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Updated: June 13, 2025
Give me one great name, O Judah; I care not where you go to find it to Rome, Egypt, the East, or here in Jerusalem Pluto take me if it belong not to a man who wrought his fame out of the material furnished him by the present; holding nothing sacred that did not contribute to the end, scorning nothing that did! How was it with Herod? How with the Maccabees? How with the first and second Caesars?
Yesterday He hung upon the Tree; and to-day ye hear it said, Down with the Tree; let Mahomet kindle his hearth with it. Let us be done, say you, with dead Lords and wooden stocks: we are kings, and our stocks golden. It is well said, my lords, after the fashion this world holds honourable. But I ask, did Job fear God for nought? But I say, consider the Maccabees.
The age of the Maccabees, when this book appeared, was one of the great ages of Jewish history. Judas Maccabeus is one of the first of the Israelitish heroes; and the struggle, in which he was the leader, against the dissolute Syrian Greeks brought out some of the strongest qualities of the Hebrew character.
I should like to speak seriously to you for a moment or two." "About the Maccabees, eh?" enquired the countess, laughing. "No. About myself. I am quite serious when I say I have had losses. Your ladyship need not know how.
It is well-nigh certain that in writing the Wars he had no acquaintance with the Jewish historical book, but was dependent on the less accurate and complete statement of a Hellenistic chronicle; and in the later work, though he bases his narrative on the Greek version of the Maccabees, and says he will give a fresh account with great accuracy, he yet incorporates pieces of non-Jewish history from the Greek guide without much art or skill or consistency.
In the mean time, Antiochus, the bitterest enemy which the Jews ever had, died miserably in Persia—the most powerful of all the Syrian kings. But this large force wasted away in an unsuccessful attack on Jerusalem, harassed by the soldiers of the Maccabees. A treaty of peace was concluded, by which full liberty of worship was granted to the Jews, with permission to be ruled by their own laws.
If he had given the least encouragement to their dreams and hopes, they would have unfurled again the tattered banner of the Maccabees; and beneath his leadership would have swept, like a wild hurricane, against the Roman occupation, gaining, perhaps, a momentary success, which afterwards would have been wiped out in blood.
Never was a nation in greater danger of annihilation, in spite of its glorious resistance, than was Greece at that time, for what could the remaining five hundred thousand people do against twenty-five millions inspired with fanatical hatred, but to sell their lives as dearly as they might? The contest was like that of the Maccabees against the overwhelming armies of Syria.
The fainting spirit of the nation was revived by the brave deed; insomuch that in the streets and up in the Temple even, amidst the solemnities of the feast, old tales of the Maccabees were told again, and thousands shook their heads whispering wisely, "A little longer, only a little longer, brethren, and Israel will come to her own. Let there be faith in the Lord, and patience."
In the days of Joshua, who bought the office of High Priest under the reign of Antiochus, so many priests took part in the games that the regularity of the Temple services suffered. From 'Maccabees, an old Jewish history, which is sometimes bound up with our Bible. This is taken from 'Maccabees.
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