Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
“Jupiter (for they say thou givest laws to guests), grant that this be a glad day to the Tyrians and to those who came from Troy.”
7. BUT THEY WERE LED (the Jews, in troops, in great number) BY BITTER CONSTRAINT (that is, violent compulsion) ON THE KING’S BIRTHDAY (of Antiochus Epiphanes) TO THE SACRIFICES,—which were offered to idols, that they should attend them and take part in them and eat of them, as consenting to the idols and idolatry.
AND WHEN THE FEAST OF BACCHUS WAS KEPT, THEY WERE COMPELLED TO GO ABOUT CROWNED WITH IVY IN HONOUR OF BACCHUS,—as if to say: When the Bacchanalia, that is the feasts of Bacchus, were celebrated by drinking, dancing, sporting, harlotry, etc., in all licence of the flesh and freedom of concupiscence (whence Bacchus was called Liber, because he gave every freedom of the flesh to anyone at his feasts and rites) the Jews were compelled, in honour of Liber or Bacchus, to be crowned with ivy, and so to go round the temple or the city. For ivy was dedicated to Bacchus, because by its coldness it resists wine and drunkenness, of which Bacchus was the god, as Pliny testifies, Book XVI, chapter 34, Tertullian, On the Soldier’s Crown, chapter 6, and Caelius Rhodiginus, Book XIV, chapter 49. For the Greeks, indulging in their pergraeciations, that is drinking-bouts (and Antiochus Epiphanes most of all), worshipped Bacchus; whence they also feigned that Bacchus was born among them from the thigh of Jupiter, says Dionysius. Bacchus was therefore called Liber, as the god of liberty, or because wine looses cares, and frees the mind from them, and makes it bolder for all attempts. Varro derives it from labendo (slipping), because the slippery mind slips where it pleases. St. Augustine, Book VI De Civitate, chapter 9, teaches that Liber is so called “because males in coition, by his benefit, are freed by the emission of seed. The same, they think, is done in women by Libera, whom they also think to be Venus.” Moreover how great was the shamefulness of the rites of Liber the same Augustine describes, Book VII De Civitate, chapter 21.
8. AND THERE WENT OUT A DECREE (to compel the Jews to worship Bacchus) INTO THE NEIGHBOURING CITIES OF THE GENTILES BY THE SUGGESTION OF THE PTOLEMEANS,—by the two brothers, namely Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy Physcon, who reigned in Egypt. But because they at this time were almost boys, and did not hold the neighbouring cities of Jerusalem in Syria, and were themselves kindly disposed to the Jews, hence it is better to understand here by Ptolemeans those who were of the family of the Ptolemies already mentioned, and who for Antiochus Epiphanes governed Cilicia and Phenicia, especially Tyre and Sidon, such as was the Ptolemy of whom mention is made in chapter 4, verse 45, and chapter 8, verse 8. For since Antiochus Epiphanes was uncle of Ptolemy Philometor and Physcon, he took some of their kinsmen and familiars into his court, and set them over his provinces in Syria.
11. BEING DISCOVERED BY PHILIP, WERE BURNT WITH FIRE,—because they kept the Sabbath, and judaized, and therefore, attacked on the Sabbath, would not defend themselves, out of honour for the Sabbath, on which the law commanded rest from work; but permitted themselves to be killed on that day, as follows. This is that Philip whom Antiochus sent to harass the Jews, chapter 5,
18. ELEAZAR (Eleazar in Hebrew is the same as God’s help, which was present powerfully for this glorious athlete and martyr in temptations and torments), ONE OF THE CHIEF OF THE SCRIBES—(that is, Doctors and men learned in the law). Josephus, son of Gorion, Book III, chapters 2 and 4, calls him “a priest,” nay “prince of priests,” namely of his course and class. For there were 24 classes of priests, each of which had its own prince. He adds that he was one of the 72 Interpreters who under Ptolemy Philadelphus translated Sacred Scripture from Hebrew into Greek. But so he ought to have been 120 years old, not merely 90, as he himself says, verse 14. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 22 On the Maccabees, and St. Ambrose, Book II De Jacob et vita beata, say he was the teacher and master of the seven Maccabee brothers, martyrs, of whom in the following chapter; whence they said to Antiochus himself, says Nazianzen: “We are disciples of Eleazar; the father first contended, then the sons, the disciples contended after the teacher, the sons after the father.”
AND OF A COMELY COUNTENANCE (in Greek in countenance most beautiful) WENT FORWARD VOLUNTARILY (in Greek of his own accord) TO THE TORMENT.—In Greek, to the tympanum. Now the tympanum was a kind of torment by which men were strongly and rigidly stretched, either on a table or bench, or bound to a stake as on the rack, and there beaten with clubs, as skins are beaten stretched on a drum, as Serarius teaches from Polybius, Suidas and Aristophanes. Some there also believed that they were scourged or flayed alive, or scorched with red-hot plates, as Josephus relates was done to this Eleazar; or beaten with stones and hammers, and exposed like a drum to blows and tortures.
Alluding to this, the Apostle, Hebrews 11:35, says: “Others were racked,” in Greek etympanisthesan, that is, were made drums of; Suidas: were beaten with clubs; St. Chrysostom: were beheaded. Eleazar therefore, stretched and beaten on the tympanum, was a type of Christ stretched on the cross, and beaten and pierced with hammers.
20. AND CONSIDERING (our text reads apotympanizein, now they read apoptysas, that is spitting out, namely the flesh violently thrust into his mouth) IN WHAT MANNER HE WAS COME TO IT, (as if to say foreseeing, thinking beforehand, meditating how he should approach this sharp contest, namely as a boxer, an athlete and a martyr of God, who was first to undergo this contest of faith, and to give to others an example of unconquered constancy and fortitude, with firm purpose of mind and will wholly hardened,) HE DETERMINED NOT TO DO ANY UNLAWFUL THINGS FOR THE LOVE OF LIFE,—namely not to eat swine’s flesh, forbidden to the Jews, Leviticus 11, especially because he was commanded to eat it by the tyrant Antiochus in contempt of the law, that by this eating he might signify that he apostatized from Judaism to Gentilism. Wherefore Eleazar preferred to be tortured rather than to eat swine’s flesh and consent to Antiochus.