as they." [At the
year.]

[29] This slander, that arose from a Pharisee, has been preserved by
their successors the Rabbins to these later ages; for Dr. Hudson assures
us that David Gantz, in his Chronology, S. Pr. p. 77, in Vorstius's
version, relates that Hyrcanus's mother was taken captive in Mount
Modinth. See ch. 13. sect. 5.

[30] Here ends the high priesthood, and the life of this excellent
person John Hyrcanus, and together with him the holy theocracy, or
Divine government of the Jewish nation, and its concomitant oracle by
Urim. Now follows the profane and tyrannical Jewish monarchy, first of
the Asamoneans or Maccabees, and then of Herod the Great, the Idumean,
till the coming of the Messiah. See the note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 8.
sect. 9. Hear Strabo's testimony on this occasion, B. XVI. p. 761,
762: "Those," says he, "that succeeded Moses continued for some time in
earnest, both in righteous actions and in piety; but after a while
there were others that took upon them the high priesthood, at first
superstitious and afterward tyrannical persons. Such a prophet was Moses
and those that succeeded him, beginning in a way not to be blamed, but
changing for the worse. And when it openly appeared that the government
was become tyrannical, Alexander was the first that set up himself for
a king instead of a priest; and his sons were Hyrcanus and Aristobulus."
All in agreement with Josephus, excepting this, that Strabo omits the
first king, Aristobulus, who reigning but a single year, seems hardly
to have come to his knowledge. Nor indeed does Aristobulus, the son of
Alexander, pretend that the name of king was taken before his father
Alexander took it himself, Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 3. sect. 2. See also ch.
12. sect. l, which favor Strabo also. And indeed, if we may judge from
the very different characters of the Egyptian Jews under high priests,
and of the Palestine Jews under kings, in the two next centuries, we may
well suppose that the Divine Shechinah was removed into Egypt, and that
the worshippers at the temple of Onias were better men than those at the
temple of Jerusalem.

[31] Hence we learn that the Essens pretended to have ruled whereby
men might foretell things to come, and that this Judas the Essen taught
those rules to his scholars; but whether their pretense were of an
astrological or magical nature, which yet in such religious Jews, who
were utterly forbidden such arts, is no way probable, or to any Ba