The Hasmonean kingdom of Judaea has attained power and great prosperity under the reign of John Hyrcanus.
The Pharisees, a scholarly sect with popular backing, and the Sadducees, an aristocratic sect that comprises the priesthood, become well-defined religious parties.
Hyrcanus is worldly, agnostic, and urbane in outlook, utterly unlike his grandfather.
In spirit, he has become a Sadducee, an upper-class conservative who accepts only the Written Law as divinely revealed and authoritative.
The first of the Biblical books of Maccabees, a pro-Hasmonean historiography, is written in about the latter part of the second century BCE.
1 Maccabees, originally written in Hebrew by a Jewish author and surviving in a Greek translation contained in the Septuagint, relates the history of the Maccabees from 175 BCE until 134 BCE.
The book is held today as canonical scripture by some Christian churches (including Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic churches), but not by most Protestant groups, who consider it to be an apocryphal book.
In modern-day Judaism, the book is often of great historical interest, but has no official religious status.
Hyrcanus has consolidated the gains of his father and uncles; his reign is to be be the last under which Judaea is a powerful, united state.
The remainder of Hyrcanus' long and disturbed reign over Judaea has been marked by his efforts to punish his enemies, ward off the Syrians, and enlarge Judaea's boundaries.
Although he has struggled in vain to destroy Ptolemy, he has successfully thwarted Syrian incursions by alliance with Rome and conquered the unfriendly neighboring territories of Samaria and Idumaea (Edom).
According to his will, the government of the country after his death is to be placed in the hands of his wife, and his eldest son, Aristobulus, is to receive only the high-priesthood.
Upon the death of Hyrcanus in 104, Aristobulus, with the help of his brother Antigonus, seizes the throne from his mother and jails or kills his other three brothers.
Aristobulus, who actually calls himself Philhellene (a lover of Hellenism), is said to have assumed the title of king (basileus), although on his coins he appears, like Hyrcanus I, as high priest.
Like his father, Aristobulus is a Sadducee who takes actions to erode Jewish identity.
Under Aristobulus’ reign, the name of the Jewish community or counsel of the Jews becomes “Hever ha-Yehhdim” and in the Greek, the “Sanhedrin.” The identity of ‘the community of the Jews’ may have been on his coins, but their title, like his crown, is seen and spoken in Greek terms.
