Our Chanukah Story 's Ending with Hellenization of Israel- Judah-A Bloody History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

The Greek Athenian Empire invaded Israel and saw to it that much of the country was Hellenized.  This would change the path the Israelites were on and they were forced to take a detour in their history. 

Notice that Athens is close to Jerusalem than Rome is.  

 Alexander the Great was beloved by the Israelites and he had everything to do with it happening.  Just how powerful were the Greeks with the rest of the world?  

Alexander was king of Macedonia, son of Philip,  from 356 to 323 BCE.died

at 33.  Born: 356 BCE, Pella, Macedonia [northwest of Thessaloníki, Greece]

Died: 

June 13, 323 BCE, Babylon [near Al-Ḥillah, Iraq]

  who overthrew the Persian empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.  

He traveled with his army:  with over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000 cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry, and the core of the army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge, was the infantry phalanx, 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists. Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio, who had secured a foothold in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have envisaged an unlimited operation.

First hit was Tyre (Lebanon). Alexander wanted money.   The Phoenician cities Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to secure Damascus and its rich booty, including King Darius III’s war chest. In reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia.

While the siege of Tyre was in progress, King Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000 talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates. “I would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; In November 333 BC, King Darius III had lost the Battle of Issus to Alexander the Great, which resulted in the subsequent capture of his wife, his mother and his two daughters, Stateira II and Drypetis.

 “I too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery. Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem. After the battle, King Darius retreated to Babylon where he regrouped with his remaining army that was there, on-site from a previous battle.

Alexander fought at the Siege of Tyre (332 BC), which lasted from January to July, and the victory resulted in his control of the Levant. Alexander then again fought at the Siege of Gaza. Persian troop counts in Egypt were diminished due to many soldiers being removed to support the Battle of Issus and dying there. As a result, the Persian satrap of Egypt, Mazaces, peacefully surrendered to Alexander upon his arrival.

 The Talmud has a tradition of his meeting between the Jews with him at Antipatris. Antipatris was a city built during the first century BCE by Herod the Great, who named it in honour of his father, Antipater. The site, now a national park in central Israel, was inhabited from the Chalcolithic Period to the late Roman Period, but he had died in 323 BCE, so that couldn't have happened there.  He no doubt did meet Jews and they were very impressed with him.  

 He suppressed a Samaritan revolt which gave the Jews of Jerusalem the occasion to stress their own loyalty.  Alexander figures prominently in Talmudic, Midrashic and medieval Jewish legends.  Many sons were named Alexander for centuries after.   

Earlier in 415 BCE, a large Athenian naval force went to the island of Melos and demanded that the Melians submit and begin paying tribute. Thucydides, an Athenian historian and general's History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens and  recounts what ensued;  the famous Melian dialogue in the 5th book of his history: You're either with us or against us, the Athenians threatened, and if you are against us we will destroy you. The Melians refused to submit and so following the siege, the Athenians massacred the adult men of Melos and enslaved the women and children.  The reaction later was surprising to the Greeks.   the Peloponnesian War broke out and most of the Greeks wanted Sparta to win, not Athens.  Yet Athens was the home where democracy was born and Sparta was an oligarchy.  Athens was the home of Socrates, Pericles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, and Sophocles.  Sparta was rural and backward.  Why?  Sparta was not at the imperial stage like Athens was. Ill will was against them.  

 Then there was much later, Antiochus IV Epiphanes who reigned from 175 to 163 BCE.  He was the 4th of 13 Greek kings of the House of Seleucus who ruled Syria in the Hellenistic Period. His father, Antiochus III (223-187 BCE) is known for transferring 2,000 Jewish families from Babylon to Lydia and Phrygia.  He captured Jerusalem in 198 BCE, but it's said he treated the Jews with understanding.  

The son, the 4th Antiochus attacked Egypt twice, and Rome turned him back the 2nd time.  He occupied Jerusalem, plundered the Temple treasure, and endeavored to hellenize Judea aby force in order to convert it into a reliable frontier-province.  This is what brought about a rising which Antiochus suppressed with great cruelty;  thousands of Jews were killed and many sold into slavery. 

Antiochus IV brought gentile settlers into Jerusalem and fortified the ACRA as a stronghold of the hellenizers to dominate the city.  The Acra (also spelled Akra, from Ancient Greek: Ἄκρα, Hebrew: חקרא ,חקרה Ḥaqra(h)), with the meaning of "stronghold" , was a place in Jerusalem thought to have had a fortified compound built by Antiochus Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, following his sack of the city in 168 BCE. 

He now began a fierce religious persecution of the Jews. He forbid circumcision and observance of the Sabbath, desecrated the Temple altar, set up pagan altars in the provincial towns, and compelled the Jews to participate in pagan ceremonies.  His excesses caused the Hasmonean uprising.  

Of course, his son, Antiochus V (164-162 BCE) continued the war against the Jews until 163 BCE, when he granted them religious and some political autonomy in return for their acceptance of his rule. Chanukah is celebrating the Jewish victory in 165 BCE of the small Judean nation led by Judah Maccabee over the immense Assyrian-Greek Empire attempting to replace Judaism with the worship of idols.  

Antiochus VII Sidetes (138-128 BCE) reasserted the Seleucid claims on Judea.  After an initial repulse in 138 BCE, he again invaded Judea and besieged Jerusalem. 

 In 135-134 BCE John Hyrcanus, son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean (135-104 BCE)  led the people in peace and prosperity, until in February 135 BCE, he was assassinated at the instigation of his son-in-law Ptolemy who had married one of Simon's daughters;  son of Abubus (also spelled Abobus or Abobi), who had been named governor of the region by the Seleucids. Simon's eldest sons, Mattathias and Judah, were also murdered, and Simon  was forced to surrender, destroy the walls of Jerusalem, cede his conquests outside Judea, and pay tribute;  but after Antiochus's death in 129 BCE, he reasserted his independence.  

John Hyrcanus had been the governor of Gezer, but after the murder of his father and 2 brothers by Ptolemy, 1st Macedonian king of Egypt and originator of the Ptolemaic dynasty (his brother -in-law), had to escape to Jerusalem, where he seized power before Ptolemy could gain control.  Ptolemy escaped after murdering John Hyrcanus's mother whom he had been holding in hostage.  Then in 135-4 BCE, Antiochus Sidetes captured Jerusalem.  John was confirmed as high priest but had to accept harsh peace terms which made the Hasmonean state again tributary to Syria. 

Mattathias and Judah, Jonathan, Simon, John, Eleazar

So you see, Judah, the Hammerer of our Chanukah story was the 1st son of Mattathias which was a priestly family.  Jonathan was the 2nd son, Simon the 3rd, John the 4th, and Eleazar the 5th.  They directed the popular revolt against the hellenizing policy adopted in Palestine by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes.  Simon's son was John Hyrcanus.  John's sister was married to the Greek Macedonian king of Egypt, Ptolemy.  

Ptolemy, son of Abubus, was an official in the early Hasmonean kingdom which then controlled Judea. According to the book of 1 Maccabees, in 135 BC, he served as the governor of Jericho. While High Priest Simon Thassi (the 3nd son of Mattathias)  was visiting, Ptolemy orchestrated the murder of Simon and two of his sons, as well as some of Simon's servants. This act of betrayal of guest right earned Ptolemy a place in Dante's The Divine Comedy; one of the sections of the ninth layer of hell described in Inferno is called Ptolomea, where those who betray guests in their home suffer.  People just whacked each other off when they needed them to disappear and not be a bother.  Murdering was a constant.  Taking over another's land was also a constant.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia 

Imperialism:  Lessons from History by Victor Davis Hanson from Imprimis 

The only sources that survived from antiquity describing Ptolemy are the book of 1 Maccabees and Josephus's Jewish Antiquities Book 13, Chapter 7–8. According to these accounts, Ptolemy was the cause of the death of High Priest Simon Thassi despite having married one of Simon's daughters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_son_of_Abubus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acra_(fortress)

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hellenism-2