Page:Biblical Libraries (Richardson).djvu/205

 he instituted an especially bitter persecution against the sacred books — presumably as containing the laws which were the point of contention. They were destroyed wherever found "and those with whom they were found, miserably perished also."

It is small wonder therefore that when spurred by all these outrages the Jewish party had ousted the Greeks, and Judas Maccabeus began restoring the temple, he found it one of his tasks to restore the library and "gathered together all those things that were lost by reason of the war," after the example of Jeremiah.

The literary evidence for this Library of Judas Maccabeus rests on the same source (2 Maccabees 2:14) as the Library of Nehemiah but it does not have the same apocryphal taint; it is circumstantial, suitable to time of authorship which was close to the event, and the fact of existence of the library itself is