issued from their body only; and they were the statesmen, the physicians, the philosophers, and the great captains of their time. When any one became a mighty soldier, his other quality was lost behind his military glory. This is a case very unlike anything we see in modern times. But the objects of war were different: the mode of warfare was so different as to demand a different cast of character; and it is because patriotism is nearly the same in all times, while warfare is not, that we can now sympathise so much more readily with the defenders of old territory than with the conquerors of new, even in the natural age of conquest. As the fact is so, it is fair and right to look for the Representative Soldier of the ancient world among the opponents of conquerors. None can answer better to the term than that immortal band of brothers, the Maccabees.
They were the five sons of the priest Mattathias, a descendant of Aaron. They were brought up in an upland village, a mile from Joppa, where they had the sea spread out before them, while the hills of Samaria rose behind. In their early years the prospects of their country were more cheerful than for some generations past. The traces of the Captivity were nearly effaced,—the Temple at Jerusalem rebuilt, and a new store of holy wealth laid up in it, and of splendid adornment beautifying it. By wise statesmanship, enough of the country families had been attracted to Jerusalem to repeople it. The rural districts were restored to their fertility. The heads of families went up to the feasts at Jerusalem in peace and rejoicing. The authority of successive High Priests was sufficiently imposing to conceal from common eyes the foreign control to which the High Priests themselves were subject; and Hebrew life would have been much what it was of old, but for certain tendencies in the popular mind which rendered statesmen, and especially the priests of both sections (the Pharisees and Sadducees of the coming time), uneasy about both their faith and nation. There had been a hankering after some of the rites and worship of the East, ever since the return from Babylon, among some of the people: and every time that any Greek soldiers passed through Palestine to Egypt or elsewhere, there were traces of an inclination among those who had entertained or conversed with them to dwell with admiration on the genial and beautiful worship of the Greek gods. Mattathias was full of forebodings about the consequences; and the best hope entertained by him and other priests was, that the Jews would be forgotten by the great potentates who were making war upon each other on all sides. The Jews were keeping very quiet in their own valleys. They desired to be left in peace, to restore and repeople their country; and there was hope that they might remain hidden among their hills, forgotten, or remembered only as a pillaged and humbled nation whom it was not worth while to attack. If they could be thus spared to make all ready for their Messiah, who was looked for within one or two centuries, and who might appear at any moment; and if the people could be kept steady to their own privileged faith, all would be well: but every clear-sighted and patriotic Jew was on the watch incessantly for the calamities which came only too surely and too soon. Whatever might have been the sincerity of Alexander the Great in greeting the High Priest as the messenger of the only Supreme God, he had carried away such an impression of the wealth of the Temple, and of the industry and capacity of a people who could produce such wealth, that his successors, and generals were always looking towards Palestine as a region which they must annex some day, and which must meantime be occasionally visited, to improve the Greek tendencies of the people. Macedonia would descend upon Palestine some day: and already there was perpetual risk from collisions between the Egyptians on the one side, and the Eastern sovereigns from whose predecessors Palestine had already suffered so much.
As the five sons of Mattathias grew up in their father’s house at Modin, they heard enough of wise men’s hopes and fears for their country to understand its case thoroughly, and to have their hearts devoted to its welfare. As they tilled their fields, they thought what it would be to see their Holy Land again laid waste. When they fell in with caravans, going to or from Cœle-Syria (the tract which is contained between Lebanon and Anti-Libanus), they gathered news of the movements of the Greco-Syrian kings and generals; while travellers from the south, hospitably entertained as they passed by, were questioned as to the prospect on the side of Egypt, or any rumours of marches through Idumæa. Like all the religious men of the nation, this family went up two or three times a year to the Temple feasts; and those feasts were always a kind of national council, where all news was made known to everybody, and the High Priest made his estimate of the state of the national mind. While the five brothers were still youths, indications began to arise that extreme danger to their faith and their country was impending.
King Antiochus had determined on making Greeks of all tribes and peoples he could get within his grasp; and he superseded the power of the Jewish High Priest, as far as it could be done by agents of his own, secured by bribery. When the news arrived at Modin that men of priestly family and function had taken Greek names,—that Joshua now called himself Jason, and Onias Menelaus,—it was clear that the Temple and its worship were in danger: and in a few more months, Antiochus had taken Jerusalem, slaughtered eighty thousand persons, and pillaged the Temple of its gold and silver vessels, and its chests of treasure. He soon after fortified the Castle, whence he commanded the Temple, so that the people dared no longer go up to worship, nor the priests perform the service. It was in the month of June, 167 years before Christ, that the smoke ceased to go up from the daily sacrifice. After that there was nothing to induce the inhabitants to remain; and Jerusalem was actually vacated. The remnant of the citizens dispersed themselves among the nearer Gentile nations; and thus again their attachment to their faith was weakened. The test was applied to every man when the king next proclaimed the gods of Greece as objects of worship throughout all lands. Pagan