Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/441

 425 Aristobulus, appeared in Palestine. During the decennia which immediately followed, Jewish history was practically absorbed in vain attempts to restore the old Hasmonaean kingdom. Insurrections of steadily increasing dimensions were made in favour of Aristobulus, the representative of the national cause. For Hyrcanus was not regarded as a Hasmorsaean at all, but merely as the creature of Antipater and the Romans. First, in the year 57, Alexander the son of Aristobulus broke into rebellion, then in 56 Aristobulus himself and his son Antigonus, and in 55 Alexander again. Antipater was never able to hold his own ; Roman inter vention was in every case necessary. The division of the abinius. Hasmonaean state into five &quot; aristocracies &quot; by Gabinius had no effect in diminishing the feeling of national unity cherished by the Jews of Palestine. Once again, after the battle of Carrhae, a rising took place, which Cassius speedily repressed. In 49 the great Roman civil war broke out; Caesar instigated Aristobulus against Antipater, who in common with the whole East had espoused the cause of Pompey. Bat Aristobulus was poisoned by the opposite party while yet in Italy, and about the same time his son Alexander was also put to death at Antioch ; thus the danger to Antipater passed away. After the battle of Pharsalus he went over to Caesar s side, and soon after rendered him an important service by helping him out of his difficulties at Alexandria. By this means he earned the good will of Caesar towards the whole body of the Jews, and secured for himself (or Hyrcanus) a great extension of power and of territory. The five &quot; synedria &quot; or &quot; aristocracies &quot; of Gabinius were superseded, the most important conquests of the Hasmonaaans restored, the walls of Jerusalem, which Pompey had razed, rebuilt. laddu- However indisputable the advantages conferred by the aean ru j e O f Antipater, the Jews could not forget that the sto &quot; Idumaean, in name of Hyrcanus the rightful heir of the Iero&amp;lt;i Hasmonaeans, was in truth setting up an authority of his own. The Sadducaean aristocracy in particular, which formerly in the synedrium had shared the supreme power with the high priest, endeavoured to restore reality once more to the nominal ascendency which still continued to be attributed to the ethnarch and the synedrium. &quot; When the authorities (ol Iv re Aei) of the Jews saw how the power of Antipater and his sons was growing, their dis position towards him became hostile &quot; (Jos., Ant., xiv. 9, 3). They were specially jealous of the youthful Herod, to whom Galilee had been entrusted by his father. On account of the arbitrary execution of a robber chief Ezechias, who perhaps had originally been a Hasmonaean partisan, they summoned him before the synedrium, under the impression that it was not yet too late to remind him that he was after all but a servant. But the defiant demeanour of the culprit, and a threatening missive which at the same time arrived from Sextus Caesar demanding his acquittal, rendered his judges speechless, nor did they regain their courage until they had heard the stinging reproaches of Sameas the scribe. Yet the aged Hyrcanus, who did not comprehend the danger that was threatening himself, postponed judgment upon Herod, and gave him opportunity to withdraw. Having been appointed strategus of Coelesyria by Sextus Caesar in the meanwhile, he soon afterwards appeared before Jerusalem at the head of an army, and the authorities were compelled to address themselves in a conciliatory manner to his father and to Phasael his brother in order to secure his withdrawal. The attempt to crush the serpent which had thus effected a lodgment in the Hasmonaean house came too late. The result of it simply was that the Herodians had now the advantage of being able to distinguish between Hyrcanus and his &quot;evil counsellors.&quot; From that moment the downfall of the Sadducsean notables was certain. It was of no avail to them that after the battle of Philippi (42) they accused Herod and Phasael (Antipater having been murdered in 43) before Antony of having been help ful in every possible way to Cassius; Antony declared himself in the most decisive manner for the two brothers. In their despair, for properly speaking they were not national fanatics but only egoistic politicians, they ultimately made common cause with Antigonus the son of Aristobulus, and threw themselves into the arms of the Parthians, perceiving the interests of the Romans and of Herod to be inseparable (40). Fortune at first seemed to have declared in favour of the pretender. The masses unanimously took his side ; Phasael committed suicide in prison ; with a single blow Herod was stripped of all his following and made a helpless fugitive. He took refuge in Rome, however, where he was named king of Judaea by the senate, and after a somewhat protracted war he finally, with the help of the legions of Sosius, made himself master of Jerusalem (37). The captive Antigonus was beheaded at Antioch. King Herod began his reign by reorganizing the syn- Herod s edrium ; he ordered the execution of forty-five of its noblest reign, members, his most zealous opponents. These were the Brea k-up Sadducsean notables who long had headed the struggle cra ti c against the Idumaean interlopers. Having thus made party. away with the leaders of the Jerusalem aristocracy, he directed his efforts to the business of corrupting the rest. He appointed to the most important posts obscure indivi duals, of priestly descent, from Babylon and Alexandria, and thus replaced with creatures of his own the old aristo cracy. Nor did he rest content with this ; in order to preclude the possibility of any independent authority ever arising alongside of his own, he abolished the life tenure of the high-priestly office, and brought it completely under the control of the secular power. By this means he succeeded in relegating the Sadducees to utter insignificance. They were driven out of their native sphere the political into the region of theoretical and ecclesiastical discussion, where they continued, but on quite unequal terms, their old dispute with the Pharisees. It was during the period of Herod s activity that the Phari- Pharisees, strictly speaking, enjoyed their greatest pro- seesin sperity (Sameas and Abtalion, Hillel and Shammai); in the synedrium they became so numerous as almost to equal the priests and elders. Quite consistently with their principles they had abstained from taking any part in the life and death struggle for the existence of the national state. Their leaders had even counselled the fanatical defenders of Jerusalem to open the gates to the enemy ; for this service they were treated with the highest honour by Herod. He made it part of his general policy to favour the Pharisees (as also the sect of the Essenes, insignificant though it was), it being his purpose to restrict the national life again within those purely eccle siastical channels of activity which it had abandoned since the Maccabaean wars. However reckless his conduct in other respects, he was always scrupulously careful to avoid wounding religious susceptibilities (Ant., xiv. 16, 3). But although the Pharisees might be quite pleased that the high-priesthood and the kingship were no longer united in one and the same person, and that interest in the law again overshadowed interest in politics, the populace for their part could never forgive Herod for overthrowing the old dynasty. That he himself, at least in religious pro fession, was a Jew did not improve his position, but rather made it worse. It was not easy for him to stifle the national feeling after it had once been revived among the Jews ; they could not forget the recent past, and objected to being thrust back into the time when foreign domination XIII. -- 54