ABSTRACT
. All this expansion of territory involved wider interests of a secular character. Men, measures, and means were required for its supervision and care. To be a high-priest giving undivided attention to religious duties was one thing; it was quite another to have joined to one’s high-priestly functions the administration of an extended and diversified kingdom. We have already seen how the ambition for religious freedom merged into the larger and more worldly ambition for political independence. This change brought about inevitably a state of mind which, while not denying the purpose and value of the law, gave room and, indeed, preference to interests that were not purely legal. Alliances with foreign powers, the acquisition of strategic strongholds in order to open highways to Jerusalem, the subjugation of contiguous, hostile provinces for the same reason, — all had a religious bearing. Church and state were one in Judea. Furthermore, these achievements also affected such worldly interests as trade, home industry, military service, and diplomacy. In so far as life under the law insisted upon attention only to the ritual of worship, ceremonial purification, and the study of the law itself, it was out of sympathy with statecraft, except in so far as this might be indispensable to the attainment of these purely religious aims. A government existent solely for the purpose of protecting and furthering religious interests, and for guarding and promoting the interpretation of the law, was the ideal of the Hasideans. They were heart and soul with Judas and Jonathan in all their courageous struggles toward the establishment of such a protecting and fostering power in Judea. To them all the religious interests of the nation were for a time supreme; but as the Jewish armies were successful and the interests of Judea widened in the dawning independence, new ambitions filled the hearts of the Hasmonean princes, while the Hasideans drew back. They could not and would not follow the Maccabean leaders in their endeavors for political supremacy and political freedom. These were beyond the bounds of their ideals. They gave up the sword to take again the roll and the stylus and measure all duties and ambitions by the standard of the law. Slowly and surely the breach widened between these zealous “separatists” and the rulers of the state.
