The Persian Empire, which had conquered many nations, gradually declined due to successive years of civil strife. Alexander the Great rose to power and easily defeated the Persians to establish the Greek Empire in 331 BC (1 Maccabees 1:1 - 4）。 This talented young king actually conquered the countries of the Near East and Egypt in just 13 years. His ideal was to smelt the culture of ancient East and the art of Greece into one, so that human kind would have only one culture. In order to realize this ideal he would leave behind the Greek culture in places he conquered. He would try hard to spread the Greek culture, language, customs among the conquered peoples. The Jewish nation was also greatly affected; their religion was put to the test and was in danger which became apparent after the death of Alexander the Great.

After the death of Alexander, his four officers wanted to take over the Greek Empire and they fought against one another. As a result, the Greek empire was torn apart, and each officer took his own territory and followers（ (1 Maccabees 1:7-9）。 The Jewish territory was first governed by the Ptolemy dynasty that ruled Egypt. Later in 200 BC it was governed by the Seleucus dynasty that ruled Syria. The kings of Syria tried their best to Hellenize the Jewish nation which rose to resist all foreign religious customs in order to maintain their religious beliefs and laws and would even sacrifice their lives. This is the Maccabean war to defend their faith in 167-142 BC. During this revolution, the Syrian kings used tricks, inducements, and even violence to force the Jewish people to abandon their religion. When many Jews gave up due to cowardice, there were many valiant ones who fought for their faith and freedom (1 Maccabees 3:1 -16:22）。