Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
42. THEN WAS ASSEMBLED TO THEM THE CONGREGATION OF THE ASSIDEANS (some wrongly read “of the Jews,”) THE STOUTEST OF ISRAEL, EVERY ONE THAT HAD A GOOD WILL FOR THE LAW.
You will ask who the Assideans are. First, Hugo, Lyranus, Dionysius, the Gloss and St. Thomas on chap. 14 answer that they are called Assideans from assiduity, as being assiduous in the worship of God. But Assidei is a Hebrew word; wherefore it has a Hebrew etymology, not a Latin one. Second, Serarius on chap. 7, Josephus, Stephanus here in the Preface p. 5, Genebrard, Tornielli, Salianus and Delrio in the Adagialia, chap. 30, judge that the Assideans are the Essenes, or akin to the Essenes, and of the same institute and profession as the Essenes. But there stands against this, first, that the Essenes did not yet exist. For they arose a little before Christ, as Baronius teaches. Second, that the Essenes were not strong in strength, because by daily abstinence and fasting they enervated their strength. Third, that the Essenes gave themselves to God alone by prayer, reading and contemplation. Whence: “Among them,” says Philo, book On the Essenes, “no one makes darts, swords, helmets, breastplates, shields, nor engines, nor anything else useful for war.” But the Assideans abounded in these, as being devoted not to the choir, like the Essenes, but to war. See what I have said of the Essenes on Acts 4, 2. I say therefore, thirdly and truly, that the Assideans were soldiers of the sacred war, who gave their name to the sacred militia for the law and the Synagogue, such as afterwards were the soldiers of the temple, and now are the military Orders of the knights of Malta, of St. John, of St. Stephen, of the Teutonic knights and the like, who nobly fight for the Church of God against the Turks, Saracens and heretics. For when Antiochus was striving to overthrow the law of God, the temple and the Synagogue, God stirred up the Assideans, who devoted themselves to the sacred militia, and fought for the protection of the temple and the law, and freely offered themselves to all the perils of war. That this is so is plain, first, from the word “Synagogue,” that is, a gathering, a collection, a congregation of soldiers for defending the Synagogue. Second, from the words “stoutest of strength.” Third, from the words “having a good will for the law,” who namely would voluntarily from zeal defend and fight for the law. Wherefore the Assideans joined themselves to Judas Maccabeus, as leader of the sacred war, and were his chief soldiers, by whom he won so many and so great victories. This is plain from book 2, 14, 6: “Those of the Jews,” he says, “who are called Assideans, whose captain is Judas Maccabeus, nourish wars, and stir up seditions, and will not suffer the kingdom to be quiet.” These are the words of enemies, who accused the Assideans before king Demetrius as seditious. And from chap. 7, 12, where the Assideans, as the first together with the congregation of the scribes, treat of making a general peace with Bacchides and Alcimus. Whence it is clear that they were the only honoured and chief men in Israel.
Second, you ask why they are called Assideans. I answer that in Hebrew they are called chasidim, which some derive from chasida, that is, a stork, or kite, because like kites they leaped upon their enemies and made prey. Others interpret chasidim as hunters, from sud, that is, to hunt, because by going about they hunted the enemies of Israel, as a hunter hunts stags and hares. Better Pagninus, Sanchez, Serarius and others interpret chasidim as the pious, the merciful, the religious, the holy, from chesed, that is, piety, mercy, because they waged a pious war for the Israelites. Hear now St. Chrysostom on Ps. 43: “When a grievous war pressed upon them, and the Maccabees could do nothing that would profit, they hid themselves; for the Apostles also did this. For they did not always appear and rush into the midst of dangers; but sometimes they withdrew both fleeing and hiding. But after they had breathed a little, like generous whelps leaping out of their dens, and emerging from their hiding-places, they resolved no longer to save themselves alone, but others also as many as they could, and going round the cities and the whole region they gathered as many as they found still sound and whole, and brought back to their former state many also who were in distress and corrupted, persuading them to return to the laws of their fathers.
44. AND THEY SLEW THE SINNERS,—that is, the apostates, who had deserted from Judaism to Antiochus and Gentilism. For this was the highest sin, and the highest iniquity, by which the whole religion, faith and virtue was betrayed and lost.
[And they circumcised] all the children whom they found uncircumcised in the confines of Israel,” as if to say: They circumcised the children by force, even against the will of their parents, because the parents were Israelites, and so were bound to circumcise their sons, and therefore could be compelled to this by Mattathias as Leader and Pontiff; as now the Church compels the faithful to offer their children to Baptism. But if any among them were children of unbelievers, they circumcised these also, as now their own and taken by right of war, and separated from their parents. And although Lyranus says that he did this only with the sons of the Jews, yet Scripture speaks absolutely; and although Dominic Soto in book 4, treatise On Baptism, says: If Mattathias did this to the sons of the Gentiles, he did indeed act according to knowledge; yet this seems not rightly said of an illustrious and most holy man: it is better therefore asserted that they, being already by right of war reduced to servitude, and separated from their parents, could rightly be circumcised, as we also now rightly baptize the sons of Saracens taken in war, says Suarez, part 3, vol. 3, Quest. 67, art. 10; disp. 25, sect. 4.
They restored to Israel the law and worship of God taken away by Antiochus and the Gentiles, by arms, and made the law and worship of God obtain its former dignity and veneration.
AND THEY YIELDED NOT THE HORN TO THE SINNER,—as if to say: They did not permit the horns, that is, the pride, strength and forces of Antiochus to grow; but these they, if they did not cut off, at least pruned and greatly diminished, so that he could not, nor dared, rage and be furious in his accustomed manner. Learn here that the horns of the proud, as of butting bulls, are to be cut off: for he who does not take them from the proud and fierce man adds to and increases them; wherefore he who can ought to remove them, lest raging with them they strike and prostrate many.
49. CHASTISEMENT, etc. AND THE WRATH OF INDIGNATION,—namely of God, by which God, angry and indignant at our sins, chastises us so atrociously through Antiochus, loosing to him the reins of raging and being furious against us. So Attila king of the Huns, laying waste Gaul and Italy, being asked by St. Lupus Bishop of Troyes who he was and what he wanted, answered that he was the scourge of God to chastise the crimes of the faithful: so Tamerlane was the scourge of God, and now the Ottomans are. So Nabuchodonosor was shown to Jeremias, chap. 1, under the appearance of a watching rod.
50. AND GIVE YOUR LIVES (that is, your lives) FOR THE COVENANT,—that is, the pact, namely for the law of God: for the law was the condition of the covenant made by Abraham, Moses and the people with God.
51. AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE GREAT GLORY,—not only in this world among men, for this is vain, short and slight, but also in heaven before God, the Angels and the saints, immense, heavenly and eternal.
52. WAS NOT ABRAHAM FOUND FAITHFUL IN TEMPTATION, in which God tried his faith and obedience, by commanding him to immolate to him his only-begotten Isaac, through whom he had promised him copious posterity, indeed Christ, FAITHFUL, faithfully offering his son to God, hoping and believing with sure faith that God would raise him from death after the immolation: AND IT WAS REPUTED TO HIM UNTO JUSTICE,—as if to say: This act of Abraham’s obedience and offering of Isaac was reckoned and esteemed by God to be an act of great justice, that is, of great virtue and holiness; and therefore Abraham, who was already just, merited by it a great increase of grace and justice, and became before God much more just and holy. See what is said