The Maccabean Revolution lenistic as that of the diaspora. On the contrary, what we should emphasise
is the uniqueness of the phenomenon of an original and varied non-Greek
literary activity developing in a small area only a few miles from the Medi-
terranean coast. The preservation of a native culture in Egypt or in distant
Babylonia is by no means so surprising a phenomenon.
What is more, it is precisely the nature of the first phase of the Hellenising
movement after .., instituted beyond question by elements within the
Jewish community, which shows howun-Greek Jerusalem had remained up
to that moment. It is important to emphasise the earliest phase of the Helle-
nising movement—that which preceded the robbery of the Temple treasures
and the forcible persecution of Judaism—because it is here that we have the
clearest evidence of initiatives from within the community; because it shows
the relation of the Seleucid king to the high priesthood; and precisely be-
cause it shows thenoveltyof Hellenistic ways of life in the Jerusalem of the
s. Macc. :– (followed by Josephus,Ant. , –) preserves only
the overall ideology of ‘‘making a covenant with the peoples round about,’’
and the details of the establishment of a gymnasium and concealment of cir-
cumcision. For a fuller conception we have to turn to Maccabees, the sub-
ject of an excellent German translation and commentary by Chr. Habicht
(the first time, it should be noted, that this major product of Hellenistic his-
toriography has been studied in detail by an expert in Hellenistic history
and epigraphy).^30 It is worth looking again at the much-quoted passage of
Macc. :– which describes the events following the death of Seleucus IV
Philopator in ..:
But when Seleucus departed this life and the kingdom was taken by
Antiochus, called Epiphanes, Jason the brother of Onias, usurped the
high priesthood by illegitimate means, promising the king in a petition
talents of silver, and talents of other revenue. He undertook be-
yond this to pay a further talents if he were granted permission to
establish by his own authority a gymnasium and a corps of ephebes and
to enrol those in Jerusalem as ‘‘Antiochenes.’’^31 When the king agreed,.Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer ZeitI:Historische und legendarische Erzäh-
lungen; Chr. Habicht,. Makkabäerbuch().
. The translation of this phrase is a notorious crux. I take it to mean that all the in-
habitants of Jerusalem were to become citizens of a newpoliscalled (like many others)
‘‘Antiochia.’’ For the clearest statement of this view, and a refutation of Bickermann’s in-
terpretation, that the reference is to the establishment of a corporation of ‘‘Antiochenes’’
withinthe population of Jerusalem, see G. Le Rider,SusesouslesSéleucidesetlesParthes(Mém.
Miss. Arch. Iran. , ), –.