In his masterful translation and commentary on the Second Book of Maccabees, Daniel Schwartz devotes a short appendix to the historicity of the information provided in chapter 6, verse 7:Footnote ¹

In the opening paragraph of his discussion of the verse, Schwartz states: “This verse refers to two elements in Antiochus’ persecution in Jerusalem: monthly celebrations of the king's birthday and the cult of Dionysus. Concerning both there is room to suspect that they reflect the Ptolemaic context of our author more than the realities of Seleucid Jerusalem.” In other words, he doubts the historicity of the information provided in the verse, making it an imaginative creation either by Jason of Kyrene or by the anonymous redactor of 2 Macc.

Schwartz's basic claim regarding a putative Ptolemaic context for the statement in 2 Macc is clear: Dionysos was indeed widely worshipped in Hellenistic Egypt, and the monthly royal birthday was a characteristically Ptolemaic political-religious institution.Footnote ⁴ On the other hand, Schwartz argues, in contrast with the usual Seleukid preference for Zeus and Apollo, no evidence can be marshaled either “for any royal Dionysian cult in the Seleucid kingdom” (542) or for a monthly celebration of the Seleukid monarch's birthday. The information provided in 2 Macc 6:7 is thus unique and therefore suspect.

The argument from uniqueness is essentially a variant of the argumentum e silentio. In order for this uniqueness to be valid as a basis for the argument, all other sources must remain resoundingly silent on both issues. Any possible parallels either to a Seleukid Dionysian context or to a Seleukid monthly regal birthday must be dispelled or rationalized into insignificance—an effort that occupies the remainder of Schwartz's short appendix.

The first step in addressing Schwartz's argument is to unpack the bundling of these two very different pieces of information. While both the monthly royal birthday and the festival of Dionysos are reported in the same verse, we ought to remember that the division of 2 Macc into chapter and verse is of much later origin, and thus irrelevant to our discussion. In fact, both items are parts of a bigger picture, comprising measures and practices that were aimed at transforming the political and religious landscape of Jerusalem and Judea. Stylistically, they fall within a literary unit that spans verses 1–9 in chapter 6, marked at each end by the professed purpose of this dramatic reform: to compel the Jews to move over from their ancestral to Greek ways (ἀναγκάζειν τοὺς Ιουδαίους μεταβαίνειν ἀπὸ τ ν πατρίων νόμων . . . μεταβαίνειν ἐπὶ τὰ Ἑλληνικὰ).Footnote ⁵ Internally, this unit is divided for the most part by short δὲ clauses, distinguishing the different pieces of information from one another. Thus, the monthly birthday sacrifice stands in the same relation to the prohibition of keeping the Sabbath and the ancestral holidays preceding it in verse 6, as does the Dionysiac festival to the decree initiated by Ptolemy (or by the city of Ptolemais) following it in verse 8. Each item stands in its own right, and does not reflect directly on other items in the list.

The distinction between these two ritual practices is important for our evaluation of the historicity of the Dionysos cult in Jerusalem for two reasons. Firstly, Schwartz's argument relies implicitly on the interdependence of these two claimed instances of Ptolemaic influence. With each reflecting on the other, the suspicion concerning both grows deeper and, consequently, the case for the dismissal of both items appears stronger. If we are willing to suspect that the mention of a Seleukid monthly royal birthday is merely an explicative addition by a writer too familiar with the Ptolemaic background, we might also be more inclined to suspect that the mention of a Dionysiac procession in Jerusalem “is no more than a Jewish writer familiar with the Ptolemaic world imagining what a royal persecution would include” (543).

The second reason for the importance of this distinction is subtler and requires a closer look at the rhetoric of Schwartz's objection to the historicity of the Seleukid regal birthday.Footnote ⁶ A crucial piece of evidence in that respect comes from 1 Macc 1:58–59:

This statement in 1 Macc clearly refers to a monthly sacrifice, whose centrality and significance are demonstrated by its replication in local cult centers in “the cities.” While this seems to be a clear corroboration by an independent source of the information in 2 Macc 6:7, Schwartz suggests that although this notice “confirms that the Jews were required to offer monthly sacrifices, it may be that it was our author (or even Jason of Cyrene) who, familiar with the Ptolemaic world, supplied the explanation” (542). In other words, some sort of monthly sacrifice did in fact take place, as reported in both sources, but its identification as a regal monthly birthday is an incorrect interpretation introduced to 2 Macc. Now one might ask: if this monthly ritual was not in fact related to the king's birthday, what was it about? In order to dissociate this practice from the familiar pattern of royal birthday, an alternative explanation from either the Hellenistic or the Jewish contexts (or from both) ought to be supplied.Footnote ⁷

For the issue at hand, however, the more pertinent point is that the distinction between “royal” and “other” cult practices seems to have carried over unnecessarily to the discussion of the Dionysian rites. The insistence on the royal aspect of the cult enables Schwartz to dismiss an important piece of evidence for Seleukid involvement with Dionysos: the decrees issued by the city of Teos in honor of Antiochos III and Laodike III.Footnote ⁸ Here, we find that, a mere generation before the events under discussion, the Teians ordered that marble cult-images of Antiochos III (father of Antiochos IV) and his sister-wife Laodike be erected next to those of Dionysos, and that the royal couple should enjoy various honors, including the status of “temple-sharing gods” (σύνναοι θεοί; first decree, ca. 203, lines 44–52). Schwartz argues for the irrelevance of the Teian decrees on the grounds that “the reference is to a local initiative, not to a royal measure, and so far it seems very isolated” (542, italics added). The claim that the initiative for this decree was local may or may not be right; but that is beside the point. When considered in its own right, there is nothing about the report of the Dionysia in Jerusalem that requires us to look for a particularly royal status in connection with it. Furthermore, as we shall see presently, the categories of royal and local do not imply an inherent contradiction. On the contrary, they may well go hand in hand.Footnote ⁹

Nor, in fact, are the decrees from Teos very isolated at all. Following Bickerman, Schwartz cites OGIS 229, an inscription from the time of Seleukos II Kallinikos, which refers to the aftermath of the Third Syrian War. In lines 84–85, we read, almost incidentally, that in Magnesia the statues of the (Seleukid) kings stood in the agora next to the altar of Dionysos.Footnote ¹⁰ Schwartz rightly points out that it is hard to assess the significance of this fact: “There need not be any special significance to the proximity of the two” (542). Indeed, the typical Hellenistic agora was crammed with statues.Footnote ¹¹ On the other hand, there might well be some significance to this proximity after all, and the probability for that would grow with every additional piece of evidence for a more general interest of the Seleukids in Dionysos.Footnote ¹²

One such piece of evidence is a more recently discovered inscription from Aigai in Aiolis, which records the honors accorded to the kings Seleukos and Antiochos, most likely Seleukos I and his son Antiochos I.Footnote ¹³ In this inscription, the two kings, who are tantalizingly called “saviors” and “gods who have manifested themselves” (θεοὸ οἱ ἐ[πι]φανέν[τες]; lines 4–5, partly restored), are honored by sacrifices included in the city's Dionysia.Footnote ¹⁴ While this inscription goes even further back in time, and is admittedly very much earlier than the case under discussion, it provides us both with a precedent and with a comparandum to the Teos inscription, displaying the same style of royal honor inspired by and adapted to local circumstances.

A much richer and chronologically much closer source of evidence for the Seleukid-Dionysian connection is to be found in the numismatic record.Footnote ¹⁵ In fact, it appears that in the very same generation as the reported institution of Dionysiac rites in Jerusalem, Dionysos experienced a renaissance also on Seleukid coinage. In the words of the editors of Seleucid Coins (=SC), writing about the iconography of the coins of Seleukos IV, a “new subject is Dionysus, depicted on the obverse of bronzes at Antioch and at Ecbatana. Prior Seleucid coins had ignored this divinity. . . .”Footnote ¹⁶ The coin in question, SC 1316, is a royal bronze issue from Antioch on the Orontes (at the core territory of the Seleukids in northern Syria), showing a draped bust of Dionysos wreathed with ivy, with a thyrsos over his shoulder. Specimens of this coin were found in archaeological digs in Antioch itself, as well as in Dura, Gamla, Marisa, Nisibis, Seleukia in Pieria, and, inevitably, in the antiquities market. This coin type is doubly important. First, because unlike the aforementioned inscriptions the coins circulated widely and displayed the Dionysiac-Seleukid connection before a much wider audience.Footnote ¹⁷ Second, because as an innovation of Seleukos IV it is clearly a product of royal initiative, deriving from the heart of the Seleukid realm.

A different kind of royal bronze coinage, bearing the image of ivy-crowned Dionysos, was minted by Seleukos IV in Ekbatana (SC 1353–56). These coins show an elephant on the reverse, and were likely meant to remind their users of the eastern campaign of Antiochos III (Seleukos IV's father), which had stretched Seleukid reach once again to the land of elephants, and probably still resonated in the time of his son.Footnote ¹⁸ It is hard to assess to what degree Seleukid successes in the east were also responsible for the reappearance of Dionysos on the coins, but it is certain that a decade or so before the Antiochene persecution the divinity had already reemerged on the symbolic horizons of Seleukid monarchy.

Moving on to the reign of Antiochos IV, who succeeded his brother on the Seleukid throne, we find Dionysos on the quasi-municipal bronze coinage of Sidon. Beginning in the late 170s the major cities of Phoenicia seem to have received the right to mint royal bronze coinage. The result was an admixture of regal and local symbolisms on the locally issued coins. Two coins issued ca. 168–164 BCE (contemporaneously with the polytheistic revolution in Jerusalem) have a direct bearing on our discussion. One, SC 1459, shows the radiate, diademed head of Antiochos IV on the obverse, while the reverse displays Dionysos sporting a panther skin and holding a kantharos and a thyrsos. Another coin, SC 1460, has the same obverse, replacing Dionysos on the reverse with a maenad. These two coin types resonate with the situation displayed in the inscriptions from Aigai and Teos, in that they show how the Seleukid king could be connected with Dionysos, not particularly through his own personal agenda (though certainly not against his will), but rather through local initiatives and considerations. These two coins, displaying a local interest in Dionysos, connect unequivocally with the Seleukid king, and derive from the same general area as Judea, thus providing a strong comparative context to the Dionysia in Seleukid Jerusalem.Footnote ¹⁹

Another joint appearance of Antiochos IV and Dionysos, this time on bronze coins from Apamea on the Orontes (SC 1883–84), had caused much mischief in the earlier days of scholarship. Dated to year 162 of the Seleukid count (151/0 BCE) and referring to “King Antiochos,” this coin type created a puzzle: according to the traditional chronology there was no reigning Seleukid by that name at that time. A satisfying explanation to this conundrum was suggested by Mørkholm, who interpreted these coins as an issue by Alexander Balas, then based at Apamea and gearing up for a decisive clash with the rival claimant to the Seleukid throne, Demetrios II.Footnote ²⁰ The reference to Antiochos IV will have served multiple purposes. First, it played on the general popularity of Antiochos IV, who, as Mørkholm shows, remained a revered and useful figure for a long time after his death, appearing on a number of posthumous coins. Second, Alexander's claim to the throne was as Antiochos's son, whereas his rival Demetrios was the son of Seleukos IV, Antiochos's brother. Third, it was widely believed, and may have even been true, that Alexander was not really Antiochos's son, but rather a pretender from Smyrna put forward and financed by Attalos II of Pergamon.Footnote ²¹ The filial piety pronounced by the coins was probably meant to counter such rumors. The important fact for us is that this politically charged coin took for granted and even celebrated the connection between Antiochos IV and Dionysos.

Dionysos appears also on the coinage issued by Alexander Balas in his own name (SC 1791), this time bronzes from Antioch on the Orontes, ascribed directly to “King Alexander” and boasting pachydermic imagery. It should also be noted that at this time the city of Sidon continued minting Dionysos coins also under Balas's rival, Demetrios (SC 1669). Interestingly, the exact same image of Dionysos was retained from previous coinage, despite a change of denomination.

Following the assassination of Alexander Balas in 145, the cause of the “Antiochene” side of the Seleukid family was kept up, if only for a short time, by Diodotos, later called Tryphon, a powerful minister in Alexander's regime. In order to secure military and political power Diodotos crowned the fledgling son of Alexander, Antiochos VI (144–142 or 141 BCE), and acted as his guardian and advisor.Footnote ²² The epithet of the boy-king, selected no doubt by his elders and advertised on practically all of the coins minted in the royal mints of Syria and Kilikia, was none other than “King Antiochos Epiphanes Dionysos” (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΥ).Footnote ²³ SC 2014 and 2016 distinctly display a standing Dionysos, holding a kantharos and a thyrsos, whereas other coins use Dionysiac symbolism (ivy, panthers, kantharos and thyrsos). It was thus under the short and lackluster reign of Antiochos VI that Dionysos reached a zenith in relation to the Seleukid dynasty: the child-king, a pawn in the vicious struggle of cynical and brutal elders, was openly declared as a living manifestation of the god himself. Footnote ²⁴

What may we deduce from this wealth of evidence, both epigraphic and numismatic? First and foremost, it ought in my mind to dispel any notion of uniqueness regarding the information in 2 Macc 6:7 about a festival for Dionysos in Jerusalem. From the royal perspective, we see that Dionysos had never been completely absent from the religious and symbolic spheres in the Seleukid realm, whereas from the time of Seleukos IV onwards he increasingly became an important point of reference on the realm's coinage, both for the dynasty itself and in its subject cities. True, the wine god appears for the most part on the less prestigious, cheaper bronze coins; but we also ought to remember that it was the small change that was handled by most men and women, and that the images of Dionysos were thus more often viewed by the population of the Seleukid realm than the images on silver and gold coins. Another significant point is that the numismatic evidence reveals not only royal initiative, but also—as in the inscriptions from Aigai and Teos—the complex interactions of royal and civic politics and religion. The statement that the Hellenizing revolution in Judea incorporated Dionysiac ritual as part of its political-religious agenda is thus not in the least alarming or even outstanding. On the contrary, it appears to have been part of a wider phenomenon.Footnote ²⁵

Theoretically, it might be possible to conclude the discussion with this demonstration of the Seleukid interest in Dionysos. There may, however, be another side to the story. As we have seen, royal initiative was hardly the sole source of influence in the intersection of religion and politics; local interests had their own important part to play. It is now time to ask: how did the newly instituted cult of Dionysos appear from the Judean standpoint?Footnote ²⁶ Or, to put the question differently: of all the divinities available for worship from the Greek pantheon, why is it that beside Zeus (justified both by his prominence in Seleukid theology and by his status as the chief sky divinity, somewhat akin to the god of Israel), the only other god we hear of in Jerusalem is Dionysos?Footnote ²⁷ It is particularly hard to answer these questions. The extreme Hellenizers of Jerusalem did not leave us their version of the story, and while the importance of this faction and its influence on the ideological and religious aspects of the persecution has long been established, their reasoning and religious predilections are reported solely through the eyes of their opponents and only after the fact.Footnote ²⁸

Nevertheless, some pieces of evidence may help us to contextualize the Dionysia of Jerusalem from a Judean point of view. The first of these is an inscription from the Karian-Greek city of Iasos.Footnote ²⁹ This inscription, copied in the mid-nineteenth century by Le Bas and since lost, is part of a group of inscriptions and fragments found and collected at the base of the local theatre's wall. Beginning in the early second century BCE, they contain the names of donors to the local Dionysia.Footnote ³⁰ Every year four citizens contributed 200 drachmas each, and two metics added a hundred each. Among these metics we find in this inscription one Niketas son of Iason, a Jerusalemite (Νικήτας Ἰάσονος Ἱεροσολυμίτης). The presence of a Jerusalemite among the metic donors is not alarming per se, as we find in the lists other persons from Syria. Niketas's support of the Dionysia at Iasos reminded Schürer of the events in Jerusalem before the beginning of the Maccabean uprising, but he added a word of caution: “It is however not certain that Nicetas was a Jew.”Footnote ³¹ Niketas's identification as a “Jerusalemite” is intriguing. It may well have aimed to circumvent the thorny issue of his Judaism vis-à-vis his involvement in the Dionysiac cult. Be that as it may, the manner of his involvement—a monetary donation—is particularly reminiscent of 2 Macc 4:18–20, recording the donation of 300 drachmas by Jason the High-Priest to the festivities of Herakles-Melqart at Tyre.

Beyond the statement of the facts and the basic observations offered above, further interpretation of the inscription from Iasos seems too speculative. Essential questions still defy an answer. For example, what was the nature of Niketas's Jerusalemite connection? Was he a recent immigrant, or was he a scion of a long line of Diaspora Judeans, with their own practices and way of life, merely keeping the name “Jerusalemite” as a nostalgic geographical marker? If a recent immigrant, to what degree may he be viewed as representative of contemporary Jerusalem? The probable dating of Niketas's contribution is to the second half of the second century, which puts him a generation or two after the Antiochene persecution.Footnote ³² It would be reckless, of course, to identify Niketas's father Iason with the homonymous High-Priest of Jerusalem (perhaps we should think differently had the inscription been discovered at Sparta). It is not altogether impossible, however, that Niketas might somehow be related to Judeans who had fled Jerusalem after the collapse of the polytheistic revolution. Uncertainties abound. Nevertheless, this piece of evidence indicates, at the very least, that a person who lived well outside the Ptolemaic kingdom within a generation or two of the Antiochene persecution, and who maintained some sort of Jerusalemite identity, proudly donated a considerable sum to the Dionysia in his city of domicile, and had his name recorded in stone as such.Footnote ³³

In a masterful translation cum commentary of an earlier generation Abel suggested that the “neo-Hellenizers” may have converted an ancient Jewish festival into a Dionysiac ceremony. Pointing to Plutarch's famous exposition of the similitude between Dionysos and “the god among the Jews,” he implied that the Dionysiac procession in 2 Macc might be a pagan version of Sukkot.Footnote ³⁴ This particular suggestion cannot of course be ascertained.Footnote ³⁵ However, the logic behind it is, I believe, valuable for our discussion in that it does not assume that the new religious order introduced by the Hellenizers necessarily entailed a complete break with Judean past and tradition.Footnote ³⁶ On the contrary, it envisages a reworking of various elements of Judean life to fit the new program. True, the authors of both Books of Maccabees present a severe picture of utter disruption and alienation, but there is no reason to accept their presentation wholly and uncritically. It stands to reason that the revolutionary polytheists hoped and planned for their institutions to last, indeed to form the ritual backbone of the newly constituted community. In order to achieve this, they would have to gain some support from at least part of the local population. In other words, they would have to provide an alternative that would serve the needs of those Judeans who would not become martyrs, freedom fighters, or exiles.Footnote ³⁷

Plutarch's testimony is helpful in that it presents an outsider's view of the logic and plausibility of worshipping Dionysos in a Judean context. Writing without a discernible vested interest, and certainly uninfluenced by the particular religious and political tensions that accompanied the attempts of the Jerusalem Hellenizers more than 250 years before his time, he presents a clear view of how the god of Israel could be seen as identical with Dionysos.Footnote ³⁸ According to 2 Macc 6:1, the polytheistic reform in Jerusalem was instructed by an Athenian called Geron, assigned to the task by Antiochos himself.Footnote ³⁹ For strict monotheists such as the author of 2 Macc or Mattathias and his sons, these speculations about the similarity of gods would seem outrageously blasphemous; not so for polytheists whose natural inclination rather was to look for points of congruity.Footnote ⁴⁰

Another point raised by Plutarch about Dionysos and Judaism regards the Jewish day of rest: “The Jews themselves testify to a connection with Dionysos when they keep the Sabbath by inviting each other to drink and to enjoy wine.”Footnote ⁴¹ Broadly speaking, this might not seem such an outstanding observation, given that the consumption of alcohol in general and of wine in particular forms an integral part of festivities in a wide variety of Mediterranean (and other) cultures. However, in the case of the Sabbath, rabbinic sources do indicate a special interest in the role of wine. This interest is expressed as a point of deep disagreement between two halakhic schools—House Shammai and House Hillel—about the correct order of benedictions in ushering in the Sabbath: which should come first, the benediction of the wine or the benediction of the day? At face value, the question seems to be a technical one: House Shammai rules that the benediction for the Sabbath should come first, because the day occasions the drinking of wine, whereas House Hillel rules that the benediction of the wine should come first, because it is the wine which brings about the day's holiness.Footnote ⁴²

Neither the particulars of this disagreement nor its political and sociological backgrounds can be discussed here at any length. What is important for the present discussion is the consensus underlying the dispute: both for House Shammai and for House Hillel Sabbath and wine are inextricably intertwined, corroborating and contextualizing Moiragenes's observation in Plutarch. The meager sources at our disposal do not provide anything close to a full picture of the religious program devised by Antiochos, Geron, and their Judean collaborators. Yet if we juxtapose the forbidden ancestral holidays and Sabbaths (2 Macc 6:6) with the newly instituted royal birthdays and the Dionysia (6:7), it would appear that the new order at least did not neglect to provide potential opportunities for the consumption of wine in a festive and religious context in place of the ones it attempted to quash.Footnote ⁴³

Another reflection of the importance of the vine in the religious life of Jerusalem is the famous golden vine in Herod's temple. According to Josephus, it was an important and impressive decorative feature.Footnote ⁴⁴ Yet the vine was more than mere decoration. According to a rabbinic tradition, it also gave the populace an opportunity for participation through donation, with each volunteer providing a leaf, a berry, or a cluster.Footnote ⁴⁵ This custom thus opened a channel for public participation in the holiness of the temple by means of contribution to the vine. At the very least, this is yet another strong sign of the importance of viniculture and wine symbolism in second-temple Judean religion.

A final field in which the Dionysia of Jerusalem might be seen as compensation for prohibited Jewish ceremonies is that of soundscape.Footnote ⁴⁶ Both Tacitus and Plutarch pay particular attention to the audial similarity between the cult of Dionysos and the cult of the god of Israel. For Tacitus the use of wind instruments and drums forms, together with the decorations of vine and ivy, the basis for the misguided yet common identification of the Jewish god with Pater Liber.Footnote ⁴⁷ Plutarch (Mor. 671E–672B) is aware of a wider audial variety in cult at the Jerusalem temple, yet he too remarks on wind instruments and percussions, stressing the similarity of the “little trumpets” (σάλπιγξι μικραῖς) with the cult of Dionysos in Argos, and resting much of his identification on the perceived similarity of the cultic soundscape. Footnote ⁴⁸ Once again, the actual situation on the ground is well beyond our reach: there is no way to compare the ritual music played during the years of polytheistic revolution in Judea to that of the preceding and following periods. Nevertheless, it is not insignificant that two outsider observers expressed their understanding of the identification between Dionysos and the god of the Jews by referring to the musical aspect of their respective cults. It stands to reason that this consideration formed a part of the thinking and planning behind the actions of the extreme Jerusalem Hellenists.

To sum up: the argument used by Schwartz to deny the historicity of the Dionysia in Jerusalem is a weakened form of the argument from silence, which I called above an “argument from uniqueness.” To use his own words, the information in 2 Macc 6:7 about a Dionysos festival, which formed a part of the Hellenistic religious reform in Judea, is non-factual, since “the cult of Dionysus is so well known as a royal cult in Ptolemaic Egypt,” a fact which “contrasts so strikingly with the lack of evidence for anything parallel in the Seleucid kingdom,” that “what we have is no more than a Jewish writer familiar with the Ptolemaic world imagining what a royal persecution would include.”Footnote ⁴⁹

In response I have argued, firstly, that there is no need to postulate the Dionysia as a “royal cult” (whatever the exact definition of this term might be). Secondly, I have attempted to demonstrate that, contrary to Schwartz's claims, the Seleukid monarchs from Seleukos IV onwards showed an increasing interest in Dionysos, evident in the choice of clear Dionysiac elements on their coinage. A generation after the events in Jerusalem a Seleukid king was even hailed as “Dionysos manifest,” as royal an interest as can possibly be. Finally, I argued that the initiative and intervention of Antiochos IV was only one side of the story, and that the Judean Hellenists had good reason to include Dionysos in their program due to local considerations. This interest is parallel to and concurrent with the growing interest of other communities of Koile Syria in the deity.

As with so many other pieces of information from antiquity, it is impossible to provide complete and unassailable proof of factuality. The case of the Dionysia in Jerusalem is no different. However, I hope that the evidence and the argumentation provided here may prove enough to dispel any doubts about the Dionysia in Jerusalem, and to restore its proper place as a historical event.