ABSTRACT
PALESTINE had long since lost her independence. Successive conquerors of Syria had annexed her. As a rule, she had accepted her fate without much resistance, rebelling only when some foreign overlord, like Antiochus Epiphanes, had shown contempt towards Jahweh and his Law, and had attempted to sever the Chosen People from its God, and to subject them to the accursed idols of the Gentiles.
