the Selucidæ, belonged the heart of the MedoPersian territory, conquered by Alexander. The countries of the Euphrates and Tigris as far as the Indus, to which were soon added the regions of hither Asia, formed a very considerable dominion, which, however, needed to be held together by a strong imperial hand, to prevent their falling gradually asunder. But the history of its dynasty is a tissue of disgrace and abominations; and, among the princes of the world, none has so exclusively as king Antiochus Epiphanes, the horrible pre-eminence of being set forth in Scripture as a type of Antichrist. Already, about the middle of the third century before Christ, had Parthia and Bactria, two provinces of the Syrian realm, revolted and formed distinct kingdoms. Under Antiochus the Great, the affairs of Syria stood, for a time, in splendour; but he got into a war with the Romans, was defeated, and compelled to resign a portion of his kingdom to the Roman power, B.C. 190. His son, the before mentioned Antiochus Epiphanes, who carried on the fifth war of Syria with Egypt, had purposed to make the Greek idolatry the dominant religion of his whole realm, and to impose it by force wherever it should not be voluntarily accepted. This fact, together with his having desecrated the temple of God at Jerusalem, is what principally constituted him a type of Antichrist. He died a fearful death. His successors found their power and influence continually diminishing by insurrections at home, and incursions abroad: and the melancholy history of their dominion ended

in Syria becoming a Roman province, in the year 64 before the birth of Christ. Thus did the Romans completely inherit all the power and glory which, since the time of Nebuchadnezzar, had been seated in the East during the Medo-Persian, as also during the MacedonoGrecian government. Here, then, is the precise point of time from which we date the transfer of the world's imperial head-quarters from the East to Europe.

(d.) The Age of the Maccabees.

DURING the reigns of the three first kings of Egypt, as Alexander's successors in that country, Judea remained subject to their authority, and retained at the same time its own civil and ecclesiastical forms of government, which, in both respects, was conducted by its successive high priests. This state of things, also, continued unchanged even after the Jews had renounced the authority of Egypt, and had willingly subjected themselves to the Syrian king, Antiochus the Great, which they did in the one hundred and ninety-eighth year before Christ. The Jews in Egypt, having suffered oppression during the reign of Ptolemy IV., might have chiefly conduced to this their change of masters. Many Jews had also been previously drawn over to settle in Syria, and especially in Antioch. Their more intimate acquaintance with Grecian customs and opinions, which was thus introduced in two ways at once,

was not without its influence on the internal condition of the Jews. About this time was formed the sect of the Sadducees, who mingled the Greek philosophy with the word of God; and who, though they admitted the books of Moses, yet in other respects became abandoned to a free-thinking infidelity, the prevalence of which may easily account for Antiochus Epiphanes daring so ignominiously to desecrate the Jewish sanctuary. An opposite party, indeed, was at the same time formed to confront them, namely, the sect of the Pharisees; who, strictly adhering to the letter of the law, rated also very highly the traditions of the church: but their zeal appears to have been, from the first, more carnal than spiritual; whence they were not qualified to become a conservative vital force against the inroads made by infidelity upon the heart of the nation.

Antiochus Epiphanes, in the year 170 B.C., defiled and pillaged the temple with armed military, caused the sacred books to be burned, and a multitude of Jews to be put to death who would not be seduced to apostatize from the law of their fathers. He determined to introduce Grecian idolatry and Grecian laws into the whole country; and now, a second time, even as at the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, only more threatening, was there danger lest the kingdom of God upon earth should be swallowed up by the powers of the world, and lest every point of connexion between it and the promised Redeemer should be dissolved and lost. But then did

God raise up the heroic race of the Maccabees; who, by wisdom and valour, wrested again out of the hands of their enemies a kind of independence for the Jewish people; to which John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon Maccabæus, chiefly contributed, by his alliance with the Romans. His son, Aristobulus, even assumed the title of king. But, after his death, there arose a civil war in Judea; and the single parties of the government family were long at strife and conflict with one another, till the Roman general, Pompey, having undertaken the office of umpire, made himself master of Jerusalem, and appointed Hyrcanus to the high priesthood and princedom of Judea, on condition of his being tributary to the Romans. During the reign of this Hyrcanus, the Idumean Antipater gained more and more influence in that country; and, after many public disturbances and contentions, Antipater's son Herod was appointed, by the Romans, king of Judea, in the thirty-ninth year before Christ; and hereby the dependence of the Jews upon the Roman empire became more manifest and decided.

The condition of Judea had, during the last centuries previous to the Christian era, been subjected to very many vicissitudes. At some seasons she enjoyed a quiet and festal breathing time, namely, whenever the belligerent parties did not transfer the seat of war within her very borders; at others, she was actually in a state of prosperity, as under the government of the high priest Simon, 1 Macc. xiv.; and, again, she had seasons of the deepest misery, and the most

dreadful distraction and dismemberment, as in the reigns of Antiochus Epiphanes and of Alexander Jannæus. This condition of the Jewish people, now become so very depressed and insignificant in comparison with their former flourishing times, and which was at best never anything more than a shadow of their ancient glory; likewise the cessation of prophecy, the last communication of which had been given by Malachi, as long ago as B.C. 400; and, again, their divisions among themselves into such rancorous ecclesiastical parties; all this could not but contribute to raise to the highest pitch, the longing expectation of a promised Messiah, and to stir up and render very acute the feeling of their need of redemption. And if, among the people of God themselves, who possessed his light and integrity, there were, at the Saviour's actual appearing, but few found to have alive within them any sincere and spiritual longing for his advent, this could be no other than an additional proof how deep was the depravation of mankind in general, and consequently how needful was the coming of a Redeemer. External means, as history had all along taught, could not effect the restoration of fallen human nature. All experiments of the kind had failed: the highest culture of the flesh and intellect in the East and West, the most powerful empires, the wisest inventions of human policy, the most splendid temporal prosperity, the most severe chastisements, all had transpired, and only served to manifest the corruption of the human heart in every respect; even the law of God which had been revealed from heaven, and