The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ by Frank G. Slaughter Read Free Book Online Page B

known as the apocalyptic writings. God, the pious Chassidim believed, would soon send them a deliverer, the “Anointed One,” “Messiah,” or “Son of Man” to set up the kingdom of the Most High on earth. Thus, in degradation and despair as once before in servitude in far-off Babylon, the Jews were buoyed up and given courage to resist paganism by the promise of delivery from oppression. As it happened, they were delivered, for the time being, by a group of their own leaders, sons of a priest called Mattathias.
    When Appeles, an agent of Antiochus, ordered a heathen sacrifice at the town of Modin in the hills of Judea, an old priest named Mattathias killed the Jewish priest who was carrying out the insult to their God. The five sons of Mattathias—John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan—killed Appeles and led with their father to the mountains, where they quickly gathered a small band of the Chassidim who had been driven out of Jerusalem by the forces of Antiochus, as well as by others who hated Syrian rule.
    Under the leadership of the Maccabees, a name given the sons of Mattathias from the nickname “hammerer” of Judas, the great military leader of the group, what was actually a holy war began. Pitted in the struggle were the Hellenized chief priests in Jerusalem and the Syrian forces of Antiochus on one side, against the Maccabees, who came to be known also as the Hasmoneans, with their followers on the other.
    A series of almost incredible victories followed for Judas Maccabaeus. One year later, he and his forces entered Jerusalem victorious, and three years from the day the first desecration of the holy altar had occurred, a sacrifice to the Most High God was offered upon it.
    The military success of Judas Maccabaeus led him and his brothers, who successively ruled as priest-kings of Israel, to embark upon a program of conquest and expansion which almost restored the glories of David and Solomon to the land. Practically all the territory from the hills north of Galilee to the border of Egypt on the south and from the deserts of Arabia on the east to the seacoast on the west came under control of Israel, although its grip upon this broad area was never complete and constant fighting was required to maintain it.
    During the rule of John Hyrcanus, many of the Chassidim began to have reservations about high priests who spent more time wielding the sword than worshiping God. Particularly hated was the Idumaean, Antipater, who had become the chief adviser of the Hasmonean house.
    About this time a new group among the Pharisees, the scribes, arose. Highly versed in the Torah and in interpreting the Law, they began to assume an important place as teachers or rabbis and the true religious leaders of Israel. Meanwhile the wily Antipater was steadily conniving in the background, playing off various members of the royal Hasmonean house against each other.
    When Rome, during the period of expansion spearheaded by Julius Caesar, conquered the old Seleucid kingdom, Syria was made a province, and Pompey moved south to seize Palestine, ending the brief period of the Jews’ independence. The Greek cities of the Decapolis across the Jordan and beyond the Sea of Galilee were cut off from Judea. Samaria and Galilee were put under the rule of Syria and the thriving Greek cities along the Mediterranean coast were made independent. Hyrcanus II, a Hasmonean, served as the tetrarch of Jerusalem but Antipater was now the real power behind the considerably diminished throne of Judea.
    Herod, the son of Antipater, served the Romans as well as had his father. Appointed first as governor of Galilee, he shortly came into virtual control of Judea and eventually was designated by the Emperor Augustus as “King of the Jews,”
    Doubly hated, both by the Hasmoneans and their supporters because he had attained the throne for himself, and by the Jewish nationalists because of his service to Rome, Herod set about to endear himself to his