the priests. Still, such produce required its buyer to separate the First and Second Tithes. Some view this as also being a discredit unto the High Priest, seeing that the commoners refused to separate these latter tithes because of being intimidated by bullies, who took these tithes from the public treasuries by force, while John Hyrcanus refused to censure such bad conduct. After all said and done, and after accomplishing many heroic feats, John Hyrcanus in the later years of his life, abandoned the sect of the Pharisees, and joined himself to the Sadducees. This prompted the famous rabbinic dictum: "Do not believe in yourself until your dying day." At his death, a monument () was built in his honour and where his bones were interred. John's Monument was located in what was formerly outside the walls of the city, but in Josephus' time had been enclosed between the second and third walls of Jerusalem, and where the Romans had built a bank of earthworks to break into the newer third wall encompassing the upper city, directly opposite John's Monument. See also Hasmonean coinage Hyrcanus II List of Hasmonean and Herodian rulers Notes References External links 160s BC births 104 BC deaths 2nd-century BCE High Priests of Israel 2nd-century BC Hasmonean rulers Edom 2nd-century BC biblical rulers Year of birth unknown