This Post is Dedicated to the Memory of My Late Grandfather, Rabbi Yaaqob b. Hanoch Rabinowitz of Brooklyn, New York, and Shaarei Hessed, Jerusalem, Israel, Who have Opened to Me the World of Halachah and Rabbinic History. May His Memory Be a Blessing. ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Prelude: The End of Prophecy and the Great Assembly
A. The Great Assembly and the High Priesthood
“Artaxerxes, king of kings,
To Ezra the priest, teacher of the Law of the God of heaven:
Greetings.
Now I decree that any of the Israelites in my kingdom, including priests and Levites, who volunteer to go to Jerusalem with you, may go. You are sent by the king and his seven advisers to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem about the Law of your God, which is in your hand. Moreover, you are to take with you the silver and gold that the king and his advisers have freely given to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, together with all the silver and gold you may obtain from the province of Babylon, as well as the freewill offerings of the people and priests for the temple of their God in Jerusalem. With this money be sure to buy bulls, rams, and male lambs, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and sacrifice them on the altar of the temple of your God in Jerusalem.
You and your fellow Israelites may then do whatever seems best with the rest of the silver and gold, by the will of your God.
Deliver to the God of Jerusalem all the articles entrusted to you for worship in the temple of your God.
And anything else needed for the temple of your God that you are responsible to supply, you may provide from the royal treasury.
Now I, King Artaxerxes, decree that all the treasurers of Trans-Euphrates are to provide with diligence whatever Ezra the priest, the teacher of the Law of the God of heaven, may ask of you— up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cor] of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit. Whatever the God of heaven has prescribed, let it be done with diligence for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should his wrath fall on the realm of the king and of his sons?
You are also to know that you have no authority to impose taxes, tribute, or duty on any of the priests, Levites, musicians, gatekeepers, temple servants, or other workers at this house of God.
And you, Ezra, by the wisdom of your God, which you possess, appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates—all who know the laws of your God. And you are to teach any who do not know them. 26 Whoever does not obey the law of your God and the law of the king must surely be punished by death, banishment, confiscation of property, or imprisonment.”
(Ezra 7:12-26)
“In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, 2 so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.”
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
4 The king said to me, “What is it you want?”
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.”
6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?” It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
7 I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the royal park, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?” And because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my requests. 9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.”
(Nehemiah 2:1-9)
The Persian policy of tolerating and even encouraging diverse religious practices within their empire is well known.
Still, an underappreciated aspect of Persian policy was the Empire’s effort to regulate these practices in a way commensurate with their idea of good order and promoting the empire's peace. The Achmaenids wished, above all, to preserve the good working order of their empire and the regular contribution of manpower and resources between the Capital and the Provinces. The Persians were eager to collaborate with traditional and religious local elites, but only as long as these did their work in pacifying their provinces. If they failed, the Kings of Kings would seek an alternative local elite to enforce law, order, and harmony with neighboring provinces.
Jerusalem, as is evident from the Elephantine papyri, was seen by the Persian Kings as a strategic military project: Jews served in Persian garrisons as far afield as Upper Egypt and the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by rapacious and troublesome subject peoples of the Susa Throne. Thus, it should not surprise us it was the policy of Artaxerxes to check the conduct and the authority of the High Priest.
The first seven chapters of Ezra portrays a rather gloomy picture of the Persian Province of Yehud:
Since its establishment by the decree of Cyrus the Great, the work on the Temple, which was supposed to attract Jewish exiles and increase the number of the garrison of that important region between Egypt and Syria, was delayed once and again, both due to lack of funding and court intrigue. The High Priests, the de facto governors of the garrison, failed to enforce religious or civil order, and, as Nehemiah points out, even the walls of the city had not been restored, a huge detriment to the role of Jerusalem as a garrison.
Ezra and Nehemiah appear to be present in Jerusalem at the same time and to have enacted a series of measures that could have not but enraged and humiliated the High Priest: They have assembled the People from the Countryside, appointed an executive council to preside over this Great Assembly, and forced the High Priest’s family to severe his marital ties, and thus his budding alliances, with the Horonites, Ammonites, Samaritans and others.
B. The Last Prophets
The last accredited prophet in the Hebrew Bible is Malachi, a mysterious figure which tradition identified with Ezra, the Scribe-Priest who led a great contingent of Jewish exiles to join their brethren in reconstructed Jerusalem.
Ezra-Malachi was a religious rigorist – he ran his pilgrim group as a religious sect – tracing lineages, enforcing laws of sexual and ritual purity, and leading them in prayer. The Pilgrims ensured they were equipped with provisions of worship –animals, oil, and flour for sacrifice as well as libations and vessels for rituals. The travelers had no doubt carried the needs of the trip and the settlement - but somehow, the Book of Ezra neglects to take stock of them.
Once in Jerusalem, Ezra-Malachi sinks himself into a great project of religious reformation – but despite his status as a priest, he works outside the Temple system and does his work as a scribe and a prophet. Whenever he rebukes fellow Jews (and priests) for neglecting their religious duties, for marrying second (and foreign) wives, and so forth, he does not consult with Joshua the High Priest – he is relegated to the sidelines. He sometimes is himself the subject of a prophetic barrage.
Nor was Ezra-Malachi the only active prophet to undermine Joshua’s authority – the prophet Zechariah had famously claimed:
I was further shown Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of GOD, and the Accuser standing at his right to accuse him.
But GOD said to the Accuser, “GOD rebukes you, O Accuser; GOD who has chosen Jerusalem rebukes you! For this is a brand plucked from the fire.”
Now Joshua was clothed in filthy garments when he stood before the angel.
The latter spoke up and said to his attendants, “Take the filthy garments off him!” And he said to him, “See, I have removed your guilt from you, and you shall be clothed in [priestly] robes.”
Then he gave the order, “Let a pure diadem be placed on his head.” And they placed the pure diadem on his head and clothed him in precious garments, as the angel of GOD stood by.
And the angel of GOD charged Joshua as follows:
“Thus said GOD of Hosts: If you walk in My paths and keep My charge, you, in turn, will rule My House and guard My courts, and I will permit you to move about among these attendants.
Hearken well, O High Priest Joshua, you and your fellow priests sitting before you! For those men are a sign that I am going to bring My servant the Branch.
For mark well this stone that I place before Joshua, a single stone with seven eyes. I will execute its engraving—declares GOD of Hosts—and I will remove that country’s guilt in a single day.
In that day—declares GOD of Hosts—you will be inviting each other to the shade of vines and fig trees.”
4
The angel who talked with me came back and woke me as someone was wakened from sleep.
He said to me, “What do you see?” And I answered, “I see a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl above it. The lamps on it are seven in number, and the lamps above it have seven pipes;
and by it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on its left.”
I, in turn, asked the angel who talked with me, “What do those things mean, my lord?”
“Do you not know what those things mean?” asked the angel who talked with me; and I said, “No, my lord.”
Then he explained to me as follows: “This is the word of GOD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit—said GOD of Hosts.
Whoever you are, O great mountain in the path of Zerubbabel, turn into level ground! For he shall produce that excellent stone; it shall be greeted with shouts of ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!’”
And the word of GOD came to me:
“Zerubbabel’s hands have founded this House and Zerubbabel’s hands shall complete it. Then you shall know that it was GOD of Hosts who sent me to you.
Does anyone scorn a day of small beginnings? When they see the stone of distinction in the hand of Zerubbabel, they shall rejoice. "Those seven are the eyes of GOD, ranging over the whole earth.”
“And what,” I asked him, “are those two olive trees, one on the right and one on the left of the lampstand?”
And I further asked him, “What are the two tops of the olive trees that feed their gold through those two golden tubes?”
He asked me, “Don’t you know what they are?” And I replied, “No, my lord.”
Then he explained, “They are the two anointed dignitaries who attend the Sovereign of all the earth.”
Whatever one may glean from these verses, they are embarrassing for Joshua:
1. He is standing trial before the Lord and is saved by the skin of his teeth.
2. “The filthy garments” are juxtaposed to the “pure garments” of a priest, the entire passage implies Joshua is unworthy of his position.
3. Joshua is rebuked since, at present, he does not: "walk in God’s paths and keep God’s charge”
4. Further, God already established a superior to Joshua – namely Zerubbabel, the heir apparent to the vacant Davidic throne.
All the prophecies of the early 2nd Temple Period point to a renewed conflict between priests and prophets, resulting in the disappearance of the prophets. In the period preceding the Hasmonean Revolution, prophecy dies out as a religious and social force, and the priests secure themselves a virtual monopoly not only over the ritual life of the Jewish people, but they also become the sole religious authority.
The prophets were always more than a few inspired individuals – the book of Samuel already knows to tell us about roaming “flocks of prophets” and Elijah and Elisha both led groups of “Sons (That is, Disciples) of Prophets”. Prophecy was a formative social institution open to members of the entire society – from peasants such as Amos and Elisha, through princes of the Davidic House such as Isaiah or Daniel, to priests such as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Ezra.
Unlike the Priests, the prophets were interested in keeping the Torah as a normative Law – which aligned them with the interests of Artaxerxes just as it set them against the High Priest who saw himself as requiring greater flexibility. The prophets emphasized moral and physical purity - which translated to the imperative of cutting ties with neighboring peoples – a policy that strengthened the direct ties between Yehud and the Persians but impaired the ability of the High Priest to act as a semi-independent ruler, building regional alliances.
Tradition places the number of “prophets” at between 36% and 67% of the membership of the Great Assembly. This is the difference between the prophets' ability to set the Assembly's agenda and the power to dictate its policy.
C: The Breaking of the Prophetic Chain
The only religious figures of any significance we hear of in the late Persian and Macedonian periods are High Priests – Simon the Righteous, for instance.
If he has a court that assists him, one can be sure that it is staffed with fellow priests, and perhaps some Levites. We know from Josephus (Antiquities 11:7-8, lines 302-313) that members of the High-Priestly line continued to create marital alliances with the House of Sanballat of Horon, contrary to the decree of the Great Assembly. While Josephus continued to mention “The Elders of Jerusalem” (perhaps members of the old Assembly) who protested such marriages, these had no more than the power to stir up protest rather than prevent them from taking place.
The fall of the Great Assembly and its Prophetic “lords and elders” (שרים וזקנים) can be explained by an internal divide opening between Ezra and Nehemiah: While Ezra was a prophet himself and predominantly a religious figure, Nehemiah saw himself as a commander of a garrison and an administrator.
He resented the perception that he associated himself with the prophets (expressed by Sanballat I in Nehemiah 6:6), whom he viewed with suspicion – even going so far as accusing the prophets of taking bribes and attempting to intimidate him.
Such a rift could have been exploited by the High Priests to represent the twin missions of Ezra and Nehemiah to Artaxerxes as a failure. They would portray the rift between the two and the hyperactivity of the Assembly and the prophets as social upheaval, dangerous to the working order of the garrison town and for the harmony of the province.
The fall from grace of the prophets could have taken the form of prosecution under the accusation of false prophecy – an accusation which, as we have seen, even Nehemiah was prone to entertain. It is therefore not surprising that henceforward, even as individuals of these circles delivered what was, essentially, prophecies, they were careful to call them “Divine Echo” “Revelations of the Holy Spirit” and such. It is also quite possible the prophets themselves had lost confidence in their abilities – in either case, they lost much of their authority and had to change their methods of influence over the Jewish public.
The Prophets were not the only losers of this arrangement. Josephus paints us a picture of a high priesthood passed down a hereditary line, from father to son, replete with intrigue and underhanded acts by younger sons to push their brothers out of the coveted position of their fathers. Among the priesthood, then, an urban aristocracy had entrenched itself and monopolized the main functions of the priesthood, while rural priests made do with their short, annual fourteen-day service periods in the Temple.
I: Kyrios, Gerousia, and Demos – the Ideology of the Hellenistic Kingdoms and the Hasmonean Revolution:
A: The Ideology of the Seleucid Kingdom and its Attempted Implementation in Judea:
The Hellenistic Kingdoms of the East, ruling diverse populations and suffering from a chronic crisis of legitimacy, had settled, under the influence of Ptolemy Soteir and Seleucus I, their respective founders, into a complex formula which have allowed them to rule their kingdoms and extract their taxes with relatively little trouble:
The King-lord (Kyrios Basileus) was not merely a mortal ruler (who may or may not descend remotely from a demigod) like the old kings of Macedonia and Archaic Greece, but an actual revealed god (Theos Epiphanes) and by that right was revered and ruled with absolute power over the Court, the Army, and the mass of the rustic population – all of whom were considered members of his private household and subject to his will alone. This innovation of Alexander the Great allowed them to assemble the bulk of the resources of the kingdom in their treasury and pay for a large, mercenary army – which they used to squeeze greater taxes.
Exempt from this rule were the citizens of the colonies.
Each of these was organized after the model of the classic Greek Polis, but almost every element wherein was manufactured and counterfeit: The “Demos” were not the totality of free men ancestrally living in the city, since the city was itself a royal colony – often constructed on an empty lot or the ruins of a conquered city.
Rather, this was a privileged group, selected by the King. It contained veterans of his army, his administrators, and other people whom he wished to reward. When a native city was taken over and turned into such a pseudo-polis, the native population was reduced to the status of tolerated legal residents or outright banished, only a few of its aristocratic leadership could have hoped to be included in the city roles or, as the phrase went “To go out in the Demos” – a privilege which exempted them from a direct servile status viz a viz the King and various tax burdens – but for the common people, the “Ochlos” (ὄχλος), it meant dispossession and subjugation (such distinction between Ochlos, Demos, and Aristocrats had entered the Hebrew Language of the Roman period).
The main institutions of this pseudo-demos were the Gymnasium and the Ephebe – the educational institutions that were intended to mold the younger generation into loyal “citizens” of the pseudo-polis – and in effect, to good and useful subjects of the crown, capable of administrative and military tasks, but not of rebellion or desire for self-rule.
These colonies, unlike genuine Greek Poleis, were not genuinely autonomous – they existed within the framework of the wider State and often served as its administrative capital. Thus, the kings would create an oligarchic organ to manage the affairs of the city under the watchful eye of his garrison commanders, granting it the old Greek term “Gerousia” or “The Council of Elders” – appointed and stuffed by the King’s favorites and chief administrators.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes had attempted, where his predecessors to rule Judea (whether Ptolemies or Seleucids) trod carefully and attempted the subversion of local traditions by slow processes, to implement the entire Hellenistic model in one fell swoop. Jerusalem was declared an “Antiochian Polis” a demos-list was opened up, a Gerousia was assembled, Syrian mercenaries set up temples to Gad-Tyche and other Hellenized versions of Canaanite and Aramean gods within the walls, and the Temple itself was declared as dedicated to Zeus the Olympian – and by extension to Antiochus himself as Zeus incarnate.
B: The Hasmonean Alliance, Revolution, and Settlement:
The Hasmonean Revolt was led by a family of rural priests - the Hasmoneans of Modi’in, a small and recently founded country town or village. The anger of the rural priests, who did not appreciate the Seleucid idea of translating the veneration of the God of Israel to another version of the Cult of Zeus (3rd Maccabees, 6:2 “also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and to call it the temple of Olympian Zeus and to call the one in Gerizim Zeus-the-Friend-of-Strangers, as the people who live in that place are known.”), and who opposed other attempts to Hellenize Jewish religion (such as the encounter of Antiochus with the old priest Elazar in 4th Maccabees 5-7) boiled over and was soon transformed into a revolt to defend a conservative and particularist notion of the Priesthood, the Temple, and the God of Israel, rather than the Hellenistic ideal of harmonizing and Hellenizing all gods and their cults in the image of Olympian myth and ritual. 3rd Maccabees (8:1) tells us that:
“…Judas, who was also called Maccabeus, and his companions secretly entered the villages and summoned their kindred and enlisted those who had continued in the Jewish faith, and so they gathered about six thousand”
Due to the familial nature of the Jewish priesthood, Judas’ kindred were, naturally, priests themselves – here we see the rural priesthood taking advantage of its spread among the common people and its strong kinship ties to organize a fighting force.
But the Hasmoneans did not fight the war, nor did they negotiate peace, as monarchs.
The convention in Greek literature is that when a monarchy (whether kingdom or tyranny) negotiates a treaty, the monarch is mentioned by name as the negotiator, while if the subject is a democracy negotiating a treaty, “the People” are described as the active party. If the state in question is an oligarchy, the aristocratic assembly is credited. Thus, when the Books of Maccabees mention “The People” negotiating treaties with Antiochus V, rather than Judas Maccabeus, it implies the Revolt was led by more than one man or even a small circle of leaders. It was a democratic revolution and was led as such.
Further, Judas and his priests were in alliance with a pious, rural group named “The Hasideans” (“Hassidim” “Devout Ones”) who were not themselves priests but, as shown in 1st Maccabees 7:12, had a pious, almost naïve faith in the sanctity of the priesthood. Indeed, during the Revolution, the name of this group was extended to all of Judas’ followers (2nd Maccabees, 14: “Those of the Jews who are called Hasideans, whose leader is Judas Maccabeus, etc”).
In the minds of the People, and of Judas himself, the Prophetic movement still loomed large, and he utilized its memory – in 3rd Maccabees 15, he is “encouraging (the People assembled for battle) from the Law and the Prophets” and receives a nightly vision of both High Priest Onias and the Prophet Jeremiah.
What we see here is a connection between the authority of priests and the redefined mission of the prophets.
The focus is shifted from their authority as messengers of the Most High to their role as representatives of the Living Law. It is noteworthy that in the Jewish literature of the following period, particularly in the Greek texts, Moses and the Prophets are consistently mentioned together. This highlights the idea that the Lawgiver is portrayed as a prophet and the subsequent prophets as protectors of the Law, which is symbolic.
Thus, the Hasmoneans, from the outset, had given up the singular authority of the Jewish religion – By emphasizing the standing of the Law, kept all over the Land and around the year by the entire people, over the ritual of the Temple, practice in a confined place and time by a select group of priests, they have legitimized their revolt, but also had had to concede some of their authority as religious leaders to anyone who could attain a reputation of learning and piety – in the end, Ezra-Malachi had won.
II: The Pharisees
Unsurprisingly, the Pharisees emerge from the generality of the Jewish people as expert “Interpreters” of the Law – indeed, this is the meaning of their name – “Perushim”.
This was originally not a sectarian name. So much is evident from Josephus who describes them as “the most expert in the interpretation (Hebrew: “Peirush” also, “distinguishing, analyzing, allocating”) of the Law” and describes most of the people as “their followers” rather than as Pharisees themselves – thus, the Pharisees were not the people who held Pharisee opinions, but the title of those who led the masses in accordance to the Pharisee tradition. The ethos of these proto-rabbinical was democratic and meritocratic – every person could attain the “crown of the law”.
The Pharisees were not professional clerics – they were artisans and farmers (or independently wealthy landowners) who lived off the sweat of their brow in a society where even rich families sent their sons to work their fields (slaves were relatively rare when compared to other ancient Mediterranean societies – a point Josephus was immensely proud of).
The standing of a given pharisee depended not on any official appointments or office – an unknown pharisee could come into Jerusalem, impress the crowd and his fellow Pharisees, and rise to the top of the hierarchy – such was the fate of Hillel the Elder, and, if we wish to look upon him this way, might have been the hopes of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Pharisees viewed themselves as the heirs to both the prophets and the Hasideans – they have mentioned the “prophets of old” as the originators of certain practices, the “Hasideans of old” as the gold standard of piety and righteousness and some continued to view the special votive strictures of the Hasideans – the “Law of the Hasideans” as obligatory towards themselves, and they related the descent of their tradition through the prophets and the martyred leaders of the Hasideans – Yosei b. Yoezer and Yosei b. Yohanan – rather than through the High Priestly tradition.
It is therefore safe to assume that if the Pharisees were not truly the spiritual descendants of the sons of the prophets, they owned the Hasideans’ tradition – and as such, at least believed themselves to be the spiritual descendants of the Sons of the Prophets, and constructed their mission along the same line – to bring the common people to the devout worship of God and obedience to His Law - but with a change of method. Instead of prophecy and revelation, which they felt themselves unworthy and incapable of, they would engage in teaching and deliberation of God’s Instruction – moral, legal, and theological. They would walk among the common people, persuade, argue, and rebuke, rather than make pronouncements of authority. This has been eminently successful – as Josephus and the archeological record testify, observance has reached untold levels. Common people became concerned with matters of purity, tithing, and study. Purifying fonts and synagogues were constructed in almost every Jewish village. As Josephus tells us “The power of the Pharisee is great with the People”.
III: The Sanhedrin in the Hasmonean Period
A: The Role of the Sanhedrin in the Hasmonean State
On the coins of High Priest John Hyrcanus I, in contrast to virtually any metal currency coined in the entire Ancient Near East to that point, there were neither human nor animal images, only the words “John Hyrcanus, Nasi, and the Heber of the Jews”.
Since we know who John Hyrcanus was – the Hasmonean High Priest and the Head of Government – and since the term Nasi is used extensively in Jewish texts before and after his time in office – we can surmise what his title meant – a permanent, semi-hereditary head of the government, enjoying a life-tenure. But this Nasi is not a monarch – rather, he is the head of a wider body, here called the Heber.
In subsequent Jewish text, especially in municipal contexts, Heber means something along the lines of a town council – its literal sense is “Bond”, “Connection”, and perhaps even “Incorporation”. It is not exactly an assembly in the sense that its members are not required to be present in one place to have authority – it merely must exist and thus legitimate the necessary work of the government (see Megillah, 27b, where the existence of the Town Council authorizes the imposition of compulsory contribution for welfare purposes). In this case, the Heber of the entire nation authorizes the issuance of coins, guaranteeing their soundness and value – a task that the Nasi carries out.
What institution fulfills such conditions in its historical record? The only one that is mentioned by name is the Sanhedrin – an almost literal translation of the word Heber – the Greek Synhedrion means nothing else but “Sitting together” - and we know of no other institution that has such function in ancient Jewish society.
B: The Membership of the Sanhedrin in the Hasmonean Period
The Civil War between Alexander Jannaeus and the People, described by Josephus with some detail and in the Baraita in general terms, appears to be over no lesser question than the control of this body.
Jannaeus, despite appointing himself as king (and thus perpetuating his late brother’s act of defiance towards the Sanhedrin) initially used the title of Nasi on his coins – which can be understood as an attempt to reconcile them to his rule. Tradition and archeological findings of the Damascus Sect’s greetings of Jannaeus show that he had turned to the Sadducees – who perhaps have been considered hitherto a fringe group with no hope for political power – and against the Pharisees.
The Body of the Sanhedrin was said to have contained at that time both Sadducees and Pharisees – and Josephus frames the conflict as raging between the People and the King – thus, the Sanhedrin was, rather than a side in this conflict, served as the object of the contest. We do not have the procedure by which members acceded to the Court, the description in the Mishnah may be referring to a period in which Pharisees won complete control of the body - but one can imagine that whatever the process may have been, both kings and popular sentiment would have liked to influence it - in this case, in direct opposition to each other’s wishes.
It must be stressed that there were priests on both sides – indeed, priests enjoyed a special standing in Pharisee circles as late as the 1st Century AD. Unambiguously Pharisee Synagogues still had resident priests – enjoying special seats and privileges – as late as the 2nd Century. The First Jewish Civil War was not between lay Pharisees and priestly Sadducees, but between those who upheld teachings that emerged from the Hasmonean Revolution and supported the original Hasidean settlement and those who sought to increase the religious significance and power of the High Priest, specifically, and to minimize the role of religious scholarship and knowledge of oral traditions. In other words, the new Urban Priesthood was once more entering into a fight with the prophetic tradition.
By the end of his reign, which culminated in his attempt to execute eight hundred Pharisees (perhaps members of the Sanhedrin, or leaders of the People), his wife, Salome Alexandra came to power. She was related to the leader of the Pharisees, Simon b. Setah, and, whether her affections towards their positions were genuine or not, she recognized their numerical superiority and understood the need for tranquility (not to mention, the fragility of her position, since as a woman she could not occupy the legitimizing office of the High Priest). Her reign was a complete victory for the Pharisees who expelled all or most of the Sadducees from the Sanhedrin and ensured Pharisee control over it for the near future.
C: The Sanhedrin as a Government in the Reign of Salome Alexandra
What we can discern from the report of Josephus is that in the peace lasting throughout the reign of Salome Alexandra, the Sanhedrin had asserted itself as the Senatorial body of the Hasmonean State – serving not only in the function as mentioned earlier of the Heber, but deliberating as a legislature, a judiciary court of appeals, and an executive council all at once.
Such bodies were relatively common in ancient states – the senate of the Roman Republic was such a body, and even that of the Empire had, de jure, retained these functions.
It appears that it was still common to assemble “The People” to make certain decisions, and the Sanhedrin stayed aloof of local matters, which were left to the devices of their local popular assemblies of “the Townsmen” (בני העיר). Thus, Josephus can report to us of this or that person making an appeal to “The People” or of the “The People” deciding policy and to distinguish between those decisions and the deliberative process of the Sanhedrin.
For the Sanhedrin, this was the first opportunity to assert its role as the government of Judea, independent of the will of the monarch, whether a king or a Nasi. Thus, this was the period in which the Pharisaic theory of a Synodal Government must have evolved.
This ideology was based on a ‘divorce’ between the Sanhedrin and the institutions which the Hasmoneans relied upon to forge their dynastic power. Namely, the idea of the priesthood as an aristocracy, the personal loyalty of the army to the monarch, and the personal power of the monarch, supported by military glory and the High Priest’s office as a sign of Divine favor.
Salome Alexandra fits the bill: as a woman, she was neither a priest (whether she came from a priestly family was irrelevant – a “priestess” (כוהנת) was considered a desirable match, but conferred no special status upon priestly women that could have legitimated Alexandra’s rule. The very fact her family origins are mentioned in neither Josephus nor the Baraita is proof enough it has been considered immaterial) or a soldier.
She had no dynastic claim to the throne – she was not a Hasmonean by birth, merely the widow of two Hasmonean monarchs. It is unclear whether she could have even been seated in the Sanhedrin as its Nasi – indeed it is around this time that an independent diarchy (and then, in the reign of Herod, a single Nasi), chosen by the court appears, separated from the person of the Monarch and the High Priest – who are both banished from their place in the Court.
The first to serve in that office were the "Sons of Betheira" – a prominent Jerusalemite family, the most prominent member thereof, Judah I, appeared to have left Judea for Syria following a journey to Rome [1]. (that may or may not have been connected to a petition to restore his family to its place at the head of the Sanhedrin) after that office passed from his family to Hillel and Shamai the Elders, and then to the descendants of Hillel alone.
Just as the establishment of the House of Hanover had demonstrated and fortified the sovereign status of the House of Commons not despite, but due to the Hanoverians’ dubious claim, the Sanhedrin’s support of Salome had emphasized their claim to be the source of legitimacy. This could not but antagonize them to two rival sources of Hasmonean legitimacy: the Army and the Priesthood.
The name פלטום could refer to Puteoli, one of the two main ports servicing the city of Rome. It appears the Senate or the Emperor had rejected his petition, and perhaps ordered him to make himself scarce for the sake of tranquility in Judea (as was the common Roman policy of handling rival claimants for office in client states), R Judah mourned this imposed exile. Alternatively, it could mean Pelusium in the Nile Delta, a common stop in the travel to Alexandria, a major Jewish center and the seat of one of the emperor’s most senior representatives.
R Judah b. Betheira I’s arrival at Nisibis on the eve of the 9th of Ab fast suggests the trip was unplanned and undertaken under duress. He is not to be confused with R Judah II ben Betheira of Nisibis, a contemporary of R Akiba and Simon b. Kuseiba / Kokhba. It appears Judean Pharisees continued to seek the opinion of the Betheiraids, and it is possible the “Academy” they established there was a rival Pharisaic Sanhedrin-in-Exile to the one in Jerusalem.
V: The Revolutionary Ideology and Language of the Pharisees
We have mentioned before the Hellenistic Kingdoms’ way of restructuring the societies they had taken over and their way of constructing pseudo-poleis. The terminology and social-legal teachings of the Pharisees show their contempt towards these systems and their revolutionary commitments to reverse them.
The old Hebrew term for the legitimate, politically empowered body of the People was “Qehal-Ha’Edah” (קהל העדה) “The Congregation (- verb) of the Citizenry (- Literally ‘Witness’ all those individuals that can serve as witnesses)”. On occasion, the generic term “The People” (העם) is used throughout pre-Hasmonean literature.
However, during the Hasmonean period, a new term had risen to use: “Tzibur” (ציבור), from the root Tz.B.R. “To Collect in one place”. This word increasingly started to be used in the sense of “the Public”, especially in the legal and ritual sense – such as the designation of public sacrifices, that hitherto have been called “Olath HaQhal, Hatath HaQhal” עולת הקהל, חטאת הקהל “The Burnt-Offering of the Congregation, the Purification Offering of the Congregation” was now termed “Qorban HaTzibur” “The Sacrifice of the Public”.
This deliberate change of terminology was accompanied by reforms intended to emphasize the public and popular nature of the Temple and other institutions, especially the one described in the scholia to Megillat Taanit:
Baraita: “These are the days in which one may not fast on, and some on which one may not eulogize thereon:
“From the beginning of the month of Nissan to the eighth thereon, the Daily Sacrifices were regulated, therefore one may not fast thereon:”
Scholia: “For the Boethousians said: ‘The Daily sacrifices may be brought at the expense of individuals – one brings one week, another two weeks, and another thirty days’ …
The sages told them: ‘You are not permitted to do so, for the sacrifice cannot be brought but from the (assets) of the entirety of Israel for it is written…’
… and when they outvoted and defeated them, they legislated that each private person may weight his contributions and give them (to the treasurers), and (they) leave them in the (treasury) chamber, and henceforth the daily sacrifices were brought at public expense, and all these days in which they deliberated were set up as holidays”.
The Boethousians were a prominent priestly family mentioned in various places, the last known member of which was the widow Martha b. Boethius, wife of Joshua b. Gamala, a High Priest and a moderate Pharisee. It is used also to describe a heretical sect paired with the Sadducees, which are not mentioned by Josephus. It appears that these were, however, not a sect, but rather a derogatory generalization of the representatives of the old urban priesthood, who sought to sponsor the daily sacrifices themselves (from the Pharisees’ answer “You are not allowed to do so” and the description of the new legislation, it is clear that this was not an abstract debate, but an ongoing practice of the very people with whom they were disputing).
This term is intended to upend the Hellenistic idea of the (hand-selected) Demos as being the legitimate body politic (as an aside, we should note that the Septuagint uses “Demos” to describe an extended family or a clan within a tribe rather than the People as a whole, which may have been another deliberate decision by the Pharisee translators. Laos is used to describe the totality of a people, or all the people present while Ochlos is used to translate “a/the multitude”). The Tzibur is not a select group that appears on a list that can be manipulated at will by the authorities. Rather, it is an organic body with interests and vitality, independent from and immune to outside dictates as per its composition and interests. For the individual, belonging to the Tzibur is not merely an inescapable fact, but both a credit and a moral duty. A person elevated by high office, learning, nobility, or wealth must neither cause the Tzibur distress or undue hardship nor is he free to “depart from the path of the Tzibur” by refusing to share their burdens, by insisting on appropriating them to himself, nor by aloof and arrogant manner.
VII: The Army and Its Rival Contingents:
As we have related above, the Hasmoneans rose to prominence due to their role as military leaders during the anti-Seleucid Revolution. Thus, the Army had a legitimizing role in the Hasmonean State – not unlike other ancient Mediterranean states.
The Hasmonean Army was made up of several contingents, between whom a certain degree of rivalry persisted:
1. The Zealot Militias:
These devotional, votive warrior groups made up the base of the original Hasmonean revolt. They were ideologically and religiously committed to countering foreign influences. Their twin– Qanaim (קנאים) – “Jealous Ones” and Zealots (from the Greek ζῆλοτης - “Followers, emulators”) tell us both of their disposition and leadership model – they were zealous followers and emulators - first of the Hasmoneans and then of their chosen leaders (once the Hasmoneans’ rose had wilted) and jealous avengers of religious slights. Once the Hasmoneans had become secular rulers, these militias became unreliable and a source of headaches to the worldly and pragmatic dynasty.
2. Biryonei – The Regular Army?
This group that goes unmentioned in Josephus but is mentioned in the Baraita is often associated with the Zealots – but the Baraita talks of them separately from the Zealots. To understand their nature, perhaps the etymology of their odd name can assist us: It is possible to have been a corruption of “Birei Yonaei” (ברי יווני) or “Sons of the Greeks”. Since the Biryonei who are mentioned in our sources appear to have been ethnic Jews, deeply connected to the common people and their Pharisee leaders by familial and religious ties, it appears that these were not descendants of Greek converts and settlers but rather Jews who were either trained by Hellenic or Hellenized sergeants, or at least in Hellenic (and perhaps Roman) methods – in the language of the era, an apprentice for a blacksmith, for instance, was called “Bar Nappaha” (בר נפחא)“Son of the Smith” even if they were not related, and we have already seen how for centuries, “the Sons of the Prophets” meant their disciples, not offsprings.
Following Hellenistic custom and policy, the Hasmoneans would have funded this army by granting them lands in recently conquered territories - and Galilee was the richest acquisition of the 2nd generation of the Revolution. This explains the presence of numerous fortress cities in Galilee, as well as the general belligerence and dogged devotion to the 2nd Jewish Commonwealth among Galileans- as well as some peculiar practices amongst Galileans- that did not make them heretical in the eyes of Southern fellow Pharisees - these were the old practices of the Hasidean Army, and they were recognized as such.
The fact that the Hasmoneans had regular, non-zealot force drawn from the general Jewish population and trained in the latest fighting methods rather than the guerilla fighting style of the Zealots - in short, that there has been a Hasmonean army, is not disputed – Josephus mentions such an army multiple times, and such an army is the only possible way the Hasmonean could have established and expanded their rule. Nor could the professional element in the Hasmonean sources be supplied only by foreign mercenaries and auxiliaries (such as the conquered Idumeans and Ieturians, as well as the Pisidian, Cilician, Thracian, German, and Galatian mercenaries serving Alexander Jannaeus and Herod), since these forces were relatively recent development – only Judah Aristobulus I had established a permanent mercenary contingent, and the Idumeans and Ieturians were brought under the Hasmonean rule only in the reign of his father, John Hyrcanus I.
It is also undisputed that the early Hasmoneans had incorporated into their state and service individuals who were familiar with Greek culture, and, no doubt, Hellenistic warfare – the name of one of the ambassadors to Rome (Jason), the style and language of the Books of Maccabees, as well as the practice of the Hasmoneans themselves to adopt Greek names and titles show that they opposed the religious and political ideology and practices of the Hellenistic kingdoms – not all Hellenistic influences as such, and they would have been amiss not to give the army the latest military methods and equipment of the age. The fact the Mishnah uses largely Greek and Latin words[1] to describe items of armor[2] and weapons[3] and discusses their proper use and carrying on the Sabbath as well as their susceptibility to ritual pollution, proves that traditional Jews were not averse or strangers to the use of Hellenistic (and Roman) fighting methods besides Eastern ones.
Such troops would have initially been drawn from the general body of the Hasmoneans Hasidean supporters, and even as the recruitment pool expanded, would have retained their original semi-republican and revolutionary esprit de corps. It is quite telling that at the catalytic event of the 1st Jewish Civil War - the massacre at the Temple in the feast of the Tabernacles – Jannaeus had relied on foreign mercenaries rather than these native troops. The fact the People’s Party managed to hold its own against the King’s professional mercenaries suggests that at least some of the professional native army had gone to the People’s side. This is the only kind of force that would have been able to maintain the siege of Jerusalem during the 2nd Jewish Civil War, with the mercenary and auxiliary contingent merely supporting the side that seemed to them most likely to win. These are the forces that retreated to the fortresses in Galilee and the Judean Desert after Herod’s kingdom had been dismembered by Rome, which left them as an army without a state, and which, after being impressed by the leadership of Josephus, refused the order of the Sanhedrin (who appointed him to this post in the first place) to remove him from his command.
The ethos of the Biryonei thus appears both consistent and clear – these were well-trained troops, capable of utilizing both Hellenistic and Roman styles of equipment (the battle of Beth Horon should be understood in this light - the objective was to secure suitable weapons, not just to stop the 12th legion from advancing on Jerusalem). They were loyal to the Hasmonean – or rather the Jewish – State in the abstract and identified it with the People from which they have been drawn – but had a tradition of elevating gifted commanders and pledging to them personal loyalty – in the same spirit that carried them to support both Judas Maccabeus and Josephus Flavius.
3. The Mercenary Corps:
While it stands to reason there were foreign mercenaries in the Hasmonean army beforehand, Josephus credits Judah Aristobulus I with the creation of a mercenary corps and ties this achievement to his assumption of the royal title.
As proven by their use in the Tabernacles Massacre, the utility of these troops was, at least in part, as internal repression forces. It stands to reason that the “Cavalrymen” used by Herod for a similar purpose were also mercenaries – after all, the Great Revolt saw no native Jewish cavalry forces, and it was largely a common agreement that the best cavalrymen were mercenaries from the edge of the Roman world – Numidia, Gaul, and Germany – and thus, we can tentatively identify the Germans marching in Herod’s funeral with these cavalry squadrons.[4].
The Herodians and Hasmoneans both may encouraged their mercenaries to Judaize, whether to make their service amongst the Jewish population less antagonistic or to create lasting bonds with them and turn them into recruiters once they return to their homelands. Such a policy would explain the presence of a Christian community in Galatia as early as the days of Paul, as well as the bitter tone in which he addresses them, since as a Pharisee, he would be likely to have an unfavorable opinion of members of the mercenary corps.
4. Judaizing Auxiliaries:
I find no better term to describe the last contingent of the Hasmonean army. As the Hasmoneans expanded their borders to the west, north, and south, they annexed territories populated by other native peoples rather than Greek, Macedonian, and Hellenistic Syrian settlers. The policy of the Hasmonean was, when possible, to force the locals to convert to Judaism and recruit them as members of autonomous ethnic formations – thus we see the Idumeans marching in their regiments under Idumean officers from the 2nd Jewish Civil War to the Great Revolt.
While the conversion of the Idumeans was forced, it appears that they, at least, had embraced Judaism sincerely in the six generations between this conquest by John Hyrcanus I and the Great Revolt. Already by the 3rd generation, we find that the commander of the Idumean forces, Antipater (Herod’s father) was well integrated into the highest echelons of the Hasmonean State and fully practiced Judaism, despite lingering prejudice in Jewish society against his people, and by the time of the Great Revolt, the commanders of the Idumean contingent bear strikingly Jewish names: Simon, Yohanan, Jacob, and Phineas. Assessing the relationship between this contingent and the regular army would be difficult, but by the time of the Great Revolt, it sided with the Zealots despite the latter’s attack on Idumean settlements.
Of all these four contingents, only the first two could have granted the Hasmoneans any legitimacy rather than just imposing their rule by brute force. The creation of the mercenary corps and Civil Wars between Jannaeus and the People had stretched the relationship between the Hasmoneans and the Biryonei and the Zealots to the limit, and the imposition of John Hyrcanus over Judah Aristobulus II (who, according to Josephus, was an experienced soldier and the Army’s favored candidate) by the external arbitration of Pompey Magnus would have further alienated at least half of the native contingents of the Army. The intervening reign of Salome may have been neutral – it’s possible the Army resented the rule of a woman. Still, it is also possible that she had supporters due to the memory of the military valor of her late husbands and her Pharisee leanings.
[1] “Kasda” קסדא – from the Latin “Cassida / Cassis” – “a plumed metal helmet”.
“Shiriyon” שריון from “Συρία / Σύριος” – that is a cuirass in the style of Hellenistic Syria.
[2] “Nikon” – from “Νικών / Νίκη” – “Victory” – the head of a spear.
[3] “Pygion” פגיון – from the Latin “Pugio” – a standard-issue legionary dagger.
VIII: The Synagogue as a Public Institution, and the Sidelining of the Priesthood
Starting in the 3rd century BCE, we can find the archeological remains of ancient synagogues. The synagogues were unlike other Mediterranean shrines. While the common house of worship in the ancient Near East and around the Mediterranean was focused on the adoration of a cultic item, with the congregants as merely temporary visitors, the ancient synagogue lacked such a totem, and activity was concentrated in the central chamber, focused on the newly invented institution: the local religious congregation.
Ancient Temples, including the Temple in Jerusalem, were not houses of prayer in the conventional sense nor did they have “congregations”. They were the houses of the gods – the humans present were either their servants, handling their treasures and arranging their food, drink, and idols, or visitors and supplicants. A temple could be absolutely without laymen’s presence for years on end and the priests would have viewed it as a blessing rather than a sign that something is amiss if sacrifices continued to be supplied, one way or another.
The Synagogue resembled the ancient town in which it was located. It was a place of assembly for the entire community, in which the Torah was read and people engaged in rhetoric (mostly of a religious and homiletic nature) and attempted to persuade their fellow members. Wealthy members would often take upon themselves the role of “founding” the synagogue and equipping it, thus securing to themselves the honor of being “archons of the synagogues” «ἀρχισυνάγωγος» (ראש - הכנסת), but which have granted no particular religious advantage. It reflected Jewish society – its intense religiosity, its somewhat democratic nature, and its mixture of timocratic, aristocratic, and learned elites.
Ancient synagogues reflected the life of the community: men and women donated particular goods and services, large and small, at times of mourning and rejoicing. Thus, for instance, read this Mosaic from the floor of the 2nd-Century Judean Synagogue in Sussyia, near Hebron:
"זכור לטובה קדושת מרי רבי
איסי הכהן המכובד בירבי שעשה
הפסיפוס הזה וטח את כתליו
בסיד מה שנתנדב במשתה
רבי יוחנן הכהן הסופר בירבי
בנו שלום על ישראל אמן"
Remember well the holiness of my Master, Rabbi Issei the Honored Priest, who hath made this mosaic and whitewashed its Walls, as he hath vowed in the (-wedding?) feast of Rabbi Yohanan the Scribe, son of the Rabbi, his Son. Peace On Israel, Amen.
The ancient synagogue was a local, not sectarian institution. We have no evidence it was a specifically Pharisee institution – nor that synagogues were “affiliated” with either the Pharisees or the Sadducees – of all the literary and archeological record, we have no knowledge of an instance in which a synagogue condemns a member for heresy, or praises one for his orthodoxy. Nor have we found multiple synagogues in proximity that would suggest an ideological divide – all our evidence of the sectarian fight is literary and would have taken place outside the synagogue.
Nevertheless, it would have been within and due to the synagogal framework that the Pharisee sages, as a group of learned laymen, would have been able to rise and sideline the priests.
The synagogue had a lay leadership in the person of the archisynagogos – but priests still played a major role in it. As late as the 4th century, the Synagogue in Dura Europos still had an officially designated priest (rather than members and officers who happened to be priests) assigned a specific seat of honor at the front of the congregation.
The Synagogue’s significance was in the assembly of the People – and therefore, in their edification, religious education and communal worship. As a famous Jerusalemite synagogue dedicatory plaque states:
ΘΕΟΔΟΤΟΣ ΟΥΕΤΤΗΝΟΥ ΙΕΡΕΥΣ ΚΑΙ
ΑΡΧΙΣΥΝΑΓΩΓΟΣ ΥΙΟΣ ΑΡΧΙΣΥΝ(ΑΓΩ)
Γ(Ο)Υ ΥΙΩΝΟΣ ΑΡΧΙΣΥΝ(Α)ΓΩΓΟΥ ΩΚΟ
ΔΟΜΗΣΕ ΤΗΝ ΣΥΝΑΓΩΓ(Η)Ν ΕΙΣ ΑΝ(ΑΓ)ΝΩ
Σ(ΙΝ) ΝΟΜΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΕΙΣ (Δ)ΙΔAΧ(Η)Ν ΕΝΤΟΛΩΝ ΚΑ(Ι)
ΤΟΝ ΞΕΝΩΝΑ ΚΑ(Ι TΑ) ΔΩΜΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΧΡΗ
Σ(Τ)ΗΡΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΥΔΑΤΩΝ ΕΙΣ ΚΑΤΑΛΥΜΑ ΤΟΙ
Σ(Χ)ΡΗΖΟΥΣΙΝ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΣ ΞΕ(Ν)ΗΣ ΗΝ ΕΘΕΜΕ
Λ(ΙΩ)ΣΑΝ ΟΙ ΠΑΤΕΡΕΣ (Α)ΥΤΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΠΡΕ
Σ(Β)ΥΤΕΡΟΙ ΚΑΙ ΣΙΜΩΝ(Ι)ΔΗΣ
Theodotus, son of Vettenus, priest and archisynagogue, son of an archisynagogue, grandson of an archisynagogue, built the synagogue for the reading of the Law and the teaching of the commandments, and guesthouse and the rooms and the water supplies for the lodging of strangers in need, which his fathers founded and the Elders and Simonides.
As we can see, the primary function of the 1st century Synagogue was for the “Reading of the Law” and the “Teaching (- or “Study”) of the Commandments”[6], but it also serves other charitable, communal services – it had chambers for free lodging of travelers and waterworks – perhaps ritual baths for purification, perhaps for the convenience of the guests and congregants. Here, we see the emergence of a center of communal activity, life, and civil society rather than a mere house of worship.
In these institutions, even while the Priest (which, in the case of the Vettenite Synagogue, was also the founder and the Archon) could be sidelined by the Pharisee who would carry out the day-to-day work of “Reading the Law and teaching the Commandments”. Here we come to the old, internal term that the Pharisees had for their most distinguished fellows – the Sages (Ha-Hachamim) -החכמים.In these institutions, even while the Priest (which, in the case of the Vettenite Synagogue, was also the founder and the Archon) could be sidelined by the Pharisee who would carry out the day-to-day work of “Reading the Law and teaching the Commandments”. Here we come to the old, internal term that the Pharisees had for their most distinguished fellows – the Sages (Ha-Hachamim) -החכמים.
[6] Two distinct activities: the reading of the Pentateuchal text, and the study, or teaching of the practical law.
למקרי אורייתא ולדרשי / ולמתני הלכתא. leMiqrei Oraytha uLedarshei / uLemithnei Hilchatha
Compare to Ethics 5:21:
בֶּן חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים לַמִּקְרָא, בֶּן עֶשֶׂר לַמִּשְׁנָה
“At five (years of age), to read (the Scriptures), at ten (years of age), to the recitation (of Law).”
IX: The Rise of the Sages and the Mediterranean Wisdom Movement
It was naturally a consensus in the Ancient Near East in the 10th-5th century BC that “The Wise” comprise a self-selecting class of men individually superior to their native station in life, whatever that might be – a “wise” priest, king, soldier or artisan was superior to a common person of the same native class, and a person lacking in the quality and discipline of “wisdom” was inferior in a significant way to a “wise” person in a lower economic or political station or class.
This presumption did not challenge the king’s right and duty to rule or the priests’ right and duty to perform his rites, but it claimed all men, from slaves and foreigners to kings and high priests can attain greater excellence by the virtue of “wisdom”. In a not dissimilar way to how a well-wrought nail is better than an ill-fashioned crown, without the nail assuming the functions of the crown and vice versa.
This movement had a significant influence on the early development of Israelite religious movements, which is discernible in the Books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and even Daniel. It is quite possible that the Prophetic circles were, to begin with, or increasingly became, circles of “wisdom”. Wisdom, after all, was said to originate with the Divine and transferred to humanity by divine inspiration. The Sage was supposed to have a direct, unique, and individuated connection to his God and to achieve something close to a kindred or friendly relationship with Him [7].
The main attribute of the Wisdom movement is the individuation of all human qualities and relationships: Holiness becomes attainable by all persons regardless of class, and no person is immune from wickedness and individual divine judgment. Even the relationship between fathers and sons becomes individual and separated from the old concepts of clannish and bloodline collectives: it is in this context that adoption becomes possible as such (i.e., the treatment of young people who are not one’s offspring as if they were one’s children, without the shamanic/magical creation of blood ties[8]).
Starting in the 5th century BC, however, and accelerating throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods, a twin, or descendant, Wisdom movement had sprouted in the Mediterranean world.
This is the period in which both sophism and philosophy appeared in ancient Greece. They soon grow in prestige and influence, until they attain greater influence on the common perception of the gods and the supernatural than that enjoyed by traditional priests and oracles. In Egypt, holy men and magicians had started to perform rituals in private homes. Zoroastrian Magi were primarily philosophical/theological from the beginning. On this background, it is not surprising that a similar process had occurred in Judaism as well, and, consequently, the Christian Church had inherited a leadership style in which the sage Pharisees of the Jewish synagogue assumed the function and titles of priests, and in which a traditional priesthood never existed, and is therefore alien to the modern western mind.
The influence of the New Wisdom movement is noticeable in other Jewish practices of our period, which predate the emergence of Christianity:
in older periods, Jews would collect the bones of their departed loved ones after the flesh had decomposed, to be deposited in a common family grave. However, starting in the 2nd century BC, secondary, permanent burial became individuated even among common people – it became standard practice to deposit each of the dead a γλωσσόκομος of his own (on some occasions, a parent would share one with a child, or a wife with a husband, but that is the limit of familial bone-mixing). Death becomes individual since life, merit and the hope for resurrection have also become individual. One no longer hoped to be “assembled to his forefathers in peace” but that his private spirit “Returns unto God, who hath given it”. Earlier references to a collective afterlife become individuated [9] to the degree that the idea is introduced, that one’s individuated merit may be sufficient to bring his loved ones to his share in the World-to-Come, as part of one’s reward [10].
[8] ibid
וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת תֶּרַח תֶּרַח הוֹלִיד אֶת אַבְרָם וגו' (בראשית יא, כז), אָמַר רַבִּי אַבָּא בַּר כַּהֲנָא, כָּל מִי שֶׁנִּכְפַּל שְׁמוֹ יֵשׁ לוֹ חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְלָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, אֲתִיבוּן לֵיהּ וְהָכְתִיב: אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת תֶּרַח תֶּרַח, יֵשׁ לוֹ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה וְיֵשׁ לוֹ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, אֶתְמְהָא, אָמַר לָהֶם אַף הִיא לָא תַּבְרָא, דְּאָמַר רַבִּי יוּדָן מִשּׁוּם רַבִּי אַבָּא בַּר כַּהֲנָא (בראשית טו, טו): וְאַתָּה תָּבוֹא אֶל אֲבֹתֶיךָ בְּשָׁלוֹם, בִּשְּׂרוֹ שֶׁיֵּשׁ לְאָבִיו חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, (בראשית טו, טו): תִּקָּבֵר בְּשֵׂיבָה טוֹבָה, בִּשְּׂרוֹ שֶׁיִּשְׁמָעֵאל עוֹשֶׂה תְּשׁוּבָה.
“These are the descendants of Teraḥ. Teraḥ begot Abram, Naḥor, and Haran, and Haran begot Lot” (Genesis 11:27). “These are the descendants of Teraḥ. Teraḥ begot Abram…” Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: ‘Anyone whose name is doubled, has a share in both this world and the World to Come.’
“They objected to him: ‘“Teraḥ, Teraḥ.” Does he have a share in this world and in the World to Come? That is astonishing.’
“He said to them: ‘This, too, is not a contradiction, as Rabbi Yudan said in the name of Rabbi Abba bar Kahana: [God told Abraham:] “You shall go to your fathers in peace” (Genesis 15:15) – he gave him good tidings that his father has a share in the World to Come. “You will be buried at a good old age” (Genesis 15:15) – he gave him good tidings, that Ishmael would repent.
X: The Lifestyle, Character, and Factionalism of the Pharisees:
A: The Pharisee Character and Lifestyle:
We have mentioned beforehand that the Sages were not a professional clerical class, but rather, members of the People who were highly regarded for their learning and character. Thus unofficial standing, by definition, gave them an advantage over the priests who demanded their ancestral collective reverence regardless of the virtues and vices of individual members of their class.
Pharisee sages were perceived as incorruptible, since they had no sinecures to defend, no special place to uphold, and no priestly diadem, no royal sword, nor a rod of office. The Sages were aware of it and cultivated this position in their ethos:
“Shemaiah and Euthalion received [the oral tradition] from them. Shemaiah used to say: love work, despise lordship, and see to it that you do not become of interest to the Government.” [11]
Scholia of Rabbi Nathan:
Love work.” How so?
“This teaches us that a person should love work, and not hate work. For just as the Torah was given in a covenant, so work was given in a covenant, as it says: ‘For six days you shall labor and do all your work, and the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Eternal your God’ (Exodus 20:10).”
Rabbi Akiva would say:
“Sometimes a person labors and escapes death, and sometimes a person does not labor and becomes liable for death from Heaven.
How so?
Say a person sat around all week and did no labor, and then on the eve of the Sabbath he had nothing to eat. But he had money that had been designated [to the Temple] in his house. So, he took from this and ate, and thus became liable to death from Heaven.
However, if he had labored on the building of the Temple, then even though they paid him in money designated for the Temple and he took that money and used it for food, he would still escape the death penalty.”
Rabbi Dostai would say:
“How do we know that if someone did not work all six days, he will end up doing work on the seventh? For, see, if he sat all the days of the week and did no work, and then on the eve of the Sabbath he had nothing to eat, he would then go out looking, and end up seized by conscription officers, who would grab him by the collar and force him to do on the Sabbath all the work that he did not do for six days”.
Rabbi Judah ben Betheira would say:
“If one has no work to do, what should he do?
“If he has a dilapidated yard or field, he should go and work on them, as it says (Exodus 20:10), “Six days you shall labor and do all your work.”
“What do we learn from the phrase, “do all your work”? Even someone who has dilapidated yards or fields should work on them”.
Rabbi Yosei The Galilean would say:
“A person dies only because of idleness, as it says:
‘And he expired [or: exhausted himself], and so was gathered to his people. (Genesis 49:33)’
“And see, if someone is pushed and falls over on his own craftwork and dies, we know his death was because of idleness.
And if he was standing on the top of the roof, the top of a palace, or the top of any building, or at the edge of the river, and he fell and died, we know his death was because of idleness.
All this we know to be true for men. And how do we know it is also true for women?
For it says, “Let no man or woman do any more work for the donations to the Sanctuary.” (Exodus 36:6) And how do we know it is true also for children?
For it says (there), “So the people stopped bringing.”
Rabbi Natan said:
When Moses was carrying out the work of the Tabernacle, he did not want to take direction from the chiefs of Israel.
So, the chiefs of Israel sat there quietly and said: ‘Perhaps now Moses will need our help’.
When they heard the announcement in the camp that said, ‘Enough work had been done’, they said: ‘Alas, we have not participated at all in the work of the Tabernacle!’
So, they got up and added a great thing by themselves, as it says, “And the chiefs brought the Shoham stones [for the breastplate of the high priest] (Exodus 35:27).”[12]
This attitude (expressed here by Shamaiah and Euthalion, the leaders of the Pharisees in the aftermath of the 2nd Jewish Civil War), borne out of the disillusions of the late Hasmonean period, served the Pharisees well. They had tapped into the deep respect ancient Jewish culture held for hard work and prudent living (a cultural trait even Josephus, the consummate aristocrat, is proudly pronouncing to the Roman aristocracy in Against Apion 1:12). Even the Pharisee Nasi lived, initially, a relatively modest lifestyle – Hillel the Elder’s home was accessible to the public even on Fridays, Shammai never abandoned his occupation as a stone-mason, and Rabban Gamliel made do with a single secretary and conducted public business from one of the steps leading to the Temple Mount.
[11] Ethics 1:10.
[12] Rabbi Nathan’s Scholia for Ethics, Ibid
B: Pharisee Factionalism:
The main weakness of the Pharisees was their tendency for factionalism.
In a way, this was an inevitable trade-off to their democratic ethos and origin – they assumed democratic virtues and, naturally, were infected with democratic flaws. They were incorruptible and inaccessible to Roman influence throughout most of their existence but since power over the 2nd Jewish Commonwealth had slipped from their hands, the Romans had ample collaborators amongst the Sadducee rulers.
We have mentioned the Zealots before as a semi-military contingent of the Hasmonean armed forces, but Josephus mentions them as a Pharisee sect, which refused to recognize any rule but “That of God alone”. Since Josephus himself describes his idealized version of the Hasmonean State as “God-rule” (θεοκρατία, theokratia), the image that arises is not of anarchists, but rather, of Hasmonean loyalists who elevated their political principles to the level of theology. To this, they added repugnance of the pagan Romans, which came to be expressed in everyday life in their refusal to use the coins stamped with the image of Caesar Divus as the practice of the prohibition against profiting from idols, or even refusal to pay taxes, which, in their understanding, were illegal[13].
Pharisee factions, just like Hasmonean military units and political factions, tended to form around individuals known for their learning and piety. Any [purported miracles were merely an additional adornment. Some Pharisee sects were led by Essenes (a general term for a mystic rather than a particular sect) while others were led by sages (Pharisees in the professional, rather than the sectarian sense), but unless the Essene in question has been a prominent scholar as well, he did not usually garner a great deal of importance.
Such sects, “philosophies” (as Josephus calls them), or schools, “houses” (בתים) in the terminology of the time, would perpetuate themselves through the biological or spiritual descendants of their founder, and acquire special characteristics that set them apart. Members had called each other “Companions” (חברים) and would sacrifice and eat together[14]. A similar phenomenon occurred in the professional life of Jewish artisans: artisans organized around a master craftsman (“Rabbi”[1]) who have led their association even after their apprenticeship was over. We should not overextend ourselves in speculating where such a relationship originated – it is possible that the Sons of the Prophets, the Pharisee Houses, rebels’ sects, and political factions all drew from the same well of common Jewish culture, consistent in its democratic nature since the Pre-Exilic era.
[13] In this light we should understand the exchange in Matthew 22:21:
Jesus came from Galilee, a land known for its Zealot leanings. When he came down south, the local Pharisees, naturally, sought to inquire after his factional preferences. Jesus refuses to take sides and merely states that each person should act according to his conscience in this matter: If one believes Caesar has the right to impose taxes as a legitimate ruler, then his image is merely a testament to his rule and is not considered an idol (Compare Jerusalemite Talmud, Abodah Zarah 3:1), but if one upholds the opinion of the Zealots regarding taxation, one should be consistent and also uphold their prohibition on Roman coins. This approach to consistency was a common teaching and appears in an ancient Baraita.
Let it be noted that as late as the 4th century, the Sage Nahum / Menahem Eurodemos b. Simai “The Sacrosanct” refused to use Imperial currency for that reason.
[14] Compare Psalms 50:5. In a later period, “Companion” became a person who kept eating even non-sacrificial meat in a state of purity fit for the sacrifices (אוכלי חולין על טהרת הקודש), a group not even all Sages belonged to.
[15] See Abodah Zarah 17b “I am a master (‘rabbi’) of weavers”
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