The Maccabaean

CHANUKAH, the festival which commemorates the re-consecration of the Temple by Judah, the Maccabee, is a late arrival in the list of Jewish holidays. Its institution dates from a time when the story of Esther and Mordecai had come to be regarded as ancient and the days of Purim had been observed for generations; hence of the two festivals not ordained in the Torah, Purim and Chanukah, the Maccabaean festival is the later. Both naturally have certain liturgical features in common; but no Megillak: is read on Chanukah, ‘and the noise and the tumult that mark the eye of Purim are absent thereon. The Megillat Antiochus which embodies the narrative concerning tke Nes Chanukah, the Maccabaean miracle, was not invested with the sacredness that attaches to the Esther Scroll which forms a part of Holy Writ; it circulated privately, and, moreover, constitutes a late production altogether out of proportion to the importance of tke events commemorated therein. The books of the Maccabees, originally composed in Hebrew and Aramaic and written with all the circumstantiality and ardor betokening an immediate interest, were allowed by the Palestinian Jews to disappear; and were it not for the fact that these writings had passed on to Alexandria and there translated into Greek in which garb tkey then passed to the keeping of the church, the name of Judah the Maccabee would have been extinguished from the ımemory of men. It would take us too far to set forth the reasons for this apparent act of ingratitude; suffice it to say that the party feuds of bygone days have no meaning for us to-day, and tkat, thanks to a revival of the historical sense

in modern times as well as to a renewed national consciousness, not to mention the rivalry with a Christian festival occurring almost simultaneously, the days commemorating the Maccabaean victory of yore are being observed to-day universally and zealously.

What was it that happened in Palestine in the days of Antiochus and whereof we cherish the memory in these latter days? To tell the story briefly: A Jewish family of bankers, grown rich as extortionate tax-farmers “and .enam- oured of the Greek mode of life which tbey learned to know on the surface, and no doubt askamed of their compatriots who persisted in their even tenor and with the least concern for the fashions of Antioch and Alexandria, sought to cbtain control of the affairs of their country with a view to Hellenizing the Jews. They wanted to be citizens of Antioch ratker than of Jerusalem; and to make themselves worthy of so high a privilege, they were willing to trim their sails to the winds from Antioch, to “reform” a bit the Temple service, to give up their exclusiveness, to “assimilate” themselves in dress and speech and what not, to tke Greeks. The Jews were very simple in their habits, frugal, moderate, moral; they had been trained for two centuries by “scholastics” after the fashion of Ezra, they had been immured in the holy city by an actual wall built at no small cost and by untold sacrifices in the days of Nehemiat, refraining from the impure contact of the heathen, abhorring their food and their ıdols and their daugkters, following out the letter and the spirit of the Law of Moses, their teacher. Such a mode of life was