Читать книгу History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6) - Graetz Heinrich - Страница 2

Character of Aristobulus – Antigonus – Mythical Account of his Death – Alexander Jannæus: his Character and Enterprises – His Support of the Pharisees – Simon ben Shetach – Alexander's Breach with the Pharisees, and its Consequences – His last Wars and Death – Salome Alexandra's Relations to the Opposing Parties – The Synhedrion – Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach – Institutions against the Sadducees – Party Hatred – Diogenes – Persecution of the Sadducees – Death of Alexandra.

106–69 B. C. E

John Hyrcanus had proclaimed his wife queen, and his eldest son, Judah, high priest. The latter is better known by his Greek name Aristobulus, for he, like his brothers and successors, bore a Greek as well as a Hebrew name. But it was soon evident that the Greek custom of placing a female ruler at the head of the State was not looked upon with favor in Judæa. Thus Aristobulus was able to remove his mother from her official position without creating any disturbance, and he then united in his own person the two dignities of ruler and high priest. It is said that he was the first of the Hasmonæans to assume the royal title; but this title did not add in any way to his power or his importance. His coins, indeed, which have since been discovered, bear only the following inscription, "The High Priest Judah, and the Commonwealth of the Judæans," and they are engraved with the same emblem as those of his father, viz., a cornucopia, although this symbol of plenty was hardly a truthful characteristic of the times.

The seed of discord sown by Hyrcanus grew and spread alarmingly in the reigns of his descendants. In vain did the successive rulers attempt to raise the importance of the royal dignity, in vain did they surround themselves with a body-guard of trusty hirelings and perform the most brilliant feats of valor, the breach between them and their subjects became irreparable, and no remedy proved effectual. The royal house and the people were no longer at one; political life was separated from religious life, and the two were pursuing opposite paths.

The king, Aristobulus, not only supplanted his mother upon the throne, but he also imprisoned her with three of his brothers. His brother Antigonus alone, of like temperament to himself and his companion-in-arms, whom he tenderly loved, was permitted to take part in the government. In spite of the meager and unsatisfactory accounts of his short reign, we may gather from them that he followed the example of his father's last years, in remaining closely connected with the Sadducees, and in keeping the Pharisees from all power and influence. Aristobulus had but few friends in his own family, and he does not appear to have been beloved by his subjects. The fact of his having had a decided preference for Hellenism accounts for his surname, which was honored by the Greeks and hated by the Judæans – "Friend of the Hellenes." This one characteristic gave such offense to the people that they were ready to ascribe to him the authorship of any evil deed that might occur in the kingdom. Whilst the Greeks called him fair-minded and modest, the Judæans accused him of heartlessness and cruelty. His mother expired during her imprisonment, possibly of old age; evil report whispered that her own son was guilty of having allowed her to die of starvation. His favorite brother, Antigonus, was foully murdered (probably through the intrigues of the party hostile to the Hasmonæans); sharp-tongued calumny affirmed that the king, jealous of him, was the author of the foul deed, and tradition has woven a web of tragic incidents round the sad fate of Antigonus. But of this later.

Aristobulus had inherited not only his father's military ability, but also his plans of extending Judæa in a northeasterly direction. The Ituræans and the Trachonites, who often left their mild, pastoral pursuits for the rougher trade of war, occupied the district surrounding the gigantic Mount Hermon, and eastwards as far as the lovely plain of Damascus. Against these half-barbaric tribes Aristobulus undertook a campaign, probably continuing what his father had commenced. His brother Antigonus, in whose company he had won his first laurels when fighting against the Samaritans and the Syrians, was once more his companion-in-arms. The fortunes of war were favorable to Aristobulus, as they had been to his father; he acquired new territory for Judæa, and, like his father, forced the Judæan religion upon the conquered people. Continued conquests in the same direction would have put the caravan roads leading from the land of the Euphrates to Egypt into the hands of the Judæans; which possession, combined with the warlike courage of the inhabitants and the defensive condition of the fortresses, might have permitted Judæa to attain an important position among the nations. But, as though it had been decreed by Providence that Judæa should not gain influence in such a manner, Aristobulus was forced by severe illness to abandon his conquests and to return to Jerusalem. Antigonus, it is true, carried on the war successfully for some little time; but after his return to the capital, for the celebration of the festivals in the approaching month of Tishri, neither he nor his royal brother was fated ever again to tread the arena of war. Antigonus fell, as was mentioned previously, by the hand of an assassin, and Aristobulus died of a malignant disease, after a reign of one year (106–105).

The deaths of the two brothers following in close succession gave evil-tongued calumny the opportunity of inventing the following fearful tragedy: It was said that the opponents of Antigonus seized the occasion of his triumphal return to excite the suffering king's jealousy. Aristobulus, while still reposing confidence in his brother, sent for Antigonus, and intimated that he should appear unarmed. For greater protection he had his body-guard stationed in one of the passages, and gave orders that Antigonus was to be dispatched forthwith if he should enter armed. The queen, who hated Antigonus, made use of this order for the destruction of her brother-in-law, for she persuaded him to go fully equipped to the king's chamber, and in one of the dark passages of the tower of Straton the foul deed was executed. When the king heard that his commands had been carried out he was violently affected, and his grief caused a hemorrhage. His servant, in carrying away a vessel filled with the blood that he had lost, slipped upon the floor of the antechamber, still wet with the blood of the assassinated man, and, dropping the vessel, caused the blood of the two brothers to mingle. This accident was said to have had so overpowering an effect upon the king's mind that he instantly declared himself to be his brother's murderer, and the agony of remorse was the final cause of his death. Tradition adds that an Essene seer of the name of Judah had not only predicted the violent death of Antigonus, but also that it would take place in the tower of Straton.

The commencement of the reign of Aristobulus's successor is involved in legend. From this we gather that Alexander, whose Judæan name Jannaï (Jannæus) is the abbreviation of Jonathan, had not only been imprisoned by his brother, but had been so hated by his father that he had been banished to Galilee. This was the result of a dream, in which it had been revealed to John Hyrcanus that his third son would one day be king of Judæa. The widow of Aristobulus is said to have released him from prison, and to have given him her hand with the crown. But in that case Alexander would have married a widow, which it was unlawful for him, as high priest, to do. It is more probable that Alexander ascended the throne, being the nearest heir to it, without the aid of the widow of Aristobulus. Nor is there any foundation for the story that Alexander commenced his reign by the murder of a brother with whom he had actually shared the sufferings of his captivity. Alexander appears to have begun by studying the people's wishes, for the Pharisees were once more allowed to appear at court. Simon ben Shetach, the brother of his wife, Queen Salome, the champion of the Pharisees, was constantly in the king's presence.

Alexander Jannæus, who came to the throne at the age of twenty-three, was as warlike as the family from which he sprung, but he was wanting in the generalship and the judgment of his ancestors. He rushed madly into military undertakings, thus weakening the power of the people, and bringing the State more than once to the verge of destruction. The seven and twenty years of his reign were passed in foreign and civil wars, and were not calculated to increase the material prosperity of the nation. His good luck, however, was greater than his ability, for it enabled him to extricate himself from many a critical position into which he had brought himself, and also, upon the whole, to enlarge the territory of Judæa. Like his father, he employed mercenaries for his wars, whom he hired from Pisidia and Cilicia. He did not dare enroll Syrian troops, the hatred that existed between Judæans and Syrians being too deeply ingrained to permit the harmonious working of the two to be counted upon.

Alexander's attention was principally directed to the seaports which had managed to free themselves from Syrian rule, owing to the rivalry that existed between the two half-brothers, Antiochus Grypus and Cyzicenus. He was particularly anxious to possess himself of the thickly-populated and important seaport town of Ptolemaïs, colonized by Judæans. Whilst his troops overran the district of Gaza, then under the dominion of Zoïlus, a captain of mercenaries, he pressed the seaport town himself with a persistent siege. The inhabitants of Ptolemaïs turned for help to the Egyptian prince Ptolemy Lathurus, who, at open warfare with his mother, had seized upon Cyprus. Lathurus, glad to have found an opportunity of acquiring greater power, and of being able at the same time to approach the caravan roads of Egypt, hastened to send thirty thousand men to the Judæan coast. He chose a Sabbath day for victoriously driving the Judæan army, consisting of at least fifty thousand men, from Asochis, near Sepphoris, back to the Jordan. More than thirty thousand of Alexander's troops remained on the field of battle, many were taken prisoners, whilst the others fled. Lathurus, with part of his army, marched through Judæa, slaughtering the inhabitants, without sparing women or children. He wished not only to revenge himself upon Alexander, but also upon the Judæans, for had they not been his enemies in Egypt? Accho likewise surrendered, and Gaza voluntarily opened its gates to him.

This crushing defeat would doubtless have brought Judæa into the most revolting slavery, had not Cleopatra attempted to snatch the fruit of her son's triumphs from him before he could turn them against herself. She sent a mighty army against Lathurus, under the command of two Judæan generals, Helkias and Ananias, the two sons of Onias, to whom she was indebted for the integrity of her crown. Helkias died during the campaign, and his brother took his place in the council and in the field. The position of trust occupied by Ananias was of distinct advantage to his compatriots in Judæa. Cleopatra had been urged not to lose the favorable opportunity, when Judæa was unable to forego her help, of invading that country and of dethroning Alexander. But Ananias was indignant at this advice. He not only pointed out the disgrace of such faithlessness, but he made the queen understand the evil consequences that would follow upon such a step. Many Egyptian Judæans, who were the upholders of her throne against the threatened attacks of her son, would make common cause with her enemies, were she to strike a blow at the independence of their country. His words even contained the menace that he would, in such case, not only withhold his political knowledge and his generalship from her interests, but that he might possibly devote them to the cause of her opponents. This language had its desired effect upon the queen; she rejected the cunning advice of the enemies of the Jews, and made an offensive and defensive league with Alexander at Bethzur (98). Lathurus was obliged to leave Judæa and to retreat with his army to Cyprus. All the cities that had resisted the arms of the Judæan king were now visited by his wrath.

But he was, above all things, determined upon retaking Gaza. This object was accomplished only after a year of desperate fighting, and was finally brought about by an act of treachery. All the cruelty inherent in Alexander was poured out upon the besieged inhabitants of Gaza. He executed some of the most distinguished amongst them, and the terror he inspired was so great that many of the men killed their own wives and children to prevent them from falling into Judæan slavery (96).

The nine years of Alexander's reign had been too prolific in dangerous and perplexing situations to allow of his disturbing the internal harmony of his country. He appears to have been strictly neutral in the strife that was raging between the Pharisees and Sadducees. His wife Salome may have exercised her influence in urging him to maintain this neutral position, as she was a warm partisan of the once-hated Pharisees.

Alexander appears to have made Simon ben Shetach the mediator between the two parties; the Pharisees being still somewhat in the background, and the Sadducees holding posts of trust. Ever since John Hyrcanus's secession from Pharisaism, the Great Council had been composed of Sadducæan members, and as long as one party was thus openly preferred to the other, peace and reconciliation seemed impossible. The king may, therefore, have been inspired by the wish to bring about some kind of equality between the two parties by dividing offices and dignities between them. But the Pharisees positively refused to act conjointly with their opponents and offered the most active resistance. Simon ben Shetach alone allowed himself to be chosen member of the Council, secretly determining to purge it by degrees of its Sadducæan element.

Alexander's impartial conduct continued only so long as the critical position drew his attention away from home affairs. It changed visibly when he returned from his campaign, the conqueror of cities and provinces deeming himself the despotic master of his people. Either the newly acquired influence of the Pharisees threatened to be an obstacle in his path, or he may have wished to reward and attract the Sadducees upon whom he might rely for carrying on his campaigns, or he may have been influenced by his favorite, the Sadducee Diogenes; at all events, Alexander appeared as the inveterate opponent of Pharisaic teaching, and made his views public in a most insulting manner. Whilst officiating as high priest, during the Feast of Tabernacles, it was his duty, in accordance with an ancient custom, to pour the contents of a ewer of water upon the altar as an emblem of fruitfulness. But in order to show his contempt for a ceremony considered by the Pharisees as a religious one, Alexander poured the water at his feet. Nothing more was required to ignite the wrath of the congregation assembled in the outer court of the Temple. With reckless indignation they threw the branches and the fruit, which they carried in their hands in honor of the festival, at the heretical king, denouncing him as an unworthy high priest. Alexander would certainly have paid for this disgraceful action with his life had he not called in the help of the Pisidian and Cilician mercenaries, who had been ordered to be in waiting, and who fell upon the congregation, slaughtering 6000 within the precincts of the Temple (95). In order to avoid a repetition of such scenes, Alexander thenceforth prevented the worshipers from entering the court of sacrifices, by building up a partition wall. But these events gave rise to an implacable hatred between the king and the Pharisees. Thus, after three generations, the descendants of the great Hasmonæans had so far weakened the edifice raised at the expense of their ancestors' lives, that it appears marvelous how it could have continued to resist such repeated attacks. The bitter rivalry of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel in the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam was repeated in the history of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

But Alexander did not see the breach that his hand had childishly and ruthlessly made; absorbed in magnificent schemes of future conquest he ignored the fact that if the harmonious intercourse between the king and his subjects, the very life of the State, were to cease, greater possessions would but weaken and not strengthen the kingdom. He had set his heart upon invading the trans-Jordanic land, still called Moabitis, and the southeastern provinces of the sea of Tiberias, called Galaditis or Gaulonitis. But his progress in this campaign was checked by the Nabathæan king Obeda, who lured him into a pathless country broken up by ravines, where Alexander's army found its destruction, and where the king himself escaped only with his life to Jerusalem (about 94). There the wrath of the Pharisees awaited him. They had excited the people to revolt, and six years of bloody uprisings against him were the consequence (94–89). Alexander succeeded in putting down one revolt after another by the aid of his mercenaries, but the horrible butcheries that took place on these occasions were a perpetual incentive to fresh uprisings. Alexander, worn out at length by these sanguinary proceedings, offered to make peace with the Pharisees. It was now, however, their turn to reject the proffered hand of peace, and to be guilty of an act of treachery towards their country which must remain as an indelible stain upon their party. Upon Alexander's question as to what conditions of peace they required, the Pharisaic leaders answered that the first condition was the death of the king. They had, in fact, secretly offered their aid to the Syrian monarch Eucærus to humble Alexander. Summoned by their promises, Eucærus advanced upon Judæa with 40,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry. Upon the news of this impending danger, Alexander marched out at the head of 20,000 infantry and 1000 cavalry. In the terrible encounter that ensued at Shechem, Judæan fought against Judæan, Greek against Greek, for each army remained true to its leader and could not be bribed into desertion. The battle, disastrous for both sides, was finally gained by Eucærus, and Alexander was driven, through the loss of his mercenaries, to wander among the mountain-passes of Ephraim. There, his solitary position moved his people to pity, and six thousand of his Pharisaic opponents left the Syrian camp and went over to their king, who was now able to force Eucærus's retreat from Judæa.

But the more relentless amongst the Pharisees still held out against Alexander, and after an unsuccessful battle in the open field, threw themselves for safety into the fortress of Bethome, which, however, they were obliged to surrender. Urged by his Sadducæan favorite Diogenes, and impelled by his own thirst for revenge, the king had eight hundred Pharisees crucified in one day. Tradition even relates that the wives and children of the victims were butchered before their eyes, and that Alexander, surrounded by his minions, feasted in the presence of this scene of carnage. But this exaggeration of cruelty was not required to brand him with the name of "Thracian"; the crucifixion of eight hundred men was enough to stigmatize him as a heartless butcher, and this action alone was to bring forth bitter fruits for the Sadducees who had witnessed it with malicious joy. During the civil wars that had lasted for six years, fifty thousand men of both parties had been sacrificed, but the Pharisees had suffered most. The remaining Pharisees trembled for their lives, and the night after the crucifixion of the eight hundred, eight thousand fled from Judæa, part of them to Syria and part to Egypt.

The weakness of Alexander's position may readily be gauged by the fact of his powerlessness to prevent Judæa from being made the seat of war by the kings of Nabathæa and Syria. Yet his good fortune did not forsake him, for a sudden change in the affairs of Syria, resulting in the overthrow of its king, Aretas, worked to Alexander's advantage. Thereby he was enabled to engage in the siege of some important towns, colonized by Greeks and subject to Aretas: Diospolis, Pella and Gerasa. Marching north, he invaded the lower Gaulonitis, with its capital, Gamala, the upper province, with the town of Sogane, and the city of Seleucia. He forced the inhabitants of these towns to accept Judaism and the sign of the covenant. The city of Pella, making a show of resistance, was destroyed. He also recovered the cities lying east of the Red Sea, which had been taken from him by Aretas. The territory of Judæa now embraced within its circumference a number of important towns; it extended on the other side of the Jordan, from Seleucia in the north to Zoar, the city of palms, south of the Dead Sea; from Rhinokolura and Raphia in the south, on the shores of the Mediterranean, to the mountains of Carmel in the northwest. The cities on the sea-coast were of the most importance. Alexander ordered some coins to be struck for his Greek subjects, with the Greek inscription, "King Alexander," while an anchor was stamped upon one side, and upon the other, in Hebrew characters, "Jonathan the King" (Jehonathan ha-Melech). His coins of an earlier date bore the same inscription as those of his predecessors, "The High Priest Jonathan, the Commonwealth of the Judæans."

After a campaign of three years' duration Alexander returned to Jerusalem, where he was received with the honors due to a conqueror. He had caused his crimes in part to be forgiven. In the very center of the kingdom, on a mount near the Jordan, he built a strong fortress, called after him, Alexandrion; and in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, upon a towering height, protected on all sides by deep ravines, he raised the citadel of Machærus, the formidable guardian of his trans-Jordanic conquests. These two mountain fortresses, together with the third, Hyrcanion, built by John Hyrcanus, on Middle Mountain, were so amply fortified by nature and by art that they were considered impregnable.

Even in the last years of Alexander's reign, although he was suffering from an intermittent fever, he undertook the siege of some of the yet unconquered fortresses of the trans-Jordanic territory. During the siege of Argob, however, he was seized with so severe an attack that he was forced to prepare himself for death. The solemnity of his last hours led him to look upon his former actions in a new light. He was horror-stricken to think how cruelly and foolishly he had persecuted the Pharisees, and how in consequence he had alienated himself from his people. He earnestly enjoined upon his queen, whom he declared regent, to connect herself closely with the Pharisees, to surround herself with counselors from their ranks, and not to embark in any undertaking without having their consent. He also impressed upon her to keep his death secret from his army until the beleaguered fortress should have fallen, and then to resign his body to the Pharisees, that they might either vent their rage upon it or else generously inter it. From an obscure but more authentic source we gather that Alexander sought to allay the queen's anxiety with regard to the party strife rampant in Jerusalem by the following words: "Do not fear either the true Pharisees or their honest opponents, but be on your guard against hypocrites of both sides (the counterfeit ones), who, when they commit sins, like the dissolute Prince Zimri, expect to be rewarded like Phineas, who was zealous for the Law." Alexander died in the forty-ninth year of his life and the twenty-seventh of his reign (79), and left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. The Pharisees ungenerously appointed the anniversary of his death as a day of rejoicing.

It was indeed most fortunate for the Judæan nation that a woman of gentle nature and sincere piety should have been called to the head of the State after it had been torn asunder by the recklessness of its former ruler. She came like the refreshing dew to an arid and sunburnt soil. The excited passions and the bitter hatred of the two parties had time to abate during her reign, and the country rose above narrow partisanship to the worthier occupation of advancing the common welfare of the nation. Although Queen Salome, or, as she was called, Alexandra, was devoted with her whole soul to the Pharisees, entrusting them with the management of home affairs, yet she was far from persecuting the opposing party. Her authority was so greatly respected by the neighboring princes that they did not dare make war with Judæa, and she shrewdly succeeded in keeping a mighty conqueror, who had possessed himself of Syria, from the confines of her own kingdom. Even the heavens, during the nine years of her reign, showered their blessings upon the land. The extraordinarily large grains of wheat gathered during this time in the fields of Judæa were kept and exhibited during many subsequent years. The queen ordered coins to be struck, bearing the same emblems as her predecessors, with the Greek inscription, "Queen Alexandra." On the whole, her reign passed peacefully and happily. The Law, which had fallen into great neglect, became a fixed institution, and if it occasionally affected the Sadducees, who were constantly breaking it, they could not consider themselves victims of caprice. The crowded prisons were opened; the Pharisees returned from exile, with their narrowed vision widened by the experience they had gained in foreign lands.

Salome Alexandra proclaimed her eldest son Hyrcanus high priest; he was a weak prince, whose private life was irreproachable, but who was not fitted for a public post of importance.

Simon ben Shetach, the brother of the queen, the oracle of the Pharisaic party, stood high in her favor. So great a part did he play in the history of that time that it was called by many "the days of Simon ben Shetach and of Queen Salome." The chief post in the Council of Seventy, hitherto possessed by the high priest, was now, however, given up to the Pharisees by order of the queen. The Nasi, or president of the Great Council, was from this time on, as a rule, the most learned and the most respected of the Pharisees. No one, of course, could lay juster claim to this distinction than Simon ben Shetach. But Simon was not an ambitious man, and he determined to waive his own rights of precedence in favor of Judah ben Tabbai, who was then residing in Alexandria, of whose profound learning and excellent character he had formed a high estimate. The Alexandrian Judæan community had probably entrusted this celebrated Palestinean scholar with some important office. A flattering epistle was sent to Judah, inviting him to return to Jerusalem and was couched in this form: "From me, Jerusalem, the holy city, to thee, Alexandria: my spouse dwells with thee, I am forsaken." Judah ben Tabbai responded to this appeal by hastening to Jerusalem. With the help of Simon he undertook the reorganization of the Council, the improvement of administration of the law, the re-establishment of neglected religious observances, the furthering of education, and generally the fashioning of such regulations as the times required. Like Ezra and Nehemiah of old, these two zealous men insisted upon a return to the strictest form of Judaism; and, if they were often obliged to employ severe and violent measures, these are not to be accounted to any personal malice, but to the sternness of the age itself. They were indeed scrupulously strict in their own conduct, and in directing those closely connected with them. From the days of Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach, the rule of Judæan Law, according to the views of the Pharisees, may be said to have begun, and it grew and developed under each succeeding generation. These two celebrated men have therefore been called "Restorers of the Law," who "brought back to the Crown (the Law) its ancient splendor."

Their work commenced with the reorganization of the Synhedrion. The Sadducæan members were deprived of their seats, the penal code which they had added to the Biblical penal laws was set aside, and the old traditionary methods again made valid. The people had nothing to complain of in this change, for they hated the severity of the "eye for eye" punishment of the Sadducees. On the other hand, certain days of rejoicing, disregarded by the Sadducees, were proclaimed as half-holidays by the Pharisees. Witnesses in the law courts were no longer to be questioned merely upon the place where and the time when they had seen a crime committed, but they were expected to give the most detailed and minute evidence connected with it, so that the judge might be better able to pronounce a correct judgment and to detect the contradictory statements of witnesses. This was particularly designed as a protection against the charges of informers, who were numerous enough in an age when conquerors and the conquered were constantly changing parts. A salutary measure also was enforced to lessen the number of divorce cases, which the literal interpretation of the Pentateuchal divorce laws, as administered by the Sadducees, had failed in doing. The High Court, as reorganized by the Pharisees, ordered the husband to give his repudiated wife a certain sum of money, by which she could support herself, and, as there was but little current coin amongst a people whose wealth consisted principally in the fruits of the soil or in cattle, the husband would often pause before allowing a momentary fit of passion or excitement to influence his actions.

One of the reforms of this time expressly attributed to Simon ben Shetach was the promotion of better instruction. In all large towns, high schools for the use of young men from the age of sixteen sprung up at his instance. But all study, we may presume, was entirely confined to the Holy Scriptures, and particularly to the Pentateuch and the study of the Law. Many details or smaller points in the Law which had been partly forgotten and partly neglected during the long rule of the Sadducees, that is to say, from Hyrcanus's oppression of the Pharisees until the commencement of Salome's reign, were once more introduced into daily life. Neglected customs were renewed with all pomp and solemnity, the days of their re-introduction being celebrated with rejoicing, and any public mourning or fast thereon was suspended. Thus the ceremony of pouring a libation of water upon the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles, which had been mockingly ridiculed by Alexander, was in time reinstated with enthusiasm, and became a favorite and distinctive rite. Upon these occasions, on the night succeeding the first day of the festival, the women's outer court of the Temple was brilliantly illuminated until it glowed like a sea of fire. All the people would then crowd to the holy mount to witness or take part in the proceedings. At times these bore a lively character, such as torch-light processions and dancing; at others they took the more solemn form of musical services of song and praise. This jubilee would last the whole night. At break of day the priests announced with a blast of their trumpets that the march was about to commence. At every halting-place the trumpets gathered the people together, until a huge multitude stood assembled round the spring of Siloah. Thence the water was drawn in a golden ewer. In solemn procession it was carried back to the Temple, where the libation was performed. The water streamed over the altar, and the notes of the flute, heard only upon the most joyful occasions, mingled with the rapturous strains of melody that burst from countless instruments.

A similar national festival was the half-holiday of the wood-feast, held in honor of the wood that was offered to the altar of the Temple; it fell upon the fifteenth day of Ab (August). A number of white-robed maidens were wont to assemble upon this occasion in some open space among the vine-trees, where, as they trod the measure of the dance, they chanted strophes of song in the Hebrew tongue. It was an opportunity for the Judæan youths, spectators of this scene, to select their partners for life. This festival, like the preceding one, was inaugurated by the Pharisees in opposition to Sadducæan customs. The Synhedrion seized upon the sacrificial ardor of the people to introduce a measure which, above all things, was calculated to arouse feelings of patriotism in the nation, and which was diametrically opposed to the views of their rivals. The Sadducees had declared that the daily offerings, and in fact the needs of the Temple, should not be paid for from a national treasury, but with individual, voluntary contributions. But the Council, in the reign of Salome Alexandra, decreed that every Israelite from the age of twenty – proselytes and freed slaves included – should contribute at least a half-shekel yearly to the treasury of the Temple. In this way the daily sacrifices acquired a truly national character, as the whole nation contributed towards them. Three collections were instituted during the year: in Judæa at the beginning of spring; in the trans-Jordanic countries, in Egypt and Syria, at the Feast of Weeks; and in the yet more distant lands of Babylonia, Media and Asia Minor, at the Feast of Tabernacles. These last collections were the richest, the Judæans who dwelt outside Palestine being very generous as well as very wealthy; thus, instead of the silver or copper shekel or denaria, they offered gold staters and darics. Central places in each land were chosen where the offerings should be deposited until they could be taken to Jerusalem. The most distinguished Judæans were selected to carry them thither, and they were called "holy messengers." In the Mesopotamian and Babylonian towns of Nisibis and Nahardea (Naarda), treasure-houses were built for these Temple gifts, whence, under a strong escort to protect them from the Parthian and Nabathæan robber-hordes, they were safely borne to Jerusalem. The communities of Asia Minor had likewise their treasure-houses, Apamea and Laodicea, in Phrygia, Pergamus and Adramyttium, in the country of Aeolis. From this stretch of land nearly two hundred pounds weight of gold was sent to Jerusalem about twenty years after the first proclamation had been issued. From this we may gather what an immense revenue poured into the Temple, leaving a large surplus after all the requisites for divine service had been obtained. The Temple of Jerusalem became thereby in time an object of envy and of greed.

So far, the revival, introduced by Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach, bore a harmless character; it reinstated old laws, created new ones, and sought means of impressing them upon the memory and attention of the people. But no reaction can remain within moderate bounds; it moves naturally towards excesses. The Sadducees, who were unwilling to adopt the Pharisaic rendering of the Law, were summoned to appear before the seat of justice and were unsparingly condemned. The anxiety to exalt the Law and to banish all opposition in the rival party was so great that upon one occasion Judah ben Tabbai had a witness executed who had been convicted of giving false testimony in a trial for a capital crime. He was, in this instance, desirous of practically refuting the Sadducæan views, forgetting that he was at the same time breaking a law of the Pharisees. That law required all the witnesses to be convicted of perjury before allowing punishment to be inflicted; and, as one witness alone could not establish an accusation, so one witness alone was not punishable. But the two chiefs were so clean-handed that Simon ben Shetach did not fail to upbraid his colleague on account of ill-advised haste, and Judah ben Tabbai evinced the profoundest remorse at the shedding of the innocent blood of the executed witness by resigning his office of president and by making a public acknowledgment of his contrition. A favorite maxim of Judah ben Tabbai reveals his gentle disposition. "Consider accused persons as lawbreakers only whilst before you for judgment; the moment that is rendered, look upon them as innocent."

Simon ben Shetach, who succeeded Judah as President of the Council, does not seem to have relaxed in severity towards the infringers of the Law. The rare case of witchcraft was once brought before him, when eighty women were condemned for the offense, and crucified in Ascalon. On account of his unsparing severity, Simon ben Shetach brought upon himself such hatred of his opponents that they determined upon a fearful revenge. They incited two false witnesses to accuse his son of a crime punishable with death, in consequence of which he was actually condemned to die. On his way to the place of execution the young man uttered such vehement protestations of innocence that at last the witnesses themselves were affected, and confessed to their tissue of falsehoods. But when the judges were about to set free the condemned, the prisoner himself drew their attention to their violation of the law, which enjoined that no belief was to be given witnesses who withdrew their previous testimony. "If you wish," said the condemned youth to his father, "that the salvation of Israel should be wrought by your hand, consider me but the threshold over which you must pass without compunction." Both father and son showed themselves worthy of their sublime task, that of guarding the integrity of the Law; for to uphold it one sacrificed his life, and the other, his paternal love. Simon, the Judæan Brutus, let the law pursue its course, although he, as well as all the judges, were convinced of his son's innocence.

The severity of the Pharisaic Synhedrion had naturally not spared the leaders of the Sadducees. Diogenes, the favorite of Alexander, and a number of others who had advised or authorized the execution of the 800 Pharisees, expiated this act of cruelty with their lives. The most distinguished of the Sadducees began to be uneasy at this constant persecution; they felt the sword of justice hanging over their heads, ready to descend upon them if they were guilty of the slightest infringement of the Law. In fear of their lives they turned to Alexander's second son, Aristobulus, who, without being a warm adherent of the Sadducees, was prepared to be the protector of their party. He sent their chiefs to Alexandra, commending them warmly to her mercy. When they appeared before the queen they reminded her of their services to the late king, and of the terror with which their name had once inspired Judæa's neighbors, and they threatened to offer their valuable services to the Nabathæan king Aretas or to the Syrian monarch. They implored the queen to grant them a safe retreat in some fortress where they would not be under the constant supervision of the Pharisees. The gentle-hearted queen was so much moved by the tears of these gray-haired warriors that she entrusted them with the command of most of the fortresses, reserving, however, the three strongest – Hyrcanion, Alexandrion, and Machærus.

No political events of any great importance occurred during Alexandra's reign. Tigranes, king of Armenia, master of nearly the whole of Syria, had threatened to invade some of the Judæan provinces which had formerly belonged to the Syrian kingdom. The proximity of this ruler had greatly alarmed the queen, and she endeavored by gentle words and rich presents to prevent a contest with this powerful Armenian king. Tigranes had received the Judæan embassy, and accepted the queen's gifts most courteously, but they would hardly have prevented him from moving upon Judæa, had he not been compelled to devote himself to the defense of his own country from the attack of the Roman commander Lucullus (69).

Alexandra fell hopelessly ill, and her illness occasioned the saddest of entanglements. The violent and ambitious Aristobulus, supposing that his mother destined his weak brother Hyrcanus as her successor, left the capital secretly, and arriving at the Galilean fortress of Gabata in the neighborhood of Sepphoris, upon the friendship of whose governor, the Sadducee Galaistes, he could rely, insisted upon its being entirely given up to him. He garrisoned it with mercenaries, furnished by some of the minor Syrian trans-Jordanic princes and the robber-hordes of Trachonitis, and was thus enabled to hold a large force at his command. Hyrcanus and the chiefs of the Synhedrion, fearing an impending civil war, entreated of the queen to take measures to prevent it, but without avail. Alexandra bade them trust to the army, to the fortresses that had remained faithful, and to the rich treasury, and devoted herself exclusively to preparation for death. She expired soon after, in the year 69, leaving her people and her kingdom to all the horrors of a civil war which was ultimately to destroy their dearly won independence. Salome Alexandra had reigned for only nine years; she had witnessed the happy days of her people's freedom, and, when lying on her death-bed, may have felt in her troubled soul the presentiment that the coming night of slavery was at hand. She was the only queen in Judæan history whose name has been handed down to us with veneration, and she was also the last independent ruler of Judæa.