Hyrcanus had been their disciple and was greatly beloved by them. Having on one occasion invited them to a banquet and hospitably entertained them, and seeing them in high good humour, he began to say to them that they knew how anxious he was to live righteously, and how in all his actions he strove to please God and them (for the Pharisees are a school of philosophers); but he besought them, if ever they saw him erring and deviating from the right way, to bring him back into it and correct him. His guests declaring that there was no virtue which he lacked, he was pleased with their commendation.
But one of them, named Eleazar, an ill-natured man who delighted in faction, remarked, "As you have asked us to tell you the truth and desire to be righteous, renounce the high priesthood and be content to be ruler of the people." And when Hyrcanus enquired of him the reason why he should lay down the office of high priest, he replied, "Because we are informed by the elders that your mother was a captive in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes."[1] The story was false, and Hyrcanus was exasperated with the man, and all the Pharisees were greatly indignant.
A certain Jonathan,[2] however, an intimate friend of Hyrcanus and a follower of the sect of the Sadducees (whose doctrines are the reverse of those of the Pharisees), asserted that Eleazar's slanderous words had the unanimous approval of the whole body of Pharisees, and that this would be manifest if he asked them what punishment he deserved for what he had said. Hyrcanus, accordingly, asked the Pharisees what penalty they thought appropriate, expecting to prove[3] by the
