After ruling Judea for about nine years, Simon was cut off by treachery even yet more base than that to which Jonathan had fallen a victim.
Ptolemy, his own son-in-law, who held an office under the high priest, secretly aspired to fill his place. This most wicked and perfidious man invited Simon to an entertainment which he had prepared in a neighbouring castle. The venerable high priest suspected no evil from one to whom he was so nearly connected, accepted the invitation, and went to the fortress with two of his sons.
In the midst of the feast, when the wine-cup went round, and the unsuspecting guests never dreamed of danger, suddenly assassins burst in amongst them, and Simon and his two sons were ruthlessly murdered!—135 b.c. Not contented with committing this fearful crime, determined to leave no son to succeed to the slaughtered prince, or to avenge his death, Ptolemy sent a party to Gazara to assassinate John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon. But tidings of the foul murder of his father and brothers reached Hyrcanus in time to put him on his guard. Hastening to Jerusalem, he secured the city and the temple against those whom the traitor had sent to take possession of both. His activity, wisdom, and courage defeated the designs of Ptolemy, and wrested from him the fruit of his crime.
John Hyrcanus was declared prince and high priest of the Jews, whom he governed for many years with great wisdom and success. Emulating the military prowess of his predecessors, Hyrcanus made himself master of all Galilee and Samaria, and other places in the country around him, till none of the neighbouring tribes dared attempt to cope with the Jews, and he passed the remainder of his days in full repose from all foreign wars.
In the latter part of his life, however, Hyrcanus met with much trouble from the Pharisees, a large and mutinous sect of the Jews. These, with pretensions to singular sanctity of life, and the strictest obedience to the law of Moses, covered a spirit of insolent ambition and intolerable pride.
Hyrcanus, who knew the great influence acquired by the Pharisees over the people, attempted at first to attach them to himself by all manner of favours. He invited the heads of the sect to an entertainment, and having there liberally regaled them, he addressed his guests to the following effect:—He told them that the fixed purpose of his mind had always been to be just in his actions towards men, and to do all things towards God that should be well-pleasing to Him, according to the doctrines which the Pharisees taught. He desired those whom he now saw at his table, should they behold anything in him wherein he failed of his duty in either of these its two branches, to give him the benefit of their instructions, that he might thenceforth reform and amend.
In reply to this humble address, the Pharisees loaded their high priest with praises for his wisdom and goodness, with the exception of one Eleazar, a man of turbulent and mutinous spirit, who, when the rest were silent, stood up, and with astounding audacity exclaimed, “Since you are desirous to be told the truth, if you would approve yourself a just man, quit the high priesthood, and content yourself with being the governor of the people!”
Eleazar tried to support this very startling demand by the false assertion that the mother of Hyrcanus not having been a Jewess, he was debarred by the law from exercising the holy office of high priest.
Hyrcanus was deeply wounded. Insulted in his own house, in the presence of his guests, and on a point where, both as a pontiff and a Jew, he was most keenly sensitive, he appealed to the Pharisees around to declare what punishment was merited by one who dared to defame the high priest and prince of his people. Their reply was so little satisfactory to Hyrcanus, that he suspected that the insult which he had received had been a thing previously concerted amongst them. He became from thenceforth the bitter enemy of the Pharisees, and transferred all the favour which he had previously shown them to the rival sect of the Sadducees.
It cannot be supposed, however, that so righteous a man as John Hyrcanus adopted all the errors of a sect that afterwards denied the existence of angel or devil, and rejected the blessed doctrine of a resurrection. It is probable that at this time the Sadducees themselves had not gone further than renouncing the unwritten traditions, to which the Pharisees gave great and dangerous weight, regarding them with the same reverence which they paid to the inspired Word of God.