name was originally On was the brother of Jason. Accord- ing to Wellhausen his Hebrew name was M wnahem or Manasseh.
PHARISEES
1 Mac 155), Two years afterwards an even worse fate befell Jerusalem. Returning froma campaign in Egypt, Antiochus sent an oflicer with a large army to Jerusalem, with orders to slay all that were of full age, and to sell the women and the younger men, These orders were executed most relentlessly. The city was plundered and set on fire ; its walls were torn down ; such of its inhabit- ants as had not been put to the sword or made captive fled ; only apostates and heathen strangers remained ; and the city of David was rebuilt into a strong citadel, the Akra, which was held by 8 Syrian garrison till B.c. 142 (2 Mac 5“ ; ef. 1 Mac 155.)., Soon thereafter a decree was issued by Antiochus suppressing the Jewish religion. The sacrifices in the sanctuary at Jerusalem were for- bidden ; the Sabbaths and feasts were to be pro- faned and the sanctuary polluted ; their sons were no longer to be circumcised ; the sacred books had to be delivered up; altars and temples and shrines for idols were to be built in the cities of Judah, and swine’s flesh and unclean beasts were to he offered in sacrifice. These injunctions were rigidly carried out by overseers appointed for the purpose. On the 15th of Chislev (7.e. December) B.C. 168 an altar was erected to Zeus Olympius on the altar of J”, and on the 25th a sacrifice was offered on it to the heathen deity. Whether Menelaus officiated as high priest, we cannot tell. Such of the Jews as remained loyal to the law were barbarously put to death, no respect being paid to age or sex (1 Mac 1“*-),
Hellenism had evidently made considerable pro- gress not only among the priestly aristocracy and the inferior priests (2 Mac 415"), but also among the people generally (1 Mac 11"), more especi- ally in Jerusalem and among the young men (ef. Ant. x1. v. 1 with 1 Mac 1"). At first there was probably no intention, even on the part of the eading Hellenizers, to apostatize from the national religion; what they desired was to remove from Judaism its narrowness and exclusiveness, to give up the intolerable and, as it seemed to them, bar- barous customs of the fathers, so that they might freely participate in the advantages of Greek culture and in the joys of Greek life. But even after Antiochus had taken his extreme measures, many of the Hellenizing party still adhered to him.* ‘Many of Israel consented to his worship, and sacrificed: to the idols, and profaned the Sab- bath’ (1 Mac 1*; cf. what is said of the ‘lawless’ and ‘ungodly’ 358 622 9% 1014; also Dn 8% 1159. 32), After the outbreak of the Maccabzan rising we find them among the ‘ Macedonian’ garrison of the citadel (Ant. ΧΙ]. v. 4, ix. 3) and in the armies of Seron, Ptolemeus, Nicanor, and Gorgias (XI. vii. 1. 3). But, as the Maccabean rising proves, these measures of Antiochus had shown the mass of the people to what Hellenism was tending and had awakened a powerful reaction.
Apart, however, from this national reaction, the radical Hellenism of the priestly aristocracy had called forth another extreme party, the Hasideans (see art. HASIDZANS). This party is, in principle, as ancient as Judaism, but it was opposition to extreme Hellenization that brought them close together into a separate company (συναγωγή, 1 Mac 2"), shortly before the Maccabzan rising, and made them allthe more resolved tostand by the threatened law. They were the party of those who had laid most to heart the teaching of the scribes (cf. 1 Mac 7:18); they were so devoted to the law (2%) as not even to defend themselves when attacked by the Syrians on the Sabbath (v.#%); they observed strictly the laws as to purification (1 Mac 1%,
* According to Josephus (Ant. xi. ix. 7) it was Menelaug that persuaded him to compel the Jews to renounce their ce ligion ; cf. 2 Mac 515,
PHARISEES
PHARISEES 823
2 Mac 6188:), and insisted upon complete separation from the Gentiles (2 Mac 14%). Though they were not the first to raise the standard of revolt against the Syrians, they soon associated themselves with Mattathias and his friends in the common cause (1 Mac 2*) ; but they withdrew from the struggle, when religious freedom was granted and Alcimus, 5 descendant of Aaron, was made high priest instead of Menelaus (7#*-), and do not seem, at least as a party, to have taken any further share in the war, in spite of the perfidy of Alcimus in putting many of them todeath. They were an exclusively religious party, supremely interested, not in the political independence of the nation, but in the strict observance in every respect of the laws and customs handed down from the fathers.
We have dwelt at considerable length on the Hellenizers and the Hasideans, because these were the progenitors respectively of the Sadducean and Pharisaic parties.
It is during the reign of John Hyrcanus (B.C. 135-105) that we first hear of these as two opposed
165." According to Josephus (Ant. XII. x. 5. ), H us on one occasion invited the Pharisees to a feast, and having entertained them well and put them in good humour, reminded them that they knew he was desirous to be a righteous man and to do all things whereby he might please God, after their manner. If they observed him erring in any way, he requested them to correct him. They all expressed entire satisfaction with him, except one, Eleazar by name, who informed him that, if he would be really righteous, he must lay down the high priesthood and be content with the civil government of the people, and stated, as the reason for making this demand, that they had heard from old men that his mother had been a carer in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. Not only Hyrcanus, but also all the rest of the Phari- sees were andigpant at Eleazar for repeating this story, which of course insinuated a suspicion as to the purity of Hyrcanus’ descent. But one, Jona- than, a Sadducee, and a great friend of Hyrcanus, assured the latter that Eleazar had simply expressed the sentiments common to all the Pharisees, and advised him to test them by putting to them the pears what punishment Eleazar deserved. On their answering that he deserved stripes and bonds, H us was very angry, and concluded that Eleazar had reproached him with cra ine Sar He accordingly left the Lea of the Pharisees, abolished the decrees they had imposed upon the people, and punished those that observed them with death.