the principal translations into other tongues, Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Gothic, Latin, &c. But the epoch of this translation was striking. It was in the exact interval between the completion of the Jewish Canon by the prophecies of Malachi, and the long series of Jewish desolations which began with Epiphanes. It was thus suffi ciently late to contain the entire canon, and sufficiently early to escape a time of Jewish confusion, which might have altogether extinguished the design'. 1 The literary history of the Septuagint is given with learned fidelity by Holmes, in the Introduction to his edition of the Septuagint. The fac simile of the Alexandrian MSS. begun by Woide, has been lately completed in a publication, of remarkable skill and beauty, by the Rev. H. H. Baber. CHAPTER XXXVII. come. THE SYRIAN WARS. ONE of the great changes of the world was now The habitual profligacy of all Paganism, and the general oppression of the chosen people, had hurried on the ruin of the mighty Persian empire. Daniel, two hundred years before', had seen the vision of the he-goat and the ram', the emblem of the Macedonian invasion, that was to "run swiftly, scarce touching the ground," and of the broken strength of the Mede and Persian dynasty. No prophecy was ever more amply fulfilled. The "notable horn between the eyes of the goat," the fiery chieftain who was summoned from 'B.C. 558. The goat was the Macedonian ensign, from the old legend, of the march of Caramus, the founder of the monarchy, being directed by a flock of goats. (Justin. 1. vii.) The ram was the Persian ensign. It is still seen, with unequal horns, among the sculptures at Persepolis; the lower horn for the Medes, the higher for the Persians. (Ammian. Marcel. 1. xix. quoted by Hales.) beyond the Hellespont to execute the Divine vengeance, in two years laid the Persian monarchy even with the ground; and, like the instruments of wrath, was himself cast away when his work was done. The empire of this most resistless soldier, and splendid devastator, that the ancient world ever saw, perished still more rapidly than it rose reared by ambition and blood, it fell in fragments on his grave'. But, as if the whole vast revolution had been planned with a distinct view to the punishment of Judah, Palestine from that hour became the seat of the most ruinous and incessant wars. Of the four dynasties which divided the power of Alexander, the two most ambitious, subtle, and sanguinary, were the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, the Sovereigns of Egypt and Syria; and those were the devastators let loose upon Palestine. While the hostilities of the other dividers of the Macedonian Empire languished, or ceased altogether, the two royal tigers of the north and south never relaxed their thirst of each other's blood. They were perpetually either in the act to spring, or fastening on each other with tooth and talon; or, if baffled, Judah lay in their path homeward, and on her they furiously sated their revenge. But she had deserved it all. The gradual 1 B. C. 323. corruption of her people had been brought to its crisis, by the audacious guilt of the High Priest, Jason. The thunderbolt so long suspended, then fell. Within five years from that profanation, Antiochus Epiphanes stormed Jerusalem; then ensued a havoc which was to be unequalled, till the final desolation. Multitudes were instantly butchered, multitudes swept into returnless slavery. Within three years the massacre was renewed, but with the still deeper national pang of the spoil and profanation of the temple. At length, an idol was erected on the altar of Jehovah! In this visitation on the vanity and love of change, which had made the Jew, for a century before, cling to the habits and morals of the foreigner, it would be almost possible to trace, step by step, and blow by blow, the judicial vengeance that scourged out his criminality at last. His false shame of the rites of Judaism was punished, by a command that none should be performed under pain of death; his frivolous propensity to the Greek games, by forced and humiliating displays for the sport of his Syrian masters; and his neglect of the temple, by a blood-thirsty edict, that every Jew should offer incense to the gods of Paganism; an edict which stung the nation to the soul. For, by one of the extraordinary anomalies of this most singular people, while they largely fell into the crimes and follies of the stranger, they scorned his worship; and while they left the priest of Jehovah to administer to empty courts, and suffered the flame on his altar to sink unfed; they had fixed every feeling of pride which remained in their bosoms, on the sacred superiority of the temple. The pollution of that temple by an idol sacrifice was the final blow. None could now lift their eyes to Sion, without a consciousness of shame. Tyranny had long wound its enormous folds round them, and crushed the popular strength; but now it struck in the sting. But those events strongly illustrate the correspondence between the providential order of the Ante-diluvian and the Jewish lines. The intermarriages of the sons of Seth with the Cainites, had been followed by the sudden supremacy of violence; the land was ravaged by furious leaders, giants in evil. The intermarriages of the Jews with the heathen, a similar crime, were visited with a perfect similarity of punishment. The East became a scene of the most furious wars; and their concentrated rage fell on Palestine. From the division of the Macedonian empire to the reign of Herod, Jerusalem was captured six times by foreign armies. Vast hordes of the East and South, Arabians, Syrians, Egyptians, and savages, alike from Scythia and Africa, covered the land with carnage and misery for the fearful duration of two hundred years'. Her permanent torturers 1 From B. C. 320, to B. C. 37. |