Jewish movement active in the war against Rome (66-73 CE). Though Josephus made distinctions among the various groups that participated in the Jewish Revolt, the term Zealots is generally used more or less indiscriminately to characterize those leaders and their followers who advocated open rebellion. These included the Sicarii ("knife wielders"), being the followers of Judah the Galilean and including his son Menahem and his descendant Eleazar ben Jair, commander of Masada; the Zealots of Jerusalem led by Eleazar ben Simeon and other priests (the Zealots proper according to Josephus); and the followers of John of Giscala and Simeon bar Giora, respectively.
Called the Fourth Philosophy by Josephus (after the Saducees, Pharisees, and Essenes), the movement developed against the background of the messianic expectations and yearning for redemption that developed in the first century BCE in the national depression that followed the fall of the Hasmoneans. The movement thus had affinities with the Essene Dead Sea sect, but unlike the latter, which had withdrawn from society, it advocated action. In the same period, the Saducees, along with the so-called "Herodian" party of Hellenizers, advocated compromise with respect to Roman rule while the Pharisees, rapidly becoming the most popular party, held aloof politically, occupying a center ground.
The spark that ignited the movement, in the period of unrest and anti-Roman feeling that followed Herod's death, was the Roman attempt to conduct a census in Judea in 6 CE. Judah the Galilean rebelled and in the aftermath his followers apparently took to the desert, perhaps operating as guerillas but not being heard from again until the outbreak of the Revolt. Further agitation was produced when Caligula attempted to install his image in the Temple, and under such rapacious Roman procurators as Albinus and Florus the Pharisees finally came around to the views of the Zealots and the stage was set for a widespread popular revolt.
In the Revolt, in 66, Menahem, son of Judah the Galilean, seized Masada from the Roman garrison and then proceeded to Jerusalem, commanding rebel forces there until killed by a rival. Eleazar ben Jair now took command of Masada but in Jerusalem rival groups continued to contend for dominance. With John of Giscala and Simeon bar Giora emerging as the principal leaders and commanding a force of about 25,000 after they settled their differences, the Jewish rebels awaited the onslaught of the Romans. In 67 Vespasian arrived at the head of three legions (60,000 men), taking control of Galilee, the Jordan Valley, and the Coastal Plain and then proceeding to reduce Judea in 68.. The campaign was continued by Titus, who reached Jerusalem with four legions in 70, breaching the walls and capturing the Herodian Towers, the Antonia, and the inner sanctuary along with all of the lower and upper cities. Masada held out until 73, when the defenders took their own lives rather than falling into Roman hands (see Josephus for inset). Thus ended the Jewish Revolt, with the Temple destroyed and Jerusalem desolated. Sicarii followers ultimately turned up in Egypt and sought to incite further rebellion but were apprehended and executed. The Zealot spirit, however, lived on, finding renewed expression in the revolt of Bar Kokhba in 132 CE.
