The Hammer: A Story of the Maccabean Times

by Alfred John Church

  CHAPTER V.

  THE WRATH TO COME.

  A year has passed since the tragedy related in the last chapter. Menelaues,thanks chiefly to the fickle temper of Antiochus, had escaped the fatewhich overtook his accomplice Andronicus, and had returned to pillage hisunfortunate countrymen in Palestine. But his lease of power had come to anend. Jason, his dispossessed rival, had taken the opportunity of a reportthat Antiochus was dead, and attacked him. There could hardly be anychoice between the two men. Both were equally rapacious; equallyunfaithful to their religion and their country. But Jason had been out ofpower for two years, and his misdeeds had faded a little from the memoryof the people; Menelaues's enormities were still fresh in theirrecollection. After a sharp conflict, the losses of which were utterly outof proportion to any gain that could possibly come from it, Jason had wonthe day, and his rival had been compelled to take refuge in the Castle.Then came the news that the report of the death of Antiochus was false. Hehad settled affairs in Egypt after his liking, and was now on his waynorthwards, furious at the trouble which this obstinate province wasgiving him, and resolved, as he said, to quiet it for good. Jason had fledin headlong haste, and his partisans, and, indeed, most of those who hadthe means to go, had followed his example. Meanwhile Jerusalem wasawaiting the future with fear and trembling.

  It is an evening in the early summer, and the western wall of the city iscrowded with men and women, who are gazing with awe-stricken faces on thestrange appearance of the sunset. All day people had been talking of themarvellous shapes which had appeared the evening before in the westernsky, and now a great multitude had assembled to see whether the marvelwould be repeated, and, if so, to judge of it for themselves. Nor had theyassembled in vain. Never, within the memory of man, had the heavens worn astranger, a more terrifying look. Above the spot where the sun was justsinking to his rest the whole sky glowed with a red and angry light. Onthis background, so to speak, the clouds of a lower stratum had shapedthemselves into the forms of two armies ready to engage in battle. Thespectators seemed to be able to trace in one place the serried ranks ofinfantry, in another the massed array of chariots and horses. A space,brilliantly coloured, as it might seem, with something like the hue ofblood, intervened between the two airy hosts. But these seemed to beslowly nearing each other, and the gazing people watched the lesseningspace, expecting, one might think, to hear the actual clash of arms whenthey should have met. But then the sun set, and with the sudden failing oflight that marks the evening of more southern climes than ours, the wholepageant vanished from before the eyes of the spectators.

  Among the crowd is our old acquaintance Menander, or Micah, whom we lastmet in the library of Jason. Things have not gone well with him sincethen. He had cherished a belief that Greek culture, the brightness ofGreek literature and art, would do something to amend the severity, andwhat he was pleased to call the tastelessness of Jewish life. To a certainextent it had been an honest belief, though the pleasure-loving nature ofthe man, in its revolt against the stern morality of the Law, had hadsomething to do with developing it. But his experience of Greek cultureand its works had not been encouraging. If the reforming doctrine had tobe preached by such prophets as Jason, and Menelaues, and the cruel andprofligate young tyrant Antiochus, it was more than doubtful whether itwould do any good. Hitherto, certainly, it had done no good at all. Thepeople were more unhappy, more spiritless, more like slaves than they hadever been before; the rulers were more greedy and selfish, more absolutelycareless of all that did not concern their own interests. Might he not, hebegan to think to himself, have made a mistake? Might not the old life,which was at least the life of free men, be better than the new?

  He was busy with such thoughts when he heard a woman's voice behind himwhisper "Micah." He did not recognize it at once, but its tones werefamiliar to him, and they seemed to touch the same chord in his heart withwhich his thoughts were then busy. And the name, the old Hebrew name, thattoo was familiar, though it was long since he had heard it. He was"Menander" to his friends; for his friends were either Greeks, or elseJews who, like himself, had cast off the associations of his birth andrace.

  "Micah," said the voice again, and he turned to look at the speaker.

  She was a woman of some thirty years, plainly, almost poorly, dressed, butwith all the air of gentle birth and breeding. Her face was beautiful, notwith the brilliant loveliness of youth, but with that which is broughtinto the features by a pure and tender soul. There were the lines of manysorrows and cares upon her forehead, and round her eyes, and in thecorners of mouth and cheek; but her eyes, save that they seemed almost toolarge for the thinner contours of the face, were as beautiful as they hadbeen in the first glory of her youth.

  It was Hannah, his elder sister, who had been as a mother to him in hisorphaned childhood, that Menander recognized. Years had passed since theymet. There had been no quarrel, but circumstances had made a barrierbetween them. What Menander's life had been we know, and Hannah was thewife of a faithful and devout Jew, Azariah by name, who, though stillcherishing kindly thoughts for his young kinsman, had felt that, for thepresent at least, they were best apart.

  Brother and sister eagerly clasped hands, and Menander, or Micah, as wewill call him, felt a lump rise in his own throat as he saw the tearfulsmile in Hannah's lustrous eyes.

  "Micah," she said--"for you will not mind my calling you Micah, though Ihear you use another name; but you were always Micah to me--this is astrange sight on which we have been looking."

  "Yes, sister," he answered, with a gaiety of tone which was more than halfassumed--"yes, sister, strange enough; but then we know that the clouds dotake strange shapes at times. A current of air blows them this way orthat, and, with our fancy to help, they become anything in heaven or earththat we may fancy."

  "Nay, Micah, there is more than fancy here. You and I used to watch theclouds from the window in the old house, and to laugh at the odd shapeswhich we found in them--lions, and dogs, and whales, and such things--but wenever saw such a sight as this."

  "But we had not in those days such thoughts of our own to read into thesights of the skies. But tell me, Hannah, what do you think it means?"

  "What can it mean," she answered, in a low voice, "but wrath--wrath upon usand upon our children?"

  "Wrath, perhaps," he cried; "and the sky has, I must confess, an angrylook. But why must it be upon us? Why not rather upon our enemies? I seenothing in the skies which tells us whether these sights be meant for usor for them."

  "Nay, my brother, speak not thus, for you know better in your heart. Theheavens give us these signs, or rather God gives them to us through theheavens, but He leaves it to our own hearts to interpret them. They tellus surely enough on whom this wrath must fall."

  "But, sister, tell me why on us? Are we worse than our neighbours--thanthese robbers of Edomites and Ammonites, these sullen Romans, neversatisfied except when they are fighting--these mongrel Syrians?"

  "They are heathen," said Hannah, in a solemn voice, "and they do not sinagainst light. Let us leave them to the judgment of God. But ourselves wecan judge. Look at this city; we call it the City of David--but where isthe spirit of David? Have we not trampled the Law underfoot, making toourselves graven images of things in heaven and earth and the water underthe earth? Where is the honour of the Sabbath? Where is the morning andevening sacrifice? Where are the yearly feasts? Will our God deliver usagain, when we will not thank Him for the deliverances that He hathwrought already? Oh, Micah, I do not seek to anger you; but are you suchas our father, now in Abraham's bosom, would rejoice to see you? And tellme, how was it that we Hebrews became a great people? A Syrian ready toperish was our father, and lo! before a thousand years were past, Solomonreigned from the great river to the Western sea. How came we by thismight? Was it by aping Egyptian or Greek? Did we not keep to our own way,and walk after our own law, and worship our own God? Then it was well withus, and the nations round ab
out feared us and honoured us; but now theylaugh us to scorn, for we are ashamed of our own selves, and seek to bewhat they are, and cannot attain to it, and so fall short both of theirgreatness and of ours."

  Micah stood dumb before this fierce torrent of words. Was this the gentleHannah of his youth? There must be some mighty influence that could changethe lamb into the lioness.

  She went on, in a gentler voice, "You are not angry with me, brother?"

  "Surely not."

  "I must go, for my husband will be waiting for the evening meal. Come,children," she went on, speaking to two little girls who had been clingingto their mother's cloak, gazing open-eyed and half-terrified at thisstrange kinsman.

  "And are these my nieces?"

  "Yes; Miriam and Judith," answered Hannah, pointing first to one and thento the other. "This, children, is your dear uncle, Micah."

  The young man stooped and kissed the children.

  "You will not let it be so long before we see you again?" said Hannah.

  His answer was to wring her hand, and turn away. Her words had pricked himto the heart, and he did not know whether to thank her or be angry.

  We must now turn to another group which had also been drawn to the wallsby the report of the marvellous sights that were to be seen in theheavens. A group it was that would have attracted attention anywhere, soremarkable were the contrasts and the resemblances which it presented.

  The principal figure was an old man dressed in the everyday garb of apriest. The burden of years had bowed his stately figure, for he had longsince passed the limit which the Psalmist assigns to the life of man, buthis eye was as brilliant as ever, and his voice, when he spoke, had lostnone of its depth and fulness of tone. His three companions were men inthe vigour of life. All surpassed the common stature, but yet none of themequalled the height of their father, for that they were father and sonsthe most casual observer must have seen. In age there was littledifference between them. The eldest may have numbered about forty years,the youngest, perhaps, four less. Their dress was mainly that of themiddle-class Jew, and so different from the old man's priestly garb, butnot without some distinctive marks that indicated the fact that theybelonged to the House of Aaron. The multitude of priests was indeed sogreat that but a very small share in the services of the Temple, even whenthese were fully carried out, fell to the lot of any one man. Theseservices had now been reduced to a minimum, and numbers of the priestlyhouses, while not repudiating their hereditary office, practically devotedthemselves to the ordinary avocations of life. This had been done by thethree sons of Mattathias of Modin, for such was the name and such theancestral city of the aged priest.

  "Judas," said the old man, addressing one of his sons, "these signs in theheavens are of a surety from the Lord."

  The son addressed was the youngest of the three; but it was evident fromthe bearing of his brothers, and from the air of respect and attentionwith which they waited for him to speak, that they were accustomed to seehim the first recipient of their father's confidence. And indeed it wasnot difficult to see, under a superficial resemblance of figure and face,something that distinguished him from his companions. John, the eldest,was a plain, blunt soldier, raised above the average level of hisprofession, by the purity of his life and the depth of his religiousconvictions, but still essentially a soldier, one who saw no way ofsolving complicated questions save by a downright blow of the sword.Simon, the second in point of age, had a singularly mild and benevolentexpression, though his eyes were full of intelligence and the lines of hismouth and chin seemed to show that he could be firm on occasion. But Judashad all the outward characteristics of a hero. A sturdier soldier neverwielded sword, but he saw that there are difficulties to which the swordalone can bring no solution. Nor was he slow to follow all the subtletiesof diplomacy; but, at the same time, he never lost his grasp of theprinciples which all the skill of the diplomatist is unable to change.

  "Father," he now said, "that these signs are from the Lord I do not doubt.But what is your counsel?"

  "Speak you first, my son," replied the old man; "'tis ever best so. Youmight be unwilling to differ from me and yet be in the right. This atleast my years have taught me--that it is easy for any man to err."

  "Let us stay," said Judas. "'Tis true the air is stifling, such as a freeman can scarcely bear to breathe. But there are many, father, that look toyou for counsel and guidance, and we may scarcely leave them, at leasttill the call sounds more plainly in our ears."

  "Nay," cried John, the soldier, "I am not, as you know, one that wouldreadily give his vote for flight. But here we are, methinks, as rats in ahole. May we not lawfully, and with good faith to God and our brethren,seek some place where we may at least have space to draw our swords andstrike a blow?"

  "And you, Simon, what say you?" asked the old man, turning to his secondson.

  "God knows that I would give much to be back at home. But our brethrenneed us here, and we may give them some comfort. Let us stay."

  "Judas and Simon," said the old man, after a pause, "you have spoken well,and I give my voice with yours. As yet our duty seems to keep us here.When it shall call us hence, we will follow it. And you, John, think notthat you will long want for an occasion to strike with the sword. It shallcome; but you will be readier for it if you make no haste to meet it."

  With this the little party turned away from the wall, and made their wayto their lodging in the city.