Malachi to Christ
THE ASMONEAN DYNASTY

Roman Period (160 B.C. to 70 A.D.)
The chief offence which alienated from Judas Maccabaeus the fanatical spirits among his countrymen seems to have been an act of which he did not live to reap the fruits, but which indicates the opening of a new epoch in Palestine. He had heard of a mighty people in the far West who might assist his country in her struggles. During his father's time, there had been in Syria one who could have told more about the prowess of Rome than any other living man. Only thirty years before the Maccabaean insurrection, Hannibal had come from Carthage to the cradle of his race at Tyre and thence to Antioch in the fond hope of rousing the East against his ancient foe, thus fulfilling to the last his early vow of eternal enmity against the Roman State – known only to us through his personal conversations in this his latest journey.

The Treaty with Rome (162 B.C.)
A confused story of a letter from two Roman Consuls occurs in the doubtful legends of the campaign against Lysias (Macc. 11:34). Whether from these or other sources, accounts had come of the rising nation in the latest days of the Maccabee which commanded all the attention of his powerful intellect and lofty soul. He had heard of their rapid growth and astounding valor (I Macc. 8:1-16). He was well informed of their recent victory over the Galatian or Celtic tribes of Asia Minor who had assisted the Syrian monarch in his war against them. He had been deeply impressed by the news that they had made themselves masters of Spain, with its mines of gold and silver (that distant dependency, the America of the old Eastern world), even then hard to conquer and difficult to keep. He had heard of their victories over the kings of Greece, still veiled to his eyes under the name of Chittim or Cyprus, and naturally of their successful encounters with the foremost prince of the Asiatic kingdoms in these latter days – Antiochus the Great. Here the Israelite hero rises to the fullest appreciation of the true majesty of Rome and gives us the fullest insight into the simple dignity of his own elevated spirit because most of all he knew that whom they helped to a kingdom would reign; whom they did not help were displaced; "finally, that they were highly exalted: yet for all this" (so unlike the Princes in Asia, great and small, past or present) none of them wore a crown or was clothed in "purple to be magnified thereby". Also, how they had made for themselves a senate-house, wherein three hundred and twenty men sat in council daily, always consulting for the people so they might be well ordered.

Every year they committed their government to one man who ruled over all their country, and everyone was obedient to that one – the ideal that none were for a party but all were for the State. There was neither envy nor emulation among them. In retrospect, before the consequences of the act could be apprehended, it must have been an impressive moment when in the name of Judas Maccabaeus two ambassadors from the insurgents of Palestine appeared in the Roman Senate asking for an alliance with the Imperial Commonwealth – the first occasion on which representatives of the two nations met face to face. From their Greek names, Jason and Eupolemus, it may be inferred that with his usual sagacity Judas had not chosen his envoys from the stricter, but the free-minded section of his nation. The journey had been exceedingly long. According to their custom, the august assembly received them in their full sitting. A treaty offensive and defensive was agreed on and written on two sets of brazen tablets. As usual, one was deposited in the Tabularium beneath the Capitol.

The copy was sent to Jerusalem; its opening words, though known to us only in Greek, betray the fine old Roman formula – "Quod felix faustumque sit populo Romano et genti Judae-orum" (Grimmon I Macc. 8). Before it arrived, its bold contriver had paid the penalty of his enlarged policy on the battle-field. But its fruits remained, and henceforth for good or evil, the fortunes of the Jewish State were inextricably bound up with those of its gigantic ally – at first on terms of friendly equality, soon of complete dependence, then of violent conflict, finally of the profoundest spiritual relations – each borrowing from each the peculiar polity, teaching, superstitions, vices, and virtues of the other. When Antiochus Epiphanes was negotiating with a Popilius Laenas on the seashore of Egypt, the Roman envoy drew a boundary in the sand with his staff, out of which he forbade the Syrian king to move. This was like the invisible circle within which from henceforth Judaea was enclosed by Rome; within which, we may add, the power of Rome was henceforth enclosed by the religion of Judaea. To use the expression of the later Roman poet, henceforth into the Tiber flowed the Orontes. Henceforth, as in early Roman mosaics, the Jordan assumed the attitude and physiognomy of Father Tiber. With this thought before us we return to the history of the struggle in Syria. From this time it enters on a new phase, the understanding of which a brief retrospective survey is required.

The Jewish Institutions
So long as the heat of contest with Antiochus continued, there could be no recognized government of the nation. The commanding character and magic spell of the Maccabee's name was sufficient. But now, after he was gone, having secured by his victory the independence of his country, it becomes necessary under these altered circumstances to review the position of the ancient institutions.

The Pontificate
Since the death of Zerubbabel, the High Priest had become virtually the representative of the people. The investment of Ezra and of Nehemiah with the office of the Persian Governor for the time gave them supreme authority. One momentary chance had opened for the rise of a prince of the Royal line in the questionable claim of the sons of Tobias. But these were exceptions. In the absence of any other authority, the descendants of Aaron took their natural place at the head of the nobles. Many of their ancient prerogatives were gone. The oracular breast-plate had never returned from Babylon. The sacred oil had never been recovered – consequently the profuse unction which had enveloped their whole persons in its consecrating fragrance, through hair, beard and clothes down to their feet, had been long discontinued. The elaborate ceremonial of the sacrifice of the bullock had also been dropped. In the place of these, the sanctity of the office was now wrapped up in the blue robe with its tinkling bells, the long golden sash, the high blue turban, in which at his accession the new High Priest was clothed and in which, whatever might be his ordinary dress, he discharged his public offices. One relic of the ancient insignia had been preserved, which was probably prized as the most precious of all. It was the golden plate affixed to the turban, inscribed "Holiness to Jehovah", which was believed to have come down from the time of Aaron, and which, treasured through all the vicissitudes of the Jewish State, was carried to Rome by Titus, and seen there by a great Jewish Rabbi in the time of Hadrian. Whosoever possessed this paraphernalia virtually had appointment to the office.

In ecclesiastical history, there have been occasions in which excessive importance has been ascribed to vestments, but the conveyance of the sacerdotal succession through the dress of the High Priest is the highest point to which this peculiar form of veneration has reached. Still, down to the troubles of the Syrian war, the post of High Priest was rigidly confined to the lineal descendants of Joshua, the Pontiff of the Return, and so remained even through all the violence and disorder which, first in the family of Eliashib and then of Onias, marked its occupants. Of these the last was Menelaus, in the Jewish nomenclature Onias, the renegade who had led Antiochus into the temple, and secured for himself the golden candlestick. After long struggles to maintain his office, sometimes in the Temple but usually in the Syrian fortress, he was represented in varying traditions to have met with the fitting reward of his misdeeds. According to one he was thrown headlong into a tower full of ashes – as if to requite him for his profanation of the sacred ashes on the altar (II Macc. 13:5-8). According to another, which clung to the hope that the High Priest, wicked as he was, had repented at last, he was sawn asunder for refusing to participate further in the plunder of the Temple. In his place, the Syrian Government appointed Eliashib or Jehoiakim, usually known by his Greek name, Alcimus. According to a popular legend just mentioned, he was the nephew of the chief Rabbi of that time, Joseph, son of Joazar, who was impaled by the Syrian persecutor. Alcimus rode by in state as he saw his uncle hanging on the instrument of torture. "Look at the horse which my master has given to me", he said, "and look at that which he has given to thee". "If those", said the venerable martyr, "who have fulfilled the will of God are thus punished, what shall be the fate of those who have broken it?" The words shot like a viper's fang into the breast of Alcimus. And the tradition went on to say that he had proceeded to destroy himself by the accumulation of all manner of punishments provided by Jewish law – stoning, burning, beheading, hanging. Another more authentic version described him, in pursuance of his Hellenising policy, as struck by palsy for having endeavored to take down the partition which had, since the Return, separated the outer from the inner court of the Temple (I Macc. 9:54-56).

Alcimus (162 B.C.)
But whatever may be the reconciliation of these conflicting stories, Alcimus still played a conspicuous part for at least two years before his end. He paid his homage to the Syrian Government by a golden crown, branches of palm and olive used in the Temple processions, and represented that "so long as Judas at the head of 'the Chasidim', or  'Pious', was left, it was not possible that the state should be quiet" (II Macc. 14:6). Accordingly, he was at once invested with the office which it was felt would carry weight into the heart of the insurgent nation. The calculation was correct. The fanatical party, to whom every Grecianising tendency was an abomination, and the name of Alcimus a byword, yet, in their excessive tenacity for the letter above the spirit, when they heard that a genuine son of Aaron was advancing on Jerusalem, could not believe there would be any harm because of him, so they placed themselves in his hands only to find themselves miserably betrayed. In the massacre which followed, and in which Joseph the son of Joazar probably perished, their contemporaries seemed to see the literal fulfilment of the words of the seventy-fourth Psalm (I Macc. 7:27). But Alcimus succeeded in his ambition. He entered into his office in the Temple, and it was he who, when Nicanor had for a moment been won over by the magnanimity of the Maccabee's bearing, fearing that he might be supplanted by that formidable rival, sowed discord between the two friends, and brought on the final struggle, which terminated, as we have seen, in the destruction of both (II Macc. 14:26). For the moment, on the fall of Judas, the party of Alcimus was in the ascendant. Bacchides took Nicanor's place. A confused struggle ensued. Jonathan, the youngest of the Asmonean brothers, appeared to be marked out for the supreme command by the peculiar dexterity which gave him his surname of "the cunning".

There was a skirmish beyond the Jordan (a fray with the Arabs), a sudden inroad on the wedding-party of a tribe that had carried off the quiet eldest brother John – a close encounter with Bacchides which Jonathan and his party escaped by plunging into the Jordan, like the Gadite warriors of old times (I Macc. 9:35-48). For a time all the fruits of the victories of Judas seemed to be lost. Bacchides occupied all the Judaean fortresses and Alcimus reigned supreme in the Temple. Meanwhile, Jonathan entrenched himself in the Pass of Michmash, in the haunts of his illustrious namesake, the friend of David. The sudden death of Alcimus, and the disgust of Bacchides at the excesses of his party, finally cleared the prospect, and, after a long and doubtful conflict, Jonathan gradually vindicated his claim to be the successor of his glorious brother. The rivalry to the throne of Antioch between the two claimants, Alexander Balas (the pretended son of Antiochus) and his cousin Demetrius, gave to the Jewish chief the opportunity of siding with Alexander, who alone struck the critical blow to Jonathan's success by investing him with the office of High Priest and adding to it the dignity of "the King's Friend", with a golden crown and purple robe – the mark of adoption into the regal circle.

To the Jewish insurgents it was a decisive step in the relations of the Syrian Government, as the first recognition of their independence. But it was a decisive step also in the internal history of Israel. It was a break in the succession of the High Priests, such as had only taken place twice before, once when Eli, from some unexplained cause, superseded the elder house of Eleazar; again when Zadok was placed by Solomon in the place of Abiathar. But in the elevation of Jonathan to the High Priesthood, the interruption was more serious. From a purely ceremonial point of view, it was regarded a complete departure from that hereditary descent which had hitherto marked the whole previous series.

The last unquestioned representative of the unbroken line was the murdered Onias, and his legitimate successor was the youth who had fled to Egypt. But although covered with popular obloquy, even Jason, Menelaus, and Alcimus were yet all more or less members of the same sacred family. As such they were venerated even by those who most abhorred their policy. Therefore, whether with Onias, Jason or Alcimus, extinction of the house of Josedek was regarded as the close of the Anointed Priests of those (so it would seem) who belonged to that direct succession which had shared in the consecrated oil of the ancient Priesthood.

Seven years had now passed, in which the functions of the great office had been altogether suspended; and from excess of regard for the exact hierarchical lineage, it might have seemed as if the Pontificate itself would expire. But here, as in other critical moments of the Jewish history, the moral force of the higher spirits of the nation overrode the ceremonial scruples. As in Russia after the civil wars which brought to an end the ancient dynasty of Ruric, the nation chose for their new Prince the child of the Romanoff Prelate who had with his whole order suffered in the struggle against the Polish oppressor, so the Jewish people turned to the gallant family who had saved them and their faith from destruction. Even in the lifetime of Judas, the idea of investing him with the High Priesthood had been entertained, though never fulfilled. And now came the time for its accomplishment. To modern nations, the selection of a warlike deliverer for a sacred post is curiously incongruous. But the Jewish Priesthood was so essentially military in its character, so entirely mechanical in its functions, that there was no shock to the same hand grasping the sword or spear of Phinehas and the censer or rod of Aaron. The Asmonean family brought to it more than it gave to them – a moral elevation and grandeur which it had long lost, and which, after they had gone it did not retain.

There was one and only one indispensable outward qualification – nomination by the Syrian Government, stepping as it did into the place and authority formerly occupied by Moses, Solomon, and Cyrus. It was for this benefit, as well as for friendly relations, that the name of Alexander Balas was so studiously cherished by the Jewish Annals. For this they ignore his doubtful birth, his questionable surname; they rejoice in his wedding festivity; they describe with pride how their own chief sat by him in purple and ruled as a Syrian officer over the troops and over a district in the south of Palestine, how he received from the king a golden brooch and the appanage of Ekron.

The Pontificate of Jonathan (153 B.C.)
The entrance of Jonathan on the Pontificate was conducted with due solemnity. It was on the joyous Festival of the Tabernacles, so often chosen for inaugurations of this kind, that Jonathan dressed himself in the consecrated clothes, surmounting the blue turban with the golden crown which he wore as "the King's Friend", and at the same time (it is characteristically added) collected his forces and his arms (I Macc. 10:21, 22). From this time the union of the sacerdotal and the political supremacy was completed, and the language in which that union is described in the 110th Psalm is more exactly applicable to the Pontificate of the Asmonean warriors than to any period since the age of David. The military career of Jonathan himself was not interrupted. He fortified the Temple mount afresh "with square stones", apparently intending to make it a completely separate town, erecting a large mound on the side toward the fort and repairing the ruinous parts of the wall overhanging the Kedron (I Macc. 12:37, 38. Caphenatha is only mentioned here). He accepted the challenge of the general of the rival Syrian king Demetrius into the Philistine plain, "where there was neither stone nor pebble nor place to flee unto" (An excellent description of the Shephela, I Macc. 10:73. Compare 1 Kin. 20:25 for the contest of the Syrian cavalry and the Israelite infantry on the plains), beat back with his archers the cavalry on which the Syrians relied, secured Joppa and Askalon and burned the old sanctuary of the Philistine Dagon at Ashdod. The temple was left in ruins, and the scorched corpses of those who perished in it lay all around.

The succession, first of Demetrius to the throne then of the son of Alexander Balas, made no difference in Jonathan's position. From each he received confirmation of the government to his sacerdotal office and the annexation of the three outposts of Apherema, Ramathaim, and Lydda from the borders of Samaria. Less attractive than his brother Judas, worthy of his name "the crafty", he went on balancing the various pretenders against each other, till at last he was caught by the Syrian general Tryphon, carried off in a deep snowstorm, and killed in an obscure village beyond the Jordan (I Macc. 11:34).

Simon (143 B.C.)
One still remained of the gallant five – he whom Mattathias on his death-bed had, by his superior wisdom and age (next to the retiring John he was the eldest) designated as the father of them all. He rose at once to the occasion. His appeal to his countrymen and their response are indeed models of the generous spirit which can fill the vacancy caused by a lost leader. When Simon saw that the people were in great trembling and fear, he went up to Jerusalem and gathered the people together, giving them exhortation, saying, "Ye yourselves know what great things I, and my brethren, and my father's house, have done for the laws and the sanctuary, the battles also and troubles which we have seen, by reason whereof all my brethren are slain for Israel's sake, and I am left alone. Now therefore be it far from me, that I should spare mine own life in any time of trouble: for I am no better than my brethren. Doubtless I will avenge my nation, and the sanctuary, and our wives, and our children: for all the heathen are gathered to destroy us of very malice." Now as soon as the people heard these words, their spirits revived. And they answered with a loud voice, saying, "Thou shalt be our leader instead of Judas and Jonathan thy brother. Fight thou our battles, and whatsoever thou commandest us, that will we do" (I Macc. 13:2-9). His name itself struck terror in the Syrian army.

Monument at Modin
His first act was to recover his brother's bones, to inter them in the ancestral cavern at Modin. On that ridge overlooking the Philistine plain, the scene of so many of their glorious deeds, and visible from the Mediterranean Sea, beyond which, along with the rulers of Israel they had ventured to seek for allies from the western world, Simon, with the consciousness that he was the last of a family of heroes, built a monument in that mixed Graeco-Egyptian style which is to be seen at Petra, in the valley of the Kedron, on the Appian Way. It was a square structure, surrounded by colonnades of monolith pillars, of which the front and back were of white polished stone. Seven pyramids were erected by Simon on the summit for the father and mother and the four brothers who now lay there, with the seventh for himself when his time should come (I Macc. 13:27). On the faces of the monument were bas-reliefs, representing the accoutrements of sword, spear and shield, for an eternal memorial of their many battles. There were also the sculptures of "ships" – no doubt to record their interest in that long seaboard of the Philistine coast, which they were the first to use for their country's good. A monument so Jewish in idea, so Gentile in execution, was worthy of the combination of patriotic fervor and philosophic enlargement of soul which raised the Maccabaean heroes so high above their age.

The monument remained in all its completeness till the first century, and in sufficient distinctness till the fourth century of the Christian era. Then all trace of its existence and even the name of the place disappeared, and it is only within the last century that the joint labors of Polish, French, and English explorers have discovered "Modin" in the village of Medieh, and, possibly the tomb of the Maccabees in the remains of large sepulchral vaults and broken columns in its neighborhood, corresponding in general and as far as the few traces left can indicate, with the only tomb among the existing remains of Palestine (except the patriarchal sanctuary at Machpelah) which can be clearly identified.

Conquest of the Syrian Fortresses
But Simon was to raise a nobler monument to the memory of his brethren than the sepulcher of Modin. Advanced as he was in years, three crowning achievements fell to his lot which neither of his more stirring brothers had been able to accomplish. There were three strongholds of the Syrian party, which, after all the successes of Judas and Jonathan, had remained in their hands. One was Gezer, the ancient Canaanite fortress in the south-western plain, which after long vicissitudes had passed into the hands of the Israelites, and now again in these later days had become the chief garrison of the Syrians in the thoroughfare of Philistia. This was attacked with the newly-invented Macedonian engine of war, and the terrified inhabitants surrendered at discretion; the images in the temples were cleared out and a colony of Jews was established there under Simon's son John, now for the first time winning his renown (I Macc. 13:43, "Helepolis" invented by Demetrius Poliorcetes).

The second outpost was the oftentimes taken and retaken rock-fortress on the road to Hebron, Beth-zur. Whether captured by Simon at this or at some earlier period, this was now for the first time secured and garrisoned  with Jews, and the day of its occupation, the 7th of Sivan (May-June), was celebrated as a festival (I Macc. 14:33).

142 B.C.
But the decisive victory was the expulsion of the Syrian Occupants – the sons of Acra, as they were called – from the citadel that had so long overlooked the sanctuary. It had been, as the historian calls it, the incarnate Enemy (I Macc. 13:51), the Satan of Jerusalem. Now at last its doom was come. The day was long cherished, the 23rd of Iyar (April-May), when Simon entered it with waving of palm-branches, with harps and cymbals, with hymns and odes. According to one account he went so far in his indignation as not only to dismantle the fortress, but to level the very hill on which it stood, so that it should no longer overlook the Temple. It was agreed (so ran the story) in solemn assembly that the inanimate mountain should thus, as it were, be decapitated for its insolence, and, by working night and day for three years, the summit of the hill was cleared away, reducing it from a towering peak to a level surface.

But these military achievements are not the main grounds of Simon's fame. If Judas was the David of the Asmonean race and Jonathan its Joab, then Simon was its Solomon, the restorer of peace and liberty. In many forms this change is marked. From his accession a new era was dated (the first year of independence) when the nation ceased to pay the tribute which from the Persian kings downwards had been paid to each successive conquering dynasty. Henceforward the Jewish contracts were dated "In the first year of Simon, the great High Priest, and General, and Leader of the Jews".

Sovereignty of Simon (141 B.C.)
Concurrently, with this came the natural sign of nationality, never before claimed, of striking coins for themselves. This privilege was formally granted by Antiochus VII, and though there may be a few instances of such coinage before the actual permission was given, it is from this, the fourth year of Simon's reign that the coins unmistakably have his name and superscription. The devices which appear on them are all indications of the peace and plenty which he had ushered in – the cup, the vine, the palm-branches, the lily, and the fruit-boughs of Palestine. The vine and the lily in sculptured emblem or in familiar phrase have, since his time, remained the heritage of his people. Almost in poetry the prosaic historian of fifty years later warms as he describes how "the land was at rest all the days of Simon"; how, following the wider views of his illustrious brother, and thus exemplifying the devices which he had carved on the family monument at Modin, he had turned Joppa into a port for the ships of the Mediterranean; how after the conquest of the three hated fortresses, the neglected agriculture and fruitage burst into new life; how "the old men sat in the squares of the cities communing of good things, and the young men put on their glorious apparel and their military mantles", the accoutrements in which they had won their country's freedom; how, as in the ancient days, "each man sat under the vine" which overspread his own house, and "the fig-tree" in his own garden; how all works of humanity and piety prospered under his hand – the provisioning and fortification of the towns, the study of the Law, the purification of the Temple. And it is not without a deep historical interest that we perceive the gradual intertwining of the destinies of the Jewish people, through this increase of fame and dominion, with the sway of that overweening power which Judas was the first to invoke, and which ultimately was to take the place of the foreign oppressors from whom they fancied that they had been forever freed.

Two messages of unequal value came to Simon. One, if so be, was from the shadow of the Spartan State, whose intercourse with Judaea is difficult to understand. But the other came from Rome, and to Rome once more ambassadors were sent with a golden shield full of gifts, and the treaty engraved on tablets of brass; and the Syrian king Demetrius, overawed by the spectacle of that great alliance, gave to the High Priesthood of Simon the ratification which was needed for the regularity of the succession, together with the title of "the King's Friend". His princely state, with his display of gold and silver plate, awed the envoy even of the Kings of Syria (I Macc. 15:32). His own countrymen were convoked to ratify the decision of the Syrian Government. "In the fore-court of the people of God" (as it was solemnly called in the Hebrew tongue), on the 18th of the month of Elul (May), a document, commemorating the noble deeds of himself and his brother Jonathan, was drawn up and engraved on brazen tablets and placed in the treasury of the Temple, recognizing him as their prince and leader, and, in the splendid hyperbole of the ancient Psalm, granting to him his office, not merely as a transient personal honor but to be hereditary in his own family, held as though it was "a High Priesthood forever" (I Macc. 14:28). And then, with a sudden consciousness of having, perhaps, been too bold, the historian adds the characteristic contradiction and reserve (not without a sense of the rude shock which Simon's elevation gave to the stricter notions of legitimate succession), "until a faithful Prophet should arise" (I Macc. 14:41), like Jeremiah or Elijah, who should read aright the secrets and the difficulties of their situation. It is the reserve and contradiction which in times of transition is the mark, not only of noble faith, but of homely common sense, and of far-sighted wisdom.

135 B.C.
The close of Simon's life was hardly in keeping with his long and honorable career. He and his two younger sons were entrapped by his son-in-law into a drunken supper at the fortress of Dok, near Jericho, and there treacherously murdered.

Thus the last of the five brothers died. His aged wife was with him – a high-spirited woman, of whose early life strange adventures were recounted in after days. When John, the most energetic of his sons hastened to avenge the murder, the brutal assassin placed the venerable lady on the walls of the fortress and scourged her with rods before the eyes of her son to induce him to retire. With a courage worthy of the house into which she had married, she entreated him to disregard her tortures. But he could not endure the sight, and raised the blockade. The delay threw the besiegers into the Sabbatical year. The murderer completed his crime by executing the mother and her two sons. He escaped with a friend, a Greek adventurer who had gained possession of the Trans-jordanic Philadelphia.

With the death of Simon the purest glory of the Maccabaean period ended. Yet it was not ended before he had finally established on the throne the only dynasty, except for the house of David, which has reigned over the undivided Jewish people. From that house the national expectations had in earlier days long hoped for a king. But when the Monarchy revived it was not in the house of Jesse, but of Asmon, not in the tribe of Judah, but of Levi.

John Hyrcanus (135 B.C.)
John, survivor of the tragedy at Dok, was the one whom his father had long before appointed as commander of the Jewish forces at Gaza; and to him and his brother had been addressed those striking words which express so well the feelings of the elder generation to that which is to take its place: "I, and my brethren, and my father's house, have ever, from our youth unto this day, fought against the enemies of Israel; and things have prospered so well in our hands that we have delivered Israel often times. But now I am old, and ye, by God's mercy, are of a sufficient age; be ye instead of me and my brother, and go and fight for our nation, and the help from Heaven be with you!"

First of the Asmonean family, John bore a Gentile name (Hyrcanus) – whether as the Greek form corresponding to Johanan or from some incident in his own life; and his reign was more like that of a Syrian than a Jewish prince. The records of it were preserved in the archives of the Priestly house, but are lost; and we are left to gather their contents from the brief narrative of Josephus. In Jerusalem he occupied and rebuilt the fortress at the north-east corner of the Temple, once the site of the residence of the Persian, afterwards of the Roman, now of the Turkish. Like the Regalia in the Tower, there were deposited the pontifical robes which literally invested their possessor with the office.

Like his father and uncle, John was fortunate in finding a friend in the Syrian king, Antiochus Sidetes, to whom the Jews gave in consequence the name of Eusebius or the Pious and from him received full confirmation in his office. Two deadly enemies were crushed by his arms. The hated race of Esau were subdued and incorporated by circumcision into the Jewish nation. The Arab tribe of the Nabathaeans, which had long been friendly to the Asmonean family and had occupied the ancient territory of the Edomites, doubtless assisted; and the proud Esau at last bowed his neck to the persevering Israel – only to exercise once more a fresh and startling influence of another kind. Another cherished victory was that in which he razed to the ground the rival Temple on Mount Gerizim and totally destroyed the Greek city of Samaria, from which the Samaritans had migrated to Shechem in the time of Alexander. Henceforth, it became known as "the City of Graves".

For thirty-one years he carried on the vigor of his father's government, and combined with it a spark of that gift which was believed to have ceased with Malachi. According to Josephus he was not only the Chief Ruler and Chief Priest but a Prophet. The intimations of his possessing this gift were, indeed, but slight, and exhibit almost the first example of degradation of the word from its ancient high meaning to that of mere prediction. Once on the day and hour that it occurred, he heard a voice from the Holy of Holies announcing the victory of his sons over the Samaritans. Another time, as if by divine intuition, he foresaw the fortunes of the three brothers who were to succeed him. It is useless to revive the narrative of intrigues and crimes which convert the palace of the Royal Pontificate into the likeness of an Oriental Court.

Aristobulus (107 B.C.)
So completely had the Hellenising customs penetrated into the heart of the Asmonean family that the three sons of Hyrcanus, Judas, Mattathias, and Jonathan, were respectively known as Aristobulus, Antigonus, and Alexander Jannaeus. Of these the eldest, Aristobulus, had gained the character of "the Philhellen", or "Lover of the Greeks", and won the admiration of Gentile writers by his moderation toward them and by the energy with which, as his father had incorporated the Edomites on the south, so he conquered and absorbed the Ituraean borderers on the north. But he was chiefly remembered for being the first of his family to assume the regal title and diadem. Once more there was a "King in Israel", but bearing the name unknown before and to acquire before long a solemn significance – "King of the Jews". However, it was still as High Priest that he reigned. And it was not till his brother Jonathan mounted the throne under the name of Alexander that the coins alternately bear the names of Jonathan the High Priest (or, more rarely, the King) in Hebrew, and Alexander the King in Greek.

Alexander Jannaeus (106 B.C.)
In common parlance he was known by the two names combined, Alexander Jannaeus. It is enough to indicate the general results of his long, troubled, and adventurous reign. On the whole, in its external relations, it carried on the successes of his predecessors. With the exception of Ptolemais, which remained Greek, he annexed all the maritime or quasi-maritime towns along the western coast from the Bay of Accho to Gaza. An anchor on his coins is perhaps the commemoration of this important accession. With the exception of Pella, i.e., the Macedonian settlement which, on refusing to adopt the Jewish rite was destroyed) most of the Transjordanic settlements whether Greek or Arab followed the fate of Idumaea under his father and of Ituraea under his brother.

Alexandra (79 B.C.)
On one of these obscure campaigns Alexander died and for the first time in Jewish history a Queen, his widow Alexandra or Salome succeeded him; possibly the widow of his brother Aristobulus; the mother of two sons, the last independent Princes of the Asmonean dynasty.

It was one of the results of the peculiar warfare of the Asmonean Princes that Palestine gradually became studded with fortresses or castles apart from the main seats of their ancient history and civilization, commanding the passes in which they entrenched themselves against their enemies. Such had been Modin under Mattathias and Judas, and Masada under Jonathan; such was Hyrcaneum under John Hyrcanus; such, under Alexander Jannaeus, were Machaerus beyond the Dead Sea and Alexandreum on the mountains between Samaria and the Jordan valley, which subsequently became the recognized burial-place of the later Princes of the Asmonean family, as Modin had been of the first earlier. But, in regal or pontifical state, Hyrcanus and Alexander were interred in tombs which long bore their names close to the walls of Jerusalem.

This was the external course of the Royal Pontificate of Judaea – a period of nearly a century of mingled war and peace, but on the whole of independence and fame. It gave to the Roman writers their first idea of the Jewish State as of the union of the regal and priestly office, supposed by them through a natural error to be a long ancestral usage. Like the ancient monarchy of David and Solomon, its success under the reign of Simon was sufficient to justify the deep impression of a more serious view of religion and a more sacred view of government which it left on the Gentile world – more than had come within their experience from elsewhere. On the other hand, now as in the earlier period, the cynical or sagacious eye of Tacitus saw the darker shades of revolutions beneath this outward form; banishments, massacres, murders – fratricidal, parricidal, conjugal.

From now on, our aim will be to penetrate into the interior of the Jewish life of this period, attempting to hopefully bring out whatever instruction or interest it may yield of more than temporary value.

Literature of the Period

In Palestine echoes of the sacred voices of the past are still heard. From the records kept in the Pontifical (I Macc. 16:24) registry, we learn that the First Book of Maccabees, with all its stirring scenes, was compiled immediately before or after the close of the reign of Hyrcanus; about the same time the larger work of Jason of Cyrene, from which the Second Book of the Maccabees (probably half a century later) drew its materials – the more hortatory and apocalyptic style of which the Book of Daniel (whether in its narrative or its visions) is the great example was continued (though in a less stately and impressive form) in the romantic tale of Judith and the prophecies of the Book of Enoch.

The Book of Judith
The Book of Judith is filled with chronological inconsistencies, rendering it difficult to fix the date of either its authorship or events it professes to record. But because it took for the title of the enemy of Israel the name of a well-known Syrian general Holophernes or Orrophernes, we may infer that it was composed under the Asmonean dynasty – whether in the time of Jonathan or of Alexander Jannaeus is immaterial. It is a tale intended to inspire the Israelite maidens with a sense of their duty in case of a new foreign invasion; even as in an imaginary battle in the hills of Surrey was intended to delineate in the possible future the needs of England under like circumstances. It is the story of Jael, re-enacted in the midst of the pomp and luxury of Persia or of Syria, instead of the patriarchal simplicity of the Kenite and the Canaanite. With the approaches through the mountainous passes from the south, the ancient battle-field of Esdraelon is fitly chosen as the scene and if Bethulia itself cannot be identified, this is perhaps intended to stamp the obviously fictitious character on its narrative. It is the one book whose admission into the Canon was ascribed by Jerome to the Council of Nicaea. This probably is an error. But it was unquestionably received among the sacred records of the ancient Church by Clement of Rome and afterward by Origen. In later times it inspired the splendid picture of Christopher Allori and has the more questionable fame of having been said to have nerved the hand of Charlotte Corday against Marat and even in later times used in Roman pulpits to instigate destruction of the King of Italy. It was the last direct expression of the fierce spirit of older Judaism. It is the first unquestionable example of a religious romance.

The history of the Book of Enoch is more complex. It's a book whose original language is unknown and which dropped out of sight of the Jewish Church almost as soon as it was written. However, it attracted notice of the Christian Church; quoted as a sacred composition by Apostolic writers, eagerly accepted by Tertullian, not refused by Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen, placed in the Ethiopic Bible side by side with Job, recovered after the obscurity of centuries by the energy of a British traveler. Thus, it forms an important link in that mixture of poetry, history, and prediction which marks the literature called apocalyptic. Research places appearance of its chief portion in the reign of John Hyrcanus, during his wars with Syria.

The Book of Enoch (130 B.C.)
Its Visions
It is the "Divina Commedia" of those troubled times, and as disjointed, meagre, obscure as is its diction, the conception has a grandeur of its own. The hero of the vision is beyond the Captivity, beyond even the Idumaean Job, beyond Moses or Abraham; he is the mysterious solitary Saint of the antediluvian world, "who walked with God and was not, for God took him"; who in Eastern legends was already regarded as the founder of astronomical science. For the sake of future generations of mankind, he is called to hold converse with the angels (Enoch 6). The first vision in which he assists is no less than the fall of the Angels "who kept not their first estate" – not the fall of Milton's "Paradise Lost", of which neither in Hebrew or Christian Scriptures is there any trace, but the fall of Byron's "Heaven and Earth", which took place when the heavenly watchers descended on the snowclad top of Hermon (highest height an Israelite had ever seen) and intermixed with the daughters of men. Now for the first time we have the full array of names both of the good and evil hierarchy – some of which have struck root in Christian theology or poetry, such as Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel; some of which have completely passed away – Raguel, Surian, Urian, and Salakiel. Of the fallen spirits, the only name which coincides with the Biblical imagery is Azaze1.

Its Topography
Thence Enoch moves on, the first of travelers, the patriarch of discoverers. Palestine is unrolled before him. He finds himself in "the midst of the earth" (Enoch 24), according to the topography still perpetuated in the stone which, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, marks the center of the globe. Every physical feature of as yet unborn Jerusalem is touched with a true geographical instinct. He sees the holy mountain, with the mystic spring of Siloa flowing from beneath it; he sees the lower eminence in the west, parted from the Temple mount by the central depression of the city. He sees Mount Olivet, as yet unnamed, rising on the east, and "deep, not broad" (Enoch 26; 27 – The valley described is not the valley commonly called the Valley of Hinnom on the south of Jerusalem, but the glen called the Valley of Jehoshaphat by Christians; by Mohammedans either the Valley of Hinnom or of Fire and uniformly so called, sometimes in conjunction with the southern valley, in the Bible), lies the dark glen through which flows its thread of water. Above and below he contemplates the steep precipices, with olive trees clinging to their rocky sides, and he asks, as the sacred topographer might now ask: "For what purpose is this accursed valley?" It is impossible not to be struck with awe, as thus in this primeval vision there is disclosed to us the theological significance of the locality which afterwards was to furnish the most terrible imagery that the world has ever known. It was the glen of the sons of Hinnom, the valley of Gehenna.

And then the scattered allusions of the ancient prophets are gathered into one point, and the angelic guide announces to Enoch that it is the vale reserved for those who are forever accursed – where those who have blasphemed God shall be gathered together for punishment, where Judgment shall be pronounced and the just shall be severed from the bad. Until that Judgment there is some deeper pit of fire in which the fallen angels were to be imprisoned; by subterranean channels reaching down to the deep Dead Sea, from time to time vomiting forth columns of sulphureous smoke as it was believed.

Its Hopes
And thence the seer (Enoch 28; 29) wandered on toward those eastern hills which close the horizon beyond the Jordan valley, and looked into the wild woodlands and far- reaching desert of Arabia. His view was lost in the mountains of myrrh, frankincense and trees of all manner of foliage in some blessed land far away, overhanging the Erythraean, sea. The Judgment itself is described more clearly than ever before. The Ancient of Days, called in this book by the affecting name of "the Lord of spirits", convenes all the race of mankind before Him and by His side is the "Chosen", "the Son of Man", whose name was known to "Him before the birth of the sun, or of the stars"; and with the severer images of Judgment are combined those figures of an inexhaustible goodness which are soon to receive an application that shall be immortal. "There is near him a spring of righteousness which never fails, and round it are springs of wisdom; and all that are thirsty drink of these springs, and become full of wisdom and have their habitations with the righteous, the chosen, and the holy".

It is the first distinct intimation of a Deliverer who shall appear with the mingled attributes of gentleness and power, pictured as taking part in the universal judgment of mankind (1 Pet. 3:19, 20; 2 Pet. 2:4, 5; Jude 14, 15; Rev. 20:9-12).

From these and like figures we have the imagery found in at least four of the Books of the Christian Scriptures; and one, the Epistle of St. Jude, by direct quotation of a splendid passage. As in the vision of Milton's Adam, under the figure of a wandering flock, the Patriarch surveys the fortunes of the Chosen People, down to the last trials, thinly veiled, of the contemporary Asmonean princes.

Its Science
Yet, perhaps even more remarkable than these germs of the religious doctrine of the last age of Judaism and the first age of Christianity are the emphatic reiterated statements in which, as the Father of Science, Enoch is led through all the spheres of the universe and taught to observe the regularity, the uniformity of the laws of nature which had not altogether escaped the older Psalmists and Prophets, but which had never before been set forth with an earnestness so exuberant and impassioned. Had Western Christendom followed the example of the Ethiopic Church and placed the Book of Enoch in its Canon, many a modern philosopher would have taken refuge under its authority from the attacks of ignorant alarmists. From its innocent speculations many an enlightened theologian would have drawn cogent arguments to reconcile religion and science. The physics may be childish, the conclusions erroneous. But not even in the Book of Job is the eager curiosity regarding the secrets of nature more boldly encouraged, nor is there any ancient book, Gentile or Jewish, inspired by a more direct and conscious effort to resolve the whole system of the universe, moral, intellectual, and physical, into a unity of government, idea and development.

The Rise of Religious Parties

But there was a, phenomenon more certainly connected with this epoch than these doubtful tales or predictions – a phenomenon of the most fatal importance for the history of Palestine, and also of the most universal significance for the history of the coming Church. It was the appearance of religious parties and of party-spirit under the name of Pharisee, Sadducee, and Essene, first appearing under Jonathan, developed under John Hyrcanus, leading to fierce civil war under Alexander Jannaeus and playing the chief part in the tremendous drama which marks the consummation of this period. Of the origin of the first of these three famous names there can be no doubt.

The Pharisees
The idea which had never been completely absent from the Jewish nation and which its peculiar local situation had fortified and justified, of "a people dwelling alone" (Num. 23:9); which had taken new force and fire under the stern reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah; which sprang into preternatural vigor in the Maccabaean struggle, had now reached that point at which lofty aspirations petrify into hard dogmatic form, at which patriots become partisans and saints are turned into fanatics, and the holiest names are perverted into bywords and catchwords. There was one designation of this tendency in the time of Judas Maccabaeus which had preceded that of "Pharisee", and which already showed the strength and weakness of the cause. It was that of the Chasidim or, as in the Greek translation, Assideans, "the Pious". They furnished the nucleus of insurgents under Mattathias. Their obstinate foolhardiness and selfishness vexed Judas. With him all notice of the party passes from sight, only to reappear under his descendants in the "Pharisee" or "Separatist" – the school or section of the nation which sometimes seemed to almost absorb the nation itself and which placed its whole pride and privilege in its isolation from the Gentile world. The name of Pharisee, which has acquired so sinister a sound to modern Christian ears, has been bandied to and fro by various parties to describe the characteristics of their opponents. As in the mouth of Milton, sometimes it has been applied "to the scarlet Prelates, insolent to maintain traditions". In such contradictory comparisons there is a common element of truth regarding the rigid separation from the outside world and claims to superior sanctity which have sometimes marked the pretensions of the hierarchy and of Puritanism. It may also be said that in their constant antagonism to the established priesthood and government of Palestine, the Pharisees, while "Conformists" to every particular of the law, were "Nonconformists" in their relation to the more moderate principles of the Asmonean dynasty. But these imperfect analogies fail to exhaust their position. They were more than a sect. They were emphatically the popular party, which had the ear of the Jewish public; their statements won an easier hearing than was granted to any words that came from the lips of king or Priest. They were the true children of the age. They were "the religious world".

It was a matter of both principle and policy to multiply the external signs by which they were distinguished from the Gentile world or from those of their own countrymen who approached toward it. They styled themselves "the sages" or "the associates". Tassels on their dress; scrolls and small leather boxes fastened on forehead, head, and neck, inscribed with texts of the law; long prayers offered as they stood in public places; rigorous abstinence; constant immersions; these were the sacramental badges by which they hedged themselves round.

The Oral Tradition
In order to clothe these and all like peculiarities of practice and doctrine with a divine authority, there now entered into their teaching that strange fiction of which the first appearance is in the reign of John Hyrcanus – that all such modern peculiarities which had either silently grown up or been adopted for the defense of their system were part of an oral tradition which had been handed down from Moses to the Great Synagogue and thence to themselves. The maintenance of this hypothesis, not taught in the Pentateuch, was entirely without foundation. It was produced as the basis for the usage of the most trivial, such as the minute regulations for observing the Sabbath and the mode of killing their food, or the most sublime doctrines would be almost unaccountable were it not that analogous fables have been adopted in the Christian Church, with almost as little evidence. It is hardly more surprising than the belief that all the systems of present day Church government, i.e., Episcopates, Patriarchates, Presbyterian Synods, or Congregational Unions, were part of the original scheme of the Founder of Christianity, and handed down either by oral traditions or by obscure intimations, and then, as in the case of the Roman Patriarchate, embodied at a later period in official documents. The growths of the two fictions illustrate each other. Each has borne on its back a medley of truth and falsehood, institutions good and bad, which have been alternately a gain and a loss to the religious systems based upon it. In each case the best wisdom is to face the intrinsic value or worthlessness of the conclusions and not to invest the heterogeneous mixture with an equal importance such as it could only have if the ground on which it rests were as true as it is in each case palpably false.

Sadducees
The name of the second section into which the Jewish community was now divided is wrapped in doubt. There is a tradition that the name of "Sadducee" was derived from Zadok, a disciple of Antigonus of Socho. But the statement is not earlier than the seventh century after the Christian era, and the person seems too obscure to have originated so widespread a title. It has also been ingeniously conjectured that the name, as belonging to the whole priestly class, is derived from the famous High Priest of the time of Solomon. But there is no trace of this either in history or tradition. It is more probable that, as the Pharisees derived their name from the virtue of Isolation (pharishah)from the Gentile world on which they prided themselves, so the Sadducees derived theirs from their own virtue of Righteousness (zadikah), that is, the fulfilment of the law with which they were especially concerned as its guardians and representatives. The Sadducees – whatever be the derivation of the word – were less of a sect than of a class.

It is probable that if the Pharisees represented or were represented by the Scribes or Rabbis, the Sadducees were the official leaders of the nation, their strength in the Priests whose chief during this period had so often been head of the State. They were satisfied with the Law as it appeared in the written code without adopting the oral tradition on which the Pharisees laid so much stress. They were contented with the reputation of being "just" (as their name implied) – that is to say, of fulfilling the necessary requirements of the law without aspiring to the reputation of "sanctity"; that is, increasing the minute distinctions between themselves and their Gentile neighbors. Their view of human conduct was that it was within the control of a man's own will, and was not overruled by the mere decrees of fate. Their view of the future existence was that, as in the Mosaic law a veil was drawn across it, and according to the saying of Antigonus of Socho, men were not to be influenced by the hope of future reward and punishment.

The Essenes
The name of the third sect has an edge somewhat less sharp than the two others because its tendencies were less marked and its part in the conflicts of the time less conspicuous. Yet here, as in the other two divisions, the most probable explanations of the word "Essene" point not to any personal leader or founder, but to the moral and social characteristics of their school. It indicates the watchful contemplation, the affectionate devotion or the silent thoughtfulness of those who retired from the strife of parties and nourished a higher spiritual life in communities of their own. Deep in the recesses of the Jordan valley, where afterward there arose the monasteries of Santa Saba and Quarantania or the hermits of Engedi, these early coenobites took refuge. In like manner a corresponding Egyptian school was the precursor of monks in the Thebaid. In their retirement from the outward ceremonial of the Temple, in their ascetic practices, in their community of property, in their simplicity of speech, in their meals, partly social and partly religious, we see the first beginning of those outward forms and in some respects of those inward ideas which before another century was passed were to be filled with a new spirit, and thus to attain an almost universal ascendency.

The Couples, Joshua and Nittai
It is in the reign of John Hyrcanus that these divisions begin. Under him, we trace the first appearance of these couples and two leading sages, who in an unbroken succession, henceforth figure at the head of the Pharisaic school, perhaps at the head of the national Council and whose pithy aphorisms shine with a steady light through the darkness or the fantastic meteors of the Talmudic literature (formation of the national Council at this time is so doubtful that it is not here discussed). Already this double aspect of truth had appeared in the two Josephs in the Maccabaean time – the son of Joazar insisting only on the value of learning, the son of John laying down rigid rules against exchanging even a word with women. The same division is more strongly marked in Joshua, the son of Perachiah and Nittai of Arbela. "Avoid a bad neighbor, choose not an impious friend, doubt not the judgment that shall fall on the wicked". So spoke the harder and more negative theology of Nittai. "Get thyself a master and so secure a friend; throw thy judgment of everyone into the scale of his innocence". So spoke the more charitable and positive teaching of Joshua, son of Perachiah. In a strange legend of later times he is represented as having lived onward to the final struggle of the Pharisaic school and confronted its great adversary, repelling Him by a harsh reproof. Rather, we may say, by this one sentence he has, by anticipation, received that Teacher's blessing; nor is it impossible that in the exile to which he was afterward driven in Alexandria, he had heard something of the true value of a teacher outside his own circle – something of Aristotle's doctrine of a disinterested friendship – something of that sweet reasonableness' which the Greek language expresses in one forcible word and which this fine old Hebrew maxim so well conveys in substance. Hyrcanus devoted himself to the teaching of which these two sayings are the highest expression, but which, doubtless, was mixed with the baser matter of the party.

Rupture with the Pharisees (109 B.C.)
At last came a sudden crash. It was after the overthrow of the sanctuary of Gerizim and the city of Samaria that at the close of his career John Hyrcanus entertained the nobles and scholars of his court at a splendid banquet. With a characteristic combination of the present glories and past sufferings of his dynasty, the tables were laden with the dainties of regal luxury, and the roots and herbs such as those on which his ancestors had lived in the mountains. On this solemn day, Hyrcanus, like Samuel of old, asked for an opinion on his administration and conduct. One guest took up the challenge. In him the growing jealousy of the fanatical party found a voice. It was Eleazar the Pharisee. Not for moral delinquency or violence in war or peace was the splendid Pontiff arraigned. It was the same religious scruple which allied "the Pious" with Alcimus against Judas Maccabaeus. It was the well-known perversity of theological animosity, which, under the cover of such scruples, allied itself with personal enmity, and, raking up the ashes of forgotten or invented scandals, insisted on questioning the validity of the Priestly descent of Hyrcanus on the allegation of an exploded calumny that his mother (the high-spirited wife of Simon) had once been a captive in the Syrian army, and thus shared the bed of Antiochus Epiphanes. The fiery spirit, the tender recollections of John were stirred up by this reflection on his mother's honor. At that moment another rose from the table. It was Jonathan the Sadducee. Now was come the time to reclaim the Prince from leaning to those whom the Priestly caste regarded as their rivals. In Eleazar he denounced the whole party, who, though with certain reserves, stood by their comrade. From that time John Hyrcanus broke away from the school which he had hitherto courted. From that time the feud between the two parties was alternately fostered and shunned by his descendants.

The Essenian Prophet (106 B.C.)
One dreadful interlude between these contests introduces for a moment the third party, of which the real significance is reserved for the next generation. Aristobulus, the son of Hyrcanus, whose family affections were absorbed in his brother Antigonus, had been brought back from his campaign in Ituraea by an illness, which confined him to the Palace built by his father in the Temple precincts. With his troops around him, Antigonus had gone in full military pomp, in splendid armor, to offer prayers in the Temple for his brother's recovery, choosing, as was the custom for all solemn occasions, the great festival of the Tabernacles. His enemies poisoned the mind of the King against him. He was invited to come and show his new suit of armor to the King, and, as he passed along the covered corridor from the Temple to the fortress, he was waylaid in a dark corner of the gallery and assassinated. The sudden shock of remorse brought on a violent fit of sickness in the unfortunate Aristobulus. The basin containing the blood which he had vomited was spilt on the pavement where his brother had fallen. The cry of horror which rang through the Palace gave a new shock to the King, who expired with his brother's name on his lips. Amid these tragic scenes, it was remembered that a singular being, marked probably by his white dress, was standing in the Temple as Antigonus passed to the fatal gallery. "Look", he said, to his companions, "I am a false prophet; for I predicted, and my words have never yet failed, that Antigonus would die this very day at Strato's Tower, and here he is on the evening of this day still alive". He did not know that the dark corner where Antigonus was to fall was called by the same name as the seaside fortress; and that in a moment his prediction was to be fulfilled. This unerring prophet was Judas the Essene, first of that mysterious sect known to us by name, and one of the few who are ever discerned remaining among the haunts of men. But that solitary glimpse gives a foretaste of the effect to be produced by another Prophet who should appear in like manner, surrounded by disciples in the Temple court, also with dark forebodings, though on a grander scale, which would be verified by events in a still more startling catastrophe.

Alexander Jannaeus (106 B.C.)
However, from the secluded world in which the Essenes lived this was but a momentary flash. In the succeeding reigns it is the contending factions of Sadducee and Pharisee that fill up the horizon. The hostility sown between the Pharisees and Hyrcanus continued through the reign of Alexander Jannaeus. On one occasion they were not ashamed to revive the whole calumny against his grandmother – at the Feast of Tabernacles the worshippers in the Temple, inspired by them, pelted the Royal Priest with citrons from the boughs which they carried on that day (a similar outrage was committed by the Jews of Babylonia against a Rabbi in the third century), because the slight variation in his mode of performing the libation reminded them that he neglected the Pharisaic usage (instead of pouring water on the altar, he poured it on the ground). There long remained a remembrance of the insult in a hoarding of wood which he built round the altar to exclude the repetition of such outrages. But from this moment in the mind of the Sadducean Prince it seemed as if the passion of a tiger was enkindled by the mingled fury of revenge and partisanship. On that occasion six thousand perished in a general massacre.

85 B.C.
On another, when the Pharisees, with the inherent vice of fanatics, sacrificing their patriotism to their partisanship, sided with the Syrians against their King, he stormed the fortress where they had taken refuge, and then, at a banquet given to his harem on the walls of Jerusalem, ordered eight hundred of the leaders of the faction to be crucified. It was the first distinct appearance of the Cross on the hills of Palestine. It is not without significance that the ruling passion which led to the eight hundred crucifixions under the High Priesthood of Alexander Jannaeus or to the single crucifixion under the High Priesthood of Caiaphas was religious party-spirit. The day on which the remnant of the party escaped from these horrors to the slopes of Lebanon was observed, after their subsequent triumph, as a festival, and, with usual rabbinical exaggeration, it was said that at the hour of the execution the sea overwhelmed one-third of the habitable globe. The secret motives of the spirit of modern party are reflected in all their shapes in the closing scene of Alexander's life. He admitted on his deathbed that he had mistaken his policy in alienating from him the Pharisaic influences, and advised his wife to conciliate them in a speech which is a masterpiece of cynicism – more remarkable is that it was recounted by a Pharisee. A most significant touch was added by the Rabbinical tradition I describing the hangers-on of a successful party as more dangerous than the partisans themselves: "Fear not the Pharisees, and fear not those who are not Pharisees. But fear the hypocrites who pretend to be Pharisees – the varnished Pharisees – whose acts are the acts of Zimri, and who claim the reward of Phinehag." Not less characteristic of such warfare is the sudden turn by which the King whom in life they had reviled as a usurper and a schismatic received from them the most sumptuous of funeral honors, and that the very Priest whose copy of the Law, though written in letters of gold, they had forbidden to be used, came to be regarded as the second founder of their school.

Alexandra (79 B.C.)
Alexandra's adoption of this policy was rendered easier because her brother was Simeon the son of Shetach.

Simeon, the Son of Shetach (72 B.C.)
Under his auspices Pharisaism acquired an ascendency which it never lost. Already in the reign of her fierce husband he had contrived to keep his place at court between the King and Queen, to bandy retorts with the King, to squeeze money from him for the needy Nazarites. After Alexander's death it was he who recalled his predecessors Joshua the son of Perachiah, and Judah the son of Tobai, who was recalled to Jerusalem from Alexandria, from which he had fled. "Jerusalem the Great to Alexandria the Little. My husband, my beloved one, stays with you, whilst I remain desolate". The severe code of the Sadducean "Justice" was abolished except when it suited the Pharisees to be severe, for the discouragement of the Sadducees. The chiefs of that party were expelled from the Council. Like the less fanatical in all ages, the bond of cohesion between them was more relaxed than in the hands of their more determined and dogmatic opponents and they were perforce compelled to bow to public opinion which sided with the Pharisaic or popular party. The days of the 14th of Thammuz and the 28th of Tebet were celebrated as festivals in consequence. Though in itself wholly insignificant and without a shadow of warrant from the Law, the libation of water in the Feast of Tabernacles, which Alexander Jannaeus had neglected, was, with illuminations, processions, and dances raised to the first magnitude. "He", it was said, "who has never seen this rejoicing knows not what rejoicing is". With the Priest the whole congregation descended to the Spring of Siloam – the water brought back in a golden pitcher – with shouts of triumph, cymbals, and trumpets, which resounded louder and louder as the Priest stood on the altar. "Lift up thy hand", they said, as though the irreverent Pontiff was still before them, and the water was then solemnly poured to the west, and a cup of wine to the east, the song still continuing, "Draw water with joy from the wells of salvation". It is a striking example of a noble meaning infused into the celebration of a miserable party-triumph when, a hundred years later, on the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles there stood in the Temple courts One whom the Pharisees hated with a hatred as deadly as that with which at times they pursued the memory of Alexander Jannaeus, and cried with a loud voice – piercing, it may be, through the clatter of chant and music – "If any man have thirst, let him come unto me and drink" (John 7:37).

The description of these internecine feuds to which the earlier history of the Jewish Church furnishes no exact parallel (not even in the angry factions of the time of Jeremiah) shows us how close our so-called modern age has approached certain stages of every ancient nation.

They present the first appearance of that singular phenomenon of religious party, which, continuing down to the latest days of the Jewish commonwealth, reappears under other forms both in the early and later ages of the Christian Church – that is to say, divisions ostensibly on religious subjects, but carried on with the same motives and passions as those which animate divisions in the State. The true likenesses of the scenes we have just been considering are not where Josephus looks for them, i.e., in the schools of Greek philosophy, but in the tumult of Grecian politics. The seditions and revolutions of Corcyra, with the profound remarks of Thucydides, contain the picture of all such religious discords downward from the Pharisees and Sadducees. The word by which they are described in the later Greek of this epoch, haeresis , is the equivalent of the earlier word stasis – neither having any relation to the modern meaning of "heresy", both expressed by the English word "faction" (Acts 5:17, 15:5, 24:5, 24:14, 26:5, 28:22, 1 Cor. 11:19, Gal. 5:20, 2 Pet. 2:1). The names of "Pharisee" and "Sadducee", and perhaps "Essene", had, as we have seen, a moral or theological significance but this meaning was often disavowed by the parties themselves and was constantly drifting into other directions. The appellations of "the Isolated" and "the Just", and perhaps "the Holy" or "the Contemplative", passed through the natural process to which all party names are liable. First, an exclusive or exaggerated claim to some peculiar virtue, or else a taunt from some opposing quarter; next, adopted or given, heedlessly or deliberately by some class or school – then poisoned by personal rivalry and turned into mere flags of discord and weapons of offence. In later times such has been the fate of such names as "Christian", "Catholic," "Puritan," "Orthodox", "Evangelical", "Apostolical", "Latitudinarian", "Rationalist", "Methodist", "Ritualist", "Reformed", "Moderate", "Free". Whatever the words once meant, in later times they have often come to be mere badges by which contending masses distinguish themselves from each other.

Therefore, in these, as in all parties, the inward and outward, formal and real divisions never exactly corresponded. There were Pharisaic opinions which should have belonged to those who were not "Separatists", and Sadducaic usages which we should have expected to find among the Pharisees. The great doctrine of Immortality, which the Pharisees believed to have been derived from the oral tradition of Moses, was, if not derived, yet deeply colored from those Gentile philosophies and religions which they professed to abhor. In the long and tedious list of ritual differences which parted the two sections, there are many minute particularities on which the Pharisees took the laxer, the Sadducees the stricter side.

Though it might have seemed as if the whole nation was absorbed by these apparently exhaustive divisions, it is clear that there were higher spirits, who, though perhaps nominally belonging to one or the other side, rose above the miserable littlenesses of each.

No loftier instruction is preserved from these times than that of two teachers who must at least be regarded as precursors of the Sadducees. One is Antigonus of Socho, whose doubt (if it was a doubt) on future retribution is identical with that expressed in the vision of the noblest and holiest of Christian kings, to whom on the same shores of Palestine a stately form revealed herself as Religion, with a brazier in one hand to dry up the fountains of Paradise, and a pitcher in the other to quench the fires of Hell in order that men might love God for Himself alone. Another was Jesus the son of Sirach, whose solemn and emphatic reiterations of the power of the human will and the grandeur of human duty helped, even if ineffectually, to fill the void left by his total silence of a hope beyond the grave.

Of the Pharisees we know that a hundred years later there was, as we shall see, a Hillel, a Gamaliel, and a Saul, who were to be the chosen instruments in preparing or in proclaiming the widest emancipation from ceremonial rites that the world had yet seen; while the doctrine of Immortality which it is the glory of the Pharisaic schools to have appropriated and consolidated, was, like an expiring torch, to be snatched from their hands and kindled with a new light for all succeeding generations. Of the seven classes into which the Pharisees were divided (six were characterized even by themselves with epithets of biting scorn) one was acknowledged even by their enemies to be animated by the pure love of God.

Simeon the Son of Shetach
Even in these first days of the fierce triumph of Pharisaism the Jewish Church at large owed much to the influence of Simeon the son of Shetach, who, during the reign of his sister Alexandra, ruled supreme in the Court and cloisters of Jerusalem. There were stories handed down of him and his colleague which showed that the Pharisees could exercise as much severity on behalf of the Written Law as they were fond of alleging against the Sadducees. Eighty witches were executed at Ascalon under Simeon's auspices, and from a technical scruple he persisted in the execution of his own son, though knowing he was falsely accused. Nor can we avoid the thought that the advantages he gave to the legal position of women were suggested by the influence of his strong-minded Pharisaic sister, Queen Alexandra. But in some of his words and works there are traces of a better and more enduring spirit. That was an acute saying of his colleague, the son of Tobai: "Judge, make not thyself an advocate; whilst the parties are before thee, regard them both as guilty; when they are gone, after the judgment, regard them both as having reason". That was a yet wiser saying of Simeon: "Question well the witnesses; but be careful not by thy questions to teach them how to lie". But his main glory was that he was the inaugurator of a complete system of education throughout the country. Under his influence, for the first time schools were established in every large provincial town and all boys from sixteen years and upward were compelled to attend. No less than eleven different names for places of instruction now came into vogue. "Get to thyself a teacher", said Joshua the son of Perachiah, "and thou gettest to thyself a companion". "Our principal care", such from this time was the boast of Josephus, "is to educate our children". "The world", such became the Talmudical maxim, "is preserved by the breath of the children in the schools".

Comprehensiveness of the Jewish Church
With such nobler tendencies recognized on either side, we need not wonder, though we may stumble, at the startling fact that even in its last extremities the Jewish Church and nation was able to contain these three divergent parties without disruption. So strong was the common bond of country and faith that the Sadducee, who could find in the Ancient Law no ground for hope of a future existence and who resolutely refused to accept the convenient fiction of an oral tradition, could worship, though varying on innumerable points of which everyone was a watchword of contention, with the Pharisee to whom the Oral Law was greater than the written; whose belief in immortality was bound up with the heroic struggles of the Maccabees, and who was in a state of chronic antagonism to the hierarchical and aristocratic class of which the Sadducee was guardian and representative. Even the Essenes who withdrew from the strife of Jerusalem to their oasis by the Dead Sea, who took part in none of the ceremonial ordinances unless it were that of ablution, were yet not counted as outcasts but are described even by Pharisaic historians as among the purest and holiest of men; and when their seers wandered for a moment into the haunts of men, they were welcomed as prophets even by the fierce populace and politic leaders of the capital. Such strange latitude in the National Church of the Chosen People must have accustomed the first propagators of Christianity to a comprehension which to all their successors has seemed almost impracticable. In 1 Corinthians 15:12, when Paul felt that the Corinthian Church could embrace both those who received and those who doubted the Resurrection of the Dead, he knew that it was no larger admission than had been made by the Jewish Church when it included both Pharisees and Sadducees; and when he entreated the Roman Church (Rom. 14:1-6) to acknowledge as brothers both those who received and those who rejected the Jewish ordinances, it was in principle the same catholicity which had induced both Pharisee and Sadducee to recognize the idealizing worship of the Essene.

And as particular individuals of each party were better than their party, as the Jewish Church itself was wider than the three parties, singly or collectively, so there were those who, from their commanding character and position, overlooked, and enable us to calmly overlook the whole troubled sea of faction and intrigue. On the whole such was the Asmonean dynasty, beginning with Mattathias in his patriotic disregard of the superstitious veneration of his own adherents for the Sabbath, continuing throughout the great career of Judas Maccabaeus, through the truly national policy of Simon and of his son John, through the keen if cynical insight of Alexander Jannaeus.

Onias the Charmer
Such was the good Onias, perhaps an Essene – "that righteous man beloved of God". He was renowned for the efficacy of his prayers. To the teeming fertility which had marked the reign of the Pharisaic Alexandra there had succeeded an alarming drought. At the entreaty of his countrymen (so runs the tradition), Onias stood within the magic circle which he had traced and implored "the Lord of the World" to send his gracious rain. (The belief in the efficacy of the prayers of holy men for rain appears not only in the incidental allusions in 1 Kin. 17:1; 18:41; James 5:17, but in the fixed belief of the Arab tribes that the monks of Mount Sinai have the power of producing it by opening or shutting their books.) "Thy children have asked me to pray, for I am as a son of Thy house before Thee. I swear by Thy great name that I will not move hence till Thou hast had pity upon them". A few drops fell: "I ask for more than this", he said, "for a rain which shall fill wells, cisterns, and caverns". It fell in torrents. "Not this", continued he; "I ask for a rain which shall show Thy goodness and Thy blessing". It fell in regular descent until the people had to mount to the terraces of the Temple. "Now", they said, "pray that the rain may cease". "Go", he said, "and see whether the stone of the wanderers is covered". At this Simeon the son of Shetach, head of the Pharisees, contemptuously rebuked him and said: "Thou deservest excommunication. But what can I do? Thou playest before God like a spoilt child before its father who does all that it wishes". This was the innocent, infantine spell which Onias cast over the imagination of his people, as his memory remained in the Talmudic legends. But a more genuine glory attaches to his name as it appears in the sober history.

69 B.C.
In the fratricidal struggle which broke out between the two sons of Alexandra
(it may be supposed, immediately after this drought), when the popular party of the Pharisees ranged on the side of Hyrcanus, and the priestly party of the Sadducees on the side of Aristobulus, the old Onias was dragged from his seclusion to give to the besiegers the advantage of his irresistible prayers. He stood up in the midst of them and said: "O God, the King of the whole world, since those that stand with me now are Thy people, and those that are besieged are Thy priests, I beseech thee that Thou wilt neither hearken to the prayers of those against these, nor of these against those"

Authorities:
Adriaan Reland, Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata
Hartwig Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine
Forner and Guerin, Description de Palestine
Sandrecsky and Conder, Palestine Exploration Fund
Plutarch, Detnetr
Frederuc W. Madden, Jewish Coins
A. Dillmann, Preface to the Book of Enoch
Grimm, De Execratione
Georg Heinrich August von Ewald, History of Israel
Hans Herzfeld, Geschichte
Henry Hart Milman, History of Jews
Titus Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
Alphonse de Lamartine, Girondins
Richard Laurence, Preface to the Book of Enoch
Timothée Colani, Les EsPerances Messianiques
Abraham Geiger, Urschrift
John Lightfoot, Colossians
Mishna, Pirke Aboth
Jean de Joinville, Life of St. Louis
Salomon Munk, Palestine
Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches on Palestine
Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life
Alfred Edersheim, The Temple
Morris Jacob Raphall, Post-Biblical History of the Jews

(1) I Macc. 9:23 through 16
(2) Joseph. Ant. xiii.
(3) V Macc.
(4) Book of Judith, B.C. 130?
(5) Sibylline Books (iii. 828) B.C. 120
(6) Book of Enoch, B.C. 115? which is found (a) in Epistle of Jude, verses 14, 15; (b) Fragments preserved by Georgius Syncellus, A.D. 792, and discovered byScaliger; (c) in the Ethiopic Bible, discovered in 1773 by Bruce, the Abyssinian traveler, and translated into English by Archbishop Laurence, 1838, and into German, with notes and discussions, by Dillmann, 1853.
(7) The Book of Jubilees? Probably B.C. l00-1? quoted in Clem. Recog. xxx., xxxii., perhaps in 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6, and in various late authors, collected in Fabricius' Codex Pseudep. v. i. 849-863 under the name of Little Genesis; originally in Hebrew, translated into Greek, and found in an Ethiopic version in 1844 by Kraff, and first brought to notice by Ewald (Dr. Ginsburg, in Kitto, ii. 669-670). Its date and origin are, however, too uncertain to justify much remark.
(8) The Talmudical traditions, given in Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, ch. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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