CHAPTER IV.
ANTIGONUS AND HEROD
Weakness of Antigonus and Herod's Strength of Character – Contest for the Throne – Herod becomes King – Proscriptions and Confiscations – Herod's Policy – Abolition of the Hereditary Tenure of the High Priesthood – Death of the High Priest Aristobulus – War with the Arabians – The Earthquake – Death of the last of the Hasmonæans – Hillel becomes the Head of the Synhedrion – His System of Tradition – Menahem the Essene – Shammai and his School – Mariamne – Herod's Magnificence and Passion for Building – Herod rebuilds the Temple – Herod executes his Sons Alexander and Aristobulus – Antipater and his Intrigues – The Pharisees under Herod – The Destruction of the Roman Eagle – Execution of Antipater and Death of Herod.
40–3 B. C. E
It is certain that Judæa derived her greatness and independence rather from the tact and foresight of the first Hasmonæans than from their skill in arms; and in like manner she suffered humiliation and bondage from the short-sightedness of the last Hasmonæan kings, who did not understand how to make use of the advantages within their grasp. Events were most favorable for Antigonus to acquire extended power. The Roman leaders were violently opposed to one another. The provinces in the east, unimportant in the eyes of Octavius, were looked upon by Antony as the abode of luxury and pomp rather than as an arena for warlike achievements. The soft arms of Cleopatra had made the rough couch of the war-goddess distasteful to him. The Parthians, who hated the greed of Rome, had valiantly repulsed her troops. Had Antigonus understood how to keep alive the hatred of the people towards the Idumæan house, the Romans themselves would have courted him as an ally instead of shunning him as an enemy, so eager were they for assistance in staying the progress of the Parthians. The mountain tribes of Galilee had already declared in favor of Antigonus; and Sepphoris, one of their cities, had been converted into an arsenal; besides, the caves of Arbela sheltered numerous bands of freebooters, who might have proved dangerous to the enemy's rear. But Antigonus was neither a statesman nor a general. He did not know how to turn to account the varied material which he had at hand. The whole of his strength was frittered away upon trivial aims; his leading passion was the revenge which he meditated against Herod and his brothers, and this retarded instead of stimulating his activity. He did not know how to rise to the truly royal height whence he could look down with contempt instead of with hatred upon the Idumæan upstarts. During his reign, which lasted three years and a half (40–37), he undertook nothing great or decisive, although the Roman officers, who for the sake of appearances pretended to support Herod, in point of fact usually occupied a neutral position.
Even amongst his own people Antigonus did not know the secret of winning men of influence to his cause so that they would stand or fall with him. The very leaders of the Synhedrion, Shemaya and Abtalion, averse to Herod on account of his overwhelming audacity, were not partisans of Antigonus. It is somewhat difficult to understand entirely the reason of this aversion to the Hasmonæan king. Had Antigonus professed allegiance to Sadducæan principles, or was there personal jealousy between the representatives of the royal power and the teachers of the Law? We are led to believe from one circumstance, insignificant in itself, that the dislike originated from the latter cause. It happened once, upon the day of Atonement, that the entire congregation, according to custom, had followed the high priest, Antigonus, at the close of the divine service, from the Temple to his own residence. On the way they met the two Synhedrists, Shemaya and Abtalion; they quitted their priest-king to form an escort for their beloved teachers of the Law. Antigonus, vexed at this apparent insult, expressed his displeasure to the Synhedrists by an ironical obeisance, which they returned in the same offensive way. This unfortunate variance with the most influential men, coupled with Antigonus's lack of generalship and statecraft, brought misfortune upon himself, his house and the nation.
His rival Herod, who possessed all those qualities in which he was deficient, was a man of a different stamp. When fortune frowned upon him for a time, he could always win back her smiles. His flight from Jerusalem had been so desperate for him that at one moment he contemplated suicide. His design to make an ally of the Nabathæan king failed. He wandered through the Judæan-Idumæan desert, an outcast and penniless, but yet unbroken, and revolving far-reaching schemes. He turned to Egypt; there Cleopatra offered to make him general of her army, but he refused, for he still clung to the hope of wearing the crown of Judæa. He took ship for Rome, and after being tempest-tossed and narrowly escaping shipwreck, he arrived at his destination at the favorable moment when Octavius and Antony had once more agreed upon the Brundisian treaty. He found no difficulty in persuading Antony that he could render him great service in repulsing the Parthians, and he convinced him that Antigonus, raised to the throne of Judæa by the Parthians, would always be an implacable enemy to the Romans. Antony was completely deceived by the craft and subtlety of Herod. He spoke favorably of him to Octavius, who dared not refuse him anything. Thus within seven days, Herod succeeded in having the Senate proclaim him King of Judæa, and Antigonus pronounced an enemy of Rome (40). This was the second death-blow that Rome had dealt the Judæan nation, in delivering her up to the mercy of an alien, a half-Judæan, an Idumæan, who had his own personal insults to avenge. Judæa was forced to submit, and in addition to pay tribute-money to Rome.
Herod, seeing that his ambition was to be crowned with success, now left Antony (who had loaded him with honors), in order to assume the royal title conferred upon him. He left Rome and arrived at Acco (39). He was supplied with sums of money by various friends, and especially by Saramalla, the richest Judæan in Antioch. With these moneys he hired mercenaries and subdued a great part of Galilee. He then hastened southwards, to relieve the fortress of Masada, where his brother Joseph was hard pressed by the friends of Antigonus. This struggle was of long duration, as the Romans were unwilling to take an active part in the contest. Herod felt the necessity of appearing in person in Antony's camp, which at that moment was pitched before Samosata, there to plead his own cause. Partly in return for the services he rendered to the Roman commander upon this occasion, and partly through his persuasive powers, he induced Antony to send Sosius, one of his generals, at the head of two legions, to resolutely carry on the contest against Antigonus, and to establish upon the throne the king selected by Rome.
This war was carried on by Herod with implacable severity. Five cities in the neighborhood of Jericho, with their inhabitants to the number of 2000, who had sided with Antigonus, he ordered to be burnt. In the following spring (37), he commenced the siege of Jerusalem. Previous to this, he celebrated in Samaria, with hands stained with the blood of its inhabitants, his nuptials with Mariamne, to whom he had now for several years been betrothed.
As soon as Sosius had advanced into Judæa with a large army of Roman infantry, cavalry and Syrian mercenaries, the siege of Jerusalem was pressed. The besieging army numbered one hundred thousand men. They built ramparts, filled up the moats, and prepared their battering-rams. The besieged, though suffering from want of food, defended themselves heroically. They made occasional sorties, dispersed the workmen, destroyed the preparations for the siege, built up a new wall, and harassed the besiegers to such an extent that after one month's labor they had not advanced to any extent in their work. But the two Synhedrists, Shemaya and Abtalion, raised their voices against this opposition, and recommended their countrymen to open their gates to Herod.
This division of purpose amongst the besieged, combined with the attacks of the invaders, may have hastened the fall of the northern wall, which took place at the end of forty days. The besiegers rushed into the lower town and into the outworks of the Temple, while the besieged, with their king, fortified themselves in the upper town and on the Temple Mount. The Romans were occupied during another fortnight with the storming of the south wall. On a Sabbath evening, when the Judæan warriors were least expecting an attack, a portion of the wall was taken, and the Romans rushed like madmen into the old part of the city and into the Temple. There, without distinction of age or sex, they slaughtered all who came in their way, even the priest beside his sacrifice. By a strange fatality, Jerusalem fell on the anniversary of the day on which, twenty-seven years previously, the Temple had been taken by Pompey. It was hardly possible for Herod to restrain his savage soldiery from plundering and desecrating the holy spot, and it was only by giving costly gifts to each soldier that he prevented the entire destruction of Jerusalem. Antigonus was thrown into chains and sent to Antony, who, upon Herod's persistent entreaties, and contrary to all custom and usage, had him tortured and then ignobly beheaded. This disgraceful treatment excited the opprobrium even of the Romans.
Herod, or, as the people called him, the Idumæan slave, had thus reached the goal of his lofty desires. His throne, it is true, rested upon ruins and upon the dead bodies of his subjects; but he felt that he had the power to maintain its dignity, even if it were necessary to carry a broad river of blood round its base. The bitter hatred of the Judæan people, whose ruler he had become without the slightest lawful title, was nothing to him as compared with the friendship of Rome and the smile of Antony. His line of action was clearly marked out for him by the situation of affairs: he had to cling to the Romans as a support against the ill-will of his people, and meet this ill-will by apparent concessions, or control it by unrelenting severity. This was the policy that he followed from the first moment of his victory until he drew his last breath. During all the thirty-four years of his reign he followed this line of policy, cold and heartless as fate, and entailing the most terrible consequences. Even in the first confusion attendant upon the conquest of the Temple Mount, he had not lost his coolness and vigilance, but had ordered his satellite Costobar to surround the exits of Jerusalem with his soldiery, and thus to prevent the escape of the unfortunate fugitives. The followers of Antigonus were slain in large numbers, many amongst them being of the most distinguished families. Herod did not forget old grievances. The Synhedrists, who twelve years previously had decreed his death, were killed to a man, with the exception of Abtalion and Shemaya, who had been hostile to Antigonus. He seized the property of those whom he executed or otherwise condemned for the royal treasury; for this worthy pupil of Roman masters was fully alive to the advantages of proscription and confiscation. He passed over the Hasmonæan house in selecting a high priest, and chose a certain Ananel, a descendant of Aaron, but not of high-priestly family, for that office. He declared that his own was an old Judæan family which had returned from Babylonia, wishing in this way to obliterate the fact that he was descended from an Idumæan ancestor who had been forced to accept Judaism. The natives of Jerusalem, who had a good memory for his true extraction, did not indeed lend an ear to this invention, but foreign Judæans and heathens may perhaps have been deceived by it. His confidential friend and historian, Nicolaus of Damascus, relates this fiction as coming from his own lips. At the death of Shemaya and Abtalion, the presidents of the Synhedrion were chosen from a Babylonian-Judæan family, that of Bene Bathyra.
Two persons still existed who might prove dangerous to Herod: an old man and a youth – Hyrcanus, who had once worn the crown and the priestly diadem, and his grandson Aristobulus, Herod's brother-in-law, who had claims upon both the royal and the priestly dignity. Herod could not devote himself to the calm enjoyment of his conquest until these two should be powerless. Hyrcanus, it was true, who had fallen captive to the Parthians, had been mutilated by them, and was therefore unfit to resume his priestly office; but his captors had generously granted him freedom, and the aged monarch had been joyfully and reverentially welcomed by the community of Babylonian Judæans. In spite of the devotion which he received from these people, Hyrcanus had an intense longing to return to his native land, and Herod was afraid that he might induce the Babylonian Judæans or the Parthians to take up his cause and help him regain his throne, from which the latter had torn him. Anxious to avert this danger, Herod bethought himself of taking Hyrcanus from Parthian influence and of bringing him under his own power. It was thus that the aged monarch received a pressing invitation to Jerusalem to share the throne and the power of king Herod, and to receive the thanks of the Idumæan for past acts of kindness that Hyrcanus had shown him. Vainly did the Babylonian Judæans warn the credulous prince not to let himself be drawn a second time into the eddy of public life; he hurried to his doom. Herod received him with every mark of respect, and gave him the place of honor at his table and in the Council, masking his treachery so completely that Hyrcanus was entirely deceived. He was unarmed and powerless in a golden cage.
But more dangerous to Herod seemed his young brother-in-law Aristobulus, the only brother of Mariamne, who, on account of his lineage, his youth, and his surpassing beauty, had attracted the love and devotion of all his people. Herod, in debarring him from the dignity of high priest, imagined that he had successfully destroyed his influence. But this was not so. Alexandra, the mother of Mariamne and Aristobulus, as well versed in intrigue as Herod himself, had succeeded in obtaining Antony's favor for her son. She had sent the portraits of her children, the most beautiful of their race, to the Roman triumvir, believing his weak nature might be worked upon most favorably through the senses. Antony, in truth, struck by the portraits, requested to see Aristobulus. But Herod, in order that this meeting should not take place, suddenly proclaimed the young Hasmonæan high priest, and Ananel was deprived of this dignity. But Alexandra was far from being satisfied, for she was secretly determined that her son should also wear the crown which his ancestors had worn. Herod, fully alive to his peril, was all the more determined to rid himself of this dangerous youth. Aristobulus had already gained the heart of the people, and whenever he appeared in the Temple, every eye hung upon his noble and perfect form, every glance seemed to avow that the Judæans were longing to see this last scion of the Hasmonæan house seated upon the royal throne. Herod durst not act with open violence against his rival, who was looked upon with special favor by Queen Cleopatra, but as usual he resorted to treachery. He invited Aristobulus to Jericho, and bade his followers dispatch the youth whilst he was disporting in the bath. Thus died, at the early age of seventeen, Aristobulus III., the last male representative of the Hasmonæan house. Herod then reappointed his puppet Ananel as high priest. It was vain for the Idumæan to affect deep grief at the death of his young brother-in-law, it was vain for him to throw sweet perfume upon his body; all the relations and friends of the murdered Hasmonæan accused Herod in their hearts of his death, although their lips gave no utterance to their thoughts.
But this crime brought its own bitter punishment with it, and made Herod's whole life one long tale of misery. The agony of remorse that might have wrought some change upon a less hardened nature was not felt, but only an ever-increasing suspicion towards those of his own household, which urged him to heap crime upon crime, to murder his nearest relatives, even his own children, until he became at last the most terrible example of a sin-laden existence. Alexandra, who had staked her ambitious hopes upon the coronation of her son, and who now found herself so cruelly deceived, did not hesitate to accuse Herod before Cleopatra of the murder of Aristobulus. This queen, whose passions were uncontrolled, and who looked with an envious eye upon Herod's newly acquired kingdom, took advantage of his crime to make its author appear odious in the eyes of Antony. Herod was summoned to Laodicea. Trembling for his life, the vassal king obeyed the summons, but succeeded in ingratiating himself so thoroughly by costly gifts and by carefully chosen yet eloquent words, that not only was the death of Aristobulus overlooked, but he was distinguished by marks of esteem, and sent back to Jerusalem, full of happy self-confidence. He lost, however, one precious pearl from his crown. The far-famed district of Jericho, celebrated for its wealth of palm-trees and its highly-prized balsam, had been given by Antony to Cleopatra, and Herod was forced to accept two hundred talents in lieu as tribute-money from the queen. He could, however, rest well satisfied with this loss, when comparing it with the danger from which he had escaped.
On the threshold of his palace, however, the demon of discord awaited him, ready to fill his whole being with despair. On the eve of his departure he had entrusted his wife Mariamne to the care of Joseph, the husband of his sister Salome, and had given him the secret command that, in case of his falling a victim to Antony's displeasure, Joseph should murder both Mariamne and Alexandra. Love for his beautiful wife, whom he could not bear to think of as belonging to another, added to hatred of Alexandra, who should not triumph in his death, prompted this fiendish resolve. But Joseph had betrayed his secret mission to Mariamne, and had thus plunged another dagger into the heart of that unhappy queen. When a false report of Herod's death became current in Jerusalem, Mariamne and her mother prepared to put themselves under Roman protection. Herod's sister Salome, who hated both her husband Joseph and her sister-in-law Mariamne, made use of this fact to calumniate them upon her brother's return, accusing them of a mutual understanding and undue intimacy. Herod at first turned a deaf ear to this calumny, but when Mariamne disclosed to her husband, amidst tears of indignation, that Joseph had confessed his secret mission to her, then the king's wrath knew no bounds. Declaring that he fully believed his sister's accusations, he beheaded Joseph, placed Alexandra in confinement, and would have had Mariamne slain, had not his love for his queen surpassed even his rage. From that day, however, the seeds of distrust and hatred were sown in the palace, and they grew and spread until one member of the royal family after another met with an untimely and violent death.
Outwardly, however, fortune appeared to smile upon Herod, carrying him successfully over the most difficult obstacles in his path. Before the sixth year of his reign had ended, threatening clouds began to gather over his head. A surviving sister of the last Hasmonæan king Antigonus had arisen as the avenger of her brother and his race, and had, in some way or other, possessed herself of the fortress of Hyrcanion. Herod had hardly disarmed this female warrior before he was threatened by a more serious danger. Cleopatra, who had always hated the Judæans, and who had been most ungenerous to that community in Alexandria during a year of famine, had again attempted to effect Herod's ruin by awakening Antony's displeasure against him. Afraid of this violent and yet crafty queen, and alarmed at the hatred of his own people, who were longing for his downfall, Herod determined upon preparing some safe retreat, where his life would at all events be secure from his enemies. He chose for this purpose the fortress of Masada, which nature had rendered almost impregnable, and which he fortified still more strongly. But Cleopatra was already devising another scheme for the downfall of her enemy. She succeeded in entangling him in a war with Malich, the Nabathæan king, and thus endeavored to bring about the ruin of two equally hated monarchs. But Herod gained two decisive victories over the Nabathæans, which alarmed Cleopatra, and caused her to send her general Athenion to the aid of Malich. The Judæan army sustained a terrible defeat, and Herod was beaten back across the Jordan. This disaster was followed by an earthquake, which alarmed and dispirited the Judæan troops to such an extent that they lost all courage and were almost powerless before the enemy. But Herod, with true genius, succeeded in rousing his people, and in leading them victoriously against the Nabathæans. Malich was forced to become the vassal of the Judæan king.
Hardly, however, was peace restored before a storm arose that threatened to shake the Roman world to its very depths and to destroy the favorite of the Roman generals. Ever since that day when Rome and her vast possessions lay at the feet of the triumvirs, who hated each other cordially, and each one of whom wished to be sole ruler of the state, the political atmosphere had been charged with destructive elements that threatened to explode at any given moment. Added to this, one of the three leaders was completely under the sway of the dissolute and devilish Queen Cleopatra, who had set her heart upon becoming mistress of Rome, even though this should entail the devastation of whole countries by fire and by sword.
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.