Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
20. Seleucus son of Grypus with his brother Antiochus, his uncle Cyzicenus being slain, obtained the kingdom; but, defeated by Antiochus Eusebes son of Cyzicenus, was burned with the royal house. He reigned with his brother 7 years.
21. Antiochus Eusebes, that is Pius, son of Cyzicenus, Grypus being slain, seized the kingdom; but was soon despoiled of it by Philip and Demetrius sons of Grypus. Philip and Demetrius therefore at first reigned together, then Demetrius being defeated Philip alone ruled. All these together reigned 6 years.
22. Tigranes, king of Armenia, the brothers aforesaid contending among themselves for the kingdom, pretending that he would help them against Eusebes, seized the kingdom, until he was driven out of it by the Romans through Lucullus. He held it 14 years.
23. Antiochus Asiaticus (so called because educated in Asia Minor), son of Eusebes, while Lucullus fights with Tigranes and Mithridates, recovers his father’s kingdom of Syria, and, Lucullus allowing it, holds it 4 years. But soon Pompey took it from him, and subjected it with Judea to the Romans, Cicero and Antonius being consuls, in the year of the city 694.
The kingdom of the Greeks in Syria, therefore, from the victory of king Seleucus, by which, Antigonus king of Asia Minor being overcome, Seleucus obtained the kingdom of all Asia, lasted in all 248 years.
Before Antigonus was overcome Seleucus had reigned, though not 13 whole years. But Alexander the Great, who first, Darius being overcome, transferred the monarchy from the Persians to the Greeks, from which time many reckon the years of the kingdom of the Greeks, lived after that victory 6 years.
The kingdom of the Greeks in Syria, therefore, from the beginning of the monarchy of Alexander the Great until it was taken from them by Pompey and the Romans, lasted 267 years. For these, as I said, the descendants of the two brothers Seleucus and Antiochus Epiphanes continually contended, and in succession all were executioners to one another. All that has been said is clear from Appian, Justin, Josephus, Eusebius, Orosius and others.
Chronology of the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, who after Alexander the Great reigned in Egypt at the same time as the Seleucids in Syria.
1. Ptolemy son of Lagus after Alexander immediately seized Egypt, and from him all his descendants were named Ptolemies, as before Pharaohs. He reigned 40 years.
2. Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy of Lagus, after his death reigned 38 years. He released 120,000 Jews whom his father had carried captive into Egypt, and asked and obtained from the Pontiff Eleazar 72 Interpreters to translate the Bible from Hebrew into the Greek tongue,
3. Ptolemy Euergetes, brother of Philadelphus, conquered in battle Seleucus Callinicus and his son Ceraunus. He reigned 26 years.
4. Ptolemy surnamed Philopator, that is, father-loving by antiphrasis, because he had killed father, mother, brother, sister and wife, lured by the enticements of the harlot Agathoclea, reigned 17 years.
5. Ptolemy Epiphanes son of Ptolemy Philopator, who married Cleopatra daughter of Antiochus the Great and sister of Antiochus Epiphanes, from whom all the queens of Egypt thereafter were called Cleopatras, reigned 23 years.
6. Ptolemy Philometor, elder son of Ptolemy Epiphanes, reigned 35 years. In his reign his uncle Antiochus Epiphanes entered Egypt, to settle his quarrel with his younger brother Ptolemy Physcon, but in truth with the intent to seize the kingdom. Whence Philometor imploring the aid of the Romans, Antiochus was ordered by them to leave Egypt; wherefore gnashing, he poured out his anger on the Jews, as we shall hear in book II, chapter iv, and book I, chapter xii. Again Philometor in the 18th year of his reign permitted Onias, who was the son of Onias the holy Pontiff, to build a temple at Heliopolis in Egypt, like the Jerusalem one, which from him was called Onion, and stood 233 years, and was finally overthrown together with the temple of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian. So Josephus, Eusebius and others. At length Philometor, craftily wishing to deprive his son-in-law Alexander of the kingdom of Asia, died at once in the year of the Greeks 167, I Machabees
7. Ptolemy Physcon, or Euergetes, brother of Philometor, after his brother reigned 29 years. He was by a new portent brother, husband and at the same time son-in-law of Cleopatra; for he married her daughter. Furthermore when Cleopatra, Physcon her husband being conquered, reigned alone, Physcon had both his own and her son cut into pieces and shut in a citadel, and served to her at a banquet on her birthday, according to Justin book XXXVIII and XXXIX.
8. Ptolemy Lathyrus, son of Ptolemy Euergetes, called Soter by others, reigned
9. Ptolemy Alexander, brother of Lathyrus, with his mother, who had expelled Lathyrus, reigned
10. Ptolemy Lathyrus, restored to the kingdom on account of his mother’s cruelty, again reigned 8 more years.
11. Ptolemy called Auletes, because he had practised the flute, son of Lathyrus, says Salianus. He begot Cleopatra, who was the last queen of Egypt. He with his daughter Berenice in all reigned 30 years.
12. Ptolemy Dionysius, son of Auletes, who as a boy ruled Egypt through Cleopatra his sister 5 years.
13. Cleopatra, her brother Ptolemy Dionysius being overthrown, reigned alone 17 years. This is that famous concubine of M. Antony the triumvir, who, defeated in battle by Augustus Caesar, perished: Cleopatra, lest she should come into the hands of Augustus, killed herself by the bite of asps. Augustus soon subjected all Egypt to himself and the Romans, and then began to be monarch in the year of the city founded 724, which was the third year of Olympiad 187.
All this is reported by Eusebius, Justin, St. Epiphanius, Bede, Salianus, Tornielli and others. These things will bring great light to both books of Machabees. For the Antiochi and Demetrii, kings of Asia, contended long with the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, over Judea, nay over empire: for between the two Judea lay in the middle, which was therefore to both an apple of discord, so that both strove to claim it for themselves.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE MACCABEES, OR ASMONEANS, WHO RULED THE PEOPLE NOT ONLY AS PONTIFFS BUT ALSO AS PRINCES.
1. MATTATHIAS, rising up against Antiochus Epiphanes in the ninth year of Epiphanes, which was the year 145 of the Greeks, held the Pontificate and the Principate of Israel for a few months, 1 Machab. 1, 4.
2. Judas Maccabeus, Mattathias being dead, succeeded his father in the Pontificate and Principate as his firstborn son; he defended his country and the true worship of God most bravely and most successfully; he purified the temple, casting out the idol of Antiochus, in the year of the Greeks 146; at length he was slain, fighting most fiercely against Bacchides. Thus he ruled and defended Israel for 6 years.
3. Jonathan was put in his brother Judas’s place by the people, and was afterwards approved by Alexander Balas, the son of Antiochus Epiphanes, 1 Machab. 10, 5 and 20. At length he was put to death by treachery by Tryphon in the year of the Greeks 170, 1 Machab. 12, 23 and 41, having presided for 19 years.
4. Simon, the brother of Jonathan, was set up in the Dukedom and Pontificate, 1 Machab. 11, 8 and 25. He was killed by treachery by Ptolemee his son-in-law in the year of the Greeks 177, 1 Machab., last chapter, last verse, having governed for 7 years.
5. John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon, presided as Duke and Pontiff for 31 years. Mention is made of him in 1 Machab., last chapter, last verse, and with him the sacred history of the Maccabees ends, and the whole history of the Old Testament, and Holy Scripture.
6. Aristobulus, the son of John Hyrcanus. He was the first to assume the name and crown of a king, which the rest of his descendants assumed after his example. He killed his brother Antigonus, and in the same year, by the vengeance of God, perished vomiting blood. He reigned 1 year.
7. Jannaeus, the younger brother of Aristobulus, who, to please the Greeks, took a Greek name, and was called Alexander. He left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, who contended with each other for the kingdom until Herod, and became his prey. He reigned 27 years.
8. Alexandra, the wife of Jannaeus, usurped the kingdom after his death, and reigned 9 years.
9. Aristobulus the younger, the son of Jannaeus, having shut out his elder brother Hyrcanus, seized the Pontificate and the kingdom; but, taken by Pompey, he was sent to Rome with his two sons Antigonus and Alexander, after he had reigned 3 years. Then Pompey took Jerusalem, and subjected all Judea to the Romans and made it tributary, in the consulship of Cicero and Antony,
10. Hyrcanus the elder, the son of Jannaeus, was restored to the Pontificate by Pompey, and held it, tossed about by various fortunes, for 22 years.
11. Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, having escaped from Rome, tried to seize Judea; but after three years he was taken by Gabinius and beheaded by Pompey; his father Aristobulus himself also, with his other son Antigonus, fleeing from Rome, seized Judea and the Pontificate with the help of the Parthians for three years and a half. But Julius Caesar adjudged the Pontificate to Hyrcanus, as Pompey had done before, and committed the guardianship of Judea and of Hyrcanus to Antipater the Idumean, as a procurator; then Mark Antony appointed Herod and Phasael, the sons of Antipater, tetrarchs. Finally Antigonus, the last of the Maccabees, was beheaded at Herod’s request after 4 years.
In Antigonus the whole stock of the Asmoneans failed, as did their kingdom and Pontificate, when they had held both for 126 years, as Josephus will have it, or rather for 130 years, as Salianus and others will have it. For so many years passed from the ninth year of Antiochus Epiphanes to the first year of Herod, in which, Antigonus having been slain, he took the kingdom by full right, and in him the sceptre of Juda failed, and therefore Christ came according to the oracle of Jacob, Genes. 49, 10. All this is evident from Josephus, Eusebius, Salianus, Tornielli, Pereira and others.