Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
1. AND IT CAME TO PASS, AFTER THAT ALEXANDER (the Great) THE SON OF PHILIP THE MACEDONIAN, WHO FIRST (in Greek, proteron, that is, previously) REIGNED IN GREECE (that is, in the whole of it, says Serarius): COMING OUT OF THE LAND OF CETTHIM—that is, out of the regions beyond the sea from Judea (for these the Jews call Cetthim), such as are that Alexander was the first who founded a kingdom in the name of the Greeks; but the science of coins has found a fuller and clearer solution. For Erasmus Frohlich, in his celebrated Compendious Annals of the kings and Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, etc.; just as today the Italians call those who dwell beyond the Alps transmontane. Again, some understand by “Cetthim” properly Macedonia (which today is called Albania), both because Philip and Perseus are called kings of the Cetheans, that is, of the Macedonians, 1 Mach. 8, 5; and Cetthim. because Suidas, under the word Latini and kition, asserts that Macedonia and Cynia (?) is said by prosthesis from Cetthim, namely by the prefixed letter and in Attic usage; so also St. Jerome, book 5 on Isaias, chap. 23, and on chap. 27 of Ezechiel, and on chap. 11 of Daniel, understands by Cetthim the islands of Macedonia; and St. Epiphanius, Heresy 30, says that Alexander is said to have come out of Cetthim, that is, out of Macedonia, because in it was a race of Cyprians and Rhodians, to whom this name properly belongs: for Cetthim, as Josephus testifies, book 1 of the Antiquities, chap. 6, is properly Cyprus, and thence any other islands. Now the Hebrews call islands all the regions beyond the sea, such as Italy, Greece, Macedonia. It favours this that Livy, book 5, Decade 2, names in Macedonia Citium, where the whole army of Perseus had assembled. The affinity of the word Macedon with Cetthim also favours it. Wherefore Dionysius in his Description of the World and Hesychius in his Lexicon call Macedonia Maceta, and the Macedonians Macetae. Hence Ausonius, in his Famous Cities, Epigr. 2, “and to raise the name of the Macetae.” Moreover Thucydides, book 2, chap. 2, says that the Cyprians migrated into Macedonia, so that they could give it their own name Cetthim. So also Theodorus Annius, Pintus, Ferrerius on Isaias 2, understand Macedonia by Cetthim.
DARIUS KING OF THE PERSIANS—the last, surnamed Codomannus. Alexander the Great struck and slew him in the sixth year of his own reign, and then transferred the monarchy, and being made monarch he reigned six years more: for he died in the twelfth year of his reign. Moreover Darius was first called Codamus, and kept a tavern at Susa, says Dionysius Chrysostom, orat. 5; thence he was made prefect of Armenia, and at last king: wherefore he was not of the royal stock, but pretended it by assuming the royal name of Darius, and therefore Alexander invaded him, and deprived him of a kingdom not owed to him.
3. AND HE WENT THROUGH EVEN TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH—subduing everything to himself by arms as far as the Ganges and the Indian Ocean, say Josephus, Livy and Justin.
AND THE EARTH WAS QUIET BEFORE HIM—for terror of his strength and his continual victories, so that no one dared to resist him, or to open his mouth against him, as mice are silent in the sight of a cat, and dogs before a lion.
truly Syriac (second edition, Vienna, 1734), where he collates the whole biblical history with the coins that survive; he proved clearly that all the facts, all the epochs of Holy Scripture agree with the coins, and especially that Alexander was the first who was inscribed on coins as king, basileus. See the work of Cardinal Wiseman, Relations between science and revealed religion, lecture 9.
the army, to be feared not so much by its multitude as by the valour of its soldiers. For Alexander’s soldiers were veterans, accustomed to labours and battles, bold with continual victories, so that they overran and subdued everything. It is a hendiadys. Hence the Greek is: he gathered a power, that is, a STRONG army.
AND HIS HEART WAS LIFTED UP,—so that he aspired to divinity, and contended that he was begotten by Jove himself. This vain opinion he had drunk in from his immense victories, the flatteries of those who adulated him, and from successes beyond belief, so that, as Agellius testifies, book 13, chap. 4, he made Olympias the concubine of Juno. Foolishly he wrote to the Greeks and ordered them to make him a god, as Aelian says, book 5 of the Various History, chap. 12; but being mocked by the Lacedaemonians, he is accused of madness and stupor, as the same Aelian is witness, book 2, chap. 19. The priest of Hammon flattered him, calling him paidion, that is, boy, son, with pai Dios, that is, son of Jove.
6. AFTER THIS, (in the 12th year of his reign, the sixth of his monarchy, the 33rd of his age), HE FELL DOWN UPON HIS BED,—either from excessive drinking, as Plutarch relates in his life, and Seneca, epist. 83, or from poison, as Curtius judges.
7. AND HE CALLED HIS SERVANTS, that is, the leaders, the princes most intimate to him, such as were Ptolemy the son of Lagus, Seleucus, Antigonus, Arideus, Perdiccas, Cassander and others:
AND HE DIVIDED HIS KINGDOM AMONG THEM.—Josephus Gorionides, book 3, asserts the same, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 4 on Holy Scripture, and others. What Curtius writes, book 10, chap. 10, favours it: “Some,” he says, “believed that the provinces were distributed by Alexander’s will;” and he asserts that this was handed down by various authors, although he himself thinks the contrary. Moreover our Author, to whom as to a sacred writer the Greek and Latin Fathers, indeed the whole Church, gives sacred credence, is rather to be believed than Diodorus, Justin, Curtius and Orosius, who assert that Perdiccas distributed the provinces among the Princes after the death of Alexander: which, however, could also have happened, namely that Alexander, having given his ring to Perdiccas, as the confidant of his secret, charged him to divide his empire among twelve Princes. For Perdiccas did this, and certainly would not have done it, but would have kept very many things for himself, had not Alexander charged him with it. Again, St. Thomas, the Gloss, Dionysius, Josephus, Stephen explain it thus: “He divided his kingdom among them,” that is, he left it to be divided, he set it forth and offered it, as if to say that Alexander, dying, designated no certain heir, but wished the princes to divide it among themselves equally. Hear now Justin, book 12: “When his friends saw that he was failing, they ask whom he makes the heir of the empire. He answered, the most worthy. Such was the greatness of his mind that, although he was leaving his son Hercules, his brother Arideus, and Roxane his wife with child, forgetting kinship, he named the most worthy as his heir. On the sixth day, his voice being stopped, he took the ring from his finger and gave it to Perdiccas. This matter quieted the growing dissension of his friends. For although he was not named heir by voice, yet by the sign he seemed to have been chosen.”
Moreover among these twelve heirs and successors of Alexander four were the chief, namely Ptolemy, who took Egypt; Antigonus, who took Asia; Arideus, who took Macedonia; Seleucus, who took Syria and Persia, and, Antigonus being conquered, Asia.
8. AND HE DIED—at Babylon, of poison given him through the treachery of Antipater, say Bede and Q. Curtius; or, as others say, of surfeit, or of both: I have said more of the deeds of Alexander on Daniel chap. 8. See here the vanity of kings and of the kingdoms of the world. Behold Alexander, who had subdued the world and was seeking new worlds to subdue, enjoyed his empire only six years, and in the sixth year died, and lies buried in a small tomb. Truly Juvenal, Satire 10:
One world is not enough for the Pellaean youth (Alexander), he chafes, unhappy, at the narrow limit of the world, etc. In a sarcophagus he will be content: death alone confesses how small are the bodies of men.
Hence Apelles painted Alexander as if holding a thunderbolt in his hand, because like a thunderbolt he overran all things, but also at once vanished, like a thunderbolt. Peter Alphonsus relates that several philosophers (perhaps the Gymnosophists, who once solved the questions proposed by Alexander), having heard of Alexander’s death, ran to the funeral. And one, he says, said: “Yesterday the vastness of the whole earth was not enough for Alexander; now a space of three or four ells is enough for him.” Another said: “Yesterday Alexander could free many from death; today he cannot free himself.” Another, seeing his golden coffin: “Yesterday Alexander made a treasure of gold, today gold has made a treasure of him.” Another: “Yesterday Alexander oppressed the earth, today he is oppressed by the earth.”