therein, he went away to Tripoli, and committed the prosecution of the war against the Jews to Callimander and Epicrates. 3. But as to Callimander, he attacked the enemy too rashly, and was put to flight, and destroyed immediately; and as to Epicrates, he was such a lover of money, that he openly betrayed Scythopolis, and other places near it, to the Jews, but was not able to make them raise the siege of Samaria. And when Hyrcanus had taken that city, which was not done till after a year's siege, he was not contented with doing that only, but he demolished it entirely, and brought rivulets to it to drown it, for he dug such hollows as might let the water run under it; nay he took away the very marks that there had ever been such a city there. Now a very surprising thing is related of this high priest Hyrcanus, how God came to discourse with him for they say, that on the very same day on which his sons fought with Antiochus Cyzicenus, he was alone in the the temple, as high priest, offering incense, and heard a voice, that "his sons had just then overcome Antiochus." And this he openly declared before all the multitude upon his coming out of the temple; and it accordingly proved true and in this posture were the affairs of Hyrca nus. 4. Now it happened at this time, that not only those Jews who were at Jerusalem and in Judea were in prosperity, but also those of them that were at Alexandria, and in Egypt and Cyprus, for Cleopatra the queen was at variance with her son Ptolemy, who was called Lathyrus, and appointed for her generals Chelcias, and Ananias, the sons of that Onias who built the temple in the prefecture of Heliopolis, like to that at Jerusalem, as we have elsewhere related. Cleopatra intrusted these men with her army; and did nothing without their advice, as Strabo of Cappadocia attests, when he saith thus, "Now the greater part, both those that came to Cyprus "with us, and those that were sent afterward thither, revolt"ed to Ptolemy immediately; only those that were called "Onias's party, being Jews, continued faithful, because their 66 countrymen Chelcias and Ananias were in chief favour "with the queen." These are the words of Strabo. 5. However, this prosperous state of affairs moved the Jews to envy Hyrcanus; but they that were the worst disposed to him were the * Pharisees, who are one of the sects of the Jews, *The original of the Sadducees, as a considerable party among the Jews, being contained in this, and the two following sections, take Dean Prideaux's note upon this their first public appearance, which I suppose to be true: "Hyrcanus, says he, went over to the party of the Sadducees, that is, by embrac"ing their doctrine against the traditions of the elders, added to the written law, and made of equal authority with it, but not their doctrine against the "resurrection and a future state, for this cannot be supposed of so good and as we have informed you already. These have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say any thing against the king, or against the high priest, they are presently believed. Now Hyrcanus was a disciple of theirs, and greatly beloved by them. And when he once invited them to a feast, and entertained them very kindly, when he saw them in a good humour, he began to say to them, that "they knew "he was desirous to be a righteous man, and to do all things "whereby he might please God, which was the profession of "the Pharisees also. However, he desired, that if they ob"served him offending in any point, and going out of the "right way, they would call him back and correct him." On which occasion they attested to his being entirely virtuous; with which commendation he was well pleased. But still there was one of his guests there, whose name was + Eleazar, a man of an ill temper, and delighting in seditious practices. This man said, " since thou desirest to know the "truth, if thou wilt be righteous in earnest, lay down the "high priesthood, and content thyself with the civil govern "ment of the people." And when he desired to know for what cause he ought to lay down the high priesthood? the other replied, "We have heard it from old men, that thy mother "had been a captive under the reign of Antiochus Epipha"nes." This story was false, and Hyrcanus was provoked against him; and all the Pharisees had a very great indignation against him. 6. Now there was one Jonathan, a very great friend of Hyrcanus's but of the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees. He told Hyrcanus, that Eleazer had cast such a reproach upon him ac"cording to the common sentiments of all the Pharisees, " and that this would be made manifest if he would but ask "them the question, what punishment they thought this man "deserved? for that he might depend upon it, that the re"proach was not laid on him with their approbation, if they "were for punishing him as his crime deserved." So the Pharisees made answer, that "he deserved stripes and bonds, "but that it did not seem right to punish reproaches with " righteous a man as John Hyrcanus is said to be. It is most probable, that "at this time the Sadducees had gone no farther in the doctrines of that sect "than to deny all their unwritten traditions, which the Pharisees were so fond "of; for Josephus mentions no other difference at this time between them: "neither doth he say that Hyrcanus went over to the Sadducees in any other "particular than in the abolishing of all the traditionary constitutions of the "Pharisees, which our Saviour condemned as well as they." [At the year 108.] This slander, that arose from a Pharisee, has been preserved by their successors the Rabbins to these latter ages, for Dr Hudson assures, us that David Gantz, in his chronology S. Pr. p. 77. in Vorstius' version, relates that Hyrca. nus's mother was taken captive in mount Modinth. See chap. xiii. sect. 5. "death." And indeed the Pharisees, even upon other occasions, are not apt to be severe in punishments. At this gentle sentence, Hyrcanus was very angry, and thought that this man reproached him by their approbation. It was this Jonathan who chiefly irritated him, and influenced him so far, that he made him leave the party of the Pharisees, and abolish the decrees they had imposed on the people, and to punish those that observed them. From this source arose that hatred which he and his sons met with from the multitude; but of these matters we shall speak hereafter. What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say, that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude of their side. But about these two sects, and that of the Essens, I have treated accurately in the second book of Jewish affairs. 7. But when Hyrcanus had put an end to this sedition, he after that lived happily, and administered the government in the best manner for thirty-one years, and then * died; leaving behind him five sons. He was esteemed by God worthy of the three greatest privileges, the government of his nation, *Here ends the high priesthood, and the life of this excellent person John Hyrcanus; and together with him the holy theocracy, or divine government of the Jewish nation, and its concomitant oracle by Urim. Now follows the profane and tyrannical Jewish monarchy, first of the Assamoneans or Maccabees, and then of Herod the Great, the Idumean, till the coming of the Messiah. See the note en Antiq. B. III. ch. viii. sect. 9. Hear Strabo's testimony on this occasion, B. XVI. page 761, 762. "Those, says he, that succeeded Moses continued for some "time in earnest, both in righteous actions, and in piety; but after a while, "there were others that took upon them the high priesthood; at first supersti❝tious and afterward tyrannical persons. Such a prophet was Moses and those "that succeeded him, beginning in a way not to be blamed, but changing for the worse. And when it openly appeared that the government was become ty"rannical, Alexander was the first that set up himself for a king instead of a priest; and his sons were Hyrcanus and Aristobulus." All in agreement with Josephus, excepting this, that Strabo omits the first king Aristobulus, who reigned but a single year, seems hardly to have come to his knowledge. Nor indeed does Aristobulus, the son of Alexander, pretend that the name of king was taken before his father Alexander, took it himself, Antiq. B. XIV. ch. iii. sect. 2. See also chap. xii. sect, 1. which favour Strabo also. And indeed, if we may judge from the very different characters of the Egyptian Jews under high priests, and of the Palestine Jews under kings, in the two next centuries, we may well sup pose, that the divine Shechinah was removed into Egypt, and that the worship, pers at the temple of Onias were better men than those at the temple of Jerusa lem: the dignity of the high-priesthood, and prophecy; for God was with him, and enabled him to know futurities; and to foretel this in particular, that as to his two eldest sons, he foretold that they would not long continue in the government of public affairs; whose unhappy catastrophe will be worth our description, that we may thence learn how very much they were inferior to their father's happiness. CHAP. XI. How Aristobulus, when he had taken the government, first of all put a diadem on his head, and was most barbarously cruel to his mother, and his brethren; and how, after he had slain Antigonus, he himself died. § 1. Now when their father Hyrcanus was dead, the eldest son Aristobulus, intending to change the government into a kingdom, for so he resolved to do, first of all put a diadem on his head, four hundred eighty and one years and three months after the people had been delivered from the Babylonish slavery, and were returned to their own country again. This Aristobulus loved his next brother Antigonus, and treated him as his equal, but the others he held in bonds. He also cast his mother into prison, because she disputed the government with him, for Hyrcanus had left her to be mistress of all. He also proceeded to that degree of barbarity, as to kill her in prison with hunger; nay, he was alienated from his brother Antigonus by calumnies, and added him to the rest whom he slew, yet he seemed to have an affection for him, and made him above the rest a partner with him in the kingdom. Those calumnies he at first did not give credit to, partly because he loved him, and so did not give heed to what was said against him, and partly because he thought the reproaches were derived from the envy of the relaters. But when Antigonus was once returned from the army, and that feast was then at hand when they make tabernacles to [the honour of] God, it happened that Aristobulus was fallen sick, and that Antigonus went up most spendidly adorned, and with his soldiers about him in their armour, to the temple, to celebrate the feast, and to put up many prayers for the recovery of his brother, when some wicked persons, who had a great mind to raise a difference between the brethren, made use of this opportunity of the pompous appearance of Antigonus, and of the great actions which he had done, and went to the king, and spitefully aggravated the pompous shew of his at the feast, and pretended that all these circumstances were not like those of a private person; that these actions were indications of an affection of royal authority; and that his coming with a strong body of men must be with an intention. to kill him; and that his way of reasoning was this: that it was a silly thing in him, while it was in his power to reign himself, to look upon it as a great favour that he was honoured with a lower dignity by his brother. 2. Aristobulus yielded to these imputations, but took care both that his brother should not suspect him, and that he himself might not run the hazard of his own safety; so he ordered his guards to lie in a certain place that was under ground, and dark, (he himself then lying sick in the tower which was called Antonia) and he commanded them, that in case Antigonus came in to him unarmed, they should not touch any body, but if armed, they should kill him; yet did he send to Antigonus, and desired that he would come unarmed: But the queen, and those that joined with her in the plot against Antigonus, persuaded the messenger to tell him the direct contrary: how his brother had heard that he had made himself a fine suit of armour for war, and desired him to come to him in that armour, that he might see how fine it was. So Antigonus suspecting no treachery, but depending on the good-will of his brother, came to Aristobulus armed, as he used to be, with his entire armour, in order to shew it to him; but when he was come at a place which was called Strato's Tower, where the passage happened to be exceeding dark, the guards slew him; which death of his demonstrates that nothing is stronger than envy and calumny, and that nothing does more certainly divide the good-will and natural affections of men than those passions. But here one may take occasion to wonder at one Judas, who was of the sect of the Essenes, and who never missed the truth in his predictions; for this man, when he saw Antigonus passing by the temple, cried out to his companions and friends, who abode with him as his scholars, in order to learn the art of foretelling things to come, That it was good for him to die now, since he "had spoken falsely about Antigonus, who is still alive, and "I see him passing by, although he had foretold he should "die at the place called Strato's Tower, that very day, "while yet the place is six hundred furlongs off, where he "had foretold he should be slain; and still this day is a great part of it already past, so that he was in danger of proving 66 *Hence we learn, that the Essenes pretended to have rules whereby men might foretel things to come, and that this Judas the Essene, taught those rules to his scholars; but whether their pretences were of an astrological or magical nature, which yet in such religious Jews, who were utterly forbidden such arts, is no way probable, or to any Bath Col, spoken of by the later Rabins, or otherwise, I cannot tell. See of the War, B. II. ch. viii. sect. 12, Vol. III. VOL. II. |