Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/607

 HEBREWS 593 two brothers, which was terminated only by le interference of the Romans, to whom both applied. Scaurus, the lieutenant of Pompey the Great in Syria, decided for the younger of the brothers (63). But Pompey soon after re- versed the sentence, besieged Aristobulus in Jerusalem, took the city and the temple, enter- ing both amid streams of blood, and confirmed Hyrcanus as high priest, in which capacity he became tributary ethnarch of the Romans. Aristobulus and his sons, Alexander and Antig- onus, were carried as captives to Rome. Judea, with narrowed limits, was now a province of ~ie Roman republic, which was just advancing to its furthest boundary in the East. In the name of Hyrcanus it was governed by Antipater, iis crafty Idumsean minister, who ruled his feeble master, and was finally himself establish- by Csesar, after the fall of Pompey (48), as toman procurator of Judea. Aristobulus and iis two sons escaped from Rome, and made lesperate efforts to recover their dignity, but 11 of them perished in the successive attempts. intigonus procured aid from the Parthians, having vanquished Crassus (53) and other )man generals, invaded Judea and carried [yrcanus into captivity. But he finally suc- jumbed to the son of Antipater, Herod, who his flight to Rome had gained the favor of new triumvirs, and who now inaugurated ider their auspices, as a powerful indepen- lent king, the last dynasty in Judea, the Idu- 3an (39). This prince, who as if in irony has called the Great, was the slave of his dons, as well as of the Romans, and the )loody master of his subjects. His ambition ide him rival in splendid structures, among rhich was the rebuilded temple, in the erec- tion of new fortresses, citadels, and cities, and unlimited sway, the glory of King Solomon, >ut did not prevent him from basely cringing before Mark Antony, his mistress Cleopatra of ~ rpt, and his rival Octavius, and from sacri- icing the most sacred customs and usages of the people in order to flatter the vanity of his foreign supporters. Gladiatorial games, stat- ues, and other things abhorred by the Jews, were introduced in their cities, and the Roman eagle was placed on the top of the new temple. The desire of the people for the national house of the Maccabees was to be stifled in the blood 1 its last descendants, though Herod was him- ilf the husband of Mariamne, the grand- lughter of Hyrcanus by her mother Alexan- ra, and of Aristobulus by her father Alexan- ler. Antigonus was executed by the Romans Damascus; the old Hyrcanus was enticed >m Babylon to share the same fate in Jeru- ilem ; the young and beautiful brother of the queen, the high priest Aristobulus, was treacherously drowned while bathing with the king. Herod's own house followed, treacher- ous intrigues and the dread of conspiracies de- manding new victims. His uncle Joseph, his frantically beloved, beautiful, and noble Mari- amne, her mother Alexandra, his two sons by Mariamne, the favorites of the people, perished successively at his order ; and finally, five days before his own death, his son by another wife, Antipas or Antipater, next to Herod's sister Salome the chief cause of the last murders and of the king's dreadful agonies. The blood of many other innocent persons was shed, at- tempts at insurrection or regicide being quelled or punished with remorseless rigor. In extent of possessions, however, Herod's reign by far surpassed the power of his predecessors. Au- gustus divided his territory among his three sur- viving sons. Archelaus, as ethnarch, received half of them, viz. : Judea (proper), Samaria to the north, and Idumsea to the south ; Philip and Herod Antipas, as tetrarchs, the other half- the former, Batansea, Trachonitis, and Aurani- tis, E. of the Jordan (Persea), and the latter, Galilee W. of the Jordan and N. of Samaria, with some slight additions. Anarchy was a natural consequence of this arbitrary arrange- ment, and it came with all its horrors. Such was the political condition of the Jewish state in the first year of the Christian era, about three years after the birth of the founder of the Christian religion, for an account of whose life, doctrine, and death (in the year 33, under the sway of the Roman procurator Pontius Pi- late, the possessions of Archelaus having been annexed to the Roman province of Syria) we refer the reader to special articles under the appropriate heads. The religious and literary institutions of the people had in the mean while received a remarkable development during the Asmonean period, on the basis of the sopherim, and principally under the lead of the successive schools of the 'haTchamim (scholars) Jose of Zeredah and Jose of Jerusalem, Joshua ben Perachiah and Nittai of Arbel, Judah bon Tabbai and Simeon ben Shetah, and Shemaiah and Abtalion ; and it reached a most flourishing condition under the school of the great Hillel the Babylonian, president of the sanhedrim like all the first of the above named pairs, and the rival school of the austere Shammai, in the reign of Herod. The eminent philosophical book of Ben Sirach and the first book of the Maccabees are the products of the earlier part of that period, while the age of the books of Tobit, Ju- dith, Barucb, and other apocryphal writings, is unknown. The simultaneous literary activity of the Jews in Africa is evinced in the book of Wisdom, by their numerous contributions to Hellenistic poetry and history (Jason, Alexander Polyhistor, Ezekiel, &c.), and especially to Pla- tonic philosophy, from Aristobulus, the Jewish teacher of Ptolemy Euergetes, to Philo, the distinguished deputy of the Alexandrian Jews to the Roman emperor Caligula. The empe- rors were already becoming the exclusive mas- ters of Palestine. Archelaus was carried cap- tive to Gaul under Augustus (8), and separate procurators ruled Judea, Samaria, and Idu- msea. Philip's possessions were attached to Syria after his death (35) by Tiberius, but af- terward given by Caligula to Herod Agrippa,