MACCABEES, THE
MACCABEES, THE 183
the courts were cleared away ; the idol-altar was destroyed, and a new altar erected ; and in general the sacred furniture which had been removed by Antiochus Epiphanes was replaced. On the 25t
Chislev (Dec.) 165, just three years after its first defilement, the temple was purified by the offering of the legal sacrifice upon the new altar, and the Feast of the Dedication or Renewal (Jn 10"), which continued to be observed until the destruction of the temple by the Romans, was joyfully cele-
brated for eight days (1 Mac 4%). Thereafter Judas went on to fortify the temple mount and the city of Bethzur. hese measures conclude
the first stage in the history of the wars of the Maccabees. As yet they had never experienced defeat.
The brilliant exploits of Judas and his brethren excited the latent hostility of the neighbouring heathen tribes, who formed a fresh coalition against ‘the race of Jacob’ (1 Mac δ). Among other and less known parties to the league, Edom and Ammon, both old hereditary enemies of Israel, were routed by Judas. In response to appeals made to them, the Maccabees then busied them- selves for a time in delivering from their enemies and lodging safely in Jerus. many Jews who were shut up in the fortresses of Gilead and Galilee. No fewer than 11,000 men were employed in these expeditions—3000 in Galilee under ΡΟΣ and the rest in Gilead under Judas and Jonathan. At the fortress of Ephron, which lay in a deep and narrow pass W. of Irbid, the inhabitants tried to obstruct the Jewish caravan, with the result that a way was forced over their dead bodies and through the ruins of their city. In the meantime Joseph and Azarias, who had been left in com- mand at Jerus., foolishly risked an engagement with Gorgias, and were repulsed with the loss of 2000 men. ‘This disaster, however, was counter- balanced by some fresh successes of Judas against the Edomites and Philistines.
No longer under the immediate necessity of defending the Jewish religion, the Maccabees had now begun to act upon the aggressive, and even to aim at the restoration of Jewish independence. Their ambition in this direction must have been stimulated by the unexpected tidings that Anti- ochus Epiphanes had died in the far East (164). He had appointed Philip, one of his ‘ Friends,’ to act as regent and guardian to the minor Antiochus y., but Lysias had the latter crowned as king with the surname of Eupator. In the year following, by making a determined attack upon the citadel of Jerus. (Acra), Judas forced the Syrian garrison to seek hale from Antioch. With a great army, including 32 fighting elephants, Lysias laid siege to Bethzur, and Judas pitched his camp at Beth- zacharias, 8 miles nearer Jerusalem. though in the battle that followed 600 Syrians were slain, the Jews were defeated. This first check to the victorious career of Judas was aggravated by the loss of his brother Eleazar, who, seeing a superbly caparisoned elephant on which he supposed the king to be riding, stabbed the animal from be- neath, but was ‘himself crushed by its fall. The Syrians had already got possession of Bethzur, and were on the point of taking the temple mount —it was a Sabbatic year, and the Jews were scarce of food—when Lysias was obliged to hasten to Antioch, where Philip, who had returned from the East, was trying to assert his title to the regency. Lysias therefore quickly made peace with the Jews, and granted them by treaty the religious liberty for which they had fought so well (1 Mac 6”). As the formal abandonment of the attempt to abolish the Jewish religion by force, this concession marks the second important stage in the Maccabean struggle. Hitherto it
had been a war for religious freedom ; henceforth it became a war for political independence.
Lysias soon got the better of Philip, but was himself, along -with his ward, put to death by Demetrius 1., the rightful heir to the Syrian throne, who had until now been kept as a hostage at Rome. The Greek party in Judea induced Demetrius to send an army under Bacchides to install the ungodly Alcimus as high priest. Con- tent to have ‘a priest of the seed of Aaron,’ the Hasidzans no longer opposed the Syrian rule, but sixty of them were treacherously slain in one day. After Bacchides had returned to Antioch without being able to entrap Judas, the latter speedily got the upper hand in πάτα, and Alcimus had once more to solicit help from Syria. In consequence, Judas again met Mico in battle. The Syrian
eneral was beaten, and fell back upon Mount
ion, where he insulted the priests and threatened to burn the temple. But in a further battle at Adasa (161), near the pass of Beth-horon, he was himself slain, whereupon his army fled. The head and hand of the insolent blasphemer were hung up in front of one of the temple gates (Gorionides, lil. 22. 12; οἵ. 2 Mac 15°), and the 13th Adar— the day of the battle—was afterwards kept as ‘Nicanor’s day’ (1 Mac 7%). At this stage Judas, despairing of being long able to continue the unequal contest with the imperial armies, sent ambassadors to the Roman Senate to invoke their protection against the Syrians. But although a treaty was concluded, nothing came of it beyond a warning to Demetrius that further interference with the Jews would mean war with Rome. Before the Roman reseript could have reached Antioch, the contingency dreaded by Judas had actually occurred. About six SAS after the defeat of Nicanor, Demetrius sent a fresh army into Judea under Bacchides. Only 3000 men were with Judas at Elasa, and most of these deserted him on seen the vastly superior strength of the Syrian host. Even the noble 800 who stood by him vainly tried to dissuade him from risking a battle, and Elasa became ‘the Jewish Thermo- tbc In spite of all they could do, Judas and