The temple had been desecrated by the solemn offering of unclean animals.A large number of people had been exiled to Hyrcania,a province on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea,and the dream of Jewish independence had gone up in the smoke of their pillaged land.
It had been a bitter blow to Jewish pride.They had for years tried to be very careful in their observation of the holy laws.They had felt convinced that their exemplary conduct had gained them the absolute support of Jehovah and that Jerusalem had become an impregnable fortress,defended by his flaming sword.
And now,after Artaxerxes and his terrible mercenaries,this new and unknown menace!
Unfortunately(or fortunately)Alexander did not give them much time for meditation.
Hardly had the news of the destruction of Tyre and the conquest of Samaria reached them,when the Jews were called upon to send money and provisions to the Macedonian king.
With Gaza in the hands of the Greeks and the road towards the sea cut off,there was no hope for escape.
According to a very untrustworthy tradition,Alexander himself visited Jerusalem and there dreamed his famous dream in which he was urged to be lenient to the people of Judah.
As a matter of fact,the city quietly submitted to the demands of the conqueror and sent him the gold and silver for which he had asked.
In return for this service,the Jews were left unmolested and enjoyed a period of comparative rest while all around them empires and kingdoms came tumbling down into the dust.
A few years later,the city of Alexandria was built at the mouth of the Nile to take the place of the now extinct Phoenician trading stations.The Jews,whose business ability was required by Alexander,were offered homes in the northeastern part of the town.Many of them eagerly availed themselves of this opportunity to leave Jerusalem and migrated to Egypt.And the holy city,deserted by most of its energetic citizens,slowly lost its last characteristics as a national capital.
It then became what it was to remain until to-day—the spiritual centre of the Jewish race,revered by all and visited by few.
The death of Alexander did not change this.The empire of the great Macedonian was divided among his generals.
One of these,by the name of Ptolemy Soter,got Egypt.In the year 320B.C.he made war upon his former colleague who now ruled Syria,of which the land of Judah had become a province.
He attacked Jerusalem on the Sabbath and the Jews,remembering the fourth commandment,refused to fight and lost their city.
Ptolemy,however,treated the Jews very well.As a result,still more of them moved to Egypt and grass began to grow in the busy streets which once had heard the tread of Solomon's pikemen.
The story of the next hundred years is devoid of all interest.The descendants of Alexander's former lieutenants quarrelled with each other without interruption.Judah often changed hands.
Finally,during the second century before the birth of Christ,it bccame part of the domains of the family of the Seleucids.
In the year 175,Antiochus Epiphanes,the eighth ruler of the famous Seleucidian dynasty,made himself master of the greater part of western Asia.With this intelligent but intolerant monarch begins a new Chapter in the development of a conscious national Jewish life.
When he came to the throne,Judah was rapidly being depopulated.
The ease and charm of Greek city life were beginning to make their influence felt upon the last remaining adherents of Jewish culture.
Very soon the entire Jewish nation would have been absorbed by that strange Hellenistic civilisation which was a perfect blend of all that was good and bad in Asia and Europe.
But Antiochus Epiphanes had not learned the wisdom of leaving well-enough alone.Within a single lifetime,he undid all the work of his predecessors and turned the lukewarm Jews once more into ardent patriots.
