Chapter XLVI: Part 46

"These kings promoted the settlement of Greeks and Syrians in
Palestine, so that it was by degrees all covered with cities
and towns of Grecian nomenclature. The narrow territory of
Judea alone kept free of them, but was surrounded with
settlers whose speech, customs, and creed were Greek. On the
other hand, the Jews went on spreading in lands where Greek
was spoken. A good many of these were planted in Egypt, in the
newly founded capital Antioch, in Lydia and Phrygia. Led on by
their love of trade, they soon became numerous in the
commercial cities of western Asia, Ephesus, Pergamus, Miletus,
Sardis, &c. From Egypt and Alexandria, in which city, at a
later period, they formed two-fifths of the inhabitants, they
drew along the coast of Africa to Cyrene and the towns of the
Pentapolis, and from Asia Anterior to the Macedonian and Greek
marts; for the national love of commerce became more and more
developed, till it absorbed all other occupations, and to this
certainly the general inclination for commercial intercourse,
prevalent at that period, greatly contributed. Thus it
happened that two movements, identical in their operation,
crossed each other, viz., an influx of Greek, or of Asiatic
but hellenised, settlers into Palestine, and an outpouring of
Jews and Samaritans into the, cities speaking the Greek
tongue. In olden times, while the Israelites still possessed a
national kingdom, they felt their isolation from other people
as a burden. It was as an oppressive yoke to them, which they
bore impatiently, and were always trying to shake off. They
wanted to live like other nations, to eat, drink, and
intermarry with them, and, together with their own God, to
honour the gods of the stranger also; for many raw and
carnally-minded Jews only looked upon the one special God and
protector of their nation as one god amongst many. But now
there was a complete change in this respect. The Jews
everywhere lived and acted upon the fundamental principle,
that between them and all other nations there was an
insurmountable barrier; they shut themselves off, and formed
in every town separate corporations, with officers of their
own; while at the same time they kept up a constant connexion
with the sanctuary at Jerusalem. They paid a tribute to the
temple there, which was carefully collected everywhere, and
from time to time conveyed in solemn procession to Jerusalem.
There alone, too, could the sacrifices and gifts which were
demanded by the law be offered. In this wise they preserved a
centre and a metropolis. And yet there followed from all this
an event, which in its consequences was one of the most
important in history, namely, the hellenising of the Jews who
were living out of Judea, and even, in a degree, of those who
remained in their own land. They were a people too gifted
intellectually to resist the magnetic power by which the
Hellenistic tongue and modes of thought and action worked even
upon such as were disposed to resist them on principle. The
Jews in the commercial towns readily acquired the Greek, and
soon forgot their mother tongue; and as the younger generation
already in their domestic circle were not taught Greek by
natives, as might be supposed, this Jewish Greek grew into a
peculiar idiom, the Hellenistic. During the reign of the
second Ptolemy, 284-247 B. C., the law of Moses was translated
at Alexandria into Greek, probably more to meet the religious
wants of the Jews of the dispersion than to gratify the desire
of the king. The necessity of a knowledge of Hebrew for the
use of the holy Scriptures was thereby done away with, and
Greek language and customs became more and more prevalent.
Individuals began to join this or that school of philosophy,
according to predilection and intellectual bias. The Platonic
philosophy had necessarily most attractions for the disciples
of Moses. The intrusion of Hellenism into Judea itself met
with a much more considerable resistance from the old
believing and conservative Jews. Those of the heathen
dispersion were obliged to be satisfied with mere prayer,
Bible readings and expositions, in their proseuchæ and
synagogues, and to do without the solemn worship and
sacrifices of the temple; but in Jerusalem the temple-worship
was carried out with all its ancient usages and symbols. There
presided the Sopherim, the Scribes or skilled expounders of
the law, a title first appropriated to Esdras (about 450 B.
C.). He was one of the founders of the new arrangements in the
restored state, and was a priest, and at the same time a judge
appointed by the king of Persia. … From that time forth
dependence on the law, pride in its possession as the pledge
of divine election, and the careful custody of this wall of
partition, sank deep into the character of the nation, and
became the source of many advantages as well as of serious
faults. … The later Jewish tradition makes much mention of
the great synagogue believed to have existed already in the
time of Esdras, or to have been founded by him. It is supposed
to have mustered 120 members, and, under the presidency of the
high-priest, was to be the guardian of the law and doctrine.
{1913}
One of its last rulers was Simon the Just, who was
high-priest, and the most distinguished doctor of his time
(that of the first Ptolemys). Afterwards this threefold
dignity or function of high-priest, scribe or rabbi, and of
Nasi or prince of the synagogue, were never united in one
person. … The high-priesthood fell into contempt, the more
it served foreign rulers as the venal instrument of their
caprice; but the Scribes flourished as being the preservers of
all theological and juridical knowledge, and were supported by
the respect and confidence of the people. … By the year 170
B. C., Hellenism had undoubtedly made such progress among the
Jews, in Palestine even, that the Assyrian king, Antiochus
Epiphanes, was able to plan the extirpation of the Jewish
religion, and the conversion of the temple at Jerusalem into a
temple of Jupiter Olympius."

_J. J. I. Döllinger,
The Gentile and the Jew
in the Courts of the Temple of Christ,
book 10, section 1 (volume 2)._

Twice, Antiochus Epiphanes crushed rebellion in Jerusalem with
awful ferocity. On the last occasion, the slain were believed
to number 80,000, while 10,000 captives were led away and sold
as slaves. The city was sacked and partly burned; the Temple
was plundered and polluted. "Not content with these
enormities, Antiochus determined to abolish altogether the
Jewish religion, and, if possible, entirely to exterminate the
race. With this intention, he issued an edict throughout his
dominions, calling upon all the nations who were subject to
his authority to renounce their religion and worship his gods,
and this order he enforced with the most severe pains and
penalties. The Jews were the only people who ventured to
disobey the edict, whereupon, Antiochus ordered them to be
treated with the utmost rigour, and sent to Jerusalem an old
man named Atheneas, who was well versed in the rites of the
Greek worship, as commissioner, to enforce obedience to his
commands. This old pagan dedicated the Temple to Jupiter
Olympus, and placed a statue of that false deity upon the
altar of burnt offering. This desecration was not confined to
Jerusalem, for everywhere throughout the Syrian empire groves
and temples were dedicated, and statues and altars erected, to
the heathen deities, and the worship of the true God was
everywhere prohibited, and punished as the worst of crimes.
That the chief fury of Antiochus's impious rage was directed
against the Jews is evident from the fact that, whilst a
general edict was published, condemning to death or torture
all those who refused to worship the idols, a special decree
was promulgated, by which it was made death to offer
sacrifices to the God of Israel, observe the Sabbath, practise
circumcision, or indeed to conform in the smallest degree to
the precepts of the Mosaic law. Every effort was also made to
destroy the copies of the Holy Scriptures; and persons
refusing to deliver them up were punished by death. In this
terrible distress, many of the Jews abandoned their homes and
took shelter in the wilderness, where 'they lived in the
mountains after the manner of beasts, and fed on herbs
continuously lest they should be partakers of the pollution'
(Maccabees v.). Of those who remained behind, some few yielded
to the temptation, and saved themselves by apostacy, but the
majority remained faithful to the God of their forefathers,
Who, in His own good time, hearkened to the prayers of His
people, and sent them a deliverer."

_E. H. Palmer,
History of the Jewish Nation,
chapter 7._

JEWS: B. C. 166-40.
Revolt of the Maccabees.
Reign of the Asmoneans.
Rise of Herod.

The heroic family called The Maccabees, which began and led
the revolt of the Jewish people against the oppression and
persecution of the Seleucidæan kings, bore, also, the name of
the Asmonean or Hasmonean family, derived from the name of
"its chief of four generations back, Chasmon, or Asmon, 'the
magnate.'" The head of the family at the time of the outbreak
of the revolt, and who precipitated it, was Mattathias. He had
five sons, the third of whom, Judas, became the military
leader and great hero of the nation in its struggle. To Judas
was given the surname or appellation of Makkabi, from whence
came his historical name of Judas Maccabæus, and the general
name of The Maccabees by which his family at large is commonly
designated. The surname "Makkabi" is conjectured to have had
the same meaning as that of Charles the "Martel"—viz., the
"Hammerer"; but this is questioned. "Under Judas the revolt
assumed larger proportions, and in a short time he was able to
meet and defeat the Syrians in the open field. The situation
which the Romans had created in Syria was favourable to the
Jewish cause. In order to find money to pay the tribute
imposed by Rome upon his house; Antiochus had to undertake an
expedition into the Far East, which depleted Syria of a large
number of troops. During the king's absence the government of
the country was entrusted to a high functionary named Lysias.
Lysias took a serious view of the rebellion in Judæa, and
despatched a force under the command of three generals to
suppress it. But this army met with alarming reverses at the
hands of Judas, and Lysias was obliged to go to Palestine in
person to conduct the campaign. Meanwhile Antiochus had been
apprised of the disasters which had befallen his captains, and
was hastening homewards to assume the supreme direction of
affairs, when death put a termination to his career (B. C.
164). The pressure of Roman policy upon Antiochus was the
indirect cause of the Jewish revolt, and the immediate cause
of the king's inability to suppress it. After the death of
Antiochus, the distracted state of Syria and the struggles of
rival pretenders for the crown strengthened the position of
the Jewish patriots. Antiochus V., son of the late king, was
only nine years old when he began to reign (B. C. 164). His
father had appointed a courtier named Philip regent during his
son's minority. But this arrangement did not satisfy Lysias,
who had the young king in his custody, and who was carrying on
the campaign in Palestine when the news of his supersession by
Philip arrived. Lysias immediately left off the contest with
Judas, and devoted his energies to the task of resisting
Philip's claims. At this juncture, if any historic value can
be attached to a statement in the Second Book of the
Maccabees, two Roman envoys, Quintus Memmius and Titus
Manlius, who were probably on their way from Alexandria to
Antioch, offered to take charge of Jewish interests at the
Syrian capital. Peace is said to have been the outcome of
their efforts (B. C. 162). But it was a peace which did not
endure.
{1914}
In the following year the Syrian king once more invaded
Palestine at the head of a great army, and, in spite of the
strenuous opposition of Judas, laid siege to the Holy City.
Famine soon reduced the garrison to the last extremities, and
their fate would have been a hard one had not the disordered
condition of Syria compelled the besiegers to accept
honourable terms. Whilst the siege was in progress news came
to the Syrian camp that Philip had put himself at the head of
a large army, with the intention of enforcing his claims to
the regency. No time was to be lost, and the king, acting on
the advice of Lysias, accorded the Jews religious liberty.
Jerusalem capitulated; and the same order of things was
established as had existed previous to the insurrection. Soon
after these events Antiochus V. was dethroned and executed by
his relative, Demetrius I. In Judæa the new monarch allowed
the people to retain the religious liberties granted them by
his predecessor, and had he exercised more judgment in the
selection of a High Priest it would have been impossible for
Judas to renew the struggle against Syria with any prospect of
success. The Assidæans, or Pious Ones, who afterwards
developed into the party known as the Pharisees, and who,
while their religion was at stake, were devoted followers of
Judas, were satisfied with the attainment of religious
freedom. But Judas and his friends, who formed the party which
afterwards became the Sadducees, … were unwilling to relax
their efforts till the country was completely independent. The
Assidæans, consisting of the scribes and the bulk of the
population, accepted Alcimus, the High Priest whom Demetrius
had appointed, and were disposed for peace. But the senseless
barbarities of Alcimus threw the Assidæans once more into the
arms of the war party, and the struggle began afresh. The High
Priest was obliged to flee from Jerusalem; Demetrius sent an
army to reinstate him, but Judas defeated the Syrian forces,
and the Jews enjoyed a short period of repose. … Two Jewish
delegates, Eupolemos and Jason, were sent to Italy to form an
alliance with Rome. The Senate, which never neglected an
opportunity of crippling the Syrian monarchy, accorded a
favourable reception to the Jewish envoys, and acknowledged
the independence of their country. … While these
negotiations were taking place the Syrian army again invaded
Palestine. Judas went forth to meet them, and, after a
desperate conflict, was defeated and slain [at Beer-Zath] (B.
C. 161). The death of their leader shattered the party of
freedom, and the Romans, probably because they saw no distinct
centre of authority left standing in the country, ignored the
treaty they had just made with the Jewish envoys, and left
Judæa to its fate. It was not by direct intervention that the
Romans helped the Jews forward on the path of independence; it
was by the disintegrating action of Roman policy on the
kingdom of Syria. The Jewish leaders did not fail to take
advantage of the opportunities which were thus afforded them.
About nine years after the death of Judas Maccabæus, the
Romans started a new pretender to the Syrian crown in the
person of Alexander Balas, a young man of unknown origin (B.
C. 152). Supported by the allies of Rome, Balas was able to
take the field against Demetrius, who became alarmed at the
threatening aspect of affairs: Jonathan, a brother of Judas,
was then at the head of the Jewish patriots (B. C. 161-142),
and Demetrius attempted by concessions to win him over to his
side. When the pretender Balas heard of this, he immediately
outbade Demetrius, and offered Jonathan the High Priesthood as
the price of his support. Jonathan sold himself to the highest
bidder, and, notwithstanding further profuse promises from
Demetrius, the Jewish leader remained true to his allegiance.
The war between the two rivals did not last long; Demetrius
was overthrown and slain (B. C. 151), and at the marriage of
the new king, Jonathan was appointed civil and military
governor of Judæa." The spiritual and the temporal government
of the Jews was now united in the office of High Priest.
Jonathan, captured and murdered by one of the Syrian
pretenders, was succeeded in the office (B. C. 142), by
another brother, Simon, who was assassinated, B. C. 135, by an
ambitious son-in-law. Simon's son, John Hyrcanus, took his
place.

_W. D. Morrison,
The Jews under Roman Rule,
chapter 1._

The Asmonean family had now become so established in its
princely character that the next of the line, Judas (who took
the Greek name Aristobulus), assumed the crown and title of
King (B. C. 105). Aristobulus reigned less than two years, and
was succeeded by his brother Jonathan (Jannæus) Alexander.
"These Jewish princes were as wide apart in character as in
name from the house whose honours they inherited. Aristobulus,
the bloody, … starved in prison his mother, whom John had
left as regent. … Alexander, named Jannæus, in a reign of
five and twenty years, was mostly occupied in petty
wars,—generally unsuccessful, but indefatigable to begin
afresh. He signalized himself in successive revolts of his
people, first by the barbarous slaughter of 6,000, then by a
civil war of some six years, which cost 10,000 lives, and
finally by crucifying 800. … A restless, dissolute,
ambitious man, called 'the Thracian' for his barbarities, his
rule abhorred except for the comparative mercy he showed in
the cities he had conquered, he died [B. C. 79] before the age
of fifty, having done the one service of confirming the Jewish
power upon the soil of Palestine."

_J. H. Allen,
Hebrew Men and Times,
chapter 10._

"When … Jannæus Alexander died, the Jewish kingdom stretched
towards the south over the whole Philistian territory as far
as the Egyptian frontier; towards the south-east as far as the
Nabatæan kingdom of Petra, from which Jannæus had wrested
considerable tracts on the right bank of the Jordan and the
Dead Sea; towards the north over Samaria and the Decapolis up
to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already making
arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously to
repel the aggressions of the Ityræans. The coast obeyed the
Jews from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the
important Gaza—Ascalon alone was still free; so that the
territory of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could
now be enumerated among the asylums of piracy. Now that the
Armenian invasion, just as it approached the borders of Judæa,
was averted by the intervention of Lucullus, … the gifted
rulers of the Hasmonæan house would probably have carried
their arms still further, had not the development of the power
of that remarkable conquering sacerdotal state been arrested
by internal divisions.
{1915}
The spirit of religious independence and the national
patriotism—the energetic union of which had called the
Maccabee state into life—very soon became dissociated and
even antagonistic. The Jewish orthodoxy [or Pharisaism]
gaining fresh strength in the times of the Maccabees, …
proposed as its practical aim a community of Jews composed of
the orthodox in all lands essentially irrespective of the
secular government—a community which found its visible points
of union in the tribute to the temple at Jerusalem obligatory
on every conscientious Jew and in the schools of religion and
spiritual courts, and its canonical superintendence in the
great temple consistory at Jerusalem, which was reconstituted
in the first period of the Maccabees and may be compared as
respects its sphere of jurisdiction to the Roman pontifical
college. Against this orthodoxy, which was becoming more and
more ossified into theological formalism and a painful
ceremonial service, was arrayed the opposition of the
so-called Sadducees—partly dogmatic, in so far as these
innovators acknowledged only the sacred books themselves and
conceded authority merely, not canonicity, to the 'bequests of
the scribes,' that is canonical tradition; partly political,
in so far as instead of a fatalistic waiting for the strong
arm of the Lord of Zebaoth they taught that the salvation of
the nation was to be expected from the weapons of this world,
and above all from the internal and external strengthening of
the kingdom of David as re-established in the glorious times
of the Maccabees. The partisans of orthodoxy found their
support in the priesthood and the multitude. … Jannæus had
kept down the priesthood with a strong hand; under his two
sons there arose … a civil and fraternal war, since the
Pharisees opposed the vigorous Aristobulus and attempted to
obtain their objects under the nominal rule of his brother,
the good-natured and indolent Hyrcanus. This dissension not
merely put a stop to the Jewish conquests, but gave also
foreign nations opportunity to interfere and to obtain a
commanding position in southern Syria. This was the case first
of all with the Nabatæans. This remarkable nation has often
been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the wandering
Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramæan branch
than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramæan, or,
according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian, stock
must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient
settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of
trade, to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these were the
Nabatæans on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez
and Aila, and in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their
ports the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those
of India; the great southern caravan-route, which ran from
Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf,
passed through the capital of the Nabatæans—Petra—whose
still magnificent rock-palaces and rock-tombs furnish clearer
evidence of the Nabatæan civilization than does an almost
extinct tradition. The party of the Pharisees, to whom after
the manner of priests the victory of their faction seemed not
too dearly bought at the price of the independence and
integrity of their country, solicited Aretas the king of the
Nabatæans for aid against Aristobulus, in return for which
they promised to give back to him all the conquests wrested
from him by Jannæus. Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it
was said, 50,000 men into Judæa and, reinforced by the
adherents of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged
in his capital."

_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 5, chapter 4 (volume 4)._

"While this was going on, Pompey had meanwhile begun his
victorious campaign in Asia [see ROME: B. C. 69-63]. He had
conquered Mithridates in B. C. 66, and had in the same year
received the voluntary submission of Tigranes. While he
himself now pressed on farther into Asia, he sent Scaurus to
Syria in B. C. 65. When that general arrived at Damascus he
heard of the war between the brothers in Judea, and pushed
forward without delay to see how he might turn to account this
strife between the rival princes. He had scarcely reached
Judea when ambassadors presented themselves before him, both
from Aristobulus and from Hyrcanus. They both sought his
favour and support. Aristobulus offered him in return four
hundred talents; and Hyrcanus could not be behind, and so
promised the same sum. But Scaurus trusted Aristobulus rather
because he was in a better position to fulfil his engagement,
and so decided to take his side. He ordered Aretas to withdraw
if he did not wish to be declared an enemy of the Romans.
Aretas did not venture to show opposition. He therefore raised
the siege, and thereupon Scaurus returned to Damascus. But
Aristobulus pursued Aretas on his way homeward, and inflicted
upon him a crushing defeat. But the Roman favour which
Aristobulus had so exerted himself to secure, under the
protection of which he believed himself to be safe, soon
proved fatal to his well-being and that of his country. He
himself left no stone unturned in order to win the goodwill of
Pompey as well as of Scaurus. He sent Pompey a costly present,
a skilfully wrought golden vine worth five hundred talents,
which Strabo found still on view at Rome in the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus. But all this could not save Aristobulus,
whenever Pompey found it to be for his advantage to withdraw
his favour and take the side of Hyrcanus. In the spring of B.
C. 63, Pompey proceeded from his winter quarters into Syria,
subdued the greater and smaller princes in the Lebanon, and
advanced by way of Heliopolis and Chalcis upon Damascus. There
he was met at one and the same time by representatives of
three Jewish parties. Not only did Aristobulus and Hyrcanus
appear, but the Jewish people also sent an embassy. Hyrcanus
complained that Aristobulus, in defiance of all law, had
violently assumed the government; Aristobulus justified his
conduct by pointing out the incapacity of Hyrcanus. But the
people wished to have nothing to do with either, asked for the
abolition of the monarchy and the restoration of the old
theocratic constitution of the priests. Pompey heard them, but
cautiously deferred any decision, and declared that he would
put all things in order when he had accomplished his
contemplated expedition against the Nabatheans. Till then all
parties were to maintain the peace. Aristobulus, however, was
by no means satisfied with this arrangement, and betrayed his
discontent by suddenly quitting Dium, whither he had
accompanied Pompey on his expedition against the Nabatheans.
Pompey grew suspicious, postponed his campaign against the
Nabatheans, and marched immediately against Aristobulus.
{1916}
He … pursued him through Jericho, and soon appeared in the
neighbourhood of Jerusalem. But now Aristobulus lost heart. He
betook himself to the camp of Pompey, gave him further
presents, and promised to surrender to him the city if Pompey
would suspend hostilities. Pompey was satisfied with this, and
sent his general Gabinius to take possession of the city,
while he retained Aristobulus in the camp. But Gabinius
returned without having obtained his object, for the people in
the city had shut the gates against him. Pompey was so enraged
at this that he put Aristobulus in prison, and immediately
advanced against the city. … The city was surrendered to
Pompey, who sent in his legate Piso, and without drawing sword
took possession of it. But the war faction gathered together
on the temple mount and there prepared themselves for
resistance. The temple mount was then, as afterwards, the
strongest point in Jerusalem. It presented to the east and the
south a sheer precipice. Also on the west it was separated
from the city by a deep ravine. Only on the north was there a
gradual slope; but even there approach was made almost
impossible by the construction of strong fortifications. In
this fortress, well nigh impregnable, the adherents of
Aristobulus had now taken refuge, and Pompey, whether he would
or not, had to engage upon a regular siege. … After a three
months' siege, a breach was made in the wall. A son of the
dictator Sulla was the first to make way through it with his
troops. Others quickly followed. Then began a frightful
massacre. The priests, who were then engaged offering
sacrifice, would not desist from the execution of their
office, and were hewn down at the altar. No less than 12,000
Jews are said to have lost their lives in this general
butchery. It was towards the close of autumn of the year B. C.
63, under Cicero's consulship, according to Josephus on the
very day of atonement, according to Dio Cassius on a Sabbath,
that this holy city bowed its head before the Roman commander.
Pompey himself forced his way into the Most Holy Place, into
which only the feet of the high priest had ever before
entered. But he left the treasures and precious things of the
temple untouched, and also took care that the service of God
should be continued without interruption. On the besieged he
passed a severe sentence. Those who had promoted the war were
beheaded; the city and the country were made tributary. …
The boundaries of the Jewish territories were greatly
curtailed. All the coast towns from Raphia to Dora were taken
from the Jews; and also all non-Jewish towns on the east of
the Jordan, such as Hippos, Gadara, Pella, Dium, and others;
also Scythopolis and Samaria, with the regions around them.
All these towns were immediately put under the rule of the
governor of the newly-formed Roman province of Syria. The
contracted Jewish territory was given over to Hyrcanus II.,
who was recognised as high priest, without the title of king.
… With the institutions of Pompey the freedom of the Jewish
people, after having existed for scarcely eighty years, if we
reckon it as beginning in B. C. 142, was completely
overthrown. Pompey, indeed, was acute enough to insist upon no
essential change in the internal government of the country. He
suffered the hierarchical constitution to remain intact, and
gave the people as their high priest Hyrcanus II., who was
favoured by the Pharisees. But the independence of the nation
was at an end, and the Jewish high priest was a vassal of the
Romans."

_E. Schürer,
History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ,
division 1, volume 1, pages 317-324._

Hyrcanus II. was not merely the vassal of the Romans; he was
the puppet of one of his own partisans—the able Idumean,
Antipater, who gathered the reins of government into his own
hands. "Antipater ruled without interfering with Hyrcanus; he
rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and appointed Phasael, the
eldest of his four heroic sons (whose mother was Kypros, an
Arabian), to be ruler of the district of the holy city, and
Herod the younger to be ruler of Galilee. This young man, who
was at that time scarcely twenty-five years old, was soon able
to surpass even his father. … He purified Galilee from the
robber-bands, of which Hezekiah was the most dreaded leader,
and by so doing, although he was already a mark for the hatred
borne by the national and priestly party against the Edomites,
as friends of their new tyrants the Romans, he distinguished
himself by dealing summarily with the robbers, without
appealing to the legal authorities. He therefore appeared
before the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem, to which he was summoned by
Hyrcanus, with a military escort, wearing purple, with his
head anointed, and bearing a letter of safe-conduct from his
patron Sextus Cæsar, the ruler of Syria. … Hyrcanus allowed
him to withdraw in defiance: he hastened to Syria, bought the
governments of Cœle-Syria and Samaria (B. C. 46), marched
thence with an army towards Jerusalem, and when he had with
difficulty been persuaded by his father and brother to return,
he rejoiced that he had at least menaced the country. Neither
the death of Julius Cæsar (B. C. March 44), the civil war at
Rome, nor the poisoning of his father Antipater at the table
of Hyrcanus in the year 43, interfered with Herod's success:
He bought the favour of Cæsar's murderers by the unexampled
haste with which he brought in large contributions, amounting
to a hundred talents (more than £20,000) from Galilee alone,
so that Cassius appointed him Procurator of Syria, and
promised him the dignity of king, in the event of a victory
over Anthony and Octavianus, a prospect which indeed cost his
father his life. Nor was Herod's power destroyed by the
unfortunate battle of Philippi in the autumn of B. C. 42. He
succeeded in gaining Anthony by the influence of his person
and of his wealth; and in spite of all the embassies of the
Jews, Phasael and Herod were appointed tetrarchs of the whole
of Judea in the year B. C. 41. His betrothal to Mariamne,
grand-child of Hyrcanus, which took place at the same time,
added the illusion of national and hereditary right to Herod's
previous good fortune. But there was first an interval of
hardship. Immediately afterwards, the Parthian armies overran
Upper Asia, while Anthony remained in Egypt, ensnared by
Cleopatra: they took Jerusalem [B. C. 40], and to please that
place as well as the Jews of Babylon, they installed
Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, as king, taking Phasael and
Hyrcanus prisoners, while Herod escaped with difficulty. All
was ended with a blow, Herod was put to flight, Phasael killed
himself, and Antigonus cut off the cars of Hyrcanus the high
priest. Herod landed in Italy as an adventurer.
{1917}
He met Anthony, and by his means also gained over Octavianus.
Fear and hatred of the Parthians effected even more than old
acquaintance and new engagements: and beyond his most daring
hopes a decree of the senate [B. C. 40] bestowed the kingdom
of Judea upon him."

_T. Keim,
History of Jesus of Nazara,
volume I, page 231._

JEWS: B. C. 40-A. D. 44.
Herod and the Herodians.
Roman rule.

Returning to Judæa with his new rank and the confirmed support
of Rome, "Herod slowly obtained possession of the country, not
without the help of Roman legions, and in a third campaign, in
June (Sivan), B. C. 37, occupied Jerusalem [after a siege of
half a year] and the Temple, in the halls of which fire raged,
contrary to his wish, and blood streamed through its courts.
This was the second Roman occupation of Jerusalem, after an
interval of twenty-six years, even to a day. Antigonus fell,
by the king's wish, beneath the axe of Anthony, and the
Maccabean house had ceased to reign. The new kingdom underwent
its final crisis in the war between Octavianus and Anthony, in
which Herod was constrained to take part with Anthony. … The
frankness with which, after the battle of Actium (September,
B. C. 31), he proclaimed his friendship for Anthony to
Octavianus at the island of Rhodes, in order to set before him
the prospect of a like faithfulness, procured the crown for
him afresh, which Octavianus set upon his head." Octavianus
"restored to him all the possessions which his intriguing
enemy Cleopatra had obtained at his expense in the south of
the country and on its western coast, giving to him Gadra,
Hippo, Samaria, and on the coast Gaza, Anthedon, Joppa, the
tower of Strato, and in short the whole country, and even more
than he had lost by Pompey's conquests. A few years later the
same benefactor enlarged the kingdom on the north-east, by
making over to Herod, between the years B. C. 24-21, the wide
extent of territory reaching to Anti-Lebanon, and Damascus, in
order to protect that city from attacks on the side of the
desert. He was appointed Procurator-General of Syria, and
afterwards nearly obtained the government of Arabia. It was in
fact almost the kingdom of David which was again united under
Herod. Herod enjoyed the favour of Octavianus, with few
intervals, to the last. … Herod did not merely owe his
success to that officious attention which displayed the
greatness of Rome in costly hospitalities, gifts, and edifices
of every kind, but to his genuine fidelity and manly heroism,
his pre-eminent wisdom and readiness to accept the culture of
the West, qualities which were recognized as adapting him to
be a most useful ally in the territory which bounded the
eastern empire of Rome, where the inhabitants were so ready to
take offence. Herod, in a certain sense, emulated his friend
in Rome, in introducing an Augustan era into his land. He, as
well as Octavianus, put an end to war, and the dominion which
had been cemented together by the blood of its citizens
enjoyed a long peace, lasting for almost forty years. … The
prosperity of the country increased so much in these quiet
times that Herod, when he began to build the Temple, boasted
of the wealth and income which had accumulated in an
unprecedented manner, so as to confirm the most fabulous
accounts of the luxurious expenditure of his reign. … Herod
was not devoid of nobler qualities, even although they have
been forgotten by the Jews and Christians. He was not merely a
brave leader in war, a bold hunter and rider, and a sagacious
ruler; there was in him a large-heartedness and an innate
nobility of mind which enabled him to be a benefactor of his
people. This fundamental characteristic of his nature,
inherited from his father, is admitted by the Jewish
historian, times out of number, and has been shown by his
affection for his father, mother, and brothers, and also for
his friends, by his beneficence in good fortune, and even in
adversity. … When in the thirteenth year of his reign (B. C.
25), some years before the building of the Temple, famine and
sickness devastated the land, he sold the gold and silver
treasures in his house, and himself became poor, while he
bespoke great quantities of grain from Egypt, which he
dispensed, and caused to be made into bread: he clothed the
poor, and fed 50,000 men at his own expense: he himself sent
help to the towns of Syria, and obtained the immediate, and
indeed the enduring gratitude of the people as a second
Joseph. Yet it was only the large-heartedness of a barbarian,
without true culture, or deeper morality. Hence came the
unscrupulousness, the want of consideration for the national
peculiarities which he opposed, the base cunning and vanity
which coloured all his actions, and hence again, especially in
later life, he became subject to caprices, to anger and
repentance, to mistrust and cruelty, to the wiles of women and
of eunuchs. He was, in short, only the petty tyrant, the
successful upstart who was self-seeking, and at once rash and
timid; a beggar before Augustus; a foolish time-server before
the Greek and Roman world; a tyrant in his own house, and
incapable either of resisting influence or of enduring
contradiction. … The dangerous position of the upstart, with
respect to the earlier royal family and to the national
aversion, the divisions of his numerous family, the intrigues
of a court of women, eunuchs, barbers, and frivolous
flatterers of every description, drew him on, as if with
demoniacal power, from one stage of cruelty to another. …
Daily executions began on his entry into Jerusalem in the year
B. C. 37 with the execution of Antigonus, of the nephew of
Hyrcanus, and of his own dependants. … He pardoned no one
whom he suspected: he enforced obedience by an oath, and
whoever would not swear forfeited his life. Innumerable people
disappeared mysteriously in the fortress of Hyrcania. Life was
forfeited even for the offence of meeting or standing
together, when it was noticed by the countless spies in the
city and on the highways, and indeed by himself in his rounds
by night. The bloody decimation of his own family was most
revolting. About the year B. C. 35 he caused his wife's
brother Aristobulus, who had been high priest for eighteen
years, to be stifled by his Gallic guards in a pond at
Jericho, because he was popular, and belonged to the old
family: in the year B. C. 31, after the battle of Actium, he
murdered his grandfather-in-law Hyrcanus, aged eighty years,
and in the year B. C. 30 or 29 his wife Mariamne, and a little
later her intriguing mother Alexandra, since they had become
objects of suspicion to him: in the year B. C. 25 his
brother-in-law, Kostobar, find a long line of friends were
slain: about the year B. C. 6, the sons of Mariamne, Alexander
and Aristobulus, were judicially condemned and strangled in
Samaria: and finally the diabolical Antipater, the son of the
first marriage, who, together with Salome, Herod's sister, and
with Alexandra, his mother-in-law, had taken the greatest part
in the crimes of the family."

_T. Keim,
History of Jesus of Nazara,
volume 1, pages 233-246._

{1918}

Herod died within the year (B. C. 4) which has been most
generally agreed upon as that of the birth of Jesus. By ten
wives he had had many children, and had slain not a few; but a
large family survived, to quarrel over the heritage, disputing
a will which Herod left. There was a hearing of the disputants
at Rome, and also a hearing given to deputies of the Jewish
people, who prayed to be delivered from the Herodian family,
all and singly. The latter prayer, however, received small
consideration. The imperial judgment established Archelaus,
eldest son of Herod's sixth wife, Malthace, in the sovereignty
of Judæa, Idumæa, and Samaria, with the title of Ethnarch. To
Herod Antipas, second son of the same mother, it gave Galilee
and Peræa. Philip, another son, by a seventh wife, was made
tetrarch of a small principality. Archelaus governed so
oppressively that, after some years (A. D. 6), he was deposed
by the Romans and banished to Gaul. Judæa was then joined to
the præfecture of Syria, under a succession of Roman
governors, the fifth of whom was Pontius Pilate. "Judaea thus
became in the year 6 A. D. a Roman province of the second
rank, and, apart from the ephemeral restoration of the kingdom
of Jerusalem under Claudius in the years 41-44, thenceforth
remained a Roman province. Instead of the previous native
princes holding office for life and, under reservation of
their being confirmed by the Roman government, hereditary,
came an official of the equestrian order, nominated and liable
to recall by the emperor. The port of Caesarea rebuilt by
Herod after a Hellenic model became, probably at once, the
seat of Roman administration. The exemption of the land from
Roman garrison, as a matter of course, ceased, but, as
throughout in provinces of second rank, the Roman military
force consisted only of a moderate number of cavalry and
infantry divisions of the inferior class; subsequently one ala
and five cohorts—about 3,000 men—were stationed there. These
troops were perhaps taken over from the earlier government, at
least in great part formed in the country itself, mostly,
however, from Samaritans and Syrian Greeks. The province did
not obtain a legionary garrison, and even in the territories
adjoining Judaea there was stationed at the most one of the
four Syrian legions. To Jerusalem there came a standing Roman
commandant, who took up his abode in the royal castle, with a
weak standing garrison; only during the time of the Passover,
when the whole land and countless strangers flocked to the
temple, a stronger division of Roman soldiers was stationed in
a colonnade belonging to the temple. … For the native
authorities in Judaea as everywhere the urban communities
were, as far as possible, taken as a basis. Samaria, or as the
town was now called, Sebaste, the newly laid out Caesarea, and
the other urban communities contained in the former kingdom of
Archelaus, were self-administering, under superintendence of
the Roman authority. The government also of the capital with
the large territory belonging to it was organised in a similar
way. Already in the pre-Roman period under the Seleucids there
was formed … in Jerusalem a council of the elders, the
Synhedrion, or as Judaised, the Sanhedrin. The presidency in
it was held by the high priest, whom each ruler of the land,
if he was not possibly himself high priest, appointed for the
time. To the college belonged the former high priests and
esteemed experts in the law. This assembly, in which the
aristocratic element preponderated, acted as the supreme
spiritual representative of the whole body of Jews, and, so
far as this was not to be separated from it, also as the
secular representative in particular of the community of
Jerusalem. It is only the later Rabbinism that has by a pious
fiction transformed the Sanhedrion of Jerusalem into a
spiritual institute of Mosaic appointment. It corresponded
essentially to the council of the Greek urban constitution,
but certainly bore, as respected its composition as well as
its sphere of working, a more spiritual character than
belonged to the Greek representations of the community. To
this Synhedrion and its high priest, who was now nominated by
the procurator as representative of the imperial suzerain, the
Roman government left or committed that jurisdiction which in
the Hellenic subject communities belonged to the urban
authorities and the common councils. With indifferent
short-sightedness it allowed to the transcendental Messianism
of the Pharisees free course, and to the by no means
transcendental land-consistory—acting until the Messiah
should arrive—tolerably free sway in affairs of faith, of
manners, and of law, where Roman interests were not directly
affected thereby. This applied in particular to the
administration of justice. It is true that, as far as Roman
burgesses were concerned in the matter, justice in civil as in
criminal affairs must have been reserved for the Roman
tribunals even already before the annexation of the land. But
civil justice over the Jews remained even after that
annexation chiefly with the local authority. Criminal justice
over them was exercised by the latter probably in general
concurrently with the Roman procurator; only sentences of
death could not be executed by it otherwise than after
confirmation by the imperial magistrate. In the main those
arrangements were the inevitable consequences of the abolition
of the principality, and when the Jews had obtained this
request of theirs, they in fact obtained those arrangements
along with it. … The local coining of petty moneys, as
formerly practised by the kings, now took place in the name of
the Roman ruler; but on account of the Jewish abhorrence of
images the head of the emperor was not even placed on the
coins. Setting foot within the interior of the temple
continued to be forbidden in the case of every non-Jew under
penalty of death. … In the very beginning of the reign of
Tiberius the Jews, like the Syrians, complained of the
pressure of the taxes; especially the prolonged administration
of Pontius Pilatus is charged with all the usual official
crimes by a not unfair observer. But Tiberius, as the same Jew
says, had during the twenty-three years of his reign
maintained the time-hallowed holy customs, and in no part set
them aside or violated them. This is the more to be
recognised, seeing that the same emperor in the West
interfered against the Jews more emphatically than any other,
and thus the long-suffering and caution shown by him in Judaea
cannot be traced back to personal favour for Judaism. In spite of
all this both the opposition on principle to the Roman
government and the violent efforts at self-help on the part of
the faithful developed themselves even in this time of peace."

_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome: The Provinces, from Caesar to Diocletian,
book 8, chapter 11._

{1919}

In the year 41 A. D. the house of Herod rose to power again,
in the person of his grandson, Herod Agrippa, descendant of
the unfortunate Mariamne. Agrippa had lived long at Rome and
won the favor of two successive emperors, Caligula and
Claudius. Caligula deposed Herod Antipas from the tetrarchy of
Galilee and conferred it on Agrippa. Claudius, in 41, added
Judæa and Samaria to his dominions, establishing him in a
kingdom even greater than that of his grandfather. He died
suddenly in 44 A. D. and Judæa again relapsed to the state of
a Roman province. His young son, also named Herod Agrippa, was
provided, after a few years, with a small kingdom, that of
Chalcis, exchanged later for one made up of other districts in
Palestine. After the destruction of Jerusalem he retired to
Rome, and the line of Herod ended with him.

_H. H. Milman,
History of the Jews,
book 12._

ALSO IN:
_Josephus,
Antiquity of the Jews,
books 15-20._

_H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 5, section 2._

JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.
Uncertainty of the date of the birth of Jesus.