* We learn from Mal 214. that some of the Jews had put away their Jewish wives in order to marry foreign women.
¢ According to the LXX of 104 they put away their foreign wives along with their children.
element (Neh 6'7- 35); the Sabbath was not strictly kept (10%, cf. 13%); and mixed mar- Tiages were exceedingly common. After taking the precautionary measure of building the wall o Jerusalem, he held an assembly of the people, at which they resolved to separate checnatata entirely from all foreigners, and to observe all the LorRD’s commandments (93 10**-). He did not, however, compel them to put away their foreign wives and children, but ite to pledge themselves to abstain from all mixed marriages in future (105). But he had not yet gained a complete victory. When he revisited Jerusalem in 432, he found that the high priest Eliashib had renewed his close fellowship with Tobiah (13), that the Sabbath was still Teeaarated (v.19), that many of the people were still marrying foreign wives (ν. 55.) and that a prone of the high priest was son-in- law to Sanballat (v.¥). Against these abuses he took active measures. He cast out all Tobiah’s household stuff, and had the chambers of the temple purified (v.*) ; he renewed his injunctions against Sabbath desecration and the contracting of fresh mixed marriages, and expelled the high priest’s grandson from the Jewish community (v.*).* *Thus,’ he adds, ‘cleansed I them from all strangers’ (ν. 3). Complete separation from all foreign elements became henceforth the principle of Judaism.
In connexion with these proceedings it is import- ant to notice that the natural leaders of the people, including the members of the high priest’s family, who had become a sort of temple nobility, were among the chief offenders, and that it was from them that Nehemiah experienced the greatest active opposition. Backed up by the authority of the Persian king, he was able to crush their opposi- tion, and to establish in Juda the strict separa- tion which from the first had ruled among the pious exiles in Babylonia. ‘The aftertime shows ey that he accomplished tke werk of his life.
e impressed the stamp cf his ol ps upon Judaism for all time, and fcrced it to follow the course he had marked out’ (Cornill, History of the People of Israel, p. 168; see also Wellhausen, Isr. und Jiid. Geschichte’, p. 173). We must not, however, make Nehemiah a Pharisee and Eliashib a Sadducee. In them and their respective adherents we have only, at the most, a preparation for the sachin that formed much later. The victory of Nehemiah was the victory of Judaism generally, not of Judaism in its specific Pharisaic form.
Regarding the latter half of the Persian period we have hardly any authentic information. The high priest was probably, under the Persian rovernor of Syria, the civil as well as religious nead of the Jewish community ; he and his ean brethren of higher office along with their families would doubtless form a kind of aristocracy, even as compared with the rest of the priests. Judging from the conduct of some of their successors towards the close of the Greek period, it is very unlikely that their influence was always of an ideal character (cf. the story of Johanan and Bagoses, Ant. XI. vii. 1). In spite of the er 5 of the exclusive party under Ezra and Nehemiah, there still remained an Israel after the flesh, and a deep gulf between it and the Israel after the spirit.t
ὁ According to Josephus (Ant. xt vill, 5 σ.} this expelled
priest was Manasseh, for whom Sanballat built the Samaritan
temple on Mt. Gerizim. | For detailed proof drawn from the Pealms see Bertholet, Die Stellung der Irractiten und der Juden mu den Premden, p. 18417. We need not suppose that only wicked ny 4 " of Ezra. Cheyne (JewisA Ke
were opposed to the rig ligious Life after the Baul 220) makes the Book of Ruth ‘an idyllic story to justify adw g into the community any foreign women who heartily adopted the nationality and religion of their Jewish husbands It shows that Bera did not gain δ at all complete victory over the friends of mixed marriages,’
PHARISEES
The conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great and the settin oP of the Greek kingdoms of Egypt and Syria uader his successors one the Jews into close contact with a new and highly developed civilization. During the first half of the Greek period Judwa belonged to Egypt, and the Pales- tinian Jews, with whom we are mainly concerned, though surrounded by Greek cities, with which they had constant intercourse, do not seem to have been much harmed by such intercourse. It was otherwise when Syria (B.C. 198) became the para- mount power. Antiochus IIL, it is true, favoured the Jews in many ways, and allowed them the enjoyment of unconditional religious freedom (Ant. xu. iii. 3. 4). A crisis came, however, when Antiochus Epiphanes ascended the throne (B.C. 175). He resolved to suppress the Jewish religion, and he found a party among the Jews themselves ready to play into his hands. This party contained leading members of the priesthood, several of whom had eaaried Greek names, and who, in order to further their own ambitious designs, were prepared to go almost any length in Hellenizing the people. During the reign of Seleucus Iv., one Simon, who was ‘guardian’ of the temple, and who was evidently one of the chiefs of this Hellenizing party, had caused serious trouble to the hig priest Onias mI. (2 Mac 3-4‘). On the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes to the throne, Jason, whose name was originally Jesus (Ané. XII. v. 1), supplanted his brother Onias in the high priest- hood (B.C. 175) by promising the king a large sum of money; in return for another large sum he also received permission to erect a nasium in Jerusalem and to register its inhabitants as citizens of Antioch (2 Mac 47%), And now the work of Hellenization began. Jason ‘forthwith brought over them of his own race to the Greek fashion.... Seeking to overthrow the lawful modes of life, he brought in new customs forbidden by the law ; he established a Greek place of exer- cise under the citadel itself, and caused the noblest of the young men to wear the Greekcap. And thus there was an extreme of Greek fashions, and an advance of an alien religion... ; the priests had no more any zeal for the services of the altar; but despising the sanctuary, and neglecting the sacri- fices, they hastened to enjoy that which was un- lawfully provided in the palestra, after the summons of the discus; making of no account the honours of their fathers, and thinking the glories of the Greeks best of all’ (2 Mac 4!*2; cf. 1 Mac 1+), He even sent money to Tyre to provide a sacrifice for Hercules. ter three years Jason was supplanted in the high priesthood by Mene- laus, brother of the above-mentioned Simon,* who is described in 2 Mac 425 as ‘bringing nothing worthy the high priesthood, but having the passion of a cruel tyrant and the rage of a savage beast.’ In order to secure his position with the king by means of bribery, Menelaus spoiled the temple of its vessels oi gole (453; the aged high priest Onias, who protes ainst this sacrilege, was treach- erously murder (4"*-), and a deputation from Jerusalem, which appeared before Antiochus to accuse Menelaus of these and other outrages, was pae to death (4°), On a false rumour of the eath of Antiochus, Jason endeavoured to recover the high priesthood. Thinking that Judea was in revolt, Antiochus returned from Egypt (B.c. 170), took Jerusalem by storm and gave it up to pillage for three days. He also entered ‘the most holy temple of all the earth,’ having Menelaus for his e; he took the holy vessels with his ‘ polluted ds’ and spoiled the temple treasury (5"-" ; cf. * According to sy a (Ant. xi. v. 1), Menelaus, whose