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12. |
Hellenists take revenge on cHasidic
Jews [161 BCE] |
1 |
In the year 151[= 162
BCE]
Demetrius, son of Seleucus
(IV), left Rome and with a
band of men went up to a city by the sea and was made king (of
Syria)... |
5 |
And all the lawless and
irreligious men of Israel came before him, led by Alcimus,
who wanted to be high priest. |
6 |
And they accused the (Jewish)
people to the king, saying:
"Judah
(Maccabee) and his
brothers destroyed your friends and exiled us from our
land."... |
8 |
And the (Syrian) king chose
Bacchides, a comrade of the king who was commander beyond the
(Euphrates) River... |
9 |
And he sent him with the
irreligious Alcimus, whom he established as high-priest, and
commanded him to take vengeance on the sons of Israel. |
12 |
Then a group of scribes
gathered before Alcimus and Bacchides to seek justice. |
13 |
And the chasidim
were the first among the sons of Israel seeking peace with
them. |
14 |
For they said:
"A man who is priest from the seed of Aaron
has come with these forces. He will not wrong us." |
15 |
And he [Alcimus] spoke words of
peace with them and swore to them:
"We will not seek evil for you and your friends." |
16 |
And they believed him. And then
he arrested sixty men from among them and executed them within
one day. |
|
-- Septuagint,
1
Maccabees 7:1-16 |
13. |
Jews become
allies of Rome [160 BCE] |
1 |
Judah
(Maccabee) had heard of
the reputation of the Romans. They were
strong in force and content with all their allies. And if any would
ally themselves with them, they would establish friendship
with them... |
11 |
All the other
kingdoms and islands that had ever opposed them they
annihilated and enslaved... |
17 |
So Judah chose
Eupolemius, son of Johanan ben Hazzoz, and Jason ben Eleazar
and sent them to Rome to establish friendship and a treaty
with them, |
18 |
to lift the yoke of
Syria, because he saw that the kingdom of the Greeks [= Syria]
was subjecting Israel to slavery... |
21 |
The personal message pleased the
Romans. |
22 |
Now this is a copy of the reply
that was inscribed on bronze tablets and sent to Jerusalem, to
be a monument there to the peace and treaty
with the Jews: |
23 |
"For the Roman and the
Jewish people:
May things be well on sea and land forever!
May sword and enmity keep far from them! |
24 |
But if war is made on Rome
first, or on any of its allies and their domains, |
25 |
the Jewish nation
will be their wholehearted allies as the
occasion requires... |
27 |
In the same way, if war is made
on the Jewish people first, the Romans shall
be their active allies as the occasion
requires...." |
|
--- Septuagint,
1
Maccabees 8:1-27 |
14. |
Conquest of
Samaria & Idumea |
254 |
When (Johanan)
Hyrcanus [the son of Judah
Maccabee's brother, Simon]
heard of the death of Antiochus (VII in 129
BCE), he
immediately marched out to the Judean cities still under
Syria, thinking to find them empty of (Greek) soldiers and
defenders. And so they were. |
255 |
Then after six
months (he crossed the Jordan River and took) Madaba, with
many of his army suffering injury. Then he captured Samoga [in
Jordan] and its immediate surroundings. And next Shechem
and Gerizim and the Kuthite
[= Samaritan] nation, |
256 |
which lives under the shrine modeled on the the temple
in Jerusalem, which Alexander (the Great) had let Sanballat
build....* And now after 200 years this
(Samaritan) temple
happened to be devastated. |
257 |
Now Hyrcanus also
took the Idumean [= Edomite] cities of Adora and Marisa.
Making all of the Idumeans subjects, he allowed them to stay
in the region, if they were circumcised and
willing to observe Jewish laws. |
|
--- Josephus,
Antiquities
13.254-257 |
* |
Sanballat was governor of
Samaria in the mid-5th c. BCE under Persian rule, so the
Samaritan temple must have been constructed more than a
century before Alexander's conquest. Josephus' own
account of Alexander's triumphant visit (333 BCE) to Jerusalem
presupposes that the Samaritan temple was already in existence
[Antiquities
11.343]. His confusion here is traceable to his
earlier report that Alexander adorned both the Jewish &
Samaritan temples. |
15. |
A Jewish king
Judaizes Galilee [104 BCE] |
301 |
And when their father (Johanan)
Hyrcanus died (in 104 BCE), the oldest (son), Aristobulus
( I ), thought to
transform his regime into a kingdom, for
he considered it such. He was the first to don the diadem in the
481 years and three month since the (Jewish) people, freed
from slavery under the Babylonians, came back to their
homeland... |
318 |
He [Aristobulus I]
was king for one year. On the one hand, he
was nicknamed "the Greek-lover"; on the other, he
did much good for his country, fighting the Ituraeans and
gaining much of their territory [Galilee]
for Judea.
And he compelled the inhabitants to be circumcised
and to live according to the laws of the Jews,
if they wished to remain in their territory. |
|
--- Josephus,
Antiquities
13.301, 318 |
16. |
Sibling Rivals
lose their Kingdom [64 BCE] |
34 |
Sometime later (64 BCE), when Pompey
came to Damascus and invaded Coele-Syria
[Lebanon], emissaries from all over -- Syria and Egypt and Judea
-- came to him... |
41 |
So here he heard
from both the Jews and their leaders: Hyrcanus
( II ) and Aristobulus
( II ), who were each
other's opponents, and the people who did not recognize their
regime, opponents of both. For their fathers' tradition was to
obey the priests of the God they worshipped. But these (rival
brothers), who were offspring of priests, sought to trade in
that principle. Then the people would become slaves. |
77 |
By taking sides
against each other, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus became sources of
Jerusalem's
suffering. For we lost our freedom and became Roman
subjects. And the territory which we gained by arms
and took from the Syrians we were forced to return to the
Syrians. |
78 |
Moreover, in short
time the Romans exacted from us more than ten thousand talents
(as tribute). And the kingdom that used to be given by birth
to high priests (eventually) became the privilege of common
men [i.e., Herod]. |
91 |
And [Gabinius,
Roman governor of Syria in 57 BCE] divided the Jewish people
into five parts, establishing five councils [or Sanhedrins].
And the capitals were in Jerusalem
and Gadara
and Hammath. A fourth was in Jericho
and the fifth in Sepphoris
in Galilee. |
|
--- Josephus,
Antiquities
14.34, 41, 77-78, 91 |
|