high priest, and his life was spared only at the intercession of the Parthian Jews, who had a regard for the Asmonean prince. Thus Antigonus succeeded his uncle as “King Antigonus” in the Greek and “Mattathiah the high priest” in the Hebrew by grace of the Parthians.
The senate of Rome under the influence of Antony and Octavian ratified the claims of Herod, and after some delay lent him the armed force necessary to make them good. In the hope of healing the breach, which his success could only aggravate, and for love, he took to wife Mariamne, grandniece of Hyrcanus. Galilee was pacified, Jerusalem taken and Antigonus beheaded by the Romans. From this point to the end of the period the Jews were dependents of Rome, free to attend to their own affairs, so long as they paid taxes to the subordinate rulers, Herodian or Roman, whom they detested equally. If some from time to time dared to hope for political independence their futility was demonstrated. One by one the descendants of the Asmoneans were removed. The national hope was relegated to an indefinite future and to another sphere. At any rate the Jews were free to worship their God and to study his law: their religion was recognized by the state and indeed established.
This development of Judaism was eminently to the mind of the rulers; and Herod did much to encourage it. More and more it became identified with the synagogue, in which the Law was expounded: more and more it became a matter for the individual and his private life. This was so even in Palestine—the land which the Jews hoped to possess—and in Jerusalem itself, the holy city, in which the Temple stood. Herod had put down Jewish rebels and Herod appointed the high priests. In his appointments he was careful to avoid or to suppress any person who, being popular, might legitimize a rebellion by heading it. The Pharisees, who regarded his rule as an inevitable penalty for the sins of the people, he encouraged. Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas his disciple were in special honour with him, Josephus says, when he re-entered Jerusalem and put to death the leaders of the faction of Antigonus. How well their teaching served his purpose is shown by the sayings of two rabbis who, if not identical with these Pharisees, belong to their period and their party. Shemaiah said, “Love work and hate lordship and make not thyself known to the government.” Abtalion said, “Ye wise, be guarded in your words: perchance ye may incur the debt of exile.” Precepts such as these could hardly fall to effect some modification of the reckless zeal of the Galileans in the pupils of the synagogue. Many if not all of the professed rabbis had travelled outside Palestine: some were even members of the dispersion, like Hillel the Babylonian, who with Shammai forms the second of the pairs. Through them the experience of the dispersion was brought to bear upon the Palestinian Jews. Herod’s nominees were not the men to extend the prestige of the high-priesthood at the expense of these rabbis: even in Jerusalem the synagogue became of more importance than the Temple. Hillel also inculcated the duty of making converts to Judaism. He said, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them nigh to the Law.” But even he reckoned the books of Daniel and Esther as canonical, and these were dangerous food for men who did not realize the full power of Rome.
So long as Herod lived there was no insurrection. Formally he was an orthodox Jew and set his face against intermarriage with the uncircumcised. He was also ready and able to protect the Jews of the dispersion. But that ability was largely due to his whole-hearted Hellenism, which was shown by the Greek cities which he founded in Palestine and the buildings he erected in Jerusalem. In its material embodiments Greek civilization became as much a part of Jewish life in Palestine as it was in Alexandria or Antioch; and herein the rabbis could not follow him.
When all the Jewish people swore to be loyal to Caesar and the king’s policy, the Pharisees—above 6000—refused to swear. The king imposed a fine upon them, and the wife of Pheroras—Herod’s brother—paid it on their behalf. In return for her kindness, being entrusted with foreknowledge by the visitation of God, they prophesied that God had decreed an end of rule for Herod and his line and that the sovereignty devolved upon her and Pheroras and their children.
From the sequel it appears that the prophecy was uttered by one Pharisee only, and that it was in no way endorsed by the party. When it came to the ears of the king he slew the most responsible of the Pharisees and every member of his household who accepted what the Pharisee said. An explanation of this unwarrantable generalization may be found in the fact that the incident is derived from a source which was unfavourable to the Pharisees: they are described as a Jewish section of men who pretend to set great store by the exactitude of the ancestral tradition and the laws in which the deity delights—as dominant over women-folk—and as sudden and quick in quarrel.
Towards the end of Herod’s life two rabbis attempted to uphold by physical force the cardinal dogma of Judaism, which prohibited the use of images. Their action is intelligible enough. Herod was stricken with an incurable disease. He had sinned against the Law; and at last God had punished him. At last the law-abiding Jews might and must assert the majesty of the outraged Law. The most conspicuous of the many symbols and signs of his transgression was the golden eagle which he had placed over the great gate of the Temple; its destruction was the obvious means to adopt for the quickening and assertion of Jewish principles.
By their labours in the education of the youth of the nation, these rabbis, Judas and Matthias, had endeared themselves to the populace and had gained influence over their disciples. A report that Herod was dead co-operated with their exhortations to send the iconoclasts to their appointed work. And so they went to earn the rewards of their practical piety from the Law. If they died, death was inevitable, the rabbis said, and no better death would they ever find. Moreover, their children and kindred would benefit by the good name and fame belonging to those who died for the Law. Such is the account which Josephus gives in the Antiquities; in the Jewish War he represents the rabbis and their disciples as looking forward to greater happiness for themselves after such a death. But Herod was not dead yet, and the instigators and the agents of this sacrilege were burned alive.
32. The Settlement of Augustus.—On the death of Herod in 4 B.C. Archelaus kept open house for mourners as the Jewish custom, which reduced many Jews to beggary, prescribed. The people petitioned for the punishment of those who were responsible for the execution of Matthias and his associates and for the removal of the high priest. Archelaus temporized; the loyalty of the people no longer constituted a valid title to the throne; his succession must first be sanctioned by Augustus. Before he departed to Rome on this errand, which was itself an insult to the nation, there were riots in Jerusalem at the Passover which he needed all his soldiery to put down. When he presented himself before the emperor—apart from rival claimants of his own family—there was an embassy from the Jewish people who prayed to be rid of a monarchy and rulers such as Herod. As part of the Roman province of Syria and under its governors they would prove that they were not really disaffected and rebellious. During the absence of Archelaus, who would—the Jews feared—prove his legitimacy by emulating his father’s ferocity, and to whom their ambassadors preferred Antipas, the Jews of Palestine gave the lie to their protestations of loyalty and peaceableness. At the Passover the pilgrims attacked the Roman troops. After hard fighting the procurator, whose cruelty provoked the attack, captured the Temple and robbed the treasury. On this the insurgents were joined by some of Herod’s army and besieged the Romans in Herod’s palace. Elsewhere the occasion tempted many to play at being king—Judas, son of Hezekiah, in Galilee; Simon, one of the king’s slaves, in Peraea. Most notable of all perhaps was the shepherd Athronges, who assumed the pomp of royalty and employed his four brothers as captains and satraps in the war which he waged upon Romans and king’s men alike—not even Jews escaped him unless they brought him contributions.
