Hasmonean dynasty


The Hasmonean dynasty was the Jewish ruling dynasty of Judea during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period, from BC to 37 BC. Between and BC the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously within the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BC, with the empire disintegrating, gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus and the kingdom attained regional power status for several decades. Forces of the Roman Republic intervened in the Hasmonean Civil War in 63 BC, turning the kingdom into a client state and marking an irreversible decline of Hasmonean power; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BC.
Simon Thassi established the dynasty in 141 BC, two decades after his brother Judah Maccabee had defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt of 167 to 160 BC. According to 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, and the first book of The Jewish War by historian Josephus, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes moved to assert strict control over the Seleucid satrapy of Coele Syria and Phoenicia after his successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt was turned back by the intervention of the Roman Republic. He sacked Jerusalem and its Temple, suppressing Jewish and Samaritan religious and cultural observances,
and imposed Hellenistic practices. The steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire allowed Judea to regain some autonomy; however, in 63 BC, the kingdom was invaded by the Roman Republic, broken up and set up as a Roman client state.
Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Simon's great-grandsons, became pawns in a proxy war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. The deaths of Pompey and Caesar, and the related Roman civil wars, temporarily relaxed Rome's grip on the Hasmonean kingdom, allowing a brief reassertion of autonomy backed by the Parthian Empire, rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Augustus.
The Hasmonean dynasty had survived for 103 years before yielding to the Herodian dynasty in 37 BC. The installation of Herod the Great as king in 37 BC made Judea a Roman client state and marked the end of the Hasmonean dynasty. Even then, Herod tried to bolster the legitimacy of his reign by marrying a Hasmonean princess, Mariamne, and planning to drown the last male Hasmonean heir at his Jericho palace. In 6 AD, Rome joined Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea into the Roman province of Judaea. In 44 AD, Rome installed the rule of a procurator side by side with the rule of the Herodian kings.

Etymology and origins

The family name of the Hasmonean dynasty originates from the ancestor of the house, whom Josephus called by the Hellenised form Asmoneus or Asamoneus, said to have been the great-grandfather of Mattathias, but about whom nothing more is known. The name appears to come from the Hebrew name Hashmonai. An alternative view posits that the Hebrew name Hashmona'i is linked with the village of Heshmon, mentioned in. P.J. Gott and Logan Licht attribute the name to "Ha Simeon", a veiled reference to the Simeonite Tribe.
The origins of the Hasmonean dynasty are somewhat obscure, as the family appears in the historical record only when they rise up against Seleucid rule in the mid-2nd century BC. The family's rise began with Mattathias, a priest from the town of Mod'in, who resisted the anti-Jewish decrees of Antiochus IV and sparked what became the Maccabean Revolt. Josephus and 1 Maccabees identify the family as belonging to the priestly order of Joiarib. The widely known label "Maccabees" originally applied only to Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias, whose nickname probably meant "hammer" and indicates his reputation as a fierce fighter.

Hasmonean leaders

Maccabees (rebel leaders)

  1. Mattathias, 170-167 BC
  2. Judas Maccabeus, 167-160 BC
  3. Jonathan Apphus, 160-143 BC

    Monarchs (ethnarchs and kings) and high priests

  4. Simon Thassi, 142/1-134 BC
  5. John Hyrcanus I, 134-104 BC
  6. Aristobulus I, 104-103 BC
  7. Alexander Jannaeus, 103-76 BC
  8. Salome Alexandra, 76-67 BC
  9. Hyrcanus II, 67-66 BC
  10. Aristobulus II, 66-63 BC
  11. Hyrcanus II, 63-40 BC
  12. Antigonus, 40-37 BC
  13. Aristobulus III, 36 BC

    Historical sources

The major source of information about the origin of the Hasmonean dynasty is the books 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees, held as canonical scripture by the Catholic, Orthodox, and most Oriental Orthodox churches and as apocryphal by Protestant denominations, although they do not comprise the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible.
The books cover the period from 175 BC to 134 BC during which time the Hasmonean dynasty became semi-independent from the Seleucid empire but had not yet expanded far outside of Judea. They are written from the point of view that the salvation of the Jewish people in a crisis came from God through the family of Mattathias, particularly his sons Judas Maccabeus, Jonathan Apphus, and Simon Thassi, and his grandson John Hyrcanus. The books include historical and religious material from the Septuagint that was codified by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.
The other primary source for the Hasmonean dynasty is the first book of The Wars of the Jews and a more detailed history in Antiquities of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus,. Josephus' account is the only primary source covering the history of the Hasmonean dynasty during the period of its expansion and independence between 110 and 63 BC. Notably, Josephus, a Roman citizen and former general in the Galilee, who survived the Jewish–Roman wars of the 1st century, was a Jew who was captured by and cooperated with the Romans, and wrote his books under Roman patronage.

Background

Between c. 720 BC and 333 BC, the lands of the former Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah were occupied in turn by Assyria, Babylonia, and the Achaemenid Empire.
After the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great, the entire region was heavily contested between the two major successor states of the Macedonian empire — the Seleucid Empire to the north and the Ptolemaic Kingdom to the south. Between 319 and 302 BC, Jerusalem changed hands seven times.
Under Antiochus III the Great, the Seleucids wrested control of Judea from the Ptolemies for the final time, defeating Ptolemy V Epiphanes at the Battle of Panium in 200 BC. Seleucid rule over the Jewish parts of the region then resulted in the rise of Hellenistic cultural and religious practices: "In addition to the turmoil of war, there arose in the Jewish nation pro-Seleucid and pro-Ptolemaic parties; and the schism exercised great influence upon the Judaism of the time. It was in Antioch that the Jews first made the acquaintance of Hellenism and of the more corrupt sides of Greek culture; and it was from Antioch that Judea henceforth was ruled."

Seleucid rule over Judea

Hellenization

The continuing Hellenization of Judea pitted those who eagerly Hellenized against traditionalists, as the former felt that the latter's orthodoxy held them back; additionally the conflict between Ptolemies and Seleucids further divided them over allegiance to either faction.
An example of these divisions is the conflict which broke out between High Priest Onias III and his brother Jason in 175 BC, followed by a period of political intrigue with both Jason and Menelaus bribing the king to win the High Priesthood, and accusations of murder of competing contenders for the title. The result was a brief civil war. The Tobiads, a philo-Hellenistic party, succeeded in placing Jason into the powerful position of High Priest. He established an arena for public games close by the Temple. Author Lee I. Levine notes, "The 'piece de resistance' of Judaean Hellenisation, and the most dramatic of all these developments, occurred in 175 BC, when the high priest Jason converted Jerusalem into a Greek polis replete with gymnasium and ephebeion. Whether this step represents the culmination of a 150-year process of Hellenisation within Jerusalem in general, or whether it was only the initiative of a small coterie of Jerusalem priests with no wider ramifications, has been debated for decades." Hellenised Jews are known to have engaged in non-surgical foreskin restoration in order to join the dominant Hellenistic cultural practice of socialising naked in the gymnasium, where their circumcision would have carried a social stigma; Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman culture found circumcision to be a cruel, barbaric and repulsive custom.

Antiochus IV

In spring 168 BCE, after successfully invading the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt, Antiochus IV was humiliatingly pressured by the Romans to withdraw. According to the Roman historian Livy, the Roman senate dispatched the diplomat Gaius Popilius to Egypt who demanded Antiochus to withdraw. When Antiochus requested time to discuss the matter Popilius "drew a circle round the king with the stick he was carrying and said, 'Before you step out of that circle give me a reply to lay before the senate.'"
While Antiochus was campaigning in Egypt, a rumor spread in Judah that he had been killed. The deposed high priest Jason took advantage of the situation, attacked Jerusalem, and drove away Menelaus and his followers. Menelaus took refuge in Akra, the Seleucids fortress in Jerusalem. When Antiochus heard of this, he sent an army to Jerusalem who drove out Jason and his followers, and reinstated Menelaus as high priest; he then imposed a tax and established a fortress in Jerusalem.
During this period Antiochus tried to suppress public observance of Jewish laws, apparently in an attempt to secure control over the Jews. His government set up an idol of Zeus on the Temple Mount, which Jews considered to be desecration of the Mount, outlawed observance of the Sabbath and the offering of sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple, required Jewish leaders to sacrifice to idols and forbade both circumcision and possession of Jewish scriptures, on pain of death. Punitive executions were also instituted.
According to Josephus,
"Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected taking the city, or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made there; but being overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what he had suffered during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swine's flesh upon the altar."

The motives of Antiochus are unclear. He may have been incensed at the overthrow of his appointee, Menelaus, he may have been responding to a Jewish revolt that had drawn on the Temple and the Torah for its strength, or he may have been encouraged by a group of radical Hellenisers among the Jews.