ambush of the Syrians. With his two principal officers,' however, he retrieved his position by his wonderful presence of mind, and gained a complete victory. In the tranquillity of the winter he thought of renewing the league with Rome, and sought also other alliances with foreign states standing high in general repute and known as enemies of the Macedonians. Only the Spartans seemed available, with whom, indeed, an alliance had been already concluded at an earlier date.2 He accordingly despatched Numenius son of Antiochus, and Antipater son of Jason,3 on a joint mission to the Romans and the Spartans. But, like Judas, Jonathan did not live to see the return of his ambassadors.5

For in the following year the generals of Demetrius summoned their forces against him. He hastened to meet them, passing the ancient northern boundary of the country, into the district of Hamath, and protected himself by out-posts against a night attack which they had planned. They, on their part, retreated by night, concealing their flight by watch-fires in their camp, and Jonathan pursued them in vain to the river Eleutherus, which was recognised as the extreme boundary of Palestine in the north-west. He accordingly turned eastwards against the robber Zabadeans,7 in the Arabian desert, and took possession of Damascus, while Simon occupied Ascalon and Joppa again, so as to prevent Demetrius from suddenly sending an army against Jerusalem from the latter port. After his return to Jerusalem he proceeded, in accordance with the advice and determination of a popular assembly, to fortify several towns. Special efforts were made at Jerusalem, both on the side opposite to the great citadel, which it was now endeavoured to encircle closely, so as to cut it off from all traffic and starve it into surrender, and also opposite the brook Kidron, on the east, where a portion of the walls had fallen in. Simon, meanwhile, made the town of Adîda, situated on a hill in the plain looking towards Joppa," into a sort of outer defence of Jerusalem. But

Their names are given with precision, 1 Macc. xi. 70.

2 P. 245.

same family name which reappears in the New Testament in the sons of Zebedee, and is preserved at the present day

Probably the same person who is in many family names in those countries; mentioned on p. 322. cf. also Wetzstein's Hauran, p. 33.

4 P. 322 sqq. According to 1 Macc. xii. 1-23, comp. with xiv. 16-23.

According to 1 Macc. xii. 30, comp. with xi. 7; Strabo's Geogr. xvi. 2, 12; now probably El-Bârid.

There are still in these deserts places named ; see the lists in Robinson's Bib. Res. iii. p. 657, ed. 1856. It is the

* In this quarter, according to 1 Mace. xii. 37, he improved the so-called Caphenatha, or (according to some MSS, and the Pesh.) Casphenatha, no doubt a small fortification, the name of which is otherwise unknown to us.

when Trypho found that by Jonathan's assistance he was thus getting the upper hand over Demetrius, he purposed, for the promotion of his own secret designs upon the Syrian throne, to rid himself of one who might ultimately become troublesome to him; and with this view he invited Jonathan to meet him at Beth-sheân, on the southern boundary of Galilee. Jonathan arrived, attended by forty thousand men; but, under the promise of confirming the gift of Ptolemais to him,' the deceiver contrived to induce him to follow him with no more than three thousand men to Galilee, and then to pursue his march with only a thousand troops to Ptolemais. There, the crafty Jonathan found himself at length outwitted. Once within the fortress, he was made prisoner, his men were cut down, and it was generally reported that he was slain. The two thousand men, however, whom he had left in Galilee, fought their way through to Jerusalem.

3. Simon the Asmonean, High-priest and Prince.

This unexpected blow, though not undeserved by Jonathan for his eagerness to receive Ptolemais from a Trypho, plunged the people into great alarm. Trypho was preparing a large army, and far and wide the enemies of the party of the strict were raising new hopes of final victory. Simon, however, the only survivor of the five great brothers, who had been fully tried in war and peace, and, who though himself the older, had modestly subordinated himself to Jonathan, as he had previously done to Judas, contenting himself with the second place, now stepped into the gap with word and deed. Out of his private fortune he equipped and paid a powerful army,3 and hastily protected Joppa and Adîda (into the latter of which he threw himself) against Trypho, who was advancing from the northwest and bringing Jonathan with him in chains. Trypho, finding himself disappointed in his expectation of surprising Judea, promised to surrender Jonathan for one hundred silver talents and two of his young sons as hostages; but after Simon had fulfilled both these conditions he failed to carry out his share of the engagement. He next marched round the western mountains of Judea in a southerly direction towards Adôra, on may well imagine it to have covered the Lydda. road from Joppa to Jerusalem. It is no doubt, therefore, identical with what is more correctly called Josh. xv. 36. According to Eus. Onomast. there was a place of this name not far from

1 P. 328.

2 As σтρaτnyós, as he is called in an ancient notice of the time of Judas, Jos. Ant. xii. 10, 6.

3 According to 1 Macc. xiv. 32.

the south-west of Hebron,' laying waste everything as he went. Simon, however, kept up with him on the hills. The troops who had been so long shut up in the great citadel at Jerusalem, and were nearly reduced by starvation, sent messengers to the powerful Syrian to entreat him to despatch forces to their relief by the only way still open to them, through the wilderness by the Dead Sea. His cavalry were all ready to proceed by this route in a single night, when they were hindered by a heavy fall of snow. Disheartened by this circumstance, he marched through the south right round the Dead Sea and betook himself into the country on the east of the Jordan. Here, at Bascama, he had Jonathan executed, and soon after also put to death his own toy-king.

It was a piece of great good fortune that the last survivor of the five brothers3 was the calmest and most discreet of them all; and that he ruled at a time when there was less need of impetuous valour than of foresight and higher prudence, to reap the fruits of the heavy toil of the two previous leaders, and to make good the error which Jonathan had committed by his alliance with Trypho. Simon at once began to fortify Judea throughout as strongly as possible. By the present of a golden crown and a palm-robe," he sought to renew the alliance with Demetrius, and was recognised by him as highpriest and friend of the king. The popular privileges previously conceded were confirmed, and pardon was promised for all who had in the interval revolted to Trypho. It was in the year 143 that the country thus regained its complete freedom under an hereditary vassal of the king of Asia;' and in the first rejoicing which ensued it was resolved (at least as the first book of Maccabees records) from henceforth to count this era

This is the meaning of 1 Macc. xiii. 20; cf. vol. iv. p. 45 note 5.

The situation of this place has not yet been rediscovered.

3 On the fall of the two less famous, sce pp. 318, 324. In 2 Macc. viii. 22, x. 19, one of these five brothers is called Joseph (for in these passages it is certainly the brothers of Judas who are named); according to all indications the same person is intended who in 1 Macc. is designated Johanan [John]. We have nothing more here than a confusion of the two similar-sounding names, not a really different brother; for even 2 Macc. only reckoned five brothers, according to the artistic description, which is partly fiction, in viii. 22 sqq.

This happened

in their civil life as the first 'year of freedom." most fortunately to coincide with other successes. It was not till now that Gazara,2 on the west of Jerusalem, which had been fortified with extraordinary strength by the heathen party, was reduced after an elaborate siege, and, as a town properly belonging to Israel, was carefully purified from every heathen taint. This conquest, moreover, Simon might fairly regard as his own acquisition; and he accordingly sent his son Johanan, after he had been designated as general and successor, to reside there,3 and carefully rebuilt and equipped the fortress." Finally, on the twenty-third of the second month (May) in the year 142, the great citadel of Jerusalem, quite starved out, fell into Simon's hands, and thus the last great fortress still occupied by the heathen party came into his power." He himself, however, fortified the temple-mountain with especial care, and established himself there.

The concessions and engagements of the kings and other potentates of this period generally lasted only so long as they were destitute of the power to elude or repudiate them to their own advantage. In the weakness, however, into which the Syrian kingdom was sinking deeper and deeper, there was no great danger threatening the liberated people from this quarter. Simon was thus able to pass several years of tranquillity and peace, which, in spite of his advanced age, he employed with equal activity and wisdom for the welfare of his

1 Macc. xiii. 41 sq.; cf., however, xiv. 27, where this is less clearly seen. It has been generally supposed that the years of the coins of Simon (to be mentioned below) were to be reckoned from this point. But it is highly improbable that he struck coins before he had permission to do so; and there is nothing which obliges us to resort to this hypothesis. The good fortune of this period passed away, after all, tolerably soon, and it is not therefore surprising that the Seleucidic chronology previously in uso should have maintained itself in ordinary affairs among the Jews as late as the Middle Ages, while the designation of a first year of freedom,' indicated by the author of the first book of Maccabees as coincident with the beginning of Simon's leadership, was probably connected with a new Calendar, which will be discussed below.

2 Only in Jos. Bell. Jud. i. 2, 2 and Ant. xiii. 6, 7 has the true reading, Gazara, been preserved instead of Gaza, 1 Macc. xiii. 43. Gaza might perhaps have been conquered by a Judean of that

time in the name of the Syrian king (p. 331), but not in his own. Gazara, however, could with more reason be reckoned in the ancient territory of Israel. That it is Gazara which is meant is clear enough from 1 Macc. xiii. 53, xiv. 7, 34, xv. 28, 35.

21.

According to 1 Macc. xiii. 53, xvi. 1,

4 1 Macc. xiv. 34. The neighbouring town of Jabneh (Jamnia), p. 329, was no doubt conquered at the same time, and out of a Philistine city was transformed into a private estate (domanium) for the Prince of Judah.

The account which Josephus gives, Ant. xiii. 6, 7, of the deportation of the top of the mountain on which the citadel was placed-commenced under Simon's auspices and laboriously carried on for three years can only refer to a portion of this extensive mass, probably that which once projected on the north-east against the temple-mountain. To this extent the narrative, to which there is not an allusion in 1 Macc., may be correct.

nation and the honour of his house. He strengthened the alliance with the Romans, sending to them again the tried Numenius, who carried as a costly gift of honour a golden shield. By justice and circumspection he promoted in every way the security and prosperity of all classes in the nation.2 He protected commerce, and established in Joppa a free port, which soon became the resort of all the ships of trade on the Mediterranean,3 and, as the only really Judean port, acquired a peculiar importance in the rejuvenescence of the people. It was speedily made the basis by Judeans also of a maritime trade on their own account, and subsequently in unquiet times even of piratical expeditions. In these ways Simon made himself universally honoured and beloved. On the 18th of Elûl

(September) in the year 141, a great popular assembly, held in the large fore-court of the temple," did but express the general sentiment in solemnly designating him for all future time commander-in-chief and prince of the nation. His person was made inviolable, and he was invested with the right of conferring all the offices and employments in the state, and exercising supreme direction over all sacred things. This dignity was made hereditary in his family, and a public record of the particulars of the decree was put up by order in the sanctuary."

11 Macc. xiv. 24, 40, xv. 15-24. The Roman letter of recommendation, xv. 16-21, which one Consul Lucius is said to have drawn up, is plainly reproduced somewhat freely. But essentially the same letter, only in part rendered with greater exactness, has got inserted, through the great carelessness of Josephus, in a quite wrong place in his history, viz. in the time of Cæsar, Ant. xiv. 8, 5. The ninth year of Hyrcanus there specified must, therefore, be the ninth of Simon; although the latter is not generally credited with more than eight.

2 Cf. 1 Macc. xiv. 4, 35, comp. with

As at the time of Pompey, Jos. Ant. xiv. 3, 2, and of Vespasian, Bell. Jud. iii. 9, 2, 4.

This is probably the meaning of the words in 1 Macc. xiv. 28, according to the correct reading of some MSS., èv 'Aσapauer, i.e. by na, 'in the forecourt of the people of God,' i.e. in the great forecourt of the sacred community of the temple; moreover, an exact description like this of the place where the decree was resolved upon is quite appro

priate to the connection of the words. The fact that this local designation has not been translated into Greek is explained by the mysteriously lofty meaning which it enfolds. For the name has a somewhat lofty sound, yet only such as is peculiar to these times, which in the same way produced the secret name for 1 Macc., Zapßne σapßave eλ (on which see below).

The Greek syntax of this long document, 1 Macc. xiv. 27-49, has certainly some manifest faults. In ver. 41 ὅτι should be erased. In ver. 42, instead of ὅπως μέλοιἁγίων, which is only correct in ver. 43, we should simply read roû, and, with several MSS., should adopt δι' αὐτοῦ for αὐτούς. But its contents are indisputably authentic, and the prolixities of style common in such documents are not too frequent. That the honours conferred upon him were to be hereditary is not, curiously enough, distinctly asserted in the decree: it is only implied by the way, vv. 25, 49. But this is a further sign of the genuineness of a document, the original of which, at the time of the composition of 1 Macc., every priest might certainly have examined on the brazen plates in the temple. Another mark of authenticity is found in the fact that Simon's proceedings against the heathen