LESSON VII. Jewish History-continued. 1. Under Ezra and Nehemiah Jerusalem was rebuilt, and the Jews were permitted to enjoy their own religion and laws, and the high priest was their chief magistrate. They continued under the protection of Persia and paid a small tribute or tax to that government. 2. Before this time all the religious services of the Jews were performed in or around the tabernacle or tent which Moses had ordered to be erected, and after the time of king Solomon in the magnificent temple which he built. One building could not suffice a great nation for frequent worship or instruction. After the restoration, Ezra collected all the books or sacred writings of the Hebrews, and introduced the custom of reading them to the people. 3. At this period Synagogues, places of worship resembling our churches, were built in different parts of the country, and the services in them were reading the Scriptures, prayer, and preaching. From this time the Jews became ardently devoted to their religion, and never more relapsed into idolatry. 4. It would have been happy for them if they had added nothing to the religion of the Scriptures, but persons among them invented new customs, and ceremonies, and told many fictitious stories which in time were considered as important and of certain authority and obligation. These inventions were the traditions spoken of in the New Testament. 5. Those persons who held to the importance of these traditions were a sect called the Pharisees, or separated persons, because they professed to be more holy than other men, but in reality they were only more proud and ostentatious, and when Christ appeared in the world he openly reproved them for their hypocrisy. 6. The Persian monarchy was subdued by Alexander of Macedon B. C. 336, and the province of Judea fell to the conqueror, but Alexander was the benefactor rather than the oppressor of the Jews; he encouraged them to emigrate to different parts of his dominions, particularly to his new city of Alexandria in Egypt. Those Jews who went to the Greek cities, cultivated the Greek language, and were thence called the Hellenist Jews, from Hellas an ancient name of Greece. Some of the Hellenist Jews translated the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek, and this translation, still preserved, is called the Septuagint version. 7. With Egypt near them on the south-west, and Syria adjacent to them on the north-east, the unhappy Jews, after the death of Alexander were thrown alternately upon the mercy of one and the other of their hostile neighbours. Sometimes the Syrians set governors over them, who robbed and oppressed, and what was more cruel still, endeavoured to make them renounce their religion. 8. While the Jews were suffering the persecution of the Syrian princes, who endeavoured to impose their idolatries upon the servants of Jehovah, (the Hebrew name of God,) there arose among them a leader whose devotion to his coun try, and whose zeal for the service of God give him the most elevated rank among good men. 9. Matathias, a priest of an honourable family,* when the king of Syria sent an officer into Jerusalem to enforce the heathen worship, boldly resisted him, and declared in the hearing of his countrymen," That though all the Jews, and all nations of the earth should conform to the paganido latries, he, and his sons, would continue faithful to the law of their God, and nothing should tempt them to abandon the religion of their fathers.” B. C. 167. 10. Animated by this pious example multitudes joined Matathias, destroyed the heathen temples which had been set up, opened the Synagogues, and caused the Scriptures to be read freely every where. But after one year of victory, Matathias died, and was succeeded by his son Judas Maccabeus, B. C. 166. 11. Judas Maccabeus is reckoned among the most glorious of Jewish heroes. Judas carried on a war with Syria in defence of his country and his religion for six years, and then fell in battle. His brothers Jonathan and Simon, for the following twenty-five years, successively maintained their authority against the Syrians as the priests and generals of the Jews, but both were murdered. 12. Hyrcanus, the son and successor of Simon Maccabeus, expelled the Syrians from Judea, conquered Idumea and Samaria, and having amassed great wealth, governed Judea wisely for *The Asmonean family. nine years, and the country flourished under his administration. 13. Aristobulus, the son of Hyrcanus, assumed the title of king, which was kept up by others of the Maccabean family. A violent quarrel arose between two brothers of the Maccabees concerning which should be king-one of them appealed to the Roman general Pompey to settle their dispute, upon which Pompey marched his army into Jerusalem, and after a bloody battle made himself master of the city, B. C. 63. 14. After this event Judea became a Roman province, but was suffered to retain the ancient religion. A few years before the birth of Christ, Herod, an Idumean, was made king by Mark Anthony, and during his wicked and tyrannical reign Jesus was born. LESSON VIII. 1. THE prophets had foretold that in the "fulness of time," that is at a time which God should determine to be fit, a Messiah, or divine Saviour should come into the world; and Daniel had so clearly pointed out the circumstances which should attend his coming, that devout persons fully expected the Lord's appearing. They waited for "the consolation of Israel," as this event was cal 2 led, for they expected Him to be born among them, of the family or tribe of Judah. 2. In the twenty-seventh year of the reign of the Emperor, Augustus Cæsar, Jesus was born at Bethlehem of Judea: all the circumstances of his birth are recorded in the second chapter of the gospel of St. Luke. The Jews expected that Jesus would be a king and a military deliverer, and that he would come into the world for the benefit of their nation only, and relieve them from the oppression of their Roman masters. 3. In the second chapter of St. Matthew's gospel the first events of our Saviour's life are related. Some of the eastern magi, wise men from the country east of Judea, came to pay their respects to him, while he was yet an infant, and saluted him as King of the Jews, this provoked Herod the reigning king, and dreading lest Jesus should become the king of his subjects, he resolved to put all the infants in Bethlehem and its neighbourhood to death that thus he might reign in security. 4. But God intimated this purpose of Herod to the parents of Jesus, and they carried him to Egypt, and remained there till the death of Herod, when they returned to Judea, but dwelt in the city of Nazareth in Galilee at a considerable distance from Bethlehem; and we read in the second chapter of Luke, that Jesus in his twelfth year accompanied his parents to Jerusalem, to celebrate the Passover, and there he conversed with the learned among the Jews in the temple, astonishing them "at his understanding." 5. Nothing is said in the Gospel respecting several following years of the life of Jesus, but |