CIVIL WAR.
The new high priest arrived at Jerusalem, escorted by a powerful force
under the command of Bacchides. None but absolute renegades were glad to
see Greek soldiers again lording it in the streets of Jerusalem; but
otherwise there was a wide difference of opinion as to the duty of
faithful Jews with regard to the reception of the stranger. Alcimus and
his Greek companions were loud in their professions of good will. They
intended, they said, nothing but benefits to the people. All would be well
if they were only received in the same spirit in which they came.
Judas and his brothers received these assurances with profound
incredulity. They and their immediate followers had thought it prudent to
leave the city. There had been no opportunity of properly repairing the
walls of the Temple fortress, and without some such stronghold to serve as
shelter in case of need, they would, they felt, be at the mercy of the
Greeks. In the position to which they had withdrawn there was a hot
discussion. Judas, as usual, urged the counsels of prudence and common
sense. It was easy, he said, to make these professions of peace and good
will—so easy that, without some substantial guarantee of their sincerity,
it would be madness to risk anything on the strength of them. Alcimus, or
Eliakim—he must own that he did not like or trust these double-named Jews,
for they were often double-faced also—might be thinking of nothing but
peace; but why did he come with an army behind him? He might have been
sure, sprung as he was from the race of Aaron, that none of his countrymen
would harm him. Why had he surrounded himself with a multitude of godless
heathen who would be only too likely to harm them? “Let us wait”—this was
his final advice—“till he and his friends give us some proof that they
really mean what they say.”
The Chasidim were loud and vehement in their opposition to this counsel.
Joseph, whose bitterness and jealousy had not been weakened by the lapse
of time, constituted himself their spokesman.
“The Law,” he said, “plainly declares that there shall be a high priest.
There are acts, acts of the highest importance, even necessity, which only
he can perform. Our worship without him is maimed and imperfect. We cannot
expect that there will be a blessing upon it, that, lacking this essential
part, our sacrifices will be accepted or our prayers heard. And now we
have a high priest that is of the race of Aaron. He promises—and why
should we not believe him?—that his purposes towards us are for good and
not for evil. Let us go to him, and do him the honour that is due to his
office. If harm come of it, we shall have at least obeyed the commandment
of God.”
Judas and his brothers, with such faithful followers as Seraiah and Micah,
stood resolutely aloof, but they could not control the action of the
enthusiasts. A large body of the Chasidim paid to Alcimus a formal visit.
They welcomed him to the seat of his office; they paid him their homage;
intimating at the same time that there were grievances for which they
asked redress and abuses which needed reform. Nothing could have exceeded
the show of politeness and even friendship with which they were received.
Alcimus made the most solemn protestations that neither they nor their
friends should suffer any harm. He could only regret that unfounded
suspicions had kept away the great soldier who had done so much for his
country and whom he would have had so much pleasure in welcoming. They
were invited to a banquet, which had been duly prepared, they were
assured, in obedience to the requirements of the Law, and of which they
could partake without any fear of contracting impurity.
After the banquet there was to be a conference. The proceedings began, and
were continued for some time without interruption, though Alcimus could
scarcely control his impatience at what he thought the unreasonable
demands of the bigots. Meanwhile Bacchides, who had hitherto kept himself
in the background, was quietly surrounding the council-chamber with
troops. Joseph was in the midst of an harangue when the doors were thrown
open, a company of soldiers marched in, and arrested every member of the
deputation. It was now the turn of Alcimus to retire into the background.
He had served his purpose, acting, it may be said, as a decoy, and, thanks
to him, some of the most inveterate enemies of the Greek party had been
entrapped. The Greek commander made short work with his prisoners. Alcimus
went through the farce of interceding for them, but he never expected,
and, perhaps, never intended, to obtain his requests. Sixty of them were
executed on the spot, and the rest were cast into prison. The bodies of
the victims were hurriedly thrown into carts, drawn outside the city, and
left to be the prey of the vulture and the wild dog.
The horror and dismay which spread through the city with the news of the
bloody deed were such as it would be impossible to describe. The victims
were well-known men, and, for the most part, as much respected as they
were known. There was a frantic rush to do honour to the remains of the
martyred patriots. But Bacchides had foreseen that this would probably
occur, and had surrounded the place with a cordon of soldiers. The people
could do nothing but stand upon the walls while the birds and beasts of
prey mangled the corpses, and mingle, in their impotent rage, curses on
the murderers, with lamentations over the dead. In more than one of their
national hymns they found a fitting expression of their grief; but none
was more suitable to the circumstances of the time than the words of the
seventy-ninth Psalm: “The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to
be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and the flesh of Thy saints unto the
beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about
Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.”
The conduct of Judas did not, as may be supposed, escape censure. It is
the first impulse of a multitude in the presence of some great disaster to
throw the blame upon its rulers, and the Jews, in their anger and grief,
felt and yielded to it.
“Yes,” said an old man, who had lost a brother and a son in the massacre,
“he was too prudent to trust himself to the heathen; he stood aloof from
their danger, and when they offered themselves up as a sacrifice, he was
not there.”
“And did he not well?” said a zealous partisan. “Did he not warn them and
entreat them, and they took no heed to his words?”
“But had he and his men of war gone with them,” returned the other, “they
had not been left without defence. But now they went as sheep to the
slaughter.”
“What can you look for when the sheep will go where the shepherd does not
lead them? And as for Judas, did he ever spare his life? Has he not taken
it in his hand time after time, fighting with a few men against thousands
of the heathen? And tell me now,” went on the speaker, “to whom should we
have looked for deliverance had Judas also been slain with these? The Lord
has had mercy upon His people, lest they should be utterly cast down, and
has left unto them their captain.”
On the whole, popular opinion was strongly in Judas’s favour. Then came
another turn of events. The Greek general, weary of his sojourn among a
people that hated him, marched out of Jerusalem, and encamped in one of
the suburbs,(24) where he could keep his troops better in hand, and not
expose them to the daily risk of collision with a hostile population. This
place, too, he shortly evacuated, returning with the main part of his army
to Antioch, though he left a small force to support Alcimus, who would
now, he thought, with this help, be able to hold his own.
But before he went he committed another deed only less atrocious than the
treacherous massacre of the Chasidim. Every partisan, or supposed
partisan, of Judas whom he could either entrap or seize was mercilessly
slaughtered. Nor did Greeks, who, from motives of expediency or under
pressure of superior force, had submitted to Judas, escape.
If Bacchides imagined that these cruelties would strengthen the position
of the renegade high priest he was greatly mistaken. Alcimus was more
universally, more fervently hated than even Jason or Menelaüs had been.
The disappointment caused by this renewal of troubles was all the more
bitter because it had succeeded to hopes that seemed so well established.
And every one felt that it was Alcimus who was to blame. His greed and
ambition had disturbed the peace which they were beginning to enjoy. On
his head was all the innocent blood that had been shed.
And now a new horror was added to all that the unhappy country had
endured. It was no longer Jew fighting against Greek, but Jew against Jew.
Civil war, always more bitter, more ruthless than the very fiercest
struggle between strangers, broke out. The renegades rallied to Alcimus.
Their interests were bound up with his cause. Some of them had committed
themselves so deeply that they could not hope for pardon from the
patriots. Others had a genuine dislike for Jewish severity and a liking
for Greek license, and fought for all that, as they thought, made life
worth living. But the number of these philo-Greek partisans was but small,
and the popular feeling was unmistakably against them, and Judas felt
himself strong enough to assert his position vigorously. He was not now a
partisan leader, raising the standard of revolt against established
authority; he was himself the established authority, justified in
punishing all that presumed to rebel against him. This judicious display
of firmness, of what might even be called severity, vastly strengthened
his position. The waverers who always go with the strongest, who care
little for principle, but most for self-interest and safety, when they saw
that the sword of Judas was a more immediate danger to his enemies than
the sword of the Syrian King, hesitated no longer about joining him.
Alcimus found himself deserted by all but a few desperate partisans. The
commander of his Greek auxiliaries declared himself unable to give him
sufficient help. Accordingly he had no alternative but to give up the
unequal contest, and to hurry back to Antioch, where he might lay his
complaints before King Demetrius.