History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6)

It was during this highly excited period that a Judæan author foretold, in beautiful Greek verse, written in the form of a sibylline prophecy, the coming destruction of the Roman-Greek state, and the reign of Belial, who would decoy the unhappy ones to their final destruction; but this Judæo-Greek seer also heralded the coming of a glorious Messiah. An era of crime had certainly begun, and a Belial had appeared in the person of the half-Judæan Herod, but as yet no Messianic dawn of better things was apparent.

With the declaration of war between Octavius and Antony, a fierce strife broke out between the Western and the Eastern provinces of Rome; it was Europe against Asia – a war of nations. But it came to a sudden end with the fall of Antony in the battle of Actium (31). This blow struck Herod severely; neither he nor his friends doubted for one moment that he would be submerged in the ruin of his protector, for he had been closely allied to Antony. He was prepared for the worst, but he determined not to be outlived by the aged Hyrcanus, by his wife Mariamne, or by his mother-in-law Alexandra. He accused Hyrcanus of having conspired with the Nabathæan king, and ordered the innocent monarch to be executed. Mariamne and Alexandra he placed under the guardianship of the Ithuræan Soem in the fortress of Alexandrion. Herod then prepared to present himself before the conqueror, Octavianus Cæsar, and if he met with his death, as was most probable, Mariamne and her mother were to be instantly murdered.

On the eve of Herod's departure, he found himself compelled to make some change in the Synhedrion, and to appoint the Babylonian Hillel, a man unknown until then, as one of the presidents. This gave a new direction to the spirit of Judaism, which has affected that faith down to the present. Hillel, born about the year 75, traced back his descent, on his mother's side, to the house of David. Although his lineage was a distinguished one, he was living in needy circumstances, and was supported by his rich brother, Shebna. He probably accompanied Hyrcanus on his return from Babylon to Jerusalem, and became one of the most devoted disciples of the Synhedrists, Shemaya and Abtalion, whose traditional lore he endeavored to transmit literally and faithfully.

Hillel was particularly distinguished for his winning, dove-like gentleness, his intense love of humanity, which arose from his own humility, and from his deep faith in others, and lastly, for that perfect equanimity proceeding from his profound trust in God, that never wavered in the midst of trouble. In later ages he was revered as the ideal of modesty and gentleness. When he was once asked to express the essence of Judaism in one sentence, he uttered this golden maxim: "Do not unto others what thou wouldst not have done unto thyself. This is the principal commandment: all others are the development of that one." If strife and dissension arose, Hillel was invariably the peacemaker. His beneficence knew no bounds, and he had that rare delicacy of feeling which never humiliates the recipient by the gift, but which rather helps him to maintain his self-respect. His faith in God raised him triumphantly above every fear. All the members of his household were imbued through his example with the same faith; so much so that once, upon entering the town and hearing a cry of distress, he was able confidently to remark, "That cry cannot have proceeded from my house." Hillel has bequeathed a greater number of maxims to us than any of his predecessors. We read amongst them the following: "If I were not to care for myself (my soul), who would do so for me? If I care for myself alone, what can I effect? If not now, when then?" "Be of the disciples of Aaron, love peace, seek peace, love mankind, thus lead them to the Law." Impressed by the sublime mission of Israel, that of maintaining and teaching the pure belief in one God, he exclaimed at one of the festivals in the Temple: "If I (Israel) am here, then is everything here; if I should be wanting, who would be here?" The doctrines of Judaism were so profoundly revered by him that his indignation was roused whenever they were used as stepping-stones to the schemes of the ambitious. "He who wishes to raise his name, lowers it; he who does not seek the Law, does not deserve to live. He who does not progress in learning, retrogrades; he who uses the crown of the Law for his own ends, perishes."

Hillel became in after years the very ideal of his co-religionists. The impetus given by him to the development of doctrinal Judaism marks an epoch in the history of that faith. He greatly enriched the mass of the traditional lore that he had imbibed from the Synhedrists, Shemaya and Abtalion. But far more important was his logical derivation of the statutes of the Law observed in his time. He traced them back to their first principles, and raised them out of the narrow circle of tradition and mere custom to the height of reason. The traditional law, according to Hillel, carries within itself its justification and binding power, it does not depend on authority alone. Thus, to a certain extent, he paved the way to a reconciliation between Pharisees and Sadducees by placing before them the principles common to both, from which neither of them could withhold their assent. On the one hand, Hillel agreed with the Sadducæan principle, that a law can only be valid if founded upon scriptural authority; but, on the other hand, he declared that this authority did not merely lie in the dead letter, but was also to be derived from the general spirit of the scriptural writings. After this demonstration by Hillel, no dispute amongst the schools could arise as to the binding power of traditional law. By the introduction of seven rules, or Middoth, the oral law could be imbued with the same weight and authority as that actually contained in the Scriptures. Through these seven rules the oral law assumed quite a different aspect; it lost its apparently arbitrary character; it became more universal and reasonable in its tendency, and might be looked upon as originating from Holy Writ itself.

These explanatory rules were, moreover, intended not only to justify the oral law, but also to lay down instructions how to amplify the laws, and how to meet unforeseen cases of difficulty. At first they appear to have been unfavorably received. It is expressly narrated that Hillel introduced them at a council of the Bathyrene Synhedrion, but that assembly may either have misinterpreted them or have disputed their expediency. In the meantime an opportunity presented itself of having recourse to these explanatory rules, for a question was raised, the solution of which deeply excited the whole nation, and to this opportunity Hillel owed the dignified position of President of the Synhedrion. The eve of the festival on which the Paschal Lamb was to be sacrificed occurred on the Sabbath, a most unusual event at that time, and the Bathyrene Synhedrion could not throw any light upon the disputed question, whether it was permitted or not to sacrifice the Paschal Lamb on the Sabbath Day. Hillel, whose ability must have attracted the attention of the discerning before, had taken part in the discussion, and had proved that according to the explanatory rules, the Pesach, or Paschal Sacrifice, like every other whole offering, supersedes the Sabbath. The debate became heated, the mass of the people being warmly interested in the celebration of the festival. Expressions of approval and censure for Hillel were freely uttered. Some cried, "We have to look to the Babylonians for the best information"; others ironically asked, "What good can we expect from the Babylonians?"

From that day Hillel's name became so popular that the Bathyrene Synhedrists resigned their offices – whether of their own free will, or because they were forced to do so by the people, is not known – and conceded the Presidency to Hillel himself (about 30). Hillel, far from being proud of his exalted position, expressed himself as dissatisfied, and angrily reproved the Synhedrists. "Why is it," he asked, "that I, an insignificant Babylonian, became President of the Synhedrion? Only because you have been too indolent to heed the teachings of Shemaya and Abtalion." Herod does not seem to have made any objection to the choice.

One of the statutes which Hillel had introduced was of general interest, and proved that he had true insight into affairs of life. In the Sabbatical year all debts were by law canceled. At the time when the state was a republic based upon moral laws, this was a wise measure for equalizing property; but at a later period, when capital became a power in itself, the rich were not willing to relieve their less wealthy neighbors from their difficulties by giving them loans. On this account Hillel, without entirely abrogating the law which already existed, ruled that the creditor should give over the debt in writing to the Court, so that the Court might collect it, and the creditor be relieved from the necessity of violating the law. This timely statute, equally advantageous to debtor and creditor, was called by the Greek word Prosbol, because the debt was given over to the Council of the Elders.

At Herod's particular desire, the second place of honor, that of Deputy of Hillel, was given to the Essene Menahem, to whom the king showed great partiality. The cause of this attachment was as follows (at least so the tale ran in later days): Menahem, by means of the prophetic power ascribed to the Essenes, had foretold during his childhood that Herod would one day be king in Jerusalem, and that his reign would be a brilliant one, but that he would fail in piety and justice. That which had appeared incredible to the youth recurred to the man when he wore the regal crown. But Menahem appears not to have found his office congenial, and soon withdrew in favor of Shammai, whose characteristics, opposed in many ways to those of Hillel, in reality supplemented them. Shammai was probably by birth a Palestinean, and therefore much interested in all the political and religious controversies of his native land. His religious views were strict to a painful extreme. But Shammai was not of a gloomy or misanthropical disposition; indeed, he encouraged friendliness in demeanor towards every one. This is indicated by the maxim which has come down to us, "Let your work in the Law be your principal occupation; speak little, but do much, and receive all men with a friendly countenance."

The two Synhedrists, Hillel and Shammai, founded two separate schools, opposed to each other in many religious, moral, and legal questions, which, with their different tendencies, exerted a powerful influence, during the subsequent unsettled and warlike times, upon events of historical importance. Herod had no conception of the forces antagonistic to his house that were quietly developing within the seclusion of these schools.

With a trembling heart he had presented himself at Rhodes before Octavianus Cæsar, who, since the defeat of Antony at Actium, was sole master of the Roman provinces. He, so haughty in his own country, appeared in meek and lowly guise at the footstool of the mighty ruler, yet not without a certain manly resolution. In his interview with Octavianus, Herod did not in any way conceal the position he had held with relation to Antony; but he took care to dwell upon the fact of his having refrained from aiding Antony after his defeat at Actium, thereby intimating to Octavianus what use he might make of the devotion and zeal which Herod was prepared to transfer from the cause of Antony to that of his conqueror. Octavianus was neither noble enough to despise so venal a man, nor did he feel secure enough to do without him.

So he graciously encouraged the pleading Herod, bade him array himself as before in royal robes, and sent him back to his own country laden with honors (30). Herod found no difficulty in becoming as loyal a partisan of Octavianus as he had been for twelve long years of Antony. During the campaign of the second Cæsar against Egypt, he was met at Acco by Herod bearing rich presents, and the Judæan king supplied the Roman army with water and with wine during their march through an arid country. It is possible that Antony may have heard, before he put an end to his life, that Herod's loyalty was not founded on a rock. Herod had also the malicious joy of knowing that his persistent enemy, Cleopatra, who had failed to fascinate the conqueror by her attractions, had nothing left but to seek death. The Alexandrian Judæans, who had suffered from her hatred, shared Herod's feelings. For, but a short time previous to her death, this terrible woman had longed to assassinate with her own hands the Judæans who were living in the capital of Egypt, and who were devoted to the cause of Octavianus. The Egyptian Judæans were rewarded for their devotion by an official recognition of their equality with the rest of the inhabitants; in fact, Octavianus had such confidence in their loyalty that he placed the harbors of the Nile and of the sea under the control of the Judæan Alabarchs, who had held that office under former Egyptian monarchs. This was a special mark of favor, for the possession of Egypt, the Roman granary, and particularly of the harbor of Alexandria, was so precious to the first emperor of Rome that no Senator dared approach that country without the imperial permission. When the Alabarch who was then in office died, Octavianus allowed his successor to be chosen by the Alexandrian Judæans, and granted him all the rights of his predecessors. Whilst he governed the Greek Alexandrians with extreme severity on account of their depravity, their untrustworthiness and their love of sedition, and kept them strictly under his own rule, he appointed a Judæan Council to assist the Alabarchs or Ethnarchs. The Judæan community was thus governed by one of its own race, who decided all the judicial questions and provided for the carrying out of all imperial commands and behests.

Octavianus also granted to the numerous Judæans who were settled in Rome, the Libertini, if not extraordinary privileges, at least the right of observing their own religious customs, and thus set a worthy example to his successors. The Judæans were allowed to build synagogues, where they worshiped according to their rites; they were also permitted to transmit their yearly contributions to the Temple in Jerusalem, although, in general, it was forbidden to send large sums out of Rome. The Roman Judæans also received their due portion of the grain that was distributed amongst the population. If the distribution happened to take place on a Sabbath, their portion was allotted to them on the following day. These were the orders of the emperor.

Octavianus made over to Herod the splendid body-guard of Cleopatra, numbering four hundred Gauls, and he placed under his jurisdiction several seaports that had been torn from Judæa, as well as the territory of Jericho. Samaria, as also Gadara and Hippos in trans-Jordanic territory, were also incorporated with Judæa. The area of the kingdom was now identical with what it had been before the civil war between the royal brothers and the first intervention of the Romans; but different, indeed, were the circumstances under which she had regained her possessions! Probably it was due to Herod's boundless sycophancy to Rome that sacrifices were now regularly offered up for the welfare of the Cæsars, Augustus and his consort presenting in return golden vessels for the use of the Temple.

Herod was now at the very zenith of his power; the untoward fortune that he had feared had not only been averted, but had actually assisted in exalting him. He was not, however, to enjoy his good fortune; the terrible consequences of his crimes clung to his footsteps and changed his cup of happiness into one of gall. In the narrow circle of his own home a tragedy was about to be enacted, far more terrible than could have been conceived by the imagination of a poet. Mariamne, who, as well as her mother Alexandra, had been in close confinement during the king's absence, had elicited from her gaoler Soem the fact that she would not have been permitted to outlive Herod. Upon the king's return she made no secret of her hatred for him, and when he spoke to her in words of tenderness and affection, she taunted him with the murders of her brother, her grandfather and many others of her relatives. Herod's heart was torn by the love he bore to this beautiful woman and by the wrath he felt at her persistent enmity to his person and his power. Whilst still a prey to these conflicting feelings he was only too ready to lend a willing ear to the malicious inventions of his sister Salome, who assured him that his cup-bearer had been bribed by Mariamne to poison him. During the investigation that ensued it transpired that Soem had disclosed his secret instructions to the queen, and this treachery on the part of a confidential servant let loose a host of wild passions within Herod's breast. Soem was decapitated on the spot. Whilst still moved by his ungovernable rage, Herod summoned a council, before whom he accused his wife of adultery and of an attempt to poison him. The judges passed the sentence of death upon her, and, wishing to curry favor with Herod, ordered the execution to take place forthwith. It was thus that the most beautiful woman in Judæa, the Hasmonæan princess, the pride of her people, was led to the scaffold. She went to her doom with remarkable fortitude, without the faintest tremor or the least display of feminine weakness, worthy of her heroic ancestry (29). We may take Mariamne as the symbol of Judæa, delivered up to the axe of the executioner by intrigue and passion.

But Mariamne's death did not quench Herod's thirst for revenge; on the contrary, it brought on still fiercer paroxysms of rage. He could not endure her loss, and became a prey to sickness and insanity. He would call frantically upon her name in a passion of sobs and tears; and he had her body embalmed in honey, so that he might keep it in his presence. It was whilst traveling in Samaria that he fell so dangerously ill that the doctors despaired of his life, and when this intelligence reached his capital, Alexandra proceeded to possess herself of Jerusalem. But the king's vitality returned upon the rumor of this sudden peril to his throne, and Alexandra fell a victim to her sedition. She was the very last who bore the Hasmonæan name, and she had lived long enough to witness the violent and disgraceful deaths of her father-in-law Aristobulus II, her husband Alexander, her brother-in-law Antigonus, her son Aristobulus III, her father Hyrcanus II, and her daughter Mariamne.

The remaining two-thirds of the Herodian reign are devoid of any real progress; the record of that time tells of cringing submission to Augustus and to Rome, of the erection of magnificent edifices, of the love of pomp and display, of deeply-rooted moral corruption, of unsuccessful conspiracies and court intrigues, leading to new crimes and further executions. In order to retain the favor of the all-powerful Augustus, Herod introduced into Jerusalem the celebration of the Actian games, occurring every fifth year, in remembrance of Augustus' victory over his rival, he also built theaters and arenas, where he organized combats between gladiators or wild beasts, thus arousing the displeasure of the national party, who rightly divined that it was intended that Judaism soon should be absorbed by a Pagan-Roman worship, and who recognized in the Roman trophies and eagles displayed in the theaters, the introduction of Roman deities. Herod gave his people another cause for umbrage, in the fact that he was not only ornamenting the hated city of Samaria, within a circumference of half a mile, with the most beautiful buildings, but that he also contemplated making that city the capital of his dominions, a dignity for which she was singularly adapted by her fortunate position. The newly-built Samaria was renamed Sebaste, just as the citadel Baris, the armory of the Hasmonæans in old days, on the northwest side of the Temple, had been called Antonia in honor of Antony. In fact, Judæa became crowded with cities and with monuments which bore the names of Herod's own family or those of his Roman protectors. The fortress of Straton on the sea was, by most lavish expenditure, converted into a beautiful city, with an extensive harbor, and received the name of Cæsarea, one of the towers on its walls being called Drusus, after the son of Augustus. Herod did not even hesitate to erect a Roman temple on the soil of the Holy Land. Two colossal figures were raised in Cæsarea, one of them representing, in gigantic proportions, the figure of Augustus as the Olympian Jupiter, and the other that of the city of Rome as the Argive Juno. At the splendid consecration of Cæsarea, the rebuilding of which had occupied twelve years, the inhabitants could have imagined themselves transported into a pagan city. On account of its name, its origin and its importance, the national party justly called it Little Rome. In later days it became the seat of the Roman governor, the rival of Jerusalem, and finally her conqueror. Whenever Cæsarea rejoiced, Jerusalem was sure to mourn. The harbor of Cæsarea, which grew in time to be a town itself, was called Sebastus. Herod had, without doubt, enhanced the beauty of Judæa, but, like a doomed victim, she was garlanded for the altar. His love of display found satisfaction in the magnificence of his edifices, but not his love of renown. Despairing of securing the affection of his own people, he resolved to compel the admiration of the stranger. He exhausted his people by taxation, redoubled his extortions, searched for hidden treasures in the ancient royal cemeteries, sold those who had been imprisoned for theft as slaves to neighboring countries, and then lavished all the funds he had gained by these practices upon the adornment of Syrian, Asiatic, and Greek cities. Huge were the sums of money that he withdrew from his own country for such enterprises.

Herod may possibly have secured the admiration and affection of the Greeks, the Romans and the Judæans outside of Palestine; but the people of Jerusalem felt nothing but aversion for this grasping upstart, who sought to estrange them from the customs of their fathers. In spite of his having shown himself to be their generous benefactor, upon the occasion of a great famine (24), the nation now only beheld in him the murderer of the Hasmonæans, the usurper of their throne, the destroyer of the noblest citizens, the suppressor of freedom. He had disgraced the three dignities of Monarch, High Priest, and Synhedrist. The first he had arrogated to himself; the second, which until his reign had, with very few exceptions, descended by right of inheritance from father to son, he had given away, according to his own pleasure or to attain his own ends; and the power of the third he had curtailed by allowing it hardly any scope for action. Joshua, of the family of Phabi, had, through Herod's instrumentality, succeeded Ananel as High Priest; but the king having been fascinated by the beauty of another Mariamne, the daughter of an inferior priest, Simon, he dispossessed Joshua of his dignity, and raised Simon to his office, in order that his future wife's rank be not too strikingly below his own.

This High Priest Simon was an Alexandrian, the son of Boëthus, and it was he who laid the foundation-stone of the greatness of the house of Boëthus, from which several high priests descended. He appears to have been the founder of the sect of the Boëthuseans, who followed the teachings of the Sadducees, but who were better able to grasp and apply those teachings than the Sadducees themselves, thanks to their Alexandrian readiness and sophistry.

These despotic acts of Herod were not calculated to make him beloved by his people. He was perfectly aware of their ill-will towards him, but as he could not crush it, he at least sought to make it harmless. Thus he insisted upon all subjects taking an oath of allegiance, resolving to punish severely those who would refrain from doing so. The Essenes alone, who disapproved of oaths, were exempt; he had no cause for fear in their peaceful, contemplative lives; on the contrary, he warmly approved of such subjects, who would submit without murmuring to any law that he might choose to make. Those amongst the Pharisees who were the followers of the peace-loving Hillel seem to have taken the required oath without hesitation, but the followers of the sterner Shammai stubbornly refused to do so. Six thousand Pharisees in all refused to take the oath of allegiance, and to inflict corporal punishment upon so great a number appeared, even to Herod, a serious matter. So he heavily taxed the refractory, amongst whom was the wife of his brother Pheroras, an ardent devotee, strange to say, of strict Phariseeism.