LITMIR.BIZ

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priest. In fact, Hyrcanus personally favored the Pharisees, but as prince he could not quarrel with the Sadducees, among whom he found his soldiers, his generals and his counselors. Their leader Jonathan was his devoted friend. Until old age crept on him, Hyrcanus managed to solve the difficult problem of keeping in a state of amity two parties that were always on the verge of quarreling. He understood how to prevent either party from gaining the upper hand and persecuting its rival. But (as too often happens in such difficult situations) a word, a breath can upset the best-arranged plans, bringing to naught the most skilful calculations, and the slowly, carefully built edifice falls and crumbles in a day. A heedless word of this kind turned the zealous follower of Pharisaism into its bitter opponent. In the last years of his life Hyrcanus went quite over to the Sadducees.

      The cause of this change, which brought such unspeakable misery to the Judæan nation, was trivial in comparison with its results; but the antagonism of the two parties, which could only with the utmost difficulty be kept from breaking out into open discord, gave it a terrible and far-reaching importance. Hyrcanus had just returned from a glorious victory over one of the many nations in the northeast of Peræa (Kochalit?). Rejoicing in the happy result of his arms and in the flourishing state of his country, he ordered a feast to be held, to which he invited without distinction the leaders of the Sadducees and Pharisees. Around golden dishes laden with food were placed various plants that grew in the desert, to remind the guests of the hardships they had endured under the Syrian yoke, when the nobles of the land were obliged to hide themselves in the wilderness. Whilst the guests were feasting, Hyrcanus asked if the Pharisees could reproach him for any transgression of the Law? If so, he desired to be told in what he had failed. Was this apparent humility only a cunningly-devised plan to discover the real disposition of the Pharisees towards him? Had the Sadducees inspired him with suspicion against the Pharisees, and advised him to find some way of proving the sincerity of their attachment? In reply to the challenge thus thrown out, a certain Eleazer ben Poira arose and bluntly answered, "Hyrcanus should content himself with the crown of royalty, and should place on a worthier head the high priest's diadem. During an attack on Modin by the Syrians his mother, before his birth, was taken prisoner, and it is not fitting for the son of a prisoner to be a priest – much less the High Priest!" Although inwardly wounded by so outspoken an insult to his pride, Hyrcanus had sufficient self-possession to appear to agree with the bold speaker and ordered the matter to be examined. It was, however, proved to be an empty report; in fact, without the slightest foundation.

      Hyrcanus's anger was doubly roused against the Pharisees through the care taken by the Sadducees and his devoted friend Jonathan to persuade him that the former had invented the story purposely to lower him in the eyes of the people. Anxious to find out if the aspersion cast on his fitness for the high-priesthood was the act of the whole party or only the slander of an individual, he demanded that their leading men should punish the calumniator, and expected that the chastisement inflicted would be in proportion to his own exalted rank. But the Pharisees knew of no special penalty for the slanderer of royalty, and their judges only awarded him the lawful punishment of thirty-nine lashes. Jonathan, the leader of the Sadducees, failed not to use this circumstance as a means to rake up the fire in Hyrcanus's breast. He led him to see in this mild judgment of the court a deep-rooted aversion entertained by the Pharisees against him, thus estranging him completely from his former friends, and binding him heart and soul to the Sadducees. There is probably some exaggeration in the account of Hyrcanus's persecution of the adherents of the Pharisees, and of his setting aside all the decrees of the latter. There is, however, more truth in another report, from which we learn that Hyrcanus had deposed the Pharisees from the various high posts they had filled. The offices belonging to the Temple, to the courts of law and to the high council were given to the followers of the Sadducees. But this stroke of policy produced the saddest results. Naturally enough it awakened in the hearts of the Pharisees, and of the people who sided with them, a deep hatred against the house of the Hasmonæans, which bore civil war in its train and hastened the nation's decline. One act had been sufficient to cast a cloud over the brilliant days of the Hasmonæans.

      Hyrcanus lived but a short time after these events. He died in the thirty-first year of his reign, the sixtieth year of his age (106), leaving five sons, Aristobulus, Antigonus, Alexander, Absalom, and one other, whose name has not come down to us. Hyrcanus bore some resemblance to his prototype Solomon, inasmuch as that, after the death of both, dissensions broke out and the country became a prey to constant strife and discord.

      CHAPTER II.

      HYRCANUS'S SUCCESSORS, ARISTOBULUS I, ALEXANDER JANNÆUS, AND SALOME ALEXANDRA

      Character of Aristobulus – Antigonus – Mythical Account of his Death – Alexander Jannæus: his Character and Enterprises – His Support of the Pharisees – Simon ben Shetach – Alexander's Breach with the Pharisees, and its Consequences – His last Wars and Death – Salome Alexandra's Relations to the Opposing Parties – The Synhedrion – Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach – Institutions against the Sadducees – Party Hatred – Diogenes – Persecution of the Sadducees – Death of Alexandra.

106–69 B. C. E

      John Hyrcanus had proclaimed his wife queen, and his eldest son, Judah, high priest. The latter is better known by his Greek name Aristobulus, for he, like his brothers and successors, bore a Greek as well as a Hebrew name. But it was soon evident that the Greek custom of placing a female ruler at the head of the State was not looked upon with favor in Judæa. Thus Aristobulus was able to remove his mother from her official position without creating any disturbance, and he then united in his own person the two dignities of ruler and high priest. It is said that he was the first of the Hasmonæans to assume the royal title; but this title did not add in any way to his power or his importance. His coins, indeed, which have since been discovered, bear only the following inscription, "The High Priest Judah, and the Commonwealth of the Judæans," and they are engraved with the same emblem as those of his father, viz., a cornucopia, although this symbol of plenty was hardly a truthful characteristic of the times.

      The seed of discord sown by Hyrcanus grew and spread alarmingly in the reigns of his descendants. In vain did the successive rulers attempt to raise the importance of the royal dignity, in vain did they surround themselves with a body-guard of trusty hirelings and perform the most brilliant feats of valor, the breach between them and their subjects became irreparable, and no remedy proved effectual. The royal house and the people were no longer at one; political life was separated from religious life, and the two were pursuing opposite paths.

      The king, Aristobulus, not only supplanted his mother upon the throne, but he also imprisoned her with three of his brothers. His brother Antigonus alone, of like temperament to himself and his companion-in-arms, whom he tenderly loved, was permitted to take part in the government. In spite of the meager and unsatisfactory accounts of his short reign, we may gather from them that he followed the example of his father's last years, in remaining closely connected with the Sadducees, and in keeping the Pharisees from all power and influence. Aristobulus had but few friends in his own family, and he does not appear to have been beloved by his subjects. The fact of his having had a decided preference for Hellenism accounts for his surname, which was honored by the Greeks and hated by the Judæans – "Friend of the Hellenes." This one characteristic gave such offense to the people that they were ready to ascribe to him the authorship of any evil deed that might occur in the kingdom. Whilst the Greeks called him fair-minded and modest, the Judæans accused him of heartlessness and cruelty. His mother expired during her imprisonment, possibly of old age; evil report whispered that her own son was guilty of having allowed her to die of starvation. His favorite brother, Antigonus, was foully murdered (probably through the intrigues of the party hostile to the Hasmonæans); sharp-tongued calumny affirmed that the king, jealous of him, was the author of the foul deed, and tradition has woven a web of tragic incidents round the sad fate of Antigonus. But of this later.

      Aristobulus had inherited not only his father's military ability, but also his plans of extending Judæa in a northeasterly direction. The Ituræans and the Trachonites, who often left their mild, pastoral pursuits for the rougher trade of war, occupied the district surrounding the gigantic Mount Hermon, and eastwards as far as the lovely plain of Damascus. Against these half-barbaric tribes Aristobulus undertook a campaign, probably continuing what his father had commenced. His brother Antigonus,

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