Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
Chapter 5. Synopsis of the Chapter
The Jews, seeing in the sky armies of soldiers fighting, take from them an omen of the wars and slaughters of Antiochus Epiphanes that were at hand. Jason, returning from the land of Ammon, seizes Jerusalem, and rages with slaughter against the citizens. Next, verse 11, Antiochus Epiphanes, shut out from Egypt, vomits his wrath on the neighbouring Jews; wherefore he takes Jerusalem, slaughters 80 thousand in it, imprisons 40 thousand, and sells as many; violates and despoils the temple, taking away from it 1800 talents; returning thence to Antioch he left prefects in Judea, who afflicted the Jews more heavily than he himself. Wherefore Judas Maccabeus with his men fled into the desert.
1. At the same time Antiochus prepared a second expedition into Egypt. 2. And it came to pass that through all Jerusalem, for the space of almost forty days, there were seen horsemen running in the air, in cloth of gold, and armed with spears, like bands of soldiers. 3. And troops of horsemen in array, encountering and running one against another, with shaking of shields, and multitude of pikes, and drawing of swords, and casting of darts, and glittering of golden ornaments, and of armour of all sorts. 4. Wherefore all men prayed that those prodigies might turn to good. 5. Now when there was gone forth a false rumour, as though Antiochus had been dead, Jason taking with him no fewer than a thousand men, suddenly assaulted the city: and the citizens running together to the wall, the city being at length taken, Menelaus fled into the castle. 6. But Jason slew his citizens without mercy, not considering that to get the better of his own kindred would be a most unhappy thing, but thinking they had been his enemies, and not his countrymen, whom he conquered. 7. Yet he did not obtain the principality, but received confusion as the end of his treachery, and went again a fugitive into the country of the Ammonites. 8. At the last he had an unhappy end. For being accused before Aretas king of the Arabians, flying from city to city, pursued by all men, hated as a forsaker of the laws, and being had in abomination as an open enemy of his country and countrymen, he was cast out into Egypt: 9. And he that had driven out many from their own country, perished in a strange land, going to the Lacedemonians, as if for kindred sake he might there find refuge: 10. And he that had cast out many unburied, had none to mourn for him, nor any solemn funeral at all, nor sepulchre with his fathers. 11. Now when these things were done, the king conceived that Judea would revolt: and so departing out of Egypt in a fierce mind, he took the city by force of arms. 12. And commanded the soldiers to kill, and not to spare any that came in their way, and to go up into the houses to slay. 13. Thus there was a killing of young and old, a making away of women and children, a slaying of virgins and infants. 14. And there were destroyed in the space of three whole days, fourscore thousand, forty thousand were made prisoners, and as many sold. 15. Neither was this enough, but he presumed also to enter into the temple, the most holy place in all the earth, Menelaus, that traitor to the laws, and to his country, being his guide. 16. And taking with his wicked hands the holy vessels, which were given by other kings and cities for the ornament and the glory of the place, he handled them unworthily and profanely. 17. So alienated in mind was Antiochus, that he considered not that God was angry for a short time for the sins of the inhabitants of the city, and therefore had his eye turned from the place. 18. Otherwise, unless they had been involved in many sins, this man, as soon as he had come, had forthwith been scourged, and repelled from his presumption, as Heliodorus was, whom Seleucus the king sent to rob the treasury. 19. But God did not choose the people for the place’s sake, but the place for the people’s sake. 20. And therefore the place itself was made partaker of the evils of the people: but afterwards shall be a sharer in their prosperity: and as it was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty, so shall it be exalted again with great glory, when the great Lord shall be reconciled. 21. So Antiochus, having carried away eighteen hundred talents out of the temple, went back in all haste to Antioch, thinking in his pride that he might make the land navigable, and the sea passable by foot: such was the haughtiness of his mind. 22. He left also governors to afflict the people: at Jerusalem, Philip, for his country a Phrygian, and in manners more barbarous than he that set him there: 23. And in Garizim, Andronicus, and Menelaus, who bore a more heavy hand over the citizens than the rest. 24. And because he was set against the Jews, he sent that detestable chief Apollonius with an army of two and twenty thousand, commanding him to kill all that were of perfect age, and to sell the women and the youths. 25. Who when he was come to Jerusalem, feigning to be peaceable, waited till the holy day of the sabbath: and then the Jews keeping holiday, he commanded his men to take arms. 26. And he slew all that were come out to see the sight: and running through the city with armed men, he destroyed a very great multitude. 27. But Judas Machabeus, who was the tenth, had withdrawn into a desert place, and there lived among wild beasts in the mountains with his company: and they continued feeding on herbs, that they might not be partakers of the pollution.
This chapter, from verse 14 to the end, as also chapters 6 and 7, in the order of time in which they happened, is to be placed at the end of chapter 1, Book I, before the beginning of chapter 2.
horses were heard, with no one looking on.” At the same time Ovid, Metamorphoses Book XV, says:
Yet they give signs of coming mourning that are not uncertain: arms clashing amid the black clouds, and terrible trumpets and horns heard in the sky, foretold the crime.
Similar portents are recounted by Seneca in the Natural Questions, Augustus Niphus in the Meteorology, Cornelius Gemma Frisius in the Cosmocritica, and Conrad Lycosthenes, though heterodox in faith, in the book On Prodigies. When I was a boy, like portents were shown in the sky at the beginning of the Belgian wars, and wise men even then foretold from these signs the evils threatening Belgium, and the event taught, and still teaches, that the prediction was most true. Finally the astrologers, and by name Ptolemy in the Centiloquium, chapter 9, think that these things happen naturally by the force of the stars, and especially by the force of the star Perseus; so also Augustus Niphus, Book I Meteorology, folio 31, chapter 4; but it is truer that they are produced by the special providence of God through angels, who nevertheless use stars, winds and vapours to produce these spectres, that they may foretell figures of disaster. See Christopher a Castro, Book I Prolegomena on the Minor Prophets, chapter 17.
4. WHEREFORE ALL MEN PRAYED THAT THOSE PRODIGIES (in Greek epiphaneian, that is appearance, sights, portents of armies contending in the air, which foretold that sharp conflicts were to be in Judea) MIGHT BE TURNED TO GOOD,—namely that the Jews in these conflicts should be the superiors, and not be conquered, but conquer, as in fact Judas and his brethren the Maccabees conquered Antiochus Epiphanes.
5. NOW WHEN THERE WAS GONE FORTH A FALSE RUMOUR, AS THOUGH ANTIOCHUS (Epiphanes) HAD BEEN DEAD, JASON TAKING WITH HIM NO FEWER THAN A THOUSAND MEN, SUDDENLY ASSAULTED THE CITY, (namely Jerusalem. This Jason, brother of Onias the holy pontiff, by money given had bought the pontificate from Epiphanes; and so had thrust his brother Onias out of the pontificate; but Epiphanes handed the pontificate to Menelaus, who offered more money, Jason being excluded. Jason, therefore, hearing the rumour of the death of Epiphanes, since he no longer feared his anger and power, returning from the land of Ammon, where he lived in exile, with a thousand armed men, invaded and seized Jerusalem, to recover the pontificate. Wherefore) MENELAUS, (who had thrust out Jason, from the city) FLED INTO THE CASTLE—of Mount Sion.
7. YET HE DID NOT OBTAIN THE PRINCIPALITY (sacred; namely the pontificate, and the political principality annexed to it which Jason chiefly coveted; for then the pontiff was at the same time leader and prince of the people), (because by the flocking multitude of citizens he, as an enemy and tyrant, with his men, was expelled from the city.
For what could his thousand men and their ambush do against hundreds of thousands and more of citizens? Whence) HE WENT AGAIN A FUGITIVE INTO THE COUNTRY OF THE AMMONITES,—and thence wandering and vagabond like Cain he fled into Arabia; but when there he was suspected by king Aretas of treachery, or of ambition for the kingdom, and taken, fleeing he went into Egypt; because Ptolemy king of Egypt was an enemy of Epiphanes; but peace being made between the two, Jason, lest Epiphanes should demand him from Ptolemy for execution, fled from Egypt to the Spartans, as old friends and kinsmen of the Jews: and there he miserably ended his life in exile, and dead lacked human burial, and was buried with the burial of an ass in a dunghill.
8. AS A FORSAKER OF THE LAWS,—In Greek as a law-breaker (paranomos), that is, a transgressor and apostate, as one who had apostatized from Judaism to Gentilism, and compelled others also to apostatize.
11. NOW WHEN THESE THINGS WERE DONE, THE KING (Epiphanes) CONCEIVED THAT JUDEA WOULD REVOLT (from the alliance entered into with him).—The causes of suspecting were: first, that he knew they were hostile to him, because he had removed Onias the holy pontiff, and substituted for him the impious and sacrilegious false pontiffs, Jason, Menelaus and Lysimachus, who laboured to lead them from Judaism to Gentilism. Second, that Antiochus, expelled from Egypt by the Romans with disgrace, thought he would now be contemptible to the Jews, and that they, relying on the help of the neighbouring Egyptians and their allies the Romans, would shake off his yoke, as the Egyptians had shaken it off. Third, that he knew himself to be hateful to the Jews for his avarice and cruelty. Fourth, that the Jews had stoned Lysimachus, whom he had appointed pontiff. Fifth, that they themselves had spread the false rumour of his death, verse 5. Gorionides adds that they exulted over it: “There came,” he says, “from our nation impious men to the king, and said: Behold, certain portents have been seen at Jerusalem, and the citizens said: Antiochus is dead, and the same rejoiced at the destruction of our lord the king.” Sixth, that when Antiochus was returning from Egypt, the people of Jerusalem prepared themselves to resist him; whence, as he approached, they shut the gates. All this Epiphanes learned through his scouts and friends, and especially through Menelaus, to whom, after Lysimachus his brother was stoned, he had restored the pontificate. He betrayed to him all the counsels, acts and sayings of the Jews against Epiphanes, verse 15. And for these causes Epiphanes, breaking by force the gates of the city shut against him, raged against the Jews with such cruelty and barbarity that in the space of three days he slew 80 thousand, sold 40, and imprisoned as many captured, as follows.
17. SO ALIENATED IN MIND (in Greek lifted up in mind) WAS ANTIOCHUS—he thought he had supplanted the Jews, to use them as slaves, and to violate and despoil their temple sacrilegiously, taking from it 1800 talents, verse 21.
19. BUT GOD DID NOT CHOOSE THE PEOPLE FOR THE PLACE’S SAKE, BUT THE PLACE FOR THE PEOPLE’S SAKE,—as if to say: God did not choose the Jewish people for the sake of the place, but for the sake of their people, once faithful and holy under David and Solomon, he chose the place Judea, to build in it for himself a house, namely the temple, in which, as the Holy One among holy citizens, servants and sons, he might dwell. But now on account of the great sins of the Jews God has deserted the temple, and given it as prey to Antiochus, but, as we hope, he will return to it again, when the Jews, repenting, shall be converted to their God, and shall serve him piously and holily, as they did before.
22. HE LEFT ALSO GOVERNORS TO AFFLICT THE PEOPLE,—as if to say: Antiochus, returning to Antioch, as to the royal seat of his kingdom, left in Judea cruel and fierce men, who afflicted the Jews more than he himself, namely Philip, Andronicus, and Menelaus the false pontiff, the suggester and inciter of all wickedness.
24. AND BECAUSE HE WAS SET (some think we should read “opposed”; whence the Greek has: having a hostile intention) AGAINST THE JEWS, as if to say: When Antiochus had set, that is determined, established and hardened his heart against the Jews, to destroy and annihilate them if he could, HE SENT THAT DETESTABLE (hateful to the Jews) CHIEF APOLLONIUS WITH AN ARMY (namely with) OF TWO AND TWENTY THOUSAND, COMMANDING HIM TO KILL ALL THAT WERE OF PERFECT AGE.—This is that Apollonius who, when Antiochus the Great fought against the Romans, led his right wing, while Hannibal led the left, as Livy testifies, Book XXXVII. The same, a few years later, sent by Epiphanes against Judas Maccabeus, was conquered by him and
26. AND HE SLEW ALL THAT WERE COME OUT TO SEE THE SIGHT (to behold the sacrifices and sacred offices wont to be celebrated by the Jews on the festival sabbath).
27. BUT JUDAS MACCABEUS, WHO WAS THE TENTH,—that is, he was to be the tenth pontiff, counting from Jaddus, who had been pontiff in the time of Alexander the Great. So Sa and Mariana, Lyranus and Dionysius. Simplicius and others think Judas is called tenth because he was then tenth in the order of the priests. Or rather Judas had been the tenth, that is a decemvir, or one of the ten chiefs and princes of the priests, who ruled the people. Moreover from the Greek you may simply translate: Judas, however, being made the tenth, that is, Judas gathered to himself nine companions of equal faith and virtue, of whom he was the tenth, with whom he withdrew into the mountains, living on herbs among the wild beasts. So St. Bruno with six companions withdrew into the rugged mountains of the Chartreuse, and there instituted the Carthusian order. So our St. Ignatius gathered to himself nine companions, of whom he was the tenth, with whom, withdrawing, he instituted the Society of Jesus. So Judas with nine Assideans, religious men of that age, of whom in Book 1, chapter 8, verse 13, withdrew into the mountains, and there living on herbs led an austere life. So Salianus and others. Judas therefore, with his parents, brethren and followers, fleeing so great a rage of persecutors, HAD WITHDRAWN INTO A DESERT PLACE, AND THERE LIVED AMONG WILD BEASTS IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH HIS COMPANY; AND THEY CONTINUED FEEDING ON HERBS (that is, vegetables, herbs and roots), THAT THEY MIGHT NOT BE PARTAKERS OF THE POLLUTION,—[avoiding the] conversation and familiarity of Apollonius and of his Gentile soldiers, who most sharply persecuted the Jews, and compelled them to eat their food sacrificed to idols, nay to sacrifice to their idols, as will appear in chapters 6 and 7.