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round the cities of Judah, pulled down the heathen altars, 1 His next care was to subdue the fortress on Mount Acra, restored the true worship and circumcision, and cut off both which Apollonius had erected to command the temple; and the apostates and persecutors that fell in his way, till death being yet in the power of the heathens, gave them great opporsummoned him to immortality, in the hundred and forty-tunities to annoy the Jews that went to worship in the temple. seventh year of his age.

When he found death approaching, he exhorted his five sons to persevere in the cause of God, as he had begun; and he appointed his son Judas his successor in the command of the army; and Simon to be their counsellor, B. C. 166. He was buried at Modin with great lamentation of all Israel. Judas, who had signalized himself on former occasions for his great valour, was distinguished by the title Maccabeus; and having taken the command of his people upon him, he prosecuted the good work of reformation begun by his father, and took all the measures he was able, by fortifying towns, building castles, and placing strong garrisons, to maintain the liberty and religion of his country against all opposition.

Apollonius was sent by Antiochus to march an army of Samaritans against him; but he was killed, and his troops defeated and entirely routed, after a great slaughter, by our young general, who, finding Apollonius's sword among the spoils, took it for his own use, and generally fought with it

ever after.

This news having reached Carlosyria, Seron, deputygovernor of that province, marched with all the forces he could collect to revenge the death of Apollonius; but he met with the same fate.

Antiochus was so enraged at these defeats, that he immediately ordered forty thousand foot, seven thousand horse, and a great number of auxiliaries, made up of the neighbouring nations and apostate Jews, to march against Judea, under the command of Ptolemy Macron, Nicanor, and Gorgias, three eminent commanders, B. C. 162.

Upon their advancing as far as Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, Judas, who may be supposed at that time besieging or at least blocking up Jerusalem, then in the hands of the heathen, retired to Mizpeh. Here the whole army addressed themselves to God. Judas exhorted them most pathetically to fight for their religion, laws, and liberties; but at last, giving those leave to withdraw from his army that had built houses, or betrothed wives within the year, or that were in any degree fearful, he presently found himself at the head of no more than three thousand men.

But not having men enough to spare to form a blockade, he silenced it by another fortification, which he erected on the mountain of the temple.

When this revolt and success of the Jews reached Antiochus, in his expedition into Persia, he threatened utterly to destroy the whole nation, and to make Jerusalem the common place of burial to all the Jews. But God visited him with a sudden and sore disease. He at first was afflicted with grievous torments in his bowels; his privy parts were ulcerated and filled with an innumerable quantity of vermin; and the smell was so offensive that he became nauseous to himself and all about him. Then his mind was so tormented with direful spectres and apparitions of evil spirits, and the remorse of his wicked life and profanations gnawed him so grievously, that he at last acknowledged the justice of God in his punishment, and offered up many vows and promises of a full reparation in case he recovered. But God would not hear him; therefore, when his body was almost half consumed with abominable ulcers, he died under the most horrid torments of body and mind, in the twelfth year of his reign.

Judas Maccabeus began now to consider how the government should be fixed, and therefore, in a general assembly held at Maspha, he revived the ancient order, and appointed rulers over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. And it is also probable that he constituted the high court of sanhedrin, in which was a settled Nasi, president or prince, who was the high priest for the time being; an Abbethdin, or father of the house of judgment, who was the president's deputy; and a Chacen, or the wise man, who was sub-deputy. The other members were called elders or senators, men of untainted birth, good learning, and profound knowledge in the law, both priests and laymen. And they in particular were empowered to decide all private difficult controversies, all religious affairs, and all important matters of state.

This was properly the senate or great council of the nation, which grew mto great power under the administration of the Asmonean princes, and was in great authority in the days of our Saviour's ministry.

own hands, and immediately combined with the neighbouring Idumeans and other nations, enemies to Judah, to unite in an attempt utterly to destroy and extirpate the whole race of Israel.

Lysias, who had been so shamefully routed by Judas, However, he was resolved to give the enemy battle. In having the care of Antiochus's son, who was called Antiochus the mean time God ordained him an easy victory; for while Eupater, and only nine years old, set him on the throne, and Gorgias was detached with five thousand foot and one thou-seized the government and tuition of the young king into his sand horse to surprise his little army by night, Judas, being informed of the design, marched by another way, fell upon the camp in the absence of Gorgias, killed three thousand men, put the rest to flight, and seized the camp. Gorgias, not finding the Jews in their camp, proceeded to the mountains, supposing they were fled thither for safety. But not meeting with them there, he was much surprised in his return at what had happened in his absence; and his army, hearing that Judas waited to give them a warm reception in the plains, flung down their arms and fled. Judas in the pursuit killed six thousand more, and wounded and maimed most of the rest. This victory opened to him the gates of Jerusalem, where he and his army celebrated the next day, which was a Sabbath, with great devotion and thanksgiving.

Timotheus and Bacchides, governors or lieutenants under Antiochus, marched immediately to the assistance of Gorgias ; but they fell a sacrifice to the valour and conduct of Judas, who, by the spoils taken from the enemy, was enabled the better to carry on the war.

This defeat was succeeded by another of Lysias, the governor of all the country beyond the Euphrates. He had penetrated as far as Bethzura, a strong fortress about twenty miles from Jerusalem, threatening to destroy the country with an army of sixty thousand foot and five thousand horse. But he was defeated also by Judas with ten thousand men only.

This victory gave him some respite; and accordingly he restored the temple to the true worship of God, removed all the profanations, built an altar of unhcwn stones, and replaced the furniture that Antiochus had carried away, out of the gold and other rich spoils taken in this war. Thus he dedicated the temple again, and ordained that a feast of dedication should be kept annually, in commemoration thereof for ever, about the 20th of November.

When Judas was informed of this confederacy, he resolved to prevent their intentions, and to carry the war into Idumca. Thus he entered their country by Acrabatene, a canton of Judea, near the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, and slew there twenty thousand of them. Then falling upon the children of Bean, another tribe of the Idumeans, he killed twenty thousand more, routed their army, and took their strong holds. Hence passing over Jordan into the land of the Ammonites, he defeated them in several engagements, slew great numbers of them, and took the city Jahazah, at the foot of Mount Gilead, near the brook Jazah; and so returned home.

After his return into Judea, one Timotheus, a governor in those parts, pretended to follow him with a numerous army. But Judas fell upon him; and having overthrown him with a very great slaughter, pursued him to the city Gazara, in the tribe of Ephraim, which he took; and he slew both Timotheus and his brother Chereas, governor of that city, and Apollophanes, another great captain of the Syrian forces.

This success stirred up the jealousy of the heathen nations about Gilead, who fell upon the Jews in the land of Tob; and, having slain one thousand, took their goods, carried their wives and children captives, and drove the residue to seek for refuge and security in the strong fortress Dathema, in Gilead. But Timotheus, the son of him slain at Gazara, shut them up with a great army, and besieged them, while the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, and Ptolemais, were contriving to cut off all the Jews that lived in Galilee.

Judas, in this critical juncture, by the advice of the sankedrin, dividing his army into three parts, he and his brother

Nehemiah and Malachi to the Birth of Christ.

Jonathan marched with eight thousand men to the relief of the Gileadites; his brother marched with three thousand into Galilee; and his brother Joseph was left with the command of the remainder to protect Jerusalem and the country round, and to remain wholly on the defensive, till Judas and Simon should return.

In their march to Gilead, Judas and Jonathan attacked Bossora, a town of the Edomites, slew all the males, plundered it, released a great number of Jews reserved to be put to death as soon as Dathema should be taken, and burned the city. When they arrived before Dathema, which was by a forced march in the night, the brothers gave Timotheus so sudden and violent an assault, that they put his army to flight, and slow eight thousand in the pursuit. And wherever he came and found any Jews oppressed or imprisoned, he released them in the same manner as he did at Bossora.

It was in this war that Menelaus, the wicked high priest, fell into disgrace with Lysias, while he was prompting the heathen barbarity to destroy his own people: for being accused and convicted of being the author and fomentor of this Jewish At the same time Simon defeated the enemy several times expedition, Lysias ordered him to be carried to Berrhea, a in Galilee, drove them out of the country, and pursued them town in Syria; and there to be cast into a high tower of ashes, with very great slaughter to the gates of Ptolemais. But in which there was a wheel which continually stirred up and Joseph, contrary to his orders, leaving Jerusalem, was put to raised the ashes about the criminal, till he was suffocated, and flight by Gorgias, governor of Syria, and lost two thousand died. This was a punishment among the Persians for crimimen in that ill-projected expedition, against Jamnia, a sea-nals in high life. This wicked high priest was succeeded at port on the Mediterranean.

i

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children before their faces, he ordered them all to be crucified in one day, before him and his wives and concubines, whom he had invited to a feast at the place of execution. Then, resolving to revenge himself on the king of Damascus, he made war on him for three years successively, and took several places; when, returning home, he was received with great respect by his subjects.

His next expedition was against the castle of Ragaba, in the country of the Gerasens, where he was seized with a quartan ague, which proved his death, B. C. 79. His queen Alexandra, by his own advice, concealed it till the castle was taken; and then, carrying him to Jerusalem, she gave his body to the leaders of the Pharisees, to be disposed of as they should think proper; and told them, as her husband had appointed her regent during the minority of her children, she would do nothing in the administration without their advice and help.

This address to the Pharisees so much gained their esteem that they not only settled the queen dowager in the government, but were very lavish in their encomiums on her deceased husband, whom they honoured with more than ordinary pomp and solemnity at his funeral.

The Pharisees having now the management of the queen regent, and of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, her sons by Alexander, had all the laws against Pharisaism repealed and abolished, recalled all the exiles, and demanded justice against those that had advised the crucifixion of the eight hundred rebels.

The queen made her eldest son, Hyrcanus, high priest. But Aristobulus was not contented to live a private life; and therefore, as soon as his mother seemed to decline, he meditated in what manner he might usurp the sovereignty from his brother, at her decease; and he had taken such measures beforehand, that upon the death of his mother he found himself strong enough to attempt the crown, though Alexandra had declared Hyrcanus her successor. The two armies met in the plains of Jericho; but Hyrcanus, being deserted by most of his forces, was obliged to resign his crown and pontificate to Aristobulus, and promise to live peaceably upon his private fortune.

This resignation was a subject of great discontent to some of Hyrcanus's courtiers, among whom was Antipater, father to Herod the Great, who persuaded Hyrcanus to fly to Aretas, king of Arabia, who, on certain conditions, supplied him with fifty thousand men, with which Hyrcanus entered Judea, and gained a complete victory over Aristobulus. But while he besieged him in the temple, Aristobulus, with the promise of a large sum of money, engaged Pompey, the general of the Roman army, then before Damascus, to oblige Aretas to withdraw his forces; but Aristobulus, though he was for the present delivered from his brother's rage, prevaricated so with Pompey, that he at last confined Aristobulus in chains, took Jerusalem sword in hand, retrenched the dignity and power of the principality, destroyed the fortifications, ordered an annual tribute to be paid to the Romans, and restored Hyrcanus to the pontificate, and made him prince of the country, but would not permit him to wear the diadem.

Pompey, having thus settled the government of Judea, returned in his way to Rome with Aristobulus, his sons Alexander and Antigonus, and two of his daughters, to adorn his triumph.

Alexander found means to escape, by the way, and about three years after arrived in Judea, and raised some disturbance; but he was defeated in all his attempts by Gabinius, the Roman governor in Syria, who, after this, coming to Jerusalem, confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, but removed the civil administration from the sanhedrin into five courts of justice of his own erecting, according to the number of five provinces, into which he had divided the whole land.

When Aristobulus had lain five years prisoner at Rome, he with his son escaped into Judea, and endeavoured to raise fresh trouble; but Gabinius soon took them again; and being remanded to Rome, the father was kept close confined, but the children were released.

It was about this time, B. C. 48, that the civil war between Pompey and Cæsar broke out; and when Aristobulus was on the point of setting out, by Casar's interest, to take the command of an army in order to secure Judea from Pompey's attempts, he was poisoned by some of Pompey's party.

When Casar was returned from the Alexandrian war, be was much solicited to depose Hyrcanus in favour of Antigomus, the surviving son of Aristobulus; but Casar not only confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood and principality of Judea, and to his family in a perpetual succession, but be abolished the form of government lately set up by Gabinius, restored it to its ancient form, and appointed Antipater procu rator of Judea under him.

Antipater, who was a man of great penetration, made his son Phasael governor of the country about Jerusalem, and his son Herod governor of Galilee,

Soon after this appointment, Herod, who was of a very boisterous temper, having seized upon one Hezekiah, a ringleader of a gang of thieves, and some of his men that infested his territories, he put them to death. This was presently looked upon as a breach of duty to the sanhedrin, before whom he was summoned to appear. But lest the sentence of that court should pass upon him, he fled to Sextus Casar, the Roman prefect of Syria at Damascus; and, with a large sum of money, obtained of him the government of Calesyria. He afterwards raised an army, marched into Judea, and would haye revenged the indignity which he said the sanhedrin and high priest had cast upon him, had not his father and brother prevailed with him to retire for the present.

While Julius Cæsar lived, the Jews enjoyed great privileges; but his untimely death, B. C. 44, by the villanous and ungrateful hand of Brutus, Cassius, &c., in the senate house, as he was preparing for an expedition against the Parthians to revenge his country's wrong, delivered them up as a prey to every hungry general of Rome, Cassius immediately seized upon Syria, and exacted above seven hundred talents of silver from the Jews; and the envy and villany of Malicus, who was a natural Jew, and the next in office under Antipater, an umean, rent the state into horrid factions. Malicus bribed the high priest's butler to poison his friend Antipater, to make way for himself to be the next in person to Hyrcanus. Herod, making sure of Cassius, by obtaining his leave and assistance to revenge his father's death, took the first opportunity to have him murdered by the Roman garrison at Tyre.

The friends of Malicus, having engaged the high priest and Felix the Roman general at Jerusalem on their side, resolved to revenge his death on the sons of Antipater. All Jerusalem was in an uproar; Herod was sick at Damascus; so that the whole power and fury of the assailants fell upon Phasart, who defended himself very strenuously, and drove the tumultuous party out of the city. As soon as Herod was able, the two brothers presently quelled the faction; and had not Hyrcanus made his peace by giving Herod his granddaughter Mariamne in marriage, they certainly, would have shown their resentment of the priest's behaviour with more severity.

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Again, this faction was not so totally extinguished but that several principal persons of the Jewish nation, upon the defeat of Brutus and Cassius, accused Phasael and Herod to the conqueror, Mark Anthony, of usurping the government from Hyrcanus. But the brothers had so much interest with the conqueror that he rejected the complaints of the deputies, made them both tetrarchs, and committed all the affairs of Judea to their administration; and to oblige the Jews to obey his decision in this affair, he retained fifteen of the deputies as hostages for the people's fidelity, and would have put them to death had not. Herod begged their lives.

The Jews, however, when Anthony arrived at Tyre, sent one thousand deputies with the like accusations, which he, looking upon as a daring insult, ordered his soldiers to fall upon them, so that some were killed and many wounded. But upon Herod's going to Jerusalem the citizens revenged this affront in the same manner upon his retinue; the news whereof so enraged Anthony, that he ordered the fifteen hostages to be immediately put to death, and threatened severe revenge against the whole faction. But after that Mark Anthony was returned to Rome, the Parthians, at the solicitation of Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, who had promised them a reward of a thousand talents and eight hundred of the most beautiful women in the country, to set him on the throne of Judea, entered that country, and being joined by the factious and discontented Jews, (B. C. 37,) took Jerusalem without resistance, took Phasael and Hyrcanus, and put them in chains; but Herod escaped under the cover of night

Nehemiah and Malachi to the Birth of Christ.

and deposited his mother, sister, wife, and his wife's mother, with several other relations and friends, in the impregnable fortress Massada, near the lake Asphaltutes, under the care of his brother Joseph, who was obliged to go to Rome to seek protection and relief.

In the mean time Antigonus remained in possession of all the country, and was declared king of Judea. The Parthians delivered Hyrcanus and Phasael to Antigonus; upon which Phasael, being so closely handcuffed and ironed that he foresaw his ignominious death approaching, dashed his own brains out against the wall of the prison. Antigonus cut off the ears of Hyrcanus, to incapacitate him from the high priesthood, and returned him again to the Parthians, who left him at Seleucia, in their return to the East.

Herod on this occasion served himself so well on the friendship which had been between his father and himself with the Roman general, Mark Anthony, and the promise of a round sum of money, that he in seven days' time obtained a senatorial decree, constituting him king of Judea, and declaring Antigonus an enemy to the Roman state. He immediately left Rome, landed at Ptolemais, raised forces, and being aided with Roman auxiliaries, by order of the senate, he reduced the greater part of the country, took Joppa, relieved Massada, stormed the castle of Ressa, and must have taken Jerusalem also, had not the Roman commanders who were directed to assist him been bribed by Antigonus, and treacherously obstructed his success. But when Herod perceived their collusion, he, for the present, satisfied himself with the reduction of Galilee; and hearing of Anthony's besieging Samosata on the Euphrates, went in person to him to represent the ill treatment he had met with from the generals, Ventidius and Silo, whom he had commanded to serve him.

Upon his departure, Herod left the command of his forces to his brother Joseph, with charge to remain upon the defensive. But Joseph, contrary to orders, attempting to reduce Jericho, was slain, and most of his men were cut to pieces. And thus Herod again lost Galilee and Idumca.

Mark Anthony granted all he requested; and though at first the army which Anthony had spared him was roughly handled, and he himself wounded as he approached Jerusalem to revenge his brother's death, he afterwards slew Pappus, Antigonus's general, and entirely defeated his army; and in the next campaign, after a siege of several months, Herod, assisted by Socius, the Roman general, took it by storm. The soldiers expecting the spoils of the city as their due, and being exasperated by the long resistance of the citizens, spared neither men, women, nor children, and would certainly have utterly destroyed every thing and person with rapine and devastation, death and slaughter, had not Herod redeemed them with a large sum of money.

Antigonus surrendered himself to Socius, who carried him in chains to Anthony; and he for a good sum of money was bribed to put him to death, that in him the Asmonaan family, which had lasted one hundred and twenty-nine years, might be extinet.

By this event Herod found himself once more in full power, and at liberty to revenge himself upon his enemies. He began his reign with the execution of all the members of the great Sanhedrin except Pollio and Sameas, who are also called Hillel and Shammai. Then he raised one Ananel, born of the pontifical family at Babylon, to the place of high priest; but Mark Anthony, at the intercession of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, who was solicited thereto by Alexandra, Mariamne's mother, and the entreaties of his own beloved Mariamne in behalf of her young brother, prevailed with him to annul this nomination, and to prefer Aristobulus to the pontificate. But as Hyrcanus was yet alive, and the Jews, in the place of his exile, paid him all the honours and reverence due to their king and high priest, Herod, under a pretence of gratitude and friendship to that author of all his fortunes, prevailed with the old prince to desire it, and with Phraortes, king of Parthia, to permit his return to Jerusalem, with an intention to cut him off at a proper opportunity; which he soon after did on a pretence of his holding treasonable correspondence with Malchus, king of Arabia. But in the mean time Alexandra, valuing herself upon the interest she had with Cleopatra, laid a scheme to obtain the regal dignity for her son Aristobulus, by the same means that she had got him the pontificate. But this intrigue ended in the death of Aristo

bulus, and her own close confinement at first, and afterwards in her own and her daughter Mariamne's death; though this tragic scene was at several times acted under disguise. Aristobulus was drowned at Jericho, as it were accidentally, B. C. 29, in a fit of jealousy; Mariamne was adjudged to die, and Alexandra was ordered for execution, B. C. 28, on a supposition that she wished his death; which unjust sentence pursued his very innocent children Alexander and Aristobulus, for expressing their dislike of their father's cruelty to their mother Mariamne. But it is very probable that he himself had fallen a sacrifice to Octavius after the battle, and the total loss of Mark Anthony at Actium, (fought B. C. 31,) had he not hastened to the conqueror at Rhodes, and in an artful speech appeased him, and with a promise to support his faction in those parts, obtained from him a confirmation of his royal dignity.

The cruelties, however, which he exercised to his own flesh and blood filled his mind with agonies of remorse, which brought him into a languishing condition; and what helped to increase his disorder was the conspiracy of Antipater, his eldest son by Doris, born to him whilst he was a private man. Bút Herod having discovered the plot, accused him thereof before Quintilius Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, and put him to death also; which occasioned that remarkable exclamation of the Emperor Octavius, that "it was better to be Herod's hog than his son."

The great pleasure that Herod took (B. C. 25) in obliging his protector Octavianus, and the dread he had of being dethroned for his cruelties, prompted him to compliment him with the names of two new cities, the one to be built on the spot where Samaria stood before Hyrcanus destroyed it, (B. C. 22,) which he called Sebaste, the Greek word for Augustus; the other was Casarea, once called the Tower of Straton, on the sea-coast of Phenicia. After this he built a theatre and amphitheatre in the very city of Jerusalem, to celebrate games and exbibit shows in honour of Augustus; set up an image of an eagle, the Roman ensign, over one of the gates of the temple; and at last carried his flattery so far as idolatrously to build a temple of white marble in memory of the favours he had received from Octavianus Augustus.

These advances to idolatry were the foundation of a conspiracy of ten men, who bound themselves with an oath to assassinate him in the very theatre. But being informed thereof in time, Herod seized the conspirators, and put them to death with the most exquisite torments; and to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he formed a design to rebuild the temple, (B. C. 17,) which now, after it had stood five hundred years, and suffered much from its enemies, was fallen much into decay. He was two years in providing materials; and it was so far advanced that Divine service was performed in it nine years and a half more, though a great number of labourers and artificers were continued to finish the outworks til! several years after our Saviour's ascension; for when Gessius Florus was appointed governor of Judea, he discharged eighteen thousand workmen from the temple at one time. And here it should be observed that these, for want of employment, began those mutinies and seditions which at last drew on the destruction both of the temple and Jerusalem, in A. D. 70.

Thus I have finished that brief connection of the affairs of the Jews from the death of Nehemiah and conclusion of the Old Testament, to the coming of Christ, where the New Testament begins, which from the creation of the world, according to the most exact computation, is the year 4000.

The general state of the heathen world was in profound peace under the Roman emperor, Augustus, to whom all the known parts of the earth were in subjection when Christ was born. This glorious event took place in the year of the Julian Period 4709, and the fifth before the vulgar era of Christ commonly noted A. D., Anno Domini, or the year of our Lord. See the learned Dr. Prideaux's connected History of the Old and New Testaments.

I need not add here the years from the birth of Christ to the end of the New Testament History, as these are regularly brought down in a Table of Remarkable Eras, immediately succeeding the Acts of the Apostles, and terminating at A. D. 100.

For the desolation that took place when the temple was taken and destroyed, see the notes on Matt. xxiv. 31.

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children before their faces, he ordered them all to be crucified | in one day, before him and his wives and concubines, whom he had invited to a feast at the place of execution. Then, resolving to revenge himself on the king of Damascus, he made war on him for three years successively, and took several places; when, returning home, he was received with great respect by his subjects.

His next expedition was against the castle of Ragaba, in the country of the Gerasens, where he was seized with a quartan ague, which proved his death, B. C. 79. His queen Alexandra, by his own advice, concealed it till the castle was taken; and then, carrying him to Jerusalem, she gave his body to the leaders of the Pharisees, to be disposed of as they should think proper; and told them, as her husband had appointed her regent during the minority of her children, she would do nothing in the administration without their advice and help.

This address to the Pharisees so much gained their esteem that they not only settled the queen dowager in the government, but were very lavish in their encomiums on her deceased husband, whom they honoured with more than ordinary pomp and solemnity at his funeral.

The Pharisees having now the management of the queen regent, and of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, her sons by Alexander, had all the laws against Pharisaism repealed and abolished, recalled all the exiles, and demanded justice against those that had advised the crucifixion of the eight hundred rebels.

The queen made her eldest son, Hyrcanus, high priest. But Aristobulus was not contented to live a private life; and therefore, as soon as his mother seemed to decline, he meditated in what manner he might usurp the sovereignty from his brother, at her decease; and he had taken such measures beforehand, that upon the death of his mother he found himself strong enough to attempt the crown, though Alexandra had declared Hyrcanus her successor. The two armies met in the plains of Jericho; but Hyrcanus, being deserted by most of his forces, was obliged to resign his crown and pontificate to Aristobulus, and promise to live peaceably upon his private fortune.

This resignation was a subject of great discontent to some of Hyrcanus's courtiers, among whom was Antipater, father to Herod the Great, who persuaded Hyrcanus to fly to Aretas, king of Arabia, who, on certain conditions, supplied him with fifty thousand men, with which Hyrcanus entered Judea, and gained a complete victory over Aristobulus. But while he besieged him in the temple, Aristobulus, with the promise of a large sum of money, engaged Pompey, the general of the Roman army, then before Damascus, to oblige Aretas to withdraw his forces; but Aristobulus, though he was for the present delivered from his brother's rage, prevaricated so with Pompey, that he at last confined Aristobulus in chains, took Jerusalem sword in hand, retrenched the dignity and power of the principality, destroyed the fortifications, ordered an annual tribute to be paid to the Romans, and restored Hyrcanus to the pontificate, and made him prince of the country, but would not permit him to wear the diadem.

Pompey, having thus settled the government of Judea, returned in his way to Rome with Aristobulus, his sons Alexander and Antigonus, and two of his daughters, to adorn his triumph.

Alexander found means to escape, by the way, and about three years after arrived in Judea, and raised some disturbance; but he was defeated in all his attempts by Gabinius, the Roman governor in Syria, who, after this, coming to Jerusalem, confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, but removed the civil administration from the sanhedrin into five courts of justice of his own erecting, according to the number of five provinces, into which he had divided the whole land.

When Aristobulus had lain five years prisoner at Rome, he with his son escaped into Judea, and endeavoured to raise fresh trouble; but Gabinius soon took them again; and being remanded to Rome, the father was kept close confined, but the children were released.

It was about this time, B. C. 48, that the civil war between Pompey and Cæsar broke out; and when Aristobulus was on the point of setting out, by Caesar's interest, to take the command of an army in order to secure Judea from Pompey's attempts, he was poisoned by some of Pompey's party.

When Cesar was returned from the Alexandrian war, he was much solicited to depose Hyrcanus in favour of Antigomus, the surviving son of Aristobulus; but Casar not only confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood and principality of Judea, and to his family in a perpetual succession, but he abolished the form of government lately set up by Gabimus, restored it to its ancient form, and appointed Antipater procarator of Judea under him.

Antipater, who was a man of great penetration, made his son Phasael governor of the country about Jerusalem, and his son Herod governor of Galilee.

Soon after this appointment, Herod, who was of a very boisterous temper, having seized upon one Hezekiah, a ringleader of a gang of thieves, and some of his men that infested his territories, he put them to death. This was presently looked upon as a breach of duty to the sanhedrin, before whom he was summoned to appear. But lest the sentence of that court should pass upon him, he fled to Sextus Casar, the Roman prefect of Syria at Damascus; and, with a large sum of money, obtained of him the government of Calesyria. He afterwards raised an army, marched into Judea, and would haye revenged the indignity which he said the sanhedrin and high priest had cast upon him, had not his father and brother prevailed with him to retire for the present.

While Julius Cæsar lived, the Jews enjoyed great privileges; but his untimely death, B. C. 44, by the villanous and ungrateful hand of Brutus, Cassius, &c., in the senate house, as he was preparing for an expedition against the Parthians to revenge his country's wrong, delivered them up as a prey to every hungry general of Rome. Cassius immediately -seized upon Syria, and exacted above seven hundred talents of silver from the Jews; and the envy and villany of Malicus, who was a natural Jew, and the next in office under Antipater, an umean, rent the state into horrid factions. Malicus bribed the high priest's butler to poison his friends Antipater, to make way for himself to be the next in person to Hyrcanus. Herod, making sure of Cassius, by obtaming his leave and assistance to revenge his father's death, took the first opportunity to have him murdered by the Roman garrison at Tyre.

The friends of Malicus, having engaged the high priest and Felix the Roman general at Jerusalem on their side, resolved to revenge his death on the sons of Antipater. All Jerusalem was in an uproar; Herod was sick at Damascus ; so that the whole power and fury of the assailants fell upon Phasael, who defended himself very strenuously, and drove the tumultuous party out of the city. As soon as Herod was able, the two brothers presently quelled the faction; and had not Hyrcanus made his peace by giving Herod his granddaughter Mariamne in marriage, they certainly, would have shown their resentiment of the priest's behaviour with more severity.

Again, this faction was not so totally extinguished but that several principal persons of the Jewish nation, upon the defeat of Brutus and Cassins, accused Phasael and Herod to the conqueror, Mark Anthony, of usurping the government from Hyrcanus. But the brothers had so much interest with the conqueror that he rejected the complaints of the deputies, made them both tetrarchs, and committed all the affairs of Judea to their administration; and to oblige the Jews to obey his decision in this affair, he retained fifteen of the deputies as hostages for the people's fidelity, and would have put them to death had not Herod begged their lives.

The Jews, however, when Anthony arrived at Tyre, sent one thousand deputies with the like accusations, which he, looking upon as a daring insult, ordered his soldiers to fall upon them, so that some were killed and many wounded. But upon Herod's going to Jerusalem the citizens revenged this affront in the same manner upon his retinue; the news whereof so enraged Anthony, that he ordered the fifteen hostages to be immediately put to death, and threatened severe revenge against the whole faction. But after that Mark Anthony was returned to Rome, the Parthians, at the solicitation of Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, who had promised them a reward of a thousand talents and eight hundred of the most beautiful women in the country, to set him on the throne of Judea, entered that country, and being joined by the factious and discontented Jews, (B. C. 37,) took Jerusalem without resistance, took Phasael and Hyrcanus, and put them in chains; but Herod escaped under the cover of night