Jerusalem: The Biography

Judah, fighting for his life, appealed to Rome, that enemy of the Greek kingdoms, and Rome effectively recognized Jewish sovereignty. In 161, the Hammer routed Nicanor, ordering his head and his arm to be cut off and brought to Jerusalem. At the Temple, he presented these ghoulish trophies – the hand and the excised tongue that had threatened the Temple were shredded and hung out for the birds while the head lolled atop the fortress. Jerusalemites celebrated Nicanor Day as a festival of deliverance. The Seleucids then defeated and killed the Maccabee himself; Jerusalem fell. Judah was buried in Modin. All seemed lost. But he was survived by his brothers.³¹

SIMON THE GREAT: TRIUMPH OF THE MACCABEES

After two years on the run, Jonathan, Judah’s brother, emerged from the deserts to rout the Seleucids again, setting up his court at Michmas, north of Greek-held Jerusalem. Jonathan, known as the Diplomat, played off the rival kings of Syria and Egypt to regain Jerusalem. He then restored the walls, resanctified the Temple and, in 153, persuaded the Seleucid king to appoint him to the gold-clasped rank of ‘king’s friend’ – and High Priest. The Maccabee was anointed with the oil and bedecked with the royal flower and the priestly robes at the most raucous of festivals, Tabernacles. Yet Jonathan was descended from a provincial priest with no connection to Zadok. At least one Jewish sect saw him as the ‘Wicked Priest’.

First Jonathan was backed by the Egyptian king Ptolemy VI Philometer, who marched up the coast to Joppa (Jerusalem’s nearest port, Jaffa), to meet Jonathan, in their respective pharaonic and priestly magnificence. At Ptolemais (now Acre), Philometer achieved the dream of every Greek king since Alexander the Great: he was crowned king of Egypt and Asia. But at the very moment of his triumph, his horse reared at the sight of the Seleucid elephants, and he was killed.^*

As rival Seleucids fought for power, Jonathan the Diplomat repeatedly switched sides. One of the Seleucid pretenders, besieged in his Antioch palace, appealed for Jonathan’s help in return for full Jewish independence. Jonathan marched his 2,000 men all the way from Jerusalem, through what is now Israel, Lebanon and Syria, to Antioch. The Jewish soldiers, firing arrows from the palace then leaping from roof to roof across the burning city, rescued and restored the king. Returning to Judaea, Jonathan conquered Ashkelon, Gaza, and Beth-Zur – and started to besiege the Acra Fortress in Jerusalem. But he was lured to Ptolemais without his bodyguards to meet his latest Greek ally who seized him and marched on Jerusalem.

The Maccabee family was not yet exhausted: there was still one more brother.³² This was Simon, who refortified Jerusalem and rallied his army. Along with a sudden snowstorm, this forced the Greek to retreat, but he had his revenge: he executed Simon’s captive brother, Jonathan. In spring 141, Simon stormed and demolished the Acra,^†

razing the very hill on which it stood before celebrating in Jerusalem ‘with praise, palm branches, harps, cymbals, viols and hymns.’ The ‘yoke of the heathen was taken away from Israel’ and a Great Assembly hailed Simon as hereditary ruler, clothing him in royal purple buckled with gold, king in all but name. ‘The people began to write in their contracts: “In the first year of Simon the Great, High Priest, Commander-in-Chief and Leader of the Jews”.’

JOHN HYRCANUS: EMPIRE-BUILDER

Simon the Great was at the height of his popularity when, in 134 BC, he was invited to dinner by his son-in-law. There, the last of the first generation of Maccabees was assassinated, and the son-in-law then seized Simon’s wife and two of his sons. Assassins tried to catch his other son John – Yehohanan in Hebrew – but he made it to Jerusalem and held the city.

John faced disaster on every side. When he pursued the conspirators to their stronghold, his mother and brothers were torn to pieces before him. As the third son, John had not expected to reign but he possessed all the family talents to become the ideal Jewish ruler, with ‘charismatic-Messianic traits’. Indeed, wrote Josephus, God granted John ‘three of the greatest privileges – the rule of the nation, the office of High Priest and the gift of prophecy’.

The Seleucid king, Antiochus VII Sidetes, exploited this Jewish civil war to regain Palestine and besiege Jerusalem. The Jerusalemites were starting to starve, when King Sidetes signalled his willingness to negotiate by sending in ‘a magnificent sacrifice’ of bulls with gilded horns for the Feast of Tabernacles. John sued for peace, agreeing to surrender Maccabee conquests outside Judaea, to pay 500 silver talents and to demolish the walls.