Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
Tropologically, we who are constantly wrestling with demons ought to leave earthly spoils, lest, if we lie upon them, we be seized and overcome by them: “Let us wrestle naked with the naked,” says St. Gregory.
20. AND THEY HAD SET FIRE TO THE CAMP.—Judas set fire to the camp, that is, the tents of the enemy, that Gorgias, looking on from afar from the mountain, might know that his men were slain, and that the camp had been set on fire by Judas, and so, fearing for himself and his men, might take to flight. Which also came to pass.
23. BLUE SILK (that is, garments of hyacinth or violet colour) AND PURPLE OF THE SEA,—which is made from the juice of sea shell-fish, and especially of a little fish which is called purple, and chiefly at Tyre; whence it is called Tyrian purple, and Sarranum (for Tyre in Hebrew is called Sor) ostrum, as Pliny testifies, book 4, chap. 37 and 39; for the purple which is made from violets and other herbs is pale, and cannot be compared with the Tyrian; for this is fiery and as it were flaming. Whence Virgil, Aeneid 4: “And the wool glowed with Tyrian purple.”
Moreover the Chaldean soldiers as well as the Persians used purple and scarlet garments, both for adornment and to cover the wounded. Whence Xenophon, book 4 of the Cyropaedia: “They were,” he says, “all the soldiers armed with the same arms as Cyrus, in crimson tunics;” and that in battle the wounded might hide the flowing blood and wounds by a tunic of the same colour, purple, lest they dismay their comrades and give boldness to the enemy, as Valerius Maximus testifies, book 2, chap. 6; and Aelian, book 6, chap. 6.
24. AND RETURNING HOME THEY SUNG A HYMN,—namely a song of victory to God, ascribing the victory to his help and power, not their own; by which gratitude they bound God to themselves, that he might give them new victories; for victory is a gift of God, who gives it freely, denies it to the ungrateful, or takes away what has been given. Hence Christians, when victory is won, sing: “We praise thee, O God.”
25. AND THERE WAS A GREAT DELIVERANCE, that is, victory, IN ISRAEL;—for this victory gave deliverance to Israel. By metonymy therefore the cause is put for the effect. See what is said chap. 3, 6. Add: deliverance, like peace, signifies to the Hebrews every benefit, all felicity, every good. Whence that of Psalm 17: “Giving great deliverances, that is, benefits and gifts, to his king;” hence it soon calls them “mercy,” or grace.
28. SO THE FOLLOWING YEAR LYSIAS GATHERED TOGETHER THREESCORE THOUSAND CHOSEN MEN (footmen) AND FIVE THOUSAND HORSEMEN,—whom Judas with a few, relying on God, overthrew with equal fortitude and good fortune,
32. GIVE THEM FEAR, (send upon them a panic terror, that they may think that formidable lines of soldiers or of Angels are coming against them, and so, struck, may flee, nay attack one another, thinking their comrades to be enemies, and so) LET THEM QUAKE AT THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION,—so that by shaking one another they crush each other, trample and slaughter each other, as happened to the Madianites under Gedeon, who destroyed themselves by mutual slaughter. Judges 7, 22.
AND CAUSE (Greek tēxon, that is, melt, as wax is dissolved and melts before fire) THE BOLDNESS OF THEIR STRENGTH TO MELT AWAY.
35. THAT THEY WERE READY (resolved) EITHER TO LIVE (by conquering) OR TO DIE MANFULLY,—so that if they are conquered, they would rather fall generously than flee shamefully. For the “manfully” in Greek is gennaiōs, that is, generously, to be referred both to “live” and to “die”; but he lives manfully in battle who conquers; he dies manfully who is conquered by the number of the enemy, but is slain fighting bravely.
WENT TO ANTIOCH.—Lysias went prudently, because with the resolute and desperate a fight is most dangerous, as I showed in the book of Judges and of Kings. Wherefore Judas, having soldiers who had resolved either to conquer or to die, crushed all the lines of the enemy, and gained wonderful victories. For this resolution of the soldiers makes them fearless and bold, like lions, so that through darts, through rocks, through fires they fly at the enemy like thunderbolts, and strike, lay low and scatter them.
36. THEN SAID JUDAS AND HIS BRETHREN: BEHOLD OUR ENEMIES ARE DISCOMFITED: LET US GO UP NOW TO CLEANSE THE HOLY PLACES,—namely the holy temple, the holy altars and vessels, that we may expiate and renew them, profaned and polluted by the Gentiles through idols and superstitions, that is, restore them to their former brightness, honour and beauty, and to the worship of God. See here the piety as well as the skill of Judas, who uses the leisure from wars granted him by Lysias for a holy work, to expiate the temple, and restore in it the sacrifices and worship of God. Let our leaders and soldiers imitate Judas, to join with warlike fortitude the fear, worship and piety of God: so they shall be heaped by God with victories, and with all goods present and eternal.
38. AND THEY SAW THE SANCTUARY (that is, the sanctuary, or temple; namely the Holy and the Holy of Holies) DESOLATE, AND THE CHAMBERS OF THE PRIESTS THROWN DOWN.—The pastophoria were the priests’ chambers attached to the temple, in which the garments and treasures of the temple were kept; whence they were also called gazophylacia and bridal chambers, Ezech. 40. For lishkah is a chamber, and an exedra, because in them were seats for sitting and resting.
are called trumpets “of alarm,” because by their sound feast days and the calling together of the people, or assembly, were signified, Num. 10, 4 and 10. More truly, however, it seems that these trumpets were not the sacred ones of the temple; for these the soldiers of Antiochus, profaning the temple, had already taken away, but the profane trumpets of the camp and of war. They are called “of alarm,” because they signified to the soldier what was to be done, and especially that the enemy was at hand, that he should prepare himself for battle against him. For these were the trumpets of Judas the leader and of his soldiers, that, stationed among the enemy, they might be called together by the blast of trumpets, and be aroused to watch and fight at the time when the priests and their assistants were cleansing the temple, lest the attendants of Antiochus, occupying the citadel of Sion, should run down from it into the temple and slay the cleansers, So Sanchez; whence explaining he adds:
41. THEN JUDAS APPOINTED MEN TO FIGHT AGAINST THEM THAT WERE IN THE CASTLE, TILL THEY HAD CLEANSED THE HOLY PLACES—the places, courts and vessels of the temple. For the enemy, namely the soldiers of Antiochus, held the citadel of Sion, and Judas could not expel them thence in this year 148 of the Greeks, but after two years, in the year 150 of the Greeks, he began to besiege the citadel, and for 23 years the Maccabees besieged it, at the end of which they at last took it by storm, in the year 171 of the Greeks, as is said chap. 13, 50.
will,” that is, a pious affection, desire, zeal to promote the law and worship of God.
on which the Gentile idolaters had built their idols, altars, statues, etc., by which they had contaminated and profaned both the stones and the temple, chap. 1, INTO AN UNCLEAN PLACE,—namely into Topheth, or gehenna, where they burnt infants to the idol Moloch. For this place was most unclean and execrable, 4 Kings 23, 10. So of old the altars and temples of idols were utterly pulled down and overthrown by Christians until St. Gregory, who in book 9, Epist. 71 to Mellitus decrees that they should not be pulled down, but expiated, and transferred from the worship of idols to the worship of God.
44. AND HE CONSIDERED ABOUT THE ALTAR OF HOLOCAUSTS (which Esdras and the priests had formerly erected in the rebuilt temple) THAT HAD BEEN PROFANED (by the idol of Olympian Jove, which the followers of Antiochus had set upon it)
use, or remove it, as unworthy of use.
45. AND A GOOD COUNSEL CAME INTO THEIR MINDS, TO PULL IT DOWN, LEST IT SHOULD BE A REPROACH TO THEM,—lest the idolaters should reproach them that they sacrificed on an altar polluted by the idol of Olympian Jove, and that they sacrificed not to God but to Jove; for the idol of Jove had been set upon it.