destroyed. Their sway had lasted about 130 years.

Looking back on the rapid rise and decline of the Maccabees, on their speedy

degeneration, on the deeds of cruelty with which their history soon became stained, on

the selfishness and reckless ambition which characterized them, and especially on the

profoundly anti-nationalist and anti-Pharisaic, we had almost said anti-Jewish, tendency

which marked their sway, we can understand the bitter hatred with which Jewish tradition

had followed their memory. The mention of them is of the scantiest. No universal

acclamation glor ifies even the deeds of Judas the Maccabee; no Talmudic tractate is

devoted to that 'feast of the dedication' which celebrated the purging of the Temple and

the restoration of Jewish worship. In fact such was the feeling, that the priestly course of

Joiarib - to which the Asmonæans belonged - is said to have been on service when the

first and the second Temple were destroyed, because 'guilt was to be punished on the

guilty.' More than that, 'R. Levi saith: Yehoyaribh ["Jehovah will contend"], the man [the

name of the man or family]; Meron ["rebellion," evidently a play upon Modin, the

birthplace of the Maccabees], the town; Mesarbey ["the rebels," evidently a play upon

Makkabey] - (masar beitha) He hath given up the Temple to the enemies.' Rabbi

Berachjah sa ith: 'Yah heribh [Jehoiarib], God contended with His children, because they

revolted and rebelled against Him' (Jer. Taan. iv. 8, p. 68 d, line 35 from bottom).43

Indeed, the opprobrious designation of rebellion, and Sarbaney El, rebels against God,

became in course of time so identified with the Maccabees. that it was used when its

meaning was no longer understood. Thus Origen (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi. 25) speaks of the

(Apocryphal) books of the Maccabees as 'inscribed Sarbeth Sarbane El'

(=τβρσ λ) ψνβρσ ), the disobedience, or rebellion (resistance) of the disobedient, or

rebels, against God.44 So thoroughly had these terms become identified in popular

parlance, that even the tyranny and cruelty of a Herod could not procure a milder

judgment on the sway of the Asmonæans.

Ewald, and others, in Grimm's Exeget. hand. zu d. Apokryphen, 3te Lief. p. xvii.

Derenbourg (Hist. de la Palest. pp. 450 -452) regards σαρβηδas a corruption for