The Hammer: A Story of the Maccabean Times

by Alfred John Church

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  CIVIL WAR.

  The new high priest arrived at Jerusalem, escorted by a powerful forceunder the command of Bacchides. None but absolute renegades were glad tosee Greek soldiers again lording it in the streets of Jerusalem; butotherwise there was a wide difference of opinion as to the duty offaithful Jews with regard to the reception of the stranger. Alcimus andhis Greek companions were loud in their professions of good will. Theyintended, they said, nothing but benefits to the people. All would be wellif they were only received in the same spirit in which they came.

  Judas and his brothers received these assurances with profoundincredulity. They and their immediate followers had thought it prudent toleave the city. There had been no opportunity of properly repairing thewalls of the Temple fortress, and without some such stronghold to serve asshelter in case of need, they would, they felt, be at the mercy of theGreeks. In the position to which they had withdrawn there was a hotdiscussion. Judas, as usual, urged the counsels of prudence and commonsense. It was easy, he said, to make these professions of peace and goodwill--so easy that, without some substantial guarantee of their sincerity,it would be madness to risk anything on the strength of them. Alcimus, orEliakim--he must own that he did not like or trust these double-named Jews,for they were often double-faced also--might be thinking of nothing butpeace; but why did he come with an army behind him? He might have beensure, sprung as he was from the race of Aaron, that none of his countrymenwould harm him. Why had he surrounded himself with a multitude of godlessheathen who would be only too likely to harm them? "Let us wait"--this washis final advice--"till he and his friends give us some proof that theyreally mean what they say."

  The Chasidim were loud and vehement in their opposition to this counsel.Joseph, whose bitterness and jealousy had not been weakened by the lapseof time, constituted himself their spokesman.

  "The Law," he said, "plainly declares that there shall be a high priest.There are acts, acts of the highest importance, even necessity, which onlyhe can perform. Our worship without him is maimed and imperfect. We cannotexpect that there will be a blessing upon it, that, lacking this essentialpart, our sacrifices will be accepted or our prayers heard. And now wehave a high priest that is of the race of Aaron. He promises--and whyshould we not believe him?--that his purposes towards us are for good andnot for evil. Let us go to him, and do him the honour that is due to hisoffice. If harm come of it, we shall have at least obeyed the commandmentof God."

  Judas and his brothers, with such faithful followers as Seraiah and Micah,stood resolutely aloof, but they could not control the action of theenthusiasts. A large body of the Chasidim paid to Alcimus a formal visit.They welcomed him to the seat of his office; they paid him their homage;intimating at the same time that there were grievances for which theyasked redress and abuses which needed reform. Nothing could have exceededthe show of politeness and even friendship with which they were received.Alcimus made the most solemn protestations that neither they nor theirfriends should suffer any harm. He could only regret that unfoundedsuspicions had kept away the great soldier who had done so much for hiscountry and whom he would have had so much pleasure in welcoming. Theywere invited to a banquet, which had been duly prepared, they wereassured, in obedience to the requirements of the Law, and of which theycould partake without any fear of contracting impurity.

  After the banquet there was to be a conference. The proceedings began, andwere continued for some time without interruption, though Alcimus couldscarcely control his impatience at what he thought the unreasonabledemands of the bigots. Meanwhile Bacchides, who had hitherto kept himselfin the background, was quietly surrounding the council-chamber withtroops. Joseph was in the midst of an harangue when the doors were thrownopen, a company of soldiers marched in, and arrested every member of thedeputation. It was now the turn of Alcimus to retire into the background.He had served his purpose, acting, it may be said, as a decoy, and, thanksto him, some of the most inveterate enemies of the Greek party had beenentrapped. The Greek commander made short work with his prisoners. Alcimuswent through the farce of interceding for them, but he never expected,and, perhaps, never intended, to obtain his requests. Sixty of them wereexecuted on the spot, and the rest were cast into prison. The bodies ofthe victims were hurriedly thrown into carts, drawn outside the city, andleft to be the prey of the vulture and the wild dog.

  The horror and dismay which spread through the city with the news of thebloody deed were such as it would be impossible to describe. The victimswere well-known men, and, for the most part, as much respected as theywere known. There was a frantic rush to do honour to the remains of themartyred patriots. But Bacchides had foreseen that this would probablyoccur, and had surrounded the place with a cordon of soldiers. The peoplecould do nothing but stand upon the walls while the birds and beasts ofprey mangled the corpses, and mingle, in their impotent rage, curses onthe murderers, with lamentations over the dead. In more than one of theirnational hymns they found a fitting expression of their grief; but nonewas more suitable to the circumstances of the time than the words of theseventy-ninth Psalm: "The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given tobe meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and the flesh of Thy saints unto thebeasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round aboutJerusalem, and there was none to bury them."

  The conduct of Judas did not, as may be supposed, escape censure. It isthe first impulse of a multitude in the presence of some great disaster tothrow the blame upon its rulers, and the Jews, in their anger and grief,felt and yielded to it.

  "Yes," said an old man, who had lost a brother and a son in the massacre,"he was too prudent to trust himself to the heathen; he stood aloof fromtheir danger, and when they offered themselves up as a sacrifice, he wasnot there."

  "And did he not well?" said a zealous partisan. "Did he not warn them andentreat them, and they took no heed to his words?"

  "But had he and his men of war gone with them," returned the other, "theyhad not been left without defence. But now they went as sheep to theslaughter."

  "What can you look for when the sheep will go where the shepherd does notlead them? And as for Judas, did he ever spare his life? Has he not takenit in his hand time after time, fighting with a few men against thousandsof the heathen? And tell me now," went on the speaker, "to whom should wehave looked for deliverance had Judas also been slain with these? The Lordhas had mercy upon His people, lest they should be utterly cast down, andhas left unto them their captain."

  On the whole, popular opinion was strongly in Judas's favour. Then cameanother turn of events. The Greek general, weary of his sojourn among apeople that hated him, marched out of Jerusalem, and encamped in one ofthe suburbs,(24) where he could keep his troops better in hand, and notexpose them to the daily risk of collision with a hostile population. Thisplace, too, he shortly evacuated, returning with the main part of his armyto Antioch, though he left a small force to support Alcimus, who wouldnow, he thought, with this help, be able to hold his own.

  But before he went he committed another deed only less atrocious than thetreacherous massacre of the Chasidim. Every partisan, or supposedpartisan, of Judas whom he could either entrap or seize was mercilesslyslaughtered. Nor did Greeks, who, from motives of expediency or underpressure of superior force, had submitted to Judas, escape.

  If Bacchides imagined that these cruelties would strengthen the positionof the renegade high priest he was greatly mistaken. Alcimus was moreuniversally, more fervently hated than even Jason or Menelaues had been.The disappointment caused by this renewal of troubles was all the morebitter because it had succeeded to hopes that seemed so well established.And every one felt that it was Alcimus who was to blame. His greed andambition had disturbed the peace which they were beginning to enjoy. Onhis head was all the innocent blood that had been shed.

  And now a new horror was added to all that the unhappy country hadendured. It was no longer Jew fight
ing against Greek, but Jew against Jew.Civil war, always more bitter, more ruthless than the very fierceststruggle between strangers, broke out. The renegades rallied to Alcimus.Their interests were bound up with his cause. Some of them had committedthemselves so deeply that they could not hope for pardon from thepatriots. Others had a genuine dislike for Jewish severity and a likingfor Greek license, and fought for all that, as they thought, made lifeworth living. But the number of these philo-Greek partisans was but small,and the popular feeling was unmistakably against them, and Judas felthimself strong enough to assert his position vigorously. He was not now apartisan leader, raising the standard of revolt against establishedauthority; he was himself the established authority, justified inpunishing all that presumed to rebel against him. This judicious displayof firmness, of what might even be called severity, vastly strengthenedhis position. The waverers who always go with the strongest, who carelittle for principle, but most for self-interest and safety, when they sawthat the sword of Judas was a more immediate danger to his enemies thanthe sword of the Syrian King, hesitated no longer about joining him.Alcimus found himself deserted by all but a few desperate partisans. Thecommander of his Greek auxiliaries declared himself unable to give himsufficient help. Accordingly he had no alternative but to give up theunequal contest, and to hurry back to Antioch, where he might lay hiscomplaints before King Demetrius.