Hyrcanus
John Hyrcanus was a Hasmonean (Maccabean) leader and Jewish high priest of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until his death in 104
John Hyrcanus II (died 30 BCE), a member of the Hasmonean dynasty, was for a long time the Jewish High Priest in the 1st century BCE.
The Hasmonean dynasty had survived for 103 years before yielding to the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE. The installation of Herod the Great (an Idumean) as king in 37 BCE made Judea a Roman client state and marked the end of the Hasmonean dynasty.
The Hasmonean Dynasty
The Sadducees espoused the Hellenizing philosophy of the early Hasmonean princes, which had merged Church and State, allowing the Levites to own land and profit from collected taxes forced on the people by statutes and their own application for benefits.
The Pharisees or Separatists supposedly abhorred all forms of Greek or any foreign influence. They were religious fundamentalists whose righteousness was displayed in their own ceremonies and symbols, but nowhere else. Aristobulus and the Sadducees opposed Hyrcanus II who was supported by the Pharisees. Aristobulus invited Rome to Judea to settle this dispute, as to who should be the king of God’s Kingdom. Hyrcanus did not appeal to the Romans for support and neither would Jesus, but the Pharisees did.
Hyrcanus was hoped by some to be the promised King and High priest.[1] But others disputed his legitimacy as heir. Many died for their lack of faith and allegiance.[2]
At one point, there were so few priests that there was no one to even say grace at the kings table.[3]
There was no formal appeal to Rome by Hyrcanus, which made their lawful presence questionable, if not merely commercial. The Romans could no longer rely on Aristobulus’ invitation to justify their occupation since, by their own decree, he was illegitimate.
The Sadducees retained their traditional priestly functions, although it was altered by Pompey, who turned back some of the power unlawfully granted by the Hasmonean Kings years before. Many of the Pharisees also were a part of this corruption and were called “those who seek smooth things” by ministers who sought a purer interpretation of the ancient ways.
These original charitable ministers of the kingdom, working, according to what Moses set up, under what we might call a vow of poverty. Ordered by God, they were not allowed to own land as a personal estate to accumulate wealth. The Hasmonean Dynasty had changed the nature of Israel with the acquiescent blessing of the people. It was during this period that the ministers of God’s government became more like the governments of the gentiles. The temple tax was enforced by statutes and the charitable altars of the government blended with the office of King and public policy. This new apostasy attracted a different kind of minister and steadily altered the nature and spirit of God’s established kingdom.
“Cursed be the man who rebuilds this city! May he lay its foundation on his firstborn, and set its gate upon his youngest son. Behold, an accursed man, a man of the adversary, has risen to become a fowler’s net to his people, and a cause of destruction to all his neighbours. And arose to exercise authority, also being instruments of violence. they have rebuilt a wall and towers, to make of it a stronghold of ungodliness … They have committed an abomination in the land, and a great blasphemy among the children…” [4]
This curse of Joshua seemed to fall upon the Hasmonean dynasty, specifically John Hyrcanus. The blasphemy was not so much the building of a particular city, but the turning away from God’s ways of charity and liberty, and the return to the adversarial civil system of Belial, the “worthless or wicked”, a return to Egypt.
There was soon little difference between the operation of the civil powers of the other kingdoms and God’s with the implementation of forced sacrifice (Corban), corvee labor obligations (income tax) and compulsory taxes on trade (sales tax), on land (property tax) and possessions (personal property tax).[5]
- ↑ “…Judah ben Yedidyah, who said to King Hyrcanus, ‘King !Hyrcanus Thou hast enough with the royal crown, leave the crown of priesthood to the seed of Aaron!’” Babylonian Talmud, Kidd. 66a.
See also "288 However, this prosperous state of affairs moved the Jews to envy Hyrcanus; but they that were the worst disposed to him were the Pharisees, who were one of the sects of the Jews, as we have informed you already. These have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say any thing against the king, or against the high priest, they are presently believed. Now Hyrcanus was a disciple of theirs, and greatly beloved by them. And when he once invited them to a feast, and entertained them very kindly, when he saw them in a good humor, he began to say to them, that they knew he was desirous to be a righteous man, and to do all things whereby he might please God, which was the profession of the Pharisees also. However, he desired, that if they observed him offending in any point, and going out of the right way, they would call him back and correct him. On which occasion they attested to his being entirely virtuous; with which commendation he was well pleased. But still there was one of his guests there, whose name was Eleazar, a man of an ill temper, and delighting in seditious practices. This man said, “Since thou desirest to know the truth, if thou wilt be righteous in earnest, lay down the high priesthood, and content thyself with the civil government of the people,”
- 292 And when he desired to know for what cause he ought to lay down the high priesthood, the other replied, “We have heard it from old men, that thy mother had been a captive under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. “ This story was false, and Hyrcanus was provoked against him; and all the Pharisees had a very great indignation against him.)
- 293 6. Now there was one Jonathan, a very great friend of Hyrcanus’s, but of the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees. He told Hyrcanus that Eleazar had cast such a reproach upon him, according to the common sentiments of all the Pharisees, and that this would be made manifest if he would but ask them the question, What punishment they thought this man deserved?
- 294 for that he might depend upon it, that the reproach was not laid on him with their approbation, if they were for punishing him as his crime deserved. So the Pharisees made answer, that he deserved stripes and bonds, but that it did not seem right to punish reproaches with death. And indeed the Pharisees, even upon other occasions, are not apt to be severe in punishments.
- 295 At this gentle sentence, Hyrcanus was very angry, and thought that this man reproached him by their approbation. It was this Jonathan who chiefly irritated him, and influenced him so far,
- 296 that he made him leave the party of the Pharisees, and abolish the decrees they had imposed on the people, and to punish those that observed them. From this source arose that hatred which he and his sons met with from the multitude: : 297 but of these matters we shall speak hereafter. What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers.
- 298 And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side. But about these two sects, and that of the Essenes, I have treated accurately in the second book of Jewish affairs." Flavius Josephus, Josephus, Ant. 13.372-4
- ↑ “… his own people revolted against him…, they pelted him with citrons… at the festival of Tabernacles… and they added insult to injury by saying that he was descended from captives and was unfit to hold office and to sacrifice; and being enraged at this, he killed some 6,000 of them, and also placed a wooden barrier about the altar and the Temple as far as the coping of the court which the priests alone were permitted to enter, and by this means blocked the people’s way to him.” Josephus, Ant. 13.372-4
- ↑ “…he had put the rabbis to death, there was no-one to say grace for them…” Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 48a.
- ↑ A Dead Sea Scrolls text 4Q175 21-30
- ↑ See The Covenants of the gods published by His Church.