Hellenizing Jerusalem

In 333 BC, after 200 years of Persian rule in the holy city, Jerusalem was conquered by the Greeks under the leadership of the Macedonian emperor Alexander the Great, who was able to take over Egypt and Levant.^[1] After his death, the Greek Empire split into two factions: the Ptolemies of Egypt, and Greeks of Syria known as Seleucids. For more than two centuries the two groups rotated on ruling the holy city of Jerusalem.^[2] Ptolemies ruled for the first century and then Jerusalem was controlled by the Seleucids.^[3]

After Alexander the Great’s death, the city was captured by Ptolemy, and became a part of his kingdom in Egypt.^[4] Later, in 134 BC, Jerusalem was captured by Antiochus Sidetes, and made a part of the Saluki Kingdom in Syria.^[5] Sidetes laid siege to Jerusalem and only relented upon the payment of tribute from its inhabitants.^[6]

The Hellenization of Jerusalem

After the Greeks took over Jerusalem under the leadership of Alexander the Great, the city underwent a rapid process of Hellenization.^[7]

Local gods were replaced with Greek ones, Greek temples were built, and pagan games and spectacles were adopted.^[8] The Greek language became the official language of the state even though Aramaic was the spoken language among t Jerusalemites.^[9] Commerce took on a distinctly greek flavor: the mosaic industry became important, and Greek business and coins did as well.. Moreover, Greek culture and civilization became influential in the area in the form of literature, philosophy and traditions and prevailed over the local culture.^[10] For a century and a half, the Greeks ruled Jerusalem. During this era, Jerusalem became no stranger to Greek poetry, language, religion, sport and culture.^[11]

Two Warring Factions

After the death of Alexander the Great, civil war broke out in the Greek Empire. The war finally resulted in the emergence of two fighting factions; the Seleucids in the north, and the Ptolemies in the south.^[12]

For the first century after Alexander’s death, the Ptolemies were in control of Jerusalem.^[13] The first Ptolemy ruler of the city, called Ptolemy Soter, adopted a policy of transporting Jewish inhabitants of the city to Egypt where they adopted Greek as their native language.^[14]

A century later, in 200 BC, the Seleucids, under Antiochus the third, took control of Palestine, which they held onto until ^[15] the Roman capture of the area in 63 BC.^[16]

The Maccabees Rebellion

Jerusalem welcomed the rule of Seleucids at the beginning of their arrival to the city but in 175 BC, Antiochus IV, known as Epiphanes^[17], created discontent in the city when he forced its inhabitants to pay a heavy tribute and encouraged disputes between priests and holy men in the city—particularly among the Jews.. Epiphanes’ policies regarding Hellenization were even more strict than his predecessors,and replaced the jewish priest Jason, then the leading priest of Jerusalem, with Menelaos who turned Jerusalem into a Hellenistic city ^[18]state and renamed it “Antiochia in Judea”.^[19]

In 168 BC, while Epiphanes was preparing to invade Egypt, the Jewish population of Jerusalem conspired against him in an attempt to establish their own independent rule of Jerusalem.^[20] Upon his return to the city, Epiphanes destroyed its walls,^[21] took its treasures,prosecuted the Jews, and issued an edict prohibiting them from practicing Judaism and considering observance of Torah an act punishable by death.^[22] He actually killed number of the Jewish inhabitants for upholding their Jewish beliefs such as observing Sabbath. This resulted in the Jewish rebellion known as the “Maccabean Revolt,”^[23] after the name of their leader Judah Son of Mattathias (nicknamed Maccabee or Hammer in Hebrew).^[24]

In 167 BC, the Maccabees revolted against the Greek rulers in the city that had turned their temple into a pagan temple of Jupiter and forced Jews to sacrifice to foreign gods and idols.^[25] The Jews succeeded in liberating part of the city and occupied the Temple Mount^[26] but the Greeks kept the Citadel^[27] until 141 BC when Simon Maccabaeus^[28] succeeded in reducing Greeks’ garrison.^[29] Soon after this brief victory, Jerusalem was back to its Greek rulers who continued to Hellenize Jerusalem..^[30] Jerusalem remained under the Greek rule, up until 63 BC when it was captured by Rome which ended the Jewish rule in the city.^[31]