But the power soon passed into other hands. Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, the great grandson of Alexander's general Seleucus Nicator, had already endeavoured without success to wrest from Ptolemy Philopator the provinces of Plice nicia, Palestine, and Ccele-Syria, which he claimed as belonging to his own kingdom. The attempt was renewed with various results, when Philopator was succeeded by Ptolemy Epiphanes, a child of five years old (a.c. los), but it was not till B.C. 198 that lie was finally successful. In that year he gained a decisive victory over Scopas the Egyptian general. Jerusalem opened her gates to receive him, and the Jews were glad to help him in reduc ing the garrison which Scopas had the year before set over their city.
As long as Antiochus lived, and in the first year of his son Seleucus Philopator, Jerusalem enjoyed great prosperity under its excellent high-priest Onias III. But Seleucus was induced 13y a wretched informer named Simon to attempt to gain possession of the treasures of the Temple. His own treasurer Heliodonis, who afterwards murdered him, was sent to execute this act ot spoliation, but was deterred from its performance by a terrible appearance, which is recorded in 2 Maccab. iii. But the whole story is rendered doubtful by the silence of Josephus.
Seleucus Philopator was succeeded by his brother, the detestable Antiochus Epiphanes, B. c. 175. Onias III., who was then high-priest, had two brothers, Joshua, and another also named Onias. Joshua thanged his name to Jason, and having purchased the high.priesthood from Antiochus, forced his brother out of the office, and did his utmost to introduce into Jerusalem the morals and customs of a Greek city. He established a gym nasium, and induced his young countrymen to practise the Grecian games, and to pay court to the king by calling themselves Antiochians. Jason was in his turn ousted from the high-priesthood by the third brother Onias, who took the name of Menelaus, and robbed the temple to pay to Antiochus the price of his office. Thence ensued party riots and merciless slaughter. Antiochus was at this time in Egypt, of which he had almost effected the conquest, on the plea of re-asserting his claim to the possession of Ccele-Syria and Palestine.* On his return from Egypt he visited Jerusalem, to quell the disturbances and take vengeance on the partizans of Pompey. Massacre and pillage followed. The Temple was once more robbed of its treasures, and a great train of cap tives carried to Antioch. Two years afterwards there was a fresh attack upon Jerusalem. Fresh slaughter, fresh pillage, and burning of the city. A Syrian garrison seized and fortified a height within the city called the Acra.* The Temple was profaned by idolatrous rites, enactments were made ag,ainst the practice of the Jewish ritual, persecution and martyrdom followed.
All this led to an insurrection, which was begun at some distance from Jerusalem by an aged man of priestly family named Mattathias, the father of five sons. His noble opposition to the tyrant aroused a war of independence, in the first year of which he died. But he left behind him a family of heroes. His son Judas gained signal victories over the Syrians, and thereby obtained for himself and his race the surname of Maccabeus, from the Hebrew word Makkab, a hammer. Having con quered Lysias, a geneial of Antiochus, at Bethzur (n.c. 165), he repaired to Jerusalem, and found the sacred enclosures of the Temple encumbered with ruins, the altar of bumt-offering surmounted by an altar to Jupiter, the sanduary open and empty, and the whole place overgrown with shrubs and herbage.
He cleansed and repaired it, and it svas once more dedicated to God (B. c. 165), three years after its desecration. He also fortified the Temple, and placed in it a Jewish garrison, the Syrian garrison retaining possession of the Acra, and an noying the people by frequent sallies. Judas at tempted the siege of this place the year after, but was withdmwn from it by an attack made on llethzur, one of his own strongholds, by Antiochus Eupator, who had just succeeded his father Epi phanes. His small force was defeated, and his brother Eleazer killed by one of the elephants of the king's army near Bethzur, and he was himself obliged to retire within the fortress of the Temple. There he was besieged for a considerable time, but at last accepted the terms offered to him by Antiochus, who was called away to resist the claim of his cousin Demetrius to the throne of Syria. Demetrius, who was in fact the lawful beir, was successful, and Antiochus and his general Lysias were slain. Representations against Judas were immediately made to the new king by Alcimus (Eliakhn), a Hellenizing Jew of priestly descent, who, by the influence of Lysias, had been ap pointed high-priest on the death of 111enelaus. Demetrius sent him back to Jerusalem with Bac chides, one of his own officers, and a large force, to act against Judas. But nothing was accom plished beyond the murder of sixty of the pious Jews who trusted themselves to Alcimus, be cause he was high-priest and of the family of Aaron. Demetrius sent another army against Judas under the Syrian general Nicanor, but Judas was now victorious, and Nicanor obliged to take refuge in the Acra. From that stronghold he sallied out on one occasion and cruelly interrupted the worshippers in the Temple, but having obtained reinforcements, and again met Judas in the field, he was beaten and killed, and his bead and right arm carried away and nailed up in Jerusalem. Judas Maccabeus died B. C. 161, leaving his brothers Jonathan and Simon to carry on the work he had begun.