In just this way opposition to the orientalizing of the imperial religion produced the reactionary reforms of Augustus, and much later opposition to an excessive clerical interference with life expressed itself in the very real paganism of the Italian Renaissance. In all these instances the attempt was deliberately made to rebuild with material still present, even if largely discarded, a structure that had fallen into ruins. The success of such movements depends wholly on the amount of material still present. If it has to be painfully gathered and swept together from forgotten corners, success is more than problematic. The Jewish reactionaries were fortunate in that the ancient institutions still held their ground, and in having no huge gap of disuse to fill.
They were also fortunate that the actively Hellenizing party was limited in numbers, and the line of demarcation was the easily noticeable one of wealth and position. Not all men of wealth were in this class. Such a man as Ben Sira, in whose book some have detected Greek elements, betrays no Hellenizing tendencies.[[123]] He is Jew to the marrow, and he can be no isolated phenomenon. But there had been a rapid growth of a moneyed class, and this not so much composed of great landowners as of the newer class of capitalists, who grew rich through the various forms of financial speculation then open, particularly the tax-farmers, of whom that magnificent vulture, the Tobiad Joseph, is a permanent type.[[124]] The life of these men involved such an association with king and court that marked discrepancies of social custom, such as dietary regulations, or any form of abstinence, as well as differences in dress, were not to be thought of.
It is unfortunate that any discussion of the nature and character of the opposition involves a controversial question of the first magnitude, that which concerns the Hasidim, or ʽAssidaei. It were idle to enumerate, much less to examine critically, the theories that have been advanced. Our evidence is so scanty that it can be made to fit into many different schemes, all of which can be shown to be conceivable. The simplest interpretation of the extant sources however is by far the best, and it has further the merit of being the longest-established and most widely current.
Now concerning the Hasidim we have only three passages that can be considered even approximately contemporary, two in the First Book of Maccabees and one in the Second.
The first passage, I Macc. ii. 41, states that after the martyrdom of the loyal Jews who had taken refuge in the desert, there united with Mattathias the συναγωγὴ Ἁσσιδαίων, “the congregation of Hasidim, a body of great power and influence in Israel, containing all those who were devoted to the Law.” In the second passage, I Macc. vii. 12, we read that when the renegade high priest Alcimus and the Greek prefect Bacchides entered Judah with peaceful overtures, they were met by the congregation of scribes, who brought their lawsuits to him, and then recognized his authority. “And the ‘Asidaei were the first among the children of Israel, and they also sought peace from them. For they said, ‘A priest has come of the seed of Aaron with a powerful army, and he will not injure us.’”
Taken together, these passages are best understood to mean that at the beginning of the Hasmonean revolt an already existing and powerful group, known as the “ʽAsidaei,” or “Hasidim,” gave their official support to the Modin rebels, but that upon the arrival of the duly ordained high priest they, or at any rate their officials, put themselves under his authority, to their own undoing. The author of I Maccabees speaks in terms of the highest respect of them, and applies to the treacherous murder of their leaders the words of Psalm lxxix.
In II Macc. xiv. 6, Alcimus replies to the question of King Demetrius as follows: “The so-called ʽAsidaei among the Jews, of whom Judas Maccabeus is the leader, maintain the war and sedition, and will not permit the realm to secure peace.” It will be seen that this passage is not necessarily in contradiction with those of I Maccabees, since it is here put into the mouth of Alcimus, and is meant to be a wilful misrepresentation of the facts on his part. Like the other passage, it implies that such a definite body with a distinct name existed before the Hasmonean revolt.
To find in Psalms xii., lxxxix., cxlix., and others references to the same group of men is quite gratuitous. The ordinary sense of “righteous” or “saintly” amply satisfies every one of the occurrences of the word Hasid in the Psalms. And the figurative קהל חסידים (Ps. cxlix. 1) no more implies an organized body than קהל מרעים of Psalm xxvi. 5 implies a formal association of evil-doers, a Camorra. We shall be compelled to rely wholly on the passages in Maccabees for any information about the ʽAssidaei, or Hasidim, in the sense of a definite organization bearing that title.
Who were these ʽAssidaei? That admirable writer and sturdy patriot, the author of I Maccabees, says they were a body of great power and influence in Israel, ἰσχυρὰ δυνάμει, the leaders of the Jews, and, as has been seen, organized before the revolt. Nothing is clearer than that they are not identical with the “scribes,” with whom they are grouped in I Macc. vii., among those who acknowledged Alcimus. It is equally clear that they are not at all the same as the Hasmonean partisans, for they join Mattathiah later, and abandon Judah, at least temporarily, early in the struggle. They are characterized by their zeal for the Law, a zeal which naturally manifested itself in strong opposition to Hellenism.
In Palestine, accordingly, for at least a generation before the revolt, the disintegrating tendencies of Hellenism, as evidenced in the apostasy of many wealthy Jews and in the neglect of many traditional customs on the part of others, provoked an organized opposition. Forming themselves into a fraternity or groups of corporate bodies, to which they applied the name of “saints,” the opponents of the Greeks directed their efforts to the exact fulfilment of the Torah, and no doubt carried on a violent polemic against Greek innovations, however harmless and valuable. At about the same time an exactly similar movement among Egyptians had brought the Ptolemies to terms. It was not of course to be expected that a single province of the Syrian-Babylonian monarchy would accomplish the same result. In the eyes of the Antiochene court their programme was no doubt treasonable fanaticism. But it was not, as in the case of Egypt, directly political in its scope, and it might never have led to armed conflict.