The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-04-19

NEW ORLEANS. SUNDAY APRIL 49, 1868.
History OF THE NACCABKES -
The intelligent reader will perceive in reat
ing the following, that there are few thing
which are not in accordance with our view
We more especially refer to the lapse of seyera
hundred years said 70 exist between the OIL
and New Testament. There is really no hiatu
between the two sacred books.
What took place in the period between tn
last page of the Old Testament and the mrs
page of the New Testamentf 1t seems a KIM
of vacuum-a great mysterious gun, IKE IN
unOccupied distance between one star ant
another. New actors, evidently, have come OF
the scene. When the Old Testament closes, thu
Persians are ALL but when the New Testamen
begins, Rome and Romans are in the ascendant
The world has not been asleep. Who have beer
the heroes of the time, and how long has thu
time been!
The whole period from the Old to the New
Testament was about four hundred years. A
the first part of this period the Jews were unde
the Persians, whose sway on the whole WA
mild for the Persians'detested the worship o
idols and respected the Jews on account o.
their agreement with them on this most impor
tant point. A Persian governor held tho supreme
authority, but the High Priest exercised, it il
supposed ON good grounds, much Of the inter
When Alexander burst on the stage OF
Asiastic> affairs, he marched in wrathful mood
on Jerusalem but was met and completely
pacified by the High Priest of the time; so that
he allowed the Jews to enjoy their own laws,
and with that eminently liberal spirit that
marked him and peculiarly fitted him to be the
monarch of many races holding many various
religions, he invited them to Alexandria, his
wisely planned commercial emporium, where
many of them settled, and where they enjoyed
as high privileges as the Macedonians them
selves, and developed that genius for trade
fs1h ayn hon lsraS tod %tpx,sv.
national talent.
In the wild and bloody struggle that took
place on the death of this truly great man, Ju-
dea suffered not q little, rs it was often the
subject of contest between Syria and SeleucidR,
and Egypt under the Ptolemies-two Greek
dynasties both of which were founded by gene
rails of Alexander. Four times over did Judea
vibrate from one of these to the other Yet
during this troubled period one high priest,
Onias the First. administered affairs for twenty
one years.
After being tributaries to four Ptolemies and
to two SeleucldB, AntiOchus the Third, nick
named Epiphanes or the ulustriOus assembled
the throne, and a period of systematic religious
commenced on the part of this
Syrian king, whose character was a grotesque
medley, for he was utterly undignitied yet
lavishly magnificent-as licentiOus as Sardana-
palus, yet q sincere and bigOted idOlator. Yet
his fierce attempt to exterminate the worship
of but one God unmixed with the alteration of
images and to substitute the Greek polytheism
in its place, saved the true religion at the dan
gerOus moment when he Jews were sliding into
Greek manners; for this persecution put heroic
vigor into the nations heart, and identified into
one character the patriot soldier and the devout
In the noble study of HISTORY it is often OK
ceedingly difficult to trace the design of God in
permitting certain events to occur; it is most
gratifying, therefore, to the philosophical stu
dent of history to come into contact with great
governing events.
The strong tendency to idolatry that was
m he
clearly in the history Of the high priesthood ut
this period. The temporal power the high
priests welded made the Office an object of am
bition, SO that very often the path tO the holy
of holes lay through blood, and that, paternal
blood.
In the year one hundred and seventy-five be-
fore Christ, Onias=the Third was high priest,
while the Syrian king was his Lord Paramount
His brother Jason, for he had abjured his He
brew name for Greek one, secretly offered the
king three hundred and sixty talents fOr-the
Office, and i'll consequence, Onins was thrown
into IA dungeon in Antioch, and was at last
slain. The guilty brother, All apOstate himself.
zealously- patroniZed apostacy in others, and
made it his main object to disseminate the
Greek worship and Grecian modes OF life and
thought. He soon received the same treatment
as he had given. near relative, Menelaus,
also n renegade to Grecism, overbid him, offer
ing three hundred talents more, and had him
driven from his dignity. Both of these men
were infdels in principle and traitors in prac-
tice.
A slight revolt against the Greco-Syrian do
minion having broken out in Jerusalem, An
tiochus Epiphanes marched to Jerusalem, and
after a short siege captured it; slaughtered
forty thousand Jews in three days, sold us many
more for slaves plundered the temple of its &C
cumulated offerings and sacred vessels, such Us
the golden can,llestick, the table of shewbread
and the altar of incense, to the amount OF
eighteen hundred talents; thrust himself into
the holy of holes, sacrificed a SOW the altar
of burnt offering, and sprinkled it's broth over
tho whole editice-an intolcr2ble and senseless
insult to Jewish feelings, of which Alexander
the Great would have been wholly incapable.
Two years later, general of his filled the
streets of Jerusalem with blood on the Sabbath
slew all who attempted to worship i'll the tenn
pie, burnt all the copies of the law he could
lind and set up the image of Jupiter the al
tar of jehovah. Two mothers had introduced
hnl int