126 QUAKER ASPECTS OF TRUTH 



they face the fiery furnace of persecution and death, 

 rather than be false to the religion of their fathers. 

 Terrible were the sufferings of the loyal Jews during this 

 time of persecution ; but their cause seemed hopeless 

 until a priest of Modin named Mattathias^ a name which 

 should always be held in reverence, when commanded 

 by an officer of Antiochus to offer sacrifice to the Greek 

 Gods, slew the officer and escaped to the hills. There 

 he set up the standard of insurrection, and was soon 

 joined by his five noble sons, and an ever-increasing 

 number of loyal Jews. At first they fought entirely 

 on the defensive, a mere guerilla warfare ; but as their 

 numbers increased they boldly took the field. 



Mattathias died before his insurrection achieved 

 success, but his place was taken by one of his sons, 

 Judas Maccabeus, a man of sterling character and 

 magnificent heroism. Over and over again did Antiochus 

 send huge armies, led by his bravest generals, against 

 the Jews ; and over and over again were the armies of 

 Antiochus utterly defeated, until at last those brave 

 heroes won for themselves and for their fellow country- 

 men civil and religious liberty. 



Now the men who gathered round Mattathias and 

 his son Judas Maccabeus called themselves the 

 ** Hassidim,'' or '* godly,'' and it is important for us to 

 remember that these '' Hassidim ** became afterwards 

 the sect of the Pharisees. Indeed, they were the Pharisees 

 who, a century and a half later, became the most bitter 

 opponents of Jesus Christ. Nor was this an accident. 

 The Pharisees of our Lord's day were not unworthy of 

 their noble ancestors. We think of these men as conscious 

 hypocrites, because we read that Jesus said to them 

 ** Woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.'* 

 But I Hke to think that this condemnation did not 

 sound as harsh to the hearers of Jesus, as it sounds to us. 

 The meaning of the word translated ** hypocrite " is 



