Commentaria in II Machabaeorum
Our Gretser relates the same, Book On Benedictions, chapter xlix, where from Baronius he also relates that Pope Alexander II sent blessed standards to Hermibald and to William count of Aquitaine, with which they routed the heretics and Harold the invader of England. See the same Gretser, Book II On the Cross, chapter lvii, where he shows that in former times whole armies setting out for the holy land were wont to be blessed by the Pontiffs and signed with the cross, and thence those expeditions were called Crusades, or of those signed with the cross. Many expeditions, he says, were formerly undertaken into Palestine to rescue the holy land from the tyranny of the Mohammedans, chiefly at the exhortation and impulse of the Supreme Pontiffs, Urban II, Paschal II, Lucius II, Eugenius III, Clement III, Celestine III, Honorius III, Gregory IX, under the leaders Godfrey of Bouillon, the Emperor Conrad, St. Louis king of the Gauls, the Emperor Frederick, Philip king of France, Richard king of England, Andrew king of Hungary, and other most brave and chosen princes and heroes, who led most well-equipped armies.
All these were marked with the cross, that they might fight the more confidently against the enemies of the cross, and be readier for all dangers from love of the cross and of the Crucified. There is extant in the Roman Ritual a prayer for the blessing of the cross, wont to be given to those setting out for Palestine for the sake of defending the Christian faith and recovering the holy land. Nay, Constantine the Great, having received from heaven the sign of the cross with this inscription: “In this sign thou shalt conquer,” ordered the cross to be engraved on the standard and carried before the whole camp, to give them, as men blessed by God through the cross, a sure hope and every omen of victory, as Eusebius and others narrate in the Life of Constantine. Tropologically, note here that God, when he chooses someone for some office, gives him the symbols and instruments necessary and fitting for that office. So St. Paul appeared in a vision to St. John Chrysostom and gave him the book of the Gospel, that by this symbol he might appoint him after himself an eminent preacher of the same. So St. John the Apostle, receiving the volume of oracles from the Angel, was made a prophet, to foretell the future under Antichrist, Apocalypse x, 9. So Moses, Exodus iv, verse 17, by the rod received from God the power of working miracles and the ten plagues with which he struck Pharao and the Egyptians. In like manner and way God here gave Judas a sword, to slay Nicanor and the impious. Hence also to kings, when they are inaugurated, a sword is given, that they may defend the Church, religion and justice, and punish the wicked. For this reason, to Josue invading Chanaan an Angel appeared, to encourage him, holding a drawn sword, as if they would slay the Chanaanites with it, Josue v, 13. So Jeremias and Ezechiel often threaten the Jews with a sword to be given by God to Nabuchodonosor, to punish their crimes. So Christ the King is said to have a sword sharp on both sides, Apocalypse i, 16. Nay, the Emperor Trajan, handing a sword to the prefect of the city whom he had appointed: “Use this,” he said, “for me, if I rightly discharge my power; but if not, use the same against me.”
Allegorically, Rabanus takes Jeremias for Christ, and the golden sword for Holy Scripture, with which Christ overthrew the devil when tempted by him in the desert, and still lays low and routs heretics, his followers, through the Doctors of the Church. Again, the holy sword is mortification, by which we cut off from ourselves the concupiscences and vices of flesh and spirit, according to Christ: “I came not to send peace, but the sword,” Matthew x, 34. Wherefore Jeremias, chapter xlviii, verse 10: “Cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from blood.” Jeremias, then, that is Christ, holds out to every faithful man this sword of mortification, golden by the love of God, that with it he may slay all his enemies, that is, the passions and appetites of corrupt nature, resisting God and his law.
27. THEY SLEW NO LESS THAN FIVE AND THIRTY THOUSAND,—Josephus therefore errs, who numbers only nine thousand, and Gorionides, who assigns only 30 thousand.
28. THEY UNDERSTOOD THAT NICANOR WAS SLAIN.—Gorionides narrates the matter a little differently, Book III, chapter xxi: “Judas saw,” he says, “in the very battle Nicanor having in his hand a drawn sword, and crying out, said: Against thee, O Nicanor. And as he ran against him in the strength of his fervour, Nicanor turned away his shoulder and fled from the face of Judas, and Judas seized him, struck him with the sword and cut him in two parts, bringing him down Moreover Judas ordered Nicanor’s head, and the hand which he had threateningly stretched out against the temple, as a trophy, to be hung not from the citadel of Sion (because the enemies held it), but opposite the temple; and his blaspheming tongue, cut into small pieces, to be cast to the birds to be swallowed.
29. THEN MAKING A SHOUT AND A GREAT NOISE (in Greek, a din, tumult, applause) ARISING, THEY BLESSED THE LORD IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, (that is, in Hebrew, singing the psalms of David assigned to victory and thanksgiving; or “native,” that is, a noble voice befitting brave men and conquerors, says Salian).
34. THEN ALL BLESSED THE LORD OF HEAVEN (that is, the heavenly ones, namely Angels and holy men leading a heavenly life on earth).—Rather they blessed God who is the Lord of heaven; whence the Greek has: They blessed the Lord in heaven, namely crying out with a loud voice toward heaven.
Moreover this place, says Ribera, Book V On the Temple, chapter xviii, is corrupted in the Latin copies; for it must be read thus: “But to celebrate the thirteenth day of the month (Adar it is called in the Syrian language), the day before Mardochias’ day.” That this is true is clear from the most correct Greek codices, and among them from the Pontifical one and from the variety of the Latins; then from the sense itself, for the author of this book has put no Syriac word except Adar, and therefore using a parenthesis said: “Adar is called in the Syrian language;” which Josephus imitating likewise added: “The month Adar, as ours call it.” He did not then indicate the name of the feast when he said: “The day before Mardochias’ day,” but the time. So also Salian, Vatablus and others.
38. I ALSO WILL HERE MAKE AN END OF MY NARRATION,—because the purpose of Judas the Essene, who was the author of this book, was to write only the heroic deeds of Judas Maccabeus down to his glorious victory, that the Jews in Egypt (to whom he wrote this book, as is clear from its beginning) might celebrate the same feast there. For this reason he here ends his book. So St. Thomas.
39. BUT IF NOT SO PERFECTLY, IT MUST BE PARDONED ME.—The author tacitly asks pardon not for any lapse, error or falsehood (which is far from the hagiographic writer, who was the organ and instrument of the Holy Spirit), but of style and phrase, if it seem to anyone less elegant and polished. For the Holy Spirit so assisted the hagiographic writers, and so directed them that they never strayed from the truth, and conceived in mind the wholly true sense, yet allowed them to write it in their own words and their own phrase and style. Wherefore the style of Isaias is more elegant and beautiful than that of the other Prophets, because he, as a noble, learned and elegant man, had by study imbibed a more elegant style. For the Holy Spirit accommodates himself in phrase to his writer as to an instrument. The author here, therefore, though elegant and eloquent, from modesty asks to be pardoned if he has written “less worthily” (in Greek, if slenderly and thinly); that is, in a style less worthy, grave and elegant than the dignity of divine history, or the ears of learned readers, will desire (so St. Paul calls himself “rude in speech, but not in knowledge,” II Corinthians xi), especially because he asserts that he purposely used this moderate and mixed style, for the reason which he adds, saying:
40. FOR AS IT IS HURTFUL TO DRINK ALWAYS WINE, OR ALWAYS WATER (to the appetite, stomach and health), BUT PLEASANT TO USE SOMETIMES THE ONE AND SOMETIMES THE OTHER, SO IF THE SPEECH BE ALWAYS NICELY FRAMED, IT WILL NOT BE GRATEFUL TO THE READERS.—For human nature delights in variety, according to the saying:
The Muses love alternate strains.
Wherefore readers delight in variety of style in the writer, that he now raise it and make it grave and cultivated, now lower it and present it light and less cultivated and polished. The Greek is: For as it is hurtful to drink wine alone, and likewise water again, but wine mixed with water produces a sweet and delightful grace (that is, brings the taster a pleasing delight), so also the arrangement of the speech delights, with a certain pleasing temperance, the ear of readers, if it is heard read by another, and the eyes, if read by themselves; as if to say, As to drink always neat wine, or always pure water, is troublesome and unwholesome (for wine heats too much, and inflames the head and body; water chills too much and breeds phlegm), but to mix water with wine, and drink it mixed, is sweet and delightful, and equally wholesome and useful, because the water breaks and tempers the heat and sharpness of the wine, and in turn the wine the cold and rawness of the water, and brings it to a pleasing moderation; so likewise speech either too grave or too thin is unpleasing to readers and brings weariness; but that which is moderate from both and reduced to a fitting temper is pleasing and agreeable. So I, for a like reason, in this book have used a middle style which tempers gravity with lightness; for variety and moderation in all things alike are pleasing, savoury and delightful; otherwise satiety and disgust creep upon all things in the world, as Cicero says, and daily experience teaches.
HERE IT SHALL BE ENDED.—(In Greek, here shall be the end or consummation both of this book and of the whole Old Testament, that we may hand on the torch to Christ, soon to succeed; who is the end and aim, and the perfection and consummation of the Law and the Prophets, and of both Testaments, the new as well as the old.