Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
2. BUT THEY THAT WERE LEFT (in Judea), TIMOTHY AND APOLLONIUS, ALSO HIERONYMUS, AND DEMOPHON BESIDES THESE (so to be read with the Roman and Greek copies, says Sa), AND NICANOR THE GOVERNOR OF CYPRUS, WOULD NOT SUFFER THEM TO LIVE IN QUIET AND PEACE.—These five generals of Antiochus occupied many cities of Judea, as Joppe and Jamnia, of which verse 3 and following; and they went on harassing the Jews, notwithstanding the peace already made with Lysias: both because they were accustomed to it, and had long since been stationed by Antiochus in Judea to wear it down or hold it safe in subjection to himself, and so were always hostile and troublesome to the Jews; and because they lived on the plunder of the Jews. Finally, the soldier does not love peace, as one who enriches himself in war with spoils and rapine: wherefore when peace is made after a war, generals ought to labour exceedingly to restrain their soldiery, or employ them in another war or in labour, lest turning to sedition, especially if their pay has not been fully paid, they plunder and lay waste the generals’ own regions, or desert to the enemy, or create a new prince for themselves, as we read has often happened in histories, and in our own age we have actually seen. Wherefore Vegetius, Book II On Military Affairs, chapter xxiii, teaches that the soldier is to be kept busy and exercised by constant labour, of fighting, or shooting arrows, or digging, or running, or fortifying a camp, etc., lest he murmur and rebel, or plunder, or become idle and unwarlike; “and from this exercise,” he says, “the army took its name.” And he adds: “The younger and new soldiers were exercised morning and afternoon in every kind of arms.
But the veterans and the trained were exercised in arms without interruption once a day. For length of life or number of years does not impart the art of war, but the continual practice of exercise; after however many years of service an unexercised soldier is always a recruit.” He subjoins the reason: “For swiftness of body is acquired by use itself, and the science of striking the enemy and protecting oneself, especially if the fight is at close quarters with swords. But this is greater, that they learn to keep their ranks.” He then adds other exercises of soldiers: “It is also most useful for the younger men to be exercised at the post or stakes, when they learn to aim at the sides, the feet or the head, with thrust and cut. Let them also be accustomed to make leaps and blows alike, to spring up dancing against a shield, and again to sink down, now to dart forward with a leap in exultation, now to leap back sitting. Let them also practise striking the posts themselves from afar with missiles, that both the art of aiming and the strength of the right hand may grow.” And near the end he adds this: “On other days, if only snow and rain ceased, they were compelled to be exercised in the field; lest by interrupted custom the spirits and bodies of the soldiers be weakened. To cut wood, to carry burdens, to leap ditches, to swim in the sea or rivers, to walk at full pace, or even to run armed with their packs, is most fitting, that the use of daily labour in peace may not seem hard in war. Whether then it be legion or auxiliaries, let them be exercised constantly.”
3. TO GO INTO THE BOATS,—as if to fish in the sea, or to play, or to cross over to some neighbouring island for recreation.
4. ACCORDING TO THE COMMON DECREE OF THE CITY,—The whole city had therefore decreed to drown the Jews by this fraud; wherefore the whole city, as guilty, was consigned to destruction by Judas Maccabeus, verse 6.
5. HE COMMANDED HIS MEN,—to take arms and avenge the slaughter of their brethren.
7. HE WENT BACK, INTENDING TO RETURN AGAIN, AND ROOT OUT ALL THE CITY OF THE JOPPITES.—The Greek adds that Judas could not by this sudden attack seize the city, as it was fortified; wherefore he assailed the harbour, burnt the boats, and slew as many as were present; and so departed with the intention of returning with rams and ballistae to storm and exterminate the city.
9. HE CAME UPON THE JAMNITES ALSO BY NIGHT, AND SET FIRE TO THE HAVEN AND THE FLEET, SO THAT THE LIGHT OF THE FIRE WAS SEEN AT JERUSALEM, TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FURLONGS OFF.—For Jamnia was 240 furlongs distant from Jerusalem, that is ten French leagues, or thirty Italian miles: for the furlong is the eighth part of an Italian mile, or a thousand paces, containing 125 paces: for this is the eighth part of a thousand paces.
Moreover, the soldiers of Judas plundered the shrines of idols in the places near Jamnia, and stole offerings thence, which was forbidden by the law, as we shall hear below.
10. NO FEWER THAN FIVE THOUSAND ARABIANS ATTACKED (the battle) THEM,—who in Greek are called Nomads, that is, occupied in pasturing flocks: for their wealth is sheep and cattle, with which they successively graze all the provinces: for nemein is to pasture.
13. CASPHIN—is a city which Adrichomius places in the tribe of Dan near Jamnia; but this place indicates that it lay far farther south toward Arabia. So Salian.
14. BEHAVED THEMSELVES MORE REMISSLY.—In Greek anakoptoteron archonto, which Vatablus renders, They showed themselves more headstrong. For anakoptos is stubborn, obstinate, untamed, intractable, untaught, one who lacked discipline and was brought up remissly and loosely; and therefore became more wanton, dissolute, intemperate, and saucy. For a remiss and soft upbringing makes the stubborn, according to Ecclesiasticus xxx, 8: “A horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong.” They behaved themselves more remissly, then, that is, given to their pleasures they neglected and despised Judas, and wantonly insulted him, because they relied on their walls and thought themselves impregnable.
15. HE ASSAULTED THE WALLS FIERCELY,—shaking and laying them low by the blow of a ram or ballista. Gorionides, however, asserts that Judas smeared the gates with pitch, and heaped thorns from the desert against them, and so, the gate being burnt, penetrated into the city, and at last made in the city so great a slaughter that a pool broad on every side for two furlongs flowed with blood like water.
17. AND DEPARTING FROM THENCE THEY WENT SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY FURLONGS,—which make 93 Italian miles and six furlongs, that is nearly thirty French leagues.
AND CAME TO CHARACA, TO THE JEWS WHO ARE CALLED TUBIANITES.—Salian judges the place was called Characa because it was fortified with a notable rampart, made by nature or art: for charax is a rampart.
“Tubianites” are so called from the place Tubin which they inhabited, of which Book I, chapter v, verse 13. Wherefore it is beside the point what Rabanus writes, and from him St. Thomas (if indeed he is the author of this Commentary on Maccabees): “I have heard,” he says, “a certain Hebrew discoursing that those Jews are called Tubianites who, called together from foreigners, came to the help of Judas, and are called Tubianites, as if hired by foreign trumpets.” For the Tubianites were Hebrews, not Latins: wherefore they are named not from tubae (trumpets) but from Tubin, perhaps from the Hebrew tob, that is, good, as if Timothy had persecuted Jews who received their name from singular goodness; and therefore was repressed by Judas. So Sanchez.
20. AND TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED HORSEMEN.—The Greek has 1500; but twenty thousand footmen would readily require 2500 horsemen. So Vatablus, Salian and others.
21. A FORTRESS (a citadel or fortified place) CALLED CARNION,—and therefore different from the city which is called Carnaim, that is, of two horns, or two-horned, of which Book I, chapter v. The battle narrated here is therefore one, and that narrated there another. If anyone wishes them to be the same, I will not pull a contentious rope with him; indeed, all things duly considered, this opinion seems to me, as to Salian, the more probable.
22. THE ENEMIES WERE STRUCK WITH FEAR BY THE PRESENCE OF GOD.—From what was said in chapter x, verses 29 and 30, and chapter xi, verse 8, we may suspect that Michael, protector of the Synagogue, that is of Judas and the Jews, either by himself or through the Angels subject to him and guardians of Judas and the Jews, appeared visibly to Timothy’s men, the enemies of the Jews, with a terrible and menacing countenance: nay, that he rushed upon them with a horrifying onset, and so brought on them terror, flight, madness and destruction. So Salian: whence presently Judas, by the Angel’s help, slew 30 thousand, as is said in verse 23: and Timothy himself he took alive, verse 24.
24. AND TIMOTHY HIMSELF FELL INTO THE HANDS OF DOSITHEUS AND SOSIPATER (who were generals of Judas Maccabeus fighting with him and for him), AND WITH MUCH CRAFT HE BESOUGHT THEM TO LET HIM GO WITH HIS LIFE, BECAUSE HE HAD THE PARENTS AND BROTHERS OF MANY OF THEM (captive and in his power), WHO OTHERWISE MIGHT BE PUT TO DEATH (perhaps we should read “despised,” for the Greek is “to be neglected,” as Vatablus renders). It would happen that if I am killed, those Jews of yours whom they hold captive will be despised, and in vengeance of my blood they will kill them.
25. AND WHEN HE HAD ASSURED THEM OF HIS PROMISE TO RESTORE THEM,—that is, according to the promise and pact.
26. AND JUDAS MARCHED FORWARD TO CARNION.—The Greek adds: “and to the Atergateion,” which was the temple of the Syrian goddess called Atargatis, to which as to an asylum many of the enemy had fled; and therefore Judas hastened thither, and profaned the temple and slew the fugitives to the number of 25 thousand. Hear what the ancients say of this goddess. Pliny, Book V, chapter xxi: “Hierapolis,” he says, “is called by the Syrians Magog; there the prodigious Atargatis, called by the Greeks Derceto, is worshipped.
Strabo, Book XVI, near the end, says that Atargatis is, by a corruption of the barbarians’ word, called Athara, whom Ctesias, he says, called Derceto. Athenagoras in his Apology says that this Derceto was the mother of Semiramis, a lascivious and murderous woman, who, as Diodorus writes in Book III, bore a daughter to a lascivious youth; her mother Venus acting as procuress, she gave the daughter to be nourished by doves, and herself, from shame at the crime, threw herself into a pool, where she was turned into a fish, and the daughter into a dove. Wherefore, he says, the Syrians abstain from fish, and built a temple on the shore of the pool; they worshipped an image of Derceto with the face of a beautiful woman, and the rest of the body a fish.