jews in a graeco- roman world 93
to seek political power by adoption of Greek culture, and this was what
led to the crisis of the Maccabean revolt of the 160s bce.
So long as Judaea remained under the control of the Ptolemaic dyn-
asty throughout the third century bce, Jews were effectively ruled from
Egypt as an overseas territory of the highly regulated Ptolemaic state.
But power was much more diffused in the sprawling Seleucid empire
into which Judaea was incorporated in 198 bce after the victory of
Antiochus the Great over Ptolemy V at the battle of Panium, and the
opportunity arose for members of the priestly Jewish elite in Jerusalem
to acquire status and authority in the eyes of their Seleucid masters
through the promotion of Hellenism by reinterpreting Judaism in Greek
terms. In 175 bce, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes became the Seleucid
king, a coup to depose the High Priest Onias was led by Onias’ brother
Jesus, who had adopted the Greek name Jason and offered to erect a
gymnasium for Greek athletics and ‘to enrol the people of Jerusalem as
citizens of Antioch’.^1
Quite how much these proposals by Jason changed Judaism has been
much debated, since there was nothing intrinsically contrary to the
Torah in physical exercise which ‘induced the noblest of the young men
to wear the Greek hat’, and all accounts of Jason’s period as High Priest
derive from hostile sources which conceived of his reforms as the sinful
behaviour which brought down on Israel the divine punishment which
was soon to follow. From the point of view of Antiochus, the main
incentive to replace Onias with Jason was probably Jason’s offer to pay
him a very large sum of money, since three years later, probably in 171
bce, Jason was in turn deposed from the post of High Priest by Anti-
ochus to make way for a certain Menelaus, who offered an even larger
bribe.^2
The detailed narratives of the dramatic events of the next decade in
the two books of Maccabees, now preserved in the Apocrypha, are con-
fused in their chronology and in their accounts of the motivation of the
leading personalities of the political struggle in Jerusalem, but the out-
line of events is clear. During the campaign of Antiochus against Egypt
in 170 to 169 bce, Jason seized Jerusalem, forcing Menelaus to seek the
protection of the Seleucid garrison in the city’s citadel. Antiochus retali-
ated on his return from Egypt in the autumn of 169 bce, capturing the
city on behalf of Menelaus and looting the most valuable Temple arte-
facts, including the altar of incense and the menorah (the Temple’s
distinctive ornamental candelabrum).^3
The author of the Second Book of Maccabees asserted specifically