Most
people in America are familiar with the religious sects of the Pharisees and
Sadducees which populate the New Testament, yet few have very much idea of what
those mean. In reality, there were
several Hebrew sects across the ancient world and in Palestine, with the
Pharisees themselves divided into two often hostile branches.
Landscape,
demographic and geographic
In
the 1st centuries BCE/CE, Hebrews, Jews (from Judea) and Samaritans
(from Samaria), were spread throughout the Mediterranean and across Southwest
Asia. They lived in Palestine, of
course; in Egypt, centered in Alexandria; in Syria, centered in Damascus and in
Antioch; in Cyrenaica; in Cyprus; in Anatolia; in Greece; in Thrace; in Italy;
in Babylonia; in Iran; in southern Arabia.
Little
discussed yet major communities of Jews lived across the south of the Arabian
Peninsula, from west to east in Yemen, Habban, Hadramaut, Aden, and Oman, the
last of which is thought to be where Job, the subject of the Biblical book,
lived. Collectively, these groups which
share customs, ritual, and linguistic characteristics unique to themselves
among Jews, are referred to as the Temanim, “Teman” in Hebrew signifying
“South).
From
15 CE to 116 CE, the officially Jewish kingdom of Adiabene, a former province of Assyria centered on Arbela (Arbil in
modern Iraq), existed as an independent kingdom that was officially Jewish in
religion.
Sometime
after the Macedonian conquest, the Jews departed from their Samaritan cousins
on the question of descent, the Sanhedrin declaring that “Jewishness” came
through the mother along rather than through either or both parents. This made Jews matrilineal as opposed to
their original partilineality. A reading
between the lines of Josephus on the matter leads one to the conclusion that
the Samaritans had as high priest the heir male of the senior line of Zadok and
the change in law was to disinherit him because he had forsaken Jerusalem for
Shechem.
In
110 BCE, John Hyrcanus had forced the Idumaeans
to convert to Judaism, later destroying Samaria and the temple atop Mt. Gerizim,
which was rebuilt by Herod. In 81 BCE, Alexander Jannaeus annexed Galilee
and began to populate it with transplanted Jews; after the Roman conquest and
the rise of Herod the Great, Samaritans too began to migrate there.
In
this period, there were three temples to Yahweh, the deity all these sects
worshipped. One, the one most Americans
are familiar with, was that built by Herod the Great for the Jews on Mount Zion
(or Moriah) in Jerusalem in Judea. The
Samaritans had another on Mount Gerizim, next to Shechem in Samaria, which had
been rebuilt by Herod. The third was the
one built in the mid-2nd century BCE by Onias IV, final claimant to
the Jerusalem high priesthood from the Oniad dynasty (which preceded the
Hasmoneans), in Leontopolis in Egypt.
One
feature all Hebrews shared, except or possibly some of the minor sects, was
that they worshipped primarily in synagogues.
With synagogue being a Greek word, it is most likely that synagogues originated
in the Hellenistic diaspora.
Different Hebrew
sects
The
largest group of Jews was Hellenistic
Jews, roughly corresponding in proportion to the size of Ashkenazim among
the modern Jewish population, or nearly 80%.
Though there were adherents in Palestine itself, Hellenistic Judaism’s
two chief centers were in Alexandria, Egypt, and Antioch, Syria. Others were Tarsus in Cilicia and Alexandretta. Hellenistic Jews spoke Greek primarily, were
more assimilationist than their Palestinian cousins (though not as much as the
Samaritans), and generally more relaxed about certain ritual observances.
Hellenistic
Jews used the Greek-language Septuagint version of the Tanakh (Scriptures) ,
what Christians call the Old Testament, produced in Alexandria and developed
philosophy mixing Jewish religion with Greek schools of thought. The Septuagint was the predominant version of
the Tanakh among Jews world-wide. For
example, all the quotes from the Tanakh in the Christian New Testament come
from the Septuagint, which contains all the books currently recognized by Jews
plus the additional books sometimes called the Apocrypha.
Flavius
Philo Judaeus wrote about the aspects of the divine he called Logos and Sophia,
not as simple aspects but separate persons, the latter of which he equated with
Judaism’s Ruach ha-Kodesh, or Holy Spirit (aka the Shekhinah, or The Presence),
which was feminine. The Logos he equated
with the idea of an esoteric twist on the Word of God. He also either introduced or at the very
least popularized the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of
resurrection.
Orpheus
is depicted in a number of synagogues, often comparing him with David, even in
Judea itself. Such an identification was
later made with Jesus bar Joses.
The
Therapeutae, written about by
premier Jewish philosopher of the period Flavius Philo Judaeas, lived
communally in the desert near Alexandria in ascetic conditions which
foreshadowed the Desert Fathers of later Christianity. But according to Philo, they were also widespread
across the Mediterranean world. They
used the Torah, the Nevi’im, the Psalms, and some writings unique to
themselves. They assembled weekly for
worship and sermons in synagogues divided by sex, and every seven weeks held
communal meals serving each other.
The
three sects which dominated Jews in Palestine, with representatives in some
areas of the diaspora, were the Sadduccees, Pharisees, and Essenes.
Jewish
males in Palestine all wore tefillin (phylacteries) on their heads and hands
(or upper arms) and prayer shawls with tzitzit (fringe) on their ends as part
of their ordinary daily wear, not merely at prayer like modern Jews. They also used mezuzot.
Tefillin
are boxes with verses of scripture (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy
11:13-21 ; Exodus 13:1-10; Exodus 13:11-16) written on parchment inside
them. Wearing them is held to be
commanded in verses of the afore-mentioned passages. Tzitzit are specifically prescribed in Number
15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12, and were worn by all Jews, including the Bene
Sedeq, and Samaritans. Mezuzot are
little boxes with parchments of scripture (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:13-21) attached
to doorposts and gates.
Strange
that no movie of the life and times of Jesus bar Joses has shown him or any
male around him wearing tefillin and tzitzit, nor a mezuzah on any Jewish door.
In
more conservative Palestine, Hebrew translations of the Tanakh were usually
used, with an Aramaic targum, or translation into the common language of the
people, since the Canaanite language of Hebrew had long been a dead
language. At the time only the Torah
(Law) and the Nevi’im (Prophets) were in Hebrew standardized, while canon of
the Ketuvim (Writings) still being collated and in flux. However, even there the Septuagint was used
also.
The
Sadduccees, sometimes called Boethusians, accepted only the Torah,
the first five books of the Tanakh, as scripture, and were literal in their
interpretation of its stories and provisions, not giving any leeway in
application of its laws. They rejected
belief in an afterlife. They were the
more aristocratic of the sects in Palestine and more inclined to be
Hellenistic. As a group, they had
originated politically as opponents of the Hasmoneans in the First Judean Civil
War. Their power centered around the
Temple of Jerusalem.
The
Pharisees originated as supporters
of the Hasmoneans, but split with them when they took the throne of high priest
for themselves. They accepted all three
levels of the Tanakh, Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim. In addition to the written Tanakh, the
Pharisees (and only the Pharisees)
followed the Mishna, or Oral Law, which had not yet been codified and written
down. The Mishna began as an effort to
liberalize and modernize provisions of the Torah, but soon bogged down in
endless interpretations of meaning.
At
the turn of the era, the Pharisees themselves were split into two often opposed
schools: the House of Shammai, who
advocated stricter interpretation of the Mishna and less lenient application,
and the House of Hillel, who were
opposite and more humanistic. Both
schools are probably represented in the New Testament, though not under those
names. Those Pharisees portrayed as
opponents are more like to have been Shammaites while those more sympathically
portrayed (such as Gamaliel) are probably Hillelites.
The
Essenes were probably a faction of
the Pharisees who split off from the main group over support of the former for
Herod the Great. The New Testament calls
them Herodians. They lived communally in
cities scattered across Judea and Galilee.
The Essenes accepted all three levels of the Tanakh and were especially
strict about the Sabbath.
If
their identification with the sect at Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were
found) is correct, they also had religious texts of their own, such as the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Document, and the War of the Sons of Light and Sons of
Darkness, as well as kept a highly developed angelology. The scrolls also demonstrate their use of
Hellenistic astrology and therefore cosmology.
A
small Jewish sect called the Bene Sedeq
were the forerunners of today’s Karayim or Karaite Jews. They accepted the whole Tanakh but rejected
the Mishna. The males wore tzitzit but
rejected tefillin and mezuzot because they held that the passages supposedly
prescribing them meant for believers to do so only symbolically. The Bene Sedeq were unique among the Jews of
this time in that they remained patrilineal, as their descendants, the
Karaites, still are. It was Karaite
scholars called Masoretes who transcribed, edited, and redacted the current
text of the Tanakh now universally used by Jews in the 7th through
11th centuries.
The
Zealots, of course, were the
militant nationalists among the Jews, centered mostly in Palestine. Many of their tenets were inherently
religious and they became “uber-Jews”, adhering strictly especially to
Judaism’s outward symbols, much in the manner of Khomeinists during the Iranian
Revolution or the later Taliban. They
often allied with Shammaites.
The
Sicarii were true fanatics in both
the religious and nationalist sense.
The
Mandeans developed out of one of the
baptismal sects, called “daily-bathers”, which may have had its origin with
Joannes bar Zacarias (John the Baptist), though the Samaritan teacher Dositheos
is also said to be one of its founders.
At the time their clergy were called (according to Encyclopedia Britannica) Nasoreans.
They migrated from Judea to Iran in the late 1st century
under pressure from more orthodox Jews.
Many
tiny little sects of Judaism existed during the 200 BCE-100 CE period, and
there were many, often wandering, prophets and teachers, such as Hanina ben Dosa
and Honi the Circledrawer. Jesus bar
Joses and Joannes bar Zacarias were hardly unique.
The
apocalyptic, of which the Daniel is a prime example, and pseudepigraphic, of
which Daniel is also a prime example, literature of this period provides
additional insight into the true ideas of the religion of the Jews at the
time. Some of the more prominent
examples include the Assumption of Moses,
the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,
1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of
Abraham, Jubilees, the Sibylline Oracles, and the Martyrdom of Isaiah. These books were widely popular at the time,
some quoted directly or referenced implicitly in the New Testament as well as
being found at Qumran.
Through
the 1st century CE, the Jews (and likely the Samaritans) avidly sought
converts to their religion, called proselytes in Greek. In Palestine itself, proselytes were of two
types: the “righteous” proselyte (ger
tzedek) and the “resident” proselyte (ger
toshav). The former was a full
convert, with males being circumcised and all following the Torah. The latter was a Gentiles who lived among the
Jews in Palestine and worshipped Yahweh but remained uncircumcised and followed
only the seven Noahide Laws. Within
Palestine, the Pharisees were especially avid at seeking out converts.
Hellenistic
Jews proselytized even more than Palestinian Pharisees. Outside of Palestine, a ger tzedek was
referred to by the Greek word “proselyte” while a ger toshav, or Gentile
follower of the Noahide Laws, was called a theophobes, ('God-fearer'). Huge communities of God-fearers lived among
or around every diaspora community of Jews. Other names for them were theoseibes ('God-reverers'), sebomenoi ton theon ('worshippers of God'), and phobuomenoi ton theon ('fearers of God').
Galileans mostly accepted
the same Scriptures and followed the same practices as the Pharisees, but were
particularly resentful of the Temple cult.
In
this period, there were about two million Samaritans
in total, half a million in the homeland of Samaria/Samerina and the rest in
the diaspora, the main centers outside being Damascus and Alexandria. They made up about one-third of the
population of Caesarea, capital of the Roman Empire’s sub-province of Iudaea.
The
Samaritans, like the Sadducees, recognize only the Torah, of which they have
their own version that differs slightly from that of the Jews but largely
agrees with the Septuagint and samples from Qumran. In the 2nd century BCE through 1st
century CE, they also used the Septuagint version of the Torah, especially in
their diaspora communities.
In
their synagogues, of which examples have been found not only in Samaria but
also Galilee and all around the Mediterranean basin, the Samaritans freely
employed not only images of cherubim and menorot forbidden to Jews, but images
of humans, animals, and, in some places, of pagan deities and the zodiac. The Jews, by contrast, of all sects employed
only mosaics for decorations in their synagogues.
In
the 3rd century BCE, a temple was built to the Hellenistic gods
Serapis and Isis, imported from Egypt, in the midst of Samaria. The temple was rededicated to Demeter and
Persephone (Kore) in the early 2nd century CE. Both were instances of the Mystery Cults
common during this time throughout the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia.
The
Hypsistarians were a group of strict
monotheists who lived and practiced across Anatolia and the southern shores of
the Black Sea from 200 BCE to 400 CE. They
called the deity they worshipped Hypsistos, a term found for the Hebrew deity
in the Septuagint, and their beliefs may have originated from the conflation of
Zeus Sabazios with Yahweh Tzevaot. They
did not follow the Torah, much less the Mishna. According to Gregory of Nazianus and Gregory of Nyssa, their autonym was Theoseibes ('God reverers'), a name shared with the half-converts.
The
Gnostics were a widely eclectic
group of speculative believers, the Late Ancient equivalent of today’s New
Agers, who developed into an actual (and very diverse) movement in the 2nd
century CE. There is an abundance of
Gnostic writings referenced in the Early Fathers and/or found in the mother
lode cache at Nag Hammadi in Egypt.
These clearly show that the ultimate origin of Gnosticism lies in the
Yahwist religion of the Levant. Many
Early Christian Fathers posited that the Samaritan prophet and alleged magician
Simon Magus, of The Acts of the Apostles
infamy, founded Gnosticism. Testimony
from numerous sources shows that the Gnostics met in synagogues for discussion
and worship.
The
Christians, of course, have their
origin in Judaism, perhaps with some influence from Gnosticism and
Samaritanism. Lately, though, more and
more scholars have begun to suspect that rather than having a Palestinian
origin, the religion of Christianity has its origins in Egypt, specifically in
Alexandra.
The
roots of the Kabbalah go back to this period also. There is ample evidence that the mysticism of
the Merkava had its beginnings in the 1st century BCE. The writings of Paul of Tarsus, for example,
show signs that he was a Merkava initiate.
The Merkava is the esoteric teaching surrounding Ezekial’s chariot and
the non-Biblical hekhalot texts.
The
pagans philosopher Plutarch and historian Tacitus, both of whom lived from the
mid-1st century thru the first quarter of the 2nd
century, both reported that the Jews in Alexandria and elsewhere worshipped in
the Dionysan Mysteries.
Finally,
for further insight into the religions of the Hebrews, particularly in Egypt,
at the turn of the era, read this letter from Imperator Publius Aelius Trajanus
Hadrianus Augustus to one of the consuls, Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus,
written around 134 CE:
The
land of Egypt, the praises of which you have been recounting to me, my dear
Servianus, I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by
every breath of rumour. There those who worship Serapis are, in fact,
Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact,
devotees of Serapis. There is no chief of the Jewish synagogue, no
Samaritan, no Christian presbyter, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, or
an anointer. Even the [Christian] Patriarch himself, when he
comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ…Their
only god is money, and this the Christians, the Jews, and, in fact, all nations
adore.
Turning point and decline
After
the Great Jewish Revolt of 66-73 CE (in which the Samaritans took part), the
landscape of Judaism and Samaritanism changed drastically. Jerusalem was completely destroyed, it’s
walls torn down, it’s temple burned with the ashes scattered, its temple mound
leveled. Sebaste, the principal city of
Samaria, was likewise destroyed as was the Samaritan temple atop Mount Gerizim
and the city of Shechem next to it. Even
the Temple of Onias in Leontopolis was demolished, though the Egyptian Jews
took no part nor supported the revolt, lest it become a center of
sedition. Also destroyed was the
community at Qumran.
On
the ruins of Shechem, Vespasian built the city of Flavia Neapolis, now called
Nablus, which he populated with veterans and other colonists from outside.
Jewish
defenders of Jerusalem who survived the siege and other surrenderees or
captives not crucified or enslaved were deported to western North Africa, where
they became the foundation for the Jewish ethnic group known as the Maghrebim.
After
this, the Sadduccees and the Essenes, their sources of power and unity gone, disappeared
from history. The Sanhedrin relocated to
Javneh. The Pharisees withdrew into
themselves and drastically slowed, then halted, their proselytization.
After
the Kitos War of 115-117 CE, in which Jews of Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Roman
Mesopotamia rose up in revolt, the Jewish communities in Cyrenaica and Cyprus
were eradicated, both by slaughter and deportation.
In
the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba War of 132-135 CE, when Simon bar Kokhba and
Rabbi Akiva rebelled against Hadrian’s plans for a pagan Roman city on the
ruins of Jerusalem, Jews were forbidden from the entire sub-province of Judea. For the Samaritans, who had not taken part as
they had in the Great Jewish Revolt, Hadrian rebuilt Sebaste and their temple
on top of Mount Gerizim.
Hadrian also merged all the provinces in the area
as Syria-Palestina and finished the building of Aelia Capitolina. The new city included a freshly rebuilt
Temple Mount with a wall around it and temples to Jupiter and to Juno and
Minerva atop it. Nearby was a grotto and
shrine to Venus, a shrine to Asclepius, and a temple of Mercury.
During the later visit of Helena Augusta, mother of
Constantine the Great, to the area, the temple of Jupiter was claimed to be the
site of the temple of Herod, while that to Juno and Minerva his royal
stoa. The grotto of Venus became the
Holy Sepulchre, the shrine to Asclepius the pool of Bethesda, and the temple of
Mercury the Upper Room. Meanwhile in
nearby Bethlehem, the cave previously claimed as the place of birth of the god
Mithras became the site of the Nativity of Jesus Christ.
The
deported Jews migrated partly to Galilee, where the Sanhedrin relocated, though
some went to other parts of the empire.
A large number left Roman territory entirely, traversing the Roman
province of Arabia erected on the former kingdom of the Nabateans to arrive in
the western Arabian region of Hejaz on the coast of the Red Sea. There, they eventually became the tribes of Banu
Nadir, Banu Qainuqa, Banu Qurayza, Banu Awf, Banu Harith, Banu Jusham, Banu
Alfageer, Banu Najjar, Banu Sa’ida, and Banu Shutayba.
In
484 CE, in reaction to rumors that the Christians of Neapolis where going to
relocate the bones of Aaron’s sons Eleazar and Ithmar and grandson Phinehas,
the Samaritans rose up and destroyed the Christian cathedral at Neapolis after
slaughtering the congregation and severing all the fingers of the local
bishop. They then proceeded to Caesarea,
where they elected a man named Justa as their king. After personally putting down the rebellion,
Imperator Caesar Flavius Zeno Augustus destroyed the temple that had been rebuilt
after the Bar Kokhba War.
The
Samaritans rose again in 495 CE under Julianus ben Sabar with the intent of
creating their own independent state. Imperator
Caesar Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinius Augustus put down this revolt with
the help of the Ghassanids (Christianized Arabs), in the process killing from
20,000 to 100,000 of them. Afterwards,
Justinian outlawed the Samaritan religion throughout the Roman Empire.
Another
revolt in 556 CE, led by the Samaritans but joined by the Jews, resulted in the
slaughter of another 100-120,000 Samaritans.
After this, Samaritans throughout the empire and other parts rapidly
disappear from history. Many likely
became Christians, some Jews, while nearly all those remaining in Palestine
became Muslims after the Arab conquest in 638 CE. Only about 800 ethnic Samaritans remain
today, half in Nablus, Palestine, and half in Holon, Israel.
The
final revolt of the Jews in Palestine against the Roman Empire took place in
614 as allies of the Sassanid Empire.
They remained an autonomous commonwealth of that empire until being reconquered
in 629. In 637, Palestine and Syria were
conquered by the Caliphate and remained part of it, excluding the years of the
Crusader States (1099-1192), until after World War I.
No comments:
Post a Comment