The Stoning of Onias

After these promises had been made to him, Aretas marched against Aristobulus with an army of fifty thousand cavalry and infantry, and beat him in battle. After that victory many deserted to Hyrcanus, and Aristobulus, left alone, fled to Jerusalem. Then the king of the Arabians brought up his whole army, attacked the temple, and besieged Aristobulus there. The people still sided with Hyrcanus and helped him in the siege, while only the priests stayed with Aristobulus. So Aretas set the camps of the Arabians and the Jews side by side and pressed the siege hard. All this happened at the season of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which we call the Passover, and the most respected men among the Jews left the country and fled to Egypt. [a]

Now there was a man named Onias, a righteous man and dear to God, who once, in a time of drought, had prayed to God to end the dry spell; God had heard him and sent rain. This man had gone into hiding, because he saw that the faction fighting would go on a long time. But they brought him to the camp of the Jews and asked him that, just as by his prayer he had once ended the drought, so now he would lay curses on Aristobulus and those of his faction. He argued against it and begged to be excused, but when the crowd forced him, he stood up in the middle of them and said, “O God, King of the whole world, since those who stand here with me are your people, and those who are besieged are your priests, I beg you neither to listen to those against these, nor to bring about what these ask against those.” As soon as he had prayed this, the wicked among the Jews stood around him and stoned him to death.

But God punished them at once for this savagery and exacted justice for the murder of Onias, in this way. While the priests and Aristobulus were under siege, the feast called the Passover came round, at which it is our custom to offer many sacrifices to God. Those with Aristobulus had no animals for sacrifice, and asked their own countrymen outside to supply them, taking whatever money they wished in exchange. The others demanded, if they wanted the animals, a thousand drachmas for each head. Aristobulus and the priests readily agreed, let the money down over the walls, and paid it to them. But when the others had received it, they did not hand over the animals. They sank so deep in wickedness that they broke their pledges and sinned against God by withholding what was needed for the sacrifices from those who needed it. When the priests found that the agreement had been broken, they prayed to God to exact justice from their countrymen for them. Nor did he put off the punishment: he sent a great and violent wind that destroyed the crops of the whole country, so that they then had to pay eleven drachmas for about two gallons of wheat. [b]

Meanwhile Pompey, who was himself in Armenia still at war with Tigranes, sent Scaurus into Syria. When Scaurus reached Damascus and found that Lollius and Metellus had recently taken the city, he hurried on into Judea himself. When he arrived, envoys came to him from both Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, each asking him to fight on his side. Aristobulus promised to give him four hundred talents, and Hyrcanus offered no less, but he accepted Aristobulus’s promise. For Aristobulus was rich and generous and asked for more moderate terms, while the other was poor and grasping and held out an incredible promise in hope of greater things. Besides, it was not the same thing to take by force a city among the strongest and most powerful there are, as to drive out some fugitives along with a crowd of Nabateans, who were not a warlike people. So for the reasons given, he sided with Aristobulus, took his money, and lifted the siege, ordering Aretas to withdraw or be declared an enemy of the Romans. Scaurus then went back to Damascus. Aristobulus, with a large force, marched against Aretas and Hyrcanus, engaged them near the place called Papyron, beat them in battle, and killed about six thousand of the enemy. Among them fell Phalion, the brother of Antipater. [d]