he attached episode does not, however, match the anti-Pharisee headline. Hyrcanus throws a banquet, to which he invites leading Pharisees, Sadducees, and, apparently, others. During the meal he reasserts his commitment to Pharisaic rigor and asks members of the group to be sure to tell him if he goes astray. They all praise his piety, but another guest, a known rabble-rouser, brazenly demands that Hyrcanus relinquish the high priesthood on the ground that he is likely illegitimate since his mother was once a prisoner of Seleucid forces and was presumably raped—a rumor Josephus declares untrue (13.290–292). All the Pharisees are indignant with the man, but a Sadducee present sees an opportunity. He advises Hyrcanus that the Pharisees actually agree with the man—a point not obvious from their reaction. The way to prove it is to ask them what punishment he deserves. This is a trap, readers know, because Pharisees would not call for capital punishment despite their vehement disagreement with the fellow:When Hyrcanus asked the Pharisees what they considered a worthy punishment (for he would be persuaded that the slanders had not been made with their approval, he said, if they advocated punishing Eleazar with a commensurate penalty), they proposed lashes and chains, for it did not seem right to punish someone with death on account of verbal abuse and anyway the Pharisees by nature take a lenient approach toward punishments. At this response, Hyrcanus became extremely angry and assumed that the man had slandered him with their approval. Jonathan [the Sadducee] exacerbated his anger greatly and achieved the following result. He induced Hyrcanus to join the party of the Sadducees, to abandon the Pharisees, to dissolve the ordinances that they had established among the people, and to punish those who kept them. This is the reason, then, that hatred developed among the populace toward him and his sons. (13.294–96)
Steve Mason
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