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Wild was the life led by Mattathias and his followers in the mountains a life of danger and hardship; danger met manfully, hardship endured cheerfully. Amongst wild rocks, heaped together like the fragments of an elder world torn asunder by some fearful convulsion of Nature, the band of heroes found their home.
The brave and prudent conduct of the insurrection by the heroic family of the Maccabees and the internal dissension in the Syrian empire did more for them than the letters of their powerful allies; during the strife between the Syrian kings Trypho and Demetrius Nicator autonomy and exemption from tribute were formally accorded to the Jews ; and soon afterwards the head of the Maccabaean house, Simon son of Mattathias, was even formally acknowledged by the nation as well as by the Syrian great-king as high priest and prince of Israel .
Mattathias not only contemptuously rejected these overtures, but he openly proclaimed his resolution to adhere to his religion, a man who could not be bribed, and who could not be intimidated. "Be it far from us," he said, "to forsake law and ordinances. We will not hearken to the king's words, to turn aside to the right hand or to the left."
The brave and prudent conduct of the insurrection by the heroic family of the Maccabees and the internal dissension in the Syrian empire did more for them than the letters of their powerful allies; during the strife between the Syrian kings Trypho and Demetrius Nicator autonomy and exemption from tribute were formally accorded to the Jews ; and soon afterwards the head of the Maccabaean house, Simon son of Mattathias, was even formally acknowledged by the nation as well as by the Syrian great-king as high priest and prince of Israel .
"Have you heard that Apelles starts to-morrow for Modin, charged with a mission from the tyrant to compel its inhabitants to do sacrifice to one of his accursed idol-gods?" "Is it so? then ere daybreak I set out for Modin," was the reply. "It may be that the venerable Mattathias would rather have you absent," observed the first speaker.
Old men are ill suited to conduct military expeditions when great fatigue and privation are required, and the aged Mattathias sank under the weight which he had so nobly supported, and bequeathed his power to Judas, the most valiant of his sons. When his followers had gained experience and courage by various gallant adventures, he led them openly against his enemies.
When the publishers, Simhah Ziml and Menahem Mann Romm, had completed their work in the new quarters, the copies of the book were destroyed by incendiaries . After some time, an effort was made by Joseph Eliasberg and Mattathias Strashun to continue the publication, but the Warsaw censor prohibited its importation into Poland, where the bulk of the subscribers lived.
Then was the abomination of desolation set up in the Temple, and idol altars were builded throughout the cities of Juda, and the books of the law were burned. Howbeit many in Israel chose rather to die that they might not be defiled with meats and profane the Holy Covenant. In those days arose Mattathias, a priest of the sons of Joarib.
The full glare of noonday was glowing on the world without, but softened and subdued was the light which struggled into the cave, and fell on the form of the dying man, and the stalwart figures of the Asmonean brothers bending in mute sorrow around their honoured parent. Mattathias bade his sons raise him a little, that he might speak to them with more ease.
When therefore Demetrius's men knew a day beforehand that Jonathan was coming against them, they laid an ambush in the mountain, who were to assault him on the sudden, while they themselves met him with an army in the plain; which army, when Jonathan saw ready to engage him, he also got ready his own soldiers for the battle as well as he was able; but those that were laid in ambush by Demetrius's generals being behind them, the Jews were afraid lest they should be caught in the midst between two bodies, and perish; so they ran away in haste, and indeed all the rest left Jonathan; but a few there were, in number about fifty, who staid with him, and with them Mattathias, the son of Absalom, and Judas, the son of Chapseus, who were commanders of the whole army.
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