History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6). Graetz Heinrich
but more authentic source we gather that Alexander sought to allay the queen's anxiety with regard to the party strife rampant in Jerusalem by the following words: "Do not fear either the true Pharisees or their honest opponents, but be on your guard against hypocrites of both sides (the counterfeit ones), who, when they commit sins, like the dissolute Prince Zimri, expect to be rewarded like Phineas, who was zealous for the Law." Alexander died in the forty-ninth year of his life and the twenty-seventh of his reign (79), and left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. The Pharisees ungenerously appointed the anniversary of his death as a day of rejoicing.
It was indeed most fortunate for the Judæan nation that a woman of gentle nature and sincere piety should have been called to the head of the State after it had been torn asunder by the recklessness of its former ruler. She came like the refreshing dew to an arid and sunburnt soil. The excited passions and the bitter hatred of the two parties had time to abate during her reign, and the country rose above narrow partisanship to the worthier occupation of advancing the common welfare of the nation. Although Queen Salome, or, as she was called, Alexandra, was devoted with her whole soul to the Pharisees, entrusting them with the management of home affairs, yet she was far from persecuting the opposing party. Her authority was so greatly respected by the neighboring princes that they did not dare make war with Judæa, and she shrewdly succeeded in keeping a mighty conqueror, who had possessed himself of Syria, from the confines of her own kingdom. Even the heavens, during the nine years of her reign, showered their blessings upon the land. The extraordinarily large grains of wheat gathered during this time in the fields of Judæa were kept and exhibited during many subsequent years. The queen ordered coins to be struck, bearing the same emblems as her predecessors, with the Greek inscription, "Queen Alexandra." On the whole, her reign passed peacefully and happily. The Law, which had fallen into great neglect, became a fixed institution, and if it occasionally affected the Sadducees, who were constantly breaking it, they could not consider themselves victims of caprice. The crowded prisons were opened; the Pharisees returned from exile, with their narrowed vision widened by the experience they had gained in foreign lands.
Salome Alexandra proclaimed her eldest son Hyrcanus high priest; he was a weak prince, whose private life was irreproachable, but who was not fitted for a public post of importance.
Simon ben Shetach, the brother of the queen, the oracle of the Pharisaic party, stood high in her favor. So great a part did he play in the history of that time that it was called by many "the days of Simon ben Shetach and of Queen Salome." The chief post in the Council of Seventy, hitherto possessed by the high priest, was now, however, given up to the Pharisees by order of the queen. The Nasi, or president of the Great Council, was from this time on, as a rule, the most learned and the most respected of the Pharisees. No one, of course, could lay juster claim to this distinction than Simon ben Shetach. But Simon was not an ambitious man, and he determined to waive his own rights of precedence in favor of Judah ben Tabbai, who was then residing in Alexandria, of whose profound learning and excellent character he had formed a high estimate. The Alexandrian Judæan community had probably entrusted this celebrated Palestinean scholar with some important office. A flattering epistle was sent to Judah, inviting him to return to Jerusalem and was couched in this form: "From me, Jerusalem, the holy city, to thee, Alexandria: my spouse dwells with thee, I am forsaken." Judah ben Tabbai responded to this appeal by hastening to Jerusalem. With the help of Simon he undertook the reorganization of the Council, the improvement of administration of the law, the re-establishment of neglected religious observances, the furthering of education, and generally the fashioning of such regulations as the times required. Like Ezra and Nehemiah of old, these two zealous men insisted upon a return to the strictest form of Judaism; and, if they were often obliged to employ severe and violent measures, these are not to be accounted to any personal malice, but to the sternness of the age itself. They were indeed scrupulously strict in their own conduct, and in directing those closely connected with them. From the days of Judah ben Tabbai and Simon ben Shetach, the rule of Judæan Law, according to the views of the Pharisees, may be said to have begun, and it grew and developed under each succeeding generation. These two celebrated men have therefore been called "Restorers of the Law," who "brought back to the Crown (the Law) its ancient splendor."
Their work commenced with the reorganization of the Synhedrion. The Sadducæan members were deprived of their seats, the penal code which they had added to the Biblical penal laws was set aside, and the old traditionary methods again made valid. The people had nothing to complain of in this change, for they hated the severity of the "eye for eye" punishment of the Sadducees. On the other hand, certain days of rejoicing, disregarded by the Sadducees, were proclaimed as half-holidays by the Pharisees. Witnesses in the law courts were no longer to be questioned merely upon the place where and the time when they had seen a crime committed, but they were expected to give the most detailed and minute evidence connected with it, so that the judge might be better able to pronounce a correct judgment and to detect the contradictory statements of witnesses. This was particularly designed as a protection against the charges of informers, who were numerous enough in an age when conquerors and the conquered were constantly changing parts. A salutary measure also was enforced to lessen the number of divorce cases, which the literal interpretation of the Pentateuchal divorce laws, as administered by the Sadducees, had failed in doing. The High Court, as reorganized by the Pharisees, ordered the husband to give his repudiated wife a certain sum of money, by which she could support herself, and, as there was but little current coin amongst a people whose wealth consisted principally in the fruits of the soil or in cattle, the husband would often pause before allowing a momentary fit of passion or excitement to influence his actions.
One of the reforms of this time expressly attributed to Simon ben Shetach was the promotion of better instruction. In all large towns, high schools for the use of young men from the age of sixteen sprung up at his instance. But all study, we may presume, was entirely confined to the Holy Scriptures, and particularly to the Pentateuch and the study of the Law. Many details or smaller points in the Law which had been partly forgotten and partly neglected during the long rule of the Sadducees, that is to say, from Hyrcanus's oppression of the Pharisees until the commencement of Salome's reign, were once more introduced into daily life. Neglected customs were renewed with all pomp and solemnity, the days of their re-introduction being celebrated with rejoicing, and any public mourning or fast thereon was suspended. Thus the ceremony of pouring a libation of water upon the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles, which had been mockingly ridiculed by Alexander, was in time reinstated with enthusiasm, and became a favorite and distinctive rite. Upon these occasions, on the night succeeding the first day of the festival, the women's outer court of the Temple was brilliantly illuminated until it glowed like a sea of fire. All the people would then crowd to the holy mount to witness or take part in the proceedings. At times these bore a lively character, such as torch-light processions and dancing; at others they took the more solemn form of musical services of song and praise. This jubilee would last the whole night. At break of day the priests announced with a blast of their trumpets that the march was about to commence. At every halting-place the trumpets gathered the people together, until a huge multitude stood assembled round the spring of Siloah. Thence the water was drawn in a golden ewer. In solemn procession it was carried back to the Temple, where the libation was performed. The water streamed over the altar, and the notes of the flute, heard only upon the most joyful occasions, mingled with the rapturous strains of melody that burst from countless instruments.
A similar national festival was the half-holiday of the wood-feast, held in honor of the wood that was offered to the altar of the Temple; it fell upon the fifteenth day of Ab (August). A number of white-robed maidens were wont to assemble upon this occasion in some open space among the vine-trees, where, as they trod the measure of the dance, they chanted strophes of song in the Hebrew tongue. It was an opportunity for the Judæan youths, spectators of this scene, to select their partners for life. This festival, like the preceding one, was inaugurated by the Pharisees in opposition to Sadducæan customs. The Synhedrion seized upon the sacrificial ardor of the people to introduce a measure which, above all things, was calculated to arouse feelings of patriotism in the nation, and which was diametrically opposed to the views of their rivals. The Sadducees had declared that the daily offerings, and in fact the needs of the Temple, should not be paid for from a national treasury, but with individual, voluntary contributions. But the Council, in the reign of Salome Alexandra, decreed that every Israelite from the age of twenty