Jason the High Priest יאסון הכהן הגדול
bought the high priesthood and built a gymnasium in Jerusalem
Jason was high priest from about 175 to 171 BCE. He came by the place neither by descent nor by lot: under Antiochus IV the high priesthood was given to whoever promised the royal treasury the larger yearly tribute, and Jason outbid his own brother Onias III.
Having the office, he set up in Jerusalem a Greek polis with a gymnasium—"Antioch". The Greek tongue and Greek custom came not with an army but from within, by the hand of the high priest himself; both the decrees of Antiochus and the revolt of the Hasmoneans begin here.
In 171 he was in turn outbid by Menelaus. In 168 Jason tried to take the place back by force and failed; afterwards he wandered—Ammon, Nabatea, Egypt—and died in exile in Sparta.
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Related
Sources
Documents of the period
- II Maccabees 3–5 — a Hellenistic work, not received into the Jewish canon; the principal account of Onias III, Jason and Menelaus
Scholarship
- Reference literature: years of the high priesthood — the years of office by the agreed count of the reference literature; scholars differ, and the differences are named
Basis: documents and evidence.