Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
The death of Antiochus was briefly related in Book I, chapter vi, but here it is recounted more fully, as an example of divine vengeance against the impious and sacrilegious, for the Jews’ comfort.
2. FOR HE HAD ENTERED (the province or region and dominion of Persia) THE CITY CALLED (from its chief city or metropolis) PERSEPOLIS (in Greek; for in Hebrew it is called Elam or Elymais, as is clear from chapter vi, Book I, verse 1, which Pererius, Book IX on Daniel, on the words “And shall be broken without hand,” thinks was Susa)—as if to say, Antiochus entered the dominion of Persepolis with an army, and set about assaulting its chief city, which likewise was called Persepolis or Elymais; but he was repulsed by the citizens running to the walls, and even suffered a great slaughter of his men: “For the citizens,” says Josephus, Book XII, chapter xiii, “pursued him as he withdrew, so that, with very many lost, he retired to Babylon in the manner of a fugitive.”
AND ATTEMPTED TO ROB THE TEMPLE—of Diana, which is the most august in those regions, says Pliny, Book VI, chapters xxvi and xxvii. So Josephus, Polybius, Isidore; although Appian in the Syriacs says it was a temple of Venus.
3. AND WHEN HE WAS COME AS FAR AS ECBATANA (a most famous city of Persia), HE RECEIVED THE NEWS (from messengers and letters sent to him) OF WHAT HAD BEEN DONE TO NICANOR AND TIMOTHY (his generals)—by Judas Maccabeus, namely that he had overthrown, slain and put them to flight.
A BURYING-PLACE OF THE JEWS.—In Greek, that he would make it a cemetery, into which the corpses of many men are wont to be heaped, as if to say, Antiochus boasted that he would avenge the slaughter of his men received from the Jews, and so utterly overthrow Jerusalem that the whole city would be a sepulchre of Jewish funerals and corpses.
5, 6. THE GOD OF ISRAEL STRUCK HIM WITH AN INCURABLE AND INVISIBLE PLAGUE (namely with most bitter pains of the bowels, because) HE HAD TORMENTED THE BOWELS OF OTHERS (the Maccabees) WITH NEW TORMENTS,—as follows, and with most grievous melancholy and choler. St. Jerome, in the place cited, adds from Diodorus that he was “turned into madness by certain phantoms and terrors.” Outwardly, moreover, he struck him with the lousy disease, a flow of the flesh, and intolerable stench, as is said in verse 9.
7. AND COMMANDING THE WORK TO BE HASTENED (by driving his chariot, that he might quickly arrive at Jerusalem), IT CAME TO PASS THAT HE FELL FROM HIS CHARIOT AS IT RAN VIOLENTLY, AND WITH THE GRIEVOUS FALL HIS LIMBS WERE MUCH PAINED.—Gorionides, Book III, chapter xxii, relates this more fully, and probably: “It happened,” he says, “when he was now being carried along and accompanying his army, that his chariot passed by a certain elephant, and the elephant began to trumpet, and by its roar the horses were terrified, kicked, and overturned the chariot, and Antiochus fell from the chariot, and all his bones were broken, for he was a heavy and stout man.”
9. SO THAT WORMS (lice) SWARMED OUT OF THE BODY OF THIS WICKED MAN.—This disease is called by physicians phthiriasis, that is, the lousy disease, in which these worms boil out of the body, and eat and consume it with foul horror and intolerable itching. It arises sometimes naturally from a delicate and sweet complexion or nourishment of the body, or from filth and putrefaction, as happens among the poor; but often God supernaturally inflicts it on the proud, blasphemers, sacrilegious, and persecutors and tormentors of the faithful and the saints, as he inflicted it on Herod of Ascalon, who was the persecutor of Christ and the slayer of the infants, as Josephus testifies, Book XVII, chapter vii; and on his grandson Herod Agrippa, because he applauded the people acclaiming him “the voice of a god, and not of a man,” and had killed James the Apostle, and would have killed Peter had not an Angel delivered him, Acts xii, 23; and on the Emperor Maximian, a fierce tormentor of Christians, as Eusebius testifies, Book VIII, chapter xviii; and on Julian the Apostate, as Sozomen testifies, Book V, chapter vii; and on Huneric, Arian king of the Vandals, whose savage cruelty against the Orthodox, and thence God’s vengeance and the lousy disease, Victor of Utica relates at length in the three books which he wrote on the Vandal persecution; likewise on John Calvin, as a heresiarch and blasphemer against God, Christ and the Saints, as Bolsec writes, and Beza does not deny in his Life of him, who adds many greater things: “He was tormented,” he says, “by diseases so various and manifold that it is plainly incredible; namely migraine, ulcerous hemorrhoids, spitting of blood, quartan fever, gout, stone and colic.” So “God follows the proud as an avenger at their back,” as the Tragedian sings, and Holy Scripture often resounds.
12. AND WHEN HE HIMSELF COULD NOT NOW ABIDE HIS OWN SMELL, HE SAID THESE WORDS: IT IS JUST TO BE SUBJECT TO GOD, AND NOT TO EQUAL HIMSELF TO GOD WHO IS MORTAL.—Tormented with these diseases, the proud Antiochus came to himself, and acknowledged himself, that he had foolishly thought himself a god, and wished to be equal to the true God, though a man to God, mortal to immortal, weak to almighty, temporal to eternal; and therefore God struck him with phthiriasis, that he might learn and say with Job, chapter xvii: “I have said to rottenness: Thou art my father; to worms, My mother and my sister.” And with David: “But I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people,” Psalm xxi. And that saying of another saint: “A worm seeks a worm.” Thus God showed that he had heard the prayer of the seventh Maccabee martyr, whose last cry in his tortures three years before was this, chapter vii, verse 37: “Calling upon God that he would speedily show mercy to our nation, and that thou by torments and stripes mayst confess that he alone is God.” For the martyrdom of the Maccabees happened in the year of the Greeks 145, Antiochus’ ninth; but his death happened in the year of the Greeks 149, as was said in Book I, chapter vi, verse 16, which was Antiochus’ thirteenth and last.
13. THEN THIS WICKED MAN PRAYED TO THE LORD, OF WHOM HE WAS NOT TO OBTAIN MERCY;—because this confession, penance and prayer of his was forced and extorted by torments, and proceeded not from love but from servile fear. For he prayed only to be freed, but not to the end of changing his life and serving God truly and sincerely. Similar was the penance of Pharao feeling the plagues inflicted by Moses, of Achab king of Israel, III Kings xxi, 29, and of Nabuchodonosor, Daniel iv, 31, although as to this last one may doubt. Again, suppose Antiochus had repented sincerely, and had elicited an act of true contrition from the love of God, and so saved his soul; yet he would not have obtained the mercy that he asked, namely deliverance from his torments. For it was already fixed and decreed by God to punish him with these torments until death for his immense crimes. In like manner Esau, though repentant, could not recover the blessing of his father and the birthright he had lost; for as is said in Hebrews xii, 17: “Afterwards, when he desired to inherit the benediction, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, although with tears he had sought it.”
15. HE NOW PROMISED TO MAKE EQUAL TO THE ATHENIANS,—namely autonomous, says Josephus, that is, living freely by their own laws and proper institutions, as the Athenians did, though already subject to Antiochus and the Antiochenes. For Antiochus knew that the Jews desired this above all.
17. YEA AND THAT HE WOULD BECOME A JEW HIMSELF, AND WOULD GO THROUGH EVERY PLACE OF THE EARTH, AND PREACH THE POWER OF GOD.—Antiochus said this feignedly and in pretence, because forced by the scourges of God: wherefore, if God had withdrawn them, he would have returned to his natural disposition, according to the common saying: The devil was sick, the monk then would be; but when he got well, he stayed as he was before.
The impious man therefore wished to mock God, but was mocked by him. For he did not intend to perform what he here says and promises.
18. BUT AS HIS PAINS DID NOT CEASE (FOR THE JUST JUDGMENT OF GOD WAS COME UPON HIM, as if to say, God by his just judgment had plainly decreed to torment him for his sacrileges until death), DESPAIRING (of relief from his pains and of recovering health, as also of God’s grace and eternal salvation) HE WROTE TO THE JEWS, that while they lived they would preserve for his only son Antiochus Eupator the succession after him, and secure the kingdom to him. For he knew that he had snatched it from Demetrius, son of Seleucus his elder brother, and that therefore Demetrius, who was held as a hostage at Rome in his stead, on hearing of his death would at once fly to Asia to seize the kingdom due to himself by right, and exclude Eupator, a boy, to whom it did not belong; and so it came about; for Demetrius killed Eupator with Lysias and claimed the kingdom for himself. Wherefore Antiochus, wishing by this letter to prevent it, accomplished nothing, but both he and his son by God’s just judgment lost kingdom with life.
See here the magnificence and magnificent power of our God, by which he lays low the swollen and untamable Antiochus, who seemed to himself to command earth, sea and heaven, with a single pain of the bowels, so that he becomes a suppliant not only to himself but to the Jews, whom he had utterly despised. So he made Pharao a suppliant to Moses, Saul to Samuel, Nabuchodonosor to Daniel.
20. WE GIVE VERY GREAT THANKS.—The Greek has:
I give very great thanks to God, having hope in heaven; and I, lying weak, have kindly remembered your honour.
23. BUT CONSIDERING THAT MY FATHER ALSO, etc.—as if to say, As my father Antiochus the Great, a most prudent king and exceedingly well-disposed to you, as Josephus testifies, Book XII, chapter iii, when setting out abroad, declared his heir, that if anything should befall him in human fashion, he might succeed him; so I, following my father’s example, declare to you as heir of my kingdom my son Antiochus Eupator, and I ask that in fostering and protecting him you lend your help.