Menahem (Zealot)

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Menahem († 66 AD in Jerusalem ) was a zealot and military leader in the Jewish War .

family

Flavius ​​Josephus introduced Menahem to the reader as the son of Judas the Galilean . Because of the time gap of 60 years, he was more of his grandson. Judas of the Galileans was the only Jewish military leader to have founded a dynasty: two sons, Simon and Jacob, were crucified under the procurator Tiberius Alexander (45/48 AD). Only his name, Ja'ir, is known of another son, whose son Eleazar was in command of the defense of Masada and committed collective suicide there with his people in 73 AD. Since Josephus also referred to this Eleazar as a relative of Menahem, Menahem's membership in the family of Judas the Galilean is assured.

Life

According to Josephus, Menahem was just like his father or grandfather Judas of the Galileans a “teacher.” The content of this teaching was probably the thesis that God was the only Lord and that the Jews should therefore not recognize any other rule over themselves, with the consequence of refusing taxes .

Menahem had taken the fortress of Masada by hand in midsummer of the year 66 and thus initiated the revolt against Rome. He had the Roman occupation killed, occupied the fortress with his own fighters and distributed the captured weapons to the rural population.

With a retinue of seasoned supporters, a kind of elite troop, Menahem then entered Jerusalem like a king, placed himself at the head of the rebels and took over the siege of Herod's citadel , where the soldiers of Herod Agrippa II and the remaining Roman garrison went had withdrawn. Since Menahem had both a glorious ancestry and military successes of his own, he was probably recognized by a large part of the insurgents as the coming Messiah .

The elite troops brought with them by Menahem also made progress with the siege of the citadel: they succeeded in undermining one of the towers on the 6th Gorpaios (= Elul ) so that it collapsed. The defense attorneys tried to enter into surrender negotiations with Menahem. The soldiers of Agrippa II, who were themselves Jews, were granted free retreat, while the remnants of the Roman cohorts withdrew to the three neighboring residential towers. Two prominent heads of the pro-Roman peace party were seized in the citadel and murdered by Menahem's people on Gorpaios, the high priest Ananias ben Nedebaios and his brother Ezechias. Ananias, however, had been the father of the temple captain Eleazar, who had gone over to the rebels as a member of the priestly aristocracy, but wanted to avenge the murder of his father on Menahem.

Its claim to royal power met with resistance; as Josephus put it, Menahem developed into an “intolerable tyrant.” The center of the forces directed against Menahem was the temple . The priestly aristocracy was not ready to give up its claim to leadership, and a dual leadership of the movement together with the temple captain Eleazar, for whom the model of a royal messiah / priestly messiah would have been available, was not realized.

When Menahem in royal clothing and surrounded by his entourage (here Josephus first used the term zealots ) wanted to enter the temple for worship, he was ambushed. Menahem's group was attacked by Eleazar's men and pelted with stones by a crowd. Menahem's men tried after a brief resistance to flee in different directions, but Menahem himself only got as far as Ophel . There he was identified, captured alive, tortured and finally killed.

Some of Menahem's fighters, led by his relative Eleazar ben Ja'ir, managed to make their way to Masada. Although they kept the fortress occupied until the end of the war, they no longer played a role in the decisive battles around and in Jerusalem. After Menahem's death, Josephus referred to this Zealot party as a Sicarian .

evaluation

By characterizing Menahem as an “intolerable tyrant”, Josephus placed him in line with the later Zealot military leaders who fought bloodily among one another and led Jerusalem to catastrophe. In the portrayal of Josephus, Menahem is named as the first person primarily responsible for the catastrophe. Josephus' Jewish War , the main source, presents the rise and fall of Menahem as a lesson in the development of the war against the Romans in the years that followed.

According to Martin Hengels , Menahem, as the only leader in the Zealot movement, had the potential to unite the population behind him and organize a lasting resistance. The comparison with Bar Kochba , who acted more effectively under far less favorable conditions than the Zealots of 66 to 73, shows how much the movement was weakened by Menahem's murder.

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War . tape 2 , no. 433 .
  2. ↑ Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 338 .
  3. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War . tape 2 , no. 447 .
  4. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War . tape 2 , no. 445 .
  5. ^ Mark Andrew Brighton: The Sicarii in Josephus's Judean War . S. 76 .
  6. ↑ Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 365 .
  7. ↑ Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 362 .
  8. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War . tape 2 , no. 434 .
  9. ↑ Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 300 .
  10. ↑ Sacha Stern: Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies . Oxford 2012, p. 256-257 .
  11. ↑ a b Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 362 .
  12. ↑ a b Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 363 .
  13. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War . tape 2 , no. 442 .
  14. ^ Mark Andrew Brighton: The Sicarii in Josephus's Judean War . S. 78 .
  15. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish War . tape 2 , no. 444 .
  16. ↑ Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 50 .
  17. ^ Mark Andrew Brighton: The Sicarii in Josephus's Judean War . S. 81 .
  18. ↑ a b Martin Hengel: The Zealots . S. 364,372 .
personal data
SURNAME Menahem
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Zealot and military leader in the Jewish war
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 66
Place of death Jerusalem