THE HAMMER

The Cave among the Mountains.

BY
ALFRED J. CHURCH, M.A.
Lately Professor of Latin in University College, London
AND
RICHMOND SEELEY

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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 [pg vi]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 [pg vii]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

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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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, [pg 2]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 [pg 4]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 [pg 5]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 [pg 6]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 [pg 7]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 [pg 9]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, [pg 11]“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 [pg 12]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 [pg 13]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 [pg 15]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 [pg 16]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 [pg 17]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 [pg 18]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.

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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 [pg 20]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 [pg 21]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 [pg 22]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 [pg 23]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 [pg 24]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. [pg 25]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 [pg 26]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 [pg 27]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. [pg 28]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 [pg 30]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 [pg 31]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 [pg 32]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 [pg 33]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.

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 [pg 34]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 [pg 35]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 [pg 36]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.

[pg 37]

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 [pg 38]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 [pg 39]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:

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 [pg 41]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!” [pg 42]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; [pg 43]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 [pg 44]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 [pg 45]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 [pg 46]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 [pg 47]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 [pg 48]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.

[pg 49]

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, [pg 50]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 [pg 52]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 [pg 53]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 [pg 54]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 [pg 55]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 sacred[pg 57]ness 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 [pg 58]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 [pg 60]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 [pg 61]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 [pg 62]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 [pg 63]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 [pg 64]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 [pg 65]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 [pg 67]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.

[pg 68]

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 [pg 69]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 [pg 70]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 spirit[pg 71]less, 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 [pg 72]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 [pg 73]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 [pg 74]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 [pg 76]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, [pg 77]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 [pg 78]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.

[pg 79]

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 [pg 80]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 [pg 81]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 [pg 83]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 [pg 84]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 [pg 85]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 [pg 86]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.