Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
25. SO HAVING RECEIVED THE KING’S MANDATE (that the Jews should receive him as pontiff in place of Jason) HE CAME, BRINGING NOTHING WORTHY OF THE PRIESTHOOD, (both because Menelaus was of the tribe of Benjamin, which was incapable of the priesthood, whereas Jason was of the tribe of Levi, and therefore capable of it; and because he was impious, and obtained the pontificate for himself by simony:) BUT HAVING THE FIERCENESS OF A CRUEL TYRANT,—whence, verse 34, he ordered Onias, the true and holy pontiff, to be cruelly slain by Andronicus.
26. AND SO JASON, WHO HAD UNDERMINED HIS OWN BROTHER (Onias the pontiff), BEING HIMSELF UNDERMINED—a divine judgment, and a just punishment of retaliation, that he who had supplanted his brother should be supplanted by a servant, and he who had bought the pontificate should be driven out by a greater buyer; and he who had driven Onias the Holy pontiff into exile should live miserably as an exile among the Ammonites. Here see how true is that of Ecclesiasticus 27:28: “He that casteth a stone on high, it shall fall on his own head: and the deceitful stroke will wound the deceitful. He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it: and he that setteth a stone for his neighbour shall stumble upon it: and he that layeth a snare for another shall perish in it.”
from the pontificate by Antiochus Epiphanes, because he did not pay the 360 talents promised to him. Wherefore Epiphanes made pontiff in place of Menelaus his brother Lysimachus, promising the same to him, as it seems. So the impious Menelaus drove out the impious Jason, and was likewise driven out by his impious brother Lysimachus. For when honour and ambition are in question, brother knows not brother, but hates and supplants him. For each desires dignity for himself rather than for his brother; nay, not rarely snatches the same from his brother. So great is the force of ambition and cupidity in man corrupted by sin.
30. IT HAPPENED THAT THEY OF THARSUS AND MALLOS RAISED A TUMULT, BECAUSE THEY WERE GIVEN FOR A PRESENT TO ANTIOCHIS, THE KING’S CONCUBINE—by Epiphanes, that from their revenues she might provide herself with precious garments, necklaces, maidservants, servants and carriages. Hear Cicero, Act V against Verres: “They say that the barbarian kings of the Persians and Syrians are accustomed to have many wives; and to assign cities to these wives in this manner: let this city furnish the woman’s headband, this her neck ornament, this her hair; so they have whole peoples not only accomplices of their lust, but even its servants.” The same is handed down by Plato in Alcibiades, Plutarch in Themistocles, and Athenaeus, Book I, Strabo, Book XIV. Moreover Tharsus and Mallos were noble cities of Cilicia, which therefore were indignant at being given to a harlot, who from her lover Antiochus called herself Antiochis, and so they rose in tumult. Wherefore Antiochus ran thither at once to quell the tumult, leaving Andronicus as viceroy at Antioch, as follows.
33. WHICH WHEN ONIAS (the holy pontiff) UNDERSTOOD, HE REPROVED HIM—Menelaus, for the sacrilege, that, having stolen golden vessels from the temple, he had given them to the viceroy Andronicus, that he might restore the pontificate to himself. For although Onias had been unjustly despoiled of the pontificate, and was in exile at Antioch, yet because he truly was the pontiff, out of pontifical zeal he rebuked the sacrilegious man, even though he probably knew that by this he was bringing death on himself; for he knew that by it he would gain the crown of martyrdom which he desired.
KEEPING HIMSELF IN A SAFE PLACE AT ANTIOCH BESIDE DAPHNE;—this place was five thousand paces distant from Antioch: whence by Dio, Book 51, it is called a suburb, so named from the abundance of laurels, as if to say a laurel grove; for daphne is laurel: wherefore in it was a famous shrine of Apollo, and therefore it was an asylum safe and inviolable to all. Here was buried St. Babylas the martyr, who imposed silence on Apollo, and therefore was exhumed by Julian the Apostate. See his acts. Near this place was also buried St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr of Antioch; but he was thence translated to Rome. Hither, therefore, as to an asylum, the pontiff Onias fled; but, drawn out of it by the guile of Andronicus, he was perfidiously and wickedly slain against the faith given and sworn to him. Wherefore Jews and Gentiles, taking the murder of the holy pontiff ill, accused Andronicus before Antiochus Epiphanes, who ordered him, stripped of his purple, to be led about the city, and slain in the same place in which he had slain Onias, as follows. Thus was slain Onias, the holy and zealous pontiff, after for 36 years he had sustained the Synagogue of the Jews as well as the commonwealth with great strength of mind against the impious. What kind of man and how great he was is clear, both from the fact that all Jews and Gentiles mourned his death, and even the impious king Epiphanes shed tears; and from the praise which Scripture gives him, chapter 15, verse 12, where Judas Maccabeus, about to fight against Epiphanes, saw in a dream Onias, who had been high priest, a good and gentle man, modest in look, gentle in manners, and graceful in speech, and who from a child had been exercised in virtues, stretching forth his hands and praying for all the people of the Jews. And his companion in prayer was Jeremias, who himself also had been slain by his own deserters in
40. ONE TYRANNUS BEING THEIR LEADER.—In Greek, a certain Auranus, as if to say: When the people were in tumult on account of the crimes and sacrileges of Lysimachus, Lysimachus set against the people three thousand armed men, with Tyrannus (Auranus) as leader; but the people, rushing together from all sides and raging, put them to flight with stones and clubs, and slew Lysimachus beside the treasury or gazophylacium of the temple. This is the sum of what is narrated at length in what follows.
43. OF THESE MATTERS THEREFORE AN ACCUSATION WAS BEGUN AGAINST MENELAUS,—as if to say: The Jews accused Menelaus before Antiochus Epiphanes, as the author of all the malice, who had counselled so many crimes and sacrileges to his brother Lysimachus, the false pontiff; and the king ordered the matter and suit to be judicially proceeded with against Menelaus.
45. BUT MENELAUS SEEING HIMSELF OVERCOME (convicted by the multitude of witnesses and the evidence of most grave crimes), PROMISED PTOLEMEE (the son of Dorymenes, as the Greek adds, who had weight in authority and favour with Antiochus Epiphanes) TO GIVE MUCH MONEY, TO PACIFY THE KING,—that he might acquit Menelaus as innocent; and condemn the Jews, his accusers, as calumniators, by the penalty of retaliation to death, though they were wholly innocent. And so it was done, as follows:
50. BUT MENELAUS, THROUGH THE COVETOUSNESS OF THEM THAT WERE IN POWER (who let themselves be corrupted by the money of Menelaus) CONTINUED IN AUTHORITY—pontifical, as if to say: Menelaus, his brother Lysimachus the false pontiff having been slain by the people, through courtiers corrupted by money thrust himself again into the pontificate, though he was not of the tribe of Levi, but of Benjamin, as was said at verse 23. Menelaus therefore held the pontificate not lawfully, but as an intruder, for four years, namely from the year 140 of the Greeks, in which he procured the slaying of Onias the holy pontiff, to the year 145 of the Greeks, in which Mathathias rose against him and king Epiphanes, and by the people was made leader and pontiff.
For although Onias the Holy had a son Onias, to whom by right of hereditary succession the pontificate in that age was due; yet he had already fled into Egypt, and had erected another temple at Heliopolis, and made himself its pontiff. But Jason, brother of Onias, was plainly unworthy of the pontificate, as a simoniac and apostate, who laboured to lead the Jews to Gentilism, as we heard at the beginning of the chapter. The lawful heirs failing, therefore, the pontificate devolved to Mathathias and his sons Judas, Jonathan and Simon the Maccabees.