Читать книгу A Class-Book of New Testament History онлайн

22 страница из 159

For three years the high-priest continued his work of corrupting the manners of his people, and then found the means he had used to acquire his ill-gotten dignity turned against himself. Having occasion to send his brother OniasIV., who had assumed the name of Menelaus, to the Syrian court, his envoy embraced the opportunity of offering Antiochus 300 talents a year more than his brother had paid for the office of high-priest, and succeeded in supplanting him in the royal favour (2 Macc. iv.24). Escorted by a body of Syrian troops, he then expelled Jason, who fled into the country of the Ammonites, and assuming the position and title of high-priest, proved even more wicked than his predecessor.

For some time, however, he delayed to make the stipulated payment to Antiochus, and when Sostratus, the commander of the Acra, had made several ineffectual demands for it, they were both summoned to the Syrian capital. At the time of their arrival Epiphanes was absent in Cilicia, and had left Andronicus in charge of affairs. Finding that in some way the money must be procured, Menelaus sent instructions to his brother Lysimachus to abstract some of the golden vessels of the Temple, and having secretly sold them at Tyre, obtained sufficient money to liquidate the debt and bribe over Andronicus to espouse his cause. The sacrilegious sale, however, transpired, and came to the ears of the venerable OniasIII., the legitimate high-priest, who severely reproved the usurper for his conduct. Enraged at this reproof, Menelaus prevailed on the king’s deputy to seize the aged priest and put him to death (2 Macc. iv. 27–35). This atrocious deed roused the utmost indignation amongst the Jews at Antioch, and the Syrian king stripped Andronicus of the purple, and ordered him to be executed on the very spot, where the venerable priest, whose sober and modest behaviour (2 Macc. iv.37) he always respected, had been murdered.