Wicked Priest or Wicked Priests?

Reflections on the Identification of the Wicked Priest

in the Habakkuk Commentary
A. S. VAN DER WOUDE
UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN

The identification of the Wicked Priest who appears several times in the
THabakkuk Commentary from Cave 1 of Qumran, is still a matter of
dispute. Since any reconstruction of the history of the Qumran community
is virtually foredoomed to failure if we are unable to resolve the problem,
the exact ascertainment of the figure's identity is of particular importance
for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars have proposed a number of
candidates: Menelaus (e.g. Michel'), Jonathan (e.g. Vermes,2 Jeremias3),
Simon (e.g. Cross4), Alexander Jannaeus (e.g. Delcor,5 Carmignac9),
Hyrcanus II (e.g. Dupont-Sommer7). These identifications entail a great
variety of views concerning the history of the Qumran community. But at
least there is agreement on one point: the Wicked Priest was a high priest in
Jerusalem.
In this paper I suggest an alternative to the presupposition tacitly
accepted so far that the Wicked Priest of the Habakkuk Commentary
should be identified with a single person.' Can we be sure that this theory is
correct?
In the Qumran texts, we find that a number of stereotyped phrases are
applied to more than one person. 'Teacher of Righteousness' can designate
the community's founder; but also the expected teacher of the final age.
A. Michel, Le maftre de justice, Avignon 1954, 232-258.
2 G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls. Qumran in Perspective, London 1977, Philadelphia
1981, 151: 'The Essenes and History', JJS 32 (1981), 18-31.
0
G. Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit (Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments
2), Gottingen 1963, 36-78.
4 F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (Anchor
Books A 272), Garden City, New York 1961, 127-160.
' M. Delcor, 'Ou en est le probleme du Midrash d'Habacuc?, Revue d'histoire des
religions 142 (1952), 129-146.
' J. Carmignac- E. Cothenet- H. Lign&e, Les textes de Qumran traduits et annotes 11, Paris
1963, 53.
7 A. Dupont-Sommer, Les Lcrits esseniens decouverts pres de la Mer Morte, Paris 1959,
361-368. In his opinion, some statements about the Wicked Priest allude to Aristobulus II.
I
Mr. F. Garcia Martinez (Groningen) has drawn my attention to an article by W. H.
Brownlee published in 1952 under the heading, 'The Historical Allusions of the Dead Sea
Habakkuk Midrash' (BASOR 126 (1952), 10-20). This suggests that the term 'the Wicked
Priest' should be interpreted in the sense of a plurality of persons.
350 A. S. VAN DER WOUDE

'Searcher of the Law' may refer to the first named Teacher of Righteous-
ness; but the phrase can also allude to an eschatological figure. 'Anointed'
can denote an Old Testament prophet; but it may also point to the coming
priest or king.9 In the book of Daniel, the appellations 'king of the north'
and 'king of the south' are applied to a number of Seleucid and Ptolemaic
kings respectively. We should therefore ask ourselves whether the
expression, 'the Wicked Priest', in the Habakkuk Commentary necessarily
describes one Jerusalem high priest or whether it might be used for a
succession of them. We should certainly give serious consideration to the
latter possibility because of the polyvalency of similar expressions, the more
so since there is every reason to suppose that the high priests of Jerusalem
who favoured Hellenistic culture and their Hasmonean successors were
looked upon by the members of the Qumran community as the embodiment
of wicked priesthood. It would most likely have needed a very special
reason to induce them to restrict the expression, 'the Wicked Priest', to only
one of these dignitaries.
Other points are worthy of notice here. In the Habakkuk Commentary,
the Wicked Priest figures almost always in clauses of the following type:
"Its interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest who . . .". In other words,
the main clause relating to the Wicked Priest is followed by a relative clause.
Such relative clauses can of course provide additional information about
the person in question but they can equally well define a character hitherto
unmentioned. That the relevant relative clauses in the Habakkuk
Commentary record a series of historical facts concerning one and the same
high priest cannot therefore be presumed in advance. It should be conceded
that the relative clauses may serve to define the substantival idea of the main
clause, the more so because in two instances (VIII, 16; XI, 12) we find 'the
Priest' instead of 'the Wicked Priest'. Here, 'the Priest' is not bound to
denote one particular Jerusalem high priest, nor should it necessarily be
understood as an abbreviated allusion to the previously mentioned Wicked
Priest. This is corroborated by IQ pHab IL, 7ff., where the words, "in
[whose heart] God has put [understandilng to give an interpretation of all
the words of His servants, the prophets", are clearly intended to define 'the
Priest' of the main clause. This priest, however, belongs to the members of
the Qumran community,'0 whereas in other cases 'the Priest' is the detested
high priest of Jerusalem. It is therefore legitimate to infer that the relative

'
See the author's Die messianischen Vorstellungen der Gemeinde von Qumran (Studia
Semitica Neerlandica 3), Assen 1957, passim.
'° Whether this priest is to be identified with the Teacher of Righteousness is still uncertain;
see IQ pHab VII,3-5, but also 4Q Ps A 11,18 (DJD V, 44) and 111,15 where 'the Priest' is
defined as 'the Teacher'.
WICKED PRIEST OR WICKED PRIESTS? 351

clauses following the words, 'the Wicked Priest', define the person in
question rather than provide additional information about an individual
discussed in an earlier passage.
It should nevertheless be noted that in the penultimate column of the
Habakkuk Commentary, we come across the absolute use of 'the Wicked
Priest'. Col. XII, 2f. reads:
"Its interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest inasmuch as he shall be paid
the reward which he himself tendered to the Poor".
Again in col. XII, 7-9, we find:
"the city is Jerusalem where the Wicked Priest committed abominable deeds
and defiled the Temple of God".
Since on these two occasions 'the Wicked Priest' is used absolutely, one
might tend to conclude that the title must allude to one person throughout
the whole Commentary. The possibility, however, cannot be excluded that
in col. XII the reference is to the high priest of the author's own day who
(since he was a contemporary) did not need further definition.
In this connection we would call attention to the fact that, with two or
three exceptions in the final columns of the Commentary, and a passage
concerning the Last Judgement (X, 3-5), all the statements relating to the
Wicked Priest are made in the past tense. The future tense occurs in col.
XII, 5-6:
"God will condemn him (ygwptnw) to destruction, as he plotted the destruction
of the Poor"".
The same tense appears in the preceding col. XI, 14-15 where the remark is
made of the Wicked Priest that
"the cup of wrath of God will make him reel (or: will swallow him up;
tbl'nw)".
And the future tense is implied in col. XII, 2f.:
"This saying refers to the Wicked Priest inasmuch as he shall be paid (l&lm Iw)
the reward which he himself tendered to the Poor".
Is it merely fortuitous that those observations about the Wicked Priest
which pertain to the future are to be seen exclusively in the final columns of

" As a rule I follow the translations in G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Pelican
Books A 551), Harmondsworth 19752, but sometimes the text rendering of W. H. Brownlee,
The Midrash Pesher of Habakkuk (Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 24),
Missoula, Montana 1979.
352 A. S. VAN DER WOUDE

the Commentary? Or are they an indication that following allusions to a

succession of past high priests, the contemporary high priest is at last being
spoken of, whose expected fate could only be predicted by means of the
future tense?
Yet another point that has puzzled commentators can, I think, help to
solve the problem discussed here. In col. IX, 4-7, the text of Hab. 2: 8a -
"Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples
shall plunder you"- is expounded thus:
"Its interpretation concerns the Last Priests of Jerusalem, who shall amass
(or, who amass) money and wealth by plundering the peoples. But in the last
days their riches and booty shall be delivered into the hands of the Kittim, for
it is they who are the remnant of the peoples".
Who are these 'Last Priests of Jerusalem'? On the basis of 4Q pHos (see
below), Carmignac's view that future priests are meant does not carry
conviction.2 The imperfect yqbwsw suggests action habitually repeated (cf.
Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley, Hebrew Grammar, 107g). The remark
concerning the Last Priests presupposes military campaigns such as were
launched by the Hasmoneans against foreign peoples. The vocabulary of
the pesher is so similar to that used to describe the campaigns of the Wicked
Priest mentioned in the preceding column (VIII, 11-12) that it is almost
impossible to avoid concluding that the 'Last Priests' cannot be the
ordinary priests of Jerusalem, who were hardly in a position to plunder
nations, but only the high priests. The statement is applicable to the
Hasmonean rulers, who were high priests and also military commanders. In
addition, the 'Last Priest' in 4Q pHos b (DJD V, p. 33, text 167, 2:1.3) is
accompanied by mention of 'the Lion of Wrath'. Since the latter title in 4Q
pNah 3-4, 1: 5-6 (DJD V, p. 38) doubtless refers to Alexander Jannaeus,
there is reason to infer that the Last Priest of 4Q pHos is the same high
priest, the more so because it is said that he will send forth his hand against
Ephraim (cf. 4Q pHos b 2:3). Since Ephraim denotes the 'Searchers of
Smooth Things', itself a contemptuous designation for the Pharisees,
persecuted according to 4Q pNah 3-4, 1:7 by the 'Lion of Wrath' (cf. also
Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 372ff.), we may assume that in the view of the
author of 4Q pHos b, 'Last Priest' and 'Lion of Wrath' are identical. Both
refer to the same person. If so, it is only natural to infer that the 'Last
Priests of Jerusalem' in IQ pHab IX, 4 are the (last) Wicked Priests
(plural!). The members of the Qumran community seem to have reckoned
with a number of Wicked Priests. Apparently, they did not restrict the
expression 'the Wicked Priest' to one person alone.
12 Op. cit. (note 6), 109.
WICKED PRIEST OR WICKED PRIESTS? 353

If this is right, it is not merely possible, but even probable, that we will
encounter the various (wicked) Jerusalem high priests of the Habakkuk
Commentary in chronological order. If the expression, 'Wicked Priest',
does not apply, as such, to one character but several, the author of the
Commentary could only hope to make himself understood by introducing
them in a comprehensible order: in which case we would have before us not
only a summary of a certain period in the history of Judaism, presumably
from the second and first centuries B.C.E., but would also be in a position
to pin-point more or less accurately the date of composition of the
Habakkuk Commentary and to relate our findings to other Qumran
documents. It should be emphasized in this connection that allusion to the
famous Teacher of Righteousness appears only in conjunction with the
third, fourth and fifth (Wicked) Priest, not with the first and second, and
not with the last. If it is true that the author arranged his materials
chronologically, we may deduce that the Teacher of Righteousness made his
appearance during the period in which the third, fourth and fifth priests
were in office.

Studying the details of the Habakkuk Commentary more closely,

particularly those passages dealing with a Wicked Priest, we find him first
mentioned in column VIII, 8-13. The opinion that he is referred to in col. I,
8 is based merely on a reconstruction of the text.
In col. VIII, 8-13, a pesher of Hab. 2: 5-6 runs as follows:
"Its interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest who was called by the name of
truth when he first arose. But when he ruled in Israel his heart became proud,
and he forsook God and betrayed the precepts for the sake of riches. He
robbed and amassed the riches of the men of sin who rebelled against God,
and he took the wealth of the peoples, heaping sinful iniquity upon himself.
And he performed abominable practices in all sorts of unclean defilement".
To whom do these lines refer? The expression, niqra' 'al gwem ha'emet,
cannot be easily explained, but it is clear that initially the priest was
reckoned among the adherents to the truth. 'Truth' is a term fraught with
great theological import at Qumran (Brownlee).'3 Therefore we must look
for a priest who was acceptable to the Pious of Qumran as far as the earlier
part of his life is concerned, which must therefore by necessity have
antedated the rift between the Hasmonean dynasty and the Qumran
community.'4 Indeed in that case we are forced back to the time of the
Hasidim from whom the Essenes traced their origin. We have to look for a

3 Op. cit. (note 11), 135.

" So rightly W. H. Brownlee. op. cit. (note 11). 136.
354 A. S. VAN DER WOTDE

candidate who, even if not belonging to the Hasidim, could be counted as

associated with the Pious, since niqra' 'al gem in the Old Testament means,
'to be reckoned to belong to'.'5 Jonathan and his successors, let alone the
Hellenistic-minded high priests of the Maccabean period, having to be ruled
out because the Hasmonean high-priesthood was repugnant to the Zadokite
priests of Qumran, only one possibility remains: Judas Maccabaeus. That
at the start of his career he was reckoned among the Pious is not surprising.
He was the son of Mattathias, the priest who initiated the Maccabean revolt
against the Hellenists, he aided the Hasidim, and he could be credited with
the purification of the Temple in 164 B.C.E. But could he be called a high
priest? One may doubt whether 'Wicked Priest' necessarily refers to a
wicked high priest. Josephus, however, relates that the people gave the
high-priesthood to Judas Maccabaeus after the death of Alcimus
(Antiquities XII, 414, 419, 434), but contradicts himself elsewhere
(Antiquities XX, 237), asserting that after the death of Alcimus there was
no high priest in Jerusalem for seven years. Judas cannot have become high
priest after Alcimus' death since the latter survived him. But it is not in itself
inconceivable that Judas usurped the functions of the high priest.'6 In 164
B.C.E., he was the effective leader of the Jewish community, and it is
unlikely that when he purified the Temple Menelaus functioned defacto as
high priest. There existed, in any case, in Josephus' time at least, a tradition
that Judas has been high priest in the Temple of Jerusalem (according to
early rabbinic traditions, even Mattathias and all his sons functioned as
such).'" The possibility therefore cannot be excluded that the members of
the Qumran community shared that tradition.
The remaining characterisations of the Wicked Priest in our passage are
consonant with the information about Judas encountered in I and II
Maccabees and in Josephus. The Wicked Priest is said to have transgressed
the Law of God and to have robbed the wealth, not only of the peoples, but
also of sinners who rebelled against God. A number of passages in the
books of Maccabees and Josephus document the plundering of foreign
nations by Judas and his troops;'" his atrocities are well attested in these
writings.'9 As for appropriating the riches of sinners who rebelled against
'5 Gen. 48:6; Ezra 2:61; Nehemiah 7:63; I Chronicles 23:14.
6 So E. Schurer, Geschichte Israels im ZeitalterJesu Christi l, Leipzig l920', 219, note 30,
although he thought it unlikely. Cf. also E. Schuirer - G. Vermes - F. Millar, The History of the
Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ 1, Edinburgh 1973, 170, note 31.
1 bMegillah I la. See W. F. Smith, A Study of the Zadokite High Priesthood Within the
Greco-Roman Age, diss. Harvard 1961.
18 I Macc.5: 3, 28, 35, 51, 68; 6: 24; 7: 47; 11 Macc.8: 25, 30-31; Josephus, Antiquities XII,
312, 328, 353.
9 I Macc.5: 5,44,51; II Macc.10: 23; 12: 16; Josephus, Antiquities XII, 328, 336, 339, 344,
347, 353.
WICKED PRIEST OR WICKED PRIESTS? 355

God, I think, there can be no doubt about the identity of the group referred
to. In I Macc. 6:18-27, we read that when Judas laid siege to the citadel of
Jerusalem in 162 B.C.E., some of the garrison escaped and were joined by a
number of renegade Jews. They went to king Antiochus V and complained:
"How long must we wait for you to do justice and avenge our comrades?
We were willing to serve your father, to follow his instructions and to obey
his decrees, and what was the result? Our own countrymen became our
enemies. They actually killed as many of us as they could find, and robbed
us of our property. Now we are the only ones to suffer at their hands. They
have attacked all their neighbours as well", cf. also Josephus, Antiquities
XII, 364f. These words correspond so remarkably well with the contents of
our pesher that we may confidently accept that the sinners who rebelled
against God and were pursued and persecuted by the Wicked Priest are
identical with the members of the Hellenistic party of the Maccabean period
who owed allegiance to Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
The next passage to mention a Wicked Priest ('wicked' is omitted here,
but marad, 'he rebelled', testifies to his wickedness) is col. VIII,16-IX, 2.
Unfortunately, it is poorly preserved,20 but we can nevertheless infer from it
with certainty that the priest rebelled, and that he was chastised by means of
'judgements of wickedness'. These inflicted, we read, the horror of evil
diseases on him and took vengeance 'upon the body of his flesh'. Since IQS
IV,12 states that all who walk in the ways of perversity shall be visited with
a multitude of plagues at the hand of pain-inflicting angels, the (lost)
subjects of the verbal forms in our passage are presumably also destroying
angels.2' The text of IX, 1-2 matches extremely well the information we have
about the death of Alcimus, who survived Judas by about one year.
I Macc.9: 54ff. and Josephus, Antiquities XII, 413, relate that Alcimus
suffered a stroke and died after many days of great torment. Josephus
states explicitly that a sudden stroke from God seized the high priest, a
characteristic trait similar to the wording of col. IX,1-2. Furthermore, the
use of marad, which occurs also in col. VIII, II, in connection with the
members of the Hellenistic party, seems to underline the philhellenism of
the high priest.
In the next lines of the Commentary, the text of Hab.2:8a is understood
to allude to 'the Last Priests of Jerusalem'. We have had already occasion
to examine this passage (IX,3-7) and to conclude that these Last Priests

20 W. H. Brownlee (op. cit. (note 11), 145) reconstructs the text as follows: "Tihe prophetic
meaning of the passage conce]rns the priest who rebelled [and abrogalted the ordinances of
[God; but He raised up pain-inflicting angels who attackled him in [order] to plague him".
1' W. H. Brownlee, op. cit. (note 11), 148.
356 A. S. VAN DER WOUDE

must be identical with Jerusalem high priests. At this stage, however, it is

possible to advance further and to suggest that the term 'the Last Priests' in
some way summarizes the Wicked Priests who are yet to be mentioned;
which is turn indicates that the author was well aware of the caesura
between the former philhellenistic high priests and the Hasmoneans who
usurped high-priestly office from the time of Jonathan onward.
Turning to col. IX,8-12, we find a quotation and explanation of
Hab.2:8b. According to this, the biblical text concerns the Wicked Priest
whom God delivered into the hands of his enemies because of the iniquity
committed against the Teacher of Righteousness and the men of his
Council, "that he may be humbled by means of a destroying scourge, in
bitterness of soul, because he had done wickedly to God's elect". It is
unnecessary to dwell upon this passage at great length since many
interpreters consider it incontestably to refer to the death of Jonathan, who
was betrayed by Tryphon and murdered by this Seleucid general.22 In fact,
there is no other high priest to whom this passage could apply more easily
than to Jonathan, who was put to death by his enemies. Whether the text of
the pesher implies that Jonathan ousted the Teacher of Righteousness
from his high-priestly office (which according to Stegemann,23
Murphy-O'Connor,24 Bunge25 and Bardtke26 was held by him during the so-
called Intersacerdotium)27 cannot be deduced from this passage with
certainty.
Col. IX,16ff., an interpretation of Hab.2:9-11, contains the next mention
of a Wicked Priest. The first two lines of the pesher are preserved only in
part, but from what we can read in col. IX,16, and especially in X,1, it is
possible to conclude that the priest had something to do with building.
Jonathan's successor as high priest was his brother Simon, the master-
builder of the Hasmoneans: the first book of Maccabees often alludes to the
fortresses, city-walls and monuments erected under his leadership.28
Nothing in the extant text militates against the identification of the Priest
with Simon. The following lines (X,2-5) predict that the Priest will be
judged by God in the midst of many peoples and that the Lord will chastise

22 Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 192-209; I Macc.12: 48ff.; 13: 23.

27 H. Stegemann, Die Entstehung der Qumrangemeinde, diss. Bonn 1971.
24 J. Murphy O'Connor, 'The Essenes and Their History', RB 81 (1974), 215-244.
25 J. G. Bunge, 'Zur Geschichte und Chronologie des Untergangs der Oniaden und des
Aufstiegs der Hasmonaer', JSJ 6 (1975), 1-46.
26 H. Bardtke, 'Literaturbericht uber Qumran, X. Teil: Der "Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit"
und die Geschichte der Qumrangemeinde', ThR 41 (1976), 103-119.
27 H. Burgmann, 'Das umstrittene Intersacerdotium in Jerusalem 159-152 v.Chr.', JSJ 11
(1980), 135-176, sharply criticizes the view that the Teacher of Righteousness served as high
priest in Jerusalem during the so-called Intersacerdotium.
28 I Macc.13: 10, 27-30, 33, 52; 14: 10. 15. 33-34. 37.
WICKED PRIEST OR WICKED PRIESTS? 357

him with fire of brimstone, an obvious reference to the Last Judgement.

The 'House of Judgement' seems to signify the abode where the sinners are
to be kept until the Last Day, cf. Jub.10:5,10; 22:22; I Enoch 10:4ff. The
imperfect tense does not imply that the Priest was still alive at the time of
the author of the Habakkuk Commentary.
Col. X,5-XI,2, interpreting Hab.2:12-14, applies the biblical text to 'the
Spouter of Lies', who is apparently not identical with a Wicked Priest and
who makes his appearance (if we can rely on a chronological order of
presentation by the author) in the time of Simon.29 It is a figure that plays
an important role in the Damascus Document, which most probably was
composed in the first decades of the first century B.C.E.30
In col. XI,2-8, another Wicked Priest is introduced. Here, the text of
Hab.2:15 is applied to the priest "who pursued the Teacher of
Righteousness in order to make him reel (or, to swallow him up), through
the vexation of his wrath, at the house of his exile ". This happened "at the
time of the festival of the resting of the Day of Atonement", when the
Wicked Priest "manifested himself to them, in order to make them reel (or,
to swallow them up) and to cause them to stumble on the Day of fasting, the
Sabbath of their resting". The pesher clearly alludes to a persecution, at the
house of their exile, of the members of the Qumran community, in
particular the Teacher of Righteousness, by a Jerusalem high priest. In all
probability, by 'house of their exile' is meant the Qumran community
settlement.' Archaeological research has led to the conclusion that stratum
IA of the Qumran buildings dates to the time of John Hyrcanus I or to the
last years of Simon (at the earliest).32 From this we can infer than John
Hyrcanus was the Wicked Priest who pursued the Teacher of Righteous-
ness. Since the Habakkuk Commentary remains silent about him in the
columns which follow, there is every likelihood that the Teacher died during
Hyrcanus's reign, an opinion supported, furthermore, by a number of other
considerations. If he made his appearance during the high-priesthood of
Jonathan or even before (a slightly earlier date is suggested by the wording
of col. IX,9ff., especially if we accept the suggested high-priesthood of the
2 The identification of the 'Man of Lies' is still disputed. We agree with G. Jeremias (op.
cit. (note 3), 79-126) that this figure is not identical with a/the 'Wicked Priest' (as suggested
again by G. Vermes, op. cit. (note 2, 150): "Der Lilgenmann ist der Lehrer einer grdsseren
Gruppe, die sich von der Gemeinde des Lehrers abgespaltet hat . . ." (op. cit., 126).
30 This dating is corroborated by fragments of the work from Caves 4, 5 and 6 of Qumran,
which stem from the first half of the first century B.C.E.
31 Cf. Damascus Document VI, 5 ('and they sojourned in the land of Damascus') combined
with the widely accepted identification of 'Damascus' with Qumran.
'1 Cf. R. de Vaux, L'archeologie et les manuscrits de la mer Morte, London 1961; E.
Lapperrousaz, Qoumran. L'etablissement essenien des bords de la mer Morte. Histoire et
archeologie du site, Paris 1976.
358 A. S. VAN DER WOUDE

Teacher during the so-called Intersacerdotium), it is reasonable to infer that

he was about forty years old in 150 B.C.E. In the Psalms Commentary A
from Cave 4, col. III,17ff. (DJD V, Text 171), Ps.37:25, "A lad was I, I
grew old as well", is applied to the Teacher, which means that he died at a
good age. If his age was about forty in 150, it was about seventy in 120
B.C.E., which by the standard of ancient times was old. The Damascus
Document states that about forty years will run from the day that the
Teacher of the Community was gathered in till all those who returned with
'the Man of Lies'33 are consumed. In the Psalms Commentary from Cave 4
we read that all the wicked will be consumed at the end of forty years and
that from then on no wicked man will be found on earth any more (II,7f.).
Evidently, the Last Judgement was expected to occur forty years after the
death of the Teacher of Righteousness. If he died in about 120 B.C.E., the
end was expected in about 80 B.C.E., i.e. during the reign of Alexander
Jannaeus, whom 4Q pHos calls 'the Last Priest'. The Habakkuk
Commentary stresses that the final age will be prolonged (col. VII,12). If
the Qumran community was coping in about 80 B.C.E. with the problem of
the delayed Final Judgement, the composition of the Habakkuk
Commentary must be dated to the first years after 80, when Alexander
Jannaeus was still alive.
The name of this high priest brings us to the final columns of the
Commentary. In col. XI,8-11, Hab.2:16 is explained as follows: "Its
interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest whose ignominy is greater than
his honour. For he did not circumcise the foreskin of his heart and he
walked in the ways of drunkenness that he might quench his thirst. But the
cup of wrath of God will make him reel (or, swallow him up) so as to heap
upon him the vomit of shame and the pain of sickness . . ." The Wicked
Priest is credited here with honour, but only partially. His ignominy exceeds
it. But the positive appreciation of some of his deeds refers, I think, to
Alexander Jannaeus's attitude towards the Pharisees, described in the Dead
Sea Scrolls as Searchers of Smooth Things and as men of scorn (CD
XX,11).34 It is fairly sure that Alexander Jannaeus is the subject of the
passage under consideration because Josephus tells us that, as a result of
overdrinking, the high priest contracted an illness which lasted for the last
three years of his life.35 The author of the Commentary expects the end of
the high priest to come soon, but the imperfect tense used in this connection

13 Damascus Document XX, 14-15.

34 Cf. Y. Yadin. 'Pesher Nahum (4Qp Nahum) Reconsidered', IEJ 21 (1971), 1-12.
3S Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 398; Bellum 1, 105-106. On the defilement of the Temple, cf.
Antiquities XIII, 372f. and Bellum 1, 97; on Jannaeus's atrocities committed against his
compatriots, cf. Antiquities XIII, 380 and Bellum 1, 97.
WICKED PRIEST OR WICKED PRIESTS? 359

suggests that it had not happened yet. Col. XII confirms this, for here we
find the absolute use of the expression Wicked Priest: a contemporary priest
seems to be meant. He shall be paid the reward due to him for the mischief
he has done, and God will condemn him to destruction. The imperfect tense
confirms that the Wicked Priest was still alive when the Habakkuk
Commentary was written. Hence, since the illness of Alexander Jannaeus
dates to the last three years of his life, we may estimate that the
Commentary was written between 79 and 76 B.C.E.
I have endeavoured to identify the Wicked Priest(s) of the Habakkuk
Commentary36 by taking into account the data provided by this writing, and
other Qumran texts and sources dealing with the period in question, in
particular I and II Maccabees and Josephus' Antiquitates judaicae.
Explication of the text of the Commentary seems to substantiate the
hypothesis based on methodological considerations, that 'Wicked Priest' is
used for a succession of Jerusalem high priests. One of them is missing. We
have found no allusion to Aristobulus I. But we should keep in mind that
this high priest held office for one year only.
If the foregoing analysis stands up to scrutiny, we have a solid starting-
point from which to reconstruct the history of the Qumran community
during the first century of its existence, and for the dating of other Dead Sea
Scrolls. It would appear that the closing years of Alexander Jannaeus were
crucial in the community's history, for the expected Last Judgement and the
vindication of the Pious failed to be made manifest. It is to this period that
the great majority of the Qumran pesharim seem to belong.

36 Apart from the Habakkuk Commentary, the only allusion to a Wicked Priest is in 4Q Ps
A, col. IV.8 (DJD V, 45). Since the text is poorly preserved, it is impossible to determine
conclusively what its author wished to say. It is asserted, however, that the Wicked Priest will
-be paid his recompense because God will give him 'into the hands of the terrible Gentiles'.
Since the appearance of the 'Man of Lies' is presupposed (cf. col. 1,18) and 'the terrible
Gentiles' seem to be identical with the Romans (cf. col. 11,9), the Wicked Priest of 4Q Ps A
may be Alexander Jannaeus, cf. also col. IV,9 with the wording of IQ pHab XII,2-3.