34 CHAPTER ONEHerodian family later.^39 This observation may help explain the Hasmoneans’
risestructurally, but we must still wonder about the mechanisms of their rise,
especially their shifting and varied self-presentation. In other words, we must
wonder why the Hasmoneans claimed to be fighting.
Until the end of the persecution and the restoration of the traditional cult
in the late autumn of 164, there seems little doubt that the Hasmoneans
presented themselves primarily as champions of the Torah and the temple,
that is, of Judaism. This claim must have lost some of its utility subsequently.
Simon’s public celebration of his reduction of several Seleucid fortresses, and
his claim that a set of standard royal concessions amounted to Judaean inde-
pendence, probably indicate that he posed not only as preserver of the Torah
but as liberator of the Jews, though whether Judah and Jonathan had done
the same is unknown.
In fact, the Hasmoneans’ precise religious inclinations are difficult to re-
cover. They certainly behaved in untraditional ways and introduced innova-
tions in law and temple procedure. Their very assumption of the high priest-
hood and secular authority, without possession of either Zadokite (legitimate
high priestly) or Davidic descent, was at the very least problematic. Their
constant exposure to corpse impurity was a more or less blatant violation of
biblical law. There were surely other changes, too, about which less is known.
(One especially striking case, their decision to regard vast numbers of non-
Judaean Palestinians as Jews, will be discussed presently.) Many Judaean tradi-
tionalists quickly developed reservations about the Hasmoneans, and some
openly opposed the dynasty, while others, less willing to incur the dangers of
open opposition, unhappily reached a modus vivendi. Nevertheless, there can
be no doubt that the Hasmoneans were in general terms traditionalists. They
may have engaged in a creative interpretation of the Torah that differed from
what their Zadokite predecessors had done, but still they upheld the Torah’s
validity as the constitution of Judaea.^40 This may have been enough to satisfy
most Judaeans.
Despite the Hasmoneans’ essential traditionalism, in some respects they
stood for integration as surely as Jason did, though on different terms. Every
Judaean leader living under Persian, Macedonian, or Roman rule had to
mediate between the integrative pressures of the eastern Mediterranean envi-
ronment and the separatist pressure exerted by the Jews’ gradually deepening
devotion to the Torah. The Hasmoneans demonstrated that it was possible,
at least under certain political conditions, for Judaea to participate politically
and economically in an increasingly tightly knit eastern Mediterranean world
(^39) This summarizes my argument in “A Note on the Social Type.”
(^40) Note Tacitus’s comment,Hist. 5.8.3, that the Hasmoneans “superstitionem[i.e.,Iudaicam]
fovebant.”