When Jerusalem Was Under Ancient Greek Rule

The ancient Greek period in Jerusalem lasted from 332 to 152 BC following the death of Alexander the Great and the dividing of his empire by his generals, the so-called diadochi.

Alexander’s successors imposed the Hellenistic culture on their new subjects. For about a century and a half, interaction between the Greeks and Jews was regular and nuanced. Hellenism was also followed during their reign. This came to an end when Herod the Great became king.

For the first twenty years after Alexander’s death, Judea was assigned to Laomedon but was fiercely contested by the generals. When the Wars of the Diadochi ended in the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Ptolemy I Soter took control of Judea along with all of Palestine and Egypt, establishing the Ptolemaic dynasty rule until 200 BC.

The vision of Alexander the Great was to make Greek culture universal in his colonized territories, having as prototype 5th century BC Athens during the Golden Age of Pericles.  His diadochi succeeded in that respect, and Hellenism influenced the lands they ruled.

Hellenistic Judaism

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-100 AD) related the story of how Ptolemy took over Jerusalem. He wrote that Ptolemy appeared before the city on a Sabbath, pretending he wanted to make a sacrifice, and seized it, knowing that the Jews did not fight on the Sabbath. Josephus took this story from Greek author Agatharchides of Cnidus.

On this occasion, Ptolemy is said to have taken many captives from Jerusalem. He also took captives from the rest of Judea as well as from Samaria, and he settled them in Egypt. Knowing how sacred the oath was to Jewish people, he is said to have used them to garrison important strongholds. Thereafter, many Jews voluntarily went to Egypt to live, partly on account of the fertile land and partly on Ptolemy’s just rule.

Ptolemy soon turned Jerusalem into a polis. The Greek city was the vehicle for the assimilation and Hellenization of the indigenous peoples of the Near East. The Greeks founded new cities which were populated mostly by local people. While many Jews opposed the idea of Hellenization, they were not actively against the changes the Greeks brought. A cultural melting pot was created, as the institutions of the Greek way of life were opened to all who wished to participate. The Greek language was rapidly adopted by wealthy Jews indicating that locals were generally open to Hellenization.

The Ptolemies were benevolent toward the Jews. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled from 285 to 246 BC, commissioned a translation of the Hebrew Bible around the year 250 BC. At the same time, 72 scholars from Jerusalem translated the Torah, the five books of Moses, into Greek.

People from the surrounding villages and settlements began coming to Jerusalem to enjoy the advantages of living in a city. Furthermore, the concept of a citizen participating in municipal decision-making and government was something unknown and sounded promising. The upper class in Jerusalem and other newly founded cities in Judea were soon acculturated through the schools and other institu­tions of the Hellenistic world.

During the Hellenistic period, the important developments in literature were in Greek. Homer, the tragedians of the 5th century, especially Euripides, and the orators and historians of the 4th century were the models of the new Classicism.

The Seleucids bring changes

During the late 3rd century BC, many battles took place between the Ptolemies, led by General Scopas in the south, and two Seleucid armies in the north, one led by Antiochus the Younger and the other by Antiochus III. In 200 BC, a final battle between the armies of the two diadochi took place in Panion (modern-day Banias) with the Seleucids winning the war and control of Jerusalem falling into their hands.

The Seleucids were determined to Hellenize Judea. They instituted the Olympic Games in Jerusalem and invited locals to participate. Some Jews participated, but they did so at the price of being derided by their community. Furthermore, since these were Greek games, the participants needed to look Greek. Since Olympic athletes competed naked, Jewish would-be Olympians often had to undergo painful operations to hide their circumcisions before they could participate.

Other Jews weren’t pleased about the ancient Olympics. Many were horrified to see such a celebration of the human body on the grounds of God’s holy temple, as it seemed idolatrous and insulting. The conflict over the Games was a major factor leading to the Maccabean Revolt later.

While the Ptolemies were kind rulers, the Seleucids were the exact opposite. When the most infamous of the Seleucid rulers, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, went to Jerusalem in 169 BC, he plundered the sacred Temple Mount, sacrificed a pig on the Temple altar, and took all the Temple furniture and treasures away to Antioch.

In 168 BC, Antiochus IV Epiphanes built the Akra, a fortress for his Macedonian garrison, from which the Jewish population could be controlled. Hellenized Jews also joined this garrison.

Antiochus was determined to Hellenize all the Jews in Judea. As a first step, he forbade worship on the Temple Mount and the practice of rituals, such as sacrifice and circumcision, and forced them, on penalty of death, to sacrifice to pagan gods. But when an imperial emissary went to the nearby town of Modiin demanding that people be sacrificed on a pagan altar, Mattathias the priest refused to obey. When one of his countrymen came forward to sacrifice, Mattathias killed him and the emissary.

This was the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt. Mattathias, his five sons, Eleazar, Simon, Judah, John, and Jonathan, known as the Maccabees, along with many villagers decided to revolt against the Greeks. They left Modiin immediately and set up camp in the Gophna Hills. That was where they fought many battles against the Seleucid army from 167 to 160 BC.

The Seleucids remained in control of Judea, but the opposition of the Maccabees to the Seleucids and the Hellenized Jews continued until 134 BC. The Maccabees eventually attained the independence of Jerusalem and Judea in general.