Commentaria in Esther
Argument on Esther. Book IV, page 144; what is likewise asserted here of Ahasuerus, chapter 1, verse 1.
Second, because in verse 2 it is said that Susa was the beginning of this king’s reign; hence he instituted this royal banquet there. For Pliny, book VI, chapter xxvi, writes that Susa, the royal city of the Persians, was founded by Darius son of Hystaspes, although Aelian and others would have it enlarged and made illustrious by the same. Hence Cassiodorus, book VII of the Variae: “This city,” he says, “Memnon the son of Tithonus built with stones bound with gold.”
Third, because in chapter ii, verse 7: “Esther” was called Hadassah (our translator renders it Edissa), that is, myrtle; and the wife of Darius, according to Herodotus, was called Atossa, who seems to be the same as Hadassah. Granted that Herodotus errs in calling Atossa the daughter of Cyrus, because Esther was thought or boasted by the Persians to be such: for she herself, by Mordecai’s command, prudently kept silent that she was a Jewess. Add that the Gentiles were ignorant of or distorted the affairs of the Jews. Hence also an Angel, in the second year of Darius son of Hystaspes, was seen by the Prophet Zechariah, chapter 1, verse 8, standing among the myrtle trees, that is, in the court of Esther, who was called Hadassah, that is, myrtle, as if promising the Jews good things through her help and shelter; see what is said there.
Fourth, because Ahasuerus here, in the last chapter, verse 16, acknowledges that the kingdom was handed over to himself and his ancestors, and preserved, by the kindness of the God of Israel. This agrees excellently with the vow that Darius son of Hystaspes made to God, that he might obtain the kingdom of the Persians, as is told in III Esdras iv, 43, and by Josephus, book XI of the Antiquities, chapter iv. Likewise with the edict of the same Darius on the rebuilding of the temple of the Jews, in book I of Esdras vi and III Esdras vi.
Fifth, because the war and history of Judith happened under Xerxes, as I showed there in the preface. Now Judith, when she killed Holofernes, is called a maiden; and it is said that she lived on to the age of 105, and that during all the time of her life, and for many years after her death, no one disturbed Israel (Judith, last chapter, at the end). Therefore the troubles of Haman about killing the Jews did not occur under Artaxerxes, who immediately succeeded his father Xerxes.
Sixth, this will be manifest from the age of Mordecai, chapter ii, verse 6. It seems to be an objection that in the last chapter, verse 16, Ahasuerus is said to be sprung from kings, whereas Darius was the son of Hystaspes, a prince, not a king. I answer that Hystaspes was descended from kings, as Herodotus, Justin and others assert; on which more in the last chapter.
Eighth, to this Ahasuerus Scripture assigns more than twelve years, whereas Cambyses, according to Herodotus, did not fill out even eight years of rule.
Ninth, that Ahasuerus, again by the testimony of Scripture, chapter X, “made all the islands of the sea tributary”;
In the same age in which Esther and Mordecai flourished there were Esdras, Nehemias, Daniel, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Zorobabel, Jesus son of Josedec, Aggeus, and, on the authority of Thucydides, this Darius subdued the islands of the Phoenicians with a fleet, and ruled them, as Plato reports in the Menexenus. But this cannot be referred to the times of Xerxes his son, who, driven out of Greece before the twelfth year of his reign, had lost those islands; whereas Scripture signifies that after twelve years of reign that Ahasuerus of ours both ruled them and imposed tribute. Nor again to any other of the later kings, none of whom (if you except the small Clazomenae and Cyprus) held these islands subject to himself, as is clear from the formula of the peace of Antalcidas in Xenophon, Hellenica, book V.
Tenth, since that Artaxerxes says, chapter xiii, 9, that “he had subjected the whole world to his dominion, not received it from his ancestors,” it is manifest that this hardly suits any other of the Persian kings than Cyrus and Darius. But it does not suit Cyrus; therefore Darius. (From A. Vitrao.)
Malachias and Zacharias the prophets, who write that they prophesied under Darius at the beginning of their prophecy. Among the Gentiles there flourished the philosophers Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Heraclitus; the poets Anacreon, Simonides, Aeschylus and Euripides; the generals Themistocles, Miltiades, Conon, Leonidas, Aristides; among the Romans, Junius Brutus and L. Collatinus, the first Consuls after Tarquin and the kings were expelled, Horatius Cocles, Mucius Scaevola, Clelia the Vestal virgin, who, fighting with Porsena king of Etruria, performed heroic deeds of Roman fortitude. Wherefore this age was fertile in illustrious men, and therefore happy and glorious.
Those who have written on Esther are Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius, Serarius, Sanchez, and Franciscus Feuardentius, who explains this whole book through moral lessons.