Book One: CHAPTER III--After Exile and the Greek Experiment

CHAPTER III

 

After Exile and the Greek Experiment

 

559 B.C.E.                Shortly after the people of Judah were carried off to Babylon, a new world power was emerging in Asia under the leadership of a man named Cyrus. This new, burgeoning power is known to history as the Persian Empire, the largest empire the world had yet seen. Little is known about the Persians before they exploded onto the historical scene in the middle of the sixth century B.C.E., except that they were settled on the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf and that they were one of the many peoples under the dominion of the Medes. In 559 B.C.E. Cyrus rose to tribal leadership. A few years later he became the leader of all the Persians. Then in 549 B.C.E., a mere ten years after becoming the head of a single Persian tribe, he led the Persians to victory against the Medes, appropriating the Medan Empire for the Persians. Ten years after that, in 539 B.C.E., Cyrus invaded Mesopotamia, conquering the Babylonians without a fight.

 

                        Cyrus and his successors adopted a policy of tolerance toward their subjects. Unlike the Babylonians and the Assyrians, who attempted to force new cultural standards upon their subjects, the Persians allowed local cultural expression and political structures to remain intact as long as the locals remained loyal to their Persian overlords. Persian Emperors bore the title of “king of kings,”simultaneously demonstrating their acknowledgment of native rulers as well as their own preeminence.

 

539 B.C.E.                Cyrus allowed the Jewish captives in Babylon to return to their homeland in Judah. Judah was now governed by Zerubabel, a relative of Jehoiachin, the king of Judah who had been taken to Babylon during the first exile in 597 B.C.E. The royal line of David had been restored in the person of Zerubabel. It is true that Zerubabel was not a king, but there was hope (as expressed by the prophet Haggai) that he soon would be. This is the first historical instance of Messianic hope. The Messiah was the king; and it was hoped that the king would soon rule Judah again from Jerusalem.

 

                        For the next two hundred years Judah would exist as a semi-autonomous region. The Persians never relinquished control over the province, but they were content on letting Judah mind its own affairs as long as it remained loyal and sent its required tribute. Zerubabel never became king, but he and the appointed High Priest, Joshua, were instrumental in the rebuilding of the Temple sometime between 520 to 515 B.C.E., before he faded from history. The governor Nehemiah rebuilt the city of Jerusalem. The scribe Ezra was instrumental in initiating a conservative reform of Judaism. After Ezra, the political authority of the governor declined and the political power of the High Priest increased. By the time the Macedonians arrived in the fourth century B.C.E. the High Priest was effectively the civil administrator as well as the religious leader of Judah.

 

334 B.C.E.                The Persians continued to control Judah until the Macedonians, under the leadership of Alexander the Great, invaded the region. Alexander had the good fortune of inheriting an army that had been reorganized into an effective fighting machine by his father, Phillip II. He also had the good fortune of engaging the Persians in a period of decline. The Persian Empire was not yet impotent, but it certainly was not what it once was. It was Phillip II who realized that Persia was ready to be conquered, but he died before this could be accomplished. Alexander invaded in 334 B.C.E. and the Persian Empire essentially crumbled before him. In 330 B.C.E. he captured Persepolis (one of the two Persian capitals), deciding to burn it to the ground after a night of epic, binge drinking. Later that same year the last of the Persian emperors, Darius III, was murdered. Alexander spent the following three years consolidating his control over the former Persian Empire. 

 

323 B.C.E.                Alexander kept the administrative organization of the Persian Empire intact, replacing the administrators with his own officials. Nevertheless, as a nod to the former Persian masters, his officials were required to take Persian wives, thus blurring the distinction between invading and indigenous overlords. During the period of Alexander’s conquests, Judah, or Judea as it was known to the Greeks and the Romans, was left more or less to itself as it had been under the Persians. When Alexander died in 323 B.C.E., his empire was divided among his major generals. Ptolemy took possession of the Egyptian territories, which extended to Palestine. The region of Syria, after a long power struggle, eventually went to Seleucus, who was also called Nicator (“the Conqueror”). Each of the former generals began a process of Hellenism within their respective territories, while at the same time adopting many of the customs of the conquered lands. The result was a marriage of Greek and indigenous cultures. Judea was originally a possession of Egypt. In 198 B.C.E. it became the possession of Syria after Antiochus III won the region in battle against the Ptolemies of Egypt.

 

167 B.C.E.                The Syrian ruler Antiochus IV, who called himself Epiphanies (“divine revelation”) decided to enforce Hellenism upon all of his subjects, including the Jews. He ruthlessly suppress Jewish practices while encouraging Greek ideals. He placed a statue of Zeus in the Temple (violating the Jewish commandments against idolatry and graven images) and sacrificed a pig (an unclean animal) on the altar, desecrating it in the eyes of the Jews. Antiochus IV then issued a decree that sacrifices were to be offered to Greek deities in every city and town of Judah. When Syrian troops arrived in the town of Modein, they ordered an elderly priest named Mattathias to conduct the sacrifices under penalty of death if he refused. Mattathias did refuse and as the troops were about to enforce their treat, another priest volunteered to offer the sacrifices in an attempt to save Mattathias’ life. Mattathias repaid his fellow priest by killing him before he could offer the sacrifice. Mattathias and his sons fled to the surrounding countryside where they became the leaders of a Jewish revolt against forced Hellenism, known as the Maccabean Revolt.

 

164 B.C.E.                Mattathias died soon after the revolt began and leadership passed to his eldest son, Judas Maccabeus (“the Hammer”) from which the revolt takes its name. The nature of the conflict changed under Judas’ leadership from a popular uprising against Syrian attempts of Hellenization into a war for independence. In 164 B.C.E., Judas captured Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple, which is celebrated annually by the holiday of Hanukkah. Judas fell in battle in 161 B.C.E. and was succeeded by his brother Johnathan, who continued the revolt until his murder in 143 B.C.E.

 

                        Judean independence came in 142 B.C.E., when Syria recognized Judean autonomy from Syrian rule. Simon, the last remaining son of Mattathias, was acknowledged as its ruler. Two years later, the people of Judea granted Simon the hereditary honors of High Priest, commander-in-chief, and ethnarch (a ruler, but technically not a king). Simon and two of his sons were murdered by his son-in-law, Ptolemy, in a bid for dynastic control in 134 B.C.E., but Simon’s surviving son, John Hyrcanus, out maneuvered Ptolemy and ruled Judea for the next thirty years, expanding both its territory and its political power to its greatest extent. 

 

                        The first of the Maccabees to throw off the title of ethnarch and take the title of king was Aristobulus I, the ambitious son of John Hyrcanus. John Hyrcanus apparently wanted to divide power among his children, or simply wanted to ensure that Aristobulus would not become the sole ruler of Judea. Aristobulus had other plans, however, imprisoning his brothers and his mother, directly murdering some, while allowing others to starve. Aristobulus’ reign was exceedingly short, lasting from 104 to 103 B.C.E. Upon the event of his death, his widow, Alexandra, released his surviving brothers, marrying one of them, Alexander Jannaeus, who reigned ineffectually for the next twenty-seven years. When Alexander Jannaeus died in 76 B.C.E., Alexandra claimed the throne for herself, making her son Hyrcanus II the High Priest, since a woman could not perform that function.

 

66 B.C.E.                Alexandra died in 66 B.C.E. and her two sons, Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, contended with each other for control of Judea. The matter was finally settled in 66 B.C.E. when the Roman general, Pompey, captured Jerusalem, making it a Roman province. Aristobulus was carried off to Rome as Pompey’s prisoner. Hyrcanus II was left in Jerusalem to function as High Priest, but not as king or even as ethnarch. Rulership of Judea had passed into Roman hands.