by
Damien F. Mackey
“The tale in Josephus of "Athronges" and his brothers, the priest-shepherds
of Migdol Eder, and the birth of Our Lord in Bethlehem are entirely connected, thank you. I also appreciate your work when you identify John Hyrcanus and
the High Priest Annas, also, resolved a question in my mind with that as well”.
A Reader
My most recent exchange with a reader has been this one, concerning my radical theory that the Maccabean and Herodian eras had occurred at the same time:
Dear Mr Damien Mackey,
I have been reading your works for quite some time, especially with your merger of the Maccabean and Herodian periods. I believe that if you are correct, and I believe that you are, Christ and the Holy Family were central to the resistance of the Maccabees to the God fighting Selucid Empire. ….
Damien Mackey
You mirror my thoughts here …. [name given here].
Have you read this one?:
"Religious war waging in Judah during the Infancy of Jesus"
https://www.academia.edu/107036451/Religious_war_raging_in_Judah_during_the_Infancy_of_Jesus
….
And this one?:
"Shepherds of Bethlehem and the five Maccabees"
https://www.academia.edu/111517720/Shepherds_of_Bethlehem_and_the_five_Maccabees
….
Absolutely Mr Mackey, the tale in Josephus of " Athronges" and his brothers, the priest-shepherds of Migdol Eder, and the birth of Our Lord in Bethlehem are entirely connected, thank you. I also appreciate your work when you identify John Hyrcanus and the High Priest Annas, also, resolved a question in my mind with that as well. You may then be aware in the Josippon and elsewhere if I remember correctly, that the Romans explicitly are said to have destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple out of revenge for Christ's death: it only makes sense if in context of the treaty between the Romans and the Maccabees. Thanks again sir! ….
Damien Mackey
Not aware of having identified "John Hyrcanus and the High Priest Annas" anywhere ….
I'd like to know more about it, though. ….
My apologies Mr Mackey, I can't seem to find where I thought I saw that, perhaps a mistake on my part. In any case, I find your work brilliant, I have Velikovsky's " Ages in Chaos" series, but your insights as a Christian open up history even better in my opinion. I'm interested to see how the timeline is coming together, for sure! Anyway God bless you and your endeavors. ….
….
Was it this, if I'm reading it correctly?
https://www.academia.edu/46895402/Famous_Roman_Republicans_beginning_to_loom_as_spectral_Part_Two_b_Continuing_with_Pompey_the_Great
….
Damien Mackey
No need to apologise …. (Please call me Damien)
It appears that you are right and that I did make the connection - though not in a very convincing fashion.
It would fill a big gap.
Perhaps we can now build on it. ….
Afterwards I checked the article referred to by this reader:
Famous Roman Republicans beginning to loom as spectral. Part Two (b): Continuing with Pompey the Great
And found that the reader was perfectly correct, and that my memory wasn’t.
In that article I had written:
“The marble bust of Pompey is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen). Its somewhat incongruous appearance, the round face and small lidded eyes beneath the leonine mane of hair, is because Pompey, the most powerful Roman of his day, sought a comparison with Alexander the Great …”.
Pompey ‘Imitating’ Hellenistic?
Previously I have quoted Nic Fields (Warlords of Republican Rome: Caesar Against Pompey, 2010), who wrote:
His flatterers, so it was said, likened Pompey to Alexander the Great, and whether because of this or not, the Macedonian king would appear to have been constantly in his mind. His respect for the fairer sex is comparable with Alexander’s, and Plutarch mentions that when the concubines of Mithridates were brought to him he merely restored them to their parents and families.
….
Similarly he treated the corpse of Mithridates in a kingly way, as Alexander treated the corpse of Dareios, and ‘provided for the expenses of the funeral and directed that the remains should receive royal interment’. …. Also, like Alexander, he founded many cities and repaired many damaged towns, searched for the ocean that was thought to surround the world, and rewarded his soldiers munificently. Finally, Appian adds that in his third triumph he was said to have worn ‘a cloak of Alexander the Great’. ….
It is interesting to learn that the original name of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’, who, like Pompey, would desecrate the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, was likewise “Mithridates”:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes
Fields again (p. 98):
In a sense Pompey personified Roman imperialism, where absolute destruction was followed by the construction of stable empire and the rule of law. It also, not coincidentally, raised him to a pinnacle of glory and wealth. The client–rulers who swelled the train of Rome also swelled his own. He received extraordinary honours from the communities of the east, as ‘saviour and benefactor of the People and of all Asia, guardian of land and sea’. …. There was an obvious precedent for all this. As the elder Pliny later wrote, Pompey’s victories ‘equalled in brilliance the exploits of Alexander the Great’. Without a doubt, so Pliny continues, the proudest boast of our ‘Roman Alexander’ would be that ‘he found Asia on the rim of Rome’s possessions, and left it in the centre’. ….
Pompey is even supposed to have gone so far as to have tried to emulate Alexander’s distinctive appearance:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/pompey.
The marble bust of Pompey is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen). Its somewhat incongruous appearance, the round face and small lidded eyes beneath the leonine mane of hair, is because Pompey, the most powerful Roman of his day, sought a comparison with Alexander the Great, whose distinctive portraits were characterized by a thoughtful facial expression and, more iconographically, locks of hair brushed back high from the forehead, a stylistic form known as anastole, from the Greek “to put back.” ….
Did Pompey absorb – like I have argued may have been the case with Julius Caesar – not only Alexander-like characteristics, but also general Hellenistic ones?
Or, more to the point - in the context of this series - was the semi-legendary “Pompey” a composite based upon Hellenistic personages?
And might that mean that the famous event of Pompey’s desecration (by his presence therein) of the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, supposedly in 63 BC:
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12264-pompey-the-great
The capture of the Temple mount was accompanied by great slaughter. The priests who were officiating despite the battle were massacred by the Roman soldiers, and many committed suicide; while 12,000 people besides were killed. Pompey himself entered the Temple, but he was so awed by its sanctity that he left the treasure and the costly vessels untouched (“Ant.” xiv. 4, § 4; “B. J.” i. 7, § 6; Cicero, “Pro Flacco,” § 67). The leaders of the war party were executed, and the city and country were laid under tribute.
A deadly blow was struck at the Jews when Pompey separated from Judea the coast cities from Raphia to Dora, as well as all the Hellenic cities in the east-Jordan country, and the so-called Decapolis, besides Scythopolis and Samaria, all of which were incorporated in the new province of Syria [,]
may be in fact a muddled version of that real historical incident when Antiochus (Mithridates) ‘Epiphanes’ most infamously desecrated the Temple by erecting an image of Zeus in his own likeness on the altar?
Or it may pertain to the sacrilegious actions later of Pontius Pilate in Judaea.
Era of Pompey
about a century too early
Having already argued for the era of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ to be collapsed into the time of Herod ‘the Great’ - a downward shift of more than a century and a half - I am now of the tentative opinion that the era of Antipas (Antipater), conventionally dated to c. 79 BC, properly belongs about a century later, to around 30 AD.
With the composite “Pompey” perhaps being, in part, a recollection of the biblical and historical Pontius Pilate, then Antipas becomes the Herod Antipas of that time.
John Hyrcanus II - no doubt the same as John Hyrcanus I, the son of Simon the Hasmonaean - who was deposed, then re-instated, would then perhaps become the once deposed Annas the High Priest.
About John Hyrcanus, so-called II, we read:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7973-hyrcanus-ii
High priest from about 79 to 40 B.C. …. He had scarcely reigned three months when his younger brother, Aristobulus, rose in rebellion; whereupon Hyrcanus advanced against him at the head of his mercenaries and his Sadducean followers. Near Jericho the brothers met in battle; many of the soldiers of Hyrcanus went over to Aristobulus, and thereby gave the latter the victory. Hyrcanus took refuge in the citadel of Jerusalem; but the capture of the Temple by Aristobulus compelled Hyrcanus to surrender. A peace was then concluded, according to the terms of which Hyrcanus was to renounce the throne and the office of high priest (comp. Schürer, "Gesch." i. 291, note 2), but was to enjoy the revenues of the latter office.
Intrigues of Antipater.
The struggle would have ended here but for Antipater. That astute Idumean saw clearly that it would be easier to reach the object of his ambition, the control of Judea, under the government of the weak Hyrcanus than under the warlike and energetic Aristobulus. He accordingly began to impress upon Hyrcanus' mind that Aristobulus was planning his death, finally persuading him to take refuge with Aretas, king of the Nabatæans. Aretas, bribed by Antipater, who also promised him the restitution of the Arabian towns taken by the Hasmoneans, readily espoused the cause of Hyrcanus and advanced toward Jerusalem with an army of fifty thousand.
….
Intervention of the Romans.
While this civil war was going on the Roman general Scaurus went to Syria to take possession, in the name of Pompey, of the kingdom of the Seleucids. He was appealed to by the brothers, each endeavoring by gifts and promises to win him over to his side. At first Scaurus, moved by a gift of four hundred talents, decided in favor of Aristobulus. Aretas was ordered to withdraw his army from Judea, and while retreating suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Aristobulus. But when Pompey came to Syria (63) a different situation arose. The conqueror of Asia, who had decided to bring Judea under the rule of the Romans, took the same view of Hyrcanus' ability, and was actuated by much the same motives, as Antipater: as a ward of Rome Hyrcanus would be more acceptable than Aristobulus.
When, therefore, the brothers, and delegates of the people's party, which, weary of Hasmonean quarrels, desired the extinction of the dynasty, presented themselves before Pompey, he delayed the decision, in spite of Aristobulus' gift of a golden vine valued at five hundred talents. The latter, however, fathomed the designs of Pompey, and entrenched himself in the fortress of Alexandrium; but, soon realizing the uselessness of resistance, surrendered at the first summons of the Romans, and undertook to deliver Jerusalem over to them. The patriots, however, were not willing to open their gates to the Romans, and a siege ensued which ended with the capture of the city.
Thus, between the weakness of Hyrcanus and the ambition of Aristobulus, Judea lost its independence. Aristobulus was taken to Rome a prisoner, and Hyrcanus was reappointed high priest, but without political authority. ….
Annas was also known as Ananus, which name may derive from John (Hyrcanus), or Johanan (less likely, I think, from Hyrc-anus). He, like John Hyrcanus, was once deposed, but continued to wield great influence:
http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e108
“Although deposed, Annas continued to hold an influential position in the Sanhedrin, and according to John 18 (but not mentioned in the synoptic gospels) Annas presided over a preliminary hearing of the case against Jesus before the trial by Caiaphas”.
And again: http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/annas.htm
Annas was deprived by the royal priesthood by Roman authority. While Annas was actually deposed, he had gained such a foothold while in office that he continued to be the power in Israel, even though his son-in-law, Caiaphas, was the legal high priest. He was regarded as the real high priest by the stricter Jews and the people regarded him as God's high priest. Annas was likely the richest man in Israel, controlling all the temple traffic (money-changers, etc.). Besides Caiaphas, five of his sons and one of his grandsons occupied the office of the high priest, so that Annas remained the power behind the throne until the revolt of 66. The John mentioned in Acts 4 was [Annas's] son and was high priest in AD 36. ….
John Hyrcanus (I/II) and Annas (Ananus) comparisons
(i) High Priest
https://www.geni.com/people/John-Hyrcanus-I-Hasmonean-Ethnarch-High-Priest/6000000012133523012
“Essentially, criticism of Hyrcanus’ roles as High Priest and ethnarch by the Pharisees led to a falling out”.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-II
“John Hyrcanus II (died 30 bc, Jerusalem) was the high priest of Judaea from 76 to 40 bc, and, with his brother Aristobulus II, last of the Maccabean (Hasmonean) dynastic rulers”.
https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas
“Annas, or Ananias, or Ananus, son of Seth, was appointed high priest by Quirinius, the governor of Syria in AD 6”.
(ii) Sadducee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hyrcanus
“… Hyrcanus sided with the rivals of the Pharisees, the Sadducees”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyrcanus_II
“Hyrcanus II’s sectarian orientation is now generally understood to have been Sadducee”.
https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas
“Annas was a member of the Sadducees, the aristocracy of first century Judea”.
(iii) Deposed
We have just read that John Hyrcanus (as II), Annas, had been “deposed”:
[Annas], like John Hyrcanus, was once deposed, but continued to wield great influence: http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e108
“Although deposed, Annas continued to hold an influential position in the Sanhedrin, and according to John 18 (but not mentioned in the synoptic gospels) Annas presided over a preliminary hearing of the case against Jesus before the trial by Caiaphas”.
And again: http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/annas.htm
Annas was deprived by the royal priesthood by Roman authority. While Annas was actually deposed, he had gained such a foothold while in office that he continued to be the power in Israel, even though his son-in-law, Caiaphas, was the legal high priest.
Likewise, we read:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-II
“… Hyrcanus was appointed high priest, and on his mother’s death in 67 he assumed the rulership of Judaea. After a troubled reign of three months, his warlike brother Aristobulus drove him from power”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananus_ben_Ananus
“… Ananus was therefore deposed by King Herod Agrippa II …”.
(iv) Five sons
Added to that, John Hyrcanus, Annas, had five sons:
https://time.graphics/period/1499577
“Josephus said that John Hyrcanus had five sons but named only four in his histories: Judah Aristobulus I, Antigonus I, Alexander Jannai, and Absalom”.
https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas
“Josephus said this about the family of Annas: “Now the report goes, that this elder Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons, who had all performed the office of high priest to God, and he had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests” (Ant 20:198)”
(v) Related Names
Annas (Ananias) and John (Hyrcanus) are related names:
https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Ananias.html
Ananias ….
Related names
• Via חנן (hanan): Anna, Annas, Baal-hanan, Ben-hanan, Elhanan, Elonbeth-hanan, Hanan, Hananel, Hanani, Hananiah, Hannah, Hannathon, Hannibal, Hanniel, Hanun, Hen, Henadad, Jannai, Jannes, Jehohanan, Joanna, Joanan, Johanan, John, Jonan, Tahan, Tehinnah
(vi) Power and wealth
https://www.geni.com/people/John-Hyrcanus-I-Hasmonean-Ethnarch-High-Priest/6000000012133523012
“... Hyrcanus was met with fortune in 128 BC when Antiochus VII was killed in battle against Parthia. What followed was an era of conquest led by Hyrcanus that marked the high point of Judea as the most significant power in Syria.
…. At the end of his reign, John Hyrcanus had built a kingdom that rivaled the size of Israel under King Solomon”.
https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas
“Through skilful diplomacy and probably much bribery, [Annas] was able to ensure that family remained dominant in Judea for many years. …. indicates that power and influence that Annas continued to exercise …”.
(vii) Character
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hyrcanus-john
“Later rabbinic tradition depicts him as having been "righteous originally" (Ber. 29a), even to the extent of stating that he heard a *bat kol (Sot. 33a).
….
In the course of time, however, the authoritarian and secularist character of his administration began to show itself …”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananus_ben_Ananus
“… in the Antiquities of the Jews he was more critical of his behaviour, calling [Ananus] "a bold man in his temper, and very insolent".
And, again:
https://www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/AnnasCaiaphas
Annas was a member of the Sadducees, the aristocracy of first century JudeaHe shared their characteristics of being arrogant, ambitious, and having enormous wealth, which they used to maintain their political control. His family were notorious for their greed. The Talmud records a popular rhyme which described the family of Annas:
“Woe to the house of Annas!
Woe to their serpent’s hiss!
They are high priests;
their sons are keepers of the treasury,
their sons-in-law are guardians of the temple,
and their servants beat people with staves.” (Pesahim 57a)
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hyrcanus-john
“It is uncertain whether the coins bearing the legend "Johanan the High Priest" and Ḥever ha-Yehudim or rosh ḥever ha-Yehudim were minted by him or by his grandson *Hyrcanus ii.”
One and the same John Hyrcanus, so I believe.
