Appendix IV (part 2 of 2)

Looking back on the rapid rise and decline of the Maccabees, on their speedy degeneration, on the deeds of cruelty with which their history soon became stained, on the selfishness and reckless ambition which characterized them, and especially on the profoundly anti-nationalist and anti-Pharisaic, we had almost said anti-Jewish, tendency which marked their sway, we can understand the bitter hatred with which Jewish tradition had followed their memory. The mention of them is of the scantiest. No universal acclamation glorifies even the deeds of Judas the Maccabee; no Talmudic tractate is devoted to that feast of the dedication' which celebrated the purging of the Temple and the restoration of Jewish worship. In fact such was the feeling, that the priestly course of Joiarib - to which the Asmonæans belonged - is said to have been on service when the first and the second Temple were destroyed, because guilt was to be punished on the guilty.' More than that, R. Levi saith: Yehoyaribh ["Jehovah will contend"], the man [the name of the man or family]; Meron ["rebellion," evidently a play upon Modin, the birthplace of the Maccabees], the town; Mesarbey ["the rebels," evidently a play upon Makkabey] - (masar beitha) He hath given up the Temple to the enemies.' Rabbi Berachjah saith: Yah heribh [Jehoiarib], God contended with His children, because they revolted and rebelled against Him' (Jer. Taan. iv. 8, p. 68 d, line 35 from bottom).⁶³⁶⁸ Indeed, the opprobrious designation of rebellion, and Sarbaney El, rebels against God, became in course of time so identified with the Maccabees. that it was used when its meaning was no longer understood. Thus Origen (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi. 25) speaks of the (Apocryphal) books of the Maccabees as inscribed Sarbeth Sarbane El' (={hebrew}), the disobedience, or rebellion (resistance) of the disobedient, or rebels, against God.⁶³⁶⁹ So thoroughly had these terms become identified in popular parlance, that even the tyranny and cruelty of a Herod could not procure a milder judgment on the sway of the Asmonæans.