the common average. Let us now take the years of the five high priests, at one hundred and fifty-seven years and a-half, and count forward from two thousand nine hundred and ninety, or the year of Solomon's accession: they bring us down to the year of the world 3147, or to the very time when, according to Dr. Lightfoot, the idolatrous Jews killed Zecharias the priest between the porch of the Temple and the altar." Now, as this happened after the death of Jehoiada, the priest who had rescued Judah from the tyranny of Athaliah, set Joash on the throne, and restored the worship of Jehovah, may not he and Azariah have been the same person, and may not this have been the time to which the writer refers? For as eliptical expressions are often found in ancient writings, perhaps the whole verse may be filled up thus:-"He it was that executed the priest's office in the Temple that Solomon built at Jerusalem, when Athaliah, the queen, had corrupted Israel; that crowned Joash king; that was the honoured instrument in bringing back the nation to God, and that died a little before his son Zechariah was slain between the porch and the altar." After all, it must be confessed, that considerable difficulty attends the subject.

We will now proceed with the succession to the high priesthood:-After Azariah came his son Amariah; then Ahitub, the son of Amariah; then Zadok, the son of Ahitub; then Shallum, the son of Zadok; then Hilkiah, the son of Shallum; then Azariah, the son of Hilkiah; then Seraiah, the son of Azariah; and then Jehozadak, the son of Seraiah, who was carried by Nebuchadnezzar, along with the rest of the nation, into captivity. These were the thirteen high priests during the first Temple, and the average of their continuance in office, as we

a 2 Chron. xxiv, 21.

VOL. I.

b 1 Chron. vi. 11-15.

G g

have already seen, was thirty-one years and a-half. Josephus makes the number of high priests to be eighteen in place of thirteen, and the number of years to be four hundred and sixty-six years and a-half between the building of the Temple and the Captivity, instead of four hundred and eleven which Lightfoot makes of it. In which case, the average of years for each high priest would be twenty-six years instead of thirty-one years and a-half. Their names will be found in his Antiquities, book x. chap. 8.

Let us next examine the succession of high priests from the Captivity till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans which we may premise, as Lightfoot has done, with an observation made by the Jews themselves, viz. that during the first Temple, a steady regard was had to primogeniture, the eldest son always succeeding his father; but that during the second, they obtained it often for money, and more than once waded to the mitre through the blood of their predecessors. In this period Josephus has no fewer than fifty-six high priests. The first was Joshua or Jeshua, the son of Jozadak who was carried away to Babylon and died there. Joshua returned with Zerubbabel after the seventy years had expired, and was priest during all the reigns of Cyrus, of Cambyses his son, called in Scripture Ahasuerus; of Smerdis, or the Artaxerxes who obstructed the work of the Temple; and even a part of the reign of Darius Hystaspes, by whose decree the Temple was finished. He is often spoken of in Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah ; and was high priest fifty-three years, dying A.A.C. 483. The second was Joiakim, the son of Jeshua: he was high priest thirty years, and died A.A.C. 453.

h

The third was Eliashib, the son of Joiakim: he was high priest forty years, and died A.A.C. 414. The fourth was Joiada, the son of Eliashib. Josephus calls him Juda. He also enjoyed the high priesthood forty years, dying A.A.C. 373. The fifth was Jonathan, or Johanan, the son of Joiada. Josephus calls him John, and relates how he slew his own brother in the Temple, whom Bagoses, the general of Artaxerxes the younger, wished to make high priest; for which crime Bagoses broke into the Temple and laid a tax of forty drachms upon every lamb that was offered in the daily sacrifice. He was high priest thirty-two years, dying A.A.C. 341. The sixth was Juddua: he had a brother named Manasseh, who married Sanballat's daughter, and for that was driven from the priesthood: when he went to Sanballat, and occasioned the building of the Samaritan temple on mount Gerizim. It was this Jaddua who met Alexander the Great when he marched in fury against Jerusalem, and appeased him.' He was high priest twenty years, and died A.A.C. 321. The seventh was Onias, the son of Jaddua :" he held the high priesthood twenty-one years, and died A.A.C. 300. The eighth was Simon the First, on Simeon the Just, a person much celebrated in the Jewish traditions.P. It was his son Onias who built the famous temple at Alexandria in Egypt. The following is Josephus's account of it in his History of the War: "Ptolemy complied with his proposal, and gave him a place one hundred and eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. It was called the No

m

mos of Heliopolis, where Onias built a fortress and a temple, not like that at Jerusalem, but rather resembling a tower. (In his Antiquities, xiii. 3, he speaks somewhat differently, for he says that it was like that at Jerusalem but smaller and meaner.) He built it of large stones to the height of sixty cubits, making the structure of the altar in imitation of that in our own country, viz. Judea; and adorned it with gifts, excepting the candlestick. For he did not make a candlestick, but had a single lamp hammered out of a piece of gold; which illuminated the place with its rays; and which he hung by a chain of gold. But the entire temple was encompassed with a wall of burnt brick, though it had gates of stone. The king also gave him a large country for a revenue in money, that the priests might have a plentiful provision made for them, and that God might have great abundance of what things were necessary for his worship. Josephus says, that from the time it was built till the time it was shut up by Paulinus, the Roman governor of Alexandria, it was three hundred and fortythree years; but Whiston, in a note on the place, makes it only two hundred and twenty-three. So, that, according to Whiston, it was built A.A.C. 148, and shut up A. D. 75.

Let us now return to the history of the high priests at Jerusalem, and state, that Simeon the Just enjoyed the high priesthood nine years, dying A.A.C. 291.↳ The ninth was Eleazer, brother of Simeon the Just: he was the high priest who sent the seventy interpreters to Ptolemy Philadelphus, to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, a full account of the controversy concerning which we have in Prideaux, A.A.C. 277. He

c

• See a full account of this Temple in Prideaux Connect, A.A.C. 149.

Prideaux.

C Antiq. xii. 2.

Ja

enjoyed the high priesthood fifteen years, dying A.A.C. 276. The tenth was Manasses, the uncle of Eleazer:a he was high priest twenty-six years, dying A.A.C. 250. The eleventh was Onias the Second, the son of Simeon the Just, a covetous wretch, who brought the displeasure of Ptolemy Euergetes upon him by his avarice.". He was high priest thirty-three years, and died A.A.C. 217. The twelfth was Simon the Second, the son of Onias the Second. He enjoyed the pontificate twentytwo years, dying A.A.C. 195. The thirteenth high priest was Onias the Third, the son of Simon the Second. He was high priest twenty-one years, when he was supplanted by his brother Jason, who bought the priesthood of Antiochus Epiphanes, A.A.C. 175. son, therefore, was the fourteenth high priest;" he continued in office three years, when he was supplanted by his younger brother Menalaus, who, in imitation of him, bought the pontificate also from Antiochus, A.A.C. 172. Menelaus, then, was the fifteenth high priest, but he was a disgrace to his office, and the cause of those cruelties which came upon the Jews by Antiochus; for he invited him to assist him against his brothers, the two former high priests, who were still living. After holding however the pontificate six years, the patience of the Jews became exhausted, and the cruelties of Antiochus forced Mattathias, of the course of Jehoiarib,' to step forward and avenge the wrongs of an injured nation. He became, therefore, the sixteenth high priest, but being old he did not enjoy his dignity a full year: for he died A.A.C. 166," and left the cause in the hands

k

* Dan. xii. 1; xi. 30, 31; 1 Maccab. i. 44, &c. Joseph. Antiq. xii. 5.