IN the year B.C. 130 Antiochus was slain 1 in battle with the Parthian forces, and the late captive, Demetrius his brother, succeeded him. He, too, was slain in 126.
Hyrcanus, at some loss to himself, made a raid upon Syrian cities, and reduced some, compelling the inhabitants to proselytize.
Following the example of his predecessors, he renewed the league with the Romans. But at home, matters went not so smoothly. The sects of Pharisees and Sadducees had peen forming for years past, and to the former the Maccabean family belonged. But Hyrcanus seems to have been out of sympathy with the party, or to have had leanings towards Sadduceanism. However that may be, on one occasion at a feast, a leader of the advanced section of the Pharisees sailed upon Hyrcanus to lay down the priesthood, and to be content with the secular power. On inquiring the reason, he was told that it was because his mother had been a captive of war. This false story incensed Hyrcanus; nor was his anger in any way appeased when the party gave the “gentle sentence” that the calumniator was guilty Drily of bonds and stripes. To his mind so sparing a sentence proved complicity. It ended in his breaking from the Pharisees, abolishing the decrees which they had issued, and threatening to punish all who observed them. Then he joined the Sadducees. His acts offended the people, and begat strife between the multitude (which from early days sympathized with Phariseeism) and the ruling family. This was “the beginning of the decline of the Maccabees.”
Hyrcanus died in 107. According to Josephus, he had possessed beyond the dignities of the government and the priesthood, the gift of prophecy. He was succeeded by his eldest son Aristobulus, though Hyrcanus had left his wife “to be mistress of all.” The new ruler added dignity in name only to the office of ruler— he was the first of the family who assumed the diadem and adopted the title of “king.” But the record of his brief reign is stained with blood. He thrust his mother who disputed the government with him, into prison, and starved her to death; his brothers he imprisoned or slew. He died in 106.
Hereupon his wife Salome released his brothers from prison, and made the eldest, Alexander Janneus, king. “He settled the government in the manner that he judged best,” says Josephus, which means that he slew one brother, but suffered the other to live. He made some wars of conquest, Salome managing affairs in his absence. But at home the authority of the Pharisees was paramount, and when the king returned to Jerusalem he was greatly displeased by the arrogance of the leaders of that sect. Like his father, he joined the Sadducean party, and, to show his contempt for the Pharisees, he poured the water from the Pool of Siloam upon the ground instead of upon the altar (as prescribed by the ritual) during the festivities of the Feast of Tabernacles. Upon the uproar which ensued, Alexander called in his foreign troops, and six thousand persons were slain. Insurrection followed insurrection. No less than fifty thousand persons are said to have been slain in the strife, and so bitter was the enmity, that the people sent an invitation to their old enemies―the Syrians―to come and help them against the king. Alexander met them and fought, was defeated and fled, and this defeat created a little sympathy in his favor. Alarmed at this, the Syrians retired, and in the civil fights which ensued Alexander was victorious, and took his revenge in a most barbarous manner, crucifying; and slaughtering men, women, and children. His cruelties earned for him the title, “the Thracian.”
A period of military success followed, in which several cities were wrested from the neighboring nations, and their inhabitants were compelled to submit to circumcision or perish. But “a spirited foreign policy” could all compensate for the dissensions which existed at home, and when Alexander died (B.C. 79), after a reign of twenty-seven years, the expressed desire of the people, his death, came to pass. His wife Alexandra acted upon his dying advice, namely, that she should deliver his body to his enemies, the Pharisees, to be honored or dishonored, as they saw fit, and place the reins of government in their hands. The Pharisees were thoroughly pacified by this humble submission, and praised their dead opponent to such a degree, that the people mourned his death, and gave him a splendid funeral. Though the king had left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, he bequeathed the crown to the queen, Alexandra. The Jews, as a whole, were well-disposed to her, as it was believed that she had no sympathy with the policy of the late king. She appointed her elder son, Hyrcanus, to be high priest. He was of an indolent, inactive disposition; he had no taste for politics, and was perfectly willing for the Pharisees to be masters. Such, indeed, they were. Josephus remarks, rather drily: “She (Alexandra) had indeed the name of regent, but the Pharisees had the authority.” The decrees of John Hyrcanus, abolishing their ordinances, were repealed by them. They put whom they would into authority; they banished, they “bound,” they “loosed,” and “differed in nothing from lords.” Yet, to some extent, the queen retained her hold of the civil and military affairs; she strengthened and increased her army, and would have governed with success, and in peace, but for the Pharisees, who took summary means of getting rid of some of their former opponents, the partisans of the king; at their wish the queen slew others, and at last a number whose lives were in jeopardy obtained permission from Alexandra to leave Jerusalem, and to garrison fortresses all over the country. This placed them beyond the Pharisees’ reach.
The sympathies of Aristobulus were with these men. As a fact, he was coveting the crown, and when the queen was seized by a dangerous illness he made a bold venture for it. He secretly fled, rapidly journeying from fortress to fortress, and had no difficulty in getting them into his power. In little more than fifteen days twenty-two strongholds were in his hands, and an army was at his command. Alarmed at the state of affairs, Hyrcanus and the elders went to the dying Alexandra for counsel, but she them away; she had small concern then, she said, when the strength of her body failed her, and before any steps could be taken with regard to Aristobulus, the queen died.
Aristobulus advanced (B.C. 70) with his men from Libanus and Trachonitis, and was met at Jericho by Hyrcanus, who, by reason of his seniority, was the priest-king. Many soldiers deserted the elder brother for the younger’s ranks, with the result that Hyrcanus fled to Jerusalem. From thence he sent a message to his brother, containing the terms of a proposed peace. They were that Aristobulus should be king, and that Hyrcanus should retain the priest’s office. They were accepted, and the treaty was confirmed with oaths and the customary symbols of agreement.
Thus the ambition of each was satisfied, and peace might have been again the portion of the land, but for the intrigues of others. Hyrcanus numbered among his friends a rich and very powerful man, an Idumean, named Antipater. He was the father of one, Herod, who afterward was that “king of the Jews” to whom the opening pages of Matthew’s Gospel introduce us. According to our historian Josephus, the father of Antipater had been appointed governor of Idumea by King Alexander and his wife, and in that position he had attained great power. His son, if not of official rank, was, at any rate, “one of the principal” of the Idumeans. He endeavored in every possible way to sow dissensions. Probably his hopes of promotion were blighted by the political downfall of Hyrcanus. He privately brought charges against both the government and the character of Aristobulus, and assured Hyrcanus that his life was in danger from the ambition of the king. At first the easy-going priest was not moved by all this, but, growing alarmed under the reiterated warnings of the crafty Idumean, he fled to Aretas, king of Arabia, who also was numbered among Antipater’s friends. The latter then took up his pleading with the Arabian, and prevailed upon him, by promises to restore twelve cities which had been wrested from his territory, to furnish an army of 50,000 men, and to march against Aristobulus.
Against such an army Aristobulus could not stand; he fled to Jerusalem, and was besieged by the Arabian king. Jr.