tested against the narrowness,
barrenness, and intolerance of Judaism; Judaism protested against the
godlessness and immorality of Hellenism. Both were right in their
protests, and yet each in a sense needed the other.

V. Apostasy of the Jews and the Perfidy of the High Priests. At the
beginning of the second century B.C. the Judean state was closely
encircled by a ring of Hellenic cities and subjected on every side to the
seductions of that debased Greek culture which had taken firm root in the
soil of Palestine. As was almost inevitable, many of the Jewish youth
yielded to its attractions. Distaste for the narrowness and austere
customs of their fathers begat in their minds a growing contempt for
their race and its religion. Even some of the younger priests forsook
the temple for the gymnasium. Unconsciously but surely Judaism was
drifting from its old moorings toward Hellenism, until the perfidy of
its high priests and the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes aroused
it to a full realization of its peril. The apostates in Jerusalem found a
leader in Jeshua, who had assumed the Greek name of Jason. He was the
brother of Onias III, the reigning high priest, and had been sent to
represent him at the Syrian court. There he improved the opportunity by
promising greater tribute to secure his appointment as high priest. He was
soon outbid, however, by a certain renegade named Menelaus, who with the
aid of Syrian soldiers drove Jason from Jerusalem and took his place as
head of the hellenizing party. The first cause, therefore, of the
Maccabean struggle was the apostasy of certain of the Jews themselves.
Apparently in large numbers they abandoned the traditions of their race,
and assumed the Greek garb and customs, thus leading their Syrian rulers
to believe that the hellenizing of the entire race would be comparatively
easy.

VI. Character of Antiochus Epiphanes. The ruler who by his injustice and
persecutions fanned the smouldering flame of Jewish patriotism into a
mighty conflagration was Antiochus Epiphanes. As a youth he had been
educated at Rome with the profligate sons of those who ruled the Imperial
City. The Greek and Roman historians, especially Polybius, give vivid
portraits of this tyrannical king. In him the prevailing passion for
Hellenism found extreme expression. To dazzle his contemporaries by the
splendor of his building enterprises and by his dramatic display was his
chief ambition. In gratifying thus his