made high priest, was allowed to occupy Jerusalem with a garrison, and conquered part of
Samaria, acquiring Joppa and Akra. He negotiated with Rome, and was successful in securing
complete autonomy. His family were high priests until Herod, and are known as the Hasmonean
dynasts.
In enduring and resisting persecution the Jews of this time showed immense heroism, although
in defence of things that do not strike us as important, such as circumcision and the wickedness
of eating pork.
The time of the persecution by Antiochus IV was crucial in Jewish history. The Jews of the
Dispersion were, at this time, becoming more and more hellenized; the Jews of Judea were few;
and even among them the rich and powerful were inclined to acquiesce in Greek innovations.
But for the heroic resistance of the Hasidim, the Jewish religion might easily have died out. If
this had happened, neither Christianity nor Islam could have existed in anything like the form
they actually took. Townsend, in his Introduction to the translation of the Fourth Book of
Maccabees, says:
"It has been finely said that if Judaism as a religion had perished under Antiochus, the seed-bed
of Christianity would have been lacking; and thus the blood of the Maccabean martyrs, who
saved Judaism, ultimately became the seed of the Church. Therefore as not only Christendom
but also Islam derive their monotheism from a Jewish source, it may well be that the world
today owes the very existence of monotheism both in the East and in the West to the
Maccabees." *
The Maccabees themselves, however, were not admired by later Jews, because their family, as
high priests, adopted, after their successes, a worldly and temporizing policy. Admiration was
for the martyrs. The Fourth Book of Maccabees, written probably in Alexandria about the time
of Christ, illustrates this as well as some other interesting points. In spite of its title, it nowhere
mentions the Maccabees, but relates the amazing fortitude, first of an old man, and then of
seven young brothers, all of whom were first tortured and then burnt by Antiochus, while their
mother, who was present, exhorted them to stand firm. The king, at first, tried to win them by
friendliness, telling them that, if they would only consent to eat pork, he would take them into
his favour, and secure successful careers for
* The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English. Edited by R. H.
Charles. Vol. II, p. 659.