Nor did the treaty of alliance with Rome save Judaea from the continued hostilities of Syria.  Demetrius sent Bacchides with another army, which encamped against Jerusalem, where Judas had only eight hundred men to resist an army of twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse.  We infer that his forces had dwindled away by perpetual contests.  His heart of hope was now well-nigh broken, but his lion courage remained.  Against the solicitation of his companions in war he resolved to fight; gallantly and stubbornly contested the field from morning to night, and at last, hemmed in between two wings of the Syrian foe, fell in the battle.

The heroic career of Judas Maccabaeus was ended.  He had done marvellous things.  He had for six years resisted and often defeated overwhelming forces; he had fought more battles than David; he had kept the enemy at bay while his prostrate country arose from the dust; he had put to flight and slain tens of thousands of the heathen; he had recovered and fortified Jerusalem, and restored the Temple worship; he had trained his people to be warlike and heroic.  At last he was slain only when his followers were scattered by successive calamities.  He bore the brunt of six years’ successful war against the most powerful monarchy in Asia, bent on the extermination of his countrymen.  And amid all his labors he had kept the Law, being revered for his virtues as much as for his heroism.  Not a single crime sullied his glorious name.  And when he fell at last, exhausted, the nation lamented him as David mourned for Jonathan, saying, “How is the valiant fallen!” A greater hero than he never adorned an age of heroism.  Judas was not only a mighty captain, but a wise statesman,—­so revered, that, according to Josephus, in his closing years he was made high-priest also, thus uniting in his person both spiritual and temporal authority.  It was a very small country that he ruled, but it is in small countries that genius is often most fully developed, either for war or for peace.  We know but little of his private life.  He had no time for what the world calls pleasures; his life was rough, full of dangers and embarrassments.  His only aim seems to have been to shake off the Syrian yoke that oppressed his native land, to redeem the holy places of the nation from the pollutions of the obscene rites of heathenism, and to restore the worship of Jehovah according to the consecrated ritual established in the Mosaic Law.

The death of Judas was of course followed by great disorders and universal despondency.  His mantle fell on his brother Jonathan, who became the leader of the scattered forces of the Jews.  He also prevailed over Bacchides in several engagements, so that the Syrian leader returned to Antioch, and the Jews had rest for two years.  Jonathan was now clothed with honor and dignity, wore a purple garment and other emblems of high rank, and was almost an acknowledged sovereign.  He improved his opportunities and fortified Jerusalem.  But his prosperous career was cut short by treachery.  He was enticed by the Syrian general, even when he had an army of forty thousand men,—­so largely had the forces of Judaea increased,—­into Ptolemais with a few followers, under blandishing promises, and slain.