Alexander and the Jews

11.297–300, 302–320

During the time when John became high priest, Bagoses, the general of Artaxerxes’ army, polluted the Temple and imposed tribute on the Jews, declaring that out of the public stock, before they offered the daily sacrifices, they should pay fifty shekels for every lamb. The reason for this was the following: Jesus was the brother of John, and a friend of Bagoses, who had promised to procure for Jesus the high priesthood. Knowing that he had his friend’s support, Jesus quarreled with John in the Temple and so provoked his brother that, in his anger, John slew him. It was a horrible thing for John to commit so great a crime while serving as high priest but even more horrible in that so cruel and impious an act had never been committed by the Greeks or barbarians. However, God did not neglect its punishment, for on account of this, the people were enslaved, and the Temple was polluted by the Persians. [ . . . ]

Now when John died, his son Jaddua became high priest. He [Jaddua] had a brother, whose name was Manasseh. Now there was a certain Sanballat, who was sent by Darius, the last king [of Persia], into Samaria [compare Nehemiah 13:28–29]. He was a Cuthean by birth—Samaritans are also descended from Cutheans. Sanballat knew of Jerusalem’s fame and that its kings had given a great deal of trouble to the Assyrians and the people of Coele-Syria. In an attempt to secure the goodwill of the nation of Jews, he willingly gave his daughter, Nicaso, in marriage to Manasseh and thus forged an alliance with them.

About this time Philip, king of Macedon, was assassinated in Aegae [the capital of Macedon, today Vergina, Greece] by Pausanias, the son of Orestis, and his son Alexander succeeded him as king [in 336 BCE]. Passing over the Hellespont, he overcame the generals of Darius’ army in a battle fought at Granicum. Alexander marched over Lydia, subdued Ionia, overran Caria, and fell upon the places of Pamphylia, as has been related elsewhere.

The elders of Jerusalem were very uneasy that the brother of Jaddua the high priest [Manasseh], married to a foreigner, should be a partner with him in the high priesthood. They quarreled with him and considered this the beginning of mixed marriages, which had been the cause of their former captivity and of the miseries they underwent. They commanded Manasseh to divorce his wife or not to approach the altar. Jaddua the high priest also joined the people in their indignation against his brother and drove him away from the altar. Manasseh came to his father-in-law, Sanballat, and told him that although he loved his daughter Nicaso, he was unwilling on her account to be deprived of the high priesthood, which was the highest office in their nation and always continued in the same family.

Sanballat promised him not only to preserve the honor of his priesthood but also to procure for him the power and dignity of a high priest and to make him governor of all the places he himself now ruled, if he would keep his daughter for his wife. He also told him that he would build him a temple like that at Jerusalem upon Mount Gerizim, which is the highest of all the mountains in Samaria. He also promised that he would do this with the approval of Darius the king. These promises elated Manasseh so that he remained with Sanballat, hoping to gain a high priesthood from Darius, for it happened that Sanballat was an old man. But there was now a great disturbance among the people of Jerusalem because many of those priests and Israelites were also entangled in mixed marriages; they all revolted and defected to Manasseh. In order to gratify his son-in-law, Sanballat gave them money, dividing among them land to cultivate as well as places to live.

About this time, Darius heard how Alexander had passed over the Hellespont, beaten his [Darius’] lieutenants in the battle at Granicum, and was proceeding further. Darius gathered together an army of horsemen and foot soldiers and determined that he would meet the Macedonians before they could assault and conquer all of Asia. He passed over the Euphrates River and came over Taurus, the Cilician mountain, and he waited for the enemy at Issus, in Cilicia. Sanballat was glad that Darius had come down. He told Manasseh that he would fulfill his promises to him as soon as Darius came back from defeating his enemies. For not only Sanballat but also all those in Asia were convinced that the Macedonians would not so much as come to a battle with the Persians, on account of their multitude. But the event proved otherwise than they expected. The Persian king battled the Macedonians, was beaten, and lost a great part of his army. His mother, his wife, and children were taken captive, and he fled into Persia.

So Alexander came into Syria and took Damascus; and when he had obtained Sidon, he besieged Tyre. He sent a letter to the Jewish high priest Jaddua, requesting auxiliary support and supplies for his army, including provisions, and the gifts that he formerly had sent to Darius. If Jaddua chose the friendship of the Macedonians, he would never regret doing so. But the high priest answered the messengers that he had given his oath to Darius not to bear arms against him and said that he would not transgress this while Darius was alive. Alexander was very angry to receive his response, and though he determined not to leave Tyre, which he was on the verge of conquering, he threatened that he would make an expedition against the Jewish high priest, and, through him, teach everyone to whom they must keep their oaths. When he took Tyre, and settled its affairs, he came to the city of Gaza and besieged both the city and the governor of the garrison, Babemeses. [ . . . ]

11.324–339

When Alexander gave Sanballat his consent, he [Sanballat] diligently built the temple, and made Manasseh the priest, and deemed it a great reward that his daughter’s children should have that office. Sanballat died after seven months of the siege of Tyre and two months after the siege of Gaza. When Alexander took Gaza, he immediately went to Jerusalem. When Jaddua the high priest received the news, he was in agony and terror, not knowing how he would face the Macedonians, since the king was displeased by his disobedience. (He had rebuffed Alexander’s earlier request for support.) He therefore ordained that the people should make supplications and should join with him in offering sacrifice to God, whom he asked to protect that nation and to deliver them from the perils that were coming upon them. Then God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, adorn the city, and open the gates; that the people should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the garments proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent. When he rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced and declared to all the warning he had received from God. He acted entirely in accordance with the dream and so waited for the coming of the king.

And when he understood that he was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens. The procession was venerable and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached a place called Sapha, which translated into Greek signifies a prospect, from which place one can view both Jerusalem and the Temple.¹ And when the Phoenicians and the Chaldeans that followed him thought they should have liberty to plunder the city and to torment the high priest to death, which the king’s displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse happened. When Alexander saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed in fine linen, and the high priest in garments of purple and scarlet, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate on which the name of God was engraved, he [Alexander] approached by himself, adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also saluted Alexander all together, with one voice, and encompassed him, at which point the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done and thought that he was deranged. However, Parmenio alone went up to him and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others honored him, he should worship the high priest of the Jews? He replied, “I did not worship him but that God who has honored him with the high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very garment, when I was at Dios in Macedonia. When I myself was considering how I might obtain dominion of Asia, he exhorted me to make no delay but boldly to pass over the sea to there, for he would conduct my army and would give me dominion over the Persians. Since, therefore, I have seen no other in that apparel, and now seeing this person in it and remembering that vision and the exhortation I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under divine direction and shall conquer Darius, destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.” And when he had said this to Parmenio and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when he went up into the Temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest’s direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests. And when he was shown the book of Daniel, wherein Daniel declares that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians,² he assumed that it was referring to him. And as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present, but the next day he called them to him and bid them ask what favors they requested of him; whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers and might pay no tribute on the seventh year.³ He granted all they desired. And when they entreated him that he would permit the Jews in Babylon and Media to enjoy their own laws also, he willingly promised to do hereafter what they desired. When he said to the multitude that if any of them would enlist themselves in his army, on the condition that they should continue under the laws of their forefathers and live according to them, that he was willing to take them with him, many were ready to accompany him in his wars.