Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
Furthermore Judas, Jonathan, Simon, and their descendants the Machabees were chosen and set by the people as leaders, or princes, of the Republic, but not as kings, as is plain book I, chapters ix and xiv. For the royal stock of David failed in Jechonias carried away to Babylon, who is therefore called by Jeremias, chapter xxii, a barren man. “For there shall not be,” he says, “of his seed a man that shall sit upon the throne of David,” that is, who shall be king; hence Salathiel the son of Jechonias and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel were leaders of the people, not kings. You will say: Aristobulus, son of John Hyrcanus, took the diadem and the name of king; for, as Josephus says, XIII Antiquities xix: “His father being dead, Aristobulus the eldest, wishing to turn the principate into the form of a kingdom, first put on himself the diadem, after 481 years and three months since the people, delivered from captivity, returned by right of return to their former seats.” I answer that Aristobu- Judas Machabeus was of the tribe of Levi, not Juda.
lus and his descendants usurped the name and crown of king by their own authority, but did not receive it given by the Republic; wherefore they were neither true nor lawful kings. So St. Jerome on chapter xxi of Ezechiel: “Hyrcanus,” he says, “the Pontiff put the diadem on his head, in vain wished to claim for himself both this and that, since the kingdom was not due to him after Sedecias,” that is, because he was not of the stock of king David, which failed in the last king Sedecias. By the flattering crowd, however, and thence by some Writers, he and his descendants are called kings, yet in truth they were not kings. It is otherwise with Herod; for he received from the Roman Senate and from Augustus, then ruling, the kingdom of Judea and the name of king. Hence in him the sceptre was transferred from Juda to a foreigner, and therefore then Christ came, to whom this sceptre was due, as Jacob prophesied, Genesis xlix, 10.
Contemporaries and coevals of Judas, Jonathan and Simon the Machabees were Antiochus the Great and his son Antiochus Epiphanes, and his son Antiochus Eupator; for with these two they waged wars. Likewise Ptolemy Philometor king of Egypt. Also both Scipios, namely Africanus, who conquered Hannibal and overthrew Carthage; and Asiaticus, who triumphed over Antiochus the Great. Also Fabius Maximus, the chastiser of Hannibal. Of philosophers Posidonius and Panaetius. Of Poets Caecilius, Ennius, Naevius, Plautus. Furthermore Antiochus the Great left two sons, Seleucus and Antiochus Epiphanes; the sons and grandsons of these two in continual succession contended and fought among themselves for the empire of Asia for two hundred years: so God punished the impiety and crimes of Epiphanes in his posterity.
You ask third what are the years of the Greeks, according to which the several acts of the Machabees are recorded in this book, and whence they take their beginning. I answer that they begin from the thirteenth year after the death of Alexander the Great. For after Alexander, in the thirteenth year Seleucus, surnamed Nicanor for his many victories, having overcome Antigonus king of Asia, made himself king of Asia, and thence the years of the Greeks, or of the Seleucids, began to be reckoned. Furthermore
1. Seleucus king of Asia reigned 30 years.
2. Seleucus was succeeded by his son Antiochus Soter, in whose time the Jews gained a notable victory near Babylon over the Galatians, which is recounted in book II of Machabees chapter viii, verse 20. This Soter reigned 19 years.
3. Soter was succeeded by his son Antiochus surnamed Theos, that is, God, so called by the Milesians, because he had expelled Timarchus their tyrant, says Appian in the Syriac history. Of him Daniel prophesied, chapter xi, verse 5. He lived in the first Punic war. He reigned 15 years.
4. To this Antiochus succeeded Seleucus Callinicus, of whom Daniel chapter xi, verse 7. He reigned 20 years. To Callinicus succeeded his son Seleucus Ceraunus;
that is, thunderbolt, because in daring and swiftness he seemed like a thunderbolt, of whom Daniel chapter xi, verse 10. He reigned 3 years.
6. To Ceraunus succeeded his brother Antiochus the Great, who, defeated by L. Scipio at Thermopylae, sent his younger son Antiochus Epiphanes to Rome as hostage for himself, of whom Daniel chapter xi, verse 10 ff. to 20. He reigned 37 years.
7. To Antiochus the Great succeeded his elder son Seleucus Philopator, who at first supplied expenses to the temple of the Jews, II Machabees chapter iii, verse 3; but afterwards, verse 32, through Heliodorus wished to plunder it, when he, scourged by an Angel, returning killed Seleucus. This Seleucus reigned 12 years.
8. To Seleucus the elder brother succeeded the younger, called Antiochus Epiphanes, that is, illustrious. More truly named by some Epimanes, that is, mad, because he cruelly and madly plundered the temple and harassed the Jews. He seized his brother’s kingdom by guile in the year 137 of the Greeks, and in the same year drove out the holy Pontiff Onias, and put in his place his impious brother Jason, II Machabees iv, 7. In the second year of his reign he undertook the first expedition into Egypt, thence peaceably entered Jerusalem. There, verse 21, in the 5th year, Jason being deposed, he substituted as Pontiff Menelaus the Benjamite, II Mac. Entering Egypt, he was ordered by the Romans to leave. Wherefore indignant he went out, and poured out his indignation on the neighbouring Jews, I Mac. I shall give the cause. Wherefore in three days he slew 80,000 Jews, sold 84,000, and imprisoned as many, II Machabees v, 14. Thence through Apollonius he slew many others, verse 24, and others through Philip, chapter vi, 14; he set up an idol of Jupiter in the temple, verse 2; then likewise he afflicted Eleazar, verse 18, and the seven brothers, chapter vii, with illustrious martyrdom, in the 9th year of his reign, which was the 145th of the Greeks. Against him and his Mathathias rose, book I, chapter ii, whom after a few months, dying, Judas Machabeus his son succeeded, and made war on Antiochus, chapter iii, who in the following year overcame and slew Apollonius, verse 11, and Seron, verse 23. In the 11th year of his reign, which was the 147th of the Greeks, Antiochus went into Persia to plunder Elymais, but was put to flight by the Persians, chapter iii, verse 37. Gorgias also, his general, was repulsed by the Jews, chapter iv. In the 12th year, Lysias likewise was overthrown by the Jews, and the temple polluted by Antiochus with an idol was purified. There, verse 52, at the beginning of the year 192, which was the 149th of the Greeks, returning from Persia he died of grief, chapter vi, verse 16, having reigned 12 years.
9. To Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded his nine-year-old son Antiochus Eupator, who with his guardian Lysias was slain by Demetrius son of Seleucus Philopator, I Machabees vii, 4, in the year of the Greeks 151, which was of the city of Rome founded 593, in which likewise died L. Aemilius Paulus, who overcame Perseus king of the Macedonians and subjected Macedonia to the Romans. Eupator reigned 2 years.
10. Eupator was succeeded by force by Demetrius son of Seleucus in the year of the Greeks 151, to the year 160, who was killed by Alexander Balas, the other son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and brother of Eupator. Demetrius therefore reigned 10 years.
Furthermore Judas Machabeus in the second year of Demetrius was slain by his general Bacchides; and Jonathan his brother immediately succeeded him, I Machabees ix, 13,
11. Alexander Balas, son of Antiochus Epiphanes, began to reign in the year of the Greeks 160, to the year 167, in which he was put to death by Ptolemy Philometor king of Egypt, his father-in-law, book I Machabees chapter x, verses 1 and 67, and chapter xi, verse 17. Balas therefore reigned 6 years.
12. Demetrius, surnamed Nicanor, son of Demetrius son of Seleucus, began to reign in the year of the Greeks 167 to 172, in which he was defeated and captured by Arsaces king of Persia, I Machabees chapter xi, 6 years.
13. Antiochus, son of Alexander Balas, promoted to the kingdom by Tryphon his guardian, was killed by the same after four years. He reigned from the year of the Greeks 168 to 172. Wherefore his four years are not to be added in the chronology, because they are contained in the years of Demetrius Nicanor, with whom he reigned, I Machabees xi, 39 and 54. So also Josephus, book XIII, chapter 12.
14. Tryphon, the boy Antiochus being slain, as also Jonathan the brother of Judas Machabeus, seized the kingdom by guile; but after three years he was slain by Antiochus Sidetes. I Machabees chapter xiii, verses 12, 23 and 32, and chapter xii, at the end. He reigned therefore 3 years.
15. Antiochus Sidetes, surnamed Pius, brother of Demetrius Nicanor, his brother being captured by Arsaces king of the Persians, Tryphon the usurper being slain, took the kingdom, and made a league with Simon the brother of Jonathan, but broke it, I Machabees xv, verses 4 and 27. Slain, as profane histories tell, by his brother Demetrius returning from Persia, because he had claimed his wife Cleopatra together with the kingdom, but more truly by the priests of Nanea, II Machabees i, 16. He reigned 7 years.
16. Demetrius Nicanor, brother of Sidetes, released by Arsaces, his brother Sidetes being slain, recovered the kingdom, and again held it for 3 years.
17. Alexander Zebina, with the help of Ptolemy Physcon, Demetrius Nicanor being slain, seized the kingdom. He reigned 2 years.
18. Antiochus Grypus, so called from the size of his nose, says Justin book XXXVIII and XXXIX, son of Demetrius Nicanor and Cleopatra, Zebina being slain, took the kingdom with his mother’s help; but when the same mother was preparing poison for him, he compelled her to drink it herself under show of duty and kindness, and so killed her. He reigned
19. Antiochus Cyzicenus, son of Antiochus Sidetes and Cleopatra (for she had married two brothers, namely Demetrius Nicanor, and then, he being captured by the Persians, his brother Sidetes), after the death of his uterine brother Antiochus Grypus, whom he had first deprived of the kingdom, survived him one year only; yet in all he reigned with him living 18 years.