Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/53

21 Apostles' Teaching

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

21

Bibliography: Gratz, Oesch. der Jud., Iv. 304 and note 21; compare Schiirer, Oesch. des Jttd. Volkes im Zeitaltcr Jem, Gans, in Zunz' Zeitschrift fUr die Wissowchaft ill. 77 des Judenthums, i. 260-27B.

G.

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION'S.

A. Bt). See Didas-

CAI.IA.

APOSTOMUS



Among

live catastrophes said

have overtaken the Jews on the seventeenth of the Mishnah (Ta'anit iv. 6) includes "the burning of the Torah by Apostomus " (written also Postemus and Apostemus). Owing to this veryvague mention, there is much difference of opinion At a first glance as to the identity of Apostomus. he may be associated with one of the following two incidents: (1) Josephus ("Ant." xx. 5, § 4; "B. J." ii. 12, § 2) relates that about the year 50 a Roman soldier seized a Torah-scroll and, with abusive and mocking language, burned it in public. This incident almost brought on a revolution but the Roman procurator Cumanus appeased the Jewish populace by beheading the culprit. (2) The other incident of the burning of the Torah, which took place at the to

Tammuz,



time of the Hadrianic persecutions, is recounted by the rabbis. Hanina b. Teradyon, one of the most distinAccount. guished men of the time, was wrapped in a Torah-scroll and burned (Sifre, Deut. 307; 'Ab. Zarah 18a; Sem. viii.). In connection with this a certain "philosopher," DIBIDITB, It is is mentioned as the executioner of Hanina. quite possible that DISIDI^S is a corruption of D1D10D1Q, and there are circumstances which lend According to the plausibility to this assumption. Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit iv. 68c et seg.), Apostomus burned the Torah at the narrow pass of Lydda (or, as another report has it, at Tarlosa, which was probably not far from Lydda) and it is known that Hanina was one of " the martyrs of Lydda. " Furthermore, a somewhat later authority (Addenda to Meg. Ta'anit, ed. Neubauer, in "Medieval Jew. Chron." ii. 24) gives the date of Hanina's death as the twenty-seventh of Tammuz, which is only a difference of a few days from the date assigned to the crime of Apostomus. The Mishnah referred to adds the following statement to its account of the burning of the Law " And he put up an idol in the sanctuary." Here it is first necessary to determine that the reading TDyiTl (" an d lie put up ") is correct, and that it should not be "TOJJliTl (" and there was put up"), which the Jerusalem Talmud (Ta'anit iv. 68<2) gives as a variant of the *VDJ?ni in the accepted text,

The Talmudic





interpreting the fact mentioned in the Mishnah as referring to the idols put up in the sanctuary by Manasseh (II Kings xxi. 7). But the incorrectness of this interpretation is proved by the passage in the Mish-

nah on the five calamities of the Ninth of Ab, which are enumerated in strictly chronological order so that it is quite impossible that any reference to the Temple desecration by Manasseh should be registered after the burning of the Torah by Apostomus. The Babylonian Talmud knows only the reading "pD}?ni ("and he put up ") in the Mishnah, as the remark of the Gemara (Ta'anit 286) proves, where the "abomination of desolation, " of which Daniel (xii. 11) speaks, is connected with the image of the idol in the Temple. By this expression can only be meant the statue

Apostomus

Olympius set up by Antiochus Epiphanes Abomination op Desolation; and compare Gratz, "Dauer der Hellenesirung," in "Jahresbe-

of Zeus (see

richt " of the Breslau Seminary, 1864, pp. 9, 10). The reading iDjnnl, found in Rashi and in the

Munich manuscript, has been simply drawn from the Jerusalem Talmud; and, indeed, in the Gemara the Munich manuscript has TOym. But the statement in the Babylonian Talmud, that the Mishnah source concerning Apostomus is a Gemara (tradishows

according to the Babylonian auApostomus can not be placed later than the Maccabean period. For Another Gemara is a technical term employed Name for by the Talmud to designate tannaitic Antiochus sayings connected with Biblical events Epiphanes. or laws which are neither mentioned nor alluded to in the Scriptures, in contradistinction to those which can be derived from the Biblical text. Hence Apostomus must belong to a time in reference to which there existed also written sources that were known to the Talmudic authorities, the latest limit being the Maccabean period and as it has been shown that the pre-Maccabean, the Biblical, epoch must be excluded, it follows that Apostomus was no other than Antiochus Epiphanes, of whom, moreover, it is known, also from other sources, that he set up an idol in the Temple. Apostomus, then, must be considered as a nickname for Antiochus Epiphanes. In fact, his name was transformed even by pagan authors into " Epimanes " = "the Insane" (see Antiochus Epiphanes, and, as told in I Mace. i. 56, Torah-scrolls were burned during the persecutions by Antiochus Epiphanes). The meaning of the name "Apostomus" is not Ewald (in his " History "), alluding to certain clear. passages in the Bible and the Apocrypha (Dan.vii. 8, 20; viii. 23; andxi. 36; IMaec. i. 24), where reference is had to the boastful mouth of Antiochus Epiphanes, derives "Apostomus" from a'mvc ("big") and ardfia ("mouth"). The appellation "big-mouth" is certainly very appropriate. Still this explanation can scarcely be accounted as correct for a'mvc is a rare word, used only in poetry. More probable perhaps is Jastrow's derivation (verbally conMeaning of veyed) of " Apostomus " from iiuoTothe Name. fiit,u (" to stop or stuff up the mouth ") and emorl/io; (" anything that stops up the mouth"), which may be connected with the Talmudic phrase rPDiaf) K13JJ ("May his mouth be stuffed full with earth "), applied in the Talmud to the name of a man who had spoken boldly against the Deity (B. B. 16a). The following are other explanations of the word: Jastrow (" Dictionary of the Talmud ") offers a suggestion that it may be a corruption of av6aro%o! ("ambassador"), and makes it refer to the envoy spoken of in II Mace. vi. 1, 2 as having desecrated the Temple. Hochstadter sees in " Apostomus " a corrupted form of imooraTw (" apostate ") and idenSchwarz tifies him with the high priest Alcimus.

tion),

that,

thorities, the date of



!

" Apostomus " the name of the Roman soldier referred to by Josephus. Briill connects him with Cornelius Faustus, who under Pompey was the first to climb the wall of Jerusalem. Halberstamm is of opinion that " Apostomus " is the

and Derenbourg consider