Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
11. AND RUSHING VIOLENTLY LIKE LIONS UPON THE ENEMY, THEY SLEW ELEVEN THOUSAND FOOTMEN, AND SIXTEEN HUNDRED HORSEMEN.—This battle is another and different from that narrated in Book I, chapter iv, whence another number of the slain is there recounted. For lions are fearless and terrible: whence, as Pliny testifies, with closed eyes they rush upon hunting spears, swords and lances, and scatter and break everything. Such were Judas and the Jews here, according to Jacob’s prophecy, Genesis xlix, 9: “Juda is a lion’s whelp: to the prey, my son, thou art gone up: resting thou hast couched as a lion, and as a lioness, who shall rouse him?” For although Judas was not of the tribe of Juda, to which this oracle was given by the father Jacob, but of the tribe of Levi, yet he stood in the place of Juda as leader of all the Jews, to whom this oracle pertains.
Tropologically, when Lysias, that is the devil, assails you and suggests motions of anger, pride, lust, etc., resist and meet him as a lion, and you will at once put him to flight. For the devil before the spirited and resolute is timid as an ant; but to the fearful and hesitating he is a terrible lion. Whence St. Gregory, Book IV of the Morals, chapter xvii, explaining that text of Job iv: “The tiger hath perished for lack of prey,” according to the Septuagint, who for “tiger” render Myrmicoleon, that is ant-lion, “which,” he says, “is an animal hostile to ants, and kills them as they carry grain, and devours them when killed,” applying this very thing mystically to the devil: “Rightly,” he says, “is he called myrmicoleon, that is lion and ant: for to ants, as we said, he is a lion; to the winged an ant; because the ancient enemy, as he is strong against those who consent, so is weak against those who resist. For if assent is given to his suggestions, he cannot be borne at all, like a lion; but if he is resisted, he is crushed like an ant. To some, then, he is a lion, to others an ant; because carnal minds scarcely bear his cruelty, but spiritual minds tread his weakness underfoot with the foot of virtue.”
13. AND AS HE WAS A MAN OF SENSE,—but Lysias, being sensible and prudent, easily recognised from so great a slaughter of his men that God fought for the Jews by an Angel, and therefore that they were unconquerable. Wherefore he asked peace of them and obtained it.
19. IF THEN YOU WILL KEEP YOURSELVES FAITHFUL (that is, fidelity both to this treaty and to the subjection which you promised to the Antiochi kings as kings of Asia and Syria, and have rendered to others) TO THE STATE, I WILL ENDEAVOUR HEREAFTER ALSO TO BE A MEANS OF YOUR GOOD,—that is, I likewise will study your advantages, and will procure for you many goods and benefits by my recommendation to King Eupator.
20. BUT CONCERNING THE PARTICULARS (of the articles proposed by you) I HAVE GIVEN ORDERS BY WORD, BOTH TO THESE (namely John and Absalom sent by you) AND TO THEM THAT ARE SENT FROM ME (that is, my envoys, whom I send to you with yours), TO CONFER WITH YOU,—that they may settle with you each point, and satisfy you in all things.
…in which Antiochus Epiphanes was still living and reigning; how then are these letters written as given by Antiochus Eupator his son, as though already reigning after his father’s death? For Epiphanes died in the year 149 of the Greeks, as was said in Book I, chapter vi, verse 16.
I answer that the years of the Greeks are reckoned in two ways; first, from the twelfth year after the death of Alexander the Great, and from the month of March, because in that year, which was the 442nd of the founding of Rome and the 117th Olympiad, as Eusebius, Ptolemy, St. Jerome, Josephus, Dio, Appian and others testify, and in that month of March, Seleucus, having conquered Antigonus king of Asia Minor, set upon himself the diadem of all Asia.
By this reckoning the Jews number the years of the Greeks, or Seleucids, and therefore the first book of Maccabees used it, as did also the Egyptians, and for that reason these years of the Greeks are called now Jewish, now Macedonian, now Alexandrian.
Secondly, the years of the Greeks begin a year and a half later, perhaps because at that time Seleucus returned triumphant from Asia Minor into Greater Asia or Syria, whence this reckoning of years is called Syrian, Chaldaic and Antiochene. By this second reckoning, then, these years begin in the 13th year from the death of Alexander, in the seventh month Tisri, which corresponds to our September, that is a year and a half later than the former Jewish or Alexandrian. The second book of Maccabees uses this reckoning. Hence in this place Antiochus, who is said to have died, it calls the year 148 of the Greeks, because the year which by the Jewish and Alexandrian reckoning was 149, the same by the Antiochene or Chaldaic was 148. So Salian, Serarius and others. Scaliger answers otherwise, namely that it was the year 148 if you begin the year from Nisan, that is March; and that the same year was the 149th of the Greeks if you begin the year from Tisri, that is September.
OF THE MONTH DIOSCORUS,—in Greek Dios Korinthios, that is, of Jupiter of Corinth. This month is not found among the ordinary months of the Greeks, whence Scaliger and Salian think it was an embolismic or intercalary month. But Serarius rightly refutes this, who judges Dioscorus to be Dystrus, which corresponds to our March, in which kings are wont to go forth to wars.
22. KING ANTIOCHUS TO HIS BROTHER LYSIAS, GREETING.—Lysias was the king’s guardian. It is strange therefore that the king, who, as Appian says, was a boy of nine, does not call him father rather than brother; but the king, or rather the king’s scribe, did this on purpose, to disguise the king’s boyhood from the Jews, lest they despise him for it: as though therefore he were now older and more mature he calls Lysias brother, not father. Add: he does not call Lysias father, because he presently calls Antiochus Epiphanes his father, whence he adds:
23. OUR FATHER BEING TRANSLATED AMONG THE GODS (Gorionides, among the Angels).—The flatterers of kings among the Gentiles feigned that after death they were counted in the number of the gods. Hence at the funeral of kings and emperors their apotheosis, or enrolment among the gods, was performed, with what ceremonies among the Romans, Herodian elegantly describes at the beginning of Book IV, where among other things he says that an eagle was wont to fly up from the pyre, to carry the soul of Caesar to heaven to the gods. But the impious Antiochus Epiphanes, for his crimes and sacrileges, was not worshipped among the gods, but was translated to hell, namely among the demons.
24. THAT THE JEWS, etc., REQUEST OF US THAT WE WOULD ALLOW THEM THEIR OWN LAWS,—namely that they may be permitted to live by their own laws and rites in their own faith, and in the worship of the one God, and not be compelled to live after the manner of the Gentiles and worship their gods and idols.
25. HAVE ORDAINED AND DECREED THAT THEIR TEMPLE BE RESTORED TO THEM.—Judas and the Jews had already recovered the temple by arms, and purged it. Yet the king here claims it for himself, to show his power over the Jews as well as his liberality, when in truth he does not restore the temple to them, but approves and confirms the restoration already made.
26. AND GIVE THEM PEACE (literally, the right hand),—that is, if, the right hand being given to the Jews (for this is the rite of entering a treaty), you ratify a treaty with them. Moreover this treaty is different from that which Lysias and Antiochus entered into with the same Jews, chapter xiii, 23 and following, and Book I, chapter vi, where on the occasion of Philip rebelling and seizing Antioch, to put him down, Lysias in the king’s name asked peace of the Jews and obtained it. Whence you may gather that this treaty did not last long, but was soon broken by the renewal of war, as will appear in the following chapter.
So the Turk easily makes peace with Christians while pressed by a Persian war or the like; but that being quelled, he easily finds an occasion of breaking the peace, if he judges war more useful to him than peace.
29. MENELAUS CAME TO US (not that pseudo-pontiff and betrayer of the Jews, of whom chapter iv, 34 and following, as some will have it, but another envoy of the Jews to the king and Lysias. So Salian and others) SAYING THAT YOU DESIRED TO RETURN TO YOUR OWN THAT ARE WITH US,—namely that you may visit your Jewish kinsmen and friends who dwell with me in Syria.
30. THEREFORE THEY THAT WILL COME AND RETURN HOME TILL THE THIRTIETH DAY OF THE MONTH XANTHICUS (which follows Dystrus next and corresponds to our April) SHALL HAVE OUR FRIENDSHIP AND FULL LEAVE (literally, right hands of security).—The king therefore gives the Jews 15 days of security (for the letter of the king was written on the 15th day of the same Xanthicus, as is clear from verse 33), in which they might freely go down into Syria; because peace between him and the Jews was not yet concluded, but was being negotiated with the Jews by envoys; but once it was concluded, the Jews were free to travel into Syria at any time.
31. AND NONE OF THEM ANY WAY BE MOLESTED FOR THINGS DONE THROUGH IGNORANCE.—The king ordains an amnesty for what had hitherto been done in hostility between his own men and the Jews, that these things, as committed through ignorance, may be held excused, nay forgotten.
32. AND I HAVE SENT (that is, sent back) MENELAUS (who was sent by you to me) TO COMFORT YOU,—and to report what he has negotiated with me, and to bring you word of my mind and sayings.