Simon. All the Hellenizers can be eliminated as candidates for the role of âWicked Priestâ since none can be said to have enjoyed anything like good repute at the beginning of their ministry. Jason and Alcimus fail also because neither was killed by an enemy, as implied in 1QpHab VIII-IX. Jason died in exile (2 Mac. v, 7-9) and Alcimus in office (1 Mac. ix, 54-6). The Maccabee brothers, by contrast, meet all the conditions. The careers of both men fall easily into two stages, marked, in the case of Jonathan, by his acceptance of the High Priesthood from Alexander Balas, and in the case of Simon by his willingness to become a hereditary High Priest. Both were also âinstruments of violenceâ and both died by violence. Jonathan is nevertheless to be chosen rather than Simon because he alone suffered the vengeance of the âChief of the Kings of Greeceâ and died at the hands of the âviolent of the nationsâ, whereas Simon was murdered by his son-in-law (i Mac. xvi, 14-16). A gallant defender of Jewish religion and independence, Jonathan succeeded the heroic Judas in 161 BCE when the latter fell in battle. But he qualified for the epithet âWicked Priestâ when he accepted in 153-152 BCE from Alexander Balas, a heathen usurper of the Seleucid throne who had no right to grant them, the pontifical vestments which Jonathan was not entitled to wear. Captured later by a former general of Alexander Balas, Tryphon, he was killed by him at Bascama in Transjordan (1 Mac. xiii, 23).
Concerning the identity of the âlast Priests of Jerusalemâ, the passion for conquest, wealth and plunder for which they are reproached points to the Hasmonaean priestly rulers, from Simonâs son, John Hyrcanus I (134-104 BCE), to Judas Aristobulus II (67-63 BCE). There can in particular be little doubt that the âfurious young lionâ, designated also as âthe last Priestâ in a badly damaged Commentary on Hosea (4Q 167 11 2-3), was one of them, namely Alexander Jannaeus. The application to him of the words of Nahum, âwho chokes prey for its lionessesâ, and the report that the âyoung lionâ executed the âseekers of smooth thingsâ by âhanging men aliveâ, accord perfectly with the known story that Jannaeus crucified 800 Pharisees whilst feasting with his concubines (cf. above, p. 53).
From this it follows that âEphraimâ, equated in the Commentary on Nahum with the âseekers of smooth thingsâ, symbolizes the Pharisees, and that if so, âManassehâ and his dignitaries must refer to the Sadducees. In other words, the political and doctrinal opponents of the Essene community, though itself with proto-Sadducaean links on account of its priestly leadership as insinuated by MMT, were the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
This division of Jewish society into three opposing groups corresponds to the conformation described by Josephus as existing from the time of Jonathan Maccabaeus (Antiquities XIII, 171), but the new insight provided by the Scrolls suggests that the united resistance to Hellenism first fell apart when the Maccabees, and more precisely Jonathan, refused to acknowledge the spiritual leadership of the Teacher of Righteousness, the priestly head of the Hasidim. From then on, the sect saw its defectors as âEphraimâ and âManassehâ, these being the names of the sons of Joseph, associated in biblical history with the apostate Northern kingdom, and referred to itself as the âHouse of Judahâ, the faithful South.
Unfortunately, on the most vital topic of all, the question of the identity of the Teacher of Righteousness, we can be nothing like as clear. If the âWicked Priestâ was Jonathan Maccabaeus, the Teacher would, of course, have been one of his contemporaries. Yet all we know of him is that he was a priest (1QpHab 11, 8; 4QpPs [XXXVII ii, 15=4Q 171 ]), no doubt of Zadokite affiliation,