er, until the building of
that temple which king Solomon erected at Jerusalem, were six hundred
and twelve. After those thirteen high priests, eighteen took the high
priesthood at Jerusalem, one in succession to another, from the days of
king Solomon, until Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made an expedition
against that city, and burnt the temple, and removed our nation into
Babylon, and then took Josadek, the high priest, captive; the times of
these high priests were four hundred and sixty-six years, six months,
and ten days, while the Jews were still under the regal government. But
after the term of seventy years' captivity under the Babylonians, Cyrus,
king of Persia, sent the Jews from Babylon to their own land again, and
gave them leave to rebuild their temple; at which time Jesus, the son
of Josadek, took the high priesthood over the captives when they were
returned home. Now he and his posterity, who were in all fifteen, until
king Antiochus Eupator, were under a democratical government for four
hundred and fourteen years; and then the forementioned Antiochus, and
Lysias the general of his army, deprived Onias, who was also called
Menelaus, of the high priesthood, and slew him at Berea; and driving
away the son [of Onias the third], put Jaeimus into the place of the
high priest, one that was indeed of the stock of Aaron, but not of that
family of Onias. On which account Onias, who was the nephew of Onias
that was dead, and bore the same name with his father, came into Egypt,
and got into the friendship of Ptolemy Philometor, and Cleopatra his
wife, and persuaded them to make him the high priest of that temple
which he built to God in the prefecture of Heliopolis, and this in
imitation of that at Jerusalem; but as for that temple which was built
in Egypt, we have spoken of it frequently already. Now when Jacimus had
retained the priesthood three years, he died, and there was no one that
succeeded him, but the city continued seven years without a high priest.
But then the posterity of the sons of Asamoneus, who had the government
of the nation conferred upon them, when they had beaten the Macedonians
in war, appointed Jonathan to be their high priest, who ruled over them
seven years. And when he had been slain by the treacherous contrivance
of Trypho, as we have related some where, Simon his brother took the
high priesthood; and when he was destroyed at a feast by the treachery
of his son-in-law, his own son, whose