The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

Judas took occasion of the troubles that arose in Syria next year to expel the Hellenisers from the city. Alcimus (the high-priest recognised by this party) came back with a force sent by Demetrius Soter[201] under the command of Bacchides, and the Ḥasidim admitted the Greeks because they were accompanied by “a priest of the seed of Aaron.”[202] Bacchides removed his camp to a place called Bezeth, which has been supposed to be the later Bezetha north of the Temple, not yet within the city. His successor, Nicanor, was attacked by Judas at Caphar-salama—perhaps the modern Selmeh near Jaffa—and forced to flee back to the “city of David”—that is, to Jerusalem. The priests came out of the temple to “Mount Sion,” but were wrathfully received by the defeated general, and in the cold winter month of Adar he went forth to meet the advance of Judas, and was slain at Adasa, north of the city. The new usurper, Demetrius Soter, had fled from Rome to Antioch, and to the Romans Judas turned for help, little foreseeing the future results of this policy, to which his successors also adhered. But Roman armies were still far away, and in the year 161 B. C. Demetrius sent Bacchides once more by the north road through Samaria, and Judas was outflanked and slain at Beth-zetho—apparently the present Bîr ez Zeit, commanding a pass four miles north-west of Bethel.[203] The Akra garrison was thus once more relieved.[204]

After this disaster the Hasmonæan party under Jonathan were hunted to the Jordan marshes, and the Greeks maintained order for two years, and then made peace with Jonathan, who took up his residence at Michmash. In the year 152 B. C. another revolution in Syria placed Alexander Balas on the throne of Antioch.[205] The new ursurper made Jonathan high-priest, and the only garrisons maintained by the Greeks were those of Bethzur, and of the Akra in Jerusalem. Yet another revolution occurred in 147 B. C., when Demetrius Nicator became king of Syria.[206] Jonathan then struck for freedom once more, capturing Joppa and Ascalon, and returning to Jerusalem, where he besieged the Akra. Demetrius granted to him an extension of Judæa at the expense of Samaria, and the next usurper, Trypho, confirmed his position as ruler. In 144 B. C. Jonathan and Simon built the wall, or mound, in the midst of Jerusalem, to separate the Akra from the market-place. They also repaired the city walls, especially at a place called Caphenatha, on the east near the brook Kidron. The word “Caphenatha” is Aramaic for a “heap,” and is thus probably equivalent to the Hebrew ’Ophel, or “mound.” As regards the wall or mound in the middle of the city, it should be observed that the only market-place in Jerusalem mentioned by Josephus is that in the upper city. It is possible, therefore, that the wall to which he refers was that which defended the upper city on the north side, running through the middle of the town to the Temple. But in the history which he follows it was called a “mound,” and not a wall. It may therefore have been raised as a covered way on the narrow neck of land near the Jaffa Gate. This would serve to protect those who came in to the upper market from any attack by the Akra garrison. No wall on the Ophel spur nor any north of the Temple could be described, in this age, as being in the “midst of the city,” and this allusion serves therefore to confirm the supposition that the Akra lay north of the upper city.[207]

JEWISH COINS

The aim of Jonathan, who combined the offices of high-priest and civil governor, was to restore Hebrew freedom not only in Judæa, but throughout Palestine, and even to restore the empire of Solomon, to the Eleutherus River or “entering in to Hamath.” But the usurping general Trypho enticed him into the city of Accho, and led him prisoner to Gilead, where he was put to death, in 143 B. C. Thus Simon alone survived of the five famous brethren. He fortified Jerusalem, against which Trypho intended to advance, but the city was saved by a heavy fall of snow, which blocked the roads.[208] The year 142 B. C. was called—in the commercial contracts of Israel—the “first year of Simon the high-priest, general and governor of the Jews.”[209] A bronze tablet recording his treaty with Rome was set up, two years later, on Mount Sion, in which he was called “high-priest to the army of God [Ṣaramel],” the great congregation of the priests, the people, and the chiefs ratifying his action.[210] This term, taken from the Aramaic original of the First Book of Maccabees, is left untranslated in our Greek version. Antiochus VII., in 139 B. C., bestowed on Simon the right to strike a silver coinage,[211] and these coins appear to have borne the name “Simon” on one side, and the legend “Deliverance of Jerusalem” on the other, in letters of the old alphabet of Israel, the forms of which were but slightly modified from those of the Siloam text, though manifestly later.[212] Simon was thus the most successful of the Hasmonæan brothers, and his greatest triumph was the final conquest of the Akra citadel. The garrison was at length withdrawn from the “city of David in Jerusalem,”[213] and the fortress was at first occupied by Jews, and—as we have already seen—finally demolished, about 140 B. C.

When Simon was murdered near Jericho in 135 B. C., his son John Hyrcanus succeeded him, and manifested the same courage and ability which distinguished his father. He was unfortunate, however, at first, for Antiochus VII. attacked Jerusalem in 134 B. C. Josephus relates that the Greeks established seven camps round the city, and raised an hundred siege-towers (probably an exaggeration) “about the north part of the wall, where it happened that it was upon a level with the outer ground.”[214] This agrees with the supposition that the wall ran on the spur north of the Tyropœon. It was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles—in autumn—and the granting of a truce for seven days, that the festival might be held, produced so favourable an impression on the Jews that peace was soon made on fair terms. It was on this occasion that Hyrcanus opened David’s sepulchre, whence—as rumour said—he took 3,000 talents. Some ten years later he became more powerful, and destroyed the Samaritan temple on Gerizim. He died in 106 B. C., and the decadence of the race began in the next generation.

TOMB OF JANNÆUS

Aristobulus, his eldest son, ruled for one year only. His coins are still inscribed in Hebrew, but on those of his brother, Alexander Jannæus, the Greek language for the first time appears on Jewish money. The more peaceful relations with the later Seleucidæ apparently led to a revival of Greek influence, and the grandchildren of Simon followed Greek fashions, Aristobulus being the first of these rulers to set a diadem on his head,[215] though he retained the old title “High-priest and Uniter of the Jews,” as is known from his bronze coins. Alexander Jannæus went further and called himself in Hebrew “Jehonathan the King,” while the reverse of the coin bears in Greek the words “of Alexander the King.”[216] His reign (105 to 78 B. C.) was one of very chequered fortune, and he appears to have been a very ordinary tyrant. The events immediately connected with Jerusalem include the building of a wooden partition wall round the Temple and Altar; the riot in which—at the Feast of Tabernacles—he was pelted with the lemons which were already carried as sacred emblems by the worshippers; and the crucifixion of eight hundred Jewish rebels at Jerusalem, which shows us that he adopted a punishment then in use among Greeks and Romans, as it had been yet earlier among Carthaginians.[217]

In a later passage[218] Josephus speaks of the defenders of the Temple, in 70 A. D., as fighting the Romans “from the tower Antonia, and from the north cloister of the Temple, and ... before the monument of King Alexander”—an allusion which raises a very interesting question as to existing antiquities: for the attack on the Temple walls thus met was evidently that of the tenth legion from Olivet, and the tomb or monument in question may have been that now called the “Tomb of Absalom,” belonging to a group of four conspicuous Greco-Jewish tombs on the east bank of the Kidron, opposite the south part of the eastern wall of the Ḥaram. The style of the palace of Hyrcanus in Gilead shows us that these tombs might well be as old as 78 B. C. They resemble the rock sepulchres of Petra, though the latter may be somewhat later. “Absalom’s Tomb”[219] is a chamber with two loculi, or rock coffins, one in each side. The block of rock has been cut out from the cliff, and is 20 feet square. It is adorned with Ionic pillars, and a Greek frieze, over which is a bold corbelled cornice, and above the cornice a square masonry base, and a drum supporting a peculiar dome which has a finial 55 feet above the ground. The dome is a feature of Herodian architecture half a century later, and may well have been known in Palestine in the time of Alexander Jannæus, for domes are represented on Assyrian bas-reliefs even in the seventh century B. C.

South of this monument is the tomb of the Bene Hezir priests,[220] which has kokîm graves in the Hebrew style, but a porch supported by two Doric pillars cut out of the rock. The inscription above them, recording the names of these priests, is in characters which are practically square Hebrew, but such characters are found in Aramaic papyri even as early as 200 B. C. It is evident that a monument to Jewish priests, of such importance, must have been made in the prosperous times either of the Hasmonæans or of the Herodians, and could not have been hewn after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. The characters are not like those of the coinage of Alexander Jannæus, though the lettering on these is much less antique than that of Simon’s coinage. But in this age there were many variations of the old Aramean alphabet in use, and (according to the Talmud) the square characters were used for sacred writings in the Hebrew tongue, side by side with the older script, which was used for Aramaic texts and civil documents.[221] It thus seems possible that the characters on a priests’ tomb might differ from those of the contemporary civil coinage. It may, on the other hand, be thought that this tomb is somewhat later than 78 B. C.