tutor and pupil had been
on the most friendly terms. The elder man was indulgent, exacted no more
than the youth was willing to learn, and, possibly thinking that all the
necessary austerity was supplied by the Roman guardian, winked at various
indulgences which would not have approved themselves to his employer.
Antiochus retained a grateful recollection of the complaisant youth who
had made things so agreeable for him in the days of his captivity.
“Hail, Cleon, most delightful of teachers, behold the most thankful of
pupils!”
And he embraced the Greek, kissing him on both cheeks.
“So you, too,” he went on, “have escaped from that dismal prison-house
across the sea! Was there ever a place, think you, more unfit for a
gentleman to live in? And how have you fared since I saw you? I hope that
Fortune has had something pleasant in store for you.”
“She could have done nothing better, Sire, than to thus give me the
pleasure of seeing you.”
“Oh, what a compliment! I see that your tongue has not lost its dexterous
twist. But I suppose I must attend to this stupid business here. Why can’t
they let one come quietly, and see what people really are. I dare say
there are some good fellows here as elsewhere; but all these ceremonies
and speech-making and fine clothes tire me to death. Well, we shall find a
chance of having some talk together before long. Anyhow, you will come and
see me at Antioch. I will make you court-poet, or general-in-chief, or
high priest of Aphrodite! I know that you can do anything that you choose
to turn your hand to.”
While this conversation was going on the Greek merchant who had
volunteered to entertain the royal visitor was waiting to be introduced.
This ceremony performed by Phineus, he proceeded to give his invitation.
“Will your Highness be pleased to accept such humble hospitality as I can
offer? My house and all that is within it are at your service.”
“Pleased! of course I shall be pleased,” returned the King, in boisterous
good humour. “I know what your ‘humble hospitality’ means. It is you
merchants that can afford to do things handsomely. You make the money, and
we can only spend it. What with armies and fleets and legions of servants,
who eat us up like so many locusts, we never have a drachma that we can
call our own. As for me, I am easily satisfied. Give me a mullet, a piece
of roast kid, a flask of good wine, and a pretty girl to hand the cup, and
I want no more. Lead on.”
The procession moved on to the merchant’s house. This reached, the King,
who declared that he wanted his midday sleep, was at once shown to his
apartments.
It was some six hours later when the banquet, for which the host had made
magnificent preparations, was ready. The company was assembled, and was
fairly numerous, though it did not contain the true _élite_ of Joppa
society. With one or two not very respectable exceptions, the
representatives of the high-class Jewish families were absent. But there
were plenty of strangers in the town, and the room was sufficiently full.
The trading community was present in force: Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians,
Carthaginians, and even a Greek-speaking Gaul from Marseilles, were
present. Rome was represented by two Roman knights, who were doing a
profitable business in money-lending, and who had the name of pretty
nearly every noble in Syria on their books.
But the guest of the evening was absent. The company waited with the
patience with which royal personages are waited for on such occasions. At
last, when an hour had gone beyond the time fixed for the entertainment,
the host ventured to send up to the King’s apartment, with a humble
reminder that the banquet was ready. But the apartment was empty!
“What can have become of him?” was the thought in every one’s mind, not
unaccompanied by a certain anxiety in the older courtiers, who had
observed with dismay the reckless proceedings of their master.
At last a thought struck Cleon. He took the chief of the King’s attendants
aside and communicated to him his suspicions. “I saw something of his
Highness’s ways at Rome,” he said, “and I can guess what has happened. He
always had a fancy for disguises, for dressing himself up as a sailor or
an artizan, and going to some very curious places in the city. Often and
often have I been with him—to keep him out of mischief, you know—and, by
the gods! it was well I did. I remember his being very nearly stabbed one
night in a low wine-shop in the Suburra.(4) And now I remember that this
morning his Highness said something about wanting to see what the people
really were, without all this ceremony. Let us question the porter whether
he has seen any one go out.”
The porter was questioned accordingly. At first he could give no
information. At last he remembered observing two young men in sailor’s
dress passing the gate about three hours before. He had taken no heed of
them. Sailors had been coming and going all day, with various articles
which they were bringing up from the ship, and he had supposed that these
were two of the number. Here the man’s wife struck in with the information
that she had noticed the two sailors, thinking that there was something
odd about their appearance; their clothes were very shabby, but they had a
superior air. Neither the man nor his wife knew anything more; but they
thought that the two had turned in the direction of the harbour after
leaving the house.
Under these circumstances search seemed hopeless, and might, indeed, do
more harm than good. Perhaps the safest plan would be to let the young man
find his way back for himself. After some discussion, however, it was
resolved that Cleon, after first changing the dress which he had donned
for the banquet for something less conspicuous, should look in at some of
the wine-shops near the harbour, which were suggested as likely places for
the search by the character of the King’s disguise.
Cleon was successful beyond his expectation. His attention was attracted
by the sound of boisterous laughter proceeding from a tavern whose windows
fronted the place where the King had landed. The place was crowded to
overflowing, and even the pavement before the house was thronged with
idlers, who were content to hear what they could of the fun inside without
having any score to pay. With no little difficulty Cleon edged his way
into the principal room. It was a strange scene that met his eye. The room
was crowded with Phœnician and Greek sailors, with here and there the
swarthy face of a Moor among them. The guests sat on benches, closely
packed together, and every one had a huge earthenware cup in his hand and
a pitcher of wine at his feet. At the further end of the room was a small
platform reserved for the performers who were accustomed to entertain the
audience. A couple of dancing-girls had just exhibited a dance of the
boisterous kind which was specially favoured by the seafaring spectators;
and now his Syrian Majesty was doing his best to entertain the company
with the burlesque of a Roman electioneering oration. He spoke in Greek,
or, rather, the mixture of tongues, the _Lingua Franca_ of the time, which
did duty for Greek in the seaport towns of the Eastern Mediterranean; and
he used with considerable effect the broad Roman accent. His speech, could
it be reproduced, would be dull or even unintelligible to us, but his
audience found it highly entertaining. The Greeks, always quick-witted,
caught the points with admirable readiness, and the others laughed, if not
for any other reason, at least for sympathy. The most completely
successful part was where the orator, who affected to be a candidate for
the consulship, propounded a grand scheme, according to which the citizens
of Rome were to live in idleness, supported by the contributions of the
whole world. When the attention of the audience began to flag, the young
Prince, with an audacious presence of mind that would have become a
veteran performer, suddenly changed the entertainment. Sticking a tall cap
on his head, he proceeded to give a ludicrous imitation of the solemn
dance of the priests of Mars. Cleon had seen the original performance in
Rome, and he could not but confess that the slow, awkward movement, and
droning chant which the performer adapted to a popular song of a somewhat
equivocal kind, was a very clever piece of work.
[Illustration: _Antiochus in the Tavern._]
A few minutes afterwards Antiochus retired, breathless with his exertions,
and Cleon made his way after him.
“So you are here,” burst out the King. “Good, was it not?”
“Excellent, my lord,” returned Cleon; “but you must excuse me if I ask you
to come back. The banquet is ready, and the company are waiting for you.”
“Confound the company; there is much better company here. I will stop
where I am.”
Cleon remonstrated and argued; at first, it seemed, with no effect.
Finally, however, by a judicious mixture of flattery and promises, and
specially, by enlarging on the opportunity that there would be of
electrifying the _élite_ of Joppa by a display of eloquence, he induced
the King to come away. Antiochus was eaten up with a vanity that was
almost insane, and he was as proud of his capacity for serious oratory as
he was of his talents as a buffoon.
Unfortunately the eloquence was never displayed. The King had drunk
largely of the heady wine which was a favourite with the nautical
customers of the tavern, and he applied himself with equal diligence to
the more refined vintages which he found on the table of Stratocles, his
entertainer. The company drank his health in bumpers; and, not to be
outdone, a huge capacity for drink being, as he thought, one of his most
honourable distinctions, he pledged them in return by draining a cup of a
royal size. This was a final effort. He spoke a few hesitating sentences,
frequently interrupted by hiccoughs, staggered, and but for the prompt
attention of his attendants, who had indeed observed his condition, would
have fallen to the ground. Nothing remained but to carry him out of the
banqueting hall.
It was late in the afternoon of the following day before he was
sufficiently recovered from the effects of his debauch to start for
Jerusalem. A halt for the night was made about halfway, and late in the
afternoon of the next day the cavalcade approached Jerusalem. Jason came
out to meet his guest. He had done his utmost to bring a reputable company
with him, but his efforts had not been very successful. The respectable
part of the population of the city was conspicuously absent, a mixed
multitude of strangers and half-breeds, brutal in manners and squalid in
appearance, represented the Jewish nation. Fortunately it was dark, and
the torchlight procession with which the King was escorted into the city
did something to conceal by its picturesque effects the general meanness
of the affair. Antiochus, however, did not fail to notice the character of
the gathering, and indeed rallied his host on his ragged and disreputable
followers. But his good humour did not seem to be disturbed. He admired
the decorations of the palace, was loud in praise of Jason’s taste in art,
and indeed admired one statuette so much that his host felt compelled to
offer it for his acceptance, much against his will, for it was supposed to
be an original by Scopas, and to be worth at least five talents. The next
day came a visit to the Temple. The King shrugged his shoulders at what he
was pleased to consider the tastelessness of its architecture, suggested
to his host that he had better pull the whole place down and build it
again in a better style, and offered him the services of his own architect
and a painter who, he said, had a quite unequalled skill for such subjects
as a dance of satyrs and nymphs, and would cover the walls of the new
building with some really elegant designs. But if the architecture of the
Temple did not please him, he expressed a genuine admiration for some of
its contents. There was a greedy light in his eye as he looked at the rich
furniture and gorgeous vessels—and this, though Jason, having certain
views of his own, had the prudence not to show him the chamber which
contained the most massive treasures of the place. But whatever Antiochus
may have thought, he said nothing but what was civil and pleasant. It may
be supposed, however, that a few days of such a guest would be enough, and
it was with unmixed delight that at the end of a week Jason saw him depart
for Phenicé.
CHAPTER III.
MENELAUS.
Two years have passed, and the fate which Jason had declared to be beyond
all limits of probability or possibility has actually overtaken him. One
of his agents, named Oniah, who has assumed the name of Menelaüs, for the
rage for Greek fashions still continues unabated, has outbidden him, and
now reigns in his stead, occupying the palace on Mount Sion which he had
been at such pains to adorn.
If we look into his library we shall see not only the books and
statuettes—the silver tankards are gone, melted down into money that was
wanted for some sudden exigency—but our old acquaintance, Cleon. The
supple Greek was not one of those who take their friends for better, for
worse. Jason was wandering about among the hills of Ammon with scarcely a
garment to his back or a shekel that he could call his own, and what use
could he find for the company of an accomplished gentleman, who had as
keen an eye as any one for a fine bit of sculpture or painting, and could
not be rivalled, out of the profession, in his taste for wine? The
accomplished gentleman knew where he was appreciated, where he was of use,
and, naturally, where he was well off. Accordingly he had found means, as
such people always do find means, of ingratiating himself with the new
occupant of the palace, and was installed as his consulting connoisseur
and chief adviser in matters of taste.
“A poor creature, certainly,” he had replied to some depreciatory
criticism which Menelaüs had passed on his predecessor, “but it must be
allowed that he had a taste in art.”
“Or was sensible enough to be guided by those who had,” said Menelaüs.
Cleon acknowledged the compliment with a bow, and went on, “I never found
him make any difficulty about the price. And, of course, if a man goes to
work in that spirit, and has good advice, too, he is bound to make a fine
collection.”
Menelaüs received the observation with a grimace, and a significant shrug
of the shoulders. “‘No difficulty about the price,’ you say. Of course
not. Why should he? When a man doesn’t pay, he is apt to be easy about the
amount. Do you know that the bills for half the things that you see in
this room have been sent in to me? Sometimes he had to pay the money down.
The ‘Gladiator’ there, from Pergamum could not have been got without ready
cash; but wherever he could, he went on credit, and now the dealers are
down upon me.”
And he held up a sheaf of bills.
“Here,” he went on, “is a pretty account from Theodotus of Alexandria, the
bookseller, you know:
“‘_A Manuscript of Anacreon_ (said to be 10 minæ.
autograph)
_The Milesian Tales_ 5 „
_Drinking Songs from Cratinus_ 2 „’
And so it goes on, with a quantity of books which I am sure the old
impostor never read. Two talents and twelve minæ it comes to altogether.
Then here is ‘A Group of the Graces, 1 talent;’ ‘Silenus, 20 minæ;’ ‘Satyr
and Nymphs, half a talent.’ ‘Set of Flagons, worked with the Labours of
Hercules, 2 talents.’ These the villain melted down before he went. Fancy
the rascality of that! Why, the silver by weight could not have been worth
a fourth part of what it cost with the workmanship.”
“Well,” said Cleon, “the fellows can wait. They can afford it; I know
enough about these things to be sure that they get a very handsome profit.
I used to travel, you know, for Cleisthenes of Syracuse, and so got to
know something about the secrets of the trade. No, you need not be afraid
of making them wait.”
“Well, they have waited three years already,” returned Menelaüs; “and very
likely will have to be out of their money for as many more. But here is a
gentleman who won’t wait. Here is Sostratus” (Sostratus, it should be
mentioned, was Governor of the Castle, which was garrisoned by Syrian
troops, and so the representative of King Antiochus)—“here is Sostratus
asking for the half-year’s tribute, and giving me a pretty strong hint
that, if I don’t send it, he shall come and take it for himself. And where
is the money to come from?”
“Well,” said Cleon, with a little laugh, “I suppose there is one way to
get milk, and that is to go to the cow, or the goat, or the sheep. You
see, we have a certain choice between big and little. And so, if you want
money, you must go to the people, I suppose.”
“The people! they are squeezed absolutely dry, at least one would think
so. I could tell you stories about the squeezing that would make you split
your sides with laughing. There was old Levi, a Bethlehem farmer; they
boiled him, or half-boiled him, because he would not pay his taxes—said
that he couldn’t, the old villain! They put him in a caldron, you see, and
kept heating it up, because he would not tell where he had hidden his
money.”
“Well, did they get it out of him?”
“No, the obstinate old dog, he would not say a word; but before he was
quite finished his wife brought the coins from her head-dress and bought
him off. They say that he was the queerest figure when he came out of the
water, with the skin hanging about him in folds. Well, at all events, it
was a good washing for him. He had never been so clean in his life
before.”
“And did he recover?” asked Menander.
“Upon my word, I can’t remember. But I do know that we got the money.”(5)
“Well, I remember what your predecessor used to say. It was in this very
room about two years ago that I asked him whether he felt quite safe. ‘Oh,
yes!’ he answered, ‘I have got the last farthing that is to be got, and
there is an end of it!’”
“Well,” replied the high priest, “there are other ways of getting money
besides taxes. I will allow that Jason worked the taxes as well as a man
could. No one can eat or drink, lie down or get up, walk or ride, travel
or stay at home, be born or marry, or be buried, without having to pay for
it. No! I do not see room for another, and I am sure that it is not for
want of looking. But, as I said, there are other ways. Now—can you keep a
secret?”
“A secret! I should say so—not the grave itself better!”
“Hush! my friend, good words! good words!” cried the high priest, who
felt, or affected to feel, the common Greek superstition against words
that seemed to carry an evil omen with them. “Well, if you can, come
here.”
So saying, Menelaüs took his friend into an adjoining room, and opening a
cupboard, secured, as the Greek observed, by an iron door and by a lock of
elaborate construction, showed him a number of massive gold vases.
“And where do these come from?” asked Cleon, almost dazzled by the
splendid array.
“Where should they come from, but from the Temple? Some of these have got
a history of their own. You see that two-handled cup? King Artaxerxes gave
it to Nehemiah: solid gold. And you see those splendid sapphires in the
handles? The very biggest stones of the sort I have ever seen, and worth
three talents each. Then there is that salver, Alexander of Macedon gave
it to the Temple; and that casket there was a present from the first
Ptolemy.”
“But, my dear sir,” said the Greek, astonished at the audacity of the
whole affair, “is not this going a little too far? Suppose the people were
to find it out? Would there not be a rather formidable uproar?”
“Well, of course; we cannot get anything without risk. But I have taken
precautions. First, I have put a facsimile of every one of these in the
Temple; gilded lead, which does perfectly well for all practical
purposes.”
“But the weight! Surely any one can tell the difference by the weight.”
“Of course, my dear Cleon, I know that lead is little more than half as
heavy as gold. But there are ways of making it up. You can put a great
deal more metal in, without its being observed, and almost make up the
difference. And, you see, the things are never allowed to be handled; can
only be looked at. I have given very strict orders about that, you may be
sure. Of course the treasurer is in the secret; but as he must sink or
swim with me, he may be trusted. Besides, I am not going to run the risk
of keeping them here. I can trust you, my good Cleon, as I can my own
brother—in fact, when I come to think of it, a good deal more—yet I am not
sure that I should have told you so much, but that the best of these are
going to be packed off to-night. The fact is, they are sold already.”
The Greek could only shrug his shoulders and say nothing. As my readers
will have perceived, he was not a man of high principles—in fact, to put
the matter plainly, he was an unscrupulous adventurer. But the reckless
villainy of Menelaüs fairly disgusted him. His taste, quite apart from any
question of principle or honesty, revolted at the notion that a man,
placed as was the high priest of the Jewish people, should deal with these
historic treasures as a vulgar burglar might deal with them. This was a
refinement of feeling into which the vulgar cupidity of Menelaüs did not
enter. He went on:
“How wild that scoundrel Jason would be, if he knew of this, to think that
he had lost such an opportunity, had these treasures in his hand, so to
speak, and leave them to his worst enemy!”
“Have you heard anything lately about him?” asked the Greek, not unwilling
to change the subject.
“Oh, yes,” replied Menelaüs, “he is wandering about somewhere in the
country of the Ammonites, and at his wits’ end, I am told, how to live.”
“Poor fellow!” said Cleon, _sotto voce_, “he was always very kind to me,
and I can’t help being sorry for him.” He then went on aloud, “He will
find it a great change from his way of living here.”
“Yes, yes!” said Menelaüs; “but still, some of his old ways and habits
will come in usefully. He was always great about training, you remember.
Every one should be ready to fight a boxing-match or run a race. Cold,
hunger, fatigue; these, he used to say, are the things to bring out a
man’s muscles. And now he has got them in perfection. He might really
carry off some prize, only, unluckily, he is getting a little too old for
that sort of thing. And then, you recollect, how he would go on about the
beauty of the human form. Clothes, especially the gorgeous clothes of our
people, obscured so tastelessly its magnificent proportions. Well, he has
not much to complain of, I imagine, on that score. By the last account
that I had of him he had as little in the way of clothing as a man could
well have. Anyhow, he may console himself with thinking that _his_
magnificent proportions are not obscured. Well, I don’t pity him. A man
who has managed to get into a good place and then cannot stick to it is
nothing better than a fool, and richly deserves everything that he may
get.”
At this point in the conversation a servant announced the arrival of a
message from Sostratus, Governor of the Castle.
“All the gods and goddesses confound the man!” cried the high priest, in a
rage. He was fond of garnishing his conversation with a little Greek
profanity. “Another dunning message, I suppose. Well, he must wait. No man
can get any water by squeezing out of a dry sponge; and that is about what
I am!”
The communication from Sostratus proved, however, to be on quite another
subject, though it was, if possible, even more unwelcome. It ran thus:—
“_Sostratus, Vicegerent of the Divine King, Antiochus, to Menelaüs,
the High Priest, greeting._
“Know that I have this day received the summons of the Divine King,
Antiochus, to attend him at his court at Antioch, within the space of
thirty days, there to inform his Highness more fully of affairs
concerning his province of Judæa. Know also that your presence is
required at the same place and time, whereof the writing herewith
enclosed, being sealed with the King’s seal, will be proof sufficient.
Farewell.”
Menelaüs’s face visibly lengthened as he read this epistle. “By the dog!”
(this was a Socratic oath which he sometimes affected, as giving to his
conversation a certain philosophic tinge)—“By the dog! this is worse than
being dunned! I like not a journey to Antioch. A very pretty place, but
expensive, dreadfully expensive, especially when one has the honour of
being entertained by the King.”
Cleon felt a certain pleasure in the high priest’s discomfiture. The new
patron was more overbearing, less considerate, and generally more
difficult to get on with than the old. Jason, coxcomb as he was, had
always been kind, and Cleon felt as kindly for him as it was in his nature
to feel for any one. And then the exquisite propriety with which this
disturbing news followed the man’s taunts and boasts was irresistible.
“It is hard,” he said, as if to himself, “when a man has got into a good
place——”
Menelaüs darted an angry look at his friend, but the Greek’s face, which
he knew how to keep under admirable control, expressed nothing but
respectful sympathy. There was an unpleasant suggestion of mockery in what
he had heard; but the Greek was a useful person; he had been trusted, too,
and knew things which it would not do to have published. Altogether, the
high priest concluded, it would not do to quarrel with him—anyhow, for the
present; some day, perhaps, he might be got rid of.
“I suppose, sir, you cannot make an excuse—important affairs of State, the
King’s service to be attended to, or something of that kind?”
Cleon made the suggestion, knowing perfectly well that it was quite out of
the question. But he enjoyed the novel position of tormenting his patron,
and was taking it out, so to speak, for not a few rudenesses and slights.
“Excuse!” cried Menelaüs. “It would be as much as my head is worth to do
anything of the kind. No! I must go. But this is not a journey which one
cares to take empty-handed. Let me see what I can take—two or three of the
most portable cups, as much coin as I can scrape together, and the
jewels—jewels are always useful: it is so easy to hide them. Well, I shall
leave you in charge; unless, indeed, you are very much set on going
yourself.”
Cleon was not at all set upon going; on the contrary, nothing short of the
strongest inducements would have persuaded him to the journey. Going to
Antioch was like putting one’s head into the lion’s mouth. There was no
particular reason, indeed, why _his_ head should be bitten off; but lions
are capricious, and sometimes use their teeth for the mere fun of the
thing.
“I am much obliged for the chance,” he said, “but my health has been
suffering lately, and I do not feel quite equal to the journey.”
“Well, then,” replied Menelaüs, “stop here, and keep things as straight as
you can. And if you can sell some of these pretty things for ready money,
do so—the usual commission for yourself, of course. But it must all be
kept quiet.”
The next day the high priest and the Governor, neither of them in very
good spirits, were on their way to Antioch.
CHAPTER IV.
AT ANTIOCH.
Antioch more than deserved the praise of “a very pretty place,” which
Menelaüs had bestowed upon it. In fact, it was one of the finest cities of
the world. The old town which the first Antiochus(6) had found had been
improved away by him and his successors. All that could be done by a
despotic power that made very short work with the wishes and even the
rights of private owners of property, and by a lavish expenditure of
money, had been done by five generations of rulers, and the result was
magnificent. Broad streets ran from side to side; and those who grumbled
that the narrow alleys of the old town gave at least a shelter from the
sun were consoled by the rows of planes and limes, planted alternately,
which shaded both sides of each thoroughfare. Rows of houses, which looked
more like palaces than private dwellings, occupied the best quarter of the
city, and even the poorest regions had nothing of the squalor of poverty.
Even the filth so common in the East was conspicuously absent from
Antioch, for every gutter ran with an unceasing stream of water, drawn
from a higher point of the Orontes and carrying into that river at a lower
point all the defilement of the streets. Temples, in which a whole
pantheon of gods was worshipped, were to be seen on every hand. The pure
and harmonious outlines of Greek architecture could be seen side by side
with the _bizarre_ conceptions of Oriental art. If the kings and their
Greek subjects worshipped Zeus and Apollo, and, above all, Aphrodité, who
had here her famous grove of Daphne, so the Syrian population were
faithful to Baal and Ashtaroth. A magnificent amphitheatre, capable of
holding at least thirty thousand spectators, rose, a striking mass of
white marble, on the north side of the city; a colonnade ran round the
four sides of the market-place, gorgeous with the lavish colours of the
East, for here the art of Greece had been superseded for once by the more
ornate native taste. But the river, rushing down between its noble
embankments of stone, was the chief ornament of the place. The Orontes had
not gathered round it the splendid associations that clustered about the
Tiber, but its broad, clear stream was in everything else more than a
match for its Italian rival.
Menelaüs and his companion, who, it may be guessed, had reasons of his own
for regarding with anxiety the summons that brought him to the capital,
were not a little relieved to find that the King had been called away by
urgent affairs.
Tarsus, one of the most important cities in his dominions, had rebelled.
Its antiquity, its wealth, and its fame as a seat of culture, a character
in which it claimed to be a rival of Athens itself, had combined to give
the Tarsians a high opinion of themselves. Successive rulers, beginning
with the Assyrian kings, its first founders, had allowed the city a
certain independence; and its pride was grievously wounded when the young
King, with the reckless levity that distinguished him, handed it over as a
private possession to his mistress. The citizens pitched the lady’s
collectors into the Cydnus, shut their gates, and defied their sovereign;
Mallos, another Cilician city which had suffered the same indignity,
following their example. The King had marched to reduce the rebels—a task,
it was probable, of no little difficulty—leaving a certain Andronicus to
act as his deputy, and specially to dispose of the charge on which
Menelaüs and Sostratus had been summoned.
This charge was one of a very formidable kind. Menelaüs’s dealings with
the treasures of the Temple had not been so secret as he had hoped. Such
things cannot be done without a certain number of confederates, and such
confederates are very apt to give a finishing touch to their villainy by
betraying their chief. In this instance one of the journeymen employed had
considered himself insufficiently paid, rightly thinking, perhaps, that if
sacrilege can be recompensed at all, it ought to be recompensed
handsomely. Personally he was too insignificant to venture an attack on so
great a potentate as the high priest, but he knew whither to carry his
information. He told what he knew to a priest, who, besides being a devout
Jew, was a member of the family to which the high priesthood properly
belonged. The priest, after satisfying himself that the story was true, at
once set about bringing the offender to justice.
His course was plain. Menelaüs, we have seen, had supplanted Jason, and
Jason had himself purchased the dignity. But Oniah, the rightful high
priest, who had been displaced by Jason, was still alive. Antiochus,
naturally fearing his influence with his countrymen, had kept him at his
capital, treating him, strange to say, with remarkable consideration. But
Oniah was one of those men who extort veneration even from the most
reckless of profligates. His venerable figure, his face beaming with
benevolence, his blameless life, and the charities which he dispensed up
to and even beyond the limit of his means, had won for him the regard of
all Antioch. Even the heathen would stop him in the streets and beg his
blessing. Oniah was a power in Antioch for which even the reckless young
profligate on the throne had an unfeigned respect.
It may, then, be easily imagined that no little sensation was produced
when this venerable personage appeared before Antiochus, and, in the
presence of the Court, accused Menelaüs, whom he had steadfastly refused
to acknowledge as high priest, of having embezzled much of the treasure of
the Temple at Jerusalem. That Oniah, whose veracity and good faith were
beyond all question, should make such a charge was _primâ facie_ evidence
of its truth. As he was known to have many friends in Jerusalem, it was
more than probable that evidence would be forthcoming. The King did not
hesitate a moment in acting upon this probability. Of course, he did not
look at the matter in at all the same light as that in which it was
regarded by the devout Oniah. To the dispossessed high priest the robbery
of the sacred vessels was a monstrous sacrilege, an offence of the deepest
dye, not only against his country but against his God. Antiochus felt that
it was he who had been wronged. The treasures of the Jerusalem Temple were
_his_ treasures. He might be content to leave them, at all events for the
present, where they were; but they must be ready to his hand whenever the
occasion should arise, and any one who presumed to appropriate them was a
traitor and a villain. Hence the urgent summons to Menelaüs and to
Sostratus, who, as Governor, could hardly fail, thought Antiochus, to have
been cognizant of the whole proceeding.
Almost immediately after the despatch of the summons came the trouble with
Tarsus. The King started to chastise in person his rebellious subjects,
and left, as we have said, Andronicus in general charge of affairs, and
with a special commission to hear the accusation which Oniah was bringing
against Menelaüs. The choice was an unlucky one. Antiochus was sincerely
anxious that justice should be done in the matter; but to get justice done
in any particular case when it is not the rule of the administration is
exceedingly difficult. Andronicus, to put the facts quite simply, was an
unprincipled villain, ready to sell his decisions, when he could do so
with impunity, to the highest bidder. He was an old acquaintance and
confederate of Sostratus, and Menelaüs, who had established friendly
relations with the Governor during their journey from Jerusalem to
Antioch, soon received a hint as to how he should proceed. The hearing of
the case had been appointed for the sixth day after his arrival. Before
that date one of the sacred vessels which he had taken the precaution of
bringing with him, had been exchanged for five hundred gold pieces, and
the gold pieces had found their way into the pocket of Andronicus.
On the day appointed Oniah, supported by the principal Jewish inhabitants
of Antioch and by not a few of the most respectable Greeks, appeared to
substantiate his charges against the usurper Menelaüs. The evidence
appeared to be overwhelming. The artizan who had been employed to
fabricate the worthless imitations of the precious vessels told the whole
story of the fraud with a fulness of detail which seemed to bear all the
stamp of truth. Another witness related how he had carried one of the
original articles to a goldsmith at Sidon, and actually produced a rough
memorandum of its weight, which had been made upon the spot, to be
afterwards embodied in the formal receipt.
The line of defence adopted was bold, not to say impudent. The whole
affair, according to Menelaüs, was a conspiracy on the part of the
irreconcilable Jews to overthrow a loyal subject of the King. The
witnesses, he declared, had been suborned, the documents had been forged.
He then went on to bring a counter-charge against his accuser. And here he
found a certain advantage in the transparent honesty of Oniah.
“Do you acknowledge,” he asked the ex-high priest, “the validity of the
appointments which our most noble lord Antiochus has made to the office of
high priest?”
Oniah frankly confessed that he did not.
“Do you consider yourself to be still, according to the Law, in rightful
possession of that office?”
“I do.”
“And bound to assert that right?”
“By lawful means.”
“And you hold all means to be lawful that are enjoined in the Law of
Moses?”
“I do.”
“And among such means you would count the banishment from the precincts of
the Holy City of all such as do not worship the Lord God of Israel?”
Oniah felt that he was becoming entangled in this artful web of questions,
and made an effort to break loose. “I appeal,” he cried, “most excellent
Andronicus, to all who, in this city of Antioch, for these four years past
have known my manner of life. You see sundry of them, nor of my own nation
only, in the court this day. Ask them whether I have not lived in all
peace and quietness, not seeking to disturb, either by word or deed, the
dominions of my lord the King.”
Menelaüs, of course, had not come unprovided with witnesses. The old man
had, to tell the truth, used language of an imprudent kind. He was a
patriot and a believer. As such, he had his beliefs and his hopes, and it
was part of his character to express such beliefs and hopes quite openly.
He had talked of a day when the Holy Land should be no more the prey of
the alien and the heathen, when a king of the House of David should rule
in Mount Sion, when the Temple should regain all the sacredness and all
the glory which had ever belonged to it. Such language, construed
strictly, was not consistent with a thorough loyalty to the Syrian
monarch. But no one who knew Oniah, a man of peace who had the good sense
to recognize what was and what was not possible, could suppose that any
scheme of revolt against existing authorities had ever entered into his
mind. In fact he had not said a word that had not been said before by one
or more of the prophets. Still, words which breathed a spirit of
independence, when reported by witnesses, and acknowledged by Oniah—who
was, indeed, too honest to deny them—gave Andronicus the occasion for
which he had been looking. He gave his decision in the following terms:—
“The charge against Menelaüs is postponed for further hearing. Meanwhile
the documents produced and the witnesses will remain in the custody of the
Court. As for Oniah, he must be reserved for the judgment of the King in
person. I should myself have been disposed to release him; but in the
absence of my lord, considering that the peace of the realm is so
essentially concerned, I do not venture so far.”
He was proceeding to give orders for the removal of Oniah, when an ominous
murmur from the audience, with which the court was crowded, made him
pause. Prisoners who saw the inside of an Antioch dungeon were sometimes
not heard of again. The air had a certain power of developing very rapid
diseases, so rapid that the sufferers were not only dead but buried before
any tidings of the sickness reached their friends. Antioch was not
disposed to see the man who was probably the most widely respected of all
its inhabitants, exposed to such a risk. Andronicus, who could not even
trust the soldiers to act against so venerable a person, drew back. He was
willing, he said, to accept sureties in a sufficient amount for the due
appearance of the accused. The sureties were forthcoming in a moment, in
sums so great and so absolutely secure that Andronicus had no pretext for
refusing them. He proceeded to adjourn the Court for fourteen days.
During the interval he took the opportunity of making a change in the
garrison of the capital. Troops recruited from some of the regions
bordering on Judæa, and accordingly among the bitterest enemies of its
people, replaced some Greek mercenaries. The strangers knew nothing about
Oniah, except that he was a Jew, and, being a Jew, of course hateful. They
could be relied upon to obey orders, and those who knew Andronicus were
sure what orders he would issue.
Oniah’s friends urged him to fly. He was too old and feeble, he replied;
it would be better for him to die at his post. Then they implored him to
take sanctuary.
“What!” he cried, “take sanctuary in a heathen temple! There is none other
in the place. I would sooner die a thousand times.”
It was not in a temple, they explained, that he was to find shelter. It
was in the Gardens of Daphne that they wished him to take refuge. And they
proceeded to unfold an elaborate argument, the gist of which was that the
Gardens were a civil, and not a religious, sanctuary; that there would be
no occasion for him to enter the consecrated enclosure; he would be simply
availing himself of a custom which forbad the entrance of the Minister of
Justice into a place devoted to the amusement of the people. It is
probable that they strained their argument beyond the limits of the truth.
It was with great difficulty that Oniah could be made to yield. When he
did so at last, on the urgent representations of his friends that the
hopes of a free Israel were largely dependent on the preservation of his
life, he could not help foreboding that the concession would not profit
either himself or them.
The world scarcely contained a more beautiful place—beautiful both by
grace of nature and diligence of art—than the Gardens of Daphne; and
certainly none that seemed more unlikely to shelter a devout Jew. Its
avenues of cypress and laurels, its delicious depths of shade, its
thousand streams, clear as crystal and untouched by the drought of the
longest, most fiery summer, were but a part of its charms. Of some,
perhaps the chief of its attractions, it is best not to speak; but there
were others, less unseemly indeed, but such as must have been absolutely
scandalous to such a man as Oniah. The curious thronged to see the
gigantic statue of Apollo, a match both in size and costliness of material
to that of Zeus in the plain of Olympia. (It was sixty feet in height, and
wrought of gold and ivory.) To complete the resemblance to the famous
meeting-place of the Greek race, there was a running ground and rings for
wrestling and boxing. Finally, Daphne claimed to rival another great
centre of Greek life in its special characteristic. It was stoutly
maintained that the Apollo who haunted the laurel-groves of Daphne was as
true a prophet as he who spoke through the lips of Pythia at Delphi.
Crowds of men and women, eager to learn the secrets of the future, came to
the groves of Antioch. The method by which they saw into the secrets of
fate seemed singularly simple. The questioner dipped a laurel leaf into
the stream that flowed by the shrine, and lo! the surface appeared written
over with the intimations of fate. Simple it was, but the priests had
spent a world of pains in acquiring the art of invisible writing, and they
did their best to learn something about the history and prospects of the
applicants.
Such was Daphne, and no one could be more astonished than were its
inhabitants and visitors at the strange figure whom they saw before them;
strange to the place, indeed, rather than to them, for Oniah, as has been
said, was one of the best-known personages in Antioch. The rumour of his
coming had gone before him, and a crowd, half curious, half respectful,
had gathered to meet him. In not a few, indeed, curiosity and respect were
mingled with something of fear. The presence of this austere piety in this
haunt of vicious pleasure, was thought to augur ill for its prosperity.
Some of the priests were heard to murmur that one who was the avowed enemy
of the gods ought not to be admitted. But they did not venture to deny to
any one who sought them the privileges of sanctuary, while their fears
were not of a kind which they could make their followers understand. They
had, therefore, to acquiesce, and hope that the unwelcome visitor would
bring with him no ill-luck.
A little building, as remote as possible from the central temple, had been
secured for the residence of Oniah. On reaching the gardens he had to make
his way to it through two dense lines of eager spectators. The temple, the
shrine of the oracle, the pavilions devoted to pleasure, were for the
nonce deserted. The drunkards left their wine-cup, and, stranger still,
the dice-players their gaming-tables, to gaze upon the holy man. As he
walked up the narrow avenue that had been left for his passage, some of
the women whose venal beauty was one of the attractions of the place,
threw themselves at his feet. Unhappy creatures, they had been brought up
from childhood to this life of degradation, which indeed had a certain
hideous sanction of religious association about it; but they had not
altogether lost the womanly veneration for goodness, and, like the
Magdalen of a later time, seemed to forget themselves in its presence. The
old man, unconscious of their character, or perhaps, with the Divine Guest
of the Pharisee of Capernaum, ignoring it, stretched out his hands with
the gesture of blessing, and, though it was technically a pollution to
touch a heathen, he even laid them on some children who were almost thrust
into his arms. There was hardly a heart that was not touched with this
kindness, and when the priest, as he entered his new abode, turned and
bade the multitude farewell, he was answered with shouts of enthusiasm.
Menelaüs and his accomplices were dismayed at the escape of the victim. A
witness who knew so much, and whose word was so implicitly believed, must
be silenced at any cost. To take him by force from the sanctuary was
impossible. Any attempt of the kind would certainly end in disaster. But
it might be possible to draw him forth by fraud. Menelaüs knew enough of
the old man’s character to be sure that he had gone reluctantly, and would
gladly seize the opportunity of quitting a scene in which he must have
felt himself so much out of place. Some such fraud it would not be
difficult to contrive with the help of Andronicus. Accordingly another of
the sacred vessels found its way to the dealer, and another purse of gold
into the pocket of the viceroy, and in a few hours the plot was arranged.
As Antiochus was on his way back from the north, there was no time to be
lost.
Two days after the arrival of Oniah at the gardens a visitor to him was
announced. It was the viceroy himself.
“Venerable sir,” he began, “it has grieved me beyond measure to find that
you were distrustful of my honourable, and I may say friendly, intentions
concerning you. Whoever accused me of ill-will towards you has wronged me
most foully. And let me add that you also have been wronged no less in
that you have been persuaded to come to a place so unworthy of your
dignity. Your safety should be ensured, not by a sanctuary in which
thieves and murderers find refuge, but by the inviolable precincts of the
royal palace itself. Let me offer to you, in the name of the King, the
hospitality of his abode. In the meanwhile I am willing to swear by any
oaths that may suffice to satisfy you and your friends, that you shall
suffer no injury from my hands.”
One or two of Oniah’s friends strongly dissuaded him from trusting himself
to the viceroy. But their caution was overborne by their companions and by
the eagerness of the priest to quit so uncongenial a place. Andronicus
took every oath known to Greek or Jew that he would treat the priest with
all respect, and Oniah gladly bade farewell to the Gardens. His departure
was made at the dead of night, and unknown to any of the inhabitants of
Daphne. Had they been aware of his intention, it is probable, knowing as
they did the character of Andronicus, that they would have hindered it by
force.
Almost at the moment of Oniah’s arrival at the palace a runner reached it
from the King announcing his intended arrival on the next day.
Speedy action was necessary, and Andronicus, though not without
misgivings, determined to lose no time. A Court of Justice, so called, was
hastily held. A creature of his own was called to preside over it.
Witnesses whose testimony had been carefully prepared, deposed to
preparations for rebellion to which Oniah had been privy, and to which he
had lent his aid. The accused was not allowed to have an advocate, and
scarcely even permitted to speak. Two hours sufficed for this mockery of a
legal process, and two more for carrying into effect the sentence of death
which was of course pronounced. Though the brutal Cilicians who formed the
garrison of the palace were ready to carry out any order which their
officer might give, it was judged well to avoid anything like a public
execution. That very night Oniah was poisoned in his prison, and before
dawn the next day his body was hastily consigned to the tomb.
The punishment for this atrocious act of treachery and cruelty was not
long delayed. One of the first acts of Antiochus, after his return to his
capital, was to demand the presence of Oniah, and then the story had to be
told. Andronicus did his best to put such a colour upon it as would
deceive his master. The attempt was vain. The King saw in a moment through
the idle charges which had been brought against the dead man. “What!” he
cried, “Oniah rebel against _me_!” His vanity and self-confidence made the
accusation seem the very height of absurdity.
“Of course,” the King went on—“of course he did not acknowledge the
priesthood of Jason or Menelaüs; he has told me so himself twenty times.
He could not think otherwise, and he was as honest as the day. I only wish
that he had left another as honest behind him. Zeus and all the gods of
heaven and hell confound me if I do not avenge him to the uttermost. Tell
me,” he cried, turning to the captain of the Cilicians, who stood by
dismayed at his master’s rage—“tell me where you have buried him.”
The captain described the place.
“I will see him once more, and these villains shall see him too,” he said,
pointing to the trembling pair, Andronicus and his creature the judge.
He went on foot, his royal dress discarded for a mourner’s cloak. His
courtiers followed him, and a guard of soldiers behind brought with them
the guilty viceroy and judge.
“Open the grave,” he said, when he reached the spot.
It was soon done, for the murderers had hurried their victim into a
shallow tomb. In a few minutes the body of the dead man was exposed to
view. Decay had not commenced, and death had given fresh depth and beauty
to the serenity which had been their habitual expression in life.
Antiochus gazed awhile at the face; then, dropping on his knees, covered
his head with his mantle, and burst into a passion of tears.
In a few minutes he rose to his feet. Grief had given place to rage, and
his eyes blazed with fury.
“Bind that wretch!” he cried, pointing to the wretched Andronicus.
He was bound, and stood waiting his doom.
“He is not worth the blow of an honest sword,” cried the King; “strangle
him, as if he were a dog. But first make him look at the man whom he has
murdered.”
Andronicus was forced to the edge of the grave and compelled to look at
the dead. A halter was thrown round his neck, and the next moment he was a
corpse. The judge shared his fate. “And you, sir,” said the King, turning
to the captain who had administered the poison—“you, sir, though you are a
barbarian, and know no better, must learn that you cannot rob the world of
one who was worth a thousand such brutes as you. You are captain no more;
that is your successor,” and he pointed to an officer in his train. “You
can groom his horses, if you don’t want to starve. And think that you are
lucky that you keep your head.”
So the good Oniah was avenged.
CHAPTER V.
THE WRATH TO COME.
A year has passed since the tragedy related in the last chapter. Menelaüs,
thanks chiefly to the fickle temper of Antiochus, had escaped the fate
which overtook his accomplice Andronicus, and had returned to pillage his
unfortunate countrymen in Palestine. But his lease of power had come to an
end. Jason, his dispossessed rival, had taken the opportunity of a report
that Antiochus was dead, and attacked him. There could hardly be any
choice between the two men. Both were equally rapacious; equally
unfaithful to their religion and their country. But Jason had been out of
power for two years, and his misdeeds had faded a little from the memory
of the people; Menelaüs’s enormities were still fresh in their
recollection. After a sharp conflict, the losses of which were utterly out
of proportion to any gain that could possibly come from it, Jason had won
the day, and his rival had been compelled to take refuge in the Castle.
Then came the news that the report of the death of Antiochus was false. He
had settled affairs in Egypt after his liking, and was now on his way
northwards, furious at the trouble which this obstinate province was
giving him, and resolved, as he said, to quiet it for good. Jason had fled
in headlong haste, and his partisans, and, indeed, most of those who had
the means to go, had followed his example. Meanwhile Jerusalem was
awaiting the future with fear and trembling.
It is an evening in the early summer, and the western wall of the city is
crowded with men and women, who are gazing with awe-stricken faces on the
strange appearance of the sunset. All day people had been talking of the
marvellous shapes which had appeared the evening before in the western
sky, and now a great multitude had assembled to see whether the marvel
would be repeated, and, if so, to judge of it for themselves. Nor had they
assembled in vain. Never, within the memory of man, had the heavens worn a
stranger, a more terrifying look. Above the spot where the sun was just
sinking to his rest the whole sky glowed with a red and angry light. On
this background, so to speak, the clouds of a lower stratum had shaped
themselves into the forms of two armies ready to engage in battle. The
spectators seemed to be able to trace in one place the serried ranks of
infantry, in another the massed array of chariots and horses. A space,
brilliantly coloured, as it might seem, with something like the hue of
blood, intervened between the two airy hosts. But these seemed to be
slowly nearing each other, and the gazing people watched the lessening
space, expecting, one might think, to hear the actual clash of arms when
they should have met. But then the sun set, and with the sudden failing of
light that marks the evening of more southern climes than ours, the whole
pageant vanished from before the eyes of the spectators.
Among the crowd is our old acquaintance Menander, or Micah, whom we last
met in the library of Jason. Things have not gone well with him since
then. He had cherished a belief that Greek culture, the brightness of
Greek literature and art, would do something to amend the severity, and
what he was pleased to call the tastelessness of Jewish life. To a certain
extent it had been an honest belief, though the pleasure-loving nature of
the man, in its revolt against the stern morality of the Law, had had
something to do with developing it. But his experience of Greek culture
and its works had not been encouraging. If the reforming doctrine had to
be preached by such prophets as Jason, and Menelaüs, and the cruel and
profligate young tyrant Antiochus, it was more than doubtful whether it
would do any good. Hitherto, certainly, it had done no good at all. The
people were more unhappy, more spiritless, more like slaves than they had
ever been before; the rulers were more greedy and selfish, more absolutely
careless of all that did not concern their own interests. Might he not, he
began to think to himself, have made a mistake? Might not the old life,
which was at least the life of free men, be better than the new?
He was busy with such thoughts when he heard a woman’s voice behind him
whisper “Micah.” He did not recognize it at once, but its tones were
familiar to him, and they seemed to touch the same chord in his heart with
which his thoughts were then busy. And the name, the old Hebrew name, that
too was familiar, though it was long since he had heard it. He was
“Menander” to his friends; for his friends were either Greeks, or else
Jews who, like himself, had cast off the associations of his birth and
race.
“Micah,” said the voice again, and he turned to look at the speaker.
She was a woman of some thirty years, plainly, almost poorly, dressed, but
with all the air of gentle birth and breeding. Her face was beautiful, not
with the brilliant loveliness of youth, but with that which is brought
into the features by a pure and tender soul. There were the lines of many
sorrows and cares upon her forehead, and round her eyes, and in the
corners of mouth and cheek; but her eyes, save that they seemed almost too
large for the thinner contours of the face, were as beautiful as they had
been in the first glory of her youth.
It was Hannah, his elder sister, who had been as a mother to him in his
orphaned childhood, that Menander recognized. Years had passed since they
met. There had been no quarrel, but circumstances had made a barrier
between them. What Menander’s life had been we know, and Hannah was the
wife of a faithful and devout Jew, Azariah by name, who, though still
cherishing kindly thoughts for his young kinsman, had felt that, for the
present at least, they were best apart.
Brother and sister eagerly clasped hands, and Menander, or Micah, as we
will call him, felt a lump rise in his own throat as he saw the tearful
smile in Hannah’s lustrous eyes.
“Micah,” she said—“for you will not mind my calling you Micah, though I
hear you use another name; but you were always Micah to me—this is a
strange sight on which we have been looking.”
“Yes, sister,” he answered, with a gaiety of tone which was more than half
assumed—“yes, sister, strange enough; but then we know that the clouds do
take strange shapes at times. A current of air blows them this way or
that, and, with our fancy to help, they become anything in heaven or earth
that we may fancy.”
“Nay, Micah, there is more than fancy here. You and I used to watch the
clouds from the window in the old house, and to laugh at the odd shapes
which we found in them—lions, and dogs, and whales, and such things—but we
never saw such a sight as this.”
“But we had not in those days such thoughts of our own to read into the
sights of the skies. But tell me, Hannah, what do you think it means?”
“What can it mean,” she answered, in a low voice, “but wrath—wrath upon us
and upon our children?”
“Wrath, perhaps,” he cried; “and the sky has, I must confess, an angry
look. But why must it be upon us? Why not rather upon our enemies? I see
nothing in the skies which tells us whether these sights be meant for us
or for them.”
“Nay, my brother, speak not thus, for you know better in your heart. The
heavens give us these signs, or rather God gives them to us through the
heavens, but He leaves it to our own hearts to interpret them. They tell
us surely enough on whom this wrath must fall.”
“But, sister, tell me why on us? Are we worse than our neighbours—than
these robbers of Edomites and Ammonites, these sullen Romans, never
satisfied except when they are fighting—these mongrel Syrians?”
“They are heathen,” said Hannah, in a solemn voice, “and they do not sin
against light. Let us leave them to the judgment of God. But ourselves we
can judge. Look at this city; we call it the City of David—but where is
the spirit of David? Have we not trampled the Law underfoot, making to
ourselves graven images of things in heaven and earth and the water under
the earth? Where is the honour of the Sabbath? Where is the morning and
evening sacrifice? Where are the yearly feasts? Will our God deliver us
again, when we will not thank Him for the deliverances that He hath
wrought already? Oh, Micah, I do not seek to anger you; but are you such
as our father, now in Abraham’s bosom, would rejoice to see you? And tell
me, how was it that we Hebrews became a great people? A Syrian ready to
perish was our father, and lo! before a thousand years were past, Solomon
reigned from the great river to the Western sea. How came we by this
might? Was it by aping Egyptian or Greek? Did we not keep to our own way,
and walk after our own law, and worship our own God? Then it was well with
us, and the nations round about feared us and honoured us; but now they
laugh us to scorn, for we are ashamed of our own selves, and seek to be
what they are, and cannot attain to it, and so fall short both of their
greatness and of ours.”
Micah stood dumb before this fierce torrent of words. Was this the gentle
Hannah of his youth? There must be some mighty influence that could change
the lamb into the lioness.
She went on, in a gentler voice, “You are not angry with me, brother?”
“Surely not.”
“I must go, for my husband will be waiting for the evening meal. Come,
children,” she went on, speaking to two little girls who had been clinging
to their mother’s cloak, gazing open-eyed and half-terrified at this
strange kinsman.
“And are these my nieces?”
“Yes; Miriam and Judith,” answered Hannah, pointing first to one and then
to the other. “This, children, is your dear uncle, Micah.”
The young man stooped and kissed the children.
“You will not let it be so long before we see you again?” said Hannah.
His answer was to wring her hand, and turn away. Her words had pricked him
to the heart, and he did not know whether to thank her or be angry.
We must now turn to another group which had also been drawn to the walls
by the report of the marvellous sights that were to be seen in the
heavens. A group it was that would have attracted attention anywhere, so
remarkable were the contrasts and the resemblances which it presented.
The principal figure was an old man dressed in the everyday garb of a
priest. The burden of years had bowed his stately figure, for he had long
since passed the limit which the Psalmist assigns to the life of man, but
his eye was as brilliant as ever, and his voice, when he spoke, had lost
none of its depth and fulness of tone. His three companions were men in
the vigour of life. All surpassed the common stature, but yet none of them
equalled the height of their father, for that they were father and sons
the most casual observer must have seen. In age there was little
difference between them. The eldest may have numbered about forty years,
the youngest, perhaps, four less. Their dress was mainly that of the
middle-class Jew, and so different from the old man’s priestly garb, but
not without some distinctive marks that indicated the fact that they
belonged to the House of Aaron. The multitude of priests was indeed so
great that but a very small share in the services of the Temple, even when
these were fully carried out, fell to the lot of any one man. These
services had now been reduced to a minimum, and numbers of the priestly
houses, while not repudiating their hereditary office, practically devoted
themselves to the ordinary avocations of life. This had been done by the
three sons of Mattathias of Modin, for such was the name and such the
ancestral city of the aged priest.
“Judas,” said the old man, addressing one of his sons, “these signs in the
heavens are of a surety from the Lord.”
The son addressed was the youngest of the three; but it was evident from
the bearing of his brothers, and from the air of respect and attention
with which they waited for him to speak, that they were accustomed to see
him the first recipient of their father’s confidence. And indeed it was
not difficult to see, under a superficial resemblance of figure and face,
something that distinguished him from his companions. John, the eldest,
was a plain, blunt soldier, raised above the average level of his
profession, by the purity of his life and the depth of his religious
convictions, but still essentially a soldier, one who saw no way of
solving complicated questions save by a downright blow of the sword.
Simon, the second in point of age, had a singularly mild and benevolent
expression, though his eyes were full of intelligence and the lines of his
mouth and chin seemed to show that he could be firm on occasion. But Judas
had all the outward characteristics of a hero. A sturdier soldier never
wielded sword, but he saw that there are difficulties to which the sword
alone can bring no solution. Nor was he slow to follow all the subtleties
of diplomacy; but, at the same time, he never lost his grasp of the
principles which all the skill of the diplomatist is unable to change.
“Father,” he now said, “that these signs are from the Lord I do not doubt.
But what is your counsel?”
“Speak you first, my son,” replied the old man; “’tis ever best so. You
might be unwilling to differ from me and yet be in the right. This at
least my years have taught me—that it is easy for any man to err.”
“Let us stay,” said Judas. “’Tis true the air is stifling, such as a free
man can scarcely bear to breathe. But there are many, father, that look to
you for counsel and guidance, and we may scarcely leave them, at least
till the call sounds more plainly in our ears.”
“Nay,” cried John, the soldier, “I am not, as you know, one that would
readily give his vote for flight. But here we are, methinks, as rats in a
hole. May we not lawfully, and with good faith to God and our brethren,
seek some place where we may at least have space to draw our swords and
strike a blow?”
“And you, Simon, what say you?” asked the old man, turning to his second
son.
“God knows that I would give much to be back at home. But our brethren
need us here, and we may give them some comfort. Let us stay.”
“Judas and Simon,” said the old man, after a pause, “you have spoken well,
and I give my voice with yours. As yet our duty seems to keep us here.
When it shall call us hence, we will follow it. And you, John, think not
that you will long want for an occasion to strike with the sword. It shall
come; but you will be readier for it if you make no haste to meet it.”
With this the little party turned away from the wall, and made their way
to their lodging in the city.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EVIL DAYS.
It was not long before the portent which the terrified crowd had watched
from the walls of Jerusalem found, or at least began to find, its
fulfilment, for, indeed, many days were to pass before the wretched people
had drained the cup of suffering to the dregs.
First there was the actual arrival of the army, the rumour of whose
approach had struck such terror into Jason. At its head came Antiochus in
person, fresh from his successful campaigns in Egypt and in his train
followed the renegade Menelaüs with a crowd of unscrupulous and profligate
adventurers. There was no attempt at resistance. The gates were thrown
open by the King’s adherents in the city. But if the citizens had hoped to
soften the tyrant’s heart by their submissive attitude they were miserably
disappointed. For days the streets of the city ran red with blood. The
prominent members of the patriotic party were the first to perish. Then
came all the private enemies of the returning renegades; and then a far
greater multitude who were singled out for destruction by the possession
of anything that excited the cupidity of the conquerors. Lastly, as ever
happens at such times, the massacre that is suggested by hatred or greed
was followed by the massacre that is the result of the merest wantonness.
But there were victims more unhappy than those who thus perished by the
sword of the heathen. The money found on the persons and in the houses of
the victims did not satisfy the cupidity of their murderers. There were
thousands who had indeed nothing of their own to lose, but who were in
themselves a valuable property. These were sent off in droves to be sold,
till the slave-markets of the Eastern Mediterranean were glutted with the
Jewish youth.
Still worse in the eyes of all pious Jews than the massacre or the
captivity was the profanation of the Temple. The innermost shrine, the
Holy of Holies, which the high priest himself was permitted by the Law to
enter but once only in the year, was thrown open to the unhallowed gaze of
a debauched heathen. With a horror that passes description the people saw
the renegade Menelaüs, bound to be the guardian of the sanctity of the
place, actually drawing aside the veil with his own hand, and conducting
the King into the awful enclosure. They saw the most sacred treasures,
gifts of the piety of many generations, treasures to which the revenue of
the Persian kings, and even of the victorious Alexander himself had
contributed, become the spoil of the sacrilegious intruders. The golden
altar of incense and the table of the shew-bread were taken by the King,
while the seven-branched candlestick of gold fell, as was commonly
believed, to the high priest himself. They saw it, and it almost
overturned their faith that no visible sign of the Divine wrath followed
an impiety so terrible.
So Antiochus came and went, leaving behind him as his deputy, Philip, the
Phrygian, “in manners more barbarous than he who set him there.” The time
that followed was one of grievous depression and sadness. Life went on, as
it will even amidst the gloomiest circumstances, but all the joy and
brightness were crushed out of it.
Micah’s sister, the Hannah whom we have seen talking to him on the wall,
gave birth to a son shortly after the departure of Antiochus. No feast was
held on occasion of the rite that made the little one a member of the
family of Abraham. When the forty days of purification were past, the
mother was not taken to present her offspring in the Temple. The Temple,
the haunt of pagans and apostates, was no place for faithful sons and
daughters of Abraham. A visit to its courts could hardly be the seal of
purification when it needed purifying so sorely itself.
An occasion that should by right have been still more joyful was allowed
to pass with the absence of festivity. A younger sister of Hannah, Ruth by
name, had long before been promised to Seraiah, a friend and relative of
her husband. Time after time the marriage had been postponed, under the
pressure of evil times; and when at last it was performed, not even then
without sore misgivings and anticipations of evil among all the elders of
the family, the celebration was of the quietest kind. Not a guest beyond
the few friends who attended on the bridegroom was invited; and it was in
dead silence, not with the usual shouts of merriment and gay procession of
torches, that the bride was taken to her husband’s home.
And yet, as we shall see, even for these evils there was a compensating
good.
Micah, though he had affected to make light of the foreboding of evil
which he had heard from his sister, had really been impressed by it—so
much impressed, indeed, that he had left the city for a little country
house at the northern end of the Lake of Galilee, that belonged to him. He
had invited his relatives to accompany him, but they had declined. Their
place, they said, was at home, among their poorer brethren, where they
might do something to help and strengthen. All that Micah could do was to
commend them to the protection of the Greek party in the city, with whom,
in spite of his fast increasing disgust at their proceedings, he had not
yet broken.
He had now returned, and he lost no time in finding his way to his
sister’s house. The ravages made by fire and sword were only too plainly
visible as he walked along. Houses that he had known from his childhood,
in which he had often been a guest, were now but blackened walls; others
were shapeless ruins. Again and again he saw on fragments of stone and
plaster hideous blotches which he knew to be of blood; and as he saw these
things he cursed aloud the hands which had wrought these horrors, not
without the bitterest self-reproach that his own hand might have grasped
them in friendship.
It was a great relief to find that his sister’s house had been spared any
outrage. But when he demanded admittance in the usual way, by kicking the
door, it became evident that there had been a reign of terror, and that
the inmates of the dwelling were not sure that it was yet over. The door
was not thrown open in the usual free fashion of Jewish hospitality, but
he became aware by a slight movement of one of the closed lattices that he
was being inspected from above. The inspection was apparently
satisfactory, for in another minute there was a sound of undrawing bolts
and unfastening chains, and the inhospitable door was at last open.
Hannah, sadly aged in look her brother thought, met him in the hall, and
greeted him with a silent embrace. After a pause, in which she seemed to
be struggling with her tears, she said—
“Welcome, dear Micah; while you and my husband and my children are left to
me I feel that I cannot be unhappy. And perhaps you,” she added, with a
wistful look in his face, “will draw nearer to us now. But come and see my
dear ones.”
She led the way to a room at the back of the house, looking out into a
little garden shaded by a wide-branching fig-tree. Hannah noiselessly drew
aside the curtain that served for a door, and the two stood by common
consent and watched the scene that met their eyes. Azariah, the father of
the family, was sitting with his back turned to them, holding on his knees
a copy of the Law. On two stools at his feet sat his daughters, each
holding in one hand a tablet covered with wax, and in the other a _stylus_
or sharp-pointed iron pen. He was slowly dictating to them the words,
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord,” and the little creatures
were laboriously forming, not without many pauses for thought, the
scarcely familiar letters.
“Now read it, my children,” said Azariah, when the task was finished; and
one after another the sweet, childish voices repeated the well-known
words. Micah, as he listened, felt himself strangely touched. Presently he
heard his sister murmur to herself, “In Thy Law will I meditate day and
night,” and glancing at her face saw it illumined with a joy which he
could scarcely have believed those wasted features capable of expressing.
“’Tis well, Miriam; ’tis well, Judith,” said Azariah to the little girls,
and putting his hands upon their heads, as they stood before him, for they
had risen to repeat the holy words, he repeated, “The God of Abraham and
Sarah bless you.” And then, for they were mere children after all, and not
above childish rewards, gave each a ripe fig from a basket which stood on
a table by his side.
The lesson being over, Hannah advanced, and her brother followed. Azariah
turned and greeted the new comer not unkindly, but with a certain reserve,
for he could not forget that his visitor was a Menander as well as a
Micah, and that he had been the friend of the traitorous Jason, and the
yet more traitorous Menelaüs. The children, after their first feeling of
alarm, for a strange face was seldom seen in that home, and when Miriam,
the elder, had recognized her uncle, showed no reserve in their welcome.
They clung about his neck, and kissed him. They insisted on his coming to
see their pets—Miriam’s turtle-doves, and Judith’s dormice, and the little
gazelle fawn which they owned in common. “They have not heard a word
against me,” thought Micah to himself; and this affectionate loyalty
touched him to the heart. From his sister he might, perhaps, have expected
it, but that the stern Azariah, a narrow-minded bigot, without a kindly
thought for any that did not walk in his way, as he had been accustomed to
think of him—that Azariah himself should have dealt with him so
mercifully, was a surprise as it was also a reproach.
He stopped with them for the rest of the day, and after the evening meal,
when the little ones had gone to bed, after making their uncle promise
that he would soon come and see them again, the three had much serious
talk together.
Micah had, of course, the family history to hear, for, stranger as he had
been to them for some years past, he knew scarcely anything about it. He
learnt now for the first time that a little boy had been born who, had he
lived, would have been about two years younger than Judith. The mother had
much to say about his beauty and goodness, and his rare promise of
intelligence. Micah was touched all the more because he could not forgive
himself for the alienation which had prevented him from saying a word of
comfort to his sister in the hour of her bereavement. “It was, indeed, a
terrible loss,” and he rose from his seat and kissed her. He felt that
this little proof of his love would be better than many words.
“Nay,” she said, with a cheerfulness that almost startled him—“nay; you
must not say that we have lost our dear little Joshua. I know that I have
a son still, though he is not here. I confess that it was very hard to
part with him. But he is quite safe in Abraham’s bosom, safer and better
off,” she added, with a sad smile, “than he would be here; and some day I
shall see him, and show him to you, dear Micah, and we shall be happy
together.”
After this the little party had much talk about the state of things in the
present, and the prospects of the future. Again Micah was astonished to
see the cheerfulness and courage which his sister and her husband kept up
in the midst of circumstances which must have been most disheartening.
“Ah!” said Azariah, when the conversation turned upon the desolation of
the Temple, and the loss of all the ceremonial of worship, the daily
sacrifice, and the great festivals of the year—“Ah! there are consolations
even here. Perhaps we thought too much of these things in the old time. We
were taken up with the outside, with the show and the splendour, the
vessels of gold, and the clouds of incense smoke as they curled about the
pillars and the roof, and we forgot what they meant. But now that the
outside things are taken from us, we can give our hearts to that which is
within. We have our gatherings still, though the Temple doors are shut.
Every Sabbath-day we meet, and the Law and the Prophets are read in our
ears—aye, and there are those who can expound them, and speak words that
comfort and strengthen us. I, myself, have felt the Spirit move me once or
twice to exhort and cheer the brethren. No, brother! believe me, it is not
wholly loss that we cannot assemble any more in our beautiful house. Our
fathers learnt much when they sat mourning by the waters of Babylon, and
we also are learning much in this our second captivity.”
This sounded strange to the young man, who, indeed, had dulled his
understanding of spiritual things by his follies and excesses. Still he
could not help feeling deeply impressed by the evident earnestness of the
speaker. But he felt that he could say nothing. A trifler and unbeliever
like himself could only remain silent in the presence of thoughts and
feelings so much higher than anything to which he could reach.
After a short pause Azariah went on—“The Lord has not seen fit to renew
among us the spirit of prophecy, and we know not certainly of the things
that are coming upon the earth. Yet a man, though he be no prophet, may
read the signs of the times. Believe me, there are days to come more full
of evil and darkness even than those that we have seen. My heart sometimes
fails me when I think of this dear woman,” and as he spoke he laid his
hand upon his wife’s shoulder, “and of the little ones whom God has given
us. It will be a hard time for men to battle through—but for women and
children——.” And his voice faltered.
Hannah turned to him with her brave, cheerful smile—“‘As thy days, so
shall thy strength be.’ The great prophet said it, did he not, to all his
people—to the weak ones as well as to the strong?”
Shortly after Micah took his leave. As he walked through the deserted
streets he thought much of the words which he had heard that night, and
still more of the cheerfulness and courage, ten times more eloquent than
all words, which he had witnessed.
“Is all this a delusion?” he asked himself. “Six months ago, perhaps even
six hours ago, I should have had little doubt in saying so. But now—well,
if it is a delusion, it is strangely like a reality. Anyhow its effects
are real enough. Dear Hannah! always the best and kindest of sisters, but
a timid creature, whom I used to amuse myself by frightening. But now—she
is as bold as a lioness. Well, I can only hope that the truths which I
have been learning, if they are truths, will stand me in as good stead
when the need comes.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE DARKNESS THICKENS.
Azariah had read the signs of the times aright. The darker days had come,
days so full of trouble that the unhappy people looked back to the past
that had seemed so sad and gloomy as to a time of rest. Things had not
been going well with King Antiochus, for the Romans had driven him out of
Egypt, and in his rage and fear he turned against his Jewish subjects with
greater ferocity than ever. One of his motives was the brutal desire to
wreak upon the feeble the vengeance which he could not exact from the
strong; the other was a genuine fear lest he should lose another province
as he had already lost Egypt. He saw that the policy of Rome was to stir
up against him the national spirit of subject peoples, and he knew well
enough that in the Jews, crushed though they had been by oppression and
massacre, this national spirit was not by any means dead. Accordingly he
set himself with relentless ferocity to extinguish it. Everything
distinctive of the people was to be rooted out; that done they might
become really submissive; there would be no more a land of the Jews, but
simply a province of Southern Syria.
The first thing, he conceived, would be to strike such terror into the
hearts of the people that there should be no thought among them of
resistance. For such a purpose nothing could be more effective than
another massacre such as that which had already been perpetrated two years
before under his own eyes: only this, he determined, should be more
complete. He perceived with a devilish ingenuity that his orders would be
more relentlessly carried out if he entrusted their execution to some one
else, than if he were personally present. Appeals might be made to him to
which he might yield out of sheer weariness, whereas a lieutenant, if he
were only hard-hearted enough, would simply fall back upon the orders
which he had received, and refuse all responsibility save that of seeing
that these were fully carried out.
Such a lieutenant he knew that he possessed in the person of a certain
Apollonius, a Cretan mercenary, who had already given proofs enough that
he was about as little troubled as any man could be with a conscience or
with feelings of compassion. To Apollonius, accordingly, the commission
was entrusted, and he proceeded to execute it in a particularly brutal and
treacherous way.
He marched to Jerusalem, taking with him a picked force of some five
thousand men—picked, it may be said, quite as much for their unscrupulous
and ferocious character, as for their strength and skill in arms. There
would have been, in any case, little chance of resistance, but, to make
his task the easier of accomplishment, he had so timed his coming that he
approached the city two or three hours before the end of the Sabbath.
Secret orders had been sent to Philip, the Phrygian, that he was to relax
the severity of his rule; and the people had begun to breathe again after
a long period of repression. The Temple was still shut, or virtually shut,
but the synagogues were open, and were indeed frequented by throngs of
fervent worshippers.
It wanted a couple of hours to sunset when the news ran through the city
that an armed force was approaching the walls. The first feeling aroused
by the tidings was naturally one of alarm. The appearance of the soldiers,
however, was such as to disarm all apprehensions. In the first place they
were more like a crowd of men who happened to be carrying arms than an
army. They were not marching in ranks, or indeed keeping any kind of
order. A multitude of country-folk could be seen mingled among them,
soldiers and civilians walking side by side in the most friendly and
unconstrained fashion. Some of the new comers recognized old acquaintances
among the townsfolk, and introduced their comrades to them; and though
some of the sterner sort stood rigidly aloof, there were quite enough
among the inhabitants of Jerusalem to give the visitors a general welcome.
Apollonius himself, a conspicuous figure as he rode on his white charger
up and down the streets of the city, was noticeably busy in renewing old
acquaintanceships and making new ones.
And then in a moment the whole scene was changed. A soldier and a citizen
were standing on the wall, talking and laughing together, and that in a
place where they could be seen by all observers. Suddenly, without there
having been even the slightest sign of a quarrel, the soldier was seen to
plunge his sword into the side of his companion. It was a preconcerted
signal. The wretched inhabitants, who would have been defenceless in any
case, were taken absolutely off their guard, and had but slender chances
of escape. How many hundreds, possibly thousands, perished cannot be
guessed. But the massacre was more general, more pitiless than that which
had devastated the city two years before. Apollonius’s “picked” men showed
themselves altogether worthy of his choice, so brutal and bloodthirsty
were they. And Apollonius himself was to be seen everywhere urging his men
to make short work with these “pestilent Jews,” as he called them, and not
unfrequently striking a blow himself. He earned on that day such hatred
that thereafter there was not to be found a Jew, save among the vilest
renegades and traitors, but uttered a curse when his name was mentioned.
Of course the soldiers had to be paid for their bloody day’s work, and
they were paid by the plunder of the city. The houses were stripped, and
the plunderers, when they had carried away everything that had roused
their cupidity, often, out of sheer wantonness, completed the work of
devastation, by setting fire to the desolated houses. Altogether Jerusalem
presented such a spectacle as had not been seen since the days of the
Babylonian conquest.
The spirit of the people having been, as it would seem, thus effectually
broken for the present, it remained to provide against its possible
revival in the future.
Long gaps were made in the line of wall, so long that it took not a few
days to make them, and would certainly require as many weeks to repair.
The town thus made defenceless was further overawed by the erection of a
fort in the City of David, this fort being held by a strong garrison of
Greeks and Asiatic mercenaries.
The means of repression thus provided, the next thing was to extinguish
all that was characteristic of the national life. First, the great centre
of that life, the Temple, was formally desecrated. Already it had been
subjected to such indignities that the pious Jew could scarcely bear to
enter its precincts. But the final horror, the “abomination of
desolation,” was yet to come. On the 15th of the month Chisleu (December)
an altar of a Greek pattern, and consecrated to the Olympian Zeus, was
placed on the great altar of sacrifice, and ten days afterwards a huge sow
was slaughtered on this. Her blood, caught after the Greek fashion in a
bowl, was sprinkled on the altar of incense and on the mercy-seat within
the Holy of Holies—a hideous mockery of the sprinkling which the Law
enjoined to be performed once in every year. From the animal’s flesh a
mess of broth was prepared, and this was sprinkled on the copies of the
Law. The Temple, thus dishonoured, was as if it had ceased to be.
The meeting-houses, in which, as we have seen, the people had found a
substitute for the Temple worship, were summarily closed. An edict was
issued commanding that every one who possessed a copy of the Law, or of
any one of the sacred books, should give it up without loss of time. To
call in cupidity to the aid of fear in enforcing this edict, the King’s
officers were instructed to pay a reasonable price for the manuscripts
thus produced. It was made a capital offence to read or to recite any part
of the proscribed writings. Then the practice of circumcision was
forbidden. Death was to be the penalty for all who should take any part in
performing this rite—for the circumciser, the mother, the father, even the
babe itself.
And then to the policy of repression Antiochus added the policy of bribery
and temptation. Their own worship forbidden, the Jews were to be allured
by the seductions of the worship of their masters. Hitherto little had
been done in this way. Insults indeed, had been heaped upon the people;
but little attempt had been made to attract them. The Temple gates, closed
for more than a year, were again thrown open; and the courts, long silent,
resounded with the mirth of sacrificial banquets and the gaiety of
festivals. Not only all the splendours, but all the impure pleasures of
heathen worship were called in to assist the attempt that was being made
to sap what was left of the faith of the people.
Antiochus, who, for all his wrath at Jewish obstinacy, could not help
feeling a certain respect for it, took the trouble to send among the
people a missionary, if he may be so called, who was to instruct them in
the new religion which their King was so anxious to impose upon them.
Theopompus, or Athenæus, to use the name which was commonly given him from
his birthplace, was a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus. He had held
a subordinate post, as lecturer in geometry, in the famous school of the
Garden, but had found his modest income insufficient to meet his somewhat
expensive tastes. If he had had but a tolerable competence, Athenæus would
have made an ideal Epicurean. He was devoted to pleasure, but there was
nothing unseemly or extravagant about his devotion. For the foolish people
who ruined their constitutions and emptied their purses by exhausting
excesses he had a genuine contempt. “Give me,” he would say, “a decent
sufficiency of ‘outside things,’ and I am content.” As he had a fair
smattering of culture, and a real acquaintance with geometry, and had a
venerable appearance which happily hit the mean between hilarity and
austerity, he might have been, but for a chronic want of money, a real
success among the somewhat _dilettante_ philosophers of Athens. But
circumstances were against him. Poverty did not ill become an Academic,
and positively set off a Stoic; but an Epicurean seemed to have missed his
vocation if he could not be always handsomely dressed and able to give
elegant entertainments to his friends. Athenæus, who liked above all
things to be on good terms both with himself and with every one else, felt
this very acutely, and he was proportionately delighted when the Syrian
King proposed to him that he should go as a teacher, not without a
handsome salary, of Greek religion and Greek culture.
His success was not encouraging. In the first place he had a difficulty in
making himself understood. The pure Attic Greek on which he prided himself
was strange to the ears of his new audience, and he could not bring
himself to descend to the barbarous dialect to which they were accustomed.
And when he was seriously called to account in the matter of his belief he
found himself involved in difficulties from which he saw no way of escape.
At Athens religion was politely ignored. The common people must, of
course, have their gods and goddesses; and the wise man, if he were
prudent, would say nothing—anyhow in public—to disturb their belief; but
within the privileged walls of the schools the names of Zeus and Athené
and Apollo were never so much as mentioned, except, perhaps, in the course
of some antiquarian discussion.
Among his new disciples, as he would fain have reckoned them, Athenæus
found a very different temper. They were terribly in earnest; abstractions
and phrases did not satisfy them; they pushed their questions home in a
very perplexing way.
One day at the conclusion of a lecture, the customary invitation to the
audience to put any questions that might occur to them was accepted by a
young man who sat on one of the front benches.
“I would ask you, venerable sir,” he said, “some questions about the gods
of your religion.”
“Speak on,” replied Athenæus, with his usual courtesy; “I shall be
delighted to satisfy you to the best of my power.”
“Are we to believe the stories that are told us in this book?” and he held
up, as he spoke, a little volume of popular mythology, filled from
beginning to end with tales that, to say the least, were not edifying.
“For, if these be true, these divine beings were such as would be banished
from the society of all honest men and women. They are thieves,
adulterers, murderers. It would be a thousand times better to have no gods
at all than such as these.”
“You are right, sir,” said the lecturer; “these stories are for the
ignorant only, at least in their outward meaning, though they have an
inner meaning also, which I will take some fitting occasion to expound.
But not such are the gods whom we worship.”
“Will you tell us something of them?” continued the questioner.
“Willingly, for they are such that the wisest of men need not be ashamed
of them. They dwell in some remote region, serene and happy. Wrath they
feel not, nor sorrow, nor any of the passions that disturb the souls of
men.”
“And do they care for our doings upon earth?”
“How so? They neither love nor hate; and both they must do, I take it, did
they concern themselves with human affairs.”
“What profit, then, is there in them? How are men the better for their
being?”
“That I know not; only that it is part of the order of things that they
must be.”
“Far be it from me,” exclaimed the young Jew, “to exchange for such idle
existences the God of my fathers! He may smite us in His anger till we are
well-nigh consumed, but at least He cares for us. He led our fathers
through the sea and through the wilderness in the days of old. He has
spoken to us by the prophets, and He has made His Presence to be seen in
His Temple; and though He has hidden His face from us for a time, yet He
will repent Him of His wrath, and devise the means by which He shall
recall His banished unto Him. No, we will not change our God for yours!”
A loud murmur of assent went round the benches when the speaker sat down,
and Athenæus felt that he had made but small way with his audience.
Finding his theology and philosophy but ill received, Athenæus bethought
him of what seemed a more hopeful method of proselytizing. Could not a
specially powerful attraction be found in the festival of Dionysus, the
wine-god? Vintage feasts, he reflected, are common to every country where
wine is produced, and it would not be difficult to ingraft the Greek
characteristics on a celebration to which the Jews were already
accustomed. Some of the less scrupulous might be tempted to take part in
such a festival, a beginning would be made, and more would follow in due
time. How the scheme prospered will be told in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
SHALLUM THE WINE-SELLER.
“Things are growing worse and worse; only three customers yesterday, and
not a single one to-day, though it must be at least an hour past noon. One
would think that all the world had become Nazarites. Then, though there is
next to nothing coming in, there is no stop to the going out. First comes
the rascally tax-gatherer, and squeezes one as dry as a grape-skin in a
press. And if, by chance, there happens to be a drop left, some snuffling
priest is sure to turn up, and talk about one’s duty as a patriot and a
Jew till he drags the last shekel out of one.”
The speaker was one Shallum, a Benjamite, who kept a little wine-shop in
the Lower City. When he had finished his grumble, he thrust his hand into
an empty wine-jar, drew from it a little leathern bag, untied the string
which was round the neck, poured out the scanty contents on the counter
and counted them. He knew the amount perfectly well, for he had gone
through the counting process at least ten times before that day. But when
a man is desperately anxious to make two ends meet, he will measure them
again and again, though he may know exactly by how much they are too
short.
“Twelve shekels and ten annas! And old Nahum will be here to-morrow,
asking for his thirty shekels!”
Nahum was a Lebanon wine-grower, whose long-suffering had been already
tried to the utmost by the delays of the impecunious Shallum.
At this moment his meditations were interrupted by the entrance of two
visitors, who had been standing, listening and watching outside the door.
They were traders in a small way, who had migrated from Joppa when they
heard that Greek wares were becoming the fashion in Jerusalem.
“Ho! Shallum,” cried one of them, “two cups of your best Lebanon; and make
haste, for we have important business on hand.”
“Shall I draw some water fresh from the well? This is a little too warm to
be used.”
“Water!” said the man. “Jew, don’t blaspheme. Mix water with our wine
to-day, of all days in the year!”
“And why not to-day?” said Shallum.
“Because it is the feast of Dionysus, the wine-giver; and it would be the
grossest impiety to profane his bounty with any mixture of meaner things.
Commonly his godship winks at human weakness; but to-day it is different.
May he confound me if I do him such dishonour!”
“He will certainly confound you if you drink this heady wine undiluted,”
muttered Shallum to himself, as he set the two cups before his guests.
“Excellent! excellent!” cried Lycon, the elder of the two Greeks, as he
set down his goblet, half empty. “But why the god vouchsafes such capital
drink to these unbelieving dogs of Jews puzzles me beyond expression.”
His companion broke out into a drinking-song:
“Fill the cup with ample measure,
Dionysus’ gift divine;
Earth and sea hold no such treasure
As the gleaming, sparkling wine.
All for youth are love’s caressings,
Gold and gems for princes shine;
All may share the wine-god’s blessings,
Rich and poor are glad with wine.”
Shallum was fairly tolerant, as indeed a tavern-keeper can hardly fail to
be, of the ways and manners of his customers; but to hear this praise of a
false god, one of the odious demons that were worshipped by the heathen,
was too much for his patience. He muttered a curse under his breath, and
emphasized this expression of disgust by spitting on the floor.
“Don’t talk to me of your gods and goddesses!” cried Shallum, goaded
beyond all endurance, “a lewd, drunken crew that no respectable person
would have anything to do with!”
“Come, my friend,” said the Greek, “this is not the sort of talk which one
expects to hear from a loyal subject of the pious Antiochus. We Greeks are
not such bigots as you are, cursing every man, woman, or child that does
not go exactly in our own way; but you must treat us and our belongings
with respect. We are not going to have barbarians scoffing at what we
think fit to worship. I have heard of men being crucified for less than
you have said to-day. But hearken, Shallum, we did not come here to-day to
quarrel with you. You are a good fellow, after all, and keep as capital a
tap of wine as any that I know, King Tmolus(7) only excepted. We want you
to come with us and have a jolly day. What is the good of quarrelling
about words? You and we are quite agreed that there is something in wine
that makes it one of the finest things under the sun. Suppose that we
choose to call that something Dionysus the Wine-god, and you choose to say
that your god has to do with it, what is the difference? We are really
agreed. It is the goodness in wine that we both like, and I’m sure that a
really honest fellow like you, that we can always rely on to give us the
right stuff, should be the first to acknowledge it. Well, can’t we show an
agreement? That is why we want you to come with us. A whole crowd of your
countrymen are coming, I understand. It will be a pretty sight, and there
will be some of the finest music that you ever heard, and dancing, and fun
of all kinds, and, of course, as much wine as ever you want. Of course you
will come, my dear Shallum?”
“_I_ come?” growled the wine-seller. “Not I! What do I care about your
dancing and singing? And as for wine, I can have as much as I want at
home, and better stuff, too, than any that I am likely to get elsewhere.”
Lycon, who was evidently bent on getting his way, did not suffer his good
humour to be disturbed by the Jew’s churlishness. “Ah!” said he, “that
reminds me. Stupid fellow that I am, I quite forgot the matter of business
that really brought me here. To tell the truth, business and this old
Lebanon don’t very well agree. But listen; Neocles, who is
manager-in-chief of the whole festival, has quite made up his mind to have
your wine, and none but yours, for all the better sort of people. He was
to get some skins for the common folks from Zadok—do you know him?”
“Know him?” said Shallum; “I should think I did—hasn’t got a drop of sound
wine in his shop.”
“So the Chief said. But we were to come to you for the good wine. What can
you let us have? Mind that it must be the very best. We were not to haggle
about the price, Neocles said, so long as we got it really good.”
And Lycon pulled out of his pocket a money-bag that was evidently much
better furnished than Shallum’s lean and hunger-bitten purse. Untying the
neck, he poured into his hand, with an air of careless profusion, some ten
or twelve gold pieces.
Shallum’s keen eyes glistened at the sight. Here was enough to pay not
only Nahum but all his creditors, and leave him a handsome sum over
wherewith to tide over the hard times. His somewhat brusque manner changed
in a moment. He was now the most obsequious of tradesmen.
“Everything in my stores is at your disposal. And I have a better wine
than this in my cellar, and only ten shekels a skin,” he went on, adding
about three to the utmost he expected to get. “But wait a moment,
gentlemen, you shall taste it for yourselves.”
He took a small flagon from beneath the counter and disappeared. The two
Greeks smiled to each other. “We have the fish fast,” one of them said;
“after all there is nothing like a golden bait.”
Shallum shortly reappeared with the wine, which was tasted and approved.
“Well,” said Lycon, “we will say ten skins of this at ten shekels a piece,
and five of the other sort at eight—that is the price; is it not?”
Shallum nodded assent. As a matter of fact he would never have expected
more than seven. But if these Greeks were so free with their money why
should not an honest Jew have the benefit of it?
“Of course you will come with us?” said Lycon.
“You may take my word for it, there will be nothing to offend you.”
Shallum hesitated for a moment, and then muttered an unwilling “Yes.”
“And you won’t mind wearing this little twig of ivy, just twisted round
your head? It means nothing—every one does it.”
This was more than the wretched man was prepared for. “Not I,” he said; “I
am not going to wear any of your idolatrous ornaments.”
Lycon put the money-bag into his pocket again. “Then, my dear Shallum, I
am afraid we shall not be able to do any business. ‘Give and take’ is our
motto. We put a nice little bargain in your way; and you must humour us.
However, if you are obstinate, there must be an end of it. I dare say
Zadok can find us what we want. Come, Callicles,” he went on, turning to
his companion, “we must be going.”
Shallum saw his dreams of deliverance from his money-troubles vanishing
into air, and grew desperate. “Stop,” he said to his guests, “let me think
for a moment. You won’t ask me to do anything else. A few leaves can’t
make much odds either way. I don’t remember ever hearing anything in the
Law against wearing ivy. It isn’t like eating swine’s flesh, or those
detestable scaleless eels that you Greeks are so fond of. Yes, I’ll wear
the thing, if you want me to so much.”
“That’s right, Shallum; I thought a sensible man like you would not throw
away a good chance for a mere nothing.”
So saying, Lycon stepped outside the shop, and whistled. In a minute or so
a cart, which had been waiting round the corner, was driven up. The skins
of wine were stowed away in it, and the two Greeks, with Shallum between
them, all wearing the ivy-wreath, took their seats, and started for the
Valley of the Cheesemongers, where it had been arranged that the festival
should be held.
The festival was scarcely a success, if it was meant, as it certainly was,
to attract the Jewish population. A few hundreds, indeed, had been
persuaded or compelled to be present. Most of them belonged to the lowest
and most degraded class, wretched creatures whom any purchaser might
secure for any purpose with a shekel or a flagon of wine. To-day they were
“hail fellow well met” with their Greek neighbours, but to-morrow they
would be perfectly ready to tear them in pieces. A few of somewhat better
character had been bribed, as Shallum had been bribed, to come. These had
little of the air of genuine holiday-makers. Their bursts of simulated
gaiety did not conceal the shame which they really felt. Others, again,
did not make even this pretence of hilarity. They had been actually
compelled to come, and they had all the air of prisoners led in the
triumphant procession of a victorious general. Their faces were ghastly
pale. Some, with their teeth firmly clenched, seemed to be forcibly
keeping in the curses which struggled to find utterance. Others, of a
gentler temper, were weeping silently; and others, again, preserved a look
of dogged indifference. The Greek part of the spectators, who could have
enjoyed the humours of the scene with a good conscience, were depressed by
the presence of these unwilling guests. In consequence, everything seemed
to fail. The jesters, with their grotesque garb and faces hideously
smeared with wine-lees, could scarcely get a laugh from their audience;
the singing lacked heartiness, the dancing was dull and spiritless. It is
only natural that revellers, who find the time passing slowly, should try
to quicken its movement. There was little brightness or gaiety in this
feast of the wine-god, and there was therefore all the more excess. Some
seized the rare opportunity of intoxicating themselves without expense,
while others drank to drown their shame or their anger. Shallum, whose
occupation had somewhat seasoned him against the effects of wine, remained
comparatively sober, but his Greek companions were less discreet or less
strong-headed. They became, by a rapid succession of moods, boisterously
gay, foolishly affectionate, and provokingly quarrelsome. It was not long
before things came to a crisis. Lycon taunted the wine-seller with the
quality of his wines; that did not affect him, for he was used to such
complaints from his customers, and took them as part of his day’s work. He
scoffed at the subjection of his nation to Greek rule; Shallum still kept
his temper. The tipsy Greek was only encouraged to further insults by his
companion’s self-restraint. He attempted to daub the Jew’s face with the
dregs from a broken flagon. Shallum angrily shook him off, and he reeled
back, just saving himself from a fall by catching at the trunk of an olive
tree. “Hog of a Jew!” he cried, “do you lay hands on a free-born Greek?
Come, Callicles,” he went on, turning to his companion, “let us teach the
beast how to behave himself.” The two rushed at the Jew, aiming blows at
his head with the staves which they carried in their hands. One of them
stumbled against the stones of a ruined house, and fell so heavily that he
was unable or unwilling to raise himself again. Shallum easily evaded the
attack of the other, dealing him at the same time so fierce a stroke of
the fist that it stretched him senseless on the ground. The deed done, he
looked hastily round to see whether any spectator had witnessed it. To his
great relief, he found himself alone. From the lower city came the sounds
of furious revelry and the strains of the Bacchic chorus—
“Comrades, crown the bowl with wine,
Round your locks the ivy twine,
Deeper drink and join again
Bacchus and his reeling train.”
His first impulse was to tear the ivy-wreath from his head. Then he
reflected that if he could endure to wear it for a few moments longer, it
might serve him as a passport. The event proved that he was right. He
passed unquestioned through the crowd of revellers, left the precincts of
the valley, and striking on an unfrequented path, hurried on at the top of
his speed, not pausing till he had put at least six miles between himself
and the scene of his late adventure. Then he threw himself on the ground
and bewailed his grievous fall in an agony of shame and remorse. After a
while the fatigue and excitement of the day, helped by the fumes of the
wine, which his rapid movements had sent to his brain, overpowered him,
and he sank into a heavy sleep.
His slumbers lasted late into the day. When he woke, his head aching with
the excess of the day before, he felt even more wretched, more hopeless.
To return to the city was out of the question. But where was he to go?
While he was debating this question with himself, and could find nothing
in the least resembling an answer, he caught the sound of approaching
footsteps. Mingled feelings of shame and fear suggested to him that he
should hide himself, and he plunged into the bushes which lined the side
of the road.
The traveller approached. He was a renegade Jew, and Shallum recognized
him as one who had taken an active part in the festivities of the
preceding day. Just as he passed Shallum’s hiding-place an unlucky impulse
made him burst forth into a snatch of the Bacchic chant—
“Deeper drink and join again
Bacchus and his reeling train.”
His listener heard the words with mingled feelings of disgust and rage,
and leaping down into the road felled him senseless to the ground.
At first it seemed as if what he had done did not make his way plainer
before him. But as he stood by the prostrate man a thought occurred to
him. He took the purse which the man, in the usual traveller’s fashion,
wore by way of girdle round his waist, and examined its contents. It held
three gold pieces and some ten shekels. The gold he left; but half of the
shekels he transferred to his own keeping. One of the shekels sufficed to
purchase some bread and dried flesh at the neighbouring village. Thus
recruited in strength the fugitive made his escape to the mountains.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PERSECUTION.
Menander, or Micah—the young man still wavered between the two moods which
were symbolized by these names—had been greatly moved, as we have said, by
what he had seen and heard in his visit to his sister and her husband. But
he could not shake himself free from the habits and prepossessions of
years. Though he had always kept aloof from the worst excesses of his
renegade and heathen friends, still his moral tone had been lowered, and
even his physical nerve weakened by a frivolous and self-indulgent life.
Sometimes he would half resolve to cast in his lot with his people.
Sometimes, again, the cynical or doubting temper returned. What madness it
would be, so the evil voice whispered to him, to sacrifice all that made
life pleasant, and, very possibly, life itself, for what both philosophers
and practical men of the world agreed in pronouncing to be a delusion!
Till this question had been settled one way or the other, he found it
impossible to rest. The city became odious to him, for he shrank from the
sight of his fellow-men. Indeed, he did not know with whom to associate.
His Greek or Greek-loving acquaintances, with their frivolities and vices,
disgusted him; and the patriots regarded him with coldness and aversion.
Solitude, he fancied, might suit him better, and he went again to his
country house at Lebanon. But he found himself worse off than ever where
there was nothing to come between his thoughts and himself, and he
hastened back to Jerusalem. Then it suddenly occurred to him that his
sister had been expecting shortly to become a mother, and he made his way
to her house to inquire of her welfare. Azariah himself answered his
knock.
“How is Hannah?”
“Thanks be to the Lord,” replied Azariah, “she is well. She had an easy
travail.”
“And the babe? A son or a daughter?”
“The Lord has given us a son.”
But he said it without the gladness that a Jewish father, newly blessed
with the hope that there should be one to preserve his name in Israel,
should have felt.
“But you must come in and see him, for indeed he is of a singular beauty.”
The young man followed his host into the chamber already described, and
sat down to wait. Presently Azariah reappeared, holding the child in his
arms. It was no father’s fondness that had made him speak of his singular
beauty. The child was but five days old; but he had none of the
“shapeless” look which is commonly to be seen in the newly born. His
features were shaped with a regularity most uncommon at so tender an age,
and his complexion beautifully clear, while his little head was surrounded
with what may be called a halo of golden hair.
Micah was loud in his admiration. “I never saw his equal for beauty. You
are indeed a happy father to have the fairest son in all Israel.”
The smile on Azariah’s face faded away.
“I would not be thankless for the ‘gift that cometh from the Lord,’ nor
wanting in faith; yet I sometimes cannot but think that in these days the
childless are the happiest, or, I should rather say, the least unhappy.”
“Of course you will be prudent,” said Micah, “and yield to the necessities
of the time. Put off the circumcision of the child. There can be no harm
in that. And when Hannah has got her strength again, you can come down to
my place in the Lebanon, and it can be done quietly, without any one being
the wiser.”
Azariah said nothing. He turned away his face, but not before his
brother-in-law had seen his eyes fill with tears. After leaving some
loving messages for his sister the young man departed, hoping, though not
without some serious doubt, that his advice would be followed.
A week after, when the question, he knew, would have been decided one way
or the other, he bent his steps again towards his sister’s house. As he
walked through the streets he could see that the persecutors were busy at
their work. Fires were burning here and there, and copies of the Law and
the other holy books were being burned in them. From a house which he
recognized as being the dwelling of a scribe of great learning, a party of
Greek soldiers burst forth, as he passed, dragging behind them a
richly-ornamented scroll of the Psalms. For a moment the wild impulse
surged in his heart to rescue the sacred writing from the flames; but he
recognized the hopelessness of the attempt; and, indeed, he sadly asked
himself, was he fit to be a champion of holy things? A soldier gathered up
the parchment in his arms, and tossed it in a heap on the fire. Part of it
opened as it fell, and Micah saw for a few moments before the flames
reached them, words which he never forgot till his dying day: “Princes
have persecuted me without a cause, yet do I not swerve from Thy
commandments.” As he stood and looked, with a rage in his heart which he
could not express, two more soldiers came out of the house, holding
between them the scribe himself, a venerable man, in whom Micah recognized
an old friend of his father’s. They threw him down, face foremost, on the
fire, and held him there till he was suffocated. But before the tragedy
was finished, the young Jew had turned away, feeling in his heart that the
question which he had been debating so long was being rapidly settled for
him.
The blow that was to clinch his conclusions was not long in falling. As he
came near the bottom of the little hill on the top of which stood his
sister’s house, he saw a cross, and, bound to it by cords, what seemed to
be the figure of a woman, with a dead child hung round her neck. The sun
had set, and the light was failing with the rapidity that is
characteristic of a southern latitude.
“Truly these Greeks have a strange way of showing their love of beauty. We
have had sickening sights in Jerusalem of late enough to make their name
stink in our nostrils for ever. What poor wretch is this? How has she
offended our masters? And the child—what treason can he have been guilty
of?”
And as he spoke a dreadful fear shot through his heart. After all—for he
knew what a dauntless spirit his sister had shown at their last
meeting—after all they might have circumcised the child and brought down
upon themselves the vengeance of the persecutors. He turned aside from the
road and ran up to the terrible object. It was almost dark by the time he
reached it, and he had to light a torch which he carried with him in case
of need, before he could see what the object really was. Then one glance
was enough. The features of the woman were black and swollen; but he
recognized them in a moment. It was the face of Hannah, his sister. But a
month before he had seen it beaming with light and love, and now—— Had he
needed any confirmation he would have found it in the child. The features
were beyond recognition; but the golden halo of hair was there; its
brightness scarcely dimmed.
He sank upon his knees, and lifting his hands to heaven he cursed the
authors of this wickedness, and swore that he would give all his life to
avenge the innocent blood. Then rising he hastened to the house of
Azariah.
He found a considerable company assembled. They were deep in debate about
the course of action to be pursued when Micah, who had been met by Azariah
at the door, was introduced into the room. Most of those present were
acquainted with him, at least by reputation, and they were naturally
disposed to consider his presence an intrusion. But it was soon manifest
that the new comer was not indifferent, much less hostile, to their
objects.
“Hear me, brethren,” he cried, “if, indeed, one so unworthy as I may call
you brethren,” and he went on to recount the struggles with which his mind
had been agitated during the weeks just past. Then, after briefly touching
on what he had just seen, he went on, “I have sinned; I have forsaken the
Law of my God; I have defiled myself by a companionship with the heathen;
and though I have not worshipped their false gods”—there was a sigh of
relief from the company as he uttered these words with a solemn
emphasis—“yet I have been a guest at the feasts of their temples. If,
therefore, you judge me to have transgressed beyond all pardon, cast me
out from your company; I can find some other way to do service for the
country that I have betrayed, and the God whom I have denied. Yet, if you
think me worthy of death, I do not refuse to die.” And he drew a dagger
from his belt, and offering it to one who seemed to be a leader in the
assembly, stood with bared breast before him.
[Illustration: _The Persecution._]
A murmur of admiration ran through the meeting.
“Nay, brother,” said the man whom he addressed, “this is not the time to
take one soldier from the hosts of the Lord. You have sinned in the past;
make amends in the future. There will be time and opportunity enough. And
if you are the brother of her who has witnessed a good confession even
unto death, you will not fail to use the occasion that shall come.”
The company then resumed the debate which had been interrupted by Micah’s
arrival. Little difference of opinion indeed remained among them, and when
the president, Seraiah by name, brother-in-law of Azariah, as being the
husband of his sister Ruth, stated his views they met with general assent.
“We have seen enough,” he said, “and suffered enough. This city is
polluted, and is no longer a fit abode for the faithful. Let them that are
in Judæa flee unto the mountains. Meanwhile we will gather together such
as have not bowed the knee to Baal, and will make head against the
oppressor. But here we shall be struck down, and perish as a beast
perishes in the pit into which he has fallen.”
After this the company dispersed to make such preparation as they could
for their departure, which was fixed for the night following. Micah and
Seraiah remained behind in the house of mourning. Azariah withdrew to
comfort his little girls, who were crying almost incessantly for their
mother. Comfort he needed sorely for himself, and he found it, as far as
it could be found, in this fatherly care. Every look and gesture of the
little ones reminded him of her whom he had lost, and seemed to open the
wound afresh. Yet it consoled him to talk to them about their mother, to
tell the story of her early days, to remind them, though they did not need
to be reminded, of all her goodness and love, and to picture her happiness
where she sat in Paradise with the holy women of old, with Miriam, and
Sarah, and Rachel.
Meanwhile Seraiah told the story of Hannah’s end to Micah. “We came
together,” he said, “on the eighth day after the birth of her child; but
though all was prepared for the circumcision of the boy, we had not yet
resolved what was to be done. I know that I wavered—I confess it with
shame—and so did Azariah. And, indeed, I can scarcely find it in my heart
to blame him. He had no thought of his own life, but to risk his wife’s
and the child’s—that was terrible. And there were others who advised him
to yield for the time; the risk was too terrible. Indeed, that was the
feeling of most of us, and those who thought otherwise were unwilling to
speak. We were assembled, you know, in your sister’s chamber. She sat on
the bed, holding the little one in her arms. Her face was somewhat pale;
but she had a calm and steadfast look, like the look of one who watches
his adversary in the battle line of the enemy, and there was a fire in her
eyes, such as I have never seen in the eye of woman before. When I had
spoken, counselling delay and yielding for a while to the necessities of
the time, I turned to her and said, ‘And you, Hannah, what think you?’
“Then she spoke, and her voice never faltered for a moment, but was clear
and full, though indeed she never raised it above the pitch that becomes
the obedience and modesty of the woman. ‘Pardon me,’ she said, ‘fathers
and brethren, if I seem, in differing from your counsel, to reproach you.
I am but a weak woman, and know nothing of policy or of the needs of the
time. But I know the thing that the Lord our God has commanded: “Every
man-child among you shall be circumcised,” and “whosoever shall not be
circumcised that soul shall be cut off from among his people.” The Lord
hath given me this child, and shall I not do for him according to the
commandment? Shall we fear man rather than God? And for myself, is it a
new thing for a mother to give her life into the hand of God? Four times
already have I so given it, and He has restored it to me. And if it be His
will that it be taken, shall I not obey? What said the Holy Children when
Nebuchadnezzar would have had them fall down and worship the golden image,
lest they should be cast into the burning fiery furnace. “Our God whom we
serve is able to deliver us out of thy hand, and He will deliver us out of
thy hand, O King; but if not——”’
“Then she turned to her husband, and said, ‘What shall be his name?’ as
steadily and quietly as if there had been no question of danger or fear.
‘Let his name be David,’ said the father, as he took the babe from its
mother’s arms; for the sun was about to set, and in a few moments the due
time would be past. So they carried the child into the next room. And when
your sister heard his cry, she broke forth into blessings and
thanksgiving. ‘Thanks be to Thee, O Lord,’ she cried, ‘in that Thou hast
made him a child of the Covenant. And now I beseech Thee to grant that he
may walk before Thee all the days of his life as walked Thy servant David,
and that he may sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom
of heaven.’
“After that she bade us stay and partake of the feast which she had caused
to be prepared. Verily she had left nothing uncared for. Never was her
table better spread, and, as you know, she was a notable housekeeper. And
though, for her weakness, she could not sit at table with us, she was gay
and cheerful even beyond her wont, so that we men, for very shame, had to
banish the care from our faces, and laugh and be merry with her. But the
next day the soldiers came and beat Azariah, as they thought, to death,
and——” The speaker paused; indeed he could not speak for the choking
tears. At last he said, in a broken voice, “What need to tell the rest?
You know it.”
The next night Azariah, Seraiah, Micah, and a company of some thirty men
and women left Jerusalem. Part of them were on foot, but an ass had been
found to carry Ruth, Seraiah’s wife, who was expecting shortly to become a
mother. Their destination was the hill-country that went by the name of
the Wilderness of Bethaven.
CHAPTER X.
IN THE MOUNTAINS.
The time is evening; the place is a rocky pass between Bethel and
Michmash. At the mouth of a cave which commands a view of the approach
from the westward, are seated two men, in one of whom we may recognize
Shallum, the quondam wine-seller of Jerusalem.
“Well, comrade,” he is saying to his companion, “this business is not
quite to my liking. It is all very well when we can relieve a Greek
merchant, or, better still, a Syrian tax-gatherer, of his money-bags; but
I hate robbing our own people. That poor fellow to-day, for instance, who
was taking home his wages—he had been wood-cutting, he said, in Bashan—it
really went to my heart to take the money from him.”
The companion whom he addressed was a rough, savage-looking fellow, who
certainly did not look as if he would feel very much for Shallum’s
scruples. He had followed, indeed, the robber’s trade, it may be said,
from his childhood, as his fathers had followed it before him, almost
since the days of the Captivity.
He now broke out into a loud, mocking laugh.
“Ah! my friend Shallum,” he said, “you are a great deal too soft and
tender-hearted. But then you are new to the business; when you have been
at it as long as I have, you won’t have these scruples. Now, mark what I
say; and if we are to be good friends, don’t let me hear any more of this
nonsense. You are a stout fellow and a man of your hands; and as for
myself, well, I rather think that a novice like you could hardly have come
across a better teacher. I don’t doubt that we shall do very well
together; and when we have made a little money, I shan’t blame you if you
give up the business and become what they call an honest man. For myself,
the ‘honest man’ line does not suit me—it is not in my blood, you know.
But, meanwhile, if we are to work together, we must agree. Now, all is
fish that comes to our net. Of course, I don’t mean the people about
here—our neighbours, you know. We must not touch them; on the contrary,
they must have a share of what we make. As long as they are our friends we
are safe. But all strangers are lawful booty. And mind—for I see that you
are a little wroth about this—mind, it is only dead men who tell no
tales.”
Benjamin’s words of wisdom—the more experienced of the two robbers was
named Benjamin—were interrupted by an exclamation from his companion.
“Hush!” he cried, “I hear a sound of voices from the pass.”
The two men listened; Shallum was evidently right. A party of travellers
were approaching from the west.
“We are in luck,” said Benjamin; “it is not often that we do business so
late in the day.”
As he spoke the leaders of the party emerged into sight.
“Shoot, Shallum!” said Benjamin; “strike one of those fellows down and we
shall have the whole party in confusion.”
“Nay, Benjamin; I hear the voices of women and children; and see—God
wither my hand if I shoot at such helpless people as these.”
The rest of the party was now in sight. Two men, one on either side of the
ass, were supporting Ruth, who, worn out by the fatigues of the day, could
with difficulty keep her seat on the animal. These were her husband and
Azariah. Close behind came Micah, carrying on his shoulder the little
Judith, who was fast asleep. Then followed Miriam, Judith’s elder sister.
The poor child limped sadly along, for her city life had been but a poor
training for that long day’s march, and she felt just a little envious of
the good fortune which Judith enjoyed in being carried.
Shallum recognized the figures of Seraiah and Ruth, with whom he happened
to have had some slight acquaintance in Jerusalem, and from whom indeed he
had received no little kindness.
“Benjamin,” he said, in a determined voice, “I know these people, and if I
can help it they shall suffer no harm.”
“Well, well; have your way,” said his companion, who indeed was not quite
as hard of heart as he would make himself out. “If, as you say, you know
them, go down and make friends.”
Shallum at once made his way down into the pass, and, standing in the
path, greeted the travellers with the customary salutation, “Peace be with
you!”
“What, Shallum!” said Seraiah, “is that you? What brings you here?”
“That were a long story,” returned the man, “and this is not the time to
tell it. But can I serve you?”
“Can you find shelter for my poor wife? But it is idle, I fear, to ask
you. There can be no inn near this wild place.”
“’Tis true, sir, there is no inn; yet if you can put up with such poor
lodging as we can give, the lady will have at least shelter.”
Ruth was lifted from her seat on the ass, and carried between her husband
and Azariah up the rocky track that led to the cave, Shallum showing the
way with a lighted torch in his hand, for by this time the night had
fallen.
Benjamin met the little party at the mouth of the cave. His life of crime
had not quenched all kindly feeling in him. He felt, too, that he was a
host; and the sense of hospitality, which keeps its hold on an Eastern
heart as long as anything good is left to it, bade him do his best for his
guests. And the sweet smile of thanks with which Ruth greeted him when she
was laid on the couch of cloaks, which the two inmates of the cave had
hastily arranged on a pile of heather, won him altogether.
A minute or two afterwards Micah followed with the two children; Judith,
still fast asleep, was put down by Ruth’s side, while Miriam forgot her
fatigue in the delightful excitement of this new adventure. The new-comers
had brought with them a slender store of provisions. These they proceeded
to share, declining with thanks the dried flesh and wine which their
entertainers offered. The rest of the party found shelter, under guidance
of the robbers, in some of the many caves with which the rocks in the
neighbourhood were honeycombed.
Next morning the arrangements for housing the little colony were made.
There was an abundance of caves to give shelter to all, and the
accommodation though rough, at least protected them from the weather.
Their life was simple in the extreme—simple even to hardness. They sought
for herbs and roots, and from the neighbouring peasants they bought a few
goats, to browse among the rocks, and a small quantity of corn, which they
bruised between stones and baked. The mountain springs furnished their
drink, a few flasks of wine being reserved for any cases of sickness.
Twice a day the whole company met for worship. Seraiah read a portion
first from the Law and then from the Prophets, for they had not forgotten
to bring rolls of the Sacred Books. Then standing erect, with covered
heads, their faces turned towards the Temple, they joined in prayer. In
the words of one who himself in old time had found himself shut out for a
while from the privileges of the Holy Place and was content to realize
them by faith, the congregation uttered together the petition, “Let my
prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the incense; and let the lifting up of
my hands be an evening sacrifice.” One of the psalms of penitence
followed; for surely they had all many sins to repent of—sins of which
they were now suffering the penalty; and, after the psalm, a prayer for
deliverance from the enemy, and for the setting up again of the throne of
David, and for that without which neither deliverance nor a restored
kingdom could profit them—purity and righteousness in their own hearts and
souls.
Nothing could be more simple and frugal than their daily fare. Wild fruits
and herbs were largely used, and any little plots of fertile ground that
could be found were planted with vegetables, some far-seeing member of the
party having brought with him a small supply of garden seeds. When a few
days after their arrival Ruth gave birth to a son it was much feared that
the scanty supply of nourishing food might long delay her restoration to
strength. This fear was not realized. The feeling of freedom and
deliverance combined with the fine mountain air to bring her back to her
wonted health, and she found herself able to go about her daily work long
before she could have hoped to do so in the more enervating atmosphere of
the city.
One day she had gone to gather herbs for the daily mess, a work in which
she was especially useful from the knowledge of plants which she had taken
pains to acquire in her unmarried days. She had taken, of course, the
new-born infant with her, and Miriam, who was delighted to perform, as far
as her strength permitted, the office of nurse. The little Judith, whose
night’s rest had been disturbed by some childish ailment, had been left at
home to make up her allowance of sleep. The mother found on her return
that a strange visitor had made herself at home in the cave. The little
one was fast asleep on a bed of rugs which had been made up for her, and
curled up at her side with one of her fore paws round her neck was a
jackal. The two companions were roused together by the arrival of the
party, and, wonderful to relate, neither showed any symptoms of alarm. The
jackal rose from its resting-place, approached Ruth, and fawned at her
feet, and the child came after its bedfellow and stroked affectionately
its shaggy skin.
When, two or three weeks afterwards, the new comer gave birth to a litter
of cubs, the joy of the children was complete. The little animals soon
learnt to play with the girls, and their dam sat by and watched their
gambols, and sometimes even condescended to join in them herself.
The little colony heard of the strange incident with delight, and saw in
it a token of Divine favour. “Man rages cruelly against us,” they said,
“but we find friends among the beasts of the field. Surely it is our God
who hath changed the heart of this savage dweller in the wilderness, and
we will trust that He will do yet greater things than these.”
“Mother,” said Miriam one day to Ruth, “by what name shall we call our new
friend?”
The question puzzled her, and she referred it to her husband.
“It does not seem fitting,” she said, “that we should give the name of a
daughter of the Covenant to the beast, for though she is of kindly temper
yet she is unclean.”
Seraiah thought awhile.
“You say truth, my wife. Let us call her Jael.”
“But why Jael?”
“Because the wife of Heber was of the unclean, for was she not of the
house of the Kenite? Yet was she a friend of Israel, for she slew Sisera
that was captain of the host of Jabin, King of Canaan.”
So thenceforward the creature went by the name of Jael.
It was not long before she justified her name by showing that she could be
fierce on occasion.
A wayfarer, who described himself as a discharged soldier and a Moabite by
birth, asked for shelter and food. Scanty as were the means of the
fugitives, they did not grudge the stranger a share of their meal. They
gave him their best, adding to their daily fare the special luxury of some
dried grapes. As he complained of being footsore, Ruth applied some simple
remedies to the blisters on his feet. Altogether he was treated not only
as a welcome but even as an honoured guest. On his part he professed a
fervent sympathy with the hopes and plans of his hosts. The next morning
he started as if to continue his journey. But the cupidity of the wretch
had been roused by the sight of the handsome earrings—almost the sole
remaining relic of former affluence—which he had spied in his hostess’s
ears. About an hour before noon, when he judged that the men would be
still busy about their daily work, he crept back to the cave. Ruth was
sitting by a fire nursing her babe. The jackal lay asleep in a corner; the
girls were playing with the cubs on a sunny little plot of ground outside.
“Lady,” began the fellow, in a beggar’s wheedling voice, “can you spare a
little money for a poor fellow who has not so much as a copper coin to buy
him a piece of bread?”
Ruth was startled at his re-appearance, but concealed her alarm.
“Friend,” she said, “I have no money; but I will give you half a loaf if
you want food, though you had done better, I should think, to keep on your
way, for you can hardly find any that are poorer than we.”
“But you have gold,” said the man.
“Gold? Not I,” she answered.
“Nay, lady,” he went on, with a perceptible tone of threatening in his
voice, “those earrings that you wear are doubtless of true metal. They
add, indeed, to your beauty, and it is a pity that you should lose them;
but then there is no one to admire you in this wilderness, and they would
keep a poor fellow like myself in flesh and wine for a month or more.”
“My earrings?” said Ruth, stupefied by the man’s audacity.
“Yes, your earrings, lady,” said the man. “I should advise you to take
them out yourself, for if I have to do it I am afraid that I shall show
myself a very rough tirewoman.”
The spirit of Ruth, the same that had dwelt of old in a Miriam or a
Deborah, was roused at the man’s insolent audacity. She seized a
half-burnt brand from the fire and stood on her defence. The soldier,
thinking that he had found an easy prey, approached. But he had not
reckoned on an ally who was ready to help her in her need. Jael had been
woke by the voices, and watched with glaring eyes the soldier’s movements,
uttering every now and then a low growl, which, however, the man was too
much occupied to heed. As soon as he came within reach, she sprang upon
him from her lurking-place. The force with which she threw herself upon
him overset him, and he fell backwards, his head striking on the
mill-stone which formed part of the scanty furniture of the cave. In a
moment her fangs were in his throat. In vain did Ruth, who saw the man’s
danger and was unwilling that he should perish in his sins, call her by
her name. All the savage instinct in her was roused by the taste of blood.
Before two minutes had passed the freebooter was dead.
“We did well to call her Jael,” said Seraiah that evening, as he helped to
carry the corpse out of the cave. “The wretch has received the due reward
of his deeds.”
CHAPTER XI.
NEWS BAD AND GOOD.
As the weeks went by fugitives continued to arrive at the little asylum
which Seraiah and Azariah had founded among the hills. There was not one
of them but brought with him some dismal story of the cruelty of the
heathen and the renegades who acted as their instruments, and of the
sufferings of the faithful. We should weary our readers were we to relate
them in their monotony of horror. One will suffice, for it is the most
famous as it is the most tragic of all the tales of that reign of terror.
One night the sentinels, whom the chiefs of the little colony were always
careful to post, heard the sound of approaching footsteps. They challenged
the new comer, and bade him stand, and tell them his errand. He could not
articulate his answer, so spent was he with fatigue and distress; but it
was evident that he was harmless, a mere youth, solitary, and unarmed.
Unwilling to disturb the little colony at so late an hour—it was indeed
past midnight—the sentinels bade the stranger rest before their
watch-fire. He was so exhausted and weary that he could swallow but very
little of the food which his entertainers offered him. A few mouthfuls of
barley cake, and a draught of milk more than satisfied him. Then he sank
down on the ground overpowered with sleep, and his hosts wrapped him in a
cloak and left him to his repose. Yet, wearied as he was, his slumbers
were broken. Again and again he started up with a cry of horror on his
lips. Those who listened to him felt sure that he must be going over in
his dreams some dreadful scenes which he had witnessed.
The next day he could scarcely be recalled to consciousness. Indeed it was
judged well to leave nature to recover herself. The women of the colony
took it in turns to watch by his side, and were ready, when he awoke for a
few moments, with a cup of milk, the only thing which he seemed to relish.
By degrees his slumbers grew more peaceful, and on the morning of the
second day after his arrival he woke calm and collected.
It was Ruth who then happened to be on duty at his side. When he saw her,
he said, “Lady, I have a story to tell, and the chief of this place should
hear it. Let him make haste to come, for I feel that I cannot rest while
it is untold.”
Ruth sent one of her children to fetch her husband. The stranger refused
to postpone his narrative till he should have gathered a little more
strength. “Nay,” said he; “it is like a weight upon my soul, and I would
lighten me of it by committing it to faithful ears.”
“Speak on,” said Seraiah.
Then the lad told his story.
“My name is Abimelech, and I come from Jerusalem. My father and mother are
dead; but I lived with my grandmother, the mother of my father, and his
brethren, my uncles. There were seven of them, the eldest being some
thirty-and-three years of age, and the youngest twenty; but my father that
is dead was the first-born. On the first day of the month, coming home
about the eleventh hour from the school of the Rabbi Zechariah——”
“Are there then yet those who teach in the city?” interrupted Seraiah.
“Yes,” answered the lad, “but they do it by stealth, for the reading of
the Law is strictly forbidden by the Governor. But we learn it
notwithstanding, and verily if the heathen should destroy every roll that
there is of the Holy Books in the whole world there are those who could
replace them from memory. I pretend not to so much; but I could say three
out of the five books of Moses, the man of God.”
“Praised be the Lord God of Israel,” cried Seraiah, “who hath not left
Himself without a witness! But go on with your story.”
“Coming home, then, from school I found the soldiers of Philip the
Phrygian in the house, Philip himself being there. They had set forth a
table in the court of the house, whereon they had placed abominable flesh.
My uncles were standing bound, guarded by soldiers, and with them was my
grandmother. Then said the Governor, Philip, to the eldest of the seven,
whose name was Judah, ‘Pleasure me, my friend, by eating this excellent
meat; ’tis of the most savoury, believe me.’ My uncle Judah answered, ‘I
cannot obey thee in this matter, for it is forbidden by the Law.’ Philip
said, ‘Maybe he lacks an appetite. Give him that which shall sharpen his
taste.’ Thereupon the executioner stepped forth with his lash, and gave
him ten stripes. ‘Dost feel hungry now?’ said the Governor. ‘I had sooner
starve,’ said Judah, ‘than eat the abominable thing.’ ‘Nay,’ cried the
Governor, ‘miscall not the good things which are provided for you at the
charge of thy lord the King.’ Then he said to the executioner, ‘This
fellow uses not his tongue for any good purpose, but only to rail against
my lord. Cut it out, therefore.’ So they cut the tongue out of my uncle’s
mouth; and after that they cut off his hands and his feet. And afterwards,
he being yet alive, they put him in a pan and burnt him over the fire.
Then the Governor said to the second in age, whose name was Eleazar, ‘Ah!
friend, like you this better than the swine’s flesh? You may have your
choice, if you will.’ But he answered nothing. Then they tortured him most
cruelly till he died. And so they did to all, one after the other. What
they did I cannot bear to tell; nor, indeed, do I know the whole truth,
for when three had perished in this manner I fainted for the horror of the
thing; nor did I come to myself till the sixth was ready to suffer. Him I
heard say these words to the Governor—‘Be not deceived, or think that our
God has abandoned us. He has given us over to your hand because we have
offended against Him; nor do we suffer beyond what we have deserved. But
as we have not escaped the punishment of our sins, so neither will you,
but will perish miserably!’ After this he did not speak another word; nay,
nor give a sign of pain, but stood steadfast and unmoved.
“When there was but one of the seven left alive, Benjamin by name, the
Governor seeing him, and, I take it, having some pity on his youth, for he
was fair as a woman, said to him, ‘Young man, you see how all these have
perished miserably, because of their pride and obstinacy. Learn, then, by
their fate to behave yourself more wisely. And hark! I will give you
riches, more than you can desire, and promote you to honour, if you will
humour my lord the King in this small matter.’ Benjamin said, ‘Your gifts,
my lord, be to another, and your honours to such as are worthy of them;
but as for me, I will not depart from the law of my God.’ Then Philip said
to the mother of the seven, ‘Persuade him, for I would not have you left
childless, if there is any help. These your sons were stout fellows, and
could have done good service for my lord if they had been better advised;
and I would fain save this one that is left. Reason with him, then, that
he save his life, and that you be not wholly bereaved.’ Then the woman
said, ‘Trust me, my lord; I will reason with him.’ Then Philip smiled and
said, ‘Your wisdom comes somewhat late’; and he whispered to one that
stood by, ‘You see that I have prevailed at last.’ But the man shook his
head. Then the woman said to her son, ‘O, my child, have pity on me, for I
bore for you the pangs of childbirth, and spent on you the labour of
nurture, bringing you up to this age. Repay me, therefore, for all that I
have done.’ Then she paused awhile, and those that stood by scarcely knew
what was in her heart. But the young man said, ‘Mother, how shall I repay
you?’ And she answered, ‘By remembering that the Lord made heaven and
earth, and all that is therein. Depart not from His Law, nor forget Him.
Heed not this tormentor, who has power over your body for a short moment;
but stand steadfast, as your brethren have stood steadfast; so shall I
receive you with them into the everlasting glory.’ Then the young man
smiled, as a bridegroom might smile when the veil is lifted from the face
of his bride, and said, ‘Fear not, my mother; so it shall be, the Lord
helping me.’ As for the Governor, he was mad with rage, and cried to the
executioner, ‘Smite him, and this fool also.’ And the man, who indeed, I
take it, was weary of his work, smote the youth and mother, and killed
them, dealing each but one blow. So they escaped the torture.”
On the following Sabbath Seraiah read to the congregation the story of the
Three Children in the fire, and then delivered a stirring address on the
faith and courage of the heroic mother and her sons. The people listened
with a breathless attention, and when he had finished, drew, so to speak,
together that deep sigh of relief which tells the speaker that he has been
holding the hearts of his hearers. He was one of those trustful souls who
amidst all dangers find their strength in quietness and confidence. But
the other leaders of the settlement could not help feeling somewhat
anxious as to the future. What was to be the end? This constancy under
suffering was grand beyond all praise; but were they and their brethren to
stand still and see the religion of their fathers trampled out in blood?
Was there no one to strike a blow for their faith and their fatherland?
For they could measure the average strength and depth of human nature, and
knew that there are ten who are ready to do and dare for one who can
suffer and be strong. “Do you remember,” said Seraiah to his
brother-in-law, as they were talking over the position of affairs after
the gathering for worship—“do you remember that day when we fought against
the Edomites, how our line crumbled away while we had to stand still as a
target for the Edomite arrows, and how it grew solid again in a moment
when our general gave the signal to charge? One was ready before to think
that half the men were cowards, and then one could almost have sworn that
there was not a coward among them. Yes, Azariah, we must strike when the
time comes; but when the time will come is more than I can tell.”
The next day brought an answer to his question.
The people were dispersing after the usual morning prayer when a stranger
was seen hurrying up the pass. Arrived at the top, where a party of the
men had gone to meet him, he threw himself breathless on the ground; at
the same time he drew a small piece of folded parchment from the pouch
which was fastened to his girdle, and handed it to one of the men. It ran
thus: “Mattathias to Seraiah, in the wilderness of Bethaven, greeting.
Listen to the young man who brings this present without doubting, for he
is faithful, and speaks words of truth.” In a few moments Seraiah
appeared. By this time the messenger had recovered his breath, and was
ready to tell his tale.
“What news bring you?” said Seraiah.
“Great news; for the Lord has smitten His enemies hip and thigh by the
hand of Mattathias, son of Asmon, and by the hand of his sons.”
A murmur of delight ran through the little audience, and every eye
brightened at the prospect of action.
“Tell on. We hear!” cried Seraiah.
“May I crave a drink of water? for the way is long, and I have been
travelling since the sun set yesterday.”
The water was fetched. When he had quenched his thirst, young Asaph—that
was the messenger’s name—began his story.
“You know Mattathias, the son of Asmon, and the five young men, his sons,
how they dwelt at Modin? Two months since, Philip the Phrygian—may the
Lord cut him off in his sins!” and the speaker paused, and spat upon the
ground to emphasize his disgust. “This Phrygian, then, sent one of his
officers two months since to build an altar to one of the false gods
before whom these children of perdition bow down. So the altar was built,
none hindering, for the people were without a leader. This being finished,
the Governor’s officer proclaimed a sacrifice and a feast to one of the
demons whom these heathen worship. I know not the evil thing’s name, and
if I knew it, would not take the accursed word upon my lips. On the
appointed day there was a great gathering of the inhabitants of Modin. It
was about the tenth hour when the Governor’s deputy came, with his
trumpeters and a small company of soldiers—it may be a score. When he had
taken his seat the ministers brought up the ox that was for the sacrifice,
a great beast, altogether white; and they had gilded his horns and put
garlands of flowers about his neck, as their custom is. Then the deputy
called to one Menahem, a usurer that dwelt in the village, and one of
those who would sell their souls for a shekel. ‘Menon,’ he said—for they
had changed his name after their fashion to one of their own
tongue—‘Menon, come forth, and do your office.’ And then he turned to the
people, and said, ‘Hearken to me, ye Jews. This Menon here, who is known
to all of us, has been promoted to great honour, for my lord Philip, who
is the lieutenant of the Divine Antiochus, has made him priest. Honour him
henceforth accordingly. And be sure also that if you are obedient, and
give up your own dull and senseless superstition, and worship henceforth
as the King commands, it shall be well with you and your children.’ When
he had ended, the fellow approached the altar, and cut some hairs from the
forehead of the beast, and sprinkled some meal mingled with salt between
its horns. And it chanced, or, I should rather say, it was ordered of the
Lord, that as the man did this Mattathias and his sons passed by on the
outskirts of the crowd. And when he perceived the abominable thing that
was being done, and that he who did it was a Jew, his spirit was moved
within him. Then he ran forward, he and his sons with him. And when they
were come into the space before the altar the old man cried, ‘He that is
on the Lord’s side come hither!’ And some threescore of the people that
were there came to him, and the rest stood still, and did nothing, for
they knew that the sons of Asmon were mighty men of valour. As for the
deputy and his soldiers, they were astonished beyond measure, and before
they came to themselves some of the company of Mattathias rushed upon them
and disarmed them. But Mattathias himself, with Judas his son, laid hold
on Menahem. Then that miserable creature fell on his knees and begged for
pardon, saying that he had done this thing on compulsion. ‘Nay,’ said
Mattathias, ‘the compulsion was of thy own evil and greedy heart. Thou
hast sinned beyond all mercy of man; but the mercies of the Lord are past
all measure. Die thou must; but I would have thee die in the faith of a
son of Israel.’ Then the poor wretch—I had never thought to pity him, for
he turned my own mother, when she lay dying, on to the public road, but no
one could have refused him pity then—the wretch, I say, repeated with a
stammering tongue, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord.’ And now
he said, ‘I give thee for thy prayers to the All-Merciful, till the shadow
of this staff come so far,’ and he planted a staff in the ground. And when
the time was spent, the old man took his sword, and sheared off the
wretch’s head with one blow. I had not thought that there was such
strength in his arm. Then they brought the deputy and his soldiers to
Mattathias. First he dealt with the deputy. ‘Slay him,’ he said, ‘for he
has made the people of the Lord to transgress.’ So they slew him. Then
they made the soldiers stand before him. Four out of their number were
Jews. These he commanded to be slain, after giving them the same grace
that he had given to Menahem. To the others he said, ‘You have not sinned
as these your fellows, for you were born in darkness. Take, therefore,
your choice: depart, and take good heed not to fall into our hands again,
for, if you so fall, you die without further mercy; or, if ye will, stay
with us. Only you must follow our ways, so far as it is commanded that the
stranger should follow them.’ Half chose to depart, and half to stay.
“After this, Mattathias chose some of the young men to go as messengers to
the villages round about, and carry the tidings of what had been done, and
to say, ‘The Lord hath lifted up His ensign; gather yourselves together
unto it.’ Also he appointed a place where they should meet—that is to say,
Michmash.”
“And when may we look for his coming?” asked Seraiah.
“Doubtless he will come to-morrow.”
That night there was much rejoicing in the little colony. No one, indeed,
deceived himself with the thought that he could look forward to easy and
pleasant days. All knew perfectly well that a time of struggle and
suffering was before them. But there was hope. The darkness had parted,
and they saw a far-off gleam of light. At the least they would have the
chance of striking a blow for their country and their God.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PATRIOT ARMY.
Three days passed before Mattathias and his sons arrived; but when they
came, they brought with them a considerable force. The news of the events
at Modin had spread like wildfire through southern Judæa, and hundreds who
had endured the rule of the heathen with ill-concealed impatience flocked
to the standard of revolt. It was a strange array that might have been
seen making its way up the mountain pass. A professional soldier would
certainly at the first glance have thought meanly of its fighting
capacities. Scarcely a score of the whole multitude was properly armed.
Old weapons that had hung unused for a century or more had been taken down
that they might strike another blow for the God of Israel. There had not
been time to rub the rust from the sword-blades and the spear-heads, much
less to hammer out upon the anvil the dents and notches left by the
half-forgotten battles in which they had last been used. But it was only a
few who had even these antiquated weapons. Most of the fighting men were
armed as their fathers had been under the domination of the Canaanites in
the days of Barak, or of the Philistines in the days of Saul. They carried
mattocks and hoes, pruning-hooks and reaping-hooks tied to the ends of
poles, or stakes shod with iron or even only hardened in the fire. But a
nearer inspection would have changed the contempt of the military critic
into something like admiration. These men had all that goes to the making
of the soldier except the arms, and this want, after all, is the easiest
to be supplied. They had on their faces the set, stern look of those who
are fighting for a cause, and that a cause very near to their hearts.
There were old men among them; but most were in the full vigour of youth
and manhood. A real leader of men would have preferred to be followed by
them than by the most handsomely equipped army of mercenaries.
At the head of the column walked the aged Mattathias. Two of his sons,
John and Judas, were with him, the other two being busy with the
multifarious duties which fell upon the leaders of a force as yet so
imperfectly organized. The old man—he h
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