persons as they were, should at the same time be holders of the highest spiritual offices.  The danger which in all this threatened “the idea of Judaism” could not in these circumstances escape the observation of even the common people; for this idea was God and the law, not any earthly fatherland.  The masses accordingly ranged themselves with ever-growing unanimity on the side of the Pharisees (i.e., the party of the scribes) as against the Sadducees (i.e., the Hasmonaean party). 1

***************************************** 1.  PRW# means “separated,” and refers perhaps to the attitude of isolation taken by the zealots for the law during the interval between 162 and 105.  CDWQY (SADDOUKAIOS) comes from CDWQ (SADDOUK, LXX.) the ancestor of the higher priesthood of Jerusalem (1Kings ii. 35; 1Samuel ii. 35; Ezekiel xliv. 15), and designates the governing nobility.  The original character of the opposition, as it appeared under Jannaeus, changed entirely with the lapse of time, on account of the Sadducees’ gradual loss of political power, till they fell at last to the condition of a sort of “fronde.”

On one occasion, when Alexander Jannaeus had returned to Jerusalem at the feast of tabernacles, and was standing in his priestly vestments before the altar to sacrifice, he was pelted by the assembled crowd of worshippers with citrons from the green branches they carried.  By the cruelty with which he punished this insult he excited the populace to the highest pitch, and, when he lost his army in the disaster of Gadara, rebellion broke out.  The Pharisees summoned the Syrian king Demetrius Eucaerus; Jannaeus was worsted and fled into the desert.  But as he wandered in helplessness there, the patriotism of the people and sympathy for the heir of the Maccabees suddenly awoke; nature proved itself stronger than that consistency which in the cause of the Divine honour had not shrunk from treason.  The insurgents for the most part went over to the side of the fugitive king; the others he ultimately overpowered after a struggle which lasted through several years, Demetrius having withdrawn his intervention.  The vengeance which he took on the Pharisees was a bloody one; their only escape was by voluntary exile.  Thenceforward he had peace so far as they were concerned.  His last years were occupied with the reacquisition of the conquests which he had been compelled to yield to the Arabs during the civil war.  He died in the field at the siege of Ragaba in Peraea (79).

Under Queen Salome, his widow, matters were as if they had been specially arranged for the satisfaction of the Pharisees.  The high-priesthood passed to Salome’s son, Hyrcanus II.; she herself was only queen.  In the management of external affairs her authority was absolute (Antiquities, xiii. 16, 6); in home policy she permitted the scribes to wield a paramount influence.  The common assertion, indeed, that the synedrium was at that time practically composed of scribes, is inconsistent with the known facts of the case; the synedrium at that time was a political and not a scholastic authority. 1