The Hellenistic World and Rome
to compel the Jews to abandon their fathers’ religion. Accordingly, the
king sent Menelaus to Beroea in Syria, and there had him put to death;
he had served as high priest for ten years, and had been a wicked and
impious man, who in order to have sole authority for himself had com-
pelled his nation to violate their own laws.^45It must be emphasised that this passage of Josephus, whose account is sec-
ondary, filled with abbreviations and confusions, and separated by two and a
half centuries from the events in question, is the most concrete and specific
evidence we have for the responsibility of Menelaus (or any other ‘‘Helle-
niser’’) for the persecution by Antiochus. For what it is worth, like all our
other explicit evidence, it refers not to the creation of a syncretistic cult but
to a forcible suppression of Judaism.
None the less, it is true that Menelaus was given the high priesthood by
Antiochus; survived an armed challenge by his predecessor, Jason; kept his
office through the period of persecution, acting at least once as intermedi-
ary between the king and the Jews; and was succeeded after his execution by
Alcimus, or Yakim—a true descendant of Aaron, unlike himself—who was
appointed by Antiochus V Eupator, and was skilful enough to have himself
reconfirmed by Demetrius when he seized the Seleucid throne in ..^46
The fact that there was thus a continuity in the occupation of the high priest-
hood is reason enough to ask whether there was any continuity in the form
or object of the cult practised in the Temple before and after . For the
change to be such that we could properly call it areformat least three con-
ditions would have to be satisfied. That there was a continuity of personnel,
which there was, at least in the person of the high priest; that these individu-
als either initiated or were personally committed to the change, for which
the evidence is at best very slight; and, above all, that it continued to be
monotheistic, at the very least in the weak sense of recognising one god as
clearly supreme amongst others.
Notoriously, the further in time our sources are from these events, the
more specific they are about the cults and cult objects now established. But
this question, discussed brilliantly but speculatively by Bickermann^47 and
more dispassionately by Hengel (–), is absolutely central to the whole
issue. For unless the nature of the cult can be clearly established, discussions
.Ant. , – (Loeb trans.).
. For Alcimus/Yakim, see Macc. :–; Macc. :–; Josephus,Ant. , –,
–.
.Der Gott der Makkabäer, –.