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Maccabean Revolt
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The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish revolt against Seleucidic and Syrian rulers, taking place in the second century BCE.
Background
When Antiochus Epiphanes (ca. 215–164 BC), became ruler of the Seleucid Empire in 175 BC, Hellenizing Jews had been long-established in Judea. They built a gymnasium, competed internationally in Greek games, "removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant". (1 Maccabees, i, 15).
Conflict over the appointment of the High Priest and corruption contributed to the causes of the Maccabean Revolt.
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Encyclopedia
The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish revolt against Seleucidic and Syrian rulers, taking place in the second century BCE.
Background
When Antiochus Epiphanes (ca. 215–164 BC), became ruler of the Seleucid Empire in 175 BC, Hellenizing Jews had been long-established in Judea. They built a gymnasium, competed internationally in Greek games, "removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant". (1 Maccabees, i, 15).
Conflict over the appointment of the High Priest and corruption contributed to the causes of the Maccabean Revolt. The High Priest in Jerusalem was Onias III. His brother Jason, who was pro-Syrian, bribed Antiochus to make him High Priest instead. Antiochus was insensitive to the views of religious Jews and treated the High Priest as a political appointee and one from which money could be made.
Menelaus (who was not even a member of the Levite priestly family), then bribed Antiochus and was appointed High Priest in place of Jason. Menelaus had Onias assassinated. His brother Lysimachus took holy vessels from the Temple, causing riots and the thief's death at the hands of the rioters. Menelaus was arrested and arraigned before Antiochus, but he bribed his way out of trouble. Jason subsequently drove out Menelaus and became High Priest again. Antiochus was incensed at the overthrow of his appointee, Menelaus, sacked the Temple and re-installed Menelaus.
From this point onwards, Antiochus pursued a Hellenizing policy with zeal. This effectively meant banning traditional Jewish religious practice. In 167 BC Jewish sacrifice was forbidden, sabbaths and feasts were banned and circumcision was outlawed. Altars to Greek gods were set up and animals prohibited to Jews were sacrificed on them. The Olympian Zeus was placed on the altar of the Temple. Possession of Jewish scriptures was made a capital offence.
The Revolt
After Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, a rural Jewish priest from Modiin, Mattathias the Hasmonean, sparked the revolt against the Seleucid Empire by refusing to worship the Greek gods. Mattathias killed a Hellenistic Jew who stepped forward to offer a sacrifice to an idol in Mattathias' place. He and his five sons fled to the wilderness of Judea. After Mattathias' death about one year later, his son Judah Maccabee led an army of Jewish dissidents to victory over the Seleucid dynasty in guerrilla warfare. The term Maccabees as used to describe the Judean's army is taken from its actual use as Judah's surname.
The revolt itself involved many individual battles, in which the Maccabean forces gained infamy among the Syrian army for their use of guerrilla tactics. After the victory, the Maccabees entered Jerusalem in triumph and ritually cleansed the Temple, reestablishing traditional Jewish worship there and installing Jonathan Maccabee as high priest. A large Syrian army was sent to quash the revolt, but returned to Syria on the death of Antiochus IV. Its commander Lysias, preoccupied with internal Syrian affairs, agreed to a political compromise that restored religious freedom.
Following the re-dedication of the temple, the supporters of the Maccabees were divided over the question of whether to continue fighting. When the revolt began under the leadership of Mattathias, it was seen as a war for religious freedom to end the oppression of the Seleucids. However, as Maccabees realized how successful they had been, many wanted to continue the revolt as a war of national self-determination, see also Jewish nationalism. This conflict led to the exacerbation of the divide between the Pharisees and Sadducees under later Hasmonean monarchs such as Alexander Jannaeus.
Judah Maccabee led those who sought the continuation of the war of national identity. On his death in battle in 160 BC, his younger brother, Jonathan, who was already High Priest, succeeded Judah as army commander. Jonathan made treaties with various foreign states, causing further dissent among those who desired religious freedom over political power. On Jonathan's death in 142 BC, Simon Maccabee, the last remaining son of Mattathias, took power. That same year, Demetrius II, king of Syria, granted the Jews complete political independence and Simon, great high priest and commander of the Jews, went on to found the Hasmonean dynasty. Jewish autonomy lasted until 63 BC, when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem and subjected Judea to Roman rule, see Iudaea province, while the Hasmonean dynasty itself ended in 37 BC when the Idumean Herod the Great became de facto King of the Jews.
The Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrates Judah Maccabee's victory over the Seleucids and associated events that Jews regard as miraculous.
Mention in Deuterocanon
The story of the Maccabees can be found in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles in the deuterocanonical books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. Books of 3 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees are not directly related to the Maccabees.
Modern perception
Most modern scholars argue that the king was intervening in a civil war between traditionalist Jews in the countryside and Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem. According to Joseph P. Schultz, modern scholarship "considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppresion than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp." In the conflict over the office of High Priest, traditionalists with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias contested with Hellenizers with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus. Other authors point to possible socio/economic factors in the conflict. What began as a civil war took on the character of an invasion when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenizing Jews against the traditionalists. As the conflict escalated, Antiochus prohibited the practices of the traditionalists, thereby, in a departure from usual Seleucid practice, banning the religion of an entire people.
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