The Makers and Teachers of Judaism / From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Herod the Great

by Charles Foster Kent

[Sidenote: Jos. War, I, 7:6a, b] But there was nothing that affected the nation so much in the calamities which they then suffered as that their holy place, hitherto unseen, should be laid open to strangers. For Pompey and those who were about him went into the temple itself, where it was lawful for the high priest alone to enter, and saw what was deposited therein; but he commanded the ministers about the temple to purify it and to perform their accustomed sacrifices.

[Sidenote: Jos. War, I, 7:7] Moreover he reappointed Hyrcanus high priest, by which he acted the part of a good general and reconciled the people to him rather by kindness than by terrorizing them. He took away from the nation all those cities that they had formerly taken and reduced Judea to its own bounds. Then he made all the haste he could to go through Cilicia on his way to Rome, taking Aristobulus and his two children along with him as captives. One of Aristobulus's sons, Alexander, ran away on the journey, but the younger, Antigonus, with his sisters, was carried to Rome.

I. The Character and Policy of Alexander Janneus. For the picture of the character of Alexander Janneus we are chiefly dependent upon Josephus, and it is not clear how far this late Jewish historian was influenced by the prevailing prejudices against that ruler who figured as the arch enemy of the Pharisees. The incidents recorded reveal, however, a most sinister character. He was ambitious, but his ambitions were selfish and low. He was energetic and tireless, but his energy was wasted in futile undertakings. Furthermore, he was unscrupulous, vindictive, and merciless. There is not the slightest indication that he was actuated by any worthy ideal of service. To the Jewish state and race it was a great calamity that a man of this type should gain control of the nation at the moment when it had attained its greatest material strength. Under the kindly and wise guidance of Simon the subsequent history of the Jewish state would doubtless have been far different. Janneus's first aim was to establish his power as an absolute despot. He ardently accepted the ideal of an Oriental ruler that had been imposed upon the Jews during the short reign of his brother Aristobulus. In realizing this ambition he met, as did every other king in Israel's history, the strong opposition of the people and a bold assertion of their inherited liberties. His second aim was to break completely the power of the Pharisees. They were the party of the people and had no sympathy with his policies. In them, therefore, he recognized his chief opponents. His third ambition was to extend the territory of the Jewish state to its farthest natural bounds. Soon after the beginning of his reign he succeeded in arousing the bitter hostility of the Greek cities on his eastern and western borders, of the reigning kings of Egypt, and of the rising Arabian power to the south of the Dead Sea. The objects for which he strove were comparatively petty: possession of the cities of Ptolemais and Gaza and of certain east-Jordan cities, such as Gadara and Amathus. He was more often defeated than victorious, but his love of struggle and adventure and lust for conquest ever goaded him on. In desperation his subjects even ventured to call in Demetrius, the governor of Damascus, but when Alexander was driven away in defeat the nation's gratitude and loyalty to the Maccabean house reasserted itself and he was recalled. Instead of granting a general armistice and thus conciliating his distracted people, he treacherously used his new-won power to crucify publicly eight hundred of the Pharisees. Horror and fear seized the survivors, so that, according to Josephus, eight thousand of them fled into exile. After six years of civil war and the loss of fifty thousand lives, Alexander Janneus finally realized his first ambition and became absolute master of his kingdom. In achieving his ambitions, however, he well earned the title by which his contemporaries described him, "the Son of a Thracian," that is, Barbarian.

II. The Effects of His Rule. The disastrous effects of the reign of Alexander Janneus may be briefly recapitulated. They were: (1) the destruction of the loyalty of the majority of the Jews to the Maccabean house; (2) the intensifying of the opposition between Pharisees and Sadducees to the point of murderous hate; (3) the extension of the sphere of Jewish influence from the Mediterranean on the west to the desert on the east, and from the Lebanons to the southern desert; but (4) the draining of the life-blood and energies of the Jewish kingdom, so that it was far weaker and more disorganized than when Janneus came to the throne.

III. Alexandra's Reign (78-69 B.C.). Alexandra was the second queen who reigned in Israel's history. Her policy, unlike that of Athaliah of old, was on the whole constructive. Although she was the wife of Janneus, she reversed his policy, and placed the Pharisees in control. The return of the exiles and the restoration of the prophetic party promised peace and prosperity. The ancient law was expanded and rigorously enforced. According to the Talmud it was during this period that elementary schools were introduced in connection with each synagogue. Their exact nature is not known, but it is probable that the law was the subject studied and that the scribes were the teachers. This change of policy was undoubtedly very acceptable to the people, but the Pharisees made the grave mistake of using their new power to be revenged upon the Sadducean nobles who had supported the bloody policy of Alexander Janneus. They soon suffered the evil consequences of attempting to right wrong by wrong. The Sadducees found in Aristobulus, the ambitious and energetic younger son of Janneus, an effective champion. Alexandra, in permitting them to take possession of the many strongholds throughout the land, also committed a fatal error, for it gave them control of the military resources of the kingdom. Aristobulus was not slow in asserting his power, with the result that even before Alexandra died he had seized seventy-two of the fortresses and had aroused a large part of the people to revolt. While her reign was on the whole peaceful, it was but the lull before the great storm that swept over the nation.

IV. Quarrels between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Unfortunately Alexandra's older son, Hyrcanus, was indolent and inefficient. He had been appointed high priest and, when Aristobulus assumed the title of king, he compelled Hyrcanus II to be content with this humbler title. Aristobulus's reign might have been comparatively peaceful had not at this time a new and sinister influence appeared in the troubled politics of Palestine. It was one of the results of John Hyrcanus's forcible judaizing of the Idumeans. Antipater, the son of the Idumean whom Alexander Janneus had made governor of Idumea, recognized in the rivalry between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus an opportunity to mount to power. He first persuaded Hyrcanus to flee to Petra. Then, with the aid of the Arabian king, Aretas, he finally compelled Aristobulus and his followers to seek refuge on the temple hill in Jerusalem. The picture of the Jews divided into two hostile camps and engaged in bitter civil war in the very precincts of the temple under the leadership of the great-grandsons of the patriotic Simon presents a sad contrast to the noble spirit and valiant achievements of the founders of the Maccabean kingdom who had first taken up the sword in defence of the temple and its service.

V. Rome's Intervention. This situation gave Rome its desired opportunity for intervention. Pompey in 70 B.C. made a successful campaign against Mithridates, king of Pontus, and against Tigranes, king of Armenia. Rome's policy was to conquer all of southwestern Asia as far as the Euphrates. Ignoring the peril of the situation, both Aristobulus and Hyrcanus appealed to Pompey's lieutenant, Scaurus. As a result the Arabians were ordered to withdraw, and Aristobulus for a brief time was left master of the situation. In the spring of 63 B.C., however, when Pompey came to Damascus, there appeared before him three embassies, one representing the cause of Aristobulus, another that of Hyrcanus, and still a third presented the request of the Pharisees that Rome assume political control of Palestine and leave them free to devote themselves to the study and application of the their law. The fall of Aristobulus hastened what was now inevitable. Although he was held a prisoner by Pompey, his followers remained intrenched on the temple hill and were conquered only after a protracted siege and the loss of many lives. Aristobulus and his family were carried off captives to Rome to grace Pompey's triumph, and the request of the Pharisees was granted: Rome henceforth held Palestine under its direct control. Thus after a little more than a century (165-63 B.C.) the Jews again lost their independence, and the Maccabean kingdom became only a memory, never to be revived save for a brief moment.

VI. Causes of the Fall of the Jewish Kingdom. The Jewish kingdom fell as the result of causes which can be clearly recognized. It was primarily because the ideals and ambitions of the Maccabean leaders themselves became material and selfish. They proved unable to resist the temptations of success. Greed for power quenched their early patriotism. The material spirit of their age obscured the nobler ideals of their spiritual teachers. The result was a tyranny and corruption that made the later kings misleaders rather than true leaders of their nation. Parallel to the bitter struggle between the kings and their subjects was the bitter feud between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Normal party rivalry grew into murderous hatred, and in taking revenge upon each other they brought ruin upon the commonwealth. The final end was hastened by the suicidal feud between the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, fomented by the unprincipled machinations of the Idumean Antipater. In the final crisis the Pharisaic policy of submission and of peace at any cost paved the way for the realization of Rome's ambition and made the ultimate conquest of Palestine practically inevitable. Thus the kingdom, founded in the face of almost insuperable obstacles and consecrated with the life-blood of many heroes, fell ignominiously as the result of the same causes that throughout the ages have proved the ruin of even stronger empires.

VII. Political, Intellectual, and Religious Effects of the Maccabean Struggle. This century of valiant achievement, colossal errors, and overwhelming failure left its deep impression upon the Jewish race. It witnessed the return of many Jews of the dispersion to Jerusalem and Judea and the development of a strong sense of racial unity. Henceforth the Jews throughout the world looked to Jerusalem as their true political and religious capital. The events of this period intensified the ancient feud between Jew and Samaritan and gave the latter ample reason for that hostility toward their southern kinsmen which appears in the Gospel narratives. It was during this age that the parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees finally crystallized and formulated those tenets and policies which guided them during the next century. At this time the foundations were laid for the rule of the house of Herod which exerted such a baleful influence upon the fortunes and destinies of the Jews. It likewise marked the beginning and culmination of Rome's influence over the lands of the eastern Mediterranean and that subjection of the Jews to Gentile rulers which has continued until the present.

The Maccabean period gave to the Jews a greatly enlarged intellectual vision and led them to adopt many of the ideas of their Greek conquerors. In their literature it is easy to recognize the influence of the more logical Greek methods of reasoning and of the scientific attitude toward the universe. It was during this period that the wise were transformed into scribes, and the rule of the scribal method of thinking and interpretation began. The struggles through which the Jews passed intensified their love for the law and the temple services. Duty was more and more defined in the terms of ceremonial, and the Pharisees entered upon that vast and impossible task of providing rules for man's every act. Out of the struggles of the Maccabean period came that fusion of Hellenic and Jewish ideas that has become an important factor in all human thought. At last under the influence of the great crises through which they had passed, the belief in individual immortality gained wide acceptance among the Jews. Side by side with this came the belief in a personal devil and a hierarchy of demons opposed to the divine hierarchy at whose head was Jehovah. Last of all the taste of freedom under a Jewish ruler brought again to the front the kingly messianic hopes of the race, and led them to long and struggle for their realization. Thus in this brief century Judaism attained in many ways its final form, and only in the light of this process is it possible fully to understand and appreciate the background of the New Testament history.