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[254]
BUT when Hyrcanus heard of the death of Antiochus, he presently made
an expedition against the cities of Syria, hoping to find them destitute
of fighting men, and of such as were able to defend them. However, it was
not till the sixth month that he took Medaba, and that not without the
greatest distress of his army. After this he took Samega, and the neighboring
places; and besides these, Shechem and Gerizzim, and the nation of the
Cutheans, who dwelt at the temple which resembled that temple which was
at Jerusalem, and which Alexander permitted Sanballat, the general of his
army, to build for the sake of Manasseh, who was son-in-law to Jaddua the
high priest, as we have formerly related; which temple was now deserted
two hundred years after it was built. Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa,
cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay
in that country, if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use
of the laws of the Jews; and they were so desirous of living in the country
of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, 1
and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living; at which time therefore this
befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews.
1 This account of the Idumeans admitting circumcision, and the entire Jewish law, from this time, or from the days of Hyrcanus, is confirmed by their entire history afterward. See Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 8. sect. 1; B. XV. ch. 7. sect. 9. Of the War, B. II. ch. 3. sect. 1; B. IV. ch. 4. sect. 5. This, in the opinion of Josephus, made them proselytes of justice, or entire Jews, as here and elsewhere, Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 8. sect. 1. However, Antigonus, the enemy of Herod, though Herod were derived from such a proselyte of justice for several generations, will allow him to be no more than a half Jew, B. XV. ch. 15. sect. 2. .But still, take out of Dean Prideaux, at the year 129, the words of Ammouius, a grammarian, which fully confirm this account of the Idumeans in Josephus: "The Jews," says he, are such by nature, and from the beginning, whilst the Idumeans were not Jews from the beginning, but Phoenicians and Syrians; but being afterward subdued by the Jews, and compelled to be circumcised, and to unite into one nation, and be subject to the same laws, they were called Jews." Dio also says, as the Dean there quotes him, from Book XXXVI. p. 37, "That country is called Judea, and the people Jews; and this name is given also to as many others as embrace their religion, though of other nations." But then upon what foundation so good a governor as Hyrcanus took upon him to compel those Idumeans either to become Jews, or to leave the country, deserves great consideration. I suppose it was because they had long ago been driven out of the land of Edom, and had seized on and possessed the tribe of Simeon, and all the southern parts of the tribe of Judah, which was the peculiar inheritance of the worshippers of the true God without idolatry, as the reader may learn from Reland, Palestine, Part I. p. 154, 305; and from Prideaux, at the years 140 and 165.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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