144 A History of Judaism
to have been priests. Most notable was Eleazar b. Simon (or Gion), a
priest who two years earlier, in October 66, had been cold- shouldered
by the national assembly in the appointment of generals notwithstand-
ing his control of a great part of the public treasure, because ‘they
observed his tyrannical nature and that the zealots with him conducted
themselves like a bodyguard’. Josephus ascribed Simon’s eventual rise to
power to a combination of his trickery and his control of these financial
resources, but the priestly origin of the Zealot leaders and their passion
for protecting the Temple suggests a more religious motivation. Their
trust in divine intervention emerged at the very start of their control of
the Temple in their decision, noted above in Chapter 5, to appoint a new
High Priest by lot. Josephus, deploring their decision, stated that the
Zealots asserted ‘that in old days the high priesthood had been deter-
mined by lot; but in reality their action was the abrogation of established
practice and a trick to make themselves supreme by getting these
appointments into their own hands’. In all this vituperation, it is worth
noting that the Zealots are said to have claimed ancient custom as their
justification. By using the lot, of course, choice was transferred from
humans to God.^56
The name ‘Zealot’ seems to have carried particular resonance in the
late Second Temple period, and the same terminology is used of others
who seem to have had no connection with the party of Eleazar b. Simon
which played so central a role in the life of Jerusalem in the last years
before its destruction. One of the followers of Jesus was called ‘Simon
the Zealot’ according to the Gospel of Luke. There was much fascin-
ation with the story of the prototype of Zealots, Pinchas (‘Phineas’ in
Greek), the grandson of Aaron the priest. According to Numbers, Pin-
chas killed a certain Zimri with a single spearthrust when he found him
in the act of sexual intercourse with a Midianite woman, because he
(Pinchas) was ‘zealous for his God’. Ben Sira called Pinchas ‘third in
renown’ after Moses and Aaron for being zealous in this way. The
author of I Maccabees depicted Mattathias (father of Judah Maccabee)
as showing zeal ‘as Phineas had done’,^ and later rabbinic texts expand
on the excellence of his enthusiasm for righteousness. Such intense
devotion, lifting the pious out of ordinary obedience to a higher plane,
could be claimed by Jews of all kinds without suggesting membership of
any philosophical school or political party. According to the Gospel of
John, Jesus acted out of zeal in clearing the Temple. Paul identified him-
self as a former zealot: ‘I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my
people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of