Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
27. HE MOVED HIS ARMY TO EPHRON.—The Greek adds “in which dwelt” (was wont to dwell, for he was now absent) Lysias, guardian of Antiochus Eupator; and therefore a great concourse of various nations had gathered to it: for which reason Judas raged against it. Judas first stormed it in the year of the Greeks 148, while Antiochus Epiphanes was still alive, Book I, chapter v; then he took the same again when it was reviving, in the year of the Greeks 149 or 150, under Antiochus Eupator; nay, Salian contends that this storming of this chapter is the same as that recounted in Book I, chapter v. For there too the fight is against Timothy, against Carnaim; from Carnaim they proceed to Ephron, thence to Bethsan, which was called by the Greeks Scythopolis. Wherefore the things said in Book I, chapter v, up to verse 8, were done under Antiochus Epiphanes; but those narrated from verse 8 to the end were done under Antiochus Eupator, though Scripture for brevity does not distinguish these, nor assign the times of the two kings, and this is quite probable.
29. AND DEPARTING FROM THENCE THEY WENT TO THE CITY OF THE SCYTHIANS (which was thence called Scythopolis), WHICH IS SIX HUNDRED FURLONGS FROM JERUSALEM,—which make 75 Italian miles, each containing a thousand paces; for the furlong is the eighth part of this mile, as containing 125 paces, as I said above. Moreover the Scythians restored and inhabited this city. It lies on this side of the Jordan in the tribe of Manasses, and was the greatest of the Decapolis. See Adrichomius.
31. THEY CAME TO JERUSALEM, THE FEAST OF THE WEEKS BEING AT HAND.—He means the feast of Pentecost, which is called “of weeks,” because it falls after seven weeks, or 49 days from the Pasch, and on the fiftieth day, Leviticus xxiii. See here the swiftness of Judas Maccabeus, who like lightning ran through everything. For in the space of about one month (namely from the month Xanthicus, that is April, of which chapter xi, last verse, to the end of May, when they celebrated Pentecost that year) he slew in various places above a hundred thousand of the enemy; namely from the camp of Timothy, verse 23, thirty thousand fell, from the inhabitants of Carnion, verse 26, 25 thousand, from Ephron, verse 28, as many. Add the countless men of Joppe, the Arabians, verse 10, and the inhabitants of Casphin, verse 16, whom he so slaughtered that a pool of two furlongs seemed to flow with blood.
33. AND HE CAME OUT WITH THREE THOUSAND FOOTMEN, AND FOUR HUNDRED HORSEMEN.—“He came out” is to say Judas against Gorgias: for his army was far more numerous. So Vatablus, Salian and others. Whence you may gather that Judas had besides footmen some horsemen, but few.
35. AND A CERTAIN MAN NAMED DOSITHEUS, OF BACENOR’S—company, namely of the camp; who evidently belonged to the camp of Bacenor, a general of the army, and followed him as a soldier. This is clear from the Greek, although Gorionides and from him Serarius think this Dositheus was the general of the army, of whom verse 19, who was son or grandson of Bacenor.
36. AND WHEN THEY THAT WERE WITH ESDRIN FOUGHT LONG,—“Esdrin” was one of the generals of Judas, and when they were wearied by the long fight, Judas, with ardent spirit and voice invoking God, routed the enemy and put an end to the fight. Wrongly therefore does the Vatican codex put “Gorgias,” an enemy of Judas, for “Esdrin.”
37. BEGINNING IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE (not as if Judas elsewhere spoke Greek, and here Hebrew, which was his native tongue, but in his native, that is spirited, confident, strong, lofty, noble, clamorous voice, as befitted a true Judas and Jew, invoking God, he obtained from him strength to lay the enemy low at once; whence, explaining, he adds:) HE SANG HYMNS WITH A LOUD VOICE, AND RUSHED UPON GORGIAS’ MEN, AND PUT THEM TO FLIGHT.—See what I said on the native voice, chapter vii.
38. THEY PURIFIED THEMSELVES—from the shedding of the enemy’s blood and the touch of corpses.
39. AND THE DAY FOLLOWING (namely the first after the sabbath, which with us is Sunday) JUDAS CAME WITH HIS COMPANY TO TAKE AWAY THE BODIES OF THEM THAT WERE SLAIN (among whom were some of the bravest Asmoneans, says Gorionides), AND TO BURY THEM WITH THEIR KINSMEN IN THE SEPULCHRES OF THEIR FATHERS.—For this is the honour due to slain soldiers; this is the last office of piety, namely that their bodies be religiously buried, so that among the Romans and other Gentiles to neglect or even deny burial to an enemy was a huge ignominy, inhumanity and barbarism. Whence Quintus Curtius, Book V: “Scarcely any duty in war is so solemn as burying one’s own.”
40. AND THEY FOUND UNDER THE COATS (the Greek adds: “of each one”) OF THE SLAIN SOME OF THE DONARIES OF THE IDOLS OF JAMNIA (as I said, verse 9), WHICH THE LAW FORBIDDETH—commanding them to be burned for the abomination of idols and idolatry. For so it ordains, Deuteronomy vii, 25: “Their graven things thou shalt burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver and gold of which they are made, neither shalt thou take to thee any thing of them, lest thou offend, because it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Neither shalt thou bring anything of the idol into thy house, lest thou become an anathema, like it. Thou shalt detest it as dung, and shalt utterly abhor it as uncleanness and filth, because it is an anathema.”
SO THAT ALL PLAINLY SAW THAT FOR THIS CAUSE THEY WERE SLAIN,—because only those fell who had taken away these donaries, as is clear from the Greek; the rest were unhurt and alive. Hence gather that the victories of Judas were wonderful and heavenly, being bloodless, in which none of his men was slain unless by theft or some other crime he himself had given cause for his slaughter, and, having offended God, had turned away from himself his guardianship and protection. Whence we have not read hitherto that Judas buried the bodies of the slain after a battle, because none of them had fallen. Let soldiers learn here to abstain from plunder and crimes; for so God will preserve them, nay make them victors; for the crime of one or a few sometimes takes away victory, as the theft of Achan took it away, Josue vii.
42. THEY BESOUGHT HIM, THAT THE SIN WHICH HAD BEEN COMMITTED MIGHT BE WHOLLY FORGOTTEN.—The Greek: be perfectly blotted out. They supposed, then, that all had repented of the theft before death, and by contrition had blotted out its chief part, namely the guilt: wherefore the other part, namely the debt of punishment to be paid after this life in Purgatory, alone remained, which was to be expiated by sacrifices, that the sin might be perfectly blotted out, and so their souls, freed from the pains of Purgatory, might be translated to the limbo of the fathers or the bosom of Abraham.
Add that the sin of some was not mortal here, but venial, both because some, being rude and soldiers, were ignorant of the law forbidding these thefts of idols, or at least thought it bound only under venial sin; and because some were in grave or extreme necessity, in which they thought it lawful to steal to preserve life; and because some had taken very little, whom lightness of matter excused from mortal sin. For verse 45 expressly says they “had fallen asleep with godliness” (that is, died). They were therefore in a state of grace. Finally it was just and pious that Judas with his men should judge and hope that some of them had sinned only venially, or, if mortally, had repented before they expired; and therefore applied to them the prayers and suffrages wont to be made for the dead, as the Church still applies them to sinners. For by every means and way she can she is zealous to help the souls of the faithful and to release them from punishments. This piety and charity and the very communion of Saints demand.
BUT THE MOST VALIANT (in Greek gennaios, that is, noble) JUDAS EXHORTED THE PEOPLE TO KEEP THEMSELVES FROM SIN,—because their strength consisted in innocence and justice; for God preserved the innocent and just in battles, and made them victors; but suffered the guilty and rapacious to be conquered and slain, as they saw with their own eyes had here happened, as follows.
43. TWELVE THOUSAND DRACHMAS OF SILVER (which make a thousand gold pieces, if the drachmas were Attic; if not, they make two thousand gold pieces, with which many victims could be bought and offered for sin) HE SENT (Judas as Pontiff) TO JERUSALEM FOR SACRIFICE TO BE OFFERED FOR THE SINS OF THE DEAD.—Hence it is clear that the Pontiff Judas believed in Purgatory, in which souls after this life are expiated from their faults. For this was the faith of the Synagogue and of the ancient Jews as of the modern, as is clear from their Rituals, Commentaries and writings, which Serarius here, Bellarmine and others who write on Purgatory cite. The very same is clear from Tobias iv, 18: “Lay out thy bread and thy wine upon the burial of a just man.” See what is said there.
THINKING WELL AND RELIGIOUSLY (in Greek kalos, that is, courteously, elegantly, finely, skilfully, rightly) CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION.—For it is courteous, civil, honourable and right to help with prayers our fellow citizens who have departed this life, that they may rise to the blessed resurrection, which is most full of all elegance, beauty and glory.
44. FOR IF HE HAD NOT HOPED THAT THEY THAT WERE SLAIN SHOULD RISE AGAIN, IT WOULD HAVE SEEMED SUPERFLUOUS AND VAIN TO PRAY FOR THE DEAD.—You will say: This would not be vain, because the soul, which is immortal, would be freed from punishments by prayers, even if the body did not rise again. I answer that because the soul is immortal, it therefore demands the resurrection of the body. For the soul naturally inclines to the body, as form to matter. Wherefore the state of the soul would be violent if it lasted for ever without the body. Wherefore these two, namely the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, are so connected that he who posits and believes one posits and believes the other; and he who takes away and denies one takes away and denies the other.