History of the Jews (Vol. 1-6). Graetz Heinrich
Persian religion sustained a double injury. A strange deity was admitted, and image-worship introduced. Thus the spiritual link which had bound the Persians to the followers of Judaism—their common abhorrence of idolatry—was broken. No longer was "pure incense" offered to the incorporeal God of the Judæans. Having compelled his own people to bow down to this newly adopted goddess of love, Artaxerxes tried, as it appears, to force her worship upon the Judæans; the latter were cruelly treated, in order to make them renounce their religion, but they chose the severest punishments, and even death itself, rather than abjure the faith of their fathers. It is related that after his war with the Egyptians and their king Tachos (361–360), Artaxerxes banished many Judæans from their country, and sent them to Hyrkania, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. If this account may be considered historical, the banishment of the Judæans must surely have been a mode of persecution inflicted upon them on account of their fidelity to their laws and their God; for it is hardly to be supposed that they took part in the revolt against Persia, which was then spreading from Egypt to Phœnicia. In Jerusalem there was much suffering at that time, caused by one of those abject creatures, who, owing to the growing degeneracy of the Persian Court and increasing weakness of the kingdom, raised themselves from the dust, and ruled both the countries and the throne. This was the eunuch Bagoas (Bagoses), who under Artaxerxes III. became so powerful that he was able to set aside the king, and fill the throne according to his own pleasure. Before attaining this supreme position, Bagoas had been the commander of the troops stationed in Syria and Phœnicia, and he had taken advantage of the opportunities thus offered him to acquire great riches. He received bribes from Joshua, the ambitious son of the high-priest, who hoped thus to secure that post for himself. Joshua had an elder brother, Johanan, and both were sons of Joiada, one of whose relations, having connected himself with Sanballat, had been banished from Jerusalem by Nehemiah, and subsequently had introduced the rival worship on Mount Gerizim. After the death of Joiada, the younger son, trusting in the countenance of Bagoas, came forward to seize the high-priest's diadem. The elder brother was enraged at this presumption, and a struggle, which ended in bloodshed, took place between the two in the Temple itself. Johanan slew Bagoas's protégé in the Sanctuary. A sad omen for the future! Upon hearing what had occurred at Jerusalem, the eunuch instantly proceeded thither, not to avenge the death of Joshua, but, under the pretext of meting out well-deserved punishment, to extort money for himself. For each lamb that was offered at the daily services in the Temple, the people were ordered to pay 50 drachms as expiatory money, and this sum was to be paid every morning before the sacrifice was performed. Bagoas also violated the law which forbade any layman's entering the Sanctuary, and when the priest, in accordance with the prohibitory decree, tried to prevent his entrance into the Temple, he asked, mockingly, if he was not so pure as the son of the high-priest, who had been murdered there?
The people paid the expiatory money for seven years, when, for some reason, they were freed from their burden. The disfavour into which the Judæan nation had fallen with the last Persian king was turned to account by their malevolent neighbours, the Samaritans, in order to injure them to their utmost power. They appear to have regained by force or cunning the border districts of Ramathaim, Apherema and Lydda, which they had formerly been obliged to quit. The Judæans were now reduced to a struggle for mere existence. Few and brief had been the glimpses of light which had brightened the annals of the Judæan community during the last two hundred years! This light had illumined the first enthusiastic days of the return from captivity during the reign of Darius, who showered favours upon them, and during the time of Nehemiah's presence and zealous activity at Jerusalem. With these exceptions, their lot had been oppression, poverty and pitiable helplessness. They appear to us in their sadness and misery to be ever asking with tearful, uplifted eyes, "Whence shall help come to us?" and traces of this helplessness and misery are visible in the writings that have come down from that period. While the exile lasted, the grief and the longing, which kept the captives in constant and breathless expectation, had brought forth the fairest blossoms of prophecy and poetry; but as soon as the excitement ceased, and hope became a reality, the mental and poetical activity began to sink. The later prophetical utterances, if beauty of form be considered, cannot bear comparison with those of the Captivity. The poetry of the Psalms became weak and full of repetitions, or else borrowed the bloom of older productions. The graceful idyl of the book of Ruth forms an exception in the literature of this period. Historical writings were, from causes easy to explain, completely neglected. Ezra and Nehemiah had given only a short and unpolished account of the occurrences they had witnessed. Quite at the end of this epoch, towards the close of the Persian dominion, it appears that a Levite compiled an historical work (Chronicles), narrating the events from the Creation down to his own time.
But during the life of the author of the annals, or shortly after he had finished his history, a new period dawned, which gave rise to fresh mental exertions among the Judæans, and brought forth proofs of their capacity and worth. This new period was ushered in by the Greeks. They wrought a thorough change in the manners, customs and thoughts of other nations, and materially raised the degree of civilisation among the various peoples then known in the world. However, the diffusion of this civilisation, which was the consequence of the acquisition of political power and widespread conquest, was owing, not to a purely Greek race, but to a mixed people of Greeks and Barbarians, namely, the Macedonians. The grace and charm of the Greeks have caused their faults to be leniently regarded by mankind, but they were not overlooked by the Ruler of the world, and their sins brought retributive punishment upon them. Advantage was easily taken of their mutual jealousies, their many foibles, their restless, unruly disposition, and Greece was apt to fall a prey to any ambitious leader who was an adept in the art of intoxicating flattery, lavish with his gold, and supported by martial force. Such was the case with Philip, king of Macedonia, who dazzled all with his cunning and his wealth, his valour and his army. All Greece lay at his feet. But even now when the king proposed, as a satisfaction to their national pride, that a war should be undertaken against Persia, in which they might at once punish the latter for inroads upon their country, and win fame and booty for themselves, petty feelings of jealousy continued to exist among the people, and to prevent common action. Some of the States could not be influenced, and refused to send delegates to the assembly; whilst other States, or their representatives, had to be bribed to give their consent to the proposed plan. Philip's project of war against Persia was cut short by the hand of an assassin. Then appeared his son, the great Alexander, who was destined to remodel entirely the relations of the various countries, and to draw the peaceful inhabitants of Judæa into the vortex of the great world conflicts. New troubles and new trials were brought upon the Judæan people by the convulsions felt from one end of the known world to the other. A Judæan seer compared Alexander to a leopard endowed with the wings of an eagle. In two battles he gave to the rotten Persian monarchy its deathblow; Asia Minor, Syria, and Phœnicia lay at his feet, and kings and princes, attired in all their pomp, did homage to the conqueror. Tyre and Gaza, the one after a seven months', the other after a two months' siege, were both taken (August and November, 332), and met with a cruel fate.
How did the insignificant dominion of Judæa fare with the invincible hero before whom Egypt, the proud land of the Pharaohs, had fallen humbly prostrate? The historical records of those times have come down to us only in the form of legends, and consequently give us no authentic account of the passing events. It is scarcely credible that the Judæans were prevented from doing homage to Alexander through fear of incurring any guilt by breaking their oath to their Persian rulers. They had never taken such an oath of fealty, but even if they had, after their treatment by the last Persian kings, they would not have felt much remorse in breaking it. There is no doubt that the story of Alexander's approach to Jerusalem, and the favours which he heaped upon the Judæans in consequence of a peculiar vision, rests upon a legend. The High Priest, so it is related, dressed in his holy garments, followed by a troop of priests and Levites, went forth to meet the youthful warrior, and produced so great and extraordinary an effect upon him, that his anger was at once changed into kindness and good will. The explanation given by Alexander to his followers was that the High Priest thus attired had appeared to him in a dream which he had had in Macedonia, and had promised him victory. According to one legend, it was the High Priest Jaddua, according to another, his grandson Simon, who produced this effect upon the Macedonian hero. In reality, the meeting between Alexander and the envoys of the Judæan community no doubt passed simply and naturally enough. The High Priest, perhaps Onias I., Jaddua's