Homosexuality and the Maccabean Revolution

 

 

  

 

“In his article “Homosexuality and the Maccabean Revolt,” Catholic scholar Patrick G. D. Riley also identifies homosexuality as the focal point of conflict between the Jews and the Greeks”.

 

 

 

 

At: http://www.piney.com/1Macc.html we read:

 

….

While the Greeks cultivated paiderasteia as a fundamental institution of male society and attribute of gods and [heroes] … Biblical Judaism came to reject and penalize male homosexuality in all forms. Jewish religious consciousness deeply internalized this taboo, which became a distinctive feature of Judaic sexual morality, setting the worshippers of the god of Israel apart from the gentiles whose idols they despised. This divergence set the stage for the confrontation between Judaism and Hellenism (Johansson and Percy:34).

 

In implying that the rejection of homosexuality by the Jews began in this time period, Johansson and Percy ignore the Biblical record, but they are correct that the Jews’ opposition to homosexuality was a central factor in their hostility to the Greeks.  They continue (somewhat bitterly), describing the context in which the first clash of these value systems occurred:

 

At the heart of the “sodomy delusion” lies the Judaic rejection of Hellenism and paiderasteia, one of the distinctive features of the culture brought by the Greek conquerors of Asia Minor.  It is a fundamental, ineluctable clash of values within what was destined to become Western civilization.  Only in the Maccabean era did the opposition to Hellenization and everything Hellenic lead to the intense, virtually paranoid hatred and condemnation of male homosexuality, a hatred that Judaism bequeathed to the nascent Christian church (ibid.:36).

 

In his article “Homosexuality and the Maccabean Revolt,” Catholic scholar Patrick G. D. Riley also identifies homosexuality as the focal point of conflict between the Jews and the Greeks. The Greek King, Antiochus, had ordered that all the nations of his empire be “welded ... into a single people” (Riley:14). This created a crisis for the Jews, forcing them to choose between faithfulness to Biblical commandments (at the risk of martyrdom) and  participation in a range of desecrations from “the sacrificing of pigs and the worshiping of idols, to ‘leaving their sons uncircumsized, and prostituting themselves to all kinds of impurity and abomination’ (1 Macc. 1:49-51)” (ibid.:14).

 

The Greeks also built one of their gymnasia in Jerusalem, which “attracted the noblest young men of Israel...subduing them under the petaso” (emphasis ours -- 2 Macc. 4:12). In the traditional Latin translation the above phrase is rendered “to put in brothels” (Riley:15). The gymnasia were notorious throughout the ancient world for their association with homosexual practices. In fact, Flaceliere concludes from Plutarch’s writings that from the beginning of its acceptance in Greece,  “the development of homosexuality was connected to the rise of gymnasia ... [which usually contained] not only a statue or Hermes, but also one of Eros” (Flaceliere:65).

The tensions which led to the Jewish revolt were exacerbated when the Jewish high priest, a Hellenist himself, offered a sacrifice to Heracles (Hercules), who was a Greek symbol of homosexuality.  Riley adds, “The Jewish temple itself became the scene of pagan sacrificial meals and sexual orgies [including homosexuality].” The final insult (for which Antiochus is identified in the Bible as the archetype of the antichrist) “was the installation in the temple of a pagan symbol, possibly a representation of Zeus [Baal], called by a sardonic pun ‘the abomination of desolation’” (Riley.:16).

In the ensuing religious revolt, the Maccabees “preserved what would become the moral charter of Christendom, just as in defending marriage they saved what would be the very material of its construction, namely, the family” (ibid.:17). Yet, though they preserved the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic, the Maccabees did not vanquish Greek philosophy as a rival social force. Of the two irreconcilable belief systems, the Judeo-Christian one would prevail, allowing the development of what we know today as Western culture; yet Hellenism survived.

Most of the Israelites had fled or been driven out of Canaan because they refused--as did Jesus--to "bow to Baal" by singing and dancing the Dionysus Choral when the Jews Piped. John refused to baptize them and called them a generation of Vipers. Jesus used only parables to HIDE the truth from them. And Peter said that they should save themselves FROM that crooked generation. The Skolios singers were marked by the skolion songs the perverted male symposia sang. ….

Part Two:

Was the persecution merely propaganda?

 

 

“This denial of the historicity of one of the most celebrated and decisive events in the History of the Jewish people was presented mainly in the voluminous book by Sylvie Honigman in Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochus IV, Oakland (University of California Press) 2014”.

Bezalel Bar-Kochva

Bezalel Bar-Kochva will attempt to refute Honigman’s thesis in The Religious Persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes as a Historical Reality.

Bar-Kochva begins this by writing: http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/upload/_FILE_1502017548.pdf

 

Some scholars have recently claimed that the religious persecutions by Antiochus Epiphanes have no historical grounds. This thesis joins a challenging call to refresh the research of Ancient Jewish history by utilizing modern disciplines and innovative methods This denial of the historicity of one of the most celebrated and decisive events in the History of the Jewish people was presented mainly in the voluminous book by Sylvie Honigman in Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochus IV, Oakland (University of California Press) 2014. The book tries to prove that the religious persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes were invented by court historians of the Hasmonean dynasty in order to glorify the Hasmoneans as the saviors of the Jewish religion and its Temple and thus justify their usurpation of the secular and religious authority. According to Honigman, Antiochus’ violent treatment of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants in 168 B.C. was only typical of the regular policy of Hellenistic and Seleucid rulers. However, shortly afterwards Antiochus Epiphanes demonstrated respect toward the Jewish God and granted precious gifts to his Temple. The real cause of the unrest in Judea was the heavy tax imposed on the Temple already by the time of Seleucus IV, Epiphanes’ predecessor, and not religious persecutions. Honigman argues that: (a) II Maccabees (and not only I Maccabees) was written by a court historian, living in Jerusalem at the time of John Hyrcanus, who was committed to promote Hasmonean dynastic propaganda; (b) the activities of the gymnasium established in Jerusalem by Jason were not unacceptable to the Jews, and none of the accusations imputed to Jason by II Maccabees can be regarded as an offense against Jewish law and traditional practices; (c) I & II Maccabees adopted a topos current in Mesopotamian literature for justifying the rise to power of ‘righteous’ rulers and deposition of ‘villain’ kings, and used it for legitimizing the Hasmonean dynasty; (d) the basic structure of both books accords with the Mesopotamian ‘topos’; (e) it is generally accepted that a Seleucid military settlement was founded in the Jerusalem Akra after the Seleucid invasion in 168 B.C.; hence Honigman concludes that the report of the Books of the Maccabees that pagan sacrifices were forced on the Jews in Jerusalem and the rural areas, reflect only the existence of pagan altars serving the foreign military settlers in Jerusalem and in their agricultural allotments in the countryside; (f) the real motivation of the Jewish revolt was the great increase of taxes, especially the tax imposed on the Temple. In Honigman’s view, this can be proved by the Olympiodoros inscription discovered in Marisa, dated to the last years of Seleucus IV; (g) there was no parallel to the religious persecutions imputed to Antiochus IV in Greek and Hellenistic history, and such a policy would have been inconsistent with Greek religious conceptions and practices and those of other polytheistic religions. The present article refutes these arguments one by one. It expands on (a) the hostility of II Maccabees to Simeon, the founder of the Hasmonean dynasty, and the lack of any acquaintance of the author and the abbreviator with Jerusalem and the Land of Israel; (b) the role of the gymnasium as a place of public nudity and especially of the palaestra as a center of intensive homosexual activity in the Holy City, not far from the Jewish Temple (indicated quite clearly in II Maccabees); (c) the meaning for the Jews of the period of these practices and of the provocative parades of the Ephebes in the streets of Jerusalem; (d) the Mesopotamian topos, which is entirely different from the content and structure of I & II Maccabees (notably Honigman’s misleading assertion, referring to I Macc. 13:48, that Simeon built his palace in the Akra of Jerusalem, presented by her as the decisive evidence for a similarity between the Babylonian topos and the structure of I Maccabees is baseless: according to that verse Simeon built his palace in Gazara, the fortress situated at the edge of the coastal plain. There has never been a palace in the Akra); (e) the lack of a real proof for the foundation of a military settlement in the Jerusalem Akra, while there is ample evidence in the sources that no military settlements were established in Judea, such a step being useless and impractical in the given circumstances; (f) the taxation system of the Seleucids in Judea in the days of Antiochus IV was moderate in comparison with other regions of the Seleucid empire and considerably lower than the Ptolemaic one. The discussion expands especially on the token tax imposed on the Jerusalem Temple and on its timing, as well as on the implications of the Olympiodoros inscription. The token tax on the Temple could not have been the cause that generated the long Jewish Revolt, nor the taxation system by and large; (g) the internal, international and personal background of Antiochus IV led him to persecute the Jewish religion: he deviated dramatically from the religious policies and practices of his predecessors; the orthodox Jews of Jerusalem launched a revolt before the invasion of the city by Epiphanes in 168 B.C.; the king apparently suffered from cycles of depression and mania, which correspond to the development of his drastic reactions against the rebelling Jews. The article also points out that the assertion that the religious persecutions were unparalleled in Antiquity, is far from being accurate. The article presents the sources on the religious persecutions which cannot be suspected of a pro-Hasmonean bias: (a) the book of Daniel (esp. 7:25), written at the beginning of the Revolt, many years before the Hasmonean dynasty was established, by a man who awaited divine intervention and did not expect much of the resistance movement; (b) authentic Seleucid official documents, written under the rule of Antiochus IV and his son, Antiochus V, that explicitly refer to the religious persecutions (II Macc. 11:24-26, 31); (c) the accounts on the religious persecution in Judaea preserved by early Hellenistic authors who were personally well acquainted with Seleucid history, and drew directly on contemporary Seleucid court historians. Honigman ignores the evidence of these sources altogether (while accepting the authenticity of the Seleucid documents in chapter 11 of II Maccabees). Honigman’s additional thesis, that the battles of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers are imaginary, is also refuted. The article closes with some comments on the irrelevance to the issue under discussion of the disciplines and methods [inadequately] applied by Honigman.

 

When history is properly reconstructed, we come to understand why Honigman and others might have come to the conclusion that the Maccabean wars were “imaginary”. According to what I have written in:

 

Simon Bar Kochba in Temple Period. Part One: Correcting my former views

https://www.academia.edu/32739023/Simon_Bar_Kochba_in_Temple_Period._Part_One_Correcting_my_former_views

 

and, more recently, in:

 



Sorting out the Jewish Revolts

 

https://www.academia.edu/36262090/Sorting_out_the_Jewish_Revolts

 

the semi-legendary accounts of the revolt of Simon Bar Kochba belong, not to the C2nd AD, but to the Maccabean revolts under Simon the Hasmonaean.

Part Three:

Was Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ homosexual?

 

“Hadrian was profoundly affected by Antinous’ death and mourned him greatly. 

He founded a new city on the banks of the Nile and named it Antinoopolis”.  





The answer to this question must be ‘Yes’, based on what we have already learned in this series, but much re-inforced if I am correct in my view that the emperor Hadrian, a known homosexual, was the same person as Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’:

 

Antiochus 'Epiphanes' and Emperor Hadrian. Part One: "… a mirror image"

 https://www.academia.edu/32734925/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_One_a_mirror_image_

 Antiochus 'Epiphanes' and Emperor Hadrian. Part Two: "Hadrian … a second Antiochus"


https://www.academia.edu/35538588/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Emperor_Hadrian._Part_Two_Hadrian_a_second_Antiochus_








 

In “Hadrian, Rome's Gay Emperor”, for example, we read:

 

…. ancient sources … tell us that Hadrian formed a homosexual relationship with a young Greek male named Antinous. They enjoyed Imperial art, literature and hunting together, among other things.

Homosexual relationships were not considered unusual in ancient Rome. A Roman man was free to choose sexual partners of either gender and there is no word for homosexuality in Latin. As long as he remained the active partner in any sexual encounter, his masculinity was not in question.

…. Hadrian visited Egypt in AD 130 [sic] along with the imperial entourage, including his wife and Antinous. ….         

They embarked on a voyage up the River Nile and on October 24 Antinous drowned in the river. Although Hadrian maintained Antinous’ death was an accident, malicious rumours soon spread. Some thought he had committed suicide or that he had been sacrificed. Others claimed Antinous sacrificed himself to prolong the life of the emperor.

…. Hadrian was profoundly affected by Antinous’ death and mourned him greatly. He founded a new city on the banks of the Nile and named it Antinoopolis. There he built a large temple and set up a festival in Antinous’ memory. …. 

Other Greek cities began to establish their own cults and festivals in honour of Antinous, who wished to express their loyalty to Rome and to Hadrian.

The early Christians, struggling at that time to win converts to their new religion, were dismayed and enraged at the deification of Antinous.

Records and artifacts show that for centuries the likeness of Antinous was worn as a talisman against evil, kept as a bust in homes and businesses, and worshipped publicly throughout the Mediterranean world. ….

It was not until the rise of Christianity, three hundred years later, that the worship of Antinous was extinguished through vigorous persecution by the Church.

Today, rows of broken and scavenged marble columns in a desert waste mark the site where the city of Antinoopolis once bustled alongside the Nile; the magnificent busts of Antinous went long ago, cooked for fuel in the coke ovens. There remain now fewer than two hundred busts and statues carved in the image of Hadrian's beloved.

…. In his short life, Antinous became the first historical person to be declared a god because of his homosexuality, for whom a religion was declared and implemented, which lasted for several hundred years. 

Hadrian died at the age of 62 of heart failure, literally and figuratively. He never got over the loss of his love, Antinous. Death came to Hadrian slowly and painfully. He wrote a letter in which he said how terrible it was to long for death and yet be unable to find it. ….

[Again, like the terrible death of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’].