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To execute justice in this summary manner, and before all the people, was indeed to draw the sword and throw the scabbard away. A fierce shout for vengeance arose from the Syrian soldiers, and their ranks closed around Mattathias, but not around him alone. Not for a minute had his sons deserted his side, and now, like lions at bay, they united in the defence of their father.
We find them in almost every part of the civilized world, and their number increases with the disappearance of prejudice. Some were noted Talmudists, such as Solomon Luria and Samuel ben Mattathias. To the same class belong Moses Katzenellenbogen and his son Hayyim, who was styled Gaon. In 1657 Hayyim visited Italy.
So Mattathias got a great army about him and overthrew their idol altars and slew those that broke the laws, even all that he could get under his power; for many of them were dispersed among the nations round about them for fear of him.
Bethier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Kellermann, Lefevre, Perignon, Serurier, were named marshals of the empire. The departments sent up addresses, and the clergy compared Napoleon to a new Moses, a new Mattathias, a new Cyrus.
Now at this time there was one whose name was Mattathias, who dwelt at Modin, the son of John, the son of Simeon, the son of Asamoneus, a priest of the order of Joarib, and a citizen of Jerusalem. He had five sons: John, who was called Gaddis, and Simon, who was called Matthes, and Judas, who was called Maccabæus, and Eleazar, who was called Auran, and Jonathan, who was called Apphus.
The insulted and decimated Jews now rallied under Mattathias, the founder of the Asmonean dynasty.
Mattathias laid his hand on my head and blessed me, and called me daughter. Ah! can it be that he thought of me then as his daughter indeed! The princely Judas stood near, and when I raised my head I met the gaze of his eyes, and I thought no, I never then fully grasped the meaning expressed in that gaze, it was to me as the tender glance of a brother.
We now hear of an aged priest named Mattathias, who at Modin, a few miles from Jerusalem, had the courage to kill a Jew who was about to sacrifice on a heathen altar. He escaped to the mountains, where he was joined by a number of others of the same mind. His death soon came, but he left five stalwart sons like himself.
Mattathias, although a very old man, now put forth superhuman energies, raised an army, drove the persecuting soldiers out of the country, pulled down the heathen altars, and restored the Law; and when the time came for him to die, at the age of one hundred and forty-five years, if we may credit the history, for Josephus and the Apocrypha are here our chief authorities, he collected around him his five sons, all wise and valiant men, and enjoined them to be united among themselves, and to be faithful to the Law, calling to their minds the noted examples from the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham, Joseph, Joshua, David, Elijah, who were obedient to the commandments of God.
But when the enemy sent Gorgias, with five thousand foot and one thousand horse, that he might fall upon Judas by night, and had for that purpose certain of the runagate Jews as guides, the son of Mattathias perceived it, and resolved to fall upon those enemies that were in their camp, now their forces were divided.
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