Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
3. IN THE FIRST MONTH (Nisan, that is, March) OF THE YEAR 152 (of the Greeks), THEY BROUGHT THEIR ARMY (Bacchides and Alcimus: Gorionides, book III, chap. xxv, says there were thirty thousand armed men) TO JERUSALEM,—to besiege and take it; but hearing that Judas was gathering his men to raise the siege, they left it and went off to meet Judas.
4. AND THEY WENT TO BEREA, TWENTY THOUSAND MEN, AND TWO THOUSAND HORSEMEN,—to fight with Judas; for of the thirty thousand Bacchides distributed the remaining eight thousand among the garrisons, so that he led out against Judas only twenty-two thousand.
a wonder, two thousand two hundred; for of the three thousand there remained with Judas only 800, whom he led into the line against Bacchides. It is a wonder that men unmindful of the divine help so often experienced, and of so many victories of Judas, should so shamefully have deserted him! But this is the weakness, inconstancy and unfaithfulness of men, which sudden fear and dread beget. Especially when there is added the evil conscience of thefts, lusts and other soldierly crimes: for this makes soldiers timid, so that they dare not die in that state.
affected with sorrow, says St. Thomas, because he had great zeal and could not carry it out,” as Christ (of whom Judas was a type) in the garden began to fear and to be weary, Matt. xxvi. Secondly and more fully, as if to say: Struck and seized with great disturbance of mind, he almost collapsed; for he did not know what counsel to take in such straits, but, nature and natural help and counsel failing, he raised his mind by his wonted confidence in God and his magnanimity, resolving to engage with a few so numerous an enemy, and gloriously either to conquer or to die. So Julius Caesar did not flee many and strong enemies, but sought them, that he might show his warlike virtue in them, as St. Augustine testifies, book V On the City of God, chap. xii; but Julius fought as an equal with a nearly equal number, whereas Judas fought as far unequal with the most numerous, and laid them low.
10. GOD FORBID WE SHOULD DO THIS THING, AND FLEE AWAY FROM THEM; (for it is shameful in a noble leader to flee, and by fleeing to confess himself beaten, and to prefer to preserve life by flight than to die gloriously fighting: though therefore Judas might lawfully and prudently have fled, and said with Demosthenes: “The man who flees will fight again,” yet through greatness of soul, and because he had never before fled, but always fought and by fighting conquered, he judged it braver and more glorious not to flee but to fight, especially because he trusted in God, by whose help with a few he had so often routed such numerous enemies. And so he wished either to conquer or to die nobly; he says therefore:) AND IF OUR TIME BE COME (to fall and die), (appointed for us by God, and decreed from eternity,) LET US DIE MANFULLY, (in strength, namely fighting bravely, that we may not fall unavenged, but with great slaughter inflicted on the enemy) FOR OUR BRETHREN, fighting for altars and hearths, for country, for religion, for God. For what more glorious death can befall us?
AND LET US NOT STAIN OUR GLORY, (mark, blemish, disgrace)—we who have always gloriously stood in the line, and with a front of adamant resisted the enemy, now timidly to turn our backs in flight, to be slaughtered and butchered like fleeing sheep by the pursuing foe. Glory, therefore, Judas sought here, not the vain and empty glory of men, but the true and solid glory of God; for he decreed to fight for the religion of God and to conquer or die. So St. Ambrose, book I On Duties, chap. xli: “Judas, he says, having undertaken the war with nine hundred (our Vulgate and the Septuagint have eight hundred) men, when they wished to withdraw lest they be overwhelmed by the multitude, urged a glorious death rather than a shameful flight: Let us not leave a stain on our glory. And so, the battle joined, when they fought from the first rising of the day till evening, he attacked the right wing, where he perceived the strongest band of the enemy, and easily turned it. But while pursuing the fugitives he gave an opening for a wound from behind, and so found a death more glorious than triumphs.”
So St. Anthony, alone, did not flee the assault of many demons, but challenged them all to single combat, preferring to be slain by them than to flee. For when he had been beaten by them almost to death, and carried half dead to his home by his own, he ordered himself to be carried back to the place of the struggle, and there challenging the demons: “Behold, he said, I am here, Anthony; I do not flee your contests; even if you do greater things, nothing shall separate me from the charity of Christ”; and he sang, saying: If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear, for the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my helper, and I shall rejoice over my enemies. So St. Athanasius in his life.
So Judas here, like a lion that never flees, however many enemies assail him, would not flee, but with a few attacked very many and overcame them.
15. AND THE RIGHT WING WAS DISCOMFITED BY THEM, AND HE PURSUED THEM.—Judas therefore was victor in this battle, all the more gloriously for having laid low so many with a few.
In this fight an error was committed, in that the other soldiers of Judas did not oppose themselves to the left wing of Bacchides, and hold it back by fighting, or rather by feigning a fight, lest it follow Judas and the rest from behind and cut them down. For this was the cause of the slaughter of Judas and the flight of his companions. Hence Vegetius, book III, chap. xx, prescribes this method by which few may conquer many: “When the drawn-up lines come to the encounter, then you shall separate your left wing farther from the enemy’s right, lest missiles or arrows reach it. But join your right wing to his left wing, and there begin the battle first: so that with your best horsemen and your most approved foot you attack and encircle the left part of his line to which you have joined yourself, and by thrusting back and running over you reach the enemy’s rear. If once you begin to drive the adversaries from that quarter, as your men come up you will gain undoubted victory, and the part of your army which you have removed from the enemy will remain safe.”
18. AND JUDAS WAS KILLED,—not so much from wounds as from the toil and weariness of fighting and slaying, says Gorionides. Josephus asserts the same, whom hear: “Seeing this, those who held the left wing, attacking Judas from behind, surround him; who, seeing that no escape remained, the enemy pressing on every side, stood on the spot with his men, and having slain very many of the enemy, overcome by weariness rather than by wounds, fell not unavenged. When he was laid low, the soldiers, having no one further to follow, bereft of so great a commander, were at length scattered in flight. So the victory fell to Bacchides: not only bloody but even shameful, since eight hundred men not only resisted 22 thousand the whole day but crushed, routed and put to flight the very strength of the army, and their brothers bore away their slain leader unharmed from the battle.”
Allegorically, the hero Judas was a type of Christ, who falling and dying on the cross conquered death itself, sins, the devil and hell, and most bravely subdued all enemies.
The first leaders of the Gentiles imitated the fortitude of Judas. Leonidas the Spartan, opposing himself at Thermopylae with three hundred to Xerxes, who led into the line eleven hundred thousand soldiers, preferred to fall conquering than to save his life by flight; whence turning to his men he said: “Dine, comrades, as men about to sup in the lower world.” So Valerius Maximus, book IV, chap. vii.